Questions Not Worth Their Own Thread: C# Edition

[nuclearslurpee]

What's the usual speed I should be trying to reach for Nuclear Pulse Engine ships?

As a very, very general rule of thumb, if you have no better idea what to do: a reasonable ship design approach will be to have 30-40% of total displacement as engines with 1.0x boost multiplier. This tends to result in reasonable, balanced designs which will be competitive against NPRs. Generally, missile-based fleets can trend to the lower end while beam-based fleets should trend higher, since beam weapon warships need to close the distance to use their weapons.

For nuclear pulse engines this gives speeds in a range from 2,400 to 3,200 km/s. I often use engine fractions of 32% (2,560 km/s for NPE), 37.5% (3,000 km/s for NPE), and 40% as these tend to make it easy to work with nice, round numbers.

[captainwolfer]

i want to start a new game at about ion engine tech level. How much starting population and research points should i set to be able to have a decently well rounded tech distribution, with missiles, particle beams, and gauss as my weapons?

[Xkill]

I want to design a bombardment cruiser with the only purpose of providing laser and bomb (max warhead, minimal speed missiles) orbital support to ground forces. Does the ship need fire controls for this? Do laser warheads work significantly differently from normal ones in a ground support context?

[captainwolfer]

I want to design a bombardment cruiser with the only purpose of providing laser and bomb (max warhead, minimal speed missiles) orbital support to ground forces. Does the ship need fire controls for this? Do laser warheads work significantly differently from normal ones in a ground support context?

Is this for using with the fire control ground component?

If so, only beam weapons work with that I think.

Also, It does need fire controls to provide support AFAIK

[Xkill]

I want to design a bombardment cruiser with the only purpose of providing laser and bomb (max warhead, minimal speed missiles) orbital support to ground forces. Does the ship need fire controls for this? Do laser warheads work significantly differently from normal ones in a ground support context?

Is this for using with the fire control ground component?

If so, only beam weapons work with that I think.

Also, It does need fire controls to provide support AFAIK

Yes, using the fire control ground components alongside the orbital support order for the fleet. I guess that to use missiles against ground troops I'd need to lock onto the ground force contact, so the bombs need an FC. The beams with the orbital support order, however, I'm not so sure...

[captainwolfer]

I want to design a bombardment cruiser with the only purpose of providing laser and bomb (max warhead, minimal speed missiles) orbital support to ground forces. Does the ship need fire controls for this? Do laser warheads work significantly differently from normal ones in a ground support context?

Is this for using with the fire control ground component?

If so, only beam weapons work with that I think.

Also, It does need fire controls to provide support AFAIK

Yes, using the fire control ground components alongside the orbital support order for the fleet. I guess that to use missiles against ground troops I'd need to lock onto the ground force contact, so the bombs need an FC. The beams with the orbital support order, however, I'm not so sure...

The changelog for 2.0 doesn't explicitly say it requires a fire control, but I would add one to the ship anyway. That way it can defend itself in an emergency

[Droll]

I want to design a bombardment cruiser with the only purpose of providing laser and bomb (max warhead, minimal speed missiles) orbital support to ground forces. Does the ship need fire controls for this? Do laser warheads work significantly differently from normal ones in a ground support context?

Is this for using with the fire control ground component?

If so, only beam weapons work with that I think.

Also, It does need fire controls to provide support AFAIK

Yes, using the fire control ground components alongside the orbital support order for the fleet. I guess that to use missiles against ground troops I'd need to lock onto the ground force contact, so the bombs need an FC. The beams with the orbital support order, however, I'm not so sure...

The changelog for 2.0 doesn't explicitly say it requires a fire control, but I would add one to the ship anyway. That way it can defend itself in an emergency

This is speculation on my part but I think in order to provide Orbital Support through an FFD unit on the ground you don't need a fire control. However, in order to do Naval Orbital Bombardment without having boots on the ground you do need a fire control as you need to assign the ground force contacts as targets which can only be done to a fire control.

[nuclearslurpee]

i want to start a new game at about ion engine tech level. How much starting population and research points should i set to be able to have a decently well rounded tech distribution, with missiles, particle beams, and gauss as my weapons?

2b population and 320,000 to 400,000 RPs is a good number in my experience. In the past 400,000 has worked well but with the reduced ground force tech costs in 2.3 I'm not finding it so necessary, 320,000 may be a little bit less than you want for playing with the new missile and EW features though.

