v2.0.0 Changes Discussion Thread

[nuclearslurpee]

With the Limited Research Administration and slower research speed options allowing for longer tech eras and ship classes remaining relevant for longer I think it would be really nice if there was a way to mothball military ships so they could be used later without consuming as much maintenance supplies.  I find this especially useful for scout ships now that geologic sensors are a military item, as often I make a few scouts in the beginning to explore sol, but then when I want to spend a few years developing colonies on the moon or mars before heading out I wind up having to scrap them to prevent wasting a bunch of MSP for years or decades.  Having an "Overhaul into Reserve" and "Overhaul out of Reserve" button that slows or halts the maintenance clock on ships would be really neat.  Having there being some cost associated with it, like an overhaul, would mean it would only be time and cost effective for long duration pauses, and you would still need some ships on standby using maintance capacity to respond quickly to threats.  But the option to have a reserve fleet I think could be tactically interesting and very useful, especially in slower research rate games.

This gets suggested a lot, and every time it comes up the problem is that there's nothing to prevent players from building brand-new ships and immediately putting them into mothballs to save on maintenance costs. Aurora has not historically had a lot of mechanics to counteract this (PPV being an ineffective try, most players cheese it or use ground troops), although the new spoiler race might change that balance.

[Jorgen_CAB]

The question then is why don't military organisations do similar things in real life?!?

They actually do this with smaller weapon platforms such as aircraft, tanks and other vehicles, but naval ships it is a bit more rare to do this but it actually happen that they do just that. It is quite rare they build new ships and them mothball them... but I think that the UK intend to do that with their two new carriers and only have one if them operational at any one time for example.

I don't think that mothballing should mean no cost, just lower cost... maybe reduce the cost to 1/4, but the ship will loose experience and fleet training as well over time.

In my opinion that would balance the mechanic well... in my opinion you should still just have the ships you actually need and step up production if there is a major conflict. After a conflict you can mothball ships or even scrap them depending on how large a fleet you expand in said war. In general I think that scraping ships is worth it if you don't intent to use it for the next ten to fifteen years when you factor in upgrades etc you will eventually need to do anyway.

If you are able to mothball ships there is an option to extend the period where you don't scrap ships or maybe you just scrap fewer ships and mothball some of them.

If you just build new ships and then mothball them you can question why you build them in the first place?!?

If there is a Mothball feature there need to be at least some time before they can be operational, like a few months at least.

[Earthfall10]

> If there is a Mothball feature there need to be at least some time before they can be operational, like a few months at least.

Yeah, that's why I think them needing an overhaul when entering and exiting would be good, it matches what happens in real reserve fleets and makes removing a ship from reserve time consuming, so you can't just thaw them out the moment they are needed.

[alex_brunius]

I know they don't work well. Its unlikely I will fix them for this release, but it is on my radar as a problem.

Biggest issue IMO is the micro in UI with dragging GSF support. Wouldn’t that be fairly staight forward to solve now that you added squadrons?

[Garfunkel]

Please register your account so you can post normally, Earthfall10, and we don't have to approve each of your post manually.

They actually do this with smaller weapon platforms such as aircraft, tanks and other vehicles, but naval ships it is a bit more rare to do this but it actually happen that they do just that. It is quite rare they build new ships and them mothball them... but I think that the UK intend to do that with their two new carriers and only have one if them operational at any one time for example.

What the Royal Navy plans to do is to actually one out, "being operational", while the other is being maintained and training and so on. This is actually very ambitious because the USN maintains that to keep a carrier operational, you need two others - one operating at an area, second in transit, third under maintenance. And while it's true that the USN brought back the Iowa class battleships in the 1980s, that really isn't something that navies routinely do. When a ship is taken out of operational use, it is extremely rare for it to come back to service.

The issue that Earthfall10 presented is also bit misleading - the geological survey ships you use to scan Sol should always be scrapped and replaced by either dual-purpose survey cruisers or a newer, modernized, fleet of various survey craft as it's likely that your engine tech is at least a generation better once you leave Sol than what it was when you did the initial survey. Especially if you do a conventional start.

Now, I'm su're we can make a compelling argument for mothball mechanic - I'm pretty sure it's been done in the past multiple times. I'm just not sure how to actually make it so that it's a meaningful choice instead of put all ships into it and then activate as needed.

