Aurora 4x
C# Aurora => C# Suggestions => Topic started by: nuclearslurpee on February 03, 2023, 04:55:43 PM
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I try to avoid starting threads in the Suggestions and Bug Reports boards, there are too many as it is, but this is an idea which I don't really have fleshed out and I think would benefit from discussion.
When it comes to missile combat, generally the sense seems to be that missiles are not as good as beam weapons overall, with the possible exception of box launcher spam which many regard as an exploit (although in multiple-player-race games it can be countered with dedicated tactics). There are a few reasons for this:
- Strategic costs: missiles take a lot of time and resources to produce, and a more involved logistics train to supply to the front lines. Beam weapons basically require nothing but a little MSP once built.
- With non-box launchers, it is very challenging to build up a sufficient salvo size to penetrate modern point defenses. Even the 30% size option, which is nominally twice the size as a box launcher and therefore in principle should be able to manage 1/2 the salvo size, in practice will only manage closer to 25% or 30% as large of a salvo, because of the need to also mount magazines with reloads (otherwise, there is no reason not to use box launchers). Full-size launchers are just a joke for anything except rapid-firing AMMs.
- Point defenses are very powerful beyond the early tech levels. On one hand, AMMs beyond the early techs are quite efficient and with 3:1 or 4:1 AMM-to-ASM interception ratios will tend to come out ahead in resource use - destroying a size-4 ASM for every three size-1 AMMs fired is a good deal. On the other hand, beam PD seems to have gotten more sophisticated since the VB6 days, which seems to be as much players figuring out the game (i.e., laser turrets are not very good as PD) as anything else.
- Beam weapons are cooler. There is nothing to be done on this point.
The big challenge with trying to buff missiles is how to do so without making the box launcher tactic significantly stronger. This means we can't really buff missiles by changing the missiles themselves (if anything, a small nerf is needed to the Agility techs to make AMMs less dominant, but that's another discussion entirely). Given this, my idea is to look at changing how missile launchers work, and along these lines I have two main ideas but I'm not sure yet if all the potential balance problems are worked out.
1. Change missile launcher size scaling. For example, if missile launchers scaled as SQRT(missile_size) instead of the current linear scaling, larger missiles would be more viable and the choice of ASM size more interesting. Currently, due to efficient point defenses and the dominant need to produce an overwhelming salvo size, smaller launchers are preferable. It is true that larger missiles can have larger warheads, but since point defense works on a per-missile basis, independent of missile size, each larger missile destroyed is a greater proportion of damage lost from a salvo compared to loss of smaller missiles.
For a simple example, consider three prototype ASMs: Size-4 with WH:4, Size-6 with WH:6, and Size-8 with WH:9 (let's assume we get the extra warhead space due to tonnage efficiency, for the sake or argument). For simplicity we'll consider all three to have similar speed, range, agility, etc.
Currently, a fleet capable of launching 200 size-4 missiles could launch 150 size-6 or 100 size-8 missiles. If the enemy fleet PD can destroy 50 missiles on approach:
- Against 200 size-4 ASMs, 150 survive and deliver up to 600 damage (depending on hit rates).
- Against 150 size-6 ASMs, 100 survive and deliver up to 600 damage.
- Against 100 size-8 ASMs, 50 survive and deliver only up to 450 damage.
If the enemy fleet PD can destroy 100 missiles on approach:
- Against 200 size-4 ASMs, 100 survive and deliver up to 400 damage.
- Against 150 size-6 ASMs, 50 survive and deliver up to 300 damage.
- Against 100 size-8 ASMs, none survive.
If the enemy fleet PD can destroy 150 missiles on approach:
- Against 200 size-4 ASMs, 50 survive and deliver up to 200 damage.
- Against 150 size-6 ASMs, none survive.
- Against 100 size-8 ASMs, none survive.
At any rate, there is not really any reason to prefer using larger missiles. This is before we even think about the longer detection range against size > 6 missiles which could give the enemy more time to launch AMMs, or better tracking bonuses for beam fire.
By contrast, if missile launcher size scales as SQRT(missile_size), a fleet capable of launching 200 size-4 missiles could launch roughly 160 size-6 missiles or 140 size-8 missiles. In this case: if the enemy fleet PD can destroy 50 missiles on approach:
- Against 200 size-4 ASMs, 150 survive and deliver up to 600 damage (depending on hit rates).
- Against 160 size-6 ASMs, 110 survive and deliver up to 660 damage.
- Against 140 size-8 ASMs, 90 survive and deliver only up to 810 damage.
If the enemy fleet PD can destroy 100 missiles on approach:
- Against 200 size-4 ASMs, 100 survive and deliver up to 400 damage.
- Against 160 size-6 ASMs, 60 survive and deliver up to 360 damage.
- Against 140 size-8 ASMs, 40 survive and deliver up to 360 damage.
If the enemy fleet PD can destroy 150 missiles on approach:
- Against 200 size-4 ASMs, 50 survive and deliver up to 200 damage.
- Against 160 size-6 ASMs, 10 survive and deliver up to 60 damage.
- Against 140 size-8 ASMs, none survive.
I think this makes for a more interesting decision, don't you? :)
However, this introduces a couple of caveats:
- Eventually, launcher sizes would be smaller than their missiles (note: 1 HS = 20 MSP). This isn't likely to be a problem for the full-size launchers (the crossover is at size 400, which is not even possible right now), but for the smallest reduced-size launchers would be silly (size 9 for current box launchers, size 36 for the 30%-size launchers). This could be addressed simply by switching from SQRT to linear dependence at that breakpoint - you can't have a launcher smaller than your missile, so this makes sense easily for the player.
- Box launchers get even more ridiculous, doubling or tripling their salvo sizes for most typical missile sizes.
So we need to propose another change to make box launchers make sense.
2. Make box launchers the same size as the reloadable launchers, but make them cheaper. For the sake of example, consider if box launchers are 50% of the cost for the same size of reloadable launcher, and let's also say we eliminate the lowest launcher size (15%) so the smallest launchers are 30% of the full size. Box launchers, in addition to being cheaper per ton with this change, still generate a larger salvo size but only by a factor of around 1.5x or 2x - the larger salvo results from the absence of magazines rather than the small size of the launcher.
For a point of comparison: I usually like to use size-4 missiles for my missile-armed carrier-based fighters (4x4 on a 250-ton frame). With the two changes I'm proposing here, that form factor would not change at all except for getting slightly cheaper (since the smallest launcher size is 30% of full size, but the size-4 launcher is only 100 tons at full size with SQRT scaling; currently, a box launcher for a size-4 missile takes up 30 tons). Therefore I would say that this second change keeps box launchers in roughly the same place they are now, so overall game balance around box launchers should not change too much; however, reloadable launchers are now a lot more competitive tactically relative to box launchers.
I will note that while this change would conceivably allow for using "full-size box launchers", there's not really any reason to do that. We could keep box launchers as the last option in the drop-down (simply changing their size reduction to match the lowest 30% size), or reintroduce the missile launcher size reduction tech line from VB6. I don't care one way or the other here.
Other points. I haven't fully refined this idea so it may be worth discussion to revise some finer details. Some thoughts:
- Adding a fixed multiplier to the missile launcher size calculation would shift the 'fulcrum' for this change. For example, if we also decide to multiply the launcher size by a factor of two, size-4 launchers will remain the same size as they are now, whereas with no multiplier it is the size-1 launcher which would remain the same size. I don't know if this is needed, but it is a knob we can tweak if we are scared of large missiles being too good (or want to nerf AMM spam a bit? This could make box launcher spam stronger though...).
- I am certainly not married to SQRT scaling, some other fractional power like size^(2/3) or size^(3/4) might also be reasonable. However, the reload rate varies with SQRT, if I recall correctly, so we might just as well keep the change consistent with this other mechanic.
Comments welcome, let's hope this thread doesn't inexplicably become the ground combat mechanics discussion thread somehow. ;)
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Overall, I like the sound of this. I do wonder however about changes that happened in years past, before I started playing - Didn't large missiles used to be a problem, and a bunch of changes get made to encourage smaller missiles? Is the current situation WAI, or has there been an over-correction?
I agree that some more interesting decisions around missile size would be nice.
Some thoughts on what you've said:
- I was going to say 'Is it such a bad thing if some launchers are smaller than the missile?', until I realised then you'd be getting mass for free, as missile load mass is not counted. But having minimum launcher mass be equal to missile mass, means that at some point different reload rates would give the same size launcher.
- One interesting tweak could be to apply the reload size multiplier to the missile size, and _then_ apply the square root. So something like HS=(MSP*0.3)^(1/2), instead of HS = 0.3*(MSP^(1/2)), for a 30% size launcher. Doing it this way, box launchers become _bigger_ than they currently are for small missiles. The break-even point is about size 7 ish for box launchers, and size 2.5 for a 40% size launcher.
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I heartily agree with the overall premise that missiles aren't in a great place currently, aside from box launchers. I don't think I have much to add to what's already been said, but I would like to toss an idea on the pile to be ripped to shreds.
Missile Durability (or missile armor). This might be something innate to larger size missiles, with larger missiles being increasingly armored, requiring more hits from PD to destroy. Or this might be another selection, like agility or fuel, that the player could adjust and spend missile size points on. This isn't a fleshed-out idea like those above, simply an idea that might make larger missiles more attractive.
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Overall I really like this... although beam weapons would still be too good against full size launchers, that would not have changed at all. Otherwise I like the overall idea that larger missiles launchers are more space efficient than smaller ones. This would also make AMM missiles less efficient which is not a bad things either. I fully agree with the Agility... I always normalize agility between around 80-140 in my games anyway. That way it will have an impact but not run away on efficiency.
One thing I might be a bit worry about it fitting missiles to fighters. A 500t fighter might at most be able to carry one perhaps two size 4 missiles at best.
In the game currently, full size launchers are just terrible as you can easily match them at equivalent tech level with relatively cheap beam PD and shields for the occasional leakers. The only way to use missiles currently is to reduce the size of the launcher so you can fit more of them.
With this change larger missiles would also be more attractive as box or reduced size launched variants.
The benefit of larger missiles are ECM/ECCM, range and bigger warhead so it dig deeper into the opposing armour. So, we should obviously not just count damage as the important factor of a missile.
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I heartily agree with the overall premise that missiles aren't in a great place currently, aside from box launchers. I don't think I have much to add to what's already been said, but I would like to toss an idea on the pile to be ripped to shreds.
Missile Durability (or missile armor). This might be something innate to larger size missiles, with larger missiles being increasingly armored, requiring more hits from PD to destroy. Or this might be another selection, like agility or fuel, that the player could adjust and spend missile size points on. This isn't a fleshed-out idea like those above, simply an idea that might make larger missiles more attractive.
Missiles used to have armour before and was one way to make bigger missiles better.
Missile durability might be better than changing the size of launchers... but the changes to box launched missiles still could be implemented in some form. Currently the box launched launcher are so much more powerful than anything else as long as you can reload them properly somehow. I always have to put restriction on their use or else things will devolve fast. I always imagine that ships need a certain amount of tonnage for internal components and structural integrity so I can't mount too much weapons on the outer hull... the bigger the ship the less outer hull space they have or place for spinal mounted items which box launchers could be on a fighter craft for example so part of the hull integrity.
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- I was going to say 'Is it such a bad thing if some launchers are smaller than the missile?', until I realised then you'd be getting mass for free, as missile load mass is not counted. But having minimum launcher mass be equal to missile mass, means that at some point different reload rates would give the same size launcher.
I think it would not be difficult to couple reload rate to missile size instead of launcher size, if this isn't already how it is done under the hood.
- One interesting tweak could be to apply the reload size multiplier to the missile size, and _then_ apply the square root. So something like HS=(MSP*0.3)^(1/2), instead of HS = 0.3*(MSP^(1/2)), for a 30% size launcher. Doing it this way, box launchers become _bigger_ than they currently are for small missiles. The break-even point is about size 7 ish for box launchers, and size 2.5 for a 40% size launcher.
I think it is better to keep the linear scaling of the size multiplier, otherwise the different sizes will not be very much differentiated in practice.
Missile Durability (or missile armor).
Missiles used to have armour before and was one way to make bigger missiles better.
If I recall correctly, Steve removed missile armor on purpose as it made point defense much more difficult in a way that pushed a narrow gameplay direction to counteract. Specifically, any way you implement it basically makes Gauss/Railguns markedly inferior to laser turrets and requires multi-point damage AMMs. That being said, I don't know too well the actual balance in those cases, so it could be worth considering but my gut instinct is that if Steve took it out on purpose he won't want to put it back in.
One thing I might be a bit worry about it fitting missiles to fighters. A 500t fighter might at most be able to carry one perhaps two size 4 missiles at best.
I may not have written it clearly, but the way I wrote the proposed changes would mean a 250-ton fighter can still mount four size-4 box launchers just like we can currently, and heavier launchers would be a bit more efficient. Fighters should overall not be affected too much, mainly I want to make the larger launchers more viable relative to box launchers.
In the game currently, full size launchers are just terrible as you can easily match them at equivalent tech level with relatively cheap beam PD and shields for the occasional leakers. The only way to use missiles currently is to reduce the size of the launcher so you can fit more of them.
I have pretty much given up on full-size launchers for general ASM work, even with these changes the mechanics simply require a massive salvo size to beat PD in any case... I think that is realistic, but it does mean not every launcher size marking is equally viable. Full-size launchers are still probably ideal for AMMs if you have sufficient reload tech, and I think the intermediate sizes between 100% and 30% have niche applications (e.g., anti-FAC/fighter missile defenses especially against beam-armed opponents).
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Real fire control's have a limit to the number of missiles that can be guided at once. You could use a similar mechanism to limit the upper bound of box launcher spam, as you'd either need more fire controls, adding tonnage to the ship, or sensors on the missiles, adding tonnage to the missile.
I do like the sqrt change to launcher size making larger missiles more viable for damage on target per salvo. Maybe in addition to a logistical buff which could be made so that larger missiles are also more mineral efficient to produce?
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Edit2: I found an old post that may have some historical relevance to this discussion: http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg103096#msg103096 (http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg103096#msg103096)
I think it would not be difficult to couple reload rate to missile size instead of launcher size, if this isn't already how it is done under the hood.
Isn't that the same problem I pointed out? If I understand you correctly, you're saying the launcher would reload at the same rate, whether or not you get a full size one, or a reduced-size launcher?
- One interesting tweak could be to apply the reload size multiplier to the missile size, and _then_ apply the square root. So something like HS=(MSP*0.3)^(1/2), instead of HS = 0.3*(MSP^(1/2)), for a 30% size launcher. Doing it this way, box launchers become _bigger_ than they currently are for small missiles. The break-even point is about size 7 ish for box launchers, and size 2.5 for a 40% size launcher.
