TL;DR
#1 Combine Fighters and FAC's into one category and rename Boats.
#2 Remove Size constraint of commercial engines and possibly remove the lack of maintenance for commercial engines.
#3 Forget about the distinction of *player built commercial vs military ships.
#4 Base commercial vs military moreso on presence/thickness of armor rather than engine type, remove military exclusivity of many module.
#5 Remove special rules of "Stations", allow spaceports and ground facilities to build all ships/stations upto a certain total tonnage limit.
I think is already a good designation although we need to decide what to call the "FAC Factory"
In general I agree that the game probably would be better if there were no Military and Commercial ship mechanic in the game. All ships should need to be maintained... I have never been in favour of the free maintenance as "zero" can always be abused mechanically and feels gamey in a way that it does not need to be.
All that said... it would require a huge rewrite of large parts of the game so it probably is not really possible to achieve without allot of work. You also need to get Steve to sign off on the idea by convincing him.
Its dumb and completely arbitrary and should be done away with. I also do believe it to be silly that Commercial Engines have 0 maintenance requirement
QuoteIts dumb and completely arbitrary and should be done away with. I also do believe it to be silly that Commercial Engines have 0 maintenance requirement
The above is definitely the approach to take if you want to convince me about something :)
It's worth bearing in mind that the game has been around now for eighteen years, so a lot of the basic mechanics have arrived at their current state after a LOT of playtesting and subsequent changes. The players involved in driving those changes are often very experienced and very analytical. A new player may not understand why a mechanic works as it does, but the chance of it being dumb and arbitrary (and no one noticed that) is probably fairly small.
QuoteIts dumb and completely arbitrary and should be done away with. I also do believe it to be silly that Commercial Engines have 0 maintenance requirement
The above is definitely the approach to take if you want to convince me about something :)
It's worth bearing in mind that the game has been around now for eighteen years, so a lot of the basic mechanics have arrived at their current state after a LOT of playtesting and subsequent changes. The players involved in driving those changes are often very experienced and very analytical. A new player may not understand why a mechanic works as it does, but the chance of it being dumb and arbitrary (and no one noticed that) is probably fairly small.
You could maybe make it so that commercial type ships require wealth instead of MSP for the purposes of maintenance if for some reason you or the playerbase feels like having any ship stay up for "free" is too much. That would prevent the micromanagement nightmare while also adding a cost to having a massive merchant marine / making wealth matter consistently throughout the entire length of the campaign.
QuoteIts dumb and completely arbitrary and should be done away with. I also do believe it to be silly that Commercial Engines have 0 maintenance requirement
The above is definitely the approach to take if you want to convince me about something :)
It's worth bearing in mind that the game has been around now for eighteen years, so a lot of the basic mechanics have arrived at their current state after a LOT of playtesting and subsequent changes. The players involved in driving those changes are often very experienced and very analytical. A new player may not understand why a mechanic works as it does, but the chance of it being dumb and arbitrary (and no one noticed that) is probably fairly small.
You could maybe make it so that commercial type ships require wealth instead of MSP for the purposes of maintenance if for some reason you or the playerbase feels like having any ship stay up for "free" is too much. That would prevent the micromanagement nightmare while also adding a cost to having a massive merchant marine / making wealth matter consistently throughout the entire length of the campaign.
This wouldn't be a bad idea if it playtests well. Wealth is usually not too important after the first couple of generation techs so this would add another sink without requiring major alterations to the rest of the game economy or strategy layers.
QuoteIts dumb and completely arbitrary and should be done away with. I also do believe it to be silly that Commercial Engines have 0 maintenance requirement
The above is definitely the approach to take if you want to convince me about something :)
It's worth bearing in mind that the game has been around now for eighteen years, so a lot of the basic mechanics have arrived at their current state after a LOT of playtesting and subsequent changes. The players involved in driving those changes are often very experienced and very analytical. A new player may not understand why a mechanic works as it does, but the chance of it being dumb and arbitrary (and no one noticed that) is probably fairly small.
You could maybe make it so that commercial type ships require wealth instead of MSP for the purposes of maintenance if for some reason you or the playerbase feels like having any ship stay up for "free" is too much. That would prevent the micromanagement nightmare while also adding a cost to having a massive merchant marine / making wealth matter consistently throughout the entire length of the campaign.
