The Diminishing Returns of "Big Ships are Better"

[nuclearslurpee]

All-in-all, the gameplay balance between the utility of shields and armor is quite good.

I want to reiterate what I think is a key premise of my analysis, with emphasis added:

I honestly wonder if shields are possibly too strong after the early to mid tech levels, since they do not scale linearly, but given that for armor a practical rule of thumb is that it takes eroding ~50% of a ship's armor before internal damage becomes frequent and catastrophic - a very approximate rule, but sensible in general - if shields are even "only" 50% as size-efficient as armor at typical tech levels this would make them in practice just as good, and then better because of the additional advantages of shields (ignore weapon damage profiles, recharge vs repair, corbomite vs duranium to build, etc.). I would guess that probably to be reasonably balanced one would expect shields to be roughly ~33% as efficient as armor per ton, somewhere in that 25-40% range is probably reasonable.

While shields are never, ever, as efficient in points-per-ton as armor (as long as the tech tree is not extended by DB modding), it does not have to reach this point to eclipse armor. This is because, as a rough rule of thumb, once about ~50% of armor integrity is lost a ship is sufficiently exposed to internal damage that the armor is combat-ineffective. This is due to the stochastic (random) nature of weapon damage and armor damage/destruction. This is not a hard rule, particularly at the extremes (1 layer or 100 layers, for example) but it tends to hold up for most typical armor schemes used in ship designs by both players and NPRs.

What this means is that if shield efficiency approaches or exceeds just 50% of armor efficiency on a point-per-ton basis, shields are going to be broadly superior to armor except for relatively niche edge cases and commercial ships which have no option to mount shields. Note that this is separate from the discussion of the other pros/cons of armor vs shields - recharge vs repair, the ability to blunt penetrating weapons, and so on. The point I am making is that while these are good arguments for using shields when they give, say, 25% to 40% of the efficiency that armor does, once they exceed this range - which they definitely do - shields are already dominant even without all of these other abilities, tactics, and other advantages.

Thus I would agree that shield/armor balance is generally reasonable at low to mid tech levels, but once we start looking at shield generators with sizes of around 40 to 50 HS which approach or exceed that 50% efficiency, armor falls off very badly in relative effectiveness. I will say that this isn't necessarily a bad thing, as evolution of different systems in relative effectiveness at different tech levels is one of the fun parts of Aurora, but whether good or bad we must acknowledge that shields beyond a certain tech level do outperform armor almost totally.

[Pury]

The fact that Shields no longer use fuel while running gave them a huge buff. Especially now with introduction of pirate factions armor would be much more interesting as some armor would always be advised because fighting pirates involves more ambush like warfare, in which you can't afford to use your shields all the time for few days. Probably some MSP cost while shields are on would help with this.

[Jorgen_CAB]

To be honest I don't think that shields being very strong at higher tech levels is a huge problem as it does require it's own research as well. You always want to research armour regardless as armour is still important not matter what as you will pay less for civilian ships and armour on smaller ships and fighter/FAC is still pretty important for saving space or defence.

Also, if you go heavy on armour and light on shield you can design ships that make sand papering them very costly for an opponent.

But yes... around 50% of armour and then you are quite likely to start getting internal damage, that is probably a good approximation in most regards.

Another thing you should not disregard is the fact that in a beam combat you can also retreat ships to regenerate shields, this is possible even if the enemy is faster than you. They will have to decide if they want to face your weapons at point blank or let those ship regenerate their shields in peace. This is why formations is important in beam combat.

[Bluebreaker]

The fact that Shields no longer use fuel while running gave them a huge buff. Especially now with introduction of pirate factions armor would be much more interesting as some armor would always be advised because fighting pirates involves more ambush like warfare, in which you can't afford to use your shields all the time for few days. Probably some MSP cost while shields are on would help with this.

Not sure if fuel cost was relevant at all ever. It was so tiny that you could have them running for decades and not drop a single percent of an average warship.

[Andrew]

When there was a fuel cost I left shields on all the time as I have a bad memory for turning them on. It was not a signifigant cost in fuel. If I had a better memory I may ahve kept them off but the ability to bring them to full strength in minutes meant there is 0 possibility of being ambushed unless jumping through a jum point and if you tolerate the effort you could turn the shields on before a jump or keep a scout ahead

[Droll]

When there was a fuel cost I left shields on all the time as I have a bad memory for turning them on. It was not a signifigant cost in fuel. If I had a better memory I may ahve kept them off but the ability to bring them to full strength in minutes meant there is 0 possibility of being ambushed unless jumping through a jum point and if you tolerate the effort you could turn the shields on before a jump or keep a scout ahead

The only way shield raise times potentially matter is if your ship/fleet doesn't have a thermal passive sensor. That is the only time you might not be able to fully regen shields before combat starts.

I guess missiles launched from an unknown platform might also count into this category but as has been pointed out in the ongoing shield vs pirates thread, res 1 actives are always going to be on (miniscule EM signature) and able to spot missiles quite a bit ahead of time.

[Felius]

I'm yet to test if it really pays off as I'm expecting it to do, but in favor of smaller ships there is the cloak: Yes, yes, between shields and thermals it won't really stop it from being found. But if I'm reading it correctly, it will make it so that actually getting an active sensor lock (as well for missile fire controls) onto your ships far harder, forcing your foes to either go for smaller resolution sensors (with smaller ranges) or have to close in to knife-fight range before being able to fight, by having sensors with far too large resolutions for your effective cross section.