I think it is better to keep the linear scaling of the size multiplier, otherwise the different sizes will not be very much differentiated in practice.
I'm not sure if I'm not understanding you, or you're not understanding me. Under the tweak I'm suggesting, sizes would still very much be differentiated. I'll link a couple of plots to show what I mean, as I'm not sure I'm explaining myself well.
https://i.imgur.com/bXHvZnI.png (https://i.imgur.com/bXHvZnI.png)
https://i.imgur.com/xDaToLg.png (https://i.imgur.com/xDaToLg.png)
https://i.imgur.com/BGsDc3h.png (https://i.imgur.com/BGsDc3h.png)
Edit: Oops! All Titles should say Launcher Size (in HS)
For the last plot, the yellow and blue lines are exactly equal, showing that for standard size launchers my suggestion makes no difference in that case.
Note that it results in less size reduction overall for box launchers, addressing one of your original points.
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One thing I might be a bit worry about it fitting missiles to fighters. A 500t fighter might at most be able to carry one perhaps two size 4 missiles at best.
I may not have written it clearly, but the way I wrote the proposed changes would mean a 250-ton fighter can still mount four size-4 box launchers just like we can currently, and heavier launchers would be a bit more efficient. Fighters should overall not be affected too much, mainly I want to make the larger launchers more viable relative to box launchers.
Ok... so if I understand correctly you mean that box launchers would have the same size as the smallest reloadable version of the normal launcher?
So in this case it would be 30% of the normal launcher down to a minimum amount based on the size of the missile it is designed for.
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Real fire control's have a limit to the number of missiles that can be guided at once. You could use a similar mechanism to limit the upper bound of box launcher spam, as you'd either need more fire controls, adding tonnage to the ship, or sensors on the missiles, adding tonnage to the missile.
I have thought about this, but the goal is mainly to buff missiles generally, not to nerf box launchers overly much. Box launchers remain roughly the same overall if we combine these two changes.
Isn't that the same problem I pointed out? If I understand you correctly, you're saying the launcher would reload at the same rate, whether or not you get a full size one, or a reduced-size launcher?
What I am trying to say is that the reload rates will remain exactly as they are now relative to the missile size and the reduced-size selection. The only thing changing is the physical size of the launcher relative to missile size. For example: a size-4 launcher will have size = SQRT(4) = 2 HS with the proposed changes, but will still have a reload rate of 60 divided by the reload rate tech as it does now. If you drop to 20% size, the launcher will have size = 0.6 HS (30 tons) but the reload rate will remain 6000 divided by the tech level, as it does now. The only change is to the physical size of the launcher; both launcher size and reload rate are tied only to the missile size (by a SQRT proportion, but this coincidental) and the size-reduction option, but not directly to each other.
I'm not sure if I'm not understanding you, or you're not understanding me. Under the tweak I'm suggesting, sizes would still very much be differentiated. I'll link a couple of plots to show what I mean, as I'm not sure I'm explaining myself well.
To clarify, I'm not opposed to your suggestion in principle, I just think it is better (all things being equal) to keep things simple for players to understand the mechanics as easily as possible. If I select "30% size launcher" and the actual size I get is 55% of the full-size one, I'm going to be confused.
Put another way, there is no difference between SQRT(0.3 * MSP), (SQRT(MSP) * SQRT(0.3)), or SQRT(MSP) * 0.55 (replace 0.3/0.55 with any size modifier you like), so if we really feel a need to change how the size reduction multiplier works why not just change the values directly in the DB instead of complicating the mechanic?
Ok... so if I understand correctly you mean that box launchers would have the same size as the smallest reloadable version of the normal launcher?
Yes. Which, in combination with the reduction of size across the board for larger launchers would tend to keep box launchers similar to how they are now, getting a bit better for larger missiles but the balance would not change much. The difference is that they are cheaper rather than smaller compared to the reloadable launcher, so they maintain their niche but the increase in salvo size relative to reloadable launchers is only around 2x instead of 3x or 4x like currently.
Basically, the goal is to buff reloading launchers and larger missiles while keeping box launchers relatively unchanged. I think current AMM and beam PD is good enough that overall balance should still be good, just with missiles as actually viable options in a beam weapon-based galaxy.
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The more I think about this idea the better is seem to me... we definitely need to make larger missiles more of an attractive option. It would make the decisions we have to make in the design are allot more interesting and dynamic. There would then be a more well defined pro and con for choosing between missile and launcher sizes.
I really like the idea that box launchers are the same size as the smallest reloadable launcher. This would only give roughly a 50-100% advantage in salvo size if you want to keep two to three salvos in the magazines or no advantage if you just want the ability to reload them in space for a higher build cost.
I do think that box launchers probably should be quite considerably cheaper... I also think that reduced launchers probably should be as expensive as normal launchers. So, the same total tonnage of maximum reduced launchers would be more expensive than full size launchers, they will cost the same amount per tube and not size. The reduction in cost of box launchers will need to be so much less expensive that it will be worth loosing the ability to reload them in space.
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--- As a fighter centric player I vehemently disagree with box launchers being the same size as 30% launchers. Unless a Fighter Only Box Launcher was implemented.
--- That said I would prefer that Box Launchers simply used the linear scaling rather that the square root scaling.
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How will this effect ground combat fire support?
Agree that box launchers should follow linear scaling and remain the cheapest option.
Missile armor as previously implemented would need a full reworking before resurrection.
Overall intriguing and please don't get sidetracked trying to balance this or that.
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What I am trying to say is that the reload rates will remain exactly as they are now relative to the missile size and the reduced-size selection. The only thing changing is the physical size of the launcher relative to missile size. For example: a size-4 launcher will have size = SQRT(4) = 2 HS with the proposed changes, but will still have a reload rate of 60 divided by the reload rate tech as it does now. If you drop to 20% size, the launcher will have size = 0.6 HS (30 tons) but the reload rate will remain 6000 divided by the tech level, as it does now. The only change is to the physical size of the launcher; both launcher size and reload rate are tied only to the missile size (by a SQRT proportion, but this coincidental) and the size-reduction option, but not directly to each other.
Ah, I think I see where we've talked past each other. I was referring to the thing where you pointed out that at some point launchers would mass less than the missiles they launch, and you suggested they could be capped to have a minimum mass equal to the missile they fire.
Take your theoretical 400 MSP missile launcher. By your calculations you say a standard size launcher would mass the same as the missile. Assuming launchers' minimum mass is equal to minimum mass, then the 'reduced size' launchers would also have the same mass as the standard size launcher. This was the issue I was trying to point out.
However I've since run the numbers myself and realised that with the max size of 99 MSP, this is a non issue, as only box launchers would hit this crossover point (at 60 MSP)
To clarify, I'm not opposed to your suggestion in principle, I just think it is better (all things being equal) to keep things simple for players to understand the mechanics as easily as possible. If I select "30% size launcher" and the actual size I get is 55% of the full-size one, I'm going to be confused.
Put another way, there is no difference between SQRT(0.3 * MSP), (SQRT(MSP) * SQRT(0.3)), or SQRT(MSP) * 0.55 (replace 0.3/0.55 with any size modifier you like), so if we really feel a need to change how the size reduction multiplier works why not just change the values directly in the DB instead of complicating the mechanic?
Yeah I see your point. If they were still named with their size reduction, instead of the reduced reload rate, this would be confusing.
--- As a fighter centric player I vehemently disagree with box launchers being the same size as 30% launchers. Unless a Fighter Only Box Launcher was implemented.
--- That said I would prefer that Box Launchers simply used the linear scaling rather that the square root scaling.
I think perhaps you're not getting what nuclearslurpee is trying to say here:
Ok... so if I understand correctly you mean that box launchers would have the same size as the smallest reloadable version of the normal launcher?
Yes. Which, in combination with the reduction of size across the board for larger launchers would tend to keep box launchers similar to how they are now, getting a bit better for larger missiles but the balance would not change much. The difference is that they are cheaper rather than smaller compared to the reloadable launcher, so they maintain their niche but the increase in salvo size relative to reloadable launchers is only around 2x instead of 3x or 4x like currently.
Basically, the goal is to buff reloading launchers and larger missiles while keeping box launchers relatively unchanged. I think current AMM and beam PD is good enough that overall balance should still be good, just with missiles as actually viable options in a beam weapon-based galaxy.
Here's a plot of the proposed box launcher sizes (assuming I've understood nuclearslurpee correctly): https://i.imgur.com/kFAnjwL.png (https://i.imgur.com/kFAnjwL.png)
As a fellow fighter-centric player, I'm all for this proposed change. Only box launchers for missile sizes 1, 2 or 3 would be larger, and I've never mounted AMMs on my fighters. I usually go for size-6 ASMs on my fighters, and now the launchers would be smaller.
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Interesting proposal. My first impression is that it is probably a good idea. I think I have already unconsciously accepted the underlying premise of the proposal based on the fact that I have gravitated toward beam-only fleets with the exception of box-launcher-armed small craft.
First though, I've created a table based on my understanding of the above to just check this is what you mean in terms of size. Cost for box launchers, as proposed, would be half the cost of the 30% launcher.
The tables on the right show how many launchers you could fit in 12 HS (600 tons) based on current and proposed mechanics.
(http://www.pentarch.org/steve/Screenshots/ProposedLauncherChangesV3.PNG)
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I may misunderstand something in game mechanics, but if box launcher is no different from 30% launcher except it cant be reloaded, somewhat cheaper and is prone to explosions, it makes box launchers not really worth it unless you field missile-heavy fleets and simultaneously face resource shortage. Also it may harm significantly missile fighters gameplay.
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--- As a fighter centric player I vehemently disagree with box launchers being the same size as 30% launchers. Unless a Fighter Only Box Launcher was implemented.
If both changes are taken together, box launchers remain the same net size for 4-MSP missiles and become actually a bit smaller for larger missiles. Fighter-centric doctrines come out quite nicely here. :)
--- That said I would prefer that Box Launchers simply used the linear scaling rather that the square root scaling.
I thought about this but it means that beyond some size mark box launchers are bigger than reloadable (30% size) launchers which is not very sensible.
Ah, I think I see where we've talked past each other.
Yes, I expected there would be some points I did not write very well, hence wanting discussion to clarify the ideas. :)
Assuming launchers' minimum mass is equal to minimum mass, then the 'reduced size' launchers would also have the same mass as the standard size launcher. This was the issue I was trying to point out.
This makes sense now. I'm not sure what to do about this, but I do know that the 30% size only meets the missile size at 36 MSP, which is such a large an impractical size that I'm not sure it's worth worrying about at least for game balance.
Here's a plot of the proposed box launcher sizes (assuming I've understood nuclearslurpee correctly): https://i.imgur.com/kFAnjwL.png (https://i.imgur.com/kFAnjwL.png)
This looks correct and your analysis is spot-on.
Interesting proposal. My first impression is that it is probably a good idea. I think I have already unconsciously accepted the underlying premise of the proposal based on the fact that I have gravitated toward beam-only fleets with the exception of box-launcher-armed small craft.
I have similar experience which motivates this idea. If I ever use missiles on large ships now I use only 30% size or box launchers purely for salvo size reasons, and the 30% size always disappoints me because after magazine space is accounted for I can only generate ~1/3 or 1/4 the salvo size of box launchers. This was what led me to think about messing with launcher size scaling, to get reloadable launchers closer to box launchers (though of course box launchers are the kings for single-salvo sizes). After that I spent probably too much time trying to sort out the practical game-balance issues. :)
First though, I've created a table based on my understanding of the above to just check this is what you mean in terms of size. Cost for box launchers, as proposed, would be half the cost of the 30% launcher.
The tables on the right show how many launchers you could fit in 12 HS (600 tons) based on current and proposed mechanics.
This looks right to me! I will note that the "number of launchers in 12 HS" do not include the effect of additional magazine space, which along with the lower cost is what would make box launchers able to general larger salvo sizes than 30% size reloadable launchers.
Also, if you extend your tables out you'll see that the 30% size launchers have the same size as the missiles they fire, so this is where a switch to linear scaling is needed. Also at size 64 for the 40% size launchers the same phenomenon occurs. Otherwise there are no issues for MSP < 99 which is the current in-game limit.
As a side note about game balance, NPRs may have some difficulty with point defense in some cases as they do not use "sensor nets" of small craft/fighters to extend their effective AMM range, which is one of the key counters currently against box launchers (for player races). This means some testing will be needed to make sure NPRs are not too badly hurt by this change, although conversely they can take advantage of the smaller launchers to present a similar challenge to unprepared player races.
I may misunderstand something in game mechanics, but if box launcher is no different from 30% launcher except it cant be reloaded, somewhat cheaper and is prone to explosions, it makes box launchers not really worth it unless you field missile-heavy fleets and simultaneously face resource shortage. Also it may harm significantly missile fighters gameplay.
The key difference is that reloadable launchers require magazines. If you don't use magazines, then of course you want the box launchers which are cheaper. If you do use magazines, then the number of missiles you can launch from the same size of ship/fleet is reduced as each magazine takes away tonnage that could otherwise be a launcher.
(And if players find 50% cheaper is not good enough for some reason, we can always change it, but 50% cheaper keeps the cost in line with what box launchers cost currently.)
As has been discussed in the thread, missile fighters will generally benefit from these changes. Only small missiles (MSP < 4) are negatively affected and relatively few players use these small sizes on fighters. Missiles larger than 4 MSP can actually be mounted more densely on fighters with this proposal.
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Yes, I think the key difference for box launchers would be they no longer offer a size advantage over the 30% launcher, but instead represent a design decision to forgo reloads in favour of the maximum possible alpha strike, with the side benefit or a 50% cost reduction. Box launchers would be the same or slightly better than before (except for missile sizes under 4), but full size launchers would be much better.
It also changes the current dynamic that favours smaller missiles, which adds more meaningful decisions on missile design.
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The key difference is that reloadable launchers require magazines.
I may have misread, but was this a part of suggestion? For now they do not really require them, they authomatically add magazine space to design equal to expected missile size. Was a great surprise for me when I built a vessel carrying three salvos worth of magazines and ended up with four salvos per vessel.
So it boils down to tradeoff between price and chance to explode when taking reloading out of picture. Which is not really making box launchers more viable than reduced launchers without magazines bar resource shortage, if your ships are expected to see combat and get shot at.
Edit: I will put it more bluntly. You can easilly match box launchers salvo size by reduced size launchers if they are the same size which defeats the whole purpose of box launchers. May remove them alltogether then, or make classical launchers actually require magazines to add secondary costs and essentially return to situation with box launchers being more compact but with extra steps.