This wouldn't be a bad idea if it playtests well. Wealth is usually not too important after the first couple of generation techs so this would add another sink without requiring major alterations to the rest of the game economy or strategy layers.
Hahaha :DI think is already a good designation although we need to decide what to call the "FAC Factory"
FACtory.
That was easy.
Steve, a way to work around the usage of a weapon made for a 50 ton fighter to be used and abused by bigger ships can be worked around as:
1- require a weapon pod
2- It has a limited amount of ammo and has to be either spent or in case of a turret, have a small magazine for that. (unarmored, 100% chance of explosion by hit, single module, only size and ammo for dispenser
3- Make it kinetic, meaning, no energy weapons for that size, just slug throwers.
4- Because of the mechanics involved into making small sized weapons like these, no crew, but the need of a small reactor to keep everything working.
And while on the topic, small shield for fighters could work as well. And the idea is: They have to concentrate their shields into a far smaller target than a capital ship. But would require reactors and with a tonnage limit to fighters, it would require players to having to choose what they want, so balance is still kept. And it still not broken because a gauss cannon can shred a fighter just fine. If it hits all 5 shots, is 5 damage. Is probably more than the amount of shields the fighter has.
And for commercial ships, it would be nice to have them cost wealth. It would make players try and o Wealth being a thing, while making expansion be more planned. Also, while they are commercial ships, they are state made and state controlled, so they should cost something for the state... (As of now i think of them as a merchant navy of sorts...)
But we should really go back to calling them gunboats except without the gun part.
Fighter - Boat - Ship
Because FAC is Fast Attack Craft and the 500–1000-ton range is used for lot of different things. It could be Light Attack Craft, it could be Survey Boat, it could be Assault Shuttle, it could be Bomber, it could be Missile Boat, and so on and so forth.
Steve, a way to work around the usage of a weapon made for a 50 ton fighter to be used and abused by bigger ships can be worked around as:
snip
And while on the topic, small shield for fighters could work as well. And the idea is: They have to concentrate their shields into a far smaller target than a capital ship. But would require reactors and with a tonnage limit to fighters, it would require players to having to choose what they want, so balance is still kept. And it still not broken because a gauss cannon can shred a fighter just fine. If it hits all 5 shots, is 5 damage. Is probably more than the amount of shields the fighter has.
The word 'FAC' only exists in Aurora in one specific place. The text at the bottom of the ship class summary that refers to auto-assignment category. If you can persuade everyone on the forum to start calling 1000-ton ships 'boats' instead of 'FACs', then I'll add an option to change that single word :)
Steve, a way to work around the usage of a weapon made for a 50 ton fighter to be used and abused by bigger ships can be worked around as:
1- require a weapon pod
2- It has a limited amount of ammo and has to be either spent or in case of a turret, have a small magazine for that. (unarmored, 100% chance of explosion by hit, single module, only size and ammo for dispenser
3- Make it kinetic, meaning, no energy weapons for that size, just slug throwers.
4- Because of the mechanics involved into making small sized weapons like these, no crew, but the need of a small reactor to keep everything working.
And while on the topic, small shield for fighters could work as well. And the idea is: They have to concentrate their shields into a far smaller target than a capital ship. But would require reactors and with a tonnage limit to fighters, it would require players to having to choose what they want, so balance is still kept. And it still not broken because a gauss cannon can shred a fighter just fine. If it hits all 5 shots, is 5 damage. Is probably more than the amount of shields the fighter has.
And for commercial ships, it would be nice to have them cost wealth. It would make players try and o Wealth being a thing, while making expansion be more planned. Also, while they are commercial ships, they are state made and state controlled, so they should cost something for the state... (As of now i think of them as a merchant navy of sorts...)
Why could only a small ship mount the above weapon - why not a 5000-ton point defence destroyer that would completely alter missile warfare? Why would this weapon explode when none of the others do? Even if only fighters could mount it, then a fighter swarm becomes the new point defence paradigm.
Well, because it would require a pod, limited ammo, accuracy would still be dependent on tech and racial tracking speed + ship speed.
