Author Topic: Fighter Module  (Read 5474 times)

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Offline ArcWolf (OP)

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Fighter Module
« on: January 21, 2022, 12:53:09 PM »
A while ago (before the holidays) we had a discussion about fighters (part of the GSF discussion), and i had commented that one of the few things i can not do in this game is make a Space Superiority fighter akin to an X-Wing/Viper/Starfury/ etc. So her is my suggestion to remedy that. As always i welcome feedback.

Equipping rules: 1 module per ship. Can only be equipped to ships 500 tons or less.

Stats: 10 Ton (.2 HS) Module. 0 Crew requirement. Self-contained FC & Weapon system (Like CIWS), based of Gauss Tech. Innate Accuracy of 4%, 3x Gauss RoF. 4x Racial Tracking Speed. Max Range of 10,000km (i would prefer 1,000km but i don't know if that is feasible).

This will allow you to build a Sub-50ton fighter, with a crew of 2-3 that can be used as a SS fighter. Now these would perform very poorly against armored targets. I do not see a problem with that, a SS Fighter is not a Capital ship killer, that's a role suited for Bombers/Fighter-bombers.

This module can be locked behind a TN tech or not.

Comments? Suggestions? Things i've overlooked? Thanks for reading.
 

Online nuclearslurpee

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Re: Fighter Module
« Reply #1 on: January 21, 2022, 02:37:50 PM »
I think there are a couple of problems with the idea.

(1) The first is pretty simple: Steve has already said he doesn't want to do this. Especially since C# which has made a big goal of eliminating the "special cases" that characterized VB6. This is also why we do not have PDCs anymore as they were considered a "special case" of ships, so it is perhaps not a victimless philosophy, but it is the philosophy Steve has chosen to move forward with. Adding a specific module with specific rules exceptions to enable a specific type of ship to be built is not really in the spirit of Aurora, where every other component type can be used in many different kinds of designs allowing emergent fleet doctrines and the style of gameplay Aurora excels at offering.

If we want to build small fighters, the direction Steve has been taking this is evident from the recent introduction of reduced-shot railguns, which have enabled us to build sub-100 ton beam fighters while remaining roughly in line with existing mechanics - although these are of course not as efficient as larger fighters or ship-mounted weapons, generally. This is I think a more preferable approach as it adds an additional design mechanic rather than an exception to the rules, although it admittedly doesn't extend to the other weapon types as there is not such a thing as, e.g., reduced-shot lasers to be added.

(2) Secondly, the "fighter module" as proposed is quite overpowered. The comparison you've made to CIWS is instructive; I've recently done an analysis comparing CIWS to standard components, and for being a "self-contained" weapons system the gains are nontrivial but still fairly modest, with about ~1 HS of weight savings from assigning 5 HS to the twin 50% Gauss cannons instead of the standard 6 HS, plus smaller savings from reduced crew and BFC range requirements for the design specification. Of note, the BFC itself is exactly the same as what you can design yourself using the single weapon (SW) option as of 1.13 - any savings from BFC size are solely due to the SW qualification and the 40,000 km range (where most players will use a longer range for their PD BFCs especially at higher tech levels), but it is exactly the same as if a player designed it with those parameters and there is no longer a unique exception.

By comparison, the kind of system being proposed here goes way beyond the limits of game mechanics. The BFC is the easiest example, as the indicated specifications would be at least 25 tons at the base tech level and only dropping to ~5 tons at the 96,000 km (30k RP) tech level - this is assuming a BFC range of 10,000 km, although mechanically I'd expect something closer to 40,000 km like for CIWS to allow reasonable hit chances particularly in final fire PD mode. More egregious is the specification for the Gauss cannon; at 3x the racial ROF tech level, the 4% accuracy is nearly equivalent to a 'standard' 12% accuracy Gauss cannon (0.75 HS), and you are proposing to cram this much firepower into 0.2 HS with an integrated BFC.

This means that, even if the concept of a "space superiority fighter" is otherwise useless (which I am not saying that it is), we can stick these 0.2-HS weapon suites onto a fighter body with, say, a 0.2-HS engine with max boost and 1,000 L of fuel, giving us a ~30-ton (0.6 HS) point defense "turret" for about half the effective size of an equivalent Gauss turret once gearing and BFC size is factored in. In other words the proposed component would make basically any other kind of beam point defense more or less obsolete - granted, this is with the caveat that we need clarity on how the BFC and combat range are actually set, so here I am basically assuming a BFC range of 10,000 km and a combat range of 1,000 km in line with the given specifications.

