v2.0.0 Changes Discussion Thread

[QuakeIV]

I still think hard range limits on beams were a mistake.  I think that is a big contributor to the speed+range = automatic win issue.  This was also a thing in the dreadnought era, where they realized that being faster and longer ranged was basically all they needed, assuming they could get their crews and admirals to actually correctly prosecute that (ie the old 'speed is our armor' saying with the royal navy, followed of course by their retard admirals closing the distance anyways at jutland and taking a bunch of casualties).

Read some details of Jutland some time.
Beatty probably was moderatly incompetent but no one made the mistakes you suggest. His mistaked were awful signalling which is bad in a scouting force and enouraging bad ammo handling as well as poor gunnery training. British BC force had the worst accuracy, the Battle line and 5th Battle Squadron had better accuracy than the Germans.
Summary 2 BC with the Battlecruiser fleet were lost largely due to poor ammo  handling procedures, the Germans had made the same mistakes but blind luck at Dogger Bank ennabled one of their ships to survice a hit which revealed the issue. Invincible may have had the same problem or may just have sufferred from being the 1st BC built and having weak armour. The Germans were really , really lucky had british AP shells been functioning as designed they would have lost at least 3 possibly up to 5 more Battleships and Battlecruisers and sufferred both a strategic and tactical defeat instead of a tactical victory and strategic defeat. The day after Jutland the Grand Fleet had a larger Margin of superiority in operational capital ships than on the day and notably the German commanders were well aware they had escaped being crushed by the skin of their teeth and never dared seek a battle again. Until 1918 when the fleet (snsibly)mutinied rather than die for the honour of the flag

Your reply seems like coping to me, which I think reduces the amount of overall useful information available.  Indeed the Germans did not seek further engagement after that battle, they even went on to lose the whole war as everyone knows, don't deflect if you are actually right.  The RN closed the distance to the point that the Germans were getting penetrating hits, despite to my memory having generally superior guns that aught to have enabled them to hold the range open and take almost no damage whatsoever.  I seem to recall they provided justification for this in their records, it doesn't really matter, ass covering is a universal factor.  My personal take is that there wasn't enough damage happening fast enough, and a hunger for glory drove a decision to close the distance in the hopes of getting more hits and more kills.

My original point was mainly that range + speed (and, in fact, relatively limited armor to facilitate more speed) is actually a fairly old theory and isn't some crazy video gamey invention that only exists in aurora, it was actual doctrine for real navies, and in my opinion probably would have generally worked had it been followed more consistently.

[QuakeIV]

I still think hard range limits on beams were a mistake.  I think that is a big contributor to the speed+range = automatic win issue.  This was also a thing in the dreadnought era, where they realized that being faster and longer ranged was basically all they needed, assuming they could get their crews and admirals to actually correctly prosecute that (ie the old 'speed is our armor' saying with the royal navy, followed of course by their retard admirals closing the distance anyways at jutland and taking a bunch of casualties).

Conceptually I would agree, but in gameplay terms I have difficulty thinking of how else beam weapons would be differentiated without range limits, unless the "soft" range limits were harsh enough that they were not much different from hard limits. Same goes for fire control tech levels if we're honest.

I think that there should just be no range limit.  For instance, perhaps there could be hit probabilities at different ranges (sortof like how missiles have hit chances expressed vs speed in a nicely formatted list that is easy to understand), and that hit probability falls off with distance on an inverse curve.  Improving your equipment improves the curve, but there is no actual 'range', there is just increased hit probability.  There would, for instance, be a fixed distance at which your to-hit modifier for distance is 40%, or 5%.

Ships past a certain ridiculous distance probably shouldnt show up in fire control so that you dont fire on them accidentally, but I do think that in general if someone is shooting at you then you should be able to at least try to shoot back and have some non-zero percent chance of hitting.

[nuclearslurpee]

I still think hard range limits on beams were a mistake.  I think that is a big contributor to the speed+range = automatic win issue.  This was also a thing in the dreadnought era, where they realized that being faster and longer ranged was basically all they needed, assuming they could get their crews and admirals to actually correctly prosecute that (ie the old 'speed is our armor' saying with the royal navy, followed of course by their retard admirals closing the distance anyways at jutland and taking a bunch of casualties).