Such weapon would be around 1 point damage, because its a fighter, not a destroyer. So, for bigger ships it can only really scrape the armor, and range is still a factor. So a Destroyer would have lower speed, so a problem hitting it, it cannot use a fighter pod, the ammo is limited and needs a hangar to reload, and the range is limited as well.
And as it is, its well within what fighters can do, but it would have less tonnage overall because of smaller weapons systems.
A destroyer would be better off with a Gauss Cannon. And like stated before, those could shred said fighter if it doesnt have enough armor. And the bigger the armor, slower it gets, and etc.
And you could make such weapons research dependent, as it was in V6.
But anyway, its just a suggestion. You had really good points on the others, so i don't see a point in responding to them.
#1a Rename Fighters as Boats
#1b Combine FAC's into the Boat category
#2a Remove the Size Constraint for Commercial Engines
Steve, a way to work around the usage of a weapon made for a 50 ton fighter to be used and abused by bigger ships can be worked around as:
1- require a weapon pod
2- It has a limited amount of ammo and has to be either spent or in case of a turret, have a small magazine for that. (unarmored, 100% chance of explosion by hit, single module, only size and ammo for dispenser
3- Make it kinetic, meaning, no energy weapons for that size, just slug throwers.
4- Because of the mechanics involved into making small sized weapons like these, no crew, but the need of a small reactor to keep everything working.
And while on the topic, small shield for fighters could work as well. And the idea is: They have to concentrate their shields into a far smaller target than a capital ship. But would require reactors and with a tonnage limit to fighters, it would require players to having to choose what they want, so balance is still kept. And it still not broken because a gauss cannon can shred a fighter just fine. If it hits all 5 shots, is 5 damage. Is probably more than the amount of shields the fighter has.
And for commercial ships, it would be nice to have them cost wealth. It would make players try and o Wealth being a thing, while making expansion be more planned. Also, while they are commercial ships, they are state made and state controlled, so they should cost something for the state... (As of now i think of them as a merchant navy of sorts...)
Why could only a small ship mount the above weapon - why not a 5000-ton point defence destroyer that would completely alter missile warfare? Why would this weapon explode when none of the others do? Even if only fighters could mount it, then a fighter swarm becomes the new point defence paradigm.
Well, because it would require a pod, limited ammo, accuracy would still be dependent on tech and racial tracking speed + ship speed.
Such weapon would be around 1 point damage, because its a fighter, not a destroyer. So, for bigger ships it can only really scrape the armor, and range is still a factor. So a Destroyer would have lower speed, so a problem hitting it, it cannot use a fighter pod, the ammo is limited and needs a hangar to reload, and the range is limited as well.
And as it is, its well within what fighters can do, but it would have less tonnage overall because of smaller weapons systems.
A destroyer would be better off with a Gauss Cannon. And like stated before, those could shred said fighter if it doesnt have enough armor. And the bigger the armor, slower it gets, and etc.
And you could make such weapons research dependent, as it was in V6.
But anyway, its just a suggestion. You had really good points on the others, so i don't see a point in responding to them.
I'm not a native English speaker, yet it seems that Small Craft and Small Craft Factory are the best words.
Since this topic keeps coming up, I don't really have much to say, but I do want to add that I'm really happy with Steve's decision to not make weapons magically smaller/better because they're on a fighter. Way too many games decide to give "rocket pods" or whatever to fighters that magically do a ton of damage but somehow aren't an option on big ships. If the decision were ever made to buff fighters I'd prefer to see it done in some way that flows naturally from the mechanics instead of fighters just being better because they have a different designation.
Since this topic keeps coming up, I don't really have much to say, but I do want to add that I'm really happy with Steve's decision to not make weapons magically smaller/better because they're on a fighter. Way too many games decide to give "rocket pods" or whatever to fighters that magically do a ton of damage but somehow aren't an option on big ships. If the decision were ever made to buff fighters I'd prefer to see it done in some way that flows naturally from the mechanics instead of fighters just being better because they have a different designation.
It's actually interesting to compare 50-ton fighters (with the modded 0.25-HS Gauss component) to the standard 500-ton 10cm railgun fighter that is generally considered the most efficient design you can build (outside of missile bombers, which would be apples/oranges to compare).