[Migi]

The biggest single cost in a survey ship is the survey sensor(s), so scrapping an old ship and building a new one with the components is the way to go.

Maybe it would help if it showed the value of a scrapped ship more clearly, by listing the scrap value and the value of all the components that get left behind.
I don't know the formula for the value of a scrapped ship (the C# changes log doesn't have any entries and the wiki entry (which covers VB mechanics I assume are still accurate) is rather vague) but if a 600 BP survey ship gets scrapped for 100, but also has 150 BP of components left over then it seems much more worthwhile.

They actually do this with smaller weapon platforms such as aircraft, tanks and other vehicles

My understanding was that these systems were sent straight to units so they could start training with them.

I think that the UK intend to do that with their two new carriers and only have one if them operational at any one time for example.

If you just build new ships and then mothball them you can question why you build them in the first place?!?

Woo global Britain.   

but the ship will loose experience and fleet training as well over time.

It should reset fleet training and crew grade to 0 because the crew and officers are now working in the private sector (except for the cleaners and 1 person to oil the engines).
It would also add a lot of time to get a ship from mothballed to fully trained.

[nuclearslurpee]

The question then is why don't military organisations do similar things in real life?!?

In very simplified terms, military organizations do not usually build ships straight into mothballs because they need the ships they build to do something, or at least the people in charge think they do. Most national militaries are severely constrained by how much funding they can convince their national governments to give them, which must be justified in terms of "need now" and not "might need in case of major war" - the politicians usually do not appreciate the optics of paying millions of dollars for a shiny new destroyer just to immediately put it in a reserve dock somewhere to be stored up "in case of emergency".

In Aurora, there really are not a lot of demands on a navy besides fighting a wars and carrying out surveys. Currently, PPV is really the only mechanic in place to try and simulate some kind of low-level demand for continual fleet presence, but we do not have needs like anti-piracy patrols, showing the flag, right-of-passage, etc. and in fact even the need for crew training is rather limited since ships will accumulate 100% over time rather than losing skill due to turnover, etc. without dedicated training. Hopefully, the new spoiler race in 2.0 will help to address this but right now the need is not there.

At the same time Aurora also lacks any kind of economic mechanics related to peacetime vs war economy, which means that in times of peace any race is free to build as many ships as they like in anticipation of the next war. In real life, militaries certainly try to do this but they must contend with their governments which have many other things they would like to spend money on. Once a world war starts, suddenly all the governments are much more interested in building planes, tanks, and destroyers.

The reasons why real-world militaries don't build directly to mothballs are there, plentifully, they have just not been translated into Aurora. Without that translation, mothballing will always be an easy way to cheese the maintenance system while building a big navy. This is not a problem unique to Aurora, by the way; Victoria 3 will not have a distinction between active and reserve naval vessels (at least on release), and while many are upset about this I imagine it is for similar reasons to what I've described here and the developers do not want people using reserve mechanics to build up huge fleets in peacetime without some significant cost associated with it.

[Kristover]

... I wind up having to scrap them to prevent wasting a bunch of MSP for years or decades.   

And that's the way to go .
I on other hand would love to see some kind of max life to a ship. So that you are forced to scrap it after let's say deployment x20 or AFR and IFR will increase over time...

The oldest US operational ship is 50 years old...

I think one way to replicate this is to add a multiplier to refit costs after a certain age - like modifications from 1-30 years is x1, 31-50 is x1.5, 51-75 is x2.0 etc.  I don't think I would want to cramp people's playstyle if they wanted to play with 'ancient' ships so I would want to put a hard limit on it.  Just make older ships harder to upgrade to the point where it would be cost-prohibitive to do it beyond a certain point vice just building a new modern warship.

[dr125]

I know they don't work well. Its unlikely I will fix them for this release, but it is on my radar as a problem.

Biggest issue IMO is the micro in UI with dragging GSF support. Wouldn’t that be fairly staight forward to solve now that you added squadrons?

Also, I totally understand the logic behind FFD and ground support capacity, but given that targeting is essentially random among formations, does having GS dedicated to each unit matter? Could it be abstracted in the way the other GSF fighter missions are. Perhaps do so and keep FFD for non-GSF bombardment ships?