Read some details of Jutland some time.
Beatty probably was moderatly incompetent but no one made the mistakes you suggest. His mistaked were awful signalling which is bad in a scouting force and enouraging bad ammo handling as well as poor gunnery training. British BC force had the worst accuracy, the Battle line and 5th Battle Squadron had better accuracy than the Germans.
Summary 2 BC with the Battlecruiser fleet were lost largely due to poor ammo  handling procedures, the Germans had made the same mistakes but blind luck at Dogger Bank ennabled one of their ships to survice a hit which revealed the issue. Invincible may have had the same problem or may just have sufferred from being the 1st BC built and having weak armour. The Germans were really , really lucky had british AP shells been functioning as designed they would have lost at least 3 possibly up to 5 more Battleships and Battlecruisers and sufferred both a strategic and tactical defeat instead of a tactical victory and strategic defeat. The day after Jutland the Grand Fleet had a larger Margin of superiority in operational capital ships than on the day and notably the German commanders were well aware they had escaped being crushed by the skin of their teeth and never dared seek a battle again. Until 1918 when the fleet (snsibly)mutinied rather than die for the honour of the flag

Your reply seems like coping to me, which I think reduces the amount of overall useful information available.  Indeed the Germans did not seek further engagement after that battle, they even went on to lose the whole war as everyone knows, don't deflect if you are actually right.  The RN closed the distance to the point that the Germans were getting penetrating hits, despite to my memory having generally superior guns that aught to have enabled them to hold the range open and take almost no damage whatsoever.  I seem to recall they provided justification for this in their records, it doesn't really matter, ass covering is a universal factor.  My personal take is that there wasn't enough damage happening fast enough, and a hunger for glory drove a decision to close the distance in the hopes of getting more hits and more kills.

My original point was mainly that range + speed (and, in fact, relatively limited armor to facilitate more speed) is actually a fairly old theory and isn't some crazy video gamey invention that only exists in aurora, it was actual doctrine for real navies, and in my opinion probably would have generally worked had it been followed more consistently.

It is worth noting that there is a lot more than just speed and range that goes into a naval battle. Reconnaissance, communications, fire control, rate of fire, gunnery, armo(u)r, and the ever-present bad weather also play key roles, and to my recollection all were present in varying degrees during Jutland. I think it suffices to say that regardless of how one feels about the conduct of battle by the admirals involved (and there is certainly much to harp on), the actual battle was quite complex and a lot more went into it than "closing the distance".

I think that there should just be no range limit.  For instance, perhaps there could be hit probabilities at different ranges (sortof like how missiles have hit chances expressed vs speed in a nicely formatted list that is easy to understand), and that hit probability falls off with distance on an inverse curve.  Improving your equipment improves the curve, but there is no actual 'range', there is just increased hit probability.  There would, for instance, be a fixed distance at which your to-hit modifier for distance is 40%, or 5%.

Ships past a certain ridiculous distance probably shouldnt show up in fire control so that you dont fire on them accidentally, but I do think that in general if someone is shooting at you then you should be able to at least try to shoot back and have some non-zero percent chance of hitting.

This misses my point, which is that having a falloff like this is effectively the same as having hard limits on range. Neglecting BFCs for the sake of discussion, say that instead of a hard limits of 30,000 km my 10cm railguns have 100% accuracy at 30,000 km, 25% at 60,000 km, 6% at 90,000 km, and so on so that by about 135,000 km or so the hit rate is under 1%. Suppose my opponent has 10cm lasers at the same tech level, with 100% accuracy at 90,000 km and, following the same rule, 25% accuracy at 180,000 km. If the laser ships have equal or greater speed to my railgun ships, they can still sit at 180,000 km range or some similar value and enjoy their 25% hit rate while my railguns struggle to score even 1% hits. This is not substantially different from the situation with hard range limits, it's just a bit fuzzier. I actually prefer having hard limits just because it makes the game mechanics clear and straightforward, so I don't see a reason to muddy the mechanics for 99% the same effects.