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The key difference is that reloadable launchers require magazines.
I may have misread, but was this a part of suggestion? For now they do not really require them, they authomatically add magazine space to design equal to expected missile size. Was a great surprise for me when I built a vessel carrying three salvos worth of magazines and ended up with four salvos per vessel.
So it boils down to tradeoff between price and chance to explode when taking reloading out of picture. Which is not really making box launchers more viable than reduced launchers without magazines bar resource shortage, if your ships are expected to see combat and get shot at.
Edit: I will put it more bluntly. You can easilly match box launchers salvo size by reduced size launchers if they are the same size which defeats the whole purpose of box launchers. May remove them alltogether then.
Yes, using the mechanics of this proposal you could have a dozen box launchers or pay twice as much for a dozen 30% reduction launchers (without adding magazines) and consequently have the same amount of launchers in the same space. However, why would you choose the latter and pay double cost unless you also planned to add magazines?
Which is why I said above that the design choice changes to maximum alpha strike, or inclusion of magazines.
This proposal doesn't make box launchers any worse than they are now. It just makes the reloadable launchers a serious alternative option.
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As has been discussed in the thread, missile fighters will generally benefit from these changes. Only small missiles (MSP < 4) are negatively affected and relatively few players use these small sizes on fighters. Missiles larger than 4 MSP can actually be mounted more densely on fighters with this proposal.
In my current campaign, I have 2.5 MSP missiles on my bombers, so they would be worse off. I don't think that is a problem though as they are very powerful now.
Starhawk III class Bomber 500 tons 2 Crew 138.2 BP TCS 10 TH 200 EM 0
20004 km/s Armour 1-5 Shields 0-0 HTK 2 Sensors 0/0/0/0 DCR 0-0 PPV 4.56
Maint Life 0.19 Years MSP 5 AFR 100% IFR 1.4% 1YR 26 5YR 394 Max Repair 100 MSP
Magazine 30
Lieutenant Commander Control Rating 1
Intended Deployment Time: 2.4 days Morale Check Required
Ravenor AC-200-B Attack Craft Drive (1) Power 200 Fuel Use 268.33% Signature 200 Explosion 20%
Fuel Capacity 29,000 Litres Range 3.89 billion km (54 hours at full power)
Light Torpedo Launcher (12) Missile Size: 2.5 Hangar Reload 79 minutes MF Reload 13 hours
MK IV Light Torpedo Fire Control (1) Range 44.8m km Resolution 120
MK VI-B Light Torpedo (12) Speed: 80,400 km/s End: 2.6m Range: 12.7m km WH: 7 Size: 2.5 TH: 268/160/80
MK IV Starhawk Augur Array (1) GPS 864 Range 31.7m km Resolution 120
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However, why would you choose the latter and pay double cost unless you also planned to add magazines?
I did not follow all changes - do box launchers still behave differently concerning chance of explosions of stored ordnance? If yes, I am sure as hell going for reduced launchers over box.
I made edit after you started your message, it all would make drastically more sence if non-box launchers dont add magazine space by themselves. At all. But it will come as nerf to classical launchers essentially subtracting one salvo which is probably not good thing.
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However, why would you choose the latter and pay double cost unless you also planned to add magazines?
I did not follow all changes - do box launchers still behave differently concerning chance of explosions of stored ordnance? If yes, I am sure as hell going for reduced launchers over box.
I made edit after you started your message, it all would make drastically more sence if non-box launchers dont add magazine space by themselves. At all. But it will come as nerf to classical launchers essentially subtracting one salvo which is probably not good thing.
All launchers would still add 'magazine space'. There is no proposal to change that.
The box launcher explosion mechanic was intended to prevent huge ships mounting massed box launchers. I have a small number of the class below in my current game, which do mount box launchers, but I probably wouldn't mount them on anything larger because of that mechanic. However, if 30% reduction launchers are effectively reduced to the same size as box launchers, it probably doesn't make sense to retain that mechanic anyway.
Cobra III-D class Destroyer 9,375 tons 162 Crew 1,835.8 BP TCS 187 TH 1,875 EM 2,550
10000 km/s Armour 4-39 Shields 85-510 HTK 37 Sensors 0/14/0/0 DCR 6-6 PPV 57
Maint Life 2.18 Years MSP 739 AFR 117% IFR 1.6% 1YR 209 5YR 3,135 Max Repair 468.75 MSP
Magazine 375
Commander Control Rating 2 BRG AUX
Intended Deployment Time: 18 months Morale Check Required
Ravenor RDS-938-B Inertial Confinement Fusion Drive (2) Power 1875.0 Fuel Use 30.26% Signature 937.5 Explosion 12%
Fuel Capacity 332,000 Litres Range 21.1 billion km (24 days at full power)
Valentinian-Stern VS-85 Void Shield (1) Recharge Time 510 seconds (0.2 per second)
Light Torpedo Launcher (150) Missile Size: 2.5 Hangar Reload 79 minutes MF Reload 13 hours
MK III Light Torpedo Fire Control (4) Range 34.8m km Resolution 120
MK I Anti-Cloak Torpedo Fire Control (1) Range 17.4m km Resolution 15
MK VI-B Light Torpedo (150) Speed: 80,400 km/s End: 2.6m Range: 12.7m km WH: 7 Size: 2.5 TH: 268/160/80
MK III Cloak Detection Array (1) GPS 420 Range 27.5m km Resolution 15
MK III Frigate Active Augur Array (1) GPS 10080 Range 95.4m km Resolution 120
MK III Electromagnetic Augur Array (1) Sensitivity 14 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 29.6m km
ECCM-2 (1) ECM 30
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BTW the only serious concern I have on the whole proposal is how to ensure NPRs deal with increased salvo sizes, but that is more about improving NPR ship design and tactics than an issue with the mechanics.
Although I suppose the situation isn't really any worse than now in terms of max salvo size - its more about larger reloadable salvo sizes.
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BTW the only serious concern I have on the whole proposal is how to ensure NPRs deal with increased salvo sizes, but that is more about improving NPR ship design and tactics than an issue with the mechanics.
Although I suppose the situation isn't really any worse than now in terms of max salvo size - its more about larger reloadable salvo sizes.
This is my primary concern as well, but really any buff to missiles is going to come with a "but what about the poor NPRs?" question. For this reason I would certainly not expect to see this in v2.2, more likely 2.3+.
However...if we can already abuse the poor NPRs, what's one more new and exciting way to do it? :P
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This sounds like an excellent idea! Great job setting this out nuclearslurpee.
I've wanted to have star-trek style 'torpedo launchers' as secondary weapons next to beams on ships in playthroughs, but larger missiles and full size launchers are wildly impractical/space-intensive to have with a ROF which approaches beams. I had accepted that they are an active detriment to a ship design but it would be great if they wouldn't be... and I think this proposal would make size 8-12 missiles a viable possibility.
Indeed, it would actively incentivize the use of larger missiles! Why go for size 8, when you can use 50% larger size 12 missiles for only ~20% more hull space. Obviously this has a number of drawbacks, mostly economically, but the psychological effect shouldn't be understated and I think would make the consideration much more interesting!.
The most amazing part IMO is that MS1 spam doesn't get buffed by this. My greatest peeve is how Precursors are most dangerous when they make their AMMs into armor-abrading gattling-missile-launchers - wave size is king after all.
One point I would like to raise with the prospect of potentially buffing missiles, is that reduced-size launchers are linearly cheaper to produce than full sized ones, and that might deserve a commensurate (inversed) quadratic change - after all the materials for building a missile launcher don't evenly go into its reloading infrastructure:
- Miniaturization technology should be somewhat costly to produce
- The launch tube is going to require a minimum structure to actually hold the missile, provide exhaust flow, cover the missile ports etc.
- Fitting dozens of launchers is complexer to implement, and should take more time to build
- Volley size is king, increasing it by increasing your launchers by a factor of 6 deserves to cost more than 1x as much
Perhaps change build cost of reduced-size launchers to 1-(1-size)^2:
(https://i.imgur.com/PgNcIs5.png)
or even 1-(1-size)^3:
(https://i.imgur.com/XDae3LU.png)
Obviously this is relatively minor next to the cost of the missiles, but again it has a psychological effect: guiding players to recognize that more launchers isn't without cost.
P.S. I wish the website could handle showing all these images and tables without having to jump through hoops to stop browsers redirecting to HTTPS
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One point I would like to raise with the prospect of potentially buffing missiles, is that reduced-size launchers are linearly cheaper to produce than full sized ones, and that might deserve a commensurate (inversed) quadratic change - after all the materials for building a missile launcher don't evenly go into its reloading infrastructure:
- Miniaturization technology should be somewhat costly to produce
- The launch tube is going to require a minimum structure to actually hold the missile, provide exhaust flow, cover the missile ports etc.
- Fitting dozens of launchers is complexer to implement, and should take more time to build
- Volley size is king, increasing it by increasing your launchers by a factor of 6 deserves to cost more than 1x as much
I don't hate your idea, but I don't love it either. Still trying to figure out what my opinion is.
Have you factored into your thinking the increase in magazine size and cost that goes with additional launchers?
I feel like we already pay a lot in increased reload time for increased number of tubes. If you measure in missiles launched per day (or some other suitably long time frame to let things average out), the reduced size launchers are much, much less efficient, ton for ton. So part of me says you're asking to make reduced size launchers pay twice.
On the other hand, I take your point about cramming more tubes in feels like it ought to cost more.
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I like the justifications given and on the surface of it I like Turiel's idea quite a bit.
However, in practice I think we have to be careful with tweaking the costs too much as the strategic effects can be difficult. Missiles are already pretty expensive, both to build and to maintain the logistics chain for, so bumping up the cost for missile fleets would make it even harder to actually match a beam fleet ton-for-ton - how that balances against the intended tactical improvements which we hope make missiles more viable is unclear but it would pose an uphill battle for missile fleets. If we reduce the base cost to compensate then this is a bit of a buff for the AMM-spam tactics that most players do not like very much.
Given this I think keeping the cost mechanics as they are, aside from the proposed box launcher changes, is the reasonable starting point and then Steve can use cost as another knob to tweak if he feels the need in testing the changes.
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Yes, using the mechanics of this proposal you could have a dozen box launchers or pay twice as much for a dozen 30% reduction launchers (without adding magazines) and consequently have the same amount of launchers in the same space. However, why would you choose the latter and pay double cost unless you also planned to add magazines?
Which is why I said above that the design choice changes to maximum alpha strike, or inclusion of magazines.
This proposal doesn't make box launchers any worse than they are now. It just makes the reloadable launchers a serious alternative option.
I think there is a point to this concern to some degree which is why I suggested that reducing the size of launchers should not lower the cost of the launcher so reduced sized launchers are more costly per size over full size launchers and then you give box launchers perhaps 25% the cost of regular launchers.
The cost of launchers are generally relatively cheap in comparison with many other components, especially later on when engines and other components go up allot in cost. It would also give some cost reduction for using the less efficient full size launchers in ASM configuration over reduced size launchers.
For larger ships there certainly is a point to mount 30% reduced launchers with no magazines in order to increase the size of the missiles you can fire, that is exactly why all naval ships today have just that kind of system installed on them. Being able to reload them in space without needing a hangar is good enough for 30% reduced launcher size for the most part.
If you make all launchers cost the same as full size launchers then launchers will be expensive and using box launchers ships will make sense sometimes. You will always want box launchers on ships you intend to carry in hangars no matter what, but for patrol ships and system defence ships there will now be more of choice and a real downside for both options.
I quite often use 30% reduced launchers without magazines even in todays game for the same reasons, larger salvos or just more space for other things. These launchers reload so slow anyway that you are not going attack based on attrition anyway. The only time I add magazines is if the ship also have AMM launchers... the magazines now can serve a dual purpose but primarily is for AMM missiles.
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Assuming launchers' minimum mass is equal to minimum mass, then the 'reduced size' launchers would also have the same mass as the standard size launcher. This was the issue I was trying to point out.
This makes sense now. I'm not sure what to do about this, but I do know that the 30% size only meets the missile size at 36 MSP, which is such a large an impractical size that I'm not sure it's worth worrying about at least for game balance.
I've messed around with different functions, and I can see there are some that have an oblique asymptote that gets close to, but never quite reaches launcher_mass=missile_mass. But, it's messy, doesn't follow a simple progression from a gameplay perspective, and as you've pointed out probably doesn't matter: For size 64 missiles and above, 40% and 30% launchers will be the same mass. Yay for us. It'll probably never come up.
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--- As a fighter centric player I vehemently disagree with box launchers being the same size as 30% launchers. Unless a Fighter Only Box Launcher was implemented.
--- That said I would prefer that Box Launchers simply used the linear scaling rather that the square root scaling.
IIRC, this goes against the general sentiment Steve has of keeping things consistent.
I feel generally out of my depth in combat discussions since most of my campaigns stall out before getting past Precursors, but I read enough AARs to kinda understand the tactical level of the game.
Howrver, this is a war game and it models logistics appropriately well as wargames tend to do, and I feel like a lot of these super heavy numbers discussions miss the bigger picture of the fact that most wars are decided entirely by logistics and are already won or lost before the first time fleets make contact, but I digress.
30% being the same size as box launchers is an interesting idea, but thematically it's still a bit strange they would be the same size. Sure, you're gonna need magazines, but, in theory, couldn't 30% reduced be resupplied by a collier while box launchers need to be docked (or I may be mixing this one up). And if they're the same size, even regardless of cost, I'd probably just always throw 30% launchers on if they lack the explosion chance and give me the option to refit later on if I get extra HS with a micro magazine, to gain a few more alpha strikes without external resupply. Trying to play Devil's advocate, I guess.
Generally though the strength of the box launcher is in alpha strike, and the weakness is logistical overhead. Assuming I'm not wrong and you need a hangar to resupply box launchers (or maybe I am and they just take way longer, I forgot which), I think the changes to launcher size scaling (which I like) can be added while leaving box launchers alone, if you make them logistically more challenging. Like a switch to a hard need for military hangar space to reload them, which pretty much makes non-fighters a very tricky challenge to manage on that end (assuming I'm wrong and that's not already the case).
With that in mind I think the issue, as others have pointed out and Steve has admitted to designing towards, is carrier based craft with missiles in box launchers, which can be very effective. And if we take a page from naval history, that's pretty on the money for the current "meta" of IRL.
But we could also (and I acknowledge, at the risk of getting out of scope and getting a bit suggestion - y, although this is the suggestions forum), "nerf" missile fighters a bit by adding more logistical overheads, and especially (as is the case from history) making carriers more vulnerable to damage from fighters onboard getting hit.