[captainwolfer]

I have a NPR that keeps sending a "suggest leave" to my 10,000 ton diplomatic ship. Does this mean that it is causing relations to go down, or is it being caused by the survey ship that is in the system but not being tracked (I think).

Should I have my diplomatic ship leave the system?

The diplomatic ship has ELINT modules and military engines as well, if that matters

[Garfunkel]

The diplo module should overcome the negative effect from its presence but the military engines make it seem more hostile to the NPR. I don't remember the exact numbers.

[db48x]

I have a NPR that keeps sending a "suggest leave" to my 10,000 ton diplomatic ship. Does this mean that it is causing relations to go down, or is it being caused by the survey ship that is in the system but not being tracked (I think).

Should I have my diplomatic ship leave the system?

The diplomatic ship has ELINT modules and military engines as well, if that matters

It depends. The suggestion to leave is accompanied by a decrease in their opinion of you. At the same time, your diplo ship is causing their opinion of you to rise. Both happen once per construction cycle, so all that matters is their relative strength.

The amount that their opinion decreases due to unwanted ships in their systems is based on the total tonnage of those ships multiplied by your threat level.

They will completely ignore a single ship per system as long as it has a diplomacy module, has commercial engines, is not known by them to have any weapons, and is less than 10,000 tons. Your diplomacy ship doesn’t qualify, so it isn’t being ignored. If the total tonnage of ships comes out to less than 1,000 tons, they just round up to 1,000 tons.

Your threat level depends on where you are in their space, their diplomatic status towards you, and their xenophobia level. There is a factor of 10 difference between your threat when you are in their capital vs when you are just in a fringe system (unless they have only a single system, which is pretty rare). Your threat level is halved if they are already friendly towards you, and doubled if they are neutral towards you but their opinion of you is negative for any reason.

They also add in the EM rating of any detected colonies in their claimed systems, but you didn’t mention any of those so I assume that there are none.

Assuming that they only detect your single 10,000 ton diplomacy ship, that you are in a secondary system, and that their opinion of you has not yet dropped below zero, it is probable that you are losing ~125 diplomacy points per year. It could be more if they are more xenophobic than average, or less if they are less xenophobic than average. If you had a real diplomatic ship you would only be losing ~40 points per year.

The formula for calculating how many diplomacy points you can gain per year is simple but does have one major input that you probably do not know:

Diplomacy Points = ((Diplomacy Bonus * 4) + 1) * 100 * (1 – (Target Racial Xenophobia / 100))

Thus, an officer with 20% Diplomacy trying to influence an alien race with Xenophobia of 50 would have the following calculation: ((0.2 * 4) + 1) * 100 * (0.5) = 90 Points.

If you are losing 125 points per year and only gaining 90, then you should probably leave. Of course, they might have low xenophobia, in which case you are both losing less and gaining more and could perhaps stay. I wouldn’t count on it though. You should expect that their opinion of you has already gone negative, and so you should probably stay away for a while so that it will have decayed back towards zero, otherwise you will continue to suffer that 2× modifier to points lost.

Return when you have a real diplomatic ship so that it won’t penalize you so much.

See Steve’s original posts for all of the details:

http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg118258#msg118258
http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg118318#msg118318

[captainwolfer]

I have a NPR that keeps sending a "suggest leave" to my 10,000 ton diplomatic ship. Does this mean that it is causing relations to go down, or is it being caused by the survey ship that is in the system but not being tracked (I think).

Should I have my diplomatic ship leave the system?

The diplomatic ship has ELINT modules and military engines as well, if that matters

It depends. The suggestion to leave is accompanied by a decrease in their opinion of you. At the same time, your diplo ship is causing their opinion of you to rise. Both happen once per construction cycle, so all that matters is their relative strength.

The amount that their opinion decreases due to unwanted ships in their systems is based on the total tonnage of those ships multiplied by your threat level.

They will completely ignore a single ship per system as long as it has a diplomacy module, has commercial engines, is not known by them to have any weapons, and is less than 10,000 tons. Your diplomacy ship doesn’t qualify, so it isn’t being ignored. If the total tonnage of ships comes out to less than 1,000 tons, they just round up to 1,000 tons.

Your threat level depends on where you are in their space, their diplomatic status towards you, and their xenophobia level. There is a factor of 10 difference between your threat when you are in their capital vs when you are just in a fringe system (unless they have only a single system, which is pretty rare). Your threat level is halved if they are already friendly towards you, and doubled if they are neutral towards you but their opinion of you is negative for any reason.

They also add in the EM rating of any detected colonies in their claimed systems, but you didn’t mention any of those so I assume that there are none.