[QuakeIV]

Your reply seems like coping to me, which I think reduces the amount of overall useful information available.  Indeed the Germans did not seek further engagement after that battle, they even went on to lose the whole war as everyone knows, don't deflect if you are actually right.  The RN closed the distance to the point that the Germans were getting penetrating hits, despite to my memory having generally superior guns that aught to have enabled them to hold the range open and take almost no damage whatsoever.  I seem to recall they provided justification for this in their records, it doesn't really matter, ass covering is a universal factor.  My personal take is that there wasn't enough damage happening fast enough, and a hunger for glory drove a decision to close the distance in the hopes of getting more hits and more kills.

My original point was mainly that range + speed (and, in fact, relatively limited armor to facilitate more speed) is actually a fairly old theory and isn't some crazy video gamey invention that only exists in aurora, it was actual doctrine for real navies, and in my opinion probably would have generally worked had it been followed more consistently.

It is worth noting that there is a lot more than just speed and range that goes into a naval battle. Reconnaissance, communications, fire control, rate of fire, gunnery, armo(u)r, and the ever-present bad weather also play key roles, and to my recollection all were present in varying degrees during Jutland. I think it suffices to say that regardless of how one feels about the conduct of battle by the admirals involved (and there is certainly much to harp on), the actual battle was quite complex and a lot more went into it than "closing the distance".

I'm not denying any part of that, I am stating the absolute fact that they elected to close the distance.  If I recall correctly that decision was deliberate.  If someone is inclined to provide contradictory information (or even just deny that without supporting that at all) then feel free.  However, waxing poetical about how there are more factors is irrelevant.  They had superior range and superior speed, the general doctrine was to hold the range open.  They elected not to.  Whether that was the correct call or not is presumably a matter on which one might agree to disagree as that seems to be annoying RN fans and my claims that it was a bad call were meant to be an offhanded remark tangential to the real point.

I think that there should just be no range limit.  For instance, perhaps there could be hit probabilities at different ranges (sortof like how missiles have hit chances expressed vs speed in a nicely formatted list that is easy to understand), and that hit probability falls off with distance on an inverse curve.  Improving your equipment improves the curve, but there is no actual 'range', there is just increased hit probability.  There would, for instance, be a fixed distance at which your to-hit modifier for distance is 40%, or 5%.

Ships past a certain ridiculous distance probably shouldnt show up in fire control so that you dont fire on them accidentally, but I do think that in general if someone is shooting at you then you should be able to at least try to shoot back and have some non-zero percent chance of hitting.

This misses my point, which is that having a falloff like this is effectively the same as having hard limits on range. Neglecting BFCs for the sake of discussion, say that instead of a hard limits of 30,000 km my 10cm railguns have 100% accuracy at 30,000 km, 25% at 60,000 km, 6% at 90,000 km, and so on so that by about 135,000 km or so the hit rate is under 1%. Suppose my opponent has 10cm lasers at the same tech level, with 100% accuracy at 90,000 km and, following the same rule, 25% accuracy at 180,000 km. If the laser ships have equal or greater speed to my railgun ships, they can still sit at 180,000 km range or some similar value and enjoy their 25% hit rate while my railguns struggle to score even 1% hits. This is not substantially different from the situation with hard range limits, it's just a bit fuzzier. I actually prefer having hard limits just because it makes the game mechanics clear and straightforward, so I don't see a reason to muddy the mechanics for 99% the same effects.

This is a bad faith argument.  There is no reason why range differences between two adjacent tech levels would need to be a factor of three as a result of this suggestion.  If you vastly out tech someone, they still in effect will not be able to fire back to any real effect.  This is kindof obvious.  I mean to say that this would turn a hard range advantage into a softer one, and you would need a much larger advantage in order to effectively turn it back into a hard advantage.

[nuclearslurpee]

I'm not denying any part of that, I am stating the absolute fact that they elected to close the distance.  If I recall correctly that decision was deliberate.  If someone is inclined to provide contradictory information (or even just deny that without supporting that at all) then feel free.  However, waxing poetical about how there are more factors is irrelevant.  They had superior range and superior speed, the general doctrine was to hold the range open.  They elected not to.  Whether that was the correct call or not is presumably a matter on which one might agree to disagree as that seems to be annoying RN fans and my claims that it was a bad call were meant to be an offhanded remark tangential to the real point.