Carriers in general, I feel, have always needed a logistical rework in line with what fuel and ammo got to make it less instantaneous and more "forward-planning" based. A large issue, especially during WW2 was carriers going up in massive conflagrations after getting hit while spotting an air wing, the term used to describe filling up the flight deck bow-to-stern with fueled and armed aircraft. Even in the modern era this is still very much a concern (USS Forrestal) and could bre an interesting design path for Aurora).
Now, fire mechanics are definitely out of scope (if interesting and perhaps worth discussion on their own), but having some more carrier systems with their own design tradeoffs (launch tubes, flight decks, maintenance bays, etc.) could open a path towards a "spotting" system. The basic idea is, fighters take time to launch, which can be problematic in an unplanned encounter. Having your wings "spotted" can drastically reduce this, at the cost of hugely more potential for secondary explosions from hangar hits. The rationale being fighters in the hangars being fueled and ammo being transferred from the carrier's magazines.
At the extreme end, this could be from the aforementioned "carrier systems" rework, and at the easiest end it could just be a flat "launching fighters takes a certain time based on already existing factors and the spotting button just speeds that up while adding risk".
I'm also not immediately recalling damage mechanics for fighters in hangars when hit, is there some mechanic for fighters taking damage when that happens and potentially causing secondary explosions? If not, that could be a first step.
Anyways, the size changes are good but the box launcher discussion seems fixed on fighters and small craft, which I feel could be handled in a deeper way, IMO. I may eventually open a thread on hangar and launch time mechanics, but I wanted to throw the idea out here because it could also assist with the box launcher conundrum as well.
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I don't hate your idea, but I don't love it either. Still trying to figure out what my opinion is.
[..]
I feel like we already pay a lot in increased reload time for increased number of tubes.
I get you, but I think it's looking at missiles the wrong way.
More launchers = better. As nuc illustrated in the OP: having a wave of 100 missiles is vastly inferior to a wave of 600 missiles. It doesn't matter if that wave of 600 only fires every 200 minutes, while the wave of 100 can be every 10 seconds - if it doesn't overwhelm PD, the damage is 0.
That should cost more.
I like the justifications given and on the surface of it I like Turiel's idea quite a bit.
However, in practice I think we have to be careful with tweaking the costs too much as the strategic effects can be difficult. Missiles are already pretty expensive, both to build and to maintain the logistics chain for, so bumping up the cost for missile fleets would make it even harder to actually match a beam fleet ton-for-ton - how that balances against the intended tactical improvements which we hope make missiles more viable is unclear but it would pose an uphill battle for missile fleets. If we reduce the base cost to compensate then this is a bit of a buff for the AMM-spam tactics that most players do not like very much.
Given this I think keeping the cost mechanics as they are, aside from the proposed box launcher changes, is the reasonable starting point and then Steve can use cost as another knob to tweak if he feels the need in testing the changes.
My fear is that missiles might swing too much to the strong side, and that's why I wanted to suggest a (relatively minor) cost disincentive.
The point is to make choices feel more complex and meaningful, by tweaking player psychology with incentives.
The main cost of missile armaments is the missiles and logistics, but that's not a cost people see when building their ships. When you're designing the Porcupine McMacross Missile Massacre with its 600 box launchers, you shouldn't be incentivized by seeing that its a cheaper vessel than the 100-tube magazine-fed ship of equal tonnage... but you are.
Because Box Launchers not only cost 0.15 as much as a regular launch tube, the launch tubes are probably 2x or more expensive again because of the cost increase from missile ROF tech. And it takes crew!
It's actually not even close. Factoring in magazine size and crew quarters, the box-to-standard comparison is closer to... 1/10. To even carry 600 missiles, you can at most fit 60 full size tubes at medium tech levels in the same tonnage. And the ship costs ~ 20% more for the privilege of being vastly inferior in combat capability by dividing it's 600 shots over 10 individually intercept-able waves. Your idea helps this somewhat, halving the effectiveness of box launchers, I don't want to understate how good an idea that is.
My reasoning for worrying about stronger missile ships is that missile vs beam is pretty much binary: Either the missiles take out the opposing force before they reach beam range (presuming the beam ships are fast enough to catch them to begin with) or the beam ships win with superior ROF and no concern for ammo.
Right now the only really dangerous missiles are AMM spam. That's a pain, but manageable in a number of ways. Your proposal is going to enable similar size missile waves for size 4, or size 9 missiles. That kind of firepower will take out earlier-tech fleets. The precursors are going to get all the more painful by more than doubling their ASM wave sizes.
Now, I feel I'm somewhat derailing the original point of the thread. And I agree with your final point above: by all means park the idea of changing launcher price, I'm a huge fan of the initial proposal. It's OK if missiles are stronger. They need to be - my concern may not even be relevant.
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Now, I feel I'm somewhat derailing the original point of the thread. And I agree with your final point above: by all means park the idea of changing launcher price, I'm a huge fan of the initial proposal. It's OK if missiles are stronger. They need to be - my concern may not even be relevant.
Although I wonder what in this change that makes missiles stronger than before, the change only change the relationship between smaller and larger missiles. Box launched missiles to some degree actually become a small bit worse not better, depending on the size of the missile.
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What is the concern with trying to 'balance' waves vs box launchers? Aurora has already well established the idea that not all options are equal, there are some weapons that will always be 'worse' or at least are only viable in a very specialist niches. Waves are always going to be worse for all the excellent reasons mentioned and no plausible cost saving can make that worthwhile.
I'd also say that one of the most annoying parts of the game is tediously pushing through waves of missiles which your PD can easily handle, so surely the concern should be making sure the AI's designs and fleet composition can take advantage of the proposed missile launcher rules and not trying to twist the system and invent special rules just to make a bad idea seem viable?
If the concern is choice in missile, then Box Launcher vs 30% provides that. There is an advantage in being able to re-arm ships outside of a dockyard or colony so that does become a choice, a slightly smaller massive salvo vs being able to keep a fleet on station after a fight.
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I get you, but I think it's looking at missiles the wrong way.
More launchers = better. As nuc illustrated in the OP: having a wave of 100 missiles is vastly inferior to a wave of 600 missiles. It doesn't matter if that wave of 600 only fires every 200 minutes, while the wave of 100 can be every 10 seconds - if it doesn't overwhelm PD, the damage is 0.
That should cost more.
It absolutely should. My point there was that it already costs a _lot_ more, in terms of rate of fire.
Of course a smaller salvo that can't penetrate is wasted. But if your salvoes are getting through, but you need 2 or 3 penetrating salvoes to neutralise an enemy beam fleet before it closes with you and shoots you to bits, then rate of fire is going to matter. Not as much as salvo size, but it does still matter. And currently we pay dearly in ROF, for the increased number of launchers.
Although I wonder what in this change that makes missiles stronger than before, the change only change the relationship between smaller and larger missiles. Box launched missiles to some degree actually become a small bit worse not better, depending on the size of the missile.
It does so by making launchers smaller (even box launchers, for size > 4), allowing more tubes and larger salvoes for the same tonnage, while incentivising larger missiles by making this buff apply more to larger missiles.
More tubes = bigger salvoes = stronger.
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I get you, but I think it's looking at missiles the wrong way.
More launchers = better. As nuc illustrated in the OP: having a wave of 100 missiles is vastly inferior to a wave of 600 missiles. It doesn't matter if that wave of 600 only fires every 200 minutes, while the wave of 100 can be every 10 seconds - if it doesn't overwhelm PD, the damage is 0.
That should cost more.
It absolutely should. My point there was that it already costs a _lot_ more, in terms of rate of fire.
Of course a smaller salvo that can't penetrate is wasted. But if your salvoes are getting through, but you need 2 or 3 penetrating salvoes to neutralise an enemy beam fleet before it closes with you and shoots you to bits, then rate of fire is going to matter. Not as much as salvo size, but it does still matter. And currently we pay dearly in ROF, for the increased number of launchers.
Although I wonder what in this change that makes missiles stronger than before, the change only change the relationship between smaller and larger missiles. Box launched missiles to some degree actually become a small bit worse not better, depending on the size of the missile.
It does so by making launchers smaller (even box launchers, for size > 4), allowing more tubes and larger salvoes for the same tonnage, while incentivising larger missiles by making this buff apply more to larger missiles.
More tubes = bigger salvoes = stronger.
Humm... don't entirely agree... first of, rate of fire are second to just bring more launch tubes instead. So it is ALWAYS going to be better to bring enough launch tubes than make sure you have good rate of fire. That is just the way it is.
For the second point... you don't make missile attacks stronger in the sense that size 4 missiles still are more efficient than size 5 even with this change, the change is that bigger missiles become more viable when you factor in range, electronics and payload. So yes sure, bigger missiles become a bit more powerful that they was before... but they were less powerful than smaller missiles before anyway which has not changed. Missiles smaller than 4 also become a bit worse than they were before.
The balance between beam and missiles does not really change in any big amount with this change.
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At the ranges of most engagements, a 60s or even more, reload time is no big deal. Depending on speed and distance your closing rate may be hours afterall. I would always greatly undersize my launchers to get more in the same space and was always happy forgoing a decent ROF. The only missiles I really care about are AMM launchers.
In anycase, I approve of this suggestion. It'd be nice to see larger missiles be a lot more viable. I personally always liked making size 12+missiles and doing sub munitions. Maybe not optimal but it was fun!
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Yeah, unfortunately that's very much true.
Only exception is if you play multi-faction Earth starts, where it's likely that several human navies have ships in relatively close proximity in a Cold War style situation but for normal human vs NPR/spoilers gameplay the ROF for ASM's mostly doesn't matter.
This change looks interesting and making bigger missiles more viable is definitely worthwhile.
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I am in favour of making reloadable launchers more viable as they do take too much space at the moment but dont see why box launchers have to be so hugely nerfed in the process. I am not sure this is going to help early game, it seems based on a late game perspective.
Early game, with Raiders set to system#0, you have to build fighters because they wipe out your shipyards.
Basic fighter class defence orbital costs 43BP, of which 8.1BP is made of non launcher components ie 19%.
If you double the component size of the box launcher and keep its missile size the same then you will halve the cost of the box launchers per fighter class orbital and you will halve the salvo size per fighter. But you are effectively adding a salvo tax of +19% cost to build launchers because you have to build twice as much non launcher components per launcher because you have to build twice as many orbitals to get the same salvo alpha count because you can only build fighters.
Also if you do this, box launchers become redundant after the first twenty years of the game as 30% launchers will reload quicker at an ordnance distribution point. All because noone tried to figure out a way to scale box launcher size independently from reloadable launchers, which is where the argument appears to spring from.
My suggestion would be to treat box launchers as a different class of launcher and continue to scale as a direct proportion to missile size, currently its 3x e.g. size 1 missile at 2.5t uses box launcher = 7.5t, but it could credibly be a bit more, say 4x so 10t box launcher instead of 7.5t currently, meaning e.g. an orbital with 16 s3 box launchers could only field 12. Then scale build cost down relative to size as suggested with consideration for the salvo tax effect.
Also I will just throw this in as we are discussing ideas, have you considered having a fighter only "hard point" or "pylon"? Similar to the box launcher class in scaling smaller than box launchers, say 3x missile size, with the disadvantage that it is external and not an internal component so any damage hitting the outside of the ship has a chance of hitting the hard point instead of armour, destroying any unlaunched missile with double the box launcher chance of detonating the missile which reduces with the box launcher reduction tech and must use a planet based ordnance distribution point to reload (Spaceport or Ordnance Transfer Station) due to gravity requirement for fixings i.e. cannot use hangar, hub or collier. Can only be used on fighter class as they can land on planet. Just a thought as this distinguishes the fighter class in a meaningful way and gives me my early game fighter planet defence fleet!
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I'm gonna re-link the nice little spreadsheet Steve made (http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=13191.msg163817#msg163817) because it is important:
(http://www.pentarch.org/steve/Screenshots/ProposedLauncherChangesV3.PNG)
If you look you will realize that box launchers are not substantially nerfed by the proposed changes. This is because while box launchers are proposed to be 30% of the size, they are also benefiting from the reduction of launcher size for larger missiles due to SQRT size scaling.
- If you look at the two tables on the right, comparing the current and proposed cases, box launchers for size-4 missiles remain just as efficient and for larger missiles actually get smaller.
- The bottom-left table is even more succinct, showing that only box launchers smaller than size 4 will see a "nerf". Bottom-right table is just the cost comparison showing box launchers cost 50% of the smallest reloadable launcher.
This basically means that box launchers are only nerfed for the smallest missile sizes, which is fine as these are not used too much anyways, and box launchers actually get a little bit of a buff for larger missiles, which is arguably a good thing because one of the goals is to make larger missiles more viable as a tactical choice.
I feel like people are looking only at the "double box launcher size" part and missing that this change only makes sense in tandem with the "launcher size scales as SQRT" change. The overall goal is to make reloadable missiles more viable relative to box launchers and to make larger missiles more viable relative to smaller ones - not to nerf box launchers in general.
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Overall I like the idea, but the biggest issue I see is if you make Box Launchers and 30% ones the same size, 30% becomes the no-brainer choice (even if the cost of full size ones in my opinion), as it eliminates the need for a lot of the infra you need to rearm box-launcher ships in deep space.
I would suggest if the idea is to make box launchers 30% size, then the reloadable 30% size should be done away with, and the smallest becomes 40%.
Or alternatively if 30% sized launchers are desired to be kept, the make box launchers 20% size or something.
As a personal aside, I rather like using Size 1 Box Launchers for PD against factions also rocking box launchers, so this would cut the number available in half, but I suppose thats a fairly niche use.
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With all due respect, the suggestion that noone uses sub size 4 launchers isn't true. Box launchers for my current game started at s3 and then migrated to s1.7. Precisely because of the current scaling and the nature of missile vs PD interaction.