Assuming that they only detect your single 10,000 ton diplomacy ship, that you are in a secondary system, and that their opinion of you has not yet dropped below zero, it is probable that you are losing ~125 diplomacy points per year. It could be more if they are more xenophobic than average, or less if they are less xenophobic than average. If you had a real diplomatic ship you would only be losing ~40 points per year.

The formula for calculating how many diplomacy points you can gain per year is simple but does have one major input that you probably do not know:

Diplomacy Points = ((Diplomacy Bonus * 4) + 1) * 100 * (1 – (Target Racial Xenophobia / 100))

Thus, an officer with 20% Diplomacy trying to influence an alien race with Xenophobia of 50 would have the following calculation: ((0.2 * 4) + 1) * 100 * (0.5) = 90 Points.

If you are losing 125 points per year and only gaining 90, then you should probably leave. Of course, they might have low xenophobia, in which case you are both losing less and gaining more and could perhaps stay. I wouldn’t count on it though. You should expect that their opinion of you has already gone negative, and so you should probably stay away for a while so that it will have decayed back towards zero, otherwise you will continue to suffer that 2× modifier to points lost.

Return when you have a real diplomatic ship so that it won’t penalize you so much.

See Steve’s original posts for all of the details:

http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg118258#msg118258
http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg118318#msg118318

I dont see anything that says the diplomat ship has to have civilian engines, but I guess that is what I need to try next. I wonder if the NPR don't know if it's a diplomatic ship, so far I don't think I've managed to keep contact with any of their ships for a full construction period since the diplomacy ship got there, so maybe it hasn't sent any diplomatic messages to them?

[db48x]

I dont see anything that says the diplomat ship has to have civilian engines, but I guess that is what I need to try next.

See http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg118318#msg118318

Shipping Line vessels will be ignored for this purpose if a trade treaty is in force. NPRs will treat ships without military engines that have not demonstrated any weapon capability as 10% of their normal tonnage. If at least one ship is detected, the minimum rating for Detected Ship Tonnage will be 1000 tons. If at least one population is detected, the minimum rating for Population EM Signature will be 100. NPRs deduct 10,000 tons from the tonnage of one Diplomatic Ship (see Part 8 ) per system for threat purposes if that class type has never fired weapons and the Diplomatic Ship is in a non-Core system. If the NPR only has one system, it is not treated as core for this purpose.

Emphasis mine.

I wonder if the NPR don't know if it's a diplomatic ship, so far I don't think I've managed to keep contact with any of their ships for a full construction period since the diplomacy ship got there, so maybe it hasn't sent any diplomatic messages to them?

See http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg120024#msg120024

When a Diplomatic Ship is involved in diplomacy or communication attempts, the opposing race will know the origin of those messages. If the Diplomatic Ship is on opposing sensors, the identity of that ship will be noted in an event for the opposing race and its parent class will be flagged as a diplomatic vessel. If diplomacy is underway, the name of the Ambassador will also be passed to the opposing race.

If the Diplomatic Ship is not on opposing sensors, the location of the signal from that ship will be communicated to the opposing race. This may be a system body, a jump point or simply a point in space.

There were actually eight separate messages from Steve that covered various aspects of diplomacy. They were spread out over a a couple of months, but Demonides made a really handy index of them at http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=10666.0

[Ulzgoroth]

Do NPRs lash out indiscriminately when facing combat?

I just lost a diplomatic ship. My auto-turns didn't stop as short as I'd like, so my details are a little shaky, but it looks like the neutral NPR I was parked with saw an incoming threat and dumped missiles all over them, killing the attacker. Somehow one of their ships died 5 seconds earlier in a cascade of beam fire. And my diplo-ship ate half a dozen missiles that look like the ones the neutrals were using at the same time. I've seen the enemy before and I'm pretty sure they didn't launch their own missile volley...

[Steve Walmsley]

Do NPRs lash out indiscriminately when facing combat?

I just lost a diplomatic ship. My auto-turns didn't stop as short as I'd like, so my details are a little shaky, but it looks like the neutral NPR I was parked with saw an incoming threat and dumped missiles all over them, killing the attacker. Somehow one of their ships died 5 seconds earlier in a cascade of beam fire. And my diplo-ship ate half a dozen missiles that look like the ones the neutrals were using at the same time. I've seen the enemy before and I'm pretty sure they didn't launch their own missile volley...

It's possible the NPR missiles had on-board sensors and went looking for a new target when the original one was destroyed.