My point was more that there were other factors besides "speed x range" that played into the decision to close the range, which serves as a more general illustration that "speed x range" while a known doctrinal principle is not the sole determinant. For example, the German naval doctrine tended to value heavier armor, which has the effect of reducing the effective range of an enemy due to the mechanics of armor penetration. Admittedly, this is not a mechanic which Aurora really models since armor is basically a form of distributed hit points.

This said I am all in favor of not arguing about Jutland in the checks thread title 1.14 discussion thread. 

This misses my point, which is that having a falloff like this is effectively the same as having hard limits on range. Neglecting BFCs for the sake of discussion, say that instead of a hard limits of 30,000 km my 10cm railguns have 100% accuracy at 30,000 km, 25% at 60,000 km, 6% at 90,000 km, and so on so that by about 135,000 km or so the hit rate is under 1%. Suppose my opponent has 10cm lasers at the same tech level, with 100% accuracy at 90,000 km and, following the same rule, 25% accuracy at 180,000 km. If the laser ships have equal or greater speed to my railgun ships, they can still sit at 180,000 km range or some similar value and enjoy their 25% hit rate while my railguns struggle to score even 1% hits. This is not substantially different from the situation with hard range limits, it's just a bit fuzzier. I actually prefer having hard limits just because it makes the game mechanics clear and straightforward, so I don't see a reason to muddy the mechanics for 99% the same effects.

This is a bad faith argument.

First, I will thank you to not assign moral judgments to my arguments.

There is no reason why range differences between two adjacent tech levels would need to be a factor of three as a result of this suggestion.

I am literally using the current in-game values for the sake of argument, to compare railguns and lasers at the same tech level. Railguns vs Lasers is a fairly obvious example of a range differential between weapon types, so it is a useful example to discuss the implications of a suggestion.

If you vastly out tech someone, they still in effect will not be able to fire back to any real effect.  This is kindof obvious.  I mean to say that this would turn a hard range advantage into a softer one, and you would need a much larger advantage in order to effectively turn it back into a hard advantage.

This gets to the base of my argument, though. If the difference in range is large, similar to how it already is in-game, then the effect of removing the range limit and having an accuracy falloff is basically the same with different numbers and some fuzziness.

On the other hand if the range difference is relatively soft then the character of different weapons is lost. If lasers and railguns are both competitive at the same range, then why bother choosing one or the other aside from RP flavor? I don't think either side of the spectrum is desirable , while the hard limits we have in place now I think accomplish what is needed in terms of gameplay and flavor even if the "realism" is not perfect.

[Malorn]

My point was more that there were other factors besides "speed x range" that played into the decision to close the range, which serves as a more general illustration that "speed x range" while a known doctrinal principle is not the sole determinant. For example, the German naval doctrine tended to value heavier armor, which has the effect of reducing the effective range of an enemy due to the mechanics of armor penetration. Admittedly, this is not a mechanic which Aurora really models since armor is basically a form of distributed hit points.

Shields, however, do work this way in practice. If you can't do enough damage, the shields will just regenerate it away, meaning that plinking away from a distance rarely works very well.

[serger]

what is needed in terms of gameplay and flavor even if the "realism" is not perfect.

Aurora isn't a chess or some card game - we are playing with stars, and distances, and ships, and commanders instead of cells and figures, because it's much easier to believe with some part of our brain, that it's some reality behind the screen. So no point in embracing the word "realism" in quote signs to diminish it's value.

[QuakeIV]

Given equal speeds (or a speed advantage to the out-ranging ships), a far greater range gap would be required to make a range difference an absolute advantage.  Currently a difference of as much as 1 millimeter is almost insurmountable without heroic efforts.  Softening the range values so that the lower tech ships can still at least shoot back and potentially deal some damage is a huge difference from the current situation.  As it stands now, as long as you can keep your ships in supply with MSP, you can pretty much slaughter the entire lower tech fleet completely one sidedly, and they cant even attempt to shoot back.  Several levels of tech advantage will still result in one side winning without taking any losses or even real damage, but it means that there wont be an immediate massacre as soon as someone rolls out one level of higher tech lasers or whatever.

I admittedly missed your earlier point that you were comparing different weapon systems, rather than different tech levels, but you now seem to be saying that you want the weapons to remain differentiated, which softening ranges would absolutely allow for, while also greatly lessening the immediate slaughter that follows gaining a single tech level, so I am not sure why you even brought that up.