Lennon Karma class Orbital Defence Platform 488 tons 2 Crew 43 BP TCS 10 TH 0 EM 0
1 km/s Armour 1-5 Shields 0-0 HTK 0 Sensors 0/0/0/0 DCR 0 PPV 7.65
Maint Life 25.31 Years MSP 38 AFR 8% IFR 0.1% 1YR 0 5YR 2 Max Repair 2.5 MSP
Magazine 51
Seeker Control Rating 1
Intended Deployment Time: 15 months Morale Check Required
Rack (17) Missile Size: 3 Hangar Reload 86 minutes MF Reload 14 hours
Pointer (2) Range 6.6m km Resolution 18
Spear of Truth Seven (17) Speed: 42,533 km/s End: 0.4m Range: 0.9m km WH: 8 Size: 3 TH: 269/161/80
Sentinel (1) GPS 18 Range 3.3m km Resolution 18
Lennon Karma 2 alt class Orbital Defence Platform 487 tons 2 Crew 53.3 BP TCS 10 TH 0 EM 0
1 km/s Armour 2-5 Shields 0-0 HTK 0 Sensors 0/0/0/0 DCR 0 PPV 7.8
Maint Life 30.23 Years MSP 42 AFR 8% IFR 0.1% 1YR 0 5YR 1 Max Repair 2.5 MSP
Magazine 51
Seeker Control Rating 1
Intended Deployment Time: 15 months Morale Check Required
Hard Point (30) Missile Size: 1.7 Hangar Reload 65 minutes MF Reload 10 hours
Pointer (3) Range 14.2m km Resolution 18
Tyrant's Teacher (30) Speed: 41,177 km/s End: 0.3m Range: 0.7m km WH: 6 Size: 1.7 TH: 301/181/90
Sentinel (1) GPS 38 Range 7.1m km Resolution 18
At these sizes, the proposed scheme is a major nerf to small box launchers.
IMHO its worth discussing the bigger picture of how the proposal would change the dynamics of box launcher use early game and make them redundant late game, (because you are always better off building 30% launchers instead if you have the time and build points to do it because they are exactly the same size).
I agree reloadable launchers deserve to be more usable but TBH I do not think 30% launchers and box launchers should should scale the same. Just doesnt feel right.
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With all due respect, the suggestion that noone uses sub size 4 launchers isn't true. Box launchers for my current game started at s3 and then migrated to s1.7. Precisely because of the current scaling and the nature of missile vs PD interaction.
Lennon Karma class Orbital Defence Platform 488 tons 2 Crew 43 BP TCS 10 TH 0 EM 0
1 km/s Armour 1-5 Shields 0-0 HTK 0 Sensors 0/0/0/0 DCR 0 PPV 7.65
Maint Life 25.31 Years MSP 38 AFR 8% IFR 0.1% 1YR 0 5YR 2 Max Repair 2.5 MSP
Magazine 51
Seeker Control Rating 1
Intended Deployment Time: 15 months Morale Check Required
Rack (17) Missile Size: 3 Hangar Reload 86 minutes MF Reload 14 hours
Pointer (2) Range 6.6m km Resolution 18
Spear of Truth Seven (17) Speed: 42,533 km/s End: 0.4m Range: 0.9m km WH: 8 Size: 3 TH: 269/161/80
Sentinel (1) GPS 18 Range 3.3m km Resolution 18
Lennon Karma 2 alt class Orbital Defence Platform 487 tons 2 Crew 53.3 BP TCS 10 TH 0 EM 0
1 km/s Armour 2-5 Shields 0-0 HTK 0 Sensors 0/0/0/0 DCR 0 PPV 7.8
Maint Life 30.23 Years MSP 42 AFR 8% IFR 0.1% 1YR 0 5YR 1 Max Repair 2.5 MSP
Magazine 51
Seeker Control Rating 1
Intended Deployment Time: 15 months Morale Check Required
Hard Point (30) Missile Size: 1.7 Hangar Reload 65 minutes MF Reload 10 hours
Pointer (3) Range 14.2m km Resolution 18
Tyrant's Teacher (30) Speed: 41,177 km/s End: 0.3m Range: 0.7m km WH: 6 Size: 1.7 TH: 301/181/90
Sentinel (1) GPS 38 Range 7.1m km Resolution 18
At these sizes, the proposed scheme is a major nerf to small box launchers.
IMHO its worth discussing the bigger picture of how the proposal would change the dynamics of box launcher use early game and make them redundant late game, (because you are always better off building 30% launchers instead if you have the time and build points to do it because they are exactly the same size).
I agree reloadable launchers deserve to be more usable but TBH I do not think 30% launchers and box launchers should should scale the same. Just doesnt feel right.
To be honest that is just a good thing... I don't mind smaller missile launchers getting worse efficiency, they still are slightly better than bigger ones in terms of volume of fire.
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With all due respect, the suggestion that noone uses sub size 4 launchers isn't true. Box launchers for my current game started at s3 and then migrated to s1.7. Precisely because of the current scaling and the nature of missile vs PD interaction.
I could go either way, really. On one hand, I wouldn't want a change for game balance to quash roleplay opportunities. On the other hand, if we are choosing to use small missiles as the optimum for beating enemy PD, maybe this is indicative of an issue that should be solved to create a more interesting decision space.
IMHO its worth discussing the bigger picture of how the proposal would change the dynamics of box launcher use early game and make them redundant late game, (because you are always better off building 30% launchers instead if you have the time and build points to do it because they are exactly the same size).
This is an important point actually, since in the late game component costs generally go up, so a 30%-size reloadable launcher with the base reload rate 1 tech will become comparatively cheaper to the point where the build cost increase is negligible. There would be a small effective size difference since the reloadables require crew whole box launchers do not, but that won't be a major factor (except maybe for fighters/FACs, which don't usually care about reloadable launchers anyways).
That said, I'm not sure it's necessarily a problem that sufficiently advanced races could afford what is basically a "more advanced" reloadable box launcher functionally. In Aurora there are several examples where technological evolution changes the balance between systems such that some systems become stronger relative to others as the game goes on - shields vs hull, AMMs vs ASMs, etc. In fact, in the latter example I can see where "reloadable box launchers" help to offset AMM dominance to some degree, or at least push the critical point a bit further down the tech tree, by becoming mainstream once ship costs in general have inflated sufficiently.
Alternatively we could consider a later-game (i.e. high RP cost) tech or short tech line to reduce the size of box launchers - say, 30% --> 25% --> 20% --> 15% at fairly high RP investments (say, 15k --> 45k --> 150k or similar, analogous to Gauss ROF techs). That would in principle be something Steve could add if he playtests at higher tech levels and finds box launchers too weak in comparison, so it doesn't have to be a requirement to implement the other changes.
And again, box launchers would not really be completely eclipsed so long as they remain useful for fighters/FACs. All in all, I'd be okay with the idea of at least playtesting "as-is" for one version to see how things shake out in practice.
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Oh yes, i love this idea, always wanted larger launchers and missiles, but was disappointed by their lack of efficacy.
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In terms of box launcher and the 30% being the same size... in my opinion box launchers should only be for ships meant for carriers or carrier stations or ships that operate within a system and have access to maintenance facilities.
I don't think we should use box launcher for proper capital warship to begin with. I basically view the 30% launcher as like a vertical launch system where you more or less need to reload them externally, this is why they take so long to reload, the difference between box launcher and the 30% ones are that the ship with reloadable launchers in space carry the equipment to do so while the box version does not, this is the increased cost and additional crew needed to operate them.
The fact that they are more expensive and require crew also means they take up more space in crew quarters and engineering facilities and/or MSP. So they are not truly the same size in a practical sense.
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In terms of box launcher and the 30% being the same size... in my opinion box launchers should only be for ships meant for carriers or carrier stations or ships that operate within a system and have access to maintenance facilities.
I don't think we should use box launcher for proper capital warship to begin with. I basically view the 30% launcher as like a vertical launch system where you more or less need to reload them externally, this is why they take so long to reload, the difference between box launcher and the 30% ones are that the ship with reloadable launchers in space carry the equipment to do so while the box version does not, this is the increased cost and additional crew needed to operate them.
The fact that they are more expensive and require crew also means they take up more space in crew quarters and engineering facilities and/or MSP. So they are not truly the same size in a practical sense.
Also, if you have reloadable launchers, then presumably you will need something with which to reload them, which means dedicated magazine space. As I said in an earlier post - the design decision isn't really 30% vs box, but rather whether you are designing a ship for multiple salvos or just one.
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In terms of box launcher and the 30% being the same size... in my opinion box launchers should only be for ships meant for carriers or carrier stations or ships that operate within a system and have access to maintenance facilities.
I don't think we should use box launcher for proper capital warship to begin with. I basically view the 30% launcher as like a vertical launch system where you more or less need to reload them externally, this is why they take so long to reload, the difference between box launcher and the 30% ones are that the ship with reloadable launchers in space carry the equipment to do so while the box version does not, this is the increased cost and additional crew needed to operate them.
The fact that they are more expensive and require crew also means they take up more space in crew quarters and engineering facilities and/or MSP. So they are not truly the same size in a practical sense.
Also, if you have reloadable launchers, then presumably you will need something with which to reload them, which means dedicated magazine space. As I said in an earlier post - the design decision isn't really 30% vs box, but rather whether you are designing a ship for multiple salvos or just one.
Not necessarily - if all 30% launchers are is 'box launchers that dont require maintenance facilities or hangars to reload', then all the magazine space you need is already there, you can just refill them from a collier in a fleet much more conveniently than current box launchers, hence the my concern about them just replacing box launchers entirely.
Also, another issue this size progression will bring up is that it makes 'canister' launchers (ie. a missile containing other missiles as second stage, and no actual range/etc on the first stage) very attractive. If a Size 9 launcher is 3 HS and a Size 3 launcher is 1.73 HS, then it becomes extremely attractive to design size 9 'canister' missiles containing 3 size 2.95 (or whatever the exact size ends up being) missiles inside, getting vastly higher salvo density (~6-6.5x) and ultimately doing nothing to actually change the small vs large missiles issue, just shifting the meta for how it is done.
While fundamentally I agree there is an issue, both with beam vs missile attractiveness, and small vs large missile balance, I'm not really sure this is the right way of resolving it, instead I feel like bringing some of the things that made larger missiles viable in VB like armour, possibly bringing back/reworking laserheads, and also possibly considering new mechanics like either guidance limits (possibly mitigated by additional onboard avionics on missiles which take space), and/or a scaling (tech dependent and in favour of large missiles, so say 0.2 MS in a S1, but only 0.4 MS in a Size 4, 0.6 MS in a Size 9, etc) fraction of missile size being dedicated to avionics/guidance to begin with could alleviate things atleast for the small vs large approach.
I do also think fighters could benefit from a specific type of 'launch rail' option.
Edit: Example of this sort of 'canister' design, in this case a 4x1.225 AMM canister designed to give my ships with S5 box launchers (since they carry an R1 MFC anyway) a way to contribute additional defensive fire. This is a pretty niche use, but can obviously be done for ASM too.
Missile Size: 5.000 MSP (12.5000 Tons) Warhead: 0 Radiation Damage: 0 Manoeuvre Rating: 10
Speed: 240 km/s Fuel: 204 1st Stage Flight Time: 0 seconds 1st Stage Range: 0k km
2nd Stage Flight Time: 31 seconds 2nd Stage Range: 1,025.8k km
Cost Per Missile: 6.473264 Development Cost: 402
Second Stage: RIR-25A Dart x4
Second Stage Separation Range: 1,020,000 km
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 2.4% 3k km/s 0.8% 5k km/s 0.5% 10k km/s 0.2%
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the difference between box launcher and the 30% ones are that the ship with reloadable launchers in space carry the equipment to do so while the box version does not, this is the increased cost and additional crew needed to operate them.
The fact that they are more expensive and require crew also means they take up more space in crew quarters and engineering facilities and/or MSP. So they are not truly the same size in a practical sense.
Yes, that is why, you put your finger on it there.
I acknowledge I am still a relative noob with Aurora but thought the following might be interesting for this discussion.
Found an example of something a bit like a 30% reloadable launcher which I thought would be worth relaying (in this document "21-INCH ABOVE WATER TORPEDO TUBES" https://archive.hnsa.org/doc/destroyer/ddtubes/index.htm ). This destroyer torpedo tube assembly requires a manned hoist to reload. Maybe the tube itself is equivalent to a box launcher. The point being reloading requires machinery and space behind the tube assembly, like a submarine torpedo room. Undoubtedly this would be automated in the TransNewtonian age.
(https://archive.hnsa.org/doc/destroyer/ddtubes/img/fig002.jpg)
(https://archive.hnsa.org/doc/destroyer/ddtubes/img/fig012.jpg)
Thinking about the maths and fair warning I am better at biology than maths tbh I wondered if there was a simple scaling model which should be true to life for a box launcher as the box launcher should enclose a missile, so should scale with missile tonnage as if a surface area surrounding a volume.
So if you treat the box launcher as a cube with side L and cubic volume L^3, the surface area is 6*(L^2). i.e. square of cube root x6.
Box tonnage = ((∛missile tonnage)^2)*6
So at the risk of getting carried away I plugged it into LibreOffice and got this, which I thought you might be interested to see, to save you the bother.
(https://imgur.com/hX3IHxf.jpg)
It seems to me its the same fundamental relationship between area and volume even if it is a torpedo sausage shape and uses the cylinder formulas. Granted there are differences if you wanted to get into that but I am just keeping it simple for now.
Its possible to add a term for clearance i.e. gap between missile and box, which would adjust the scale.
e.g. Box tonnage = (((∛missile tonnage)+(clearance constant))^2)*6
With a reloading mechanisms its possible to use the same fundamental cube root squared relationship by adding terms for a volume of machinery to handle the reload and conveyance from the magazine, which would also scale with missile size as a container and so would be a multiplier of the whole expression involving reload tech level and launcher reload rate %. The details would be in Steve's domain but I thought it was worth mentioning here for purposes of discussion as an alternative way of modelling all launcher sizes. Hope that is OK.
e.g. Reloadable Launcher tonnage = ((((∛missile tonnage)+(clearance constant))^2)*6) * (1+ (reload constant/reload tech level)) * (launcher reload % term)
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Also, another issue this size progression will bring up is that it makes 'canister' launchers (ie. a missile containing other missiles as second stage, and no actual range/etc on the first stage) very attractive. If a Size 9 launcher is 3 HS and a Size 3 launcher is 1.73 HS, then it becomes extremely attractive to design size 9 'canister' missiles containing 3 size 2.95 (or whatever the exact size ends up being) missiles inside, getting vastly higher salvo density (~6-6.5x) and ultimately doing nothing to actually change the small vs large missiles issue, just shifting the meta for how it is done.
Yes, that is a very good point, especially if you start designing really large missiles. Size 36 is only 6 HS - 2x larger than size 9 - and you get 4x more sub-munitions.
EDIT - I don't see an easy way around the above, so what is needed is some capability that requires internal space and is a reasonable alternative to a larger missile wave. Onboard ECM/ECCM is already an option. Perhaps other warhead types could be added. Laser heads that attack from a specified range depending on warheads size and laser tech, or shaped charge warheads that are larger than normal but with improved penetration, or Tandem-charge for a similar effect. Maybe missiles with retargeting capability if they miss, or some form of evasion capabilities, or missiles with electronic damage similar to microwaves (that require large warheads). Perhaps it's time to revisit EW and add jamming and counter-jamming. Open to ideas.