If we are going to do something like this, I would rather see a module which (i) follows the SW-BFC rules just as CIWS, STOs, etc. already do, so there is no exception in the rules, and (ii) functions similarly to existing weapon types in terms of rules with a meaningful benefit tied to reduced or limited performance, as CIWS does. There's a few possibilities we could consider for reduced-size weapons - increased weapons failure chance, box launcher-like explosion chances, and so on - which I think would add interesting design decisions without making a big exception to the rules, and could even if well-implemented become options for larger ships as well.
 
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Offline ArcWolf (OP)

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Re: Fighter Module
« Reply #2 on: January 21, 2022, 04:13:37 PM »
You make some good points on why it's op/not feasible.

I guess i just have an issue with thing on the smaller end of the scaling in the game. I want to have a Star Destroyer that can carry 70+ Tie fighters, or a Battlestar with 40ish vipers, not a carrier that has 10-20 Airbus A380s.
 

Offline misanthropope

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Re: Fighter Module
« Reply #3 on: January 21, 2022, 04:45:56 PM »
it's dangerous to game balance all the way down to the concept level.

passives being all ablative means that weapons that can kill fighters can kill battleships.  a 50 ton unit that is anything more than a nuisance to a 500 ton aurora fighter almost by definition has OP firepower.  and the old missile defense dynamic of being throttled by your FC count is a particularly unwelcome advantage that would accrue to swarms of these vorpal mosquitoes when they are unleashed on an enemy fleet.  knife to a gunfight?  you've got the gun but you're fighting a *sandstorm*
 
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Offline Steve Walmsley

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Re: Fighter Module
« Reply #4 on: January 21, 2022, 05:04:39 PM »
'Fighters' in Aurora are not F-18s operating off the Nimitz, because those operate in a different medium than their parent carrier. Aurora 'fighters' are more like a small missile or gun boat, which also operates on water but is usually fast, short-ranged and heavily focused on offensive weapons. There are games that give small craft disproportionate firepower compared to other ships in the same medium, such as Starfire, and do not allow larger ships to use the same systems, which seems illogical. C# Aurora is very much about creating a set of internally consistent physics rules that apply in all situations, from a missile to a battleship.

If you have ideas to make small craft more interesting (not more powerful per HS), then as long as they can be explained within that framework it is fine.
 
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Offline ArcWolf (OP)

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Re: Fighter Module
« Reply #5 on: January 21, 2022, 05:39:44 PM »
'Fighters' in Aurora are not F-18s operating off the Nimitz, because those operate in a different medium than their parent carrier. Aurora 'fighters' are more like a small missile or gun boat, which also operates on water but is usually fast, short-ranged and heavily focused on offensive weapons. There are games that give small craft disproportionate firepower compared to other ships in the same medium, such as Starfire, and do not allow larger ships to use the same systems, which seems illogical. C# Aurora is very much about creating a set of internally consistent physics rules that apply in all situations, from a missile to a battleship.

If you have ideas to make small craft more interesting (not more powerful per HS), then as long as they can be explained within that framework it is fine.

Well, the idea i was thinking about back in oct or so was a new weapon system, lets call it Auto-cannons, that would operate like rail guns or gauss, but on a "micro" scale. The only way i could think of back then to keep the weapon from being more powerful per/HS was to make the damage fractional. I tested this with the DB and any fractional dmg is calculated as 1 point of damage, so that did not work. The only other option then would be to increase all health/damage by a factor of 5-10 (based on balance). I'm not going to ask for a change in damage scale/health to accommodate fighters.

i guess i'll just have to keep thinking about it. Thank you all for the feedback. There were quite a few things i overlooked, especially the idea of using this to make 100s of deployable PD turrets.
 

Online nuclearslurpee

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Re: Fighter Module
« Reply #6 on: January 22, 2022, 12:52:45 AM »
If you have ideas to make small craft more interesting (not more powerful per HS), then as long as they can be explained within that framework it is fine.