Neglecting fire control effects, 10x 50-ton fighters with, say, ROF 5 Gauss at 4% accuracy would deal on average only 2.0 damage per 5-sec increment, while the single 500-ton railgun fighter deals 4 damage per 5-sec increment. However, the 50-ton fighter swarm is harder to kill completely due to having a lot more effective HTK than the single 500-ton fighter - if you are defending with 15cm lasers, for instance, you can probably kill the big fighter in just 1-2 hits while you need to score 10 hits to kill the swarm fighters, and since your ship probably doesn't mount a lot of extra fire controls you will have to score those hits in several rounds of fire. Probably the most effective weapons would be AMMs in this case, since you can destroy the entire swarm at a decent range pretty easily. Of course, this doesn't make the railgun fighter obsolete; not only does it benefit from better tonnage efficiency in various ways (better range, sensors, BFC, engines, ...) but since it still puts out more hits per ton it is a better anti-missile defensive fighter if you use it as part of your PD screen. So the choice between large, efficient fighters and small swarm fighters that can be difficult to kill completely is an interesting decision and not very trivial.
Basically, just using the existing mechanics and adding that very small Gauss component which follows all of the existing rules for Gauss weapons (again, an easy DB edit for anyone who wants to playtest it, if Steve does not want to add it in just yet), I think fighters have some interesting mechanics to play around with without needing any very big changes.
I look forward to seeing how the fighters in Steve's test game work out in their first big fight (I'm aware they've already had some minor ones). I think beam fighters are a little on the low end of the power scale right now but I certainly don't think they're unplayable.
I look forward to seeing how the fighters in Steve's test game work out in their first big fight (I'm aware they've already had some minor ones). I think beam fighters are a little on the low end of the power scale right now but I certainly don't think they're unplayable.
I think they are lower on the power scale, but not at the "terrible" end with the meson cannons, more in the "specialized" middle next to plasma carronades and HPMs. Beam fighters do have a couple of strong niches. One is as a strategic firepower option to complement a carrier+bomber fleet, as you can rotate a wing of beam fighters in place of bombers to provide extra point defense without having to build entire new PD escorts, or just as a low-tail option to eliminate vulnerable targets (civilian shipping, etc.) without expending valuable ordnance. Another is as a counter against beam-heavy fleets that rely a lot on heavy and/or slow-firing beam weapons, since small, fast fighter swarms can take advantage of the mismatch against enemy fire controls in this situation. And of course, there is always the classic rapid-build JP defense fighter when you just need to scramble some defenses in a hurry without retooling your shipyards.
Since this topic keeps coming up, I don't really have much to say, but I do want to add that I'm really happy with Steve's decision to not make weapons magically smaller/better because they're on a fighter. Way too many games decide to give "rocket pods" or whatever to fighters that magically do a ton of damage but somehow aren't an option on big ships. If the decision were ever made to buff fighters I'd prefer to see it done in some way that flows naturally from the mechanics instead of fighters just being better because they have a different designation.
Steve, a way to work around the usage of a weapon made for a 50 ton fighter to be used and abused by bigger ships can be worked around as:
1- require a weapon pod
2- It has a limited amount of ammo and has to be either spent or in case of a turret, have a small magazine for that. (unarmored, 100% chance of explosion by hit, single module, only size and ammo for dispenser
3- Make it kinetic, meaning, no energy weapons for that size, just slug throwers.
4- Because of the mechanics involved into making small sized weapons like these, no crew, but the need of a small reactor to keep everything working.
And while on the topic, small shield for fighters could work as well. And the idea is: They have to concentrate their shields into a far smaller target than a capital ship. But would require reactors and with a tonnage limit to fighters, it would require players to having to choose what they want, so balance is still kept. And it still not broken because a gauss cannon can shred a fighter just fine. If it hits all 5 shots, is 5 damage. Is probably more than the amount of shields the fighter has.
And for commercial ships, it would be nice to have them cost wealth. It would make players try and o Wealth being a thing, while making expansion be more planned. Also, while they are commercial ships, they are state made and state controlled, so they should cost something for the state... (As of now i think of them as a merchant navy of sorts...)