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Also, another issue this size progression will bring up is that it makes 'canister' launchers (ie. a missile containing other missiles as second stage, and no actual range/etc on the first stage) very attractive. If a Size 9 launcher is 3 HS and a Size 3 launcher is 1.73 HS, then it becomes extremely attractive to design size 9 'canister' missiles containing 3 size 2.95 (or whatever the exact size ends up being) missiles inside, getting vastly higher salvo density (~6-6.5x) and ultimately doing nothing to actually change the small vs large missiles issue, just shifting the meta for how it is done.
Yes, that is a very good point, especially if you start designing really large missiles. Size 36 is only 6 HS - 2x larger than size 9 - and you get 4x more sub-munitions.
EDIT - I don't see an easy way around the above, so what is needed is some capability that requires internal space and is a reasonable alternative to a larger missile wave. Onboard ECM/ECCM is already an option. Perhaps other warhead types could be added. Laser heads that attack from a specified range depending on warheads size and laser tech, or shaped charge warheads that are larger than normal but with improved penetration, or Tandem-charge for a similar effect. Maybe missiles with retargeting capability if they miss, or some form of evasion capabilities, or missiles with electronic damage similar to microwaves (that require large warheads). Perhaps it's time to revisit EW and add jamming and counter-jamming. Open to ideas.
On the warhead type musings;
You've already mentioned Laserheads, which I would personally love to see return as a mid-late tech option (maybe even Casaba Howitzers as an earlier tech alternative), maybe with a bit more customization that before (maybe porting some of the ideas from Newtonian with regards to accuracy/scatter etc) and some design choices to make regarding detonation distance/accuracy/etc. A 'penetrator' warhead option that turns the missile profile into something more akin to the railgun one would also be welcome. EMP warheads (potentially capable of engaging from outside final defensive fire like laserheads) are also an interesting idea.
A couple of thoughts, shooting somewhat from the hip here but I can refine these a bit when I have a bit more time (or someone else will if theres anything usable...), heres a couple of thoughts, along with my general perceived impact on balance from them. Ordered from pretty tame to 'out there'.
Adjust Launcher Sizes - Fundementally part of the logic behind this original proposal is good, so perhaps a general reduction in baseline launcher sizes to 75% of current would allow for slightly higher salvo density. Box launchers could stay their current size. (ie. Full Size would be new 75%, 80% would be 60%, 60% would be 45%, 40% would be 30%, 30% would be 22.5%, Box would be 15%). This would buff missile launchers overall vs alternatives, and box launchers less so, but do little about the missile size issue.
Altered Reload Rate Calculation - Making the missile reload rate calculation even more non-linear (or even fixed) with size would help larger launchers in non-box configurations as it would make large missiles still capable of producing decent follow up salvos. Potentially this makes the reload tech somewhat less attractive, so one option could be to double the baseline reload of everything to begin with, though this would obviously hurt missiles vs other weapons early on.
Avionics/Guidance MSP Requirement - Adding a fraction of MSP reserved to represent avionics and basic guidance systems could be a way to make large missiles more space efficient overall. If for example this avionics used up 0.2*(Missile Size)^0.5 MSP (ie. 0.2 on S1, 0.2 on S4 and 0.3 on S9), then smaller missiles would be less attractive. This could have some tech progression to reduce it at fairly large RP steps (ala Gauss RoF). Potential downside is this might make submunitions less viable. Overall would nerf missiles in general, but in particular small ones.
Altered Engine Efficiency Progression - Making the missile engine fuel efficiency curve more harmful to small missiles by for example moving the current 'baseline' from 2 MSP to 4 MSP would penalize range and/or speed on missiles smaller than that. This would probably not affect fighter or other short ranged missiles or submunitions too badly, but make long range S2/3 missiles less viable.
Missile HTK - Offering missiles some degree of fractional HTK as a progression of size would potentially make large missiles more attractive depending on the scaling. As an example, for example additional step of 2 beyond size 2 missiles gained 0.1 HTK (ie. S4 = 1.1, S8 = 1.3, S12 = 1.5, S20 = 2.0). This would mean hits with only 1 damage like typical AMMs would roll to see if the missile is actually destroyed. Potential issues include altering gauss vs laser balance (though this could be fixed by just saying 'gauss does 2 damage in final PD fire').
Missile Armour - Same as above, but deliberately using MSP to achieve the same effect within some limit. Similar issues.
Missile Penetration Aids/Decoys - Option to spend MSP to include decoys and penetration aids carried by the missile, which could work something like requiring 0.5*(Missile Size)^0.5 MSP to carry (ie. 0.7 for S2, 1 for S4, 1.5 for S9). Potentially multiple could be allowed (possibly limited by tech). Size could also be reduce with tech slightly. Each decoy carried would essentially present a false target to PD/AMM fire until destroyed - such that a shot against a missile with 1 decoy has a 50% chance (potentially also a tech progression thing) to hit the decoy, after which it would be destroyed. Potentially different effectiveness vs AMM or PD fire might be required. Effect potentially reduced by ECCM and/or enhanced by missile ECM.
Missile Reduced Cross Section - Offshoot of cloaking technology, allow spending MSP to reduce apparent size of missiles (to a far smaller degree than cloaks) for detection purposes. As an example, spending 0.5*(Missile Size)^0.5 could allow reducing it to half of the effective cloaking technology reduction (So at 90% cloak, it would reduce missiles to 45%, the fraction of cloak % given by this could also be a tech progression, as could the size needed). This is of course largely pointless for small missiles as they are already below the size 6 threshold, but could be interesting for larger ones.
Missile Guidance Channel Limits - When designing MFC, they would be designed with the capability to control a specific numbers of missiles - this number can be altered at the cost of a larger MFC (ideally being slightly more effective to concentrate capacity in one FC vs two split ones to given tradeoff between redundancy/space efficiency) and would potentially have a tech progression line to go with it. As an example, the baseline amount could be 4 missiles per FC, and for the cost of doubling this capacity would add 50% to the FC size, and so on. If a FC finds itself controlling more missiles than its limit, the accuracy (and potentially how easy they are to hit by defensive fire) of those missiles degrades in relation to how many over the limit you are (unsure if this would be linear or not). Potentially a checkbox in the combat page to instead 'discard' missiles if over its control limit. Missiles which have internal sensors, once they acquire a target on those sensors, would count at reduced capacity against the limit, or potentially not at all (though this latter option would invite even small missiles with no sensors). Missiles could also be given 'additional avionics' internally to reduce how much channel capacity they take up, at the cost of MSP (either fixed or scaling in favour of larger missiles). This change would potentially hurt box launchers quite significantly, or atleast require ships to be more seriously designed around very large salvos. Potentially if more advanced ECM/Jamming is added later it could have some interesting interplay in this regard. I realize one issue with this is how to handle the 'stream' of missiles from regular launchers, so potentially some way of differentiating missiles 'enroute' vs 'in attack phase' (and thus requiring more active guidance) might be needed.
New Launcher Type - Rotary - If box launchers are our 'VLS' equivalent, and regular launchers are something akin to either internal torpedo tubes or the 'arm' launchers of early missile ships, a potentially distinct type of launcher could be added to the mix, namely rotary or revolver launchers in the vein of those carried by some strategic bombers. These would function as a regular launcher does, except with 2 changes - their delay between shots would be reduced compared to regular launchers (this is somewhat redundant if the altered reload rate above is taken under consideration), and they have an internal capacity after which they must reload for a longer period (unsure if from magazine or via maintenance facility) to restock their internal tubes. No specifics on this as its a bit of a stray thought.
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Not necessarily - if all 30% launchers are is 'box launchers that dont require maintenance facilities or hangars to reload', then all the magazine space you need is already there, you can just refill them from a collier in a fleet much more conveniently than current box launchers, hence the my concern about them just replacing box launchers entirely.
I suspect Steve's point was that you still have to invest in colliers which are not free by any means. Granted, as commercial ships they push off the maintenance costs compared to military ships with magazines but it is still an up-front cost and requires periodic upgrading to maintain strategically viable fleet speeds.
Also, another issue this size progression will bring up is that it makes 'canister' launchers (ie. a missile containing other missiles as second stage, and no actual range/etc on the first stage) very attractive. If a Size 9 launcher is 3 HS and a Size 3 launcher is 1.73 HS, then it becomes extremely attractive to design size 9 'canister' missiles containing 3 size 2.95 (or whatever the exact size ends up being) missiles inside, getting vastly higher salvo density (~6-6.5x) and ultimately doing nothing to actually change the small vs large missiles issue, just shifting the meta for how it is done.
An important point. I also don't have a solution on hand. One idea is to have some fixed +HS per second stage, or perhaps +X% of the second stage MSP. This seems a bit weird to try and justify but would probably be fine mechanically, the bigger issue is that the additional mass becomes a balancing saddle point with no stable equilibrium, so instead of an interesting decision we get math and optimization which isn't quite idiomatic for Aurora.
also possibly considering new mechanics like either guidance limits (possibly mitigated by additional onboard avionics on missiles which take space),
I actually love the flavor of this idea and would totally suggest it, but I'm not sure it fits into Aurora (one can argue that MFCs and BFCs should be parallel, so we should change both in step) nor that it solves the problem in practice. On the latter point, a MFC is often going to be smaller and cheaper than a missile launcher, even a box launcher in many cases, so it's pretty easy to overcome guidance limits by adding another MFC or a couple and taking off a couple of launchers, rather than jumping to a larger missiles size. The smaller launchers will still easily mount a larger volley size. Further, if guidance limits improve with tech (and it would be weird if they do not), higher tech levels push the balance point further towards small missiles which is already something we'd like to avoid.
However, I do love the flavor of it, and I think making the parallel change to BFCs would be good. In part, requiring more BFCs for more numerous guns would be a helpful check on the balance between full-size and reduced-shot railguns, which is a previous point of discussion that I haven't seen any changes about in the patch notes yet.
Altered Reload Rate Calculation - Making the missile reload rate calculation even more non-linear (or even fixed) with size would help larger launchers in non-box configurations as it would make large missiles still capable of producing decent follow up salvos. Potentially this makes the reload tech somewhat less attractive, so one option could be to double the baseline reload of everything to begin with, though this would obviously hurt missiles vs other weapons early on.
This would be a very touchy change because it is important to keep a good ROF for AMMs. I know we all hate AMM spam, but without sufficiently rapid AMMs the primary counter to box launcher swarms is severely nerfed and that would not be helpful.
Altered Engine Efficiency Progression - Making the missile engine fuel efficiency curve more harmful to small missiles by for example moving the current 'baseline' from 2 MSP to 4 MSP would penalize range and/or speed on missiles smaller than that. This would probably not affect fighter or other short ranged missiles or submunitions too badly, but make long range S2/3 missiles less viable.
This doesn't make sense to me mechanically. Missiles use exactly the same engine mechanics as larger ships, except for the extra overboost capacity and matching fuel efficiency modifier. I'm completely unaware of any 2 MSP "baseline" for fuel efficiency. Is this a VB6 mechanic I've forgotten about?
Missile Armour - Same as above, but deliberately using MSP to achieve the same effect within some limit. Similar issues.
If missiles used the same armor scaling rule as ships this would be a reasonable approach IMO, if we treat armor as a +HTK instead of +HP source. Beam PD is pretty strong against anything that's not a box launcher swarm, so a bit of a nerf isn't the worst thing and making laser turrets and 12cm railguns useful in this role would add more interest.
The problem with armor on missiles is that it's pretty easy for adding armor to be better for overall survivability (against 1-damage weapons) than using the space for more engine power/speed, and possibly even generally since >1-damage PD weapons are so much less efficient per ton. We don't want to just make armoring missiles a no-brainer, and NPRs would struggle a lot with this complexity.
Missile Penetration Aids/Decoys - Option to spend MSP to include decoys and penetration aids carried by the missile, which could work something like requiring 0.5*(Missile Size)^0.5 MSP to carry (ie. 0.7 for S2, 1 for S4, 1.5 for S9). Potentially multiple could be allowed (possibly limited by tech). Size could also be reduce with tech slightly. Each decoy carried would essentially present a false target to PD/AMM fire until destroyed - such that a shot against a missile with 1 decoy has a 50% chance (potentially also a tech progression thing) to hit the decoy, after which it would be destroyed. Potentially different effectiveness vs AMM or PD fire might be required. Effect potentially reduced by ECCM and/or enhanced by missile ECM.
This would be a good fit into a ECM/ECCM rework.
Perhaps it's time to revisit EW and add jamming and counter-jamming. Open to ideas.
I have thoughts but I wouldn't want to derail the thread, it's not ground combat but it's still a veer away from topic. :)
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I suspect Steve's point was that you still have to invest in colliers which are not free by any means. Granted, as commercial ships they push off the maintenance costs compared to military ships with magazines but it is still an up-front cost and requires periodic upgrading to maintain strategically viable fleet speeds.
Fair, but its a far lower investment compared to sufficient hangar space or forward deployed maintenance bases, and colliers are something one will typically have anyway if one is running a missile based fleet, if for nothing else than AMMs.
This would be a very touchy change because it is important to keep a good ROF for AMMs. I know we all hate AMM spam, but without sufficiently rapid AMMs the primary counter to box launcher swarms is severely nerfed and that would not be helpful.
If paired with the global size reduction above, even with doubled baseline reload times (and one could instead do +50% instead) the difference would not be that significant, as you could make up with larger salvo sizes. In fact this would benefit early game PD I suspect, as often you only get one salvo off anyway, by the time you get to reload rate 3 or 4 the difference would be less significant.
This doesn't make sense to me mechanically. Missiles use exactly the same engine mechanics as larger ships, except for the extra overboost capacity and matching fuel efficiency modifier. I'm completely unaware of any 2 MSP "baseline" for fuel efficiency. Is this a VB6 mechanic I've forgotten about?
This is in reference to the 2 MSP engine being x10 fuel usage which I used a 'baseline' for fuel estimations for missiles, so apologies for the slightly misleading terminology. As said moving that spot on the curve to 4 MSP would penalize smaller missiles trying to get longer ranges. I do not see an issue with missile and ship engines having slightly different curves here, as one can argue the missile engines would be simpler, intended for a single use and then done. If needed this could be further reinforced by reducing the cost of missile engines slightly (as missile cost is one of the other factors that affects beam vs missile balance).