[nuclearslurpee]

Also, I totally understand the logic behind FFD and ground support capacity, but given that targeting is essentially random among formations, does having GS dedicated to each unit matter? Could it be abstracted in the way the other GSF fighter missions are. Perhaps do so and keep FFD for non-GSF bombardment ships?

I believe it does actually matter for breakthrough chances, since a formation providing support to another formation will have the same target as the formation it is supporting. If you have, say, an armored formation with 4x FFD supported by a medium bombardment formation and 24 ground support fighters, any enemy formation targeted by the armor will be attacked three times instead of once, potentially causing sufficient morale loss to allow a breakthrough.

I'm not 100% certain on this since the order of events in ground combat is a bit hazy, but Steve or someone else could confirm or correct this.

That being said, it would significantly reduce micromanagement to just give a fighter wing orders to "Support Ground Formations" in the naval organization window, and have them randomly choose a FFD-equipped formation to support. This preserves the mechanic of assigned fighter support but eliminates some of the micromanagement.

[dr125]

Also, I totally understand the logic behind FFD and ground support capacity, but given that targeting is essentially random among formations, does having GS dedicated to each unit matter? Could it be abstracted in the way the other GSF fighter missions are. Perhaps do so and keep FFD for non-GSF bombardment ships?

I believe it does actually matter for breakthrough chances, since a formation providing support to another formation will have the same target as the formation it is supporting. If you have, say, an armored formation with 4x FFD supported by a medium bombardment formation and 24 ground support fighters, any enemy formation targeted by the armor will be attacked three times instead of once, potentially causing sufficient morale loss to allow a breakthrough.

I'm not 100% certain on this since the order of events in ground combat is a bit hazy, but Steve or someone else could confirm or correct this.

That being said, it would significantly reduce micromanagement to just give a fighter wing orders to "Support Ground Formations" in the naval organization window, and have them randomly choose a FFD-equipped formation to support. This preserves the mechanic of assigned fighter support but eliminates some of the micromanagement.

True, I had not though of that. But yes, that solution sounds like a good compromise.

[Borealis4x]

With the Limited Research Administration and slower research speed options allowing for longer tech eras and ship classes remaining relevant for longer I think it would be really nice if there was a way to mothball military ships so they could be used later without consuming as much maintenance supplies.  I find this especially useful for scout ships now that geologic sensors are a military item, as often I make a few scouts in the beginning to explore sol, but then when I want to spend a few years developing colonies on the moon or mars before heading out I wind up having to scrap them to prevent wasting a bunch of MSP for years or decades.  Having an "Overhaul into Reserve" and "Overhaul out of Reserve" button that slows or halts the maintenance clock on ships would be really neat.  Having there being some cost associated with it, like an overhaul, would mean it would only be time and cost effective for long duration pauses, and you would still need some ships on standby using maintance capacity to respond quickly to threats.  But the option to have a reserve fleet I think could be tactically interesting and very useful, especially in slower research rate games.

This gets suggested a lot, and every time it comes up the problem is that there's nothing to prevent players from building brand-new ships and immediately putting them into mothballs to save on maintenance costs. Aurora has not historically had a lot of mechanics to counteract this (PPV being an ineffective try, most players cheese it or use ground troops), although the new spoiler race might change that balance.

You could make it so mothballed ships need to go through a lengthy 're-activation' process before they can be used.

I'm surprised about the hand-wringing over balance for this issue; mothballing fleets is a feature you are right to expect in a game such as this and compared to the other ways you can cheese the game I don't think its terribly offensive.

[trainhighway]

With the Limited Research Administration and slower research speed options allowing for longer tech eras and ship classes remaining relevant for longer I think it would be really nice if there was a way to mothball military ships so they could be used later without consuming as much maintenance supplies.   I find this especially useful for scout ships now that geologic sensors are a military item, as often I make a few scouts in the beginning to explore sol, but then when I want to spend a few years developing colonies on the moon or mars before heading out I wind up having to scrap them to prevent wasting a bunch of MSP for years or decades.   Having an "Overhaul into Reserve" and "Overhaul out of Reserve" button that slows or halts the maintenance clock on ships would be really neat.   Having there being some cost associated with it, like an overhaul, would mean it would only be time and cost effective for long duration pauses, and you would still need some ships on standby using maintance capacity to respond quickly to threats.   But the option to have a reserve fleet I think could be tactically interesting and very useful, especially in slower research rate games. 