Why could only a small ship mount the above weapon - why not a 5000-ton point defence destroyer that would completely alter missile warfare? Why would this weapon explode when none of the others do? Even if only fighters could mount it, then a fighter swarm becomes the new point defence paradigm.
Well, because it would require a pod, limited ammo, accuracy would still be dependent on tech and racial tracking speed + ship speed.
Such weapon would be around 1 point damage, because its a fighter, not a destroyer. So, for bigger ships it can only really scrape the armor, and range is still a factor. So a Destroyer would have lower speed, so a problem hitting it, it cannot use a fighter pod, the ammo is limited and needs a hangar to reload, and the range is limited as well.
And as it is, its well within what fighters can do, but it would have less tonnage overall because of smaller weapons systems.
A destroyer would be better off with a Gauss Cannon. And like stated before, those could shred said fighter if it doesnt have enough armor. And the bigger the armor, slower it gets, and etc.
And you could make such weapons research dependent, as it was in V6.
But anyway, its just a suggestion. You had really good points on the others, so i don't see a point in responding to them.
I am a little confused here. Why would only a fighter be able to mount the 'pod'?
If you have a weapon that does 1 point of damage and is much smaller than other weapons that does one point of damage, even if the ammo is 'limited' (as it can be reloaded), then it becomes a much more powerful weapon than the larger equivalent for both offence and point defence.
You need to come up with an idea for a 'fighter weapon' that is smaller than the current options, including the 1-shot railgun, yet can also be mounted on larger ships and for the same HS equivalent has the same or less combat power relative to the larger weapons for both attack and defence. So far the only realistic option is nuclearslurpee's 4% accuracy gauss.
You could maybe make it so that commercial type ships require wealth instead of MSP for the purposes of maintenance if for some reason you or the playerbase feels like having any ship stay up for "free" is too much. That would prevent the micromanagement nightmare while also adding a cost to having a massive merchant marine / making wealth matter consistently throughout the entire length of the campaign.
It is possible, as I do that for ground units outside combat, but I would have to adjust wealth to account for it and I like the way wealth works now. Also, a lot of 'commercial' ship functions match planet-based functions so charging maintenance on one but not the other would cause some balance issues. In summary, it works very well now so I don't to mess with it for minimal gameplay benefit.
Ok, the reason why you are confused is because i havent been able to explain my idea in a good way. Part of that is my limited english. So i will try my best here.
The concept im trying to put is: We already have pods that has to be put in a fighter in order to use a auto-cannon, light bombardment and it can also be used to put a missile in it.
Given the relative weakness of beam fighters (vs missile fighters, larger ships), I would love to see them buffed a little. Rejiggering the cost of high-performance engines certainly could help by reducing the build cost/time.
Another approach would be to make each engine produce a small, flat amount of power based on reactor tech. If balanced appropriately, this would enable small ships with limited power requirements (i.e. fighters which typically only have one small weapon) to skip having dedicated powerplants, saving a bit of hull space and BP. This wouldn't materially impact game balance outside of fighters, as that amount of power wouldn't mean much to larger ships, which would still require dedicated powerplants.
There seems to be an assumption that missile fighters are better than beam fighters. That might be true in a one-off battle, but I'm definitely not convinced that is true in a campaign situation and Aurora balance is all about campaigns, not individual battles. They can also perform better than the same tonnage of ships, depending on the armament of the ships.To be honest, currently, I would say that beam fighters are not very good compared to missile ones. Mainly based on cost. For beam fighters to engage they either need the cover of a fleet or they take heavy losses each fight. Missile fighters can be smaller, much cheaper, longer range/deployment, and survive easier.
Given the relative weakness of beam fighters (vs missile fighters, larger ships), I would love to see them buffed a little. Rejiggering the cost of high-performance engines certainly could help by reducing the build cost/time.
Another approach would be to make each engine produce a small, flat amount of power based on reactor tech. If balanced appropriately, this would enable small ships with limited power requirements (i.e. fighters which typically only have one small weapon) to skip having dedicated powerplants, saving a bit of hull space and BP. This wouldn't materially impact game balance outside of fighters, as that amount of power wouldn't mean much to larger ships, which would still require dedicated powerplants.