If missiles used the same armor scaling rule as ships this would be a reasonable approach IMO, if we treat armor as a +HTK instead of +HP source. Beam PD is pretty strong against anything that's not a box launcher swarm, so a bit of a nerf isn't the worst thing and making laser turrets and 12cm railguns useful in this role would add more interest.
The problem with armor on missiles is that it's pretty easy for adding armor to be better for overall survivability (against 1-damage weapons) than using the space for more engine power/speed, and possibly even generally since >1-damage PD weapons are so much less efficient per ton. We don't want to just make armoring missiles a no-brainer, and NPRs would struggle a lot with this complexity.
I agree it has issues as you mention - personally I'm more in favour of the 'passive' fractional HTK from the idea above that, as it becomes harder to game, and until S20 you would still have a >50% chance to 1-shot missiles with 1 damage PD weapons.
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Fair, but its a far lower investment compared to sufficient hangar space or forward deployed maintenance bases, and colliers are something one will typically have anyway if one is running a missile based fleet, if for nothing else than AMMs.
I feel like those things are probably things you want anyways (hangars, bases, etc.), whereas fleet colliers are not necessarily - a missile-heavy fleet needs colliers anyways, of course, but there's a big difference between needing strategic colliers which can keep up with a fleet versus logistical colliers which just need to have sufficient throughput to keep your bases stocked up. Notably the latter don't require so much upgrading as long as you have enough, and can take advantage of sub-50% EP modifiers much more effectively than fleet colliers can, plus you may not need as many depending on the tempo of operations or your ability to shift them between fronts, while fleet colliers are pretty much needed on a per-fleet basis. It's a more complex question than just "well, you need colliers anyways".
All this aside, even if the cost overhead for reloadable 30% vs 30% box launchers is small (past a certain tech level, anyways)...that's not necessarily a bad thing. Box launchers retain a niche for early-game ships, carrier bomber/FAC groups, short-range system defense craft, and so on - we wouldn't be nerfing them to uselessness like Steve did with mesons in the VB6 --> C# move.
If paired with the global size reduction above, even with doubled baseline reload times (and one could instead do +50% instead) the difference would not be that significant, as you could make up with larger salvo sizes. In fact this would benefit early game PD I suspect, as often you only get one salvo off anyway, by the time you get to reload rate 3 or 4 the difference would be less significant.
Against normal missiles that's fine, but against box launchers the key tactic (other than box-launched AMMs, which we would nerf somewhat with these changes) is an extended sensor net using large AM sensors or scout fighters, allowing rapid-fire AMM launchers to put out enough volleys to shoot down most or all of the swarm. If we drop reload rates, this tactic becomes prohibitive or impossible until higher reload rates (currently, RR=3 - at 4k RP, so pretty early-game - is the ROF 10 breakpoint, and RR=6 is the ROF 5 breakpoint). I think we want to be very careful that whatever changes end up happening don't lead to the effect of making box launcher swarms as dominant or even more dominant as they are now, which defeats the goal of trying to introduce more variety and decision-making into missile fleet design.
This is in reference to the 2 MSP engine being x10 fuel usage which I used a 'baseline' for fuel estimations for missiles, so apologies for the slightly misleading terminology. As said moving that spot on the curve to 4 MSP would penalize smaller missiles trying to get longer ranges. I do not see an issue with missile and ship engines having slightly different curves here, as one can argue the missile engines would be simpler, intended for a single use and then done. If needed this could be further reinforced by reducing the cost of missile engines slightly (as missile cost is one of the other factors that affects beam vs missile balance).
Makes sense, then. I think we could actually solve the fuel and cost problems pretty elegantly, by changing overboost so that it is a fixed 2x EP multiplier, with the attendant (fixed) 5x fuel use multiplier but no cost multiplier. You still get the full range of EP modifiers down to 2x the racial minimum This would have the benefit (subjectively, so this is IMO only) of making missile design a good bit easier to calculate, which I for one would greatly appreciate as it would make missile design less about tricky numerical details and more about design decisions like hit rate vs. PD avoidance.
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All this aside, even if the cost overhead for reloadable 30% vs 30% box launchers is small (past a certain tech level, anyways)...that's not necessarily a bad thing. Box launchers retain a niche for early-game ships, carrier bomber/FAC groups, short-range system defense craft, and so on - we wouldn't be nerfing them to uselessness like Steve did with mesons in the VB6 --> C# move.
I disagree, and its one of my biggest issues with the original proposal outside of the canister issue. Im just going to leave this as a difference of opinion and move on.
Against normal missiles that's fine, but against box launchers the key tactic (other than box-launched AMMs, which we would nerf somewhat with these changes) is an extended sensor net using large AM sensors or scout fighters, allowing rapid-fire AMM launchers to put out enough volleys to shoot down most or all of the swarm. If we drop reload rates, this tactic becomes prohibitive or impossible until higher reload rates (currently, RR=3 - at 4k RP, so pretty early-game - is the ROF 10 breakpoint, and RR=6 is the ROF 5 breakpoint). I think we want to be very careful that whatever changes end up happening don't lead to the effect of making box launcher swarms as dominant or even more dominant as they are now, which defeats the goal of trying to introduce more variety and decision-making into missile fleet design.
True to a point, but again, you would have more launchers in this scenario, along with box launchers being 'relatively' somewhat larger than now, so not necessarily as obvious of a choice. And of course, one can always use box launcher or canister AMMs early game against box launcher salvos, not that I see it used much (possibly because its a bit of micro hell).
Makes sense, then. I think we could actually solve the fuel and cost problems pretty elegantly, by changing overboost so that it is a fixed 2x EP multiplier, with the attendant (fixed) 5x fuel use multiplier but no cost multiplier. You still get the full range of EP modifiers down to 2x the racial minimum This would have the benefit (subjectively, so this is IMO only) of making missile design a good bit easier to calculate, which I for one would greatly appreciate as it would make missile design less about tricky numerical details and more about design decisions like hit rate vs. PD avoidance.
If you cap missile engine boost at 2x you will very significantly buff beam PD against them compared to now. I would definitely not want to get rid of the flexibility of design options the varied boost gives you - I could maybe see reducing the steps available to 10% or 25% steps perhaps.
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If you cap missile engine boost at 2x you will very significantly buff beam PD against them compared to now. I would definitely not want to get rid of the flexibility of design options the varied boost gives you - I could maybe see reducing the steps available to 10% or 25% steps perhaps.
That's not what I mean. Currently, all engines have an EP modifier with a minimum and maximum value based on racial tech, and missiles additionally get to overboost up to 2x the racial maximum, with a linear fuel efficiency factor that scales from 1.0x at the racial EP boost maximum to 5.0x at double the EP boost maximum. For example, if you have a racial maximum EP modifier of 2.0x, a missile could have an EP modifier of 2.0x (with the same fuel efficiency as any other engine), 3.0x (with 1/3 the fuel efficiency of any other 3.0x engine), or 4.0x (with 1/5 the fuel efficiency of a hypothetical 4.0x ship engine).
I am not proposing to limit the maximum EP modifier to 2.0x, but rather apply a 2.0x overboost (with attendant 1/5 fuel efficiency) to all missiles and to take that 2.0x overboost factor out of the cost calculations. So in the above case, regardless of whether you select 2.0x, 3.0x, or 4.0x EP modifier, a missile still has only 1/5 the fuel efficiency as a ship engine (but half the cost). I think this can be justified in roleplay by handwavium about "single-use vehicle, blah blah blah" as needed.
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If you cap missile engine boost at 2x you will very significantly buff beam PD against them compared to now. I would definitely not want to get rid of the flexibility of design options the varied boost gives you - I could maybe see reducing the steps available to 10% or 25% steps perhaps.
That's not what I mean. Currently, all engines have an EP modifier with a minimum and maximum value based on racial tech, and missiles additionally get to overboost up to 2x the racial maximum, with a linear fuel efficiency factor that scales from 1.0x at the racial EP boost maximum to 5.0x at double the EP boost maximum. For example, if you have a racial maximum EP modifier of 2.0x, a missile could have an EP modifier of 2.0x (with the same fuel efficiency as any other engine), 3.0x (with 1/3 the fuel efficiency of any other 3.0x engine), or 4.0x (with 1/5 the fuel efficiency of a hypothetical 4.0x ship engine).
I am not proposing to limit the maximum EP modifier to 2.0x, but rather apply a 2.0x overboost (with attendant 1/5 fuel efficiency) to all missiles and to take that 2.0x overboost factor out of the cost calculations. So in the above case, regardless of whether you select 2.0x, 3.0x, or 4.0x EP modifier, a missile still has only 1/5 the fuel efficiency as a ship engine (but half the cost). I think this can be justified in roleplay by handwavium about "single-use vehicle, blah blah blah" as needed.
So the efficiency would be the same regardless of the boost amount....? What would be the point of the other boost levels other than maximum then, and you realize how badly this harms actual two stage or long range single stage missiles...? (Ie. exactly the sort of the we want large missiles to be viable for).
If that is correct and I'm still not misunderstanding something, its not a good idea, as said above "I would definitely not want to get rid of the flexibility of design options the varied boost gives you."
While my proposal does also hurt range overall somewhat, it hit smaller missiles much more significantly which is the point.
If I'm still misunderstanding, I apologize, its been a long day. :P
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So the efficiency would be the same regardless of the boost amount....? What would be the point of the other boost levels other than maximum then, and you realize how badly this harms actual two stage or long range single stage missiles...? (Ie. exactly the sort of the we want large missiles to be viable for).
If that is correct and I'm still not misunderstanding something, its not a good idea, as said above "I would definitely not want to get rid of the flexibility of design options the varied boost gives you."
While my proposal does also hurt range overall somewhat, it hit smaller missiles much more significantly which is the point.
If I'm still misunderstanding, I apologize, its been a long day. :P
All engines have efficiency that scales with the (base) EP modifier, specifically as EPM^2.5. Any engine with a 2.0x boost has about a 5.65x increase in fuel use; any engine with a 3.0x boost has about a 15.6x increase in fuel use, and any engine with a 4.0x boost has a 32x increase in fuel use... so there is a point to lower boost if you need the extra range.
It may be easier to read the change I'm suggesting as: "Missile engines can have EP modifiers between double the racial minimum and maximum modifiers. Missile engines use 5x as much fuel as hypothetical ship engines of the same design, but have half the cost." Hopefully that makes it more clear.
Note also that larger missiles benefit from the improved fuel efficiency of larger engines (varying as SQRT(engine_size)) in any case, so larger missiles will still be able to reach better speed+range marks than smaller missiles in any case. Really what I want here is to simplify missile design and adjust the cost a bit to help with the strategic problems of missile-based fleets.
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So the efficiency would be the same regardless of the boost amount....? What would be the point of the other boost levels other than maximum then, and you realize how badly this harms actual two stage or long range single stage missiles...? (Ie. exactly the sort of the we want large missiles to be viable for).
If that is correct and I'm still not misunderstanding something, its not a good idea, as said above "I would definitely not want to get rid of the flexibility of design options the varied boost gives you."
While my proposal does also hurt range overall somewhat, it hit smaller missiles much more significantly which is the point.
If I'm still misunderstanding, I apologize, its been a long day. :P
All engines have efficiency that scales with the (base) EP modifier, specifically as EPM^2.5. Any engine with a 2.0x boost has about a 5.65x increase in fuel use; any engine with a 3.0x boost has about a 15.6x increase in fuel use, and any engine with a 4.0x boost has a 32x increase in fuel use... so there is a point to lower boost if you need the extra range.
It may be easier to read the change I'm suggesting as: "Missile engines can have EP modifiers between double the racial minimum and maximum modifiers. Missile engines use 5x as much fuel as hypothetical ship engines of the same design, but have half the cost." Hopefully that makes it more clear.
Note also that larger missiles benefit from the improved fuel efficiency of larger engines (varying as SQRT(engine_size)) in any case, so larger missiles will still be able to reach better speed+range marks than smaller missiles in any case. Really what I want here is to simplify missile design and adjust the cost a bit to help with the strategic problems of missile-based fleets.
Sorry, I'm still not sure if I get this properly - are you suggesting to increase fuel usage of all missiles engines by five times compared to the current, in return for being half the cost? If so again I don't think that is a particularly sensible change.
If I'm still misunderstanding, could you put it in simple terms compared to current things, ie what the practical effect would be in terms of fuel usage? Because I suspect I am still misunderstanding as five times sounds pretty absurd across all missile sizes.
Just to be fair from my end, my proposal of moving the x10 multiplier from size 2 to size 4 would mean;
Size 2 engines would use 41.4% more fuel (current S1 modifier),
Size 1 engines would use 100% more fuel (current S0.5 modifier), and
Size 0.5 engines would use 182.8% more fuel (current S0.25 modifier).
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Sorry, I'm still not sure if I get this properly - are you suggesting to increase fuel usage of all missiles engines by five times compared to the current, in return for being half the cost? If so again I don't think that is a particularly sensible change.
No. As it stands now, missiles can have a maximum EP modifier of up to 2x the racial maximum tech level. If a missile has an EP modifier which is less than or equal to the racial maximum, there is no special rule for fuel usage. For missile engines with an EP modifier between 1x and 2x the racial maximum, there is a linearly scaling fuel use modifier, which is on top of all the usual and which scales from 1 at the racial maximum to 5x at double the racial maximum.
This means that my proposed change will have no effect, whatsoever, on missiles which use the racial maximum EP modifier, because those missiles already have a 5x fuel use modifier on top of everything else. For a missile engine which has the racial maximum EP modifier or lower, fuel use would be 5x as much. For a missile engine with, say 1.5x the racial maximum EP modifier (so if the racial tech level is 2x, this missile engine has 3x, for example) will use about 1.67x as much fuel (since currently it uses 3x as much fuel).
The net fuel impact is then most stressful for the low-speed missiles. This would mainly hurt MIRV-type missiles and recon drones, but I'm not sure how big the effect would be in practice since I don't personally use either of these designs. You would have to reduce speed (i.e., EP modifier) to reduce fuel use to maintain the range, but it is not a straight 5x reduction because of the 5/2-power scaling with EP modifier which applies to all engines. Considering that this is also coming with halving the cost of all missiles, I think it could work out okay, but someone who uses these kinds of devices should probably weigh in with some analysis instead of taking my word for it.
Also, note we don't have to be married to 5x, I only use this because it is the current maximum factor. Any other reasonable value can be used.
Just to be fair from my end, my proposal of moving the x10 multiplier from size 2 to size 4 would mean;
Size 2 engines would use 41.4% more fuel (current S1 modifier),
Size 1 engines would use 100% more fuel (current S0.5 modifier), and
Size 0.5 engines would use 182.8% more fuel (current S0.25 modifier).