When I was thinking about this while writing my earlier post, one thought I had was to allow reduced-size versions of weapons that have a highly-elevated failure rate - mainly as this would allow the same weapons to be mounted on larger ships with the same downsides. However I think it would be very difficult to balance as MSP (to fix weapon failures) is quite cheap and space-efficient to put on larger ships, so this would basically be the same DPS-multiplication problem we had with 1.13 reduced-shot railguns and I wouldn't want to repeat that particular exploit.

Maybe if they also explode when they malfunction? Just kidding...
 

Offline Steve Walmsley

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Re: Fighter Module
« Reply #7 on: January 22, 2022, 06:09:49 AM »
If you have ideas to make small craft more interesting (not more powerful per HS), then as long as they can be explained within that framework it is fine.

When I was thinking about this while writing my earlier post, one thought I had was to allow reduced-size versions of weapons that have a highly-elevated failure rate - mainly as this would allow the same weapons to be mounted on larger ships with the same downsides. However I think it would be very difficult to balance as MSP (to fix weapon failures) is quite cheap and space-efficient to put on larger ships, so this would basically be the same DPS-multiplication problem we had with 1.13 reduced-shot railguns and I wouldn't want to repeat that particular exploit.

Maybe if they also explode when they malfunction? Just kidding...

I have considered smaller than 10cm weapons that have less than a 100% chance to penetrate armour, damage shields or destroy missiles. If a weapon was 55% of the size with a 50% chance to penetrate for example, it becomes less effective over the long-term than a 'normal' weapon. This means it wouldn't be that useful for energy-based point defence, but fine for fighters that are trying to swarm a target.
 
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Offline The_Seeker

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Re: Fighter Module
« Reply #8 on: January 22, 2022, 09:54:03 AM »
'Fighters' in Aurora are not F-18s operating off the Nimitz, because those operate in a different medium than their parent carrier. Aurora 'fighters' are more like a small missile or gun boat, which also operates on water but is usually fast, short-ranged and heavily focused on offensive weapons. There are games that give small craft disproportionate firepower compared to other ships in the same medium, such as Starfire, and do not allow larger ships to use the same systems, which seems illogical. C# Aurora is very much about creating a set of internally consistent physics rules that apply in all situations, from a missile to a battleship.

If you have ideas to make small craft more interesting (not more powerful per HS), then as long as they can be explained within that framework it is fine.
There are conceivable scenarios where you could have an internally consistent weapon that can be fitted to both small and large ships, but you would only reasonably want to use on a small one.  I can think of two examples: 

The first is the real world unguided torpedo of second world war vintage; assuming its depth and fuse are set correctly, it can allow the smallest vessels (PT boats and aircraft) to sink the largest capital ships.  There's obviously nothing stopping anyone from mounting torpedoes on capital ships as well, indeed some nations did, but there are a couple reasons why you wouldn't want to.  First, torpedo launchers are at most protected from shell splinters, and since capital ships are expected to be shot at, having a volatile weapon system with thousand-kilogram warheads outside of the ship's armor is unwise; second, they're somewhat close range weapons, and ideally your capital ships would be well outside of the enemy's torpedo range, which means you would ideally be outside of your own torpedo range as well.

The second example is the VB6 Meson, very similar to the magnetic-fused torpedo, it was very powerful being able to negate all armor.  It was most often seen on fighter-sized ships.  Although nothing prevented you from putting them on large ships, just like torpedoes there's a good reason why you wouldn't; if you put mesons on your big armored ships, the enemy can fire back at you with mesons and negate all of your armor!  Much better to keep your big ships far away so they can put their shields and armor to use.
« Last Edit: January 22, 2022, 09:58:10 AM by The_Seeker »
 

Offline Bremen

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Re: Fighter Module
« Reply #9 on: January 22, 2022, 11:37:50 AM »
'Fighters' in Aurora are not F-18s operating off the Nimitz, because those operate in a different medium than their parent carrier. Aurora 'fighters' are more like a small missile or gun boat, which also operates on water but is usually fast, short-ranged and heavily focused on offensive weapons. There are games that give small craft disproportionate firepower compared to other ships in the same medium, such as Starfire, and do not allow larger ships to use the same systems, which seems illogical. C# Aurora is very much about creating a set of internally consistent physics rules that apply in all situations, from a missile to a battleship.