There seems to be an assumption that missile fighters are better than beam fighters. That might be true in a one-off battle, but I'm definitely not convinced that is true in a campaign situation and Aurora balance is all about campaigns, not individual battles. They can also perform better than the same tonnage of ships, depending on the armament of the ships.
Given the relative weakness of beam fighters (vs missile fighters, larger ships), I would love to see them buffed a little. Rejiggering the cost of high-performance engines certainly could help by reducing the build cost/time.
Another approach would be to make each engine produce a small, flat amount of power based on reactor tech. If balanced appropriately, this would enable small ships with limited power requirements (i.e. fighters which typically only have one small weapon) to skip having dedicated powerplants, saving a bit of hull space and BP. This wouldn't materially impact game balance outside of fighters, as that amount of power wouldn't mean much to larger ships, which would still require dedicated powerplants.
There seems to be an assumption that missile fighters are better than beam fighters. That might be true in a one-off battle, but I'm definitely not convinced that is true in a campaign situation and Aurora balance is all about campaigns, not individual battles. They can also perform better than the same tonnage of ships, depending on the armament of the ships.
I actually wonder about that. It's true of capital ships to a degree, because missile combat tends to use up your missiles fast, but while missile fighters expend ammo, beam fighters expend themselves. Sure in a campaign you can build more, but you can also build more missiles. And you can stockpile missiles for no cost but stockpiled fighters cost maintenance. Meanwhile it's very rare for missile fighters to take any losses at all.
Your test game so far shows just how high fighter losses can be when engaging even with an advantage. And so far they've been lucky enough not to run into an AI AMM ship, which can absolutely devastate beam fighters. It'll be interesting how well they handle the logistics of an extended campaign.
Add evasion stat to ships. Calculated from speed and tonnage modified so its negligible to large warships, but another layer of protection for fighters and facs?
Yeah a beam fighter is often going to cost multiple missiles fired (relatively) safely from a missile fighter. So I'm not convinced entirely on the overall strategic superiority of beamy bois.
However I also don't really have an answer to that problem without arbitrarily adding fighter-only systems which would go everything aurora currently stands for. Back when meson fighters were a thing you beam fighters were quite powerful to the point where they could be a bit broken. But perhaps the meson needs to be revisited (just in general, not just for fighters) and make it not so underwhelming.
An idea: I think if you want to keep the % to ignore armor setting you could add a tech-line for mesons that can increase their damage beyond 1. You roll the chance to ignore armor like usual but whenever the roll fails, the meson loses 1 damage (deals it to the armor) and keeps rolling until it either it reaches the internals or runs out of damage to roll with. You would still keep the overall damage number of mesons really small compared to equivalent weapons but now they'd have a better go at achieving their gimmick of ignoring armor even on heavily armored ships.
We were interested to see that a number of “corvette” – i.e. sub-frigate – classes of warship have emerged since our last edition, especially since the role of the frigate is already extremely limited, due to the limitations of its available mass and volume on its capacities, to wolf-pack deployments for light anti-piracy control, scouting, minor system pickets, and civilian system-security functions.
...
This is to say that the corvette appears to be designed for ease of maintenance in the low-technology field first, survivability – such as is possible at this scale – second, and warfighting ability third.
In the light of these unusual features, and of its emergence after the case of Sarine v. Galactic Volumetric Registry, the true purpose of the corvette becomes clear. They are a political ship class, not a military one. In other words, they are not intended to put up a practical system defense; rather, they are intended to permit a single-system polity which does not wish to bear the expense of a viable star nation’s naval establishment to claim system sovereignty – by virtue of policing their own space – using a few corvettes at a fraction of the expense of actual warships.
Everyone seemed focused on a purely offensive comparison between beam and missile fighters. A fast fighter with a high tracking speed and fast-firing guns is ideal for point defence. Missile fighters have no defensive capability.Because this function is strictly inferior to turret of same size...
Everyone seemed focused on a purely offensive comparison between beam and missile fighters. A fast fighter with a high tracking speed and fast-firing guns is ideal for point defence. Missile fighters have no defensive capability.Because this function is strictly inferior to turret of same size...
Your test game so far shows just how high fighter losses can be when engaging even with an advantage. And so far they've been lucky enough not to run into an AI AMM ship, which can absolutely devastate beam fighters. It'll be interesting how well they handle the logistics of an extended campaign.