Those benefits are somewhat lost with massive ships though, as even with 99.5% reduction, a 1000k tons monster will still look like a 5000 tons ships. But a 10k ton ship will look like a 50 ton mini-fighter.

[nuclearslurpee]

I'm yet to test if it really pays off as I'm expecting it to do, but in favor of smaller ships there is the cloak: Yes, yes, between shields and thermals it won't really stop it from being found. But if I'm reading it correctly, it will make it so that actually getting an active sensor lock (as well for missile fire controls) onto your ships far harder, forcing your foes to either go for smaller resolution sensors (with smaller ranges) or have to close in to knife-fight range before being able to fight, by having sensors with far too large resolutions for your effective cross section.

Those benefits are somewhat lost with massive ships though, as even with 99.5% reduction, a 1000k tons monster will still look like a 5000 tons ships. But a 10k ton ship will look like a 50 ton mini-fighter.

It is worth noting that at least against NPRs there are several sensor resolution "bands" in a typical NPR battle fleet, so the benefit of appearing like a small ship is a bit minimized - for example the 10k ship that looks like a 50-ton fighter will still be picked up by the RES-1 sensors the same as anything larger - which at the least precludes sneaking into "knife-fighting range" as even RES-1 sensors usually have detection range well over typical beam weapon ranges at a given tech tier.

This means that the practical use of cloaking is to reduce the necessary missile range to engage an enemy fleet while remaining outside of their targeting ranges, which "only" requires tuning down you signatures to nestle in the intercepts between different-resolution sensor ranges. For example, a RES-100 sensor matches the performance of a RES-10 sensor against targets of ~3,000 tons, so anything smaller doesn't have any advantage against the RES-10 sensor until you get below 500 tons.

So the implication for ship size is "it's complicated" - depending on your cloaking tech level and the enemy sensor packages, in practice it is less about big vs small and more about what ship tonnage(s) combined with your cloaking tech will nestle into that sweet spot (or spots, as it may be).

[kilo]

The most problematic thing about bigger warships is not a disadvantage in fighting capability, but a lack of versatility. The British navy of the first half of the 20th century was not fielding a ton of cruisers due to the fact that they were good. They simply had to show presence all around the world. It was not possible to do it with any other type of ships, as smaller ships lacked the endurance and range, while larger ships were too expensive to be build in numbers.
In Aurora, there are only a few systems connecting two empires. This makes a small number of large and powerful ships extremely viable, as there is very little point in defending all colonies simultaneously against minor attacks. The enemy cannot strike these colonies and therefore, there is no requirement for military presence. Just put some ground forces down to suppress riots and you are golden. Adding a few STOs would deter minor war ships and surprise missile strikes. If your outposts are far enough out, they will announce enemy fleet movement well in advance for your battle fleets to respond in force.

[Steve Walmsley]

This makes a small number of large and powerful ships extremely viable, as there is very little point in defending all colonies simultaneously against minor attacks.

That will definitely change if you use the new spoiler race in v2.0.

[The_Seeker]

I'm yet to test if it really pays off as I'm expecting it to do, but in favor of smaller ships there is the cloak: Yes, yes, between shields and thermals it won't really stop it from being found. But if I'm reading it correctly, it will make it so that actually getting an active sensor lock (as well for missile fire controls) onto your ships far harder, forcing your foes to either go for smaller resolution sensors (with smaller ranges) or have to close in to knife-fight range before being able to fight, by having sensors with far too large resolutions for your effective cross section.

Those benefits are somewhat lost with massive ships though, as even with 99.5% reduction, a 1000k tons monster will still look like a 5000 tons ships. But a 10k ton ship will look like a 50 ton mini-fighter.

Cloaks have pretty niche uses in my opinion, since they're only really useful on ships that:
    1. Can spare the tonnage, which means that they just aren't very practical for armed warships because that tonnage would be better spent on armor/shields/weapons/ammunition.
    2. Are medium-sized, since as you point out, your 1 million ton ship will still look like a 5000 ton ship.
    3. Are important to the fleet.
    4. Have large EM or thermal signatures - the point of the cloak is to prevent your most visible ships from being targeted.
In my doctrine, this means that I use cloaks pretty much exclusively on sensor ships.  They have enough spare tonnage because they don't carry offensive armament, they are medium sized, very visible, and they are so important to the fleet that I do not want the enemy to be able to target them from the same range as the rest of my ships.

[nuclearslurpee]

Cloaks have pretty niche uses in my opinion, since they're only really useful on ships that:

Jumping from my last post, for missile-based fleets I would also point out that cloaks are very useful for manipulating combat ranges - if you can tune your ships' signatures so that you can target the enemy from a longer range than they can target you this allows you to fire without fear of reprisal. Usually the cost for this is to mount very large sensors and/or very long-range missiles which are less efficient, but with cloaks you can get closer which allows more effective missile designs. Of course you have to sacrifice an amount of tonnage to mount a cloak but it is a viable tactic.

[kilo]

This makes a small number of large and powerful ships extremely viable, as there is very little point in defending all colonies simultaneously against minor attacks.

That will definitely change if you use the new spoiler race in v2.0.

And this makes the race pretty interesting. You will be forced to split the assets and defend multiple locations in many systems. What I do not know is what kind of forces they employ, neither in terms of displacement nor quantity. It remains to be seen how we defend our infrastructure best. STOs could become extremely useful, as their deployment time is infinite.
Is there a chance to get ground based ASMs for area denial?