If you have ideas to make small craft more interesting (not more powerful per HS), then as long as they can be explained within that framework it is fine.

I always wondered if accuracy should be scaled by the cube root of size difference of the target. Not because smaller ships are faster or more maneuverable (in Aurora neither is necessarily the case) but because they're simply a smaller target to hit - if a laser misses a fighter by a few meters, logic is the same shot probably would have hit a battleship.

I think this might give fighters an interesting role, particularly as something of a rock paper scisssors relationship with beams and missiles, as a heavy beam battleship would probably still counter fighters well due to the other efficiencies of larger ships, but taking out smaller fighters with missiles would become expensive because they'd be much more likely to miss and you'd likely quickly run out of missiles.

OTOH I also realize this would be a major change to Aurora mechanics with sweeping effects (with the balance of missile point defense being an obvious one), so a lot more than just a fighter change.
« Last Edit: January 22, 2022, 11:42:08 AM by Bremen »
 
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Online nuclearslurpee

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Re: Fighter Module
« Reply #10 on: January 22, 2022, 12:02:12 PM »
I always wondered if accuracy should be scaled by the cube root of size difference of the target. Not because smaller ships are faster or more maneuverable (in Aurora neither is necessarily the case) but because they're simply a smaller target to hit - if a laser misses a fighter by a few meters, logic is the same shot probably would have hit a battleship.

It would actually need to be square root square-of-cube-root, oops, not cube root, as cross section has units of area rather than volume.

Personally, my headcanon is that the physical limits of TN sensors and fire controls (taken as TN analogues for optical systems) as well below the tolerance of cross section. I don't think it is too far-fetched, though the artillery specialists on this forum disagree with me, and perhaps more importantly by keeping the physics simple with ample amounts of TN handwavium we also avoid the minefield that is the various dispersal characteristics of the different weapon types (diffraction, diespersion, etc. not to mention the fact that missile guidance brazenly violates the speed-of-light limit...).
« Last Edit: January 22, 2022, 06:02:16 PM by nuclearslurpee »
 

Offline misanthropope

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Re: Fighter Module
« Reply #11 on: January 22, 2022, 12:39:16 PM »
presuming volume is the measure of "size" you start with, it's the square of the cube root, not the square root, of course.

such a thing would add a welcome dash of low fantasy verisimilitude, but it would also apply untoward downward selection pressure on ship sizes. 
 

Offline Steve Walmsley

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Re: Fighter Module
« Reply #12 on: January 22, 2022, 12:44:25 PM »
presuming volume is the measure of "size" you start with, it's the square of the cube root, not the square root, of course.

such a thing would add a welcome dash of low fantasy verisimilitude, but it would also apply untoward downward selection pressure on ship sizes.

It would affect affect missile interception, which is another major balance issue.
 

Offline Felius

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Re: Fighter Module
« Reply #13 on: January 22, 2022, 01:16:26 PM »
If you have ideas to make small craft more interesting (not more powerful per HS), then as long as they can be explained within that framework it is fine.
Honestly, biggest thing I'd think is reducing the tech-related escalation of cost of beam fire controls. Beam fighters become basically unfeasible at higher tech levels because the fire control alone ends costing more than everything else combined a few times over.

Also an (even bigger) problem for StO land units, as with then you can't even choose to use less advanced tech to reduce costs.
 

Offline Bremen

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Re: Fighter Module
« Reply #14 on: January 22, 2022, 04:05:13 PM »
presuming volume is the measure of "size" you start with, it's the square of the cube root, not the square root, of course.

such a thing would add a welcome dash of low fantasy verisimilitude, but it would also apply untoward downward selection pressure on ship sizes.

I think square root would probably be too strong a bonus for small ships. Cube root might be more balanced strictly on a mechanical level, and explanation wise it's not farfetched to assume the ships are not really spherical and can present their smaller sides to the target.

And there is currently an upward pressure on ship sizes, so I don't think it would be as big a downward pressure as you think - we already have things like shield hp scaling based on the root (IIRC) of the generator size. That's one reason I suggested a cube root, though, since the goal here wouldn't be to eliminate large ships entirely, just give them a bonus that isn't mechanically inconsistent like special fighter only weapons.