But perhaps the meson needs to be revisited (just in general, not just for fighters) and make it not so underwhelming.
Everyone seemed focused on a purely offensive comparison between beam and missile fighters. A fast fighter with a high tracking speed and fast-firing guns is ideal for point defence. Missile fighters have no defensive capability.Because this function is strictly inferior to turret of same size...
Since this is morphing in a discussion on the usefulness of fighters generally.... How does ECM/ECCM play into this? The benefit of larger ships and the weakness of smaller ships, which is amplified with fighters, is the "infrastructure" that goes with having a working ship becomes a larger part of your overall tonnage. A bridge is a good example, although we dodge that with fighters since they're sub-1000 tons. ECM/ECCM becomes more important at higher tech levels, since it impacts ability to hit or be hit, but even the reduced size ECM or ECCM is 50 tons, or 10% of the size of a max-size fighter. Will fighters still be viable at higher tech levels with the handicap that they'll have to start committing a minimum of 10% of their mass to ECM or ECM (or 20% to both)?
Although now that I think about it, having a reduced-size ECCM on a fighter might substantially improve survivability vs AMMs, which I assume rarely include ECM.
I'm partly asking because the one time I've tried fighters it was at a relatively high level of tech (e.g. I was using level 3 ECM/ECCM in most of my ships but none in my fighters), and my fighters got shredded. It's possibly I just wasn't employing them effectively, though.
Since this is morphing in a discussion on the usefulness of fighters generally.... How does ECM/ECCM play into this? The benefit of larger ships and the weakness of smaller ships, which is amplified with fighters, is the "infrastructure" that goes with having a working ship becomes a larger part of your overall tonnage. A bridge is a good example, although we dodge that with fighters since they're sub-1000 tons. ECM/ECCM becomes more important at higher tech levels, since it impacts ability to hit or be hit, but even the reduced size ECM or ECCM is 50 tons, or 10% of the size of a max-size fighter. Will fighters still be viable at higher tech levels with the handicap that they'll have to start committing a minimum of 10% of their mass to ECM or ECM (or 20% to both)?
Everyone seemed focused on a purely offensive comparison between beam and missile fighters. A fast fighter with a high tracking speed and fast-firing guns is ideal for point defence. Missile fighters have no defensive capability.
even though fighter factories work just fine in building armored vessels (but can't build unarmored vessels).
(snip)
but god forbid I want to launch a 10ish-ton active sensor into orbit like we currently do for modern day satellites
Sentry R1 class Sensor Outpost 229 tons 11 Crew 34.2 BP TCS 5 TH 0 EM 0
1 km/s No Armour Shields 0-0 HTK 4 Sensors 5/5/0/0 DCR 1 PPV 0
MSP 93 Max Repair 10 MSP
Drengr Control Rating 1
Intended Deployment Time: 3 months
Active Search Sensor Std Rng 08.6 Res 10 (1) GPS 100 Range 8.6m km Resolution 10
EM Sensor Standard 05 (1) Sensitivity 5 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 17.7m km
Thermal Sensor Standard 05.0 (1) Sensitivity 5 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 17.7m km
This design is classed as a Commercial Vessel for maintenance purposes
This design is classed as a Space Station for construction purposes
This design is classed as a Space Station for auto-assignment purposes
doesn't make sense that commercial ships can not install large sensor arrays of any sort despite modern civilian shipping having radar and sonar almost universally availableI'm not an expert but I am fairly sure that IRL there are huge differences between military and civilian sensors. I have previously wondered if the 50T limit might be too large given the changes to sensor range in C# 1.0.
Basically compare the BSG campaign with the 40k campaign.Everyone seemed focused on a purely offensive comparison between beam and missile fighters. A fast fighter with a high tracking speed and fast-firing guns is ideal for point defence. Missile fighters have no defensive capability.
Missile fighters don't have direct defensive capability, no, but they're frequently used to launch missile strikes from outside enemy missile range, so indirectly they're often extremely capable anti-missile defense.