This gets suggested a lot, and every time it comes up the problem is that there's nothing to prevent players from building brand-new ships and immediately putting them into mothballs to save on maintenance costs.  Aurora has not historically had a lot of mechanics to counteract this (PPV being an ineffective try, most players cheese it or use ground troops), although the new spoiler race might change that balance.

You could make it so mothballed ships need to go through a lengthy 're-activation' process before they can be used.

I'm surprised about the hand-wringing over balance for this issue; mothballing fleets is a feature you are right to expect in a game such as this and compared to the other ways you can cheese the game I don't think its terribly offensive.

Seeing as a lot of mothball ships in the real world has parts removed during the mothballing process, a lengthy reactivation time would make sense.  Depending on how in depth a system a mothball fleet may be you could also set a level of maintenance to keep the ships in a specific mothball fleet thus changing the reactivation time

[gpt3]

With the Limited Research Administration and slower research speed options allowing for longer tech eras and ship classes remaining relevant for longer I think it would be really nice if there was a way to mothball military ships so they could be used later without consuming as much maintenance supplies.   I find this especially useful for scout ships now that geologic sensors are a military item, as often I make a few scouts in the beginning to explore sol, but then when I want to spend a few years developing colonies on the moon or mars before heading out I wind up having to scrap them to prevent wasting a bunch of MSP for years or decades.   Having an "Overhaul into Reserve" and "Overhaul out of Reserve" button that slows or halts the maintenance clock on ships would be really neat.   Having there being some cost associated with it, like an overhaul, would mean it would only be time and cost effective for long duration pauses, and you would still need some ships on standby using maintance capacity to respond quickly to threats.   But the option to have a reserve fleet I think could be tactically interesting and very useful, especially in slower research rate games. 

This gets suggested a lot, and every time it comes up the problem is that there's nothing to prevent players from building brand-new ships and immediately putting them into mothballs to save on maintenance costs.  Aurora has not historically had a lot of mechanics to counteract this (PPV being an ineffective try, most players cheese it or use ground troops), although the new spoiler race might change that balance.

You could make it so mothballed ships need to go through a lengthy 're-activation' process before they can be used.

I'm surprised about the hand-wringing over balance for this issue; mothballing fleets is a feature you are right to expect in a game such as this and compared to the other ways you can cheese the game I don't think its terribly offensive.

Seeing as a lot of mothball ships in the real world has parts removed during the mothballing process, a lengthy reactivation time would make sense.  Depending on how in depth a system a mothball fleet may be you could also set a level of maintenance to keep the ships in a specific mothball fleet thus changing the reactivation time

A workaround could be to:

• Mothball: Scrap the entire ship for parts (since modules lying around in a warehouse don't wear out)
• Reactivate: Feed the warehoused modules back into the local shipyard to build a "new" ship

[El Pip]

This is not a problem unique to Aurora, by the way; Victoria 3 will not have a distinction between active and reserve naval vessels (at least on release), and while many are upset about this I imagine it is for similar reasons to what I've described here and the developers do not want people using reserve mechanics to build up huge fleets in peacetime without some significant cost associated with it.

No I believe that is because the Victoria 3 developers are scared of the sea and are on a determined mission to dumb down or abstract away naval warfare from all of their games.

The biggest real world arguments against a mothball/reserve mechanic are that it takes too long to activate the reserves and when you do all you get is an obsolete ship that lacks modern weapons and equipment. When the Royal Navy tried to get some ships from the "Standby Squadron" ready for the Falklands the conflict was over before the ships were out of dock, the USN gave up on it's warship reserve fleets for similar reasons.

If it took, say, 6 months to get a warships out of refit, it started with -10% crew grade and 0 fleet training and you weren't allowed to upgrade or refit the ship while it was in reserve then you'd get something close to the actual experience of a mothballed ship. Though at that point what player would bother doing it, so not a lot of point adding it into the game.