[serger]

I think it's worth to bear in mind also, that AI will not be able to systematically use such "all or nothing" situations with abrupt range gaps - the player can do it regularly, ripping AI's fleets apart with smallest tech or design advantages, but AI cannot do such things, and it's not very challengable and so poor stories.

With "soft range" it will be much simpler for AI to deal against us with big slow fleets, it will be less common to have unbelievably easy no-loss victories, and so I think it will be much better gameplay.

Speaking of weapon differences - I think there are more then enough of differences between them even without abrupt ranges, and now it's more a problem, that some weapons are too rarely usable comparing to others, so softening their differences will do no harm.

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

I'm happy with the current beam mechanics and I definitely don't want longer ranges, because of the issues I have listed many times on the forums. If you are out-ranged and slower (a situation I am facing right now), then you need to avoid deep space combat and find other ways to combat the enemy.

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

I think it's worth to bear in mind also, that AI will not be able to systematically use such "all or nothing" situations with abrupt range gaps - the player can do it regularly, ripping AI's fleets apart with smallest tech or design advantages, but AI cannot do such things, and it's not very challengable and so poor stories.

With "soft range" it will be much simpler for AI to deal against us with big slow fleets, it will be less common to have unbelievably easy no-loss victories, and so I think it will be much better gameplay.

Speaking of weapon differences - I think there are more then enough of differences between them even without abrupt ranges, and now it's more a problem, that some weapons are too rarely usable comparing to others, so softening their differences will do no harm.

If the AI works out it is faster and has longer-ranged weapons, it will use that advantage (and has many times in my games). There is more of a challenge for the AI in avoiding being on the wrong end of that situation, but that is an AI issue rather than a weapon mechanics issue and I will get around to addressing it at some point.

[Andrew]

Your reply seems like coping to me, which I think reduces the amount of overall useful information available.  Indeed the Germans did not seek further engagement after that battle, they even went on to lose the whole war as everyone knows, don't deflect if you are actually right.  The RN closed the distance to the point that the Germans were getting penetrating hits, despite to my memory having generally superior guns that aught to have enabled them to hold the range open and take almost no damage whatsoever.  I seem to recall they provided justification for this in their records, it doesn't really matter, ass covering is a universal factor.  My personal take is that there wasn't enough damage happening fast enough, and a hunger for glory drove a decision to close the distance in the hopes of getting more hits and more kills.

As I say read 2 or 3 decent  histories , look at the navigation charts and the viewpoints of all side then have an informed opinion, as I have. Anyway Way , Way of Topic so I will not comment again and apologise for the diversion to everyone else

[Malorn]

I'm happy with the current beam mechanics and I definitely don't want longer ranges, because of the issues I have listed many times on the forums. If you are out-ranged and slower (a situation I am facing right now), then you need to avoid deep space combat and find other ways to combat the enemy.

I mean, other than using missiles, where it's quite easy to gain the advantage with mass box launchers, there is really not a lot of tactical options for this situation. At least, not one I can see clearly. Hiding on the other side of jump points may seem a good option, but the AI can always jump back before you can fire.

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

I'm happy with the current beam mechanics and I definitely don't want longer ranges, because of the issues I have listed many times on the forums. If you are out-ranged and slower (a situation I am facing right now), then you need to avoid deep space combat and find other ways to combat the enemy.

I mean, other than using missiles, where it's quite easy to gain the advantage with mass box launchers, there is really not a lot of tactical options for this situation. At least, not one I can see clearly. Hiding on the other side of jump points may seem a good option, but the AI can always jump back before you can fire.

I managed to find one in my current campaign when I thought I was in trouble   It will be in the next update.

[Jorgen_CAB]

I have no problem with range and beam combat between player factions as both shields and MSP can give enough benefit to a defender with numerical superiority. Against the AI I think they main problem is they can fire their weapons indefinitely, the AI should not be able to do that.

Another strategy I have employed many times is formations and spreading ships and squadrons out, that make it so even the one with worse range can fire their weapons as it is impossible to keep range from all enemy ships at the same time for anyone. As a ship retreats to recharge shields you have to get into range against those that don't etc... Might seem like a bit of micro bit you can use the escort feature to run formations and easily order them about for good effect.