To be fair, beam fighters can do that too. It's just if beam fighters are used as long range strike capability they tend to take heavy losses and missile fighters don't. So my gut feeling/limited experience is that beam fighters don't have a strong campaign scale logistics advantage over missile fighters or beam/missile capital ships, but I'm willing to see how it works out in practice.
(generally) You can't use components with fighter factories or ground factories
This is for balance even if it makes me sad sometimes.
(generally) Renaming FACs and Fighters
Renaming FACs and Fighters to 'Boats' makes a certain amount of sense (and sets expectations which is important) but I object because 'Boats' sounds worse. 'Small Craft' is a bit too unwieldy. 'Sloop' or 'Brig' might work, less likely 'Yacht' or 'Dingy'. But sailing ship types might not set expectations correctly. Maybe 'Planes' would work? Maybe not.
Anyway if we're going to rename anything it had better be swapping Commercial and Civilian so that all of that finally makes sense.
(generally) You can't use components with fighter factories or ground factories
This is for balance even if it makes me sad sometimes.
--- I SM modify shipyards into "Fighter Complexes" to get around this. It's pop inefficient after a certain tonnage, but I like it just fine. :) Oh and it let's you both use components for fighters AND refit them... although the latter presents certain... difficulties.
(generally) You can't use components with fighter factories or ground factories
This is for balance even if it makes me sad sometimes.
--- I SM modify shipyards into "Fighter Complexes" to get around this. It's pop inefficient after a certain tonnage, but I like it just fine. :) Oh and it let's you both use components for fighters AND refit them... although the latter presents certain... difficulties.
It also allows you to repair internal component damage on the fighters. I've noticed that carriers will only repair their armor.
If you set a fighter to repair a system, it will do so using the carrier's MSP.
I'm also curious as to why ship size isn't a factor in ToHit chance calculations, and only speed - does anyone have any insight or historical knowledge as to why this is the case? I would've thought that even in a transnewtonian world if two objects of largely different sizes were moving at the same velocity, the smaller object would be more difficult for weaponry to hit.Add evasion stat to ships. Calculated from speed and tonnage modified so its negligible to large warships, but another layer of protection for fighters and facs?
Yeah a beam fighter is often going to cost multiple missiles fired (relatively) safely from a missile fighter. So I'm not convinced entirely on the overall strategic superiority of beamy bois.
However I also don't really have an answer to that problem without arbitrarily adding fighter-only systems which would go everything aurora currently stands for. Back when meson fighters were a thing you beam fighters were quite powerful to the point where they could be a bit broken. But perhaps the meson needs to be revisited (just in general, not just for fighters) and make it not so underwhelming.
An idea: I think if you want to keep the % to ignore armor setting you could add a tech-line for mesons that can increase their damage beyond 1. You roll the chance to ignore armor like usual but whenever the roll fails, the meson loses 1 damage (deals it to the armor) and keeps rolling until it either it reaches the internals or runs out of damage to roll with. You would still keep the overall damage number of mesons really small compared to equivalent weapons but now they'd have a better go at achieving their gimmick of ignoring armor even on heavily armored ships.
>> I'm also curious as to why ship size isn't a factor in ToHit chance calculations, and only speed
Compare vessel size and speeds. Modern CVs are around the 300m mark, for a displacement of around 100,000 tons (and yes, displacement isn't the same as gross tonnage, but it makes the point adequately). The largest ship ever built was an oil tanker of about 450m. Now consider that an Aurora freighter will likely be travelling at at least 1000km/s (barring some very early, low-tech designs) and that even if it was a full kilometre long, it would still be traversing 1000x its' own length every second at that speed. Target size is a negligible factor compared to just putting a beam or warhead in the general vicinity of a target due to its' speed
>> I'm also curious as to why ship size isn't a factor in ToHit chance calculations, and only speed
Compare vessel size and speeds. Modern CVs are around the 300m mark, for a displacement of around 100,000 tons (and yes, displacement isn't the same as gross tonnage, but it makes the point adequately). The largest ship ever built was an oil tanker of about 450m. Now consider that an Aurora freighter will likely be travelling at at least 1000km/s (barring some very early, low-tech designs) and that even if it was a full kilometre long, it would still be traversing 1000x its' own length every second at that speed. Target size is a negligible factor compared to just putting a beam or warhead in the general vicinity of a target due to its' speed