So what you're proposing is to change the constant under the SQRT for missile engines only? Offhand, I can see how it could work and be a benefit for large missiles, mainly they can get more speed (by carrying less fuel) for the same range which helps make up some ground against PD. On principle, I don't like the idea of changing the actual size scaling vs ship engines, since that introduces a mechanical inconsistency between engine types (as opposed to having an additional mechanic, as currently or as a flat scaling like I'm suggesting), but aside from that it is intriguing and ultimately it is Steve's principles that matter, not mine. :)
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For sub munition... Just add a 5-10% tax for the separation mechanics for all sub munitions and you will essentially fix this issue.
I also think that adding a guidance module to missiles also makes sense, they could also be linked to maximum range of the flight of the missile as well. Fire-controls able to control limited numbers of missiles also seem logical.
Adding more ECM/ECCM functionality to missile combat also can help as well as other types of munition to make a layered beam PD system more important.
Small missiles should still be important but not necessarily because they can be fired in quantity but more for specific target types such as fighters, FAC or other smaller scouts and utility ships.
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Finding some way for large missiles to overcome the 'PD tax' without infringing on how small missiles do it (salvo size) is my preferred solution. Volume of fire should be an option of course, and I think implementing a reduced version of what nuclearslurpee is proposing could (and to be honest likely should) be a part of that. Having some ways for larger missiles to increase their survivability and ability to penetrate PD nets without having to resort to larger salvo sizes would be healthier for the balance of the game.
I like the ideas that Steve had, with variable missile warheads doing different jobs: shaped charge or bomb-pumped lasers that decrease the warhead-per-MSP by some fraction but allow a bit of standoff distance from final fire PD nets. Reducing the warhead/MSP ratio means that even with laser penetration you need to pay a size tax to make up for the lost warhead strength, otherwise you're penetrating basically the same depth but with far less width. Side bonus of standoff warheads is increasing the utility of area-fire PD and the escort mechanics. This would prevent small missiles from getting much benefit, but lets large missiles reap the rewards of better penetration and avoiding final fire PD. There is the risk of this just shifting the meta all the way towards AMMs and not really solving anything, so I think this would need to come hand-in-hand with some way to improve the survivability (armour increasing HTK has come up a lot) or the PD-penetration ability (involving a jamming/EWar rework) of large missiles.
I'm not sure if we should split this off into a different thread? Jamming is tangentially related to nuclearslurpee's original post as they're potential ways to solve the missile issue, but I feel that EWar deserves a deep dive thread of its own if a rework is on the table.
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I'm not sure if we should split this off into a different thread? Jamming is tangentially related to nuclearslurpee's original post as they're potential ways to solve the missile issue, but I feel that EWar deserves a deep dive thread of its own if a rework is on the table.
This is probably a good idea, since it is something Steve wants to revisit at some point and EW should work the same for ships and missiles so it is not a missile-specific topic.
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Also, another issue this size progression will bring up is that it makes 'canister' launchers (ie. a missile containing other missiles as second stage, and no actual range/etc on the first stage) very attractive. If a Size 9 launcher is 3 HS and a Size 3 launcher is 1.73 HS, then it becomes extremely attractive to design size 9 'canister' missiles containing 3 size 2.95 (or whatever the exact size ends up being) missiles inside, getting vastly higher salvo density (~6-6.5x) and ultimately doing nothing to actually change the small vs large missiles issue, just shifting the meta for how it is done.
Yes, that is a very good point, especially if you start designing really large missiles. Size 36 is only 6 HS - 2x larger than size 9 - and you get 4x more sub-munitions.
EDIT - I don't see an easy way around the above, so what is needed is some capability that requires internal space and is a reasonable alternative to a larger missile wave. Onboard ECM/ECCM is already an option. Perhaps other warhead types could be added. Laser heads that attack from a specified range depending on warheads size and laser tech, or shaped charge warheads that are larger than normal but with improved penetration, or Tandem-charge for a similar effect. Maybe missiles with retargeting capability if they miss, or some form of evasion capabilities, or missiles with electronic damage similar to microwaves (that require large warheads). Perhaps it's time to revisit EW and add jamming and counter-jamming. Open to ideas.
Just scale the size of the "submunitions" component of a MIRVed missile to the square of the number of submunitions instead of linearly. That way you can fire 4 size 4 missiles from 4 HS 2 launchers (8 HS total) or from 1 size 64 canister fired from a single 8 HS launcher.
The in-universe justification would be that TN warheads and engines don't play nice with each other when they activate, so you can't stack them like sardines in your MIRV components.
Note that the above scaling is so punishing that it completely negates "canister" MIRVs for alpha strike purposes, but at the cost of making MIRVed warheads (canister or not) strictly inferior in terms of magazine space: A size 21 missile with a size 5 bus could carry only 2 size 4 terminal stages, which is fine in terms of launcher size (the two size 4 terminal stages launched as two separate 2-stage missiles with a size 2.5 bus each would cost just over 5 HS of launcher as opposed to just over 4½ HS for the MIRV), but take up 21 MSP worth of magazine space as opposed to 13 for the separate missiles.
If instead we scale to the power of 3/2, the same 2x4 MIRV on a size 5 bus would yield a size 16½ missile vs. 13 for the separate two-stage missiles (but the bus would be more efficient due to larger engine size), and require 4 HS of launcher as opposed to the 5 HS of launcher for the two separate missiles. That trade-off between launcher space and magazine space does not seem unreasonable to me.
Taking the 3/2 power scaling to the extreme of a size 64 canister of size 4 missiles, this gives us 6 size 4 missiles for 8 HS worth of launcher, as opposed to the same 6 missiles taking 12 HS of launcher to launch separately. This seems still a bit exploit-y, but we can combine it with a minimum bus size (again, TN warheads do not play nice with each other in MIRVs; need scaffolding). If we impose a minimum bus size of 25 % of the total size of all submunitions, including scaling penalty (a minimum that will not be constraining for reasonable MIRV designs), then a 6 size 4 missile canister grows to size 80, or 9 HS of launcher as opposed to the 12 HS of separately launched missiles.
If 9 HS vs. 12 HS of launcher looks exploity, recall that we have now well over tripled the tonnage of colliers needed to keep this vessel in supply for a repeat performance, in order to get a 25 % reduction in warship tonnage. Now, magazines are cheaper than launchers and colliers are cheaper than warships... but probably not by a factor of 6 (assuming roughly 1:2 collier:missile warship tonnage as baseline).
So what this dynamic gives you is that huge canister MIRVs makes sense for box launcher vessels operating out of populated systems that can produce their own resupply of munitions, but very quickly become impractical for sustained power projection, or even for establishing forward bases for patrol vessels.
That does not strike me as an entirely undesirable dynamic.
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Yes, that is a very good point, especially if you start designing really large missiles. Size 36 is only 6 HS - 2x larger than size 9 - and you get 4x more sub-munitions.
EDIT - I don't see an easy way around the above
Firstly, that's not so terrible, because as discussed previously more missiles is greater cost, and MIRV systems especially just *eat* Gallicite. You're effectively making your navy into a glass cannon by being able to field fewer ships if all your 'engine material' (and production capacity) is going into 500 little missiles inside 100 big missiles for each of your ships.
Also Scandinavian has the right idea for a simple fix:
Just scale the size of the "submunitions" component of a MIRVed missile to the square of the number of submunitions instead of linearly.
But still... this would open the door to huge volleys of small missiles, and the actual problem there hasn't changed!
We are simply without the tools to deal with missile spam. So, while we're discussing revamping missiles anyway...
Our situation is this:
Undoubtedly awesome, but not efficient. That ship is about 60% PD by volume.
What we need is this:
A plasma cloud, EMP, guidance-disruption, flak... whatever you might chose to call it - a countermeasure against waves.
The basic idea would be to allow damage from weapons performing PD fire to 'spill over' into the rest of the wave, if and when their damage is greater than the first target missile's health. This opens the door to: - large AMMs, especially with larger missiles becoming more feasible with the OP's change
- multipurpose missiles, regular ASMs can be used in defense without being wasted on a single hostile missile
- lasers and other higher-damage weapons being more interesting as PD again. Imagine a plasma carronade as a flak field!
To not drastically derail the balance of small<->large missiles, that probably requires a 'missile health' system similar to ground unit health, but in line with the scaling of the initial suggestion to this thread: have missile health be floor(sqrt(size)) - a size 1 missile up to (but not including) a size 4 missile has 1 health, a size 4-8.9999 has 2 health etc. This would leave smaller missiles with their 'overwhelm' health advantage while giving larger missiles a survivability advantage against lighter PD fire, as hits from damage 1 weapons would only have an x% chance of knocking out the heavier missile.
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I would love to see return of missile armor, something that can take more space and allow missile to survive at least 1-2 hits from gauss
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I would love to see return of missile armor, something that can take more space and allow missile to survive at least 1-2 hits from gauss
Missile armour would have to match the mechanics of ships to avoid breaking the physics. Lets run an example using laminate composite armour, which is 5th generation tech.
If we create a tiny ship to approximate a missile, using only a fighter crew quarters, we need 0.174 units of laminate composite, which is 0.0145 HS, or 0.725 tons. The 'ship' is 2.725 tons in total. 1 MSP is 2.5 tons, so that is a missile of size 1.09 MSP, that requires 0.29 MSP of space (27%) dedicated to armour in order to create a missile with 1 armour. For that size of missile, it would likely end up with no warhead.
If I add a small maintenance storage to our 'ship', that changes to 14.175 tons, or 5.67 MSP. For 1 armour, 2.175 tons of laminate is required, or 0.87 MSP (15%). The missile design could alternatively include ECM, ECCM and onboard sensors for a total of 0.75 MSP and still have space left over for additional fuel or engine, etc. For earlier armour, the situation is much worse.
Even if that was considered acceptable, we are still using the same mechanics as ships, so we also have to consider shock damage. As the missile is likely less than 1 HS and the damage would be at least 1, a shock damage check would be automatic. For each point of incoming damage, there would be a cumulative 20% chance of destroying the missile regardless of armour.
This would also either add missile damage tracking to Aurora, or some form of HTK check where a missile with 2 HTK (1 armour) would have a 50% chance of being destroyed. I would also probably have to implement some form of missile recognition to add to tactical intelligence so that the AI could prioritize inbounds that it was most likely to destroy (because if I was the defender I would want that option).
In summary, the implementation of consistent mechanics across all sizes of ships and missiles means that missile armour is not that effective in terms of mass, especially at lower tech (which is why I removed it), and would result in other mechanics being added.
I will focus instead on other options to make missiles more survivable.
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We are simply without the tools to deal with missile spam. So, while we're discussing revamping missiles anyway...
The problem here isn't missiles being too effective - but not being effective enough. Beam fleets are currently superior to missile fleets, with the exception of massed waves of small missiles from box launchers. Even then, I think massed railgun fighters are superior in a campaign to massed missile fighters (check my recent BSG campaign as an example http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=12909.0). My last few campaigns have either been beam-only, or primarily-beam with some missile fighters alongside beam fighters.
Even AMM spam isn't generally an issue. In my current campaign I am just sailing though attacks with waves of 200 AMMs ten seconds apart (using only beam PD) and then blasting the launch platforms. An NPR home world firing waves of 400+ AMMs at 107,000 km/s caused a temporary inconvenience, but even then I just reinforced and rolled over them. This imbalance wasn't obvious from the start, but has became apparent over time.
Simply increasing the number of small box-launched missiles isn't the solution because it doesn't improve the decision-making in-game. Instead, I need to find a way to make larger missiles more effective so that missile warfare is no longer a simple matter of 'more is better'.
BTW - I have also found that higher levels of ECM make AMM spam very ineffective as the smaller missiles cannot carry ECCM.
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I will focus instead on other options to make missiles more survivable.
Yeah, with this explanation it makes more sense, maybe there can be additional system, usable only for larger missiles, to make them more survivable/evade chance in addition to ECCM? e.g. dummy warheads, extra thrusters for evasion, chaffs?
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I’m reading Empire Rising, and in early books they use decoy missiles that generate false ‘extra’ missiles to sucker point defense fire. Would that be an idea?
The usage disappears later, generally because waves are tens of thousands strong instead of a few missiles at a time.
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Yeah, with this explanation it makes more sense, maybe there can be additional system, usable only for larger missiles, to make them more survivable/evade chance in addition to ECCM? e.g. dummy warheads, extra thrusters for evasion, chaffs?
The problem is that if you make it "usable only for larger missiles", there has to be a consistent justification for that - otherwise we have the problem that Starfire has where fighter-only weapons are much more size-effective than ship-based weapons - in that case, why can't ships mount a large array of those fighter weapons?
Fixed-size components like ECM work better here, because you can put them on a small missile but the efficiency is questionable in those cases, at least until very high tech levels (at MaxTech it is possible to design a size-1 AMM with 100% hit chance and ECCM with space left over, but MaxTech is its own weird and completely unbalanced part of the game).
I’m reading Empire Rising, and in early books they use decoy missiles that generate false ‘extra’ missiles to sucker point defense fire. Would that be an idea?
No, because the cost of making a decoy missile is not appreciably different than the cost of making a real missile, since usually gallicite (engine) cost is the limiting factor, while I've never heard of anyone running even close to a shortage of tritanium (warhead).
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I’m reading Empire Rising, and in early books they use decoy missiles that generate false ‘extra’ missiles to sucker point defense fire. Would that be an idea?
The usage disappears later, generally because waves are tens of thousands strong instead of a few missiles at a time.
You can effectively do that now, using fast size-1 missiles without warheads and sending them in ahead of the main wave (either individually or via MIRVs).
If we start looking at 'sensor ghosts', or something similar, then ships should be able to do that too on a larger scale, which makes larger missile waves less effective.
You have to consider ships and missiles as just different size objects with the same physical characteristics and limitations, unless you can create a plausible reason within that physics framework why something that applies to missiles does not apply to ships. Bear in mind that in Aurora, missiles are to spacecraft as torpedoes are to ships in the real world. They both operate in the same medium.
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(at MaxTech it is possible to design a size-1 AMM with 100% hit chance and ECCM with space left over, but MaxTech is its own weird and completely unbalanced part of the game).
Yes, I will start fixing that at some point. It's just I have never got close enough to worry about it :)
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(at MaxTech it is possible to design a size-1 AMM with 100% hit chance and ECCM with space left over, but MaxTech is its own weird and completely unbalanced part of the game).
Yes, I will start fixing that at some point. It's just I have never got close enough to worry about it :)
I personally have found that tweaking the missile agility techs to increase by ~25% per level like most other techs has worked well. Currently the tech levels are something like 20, 32, 48, 64, 80, ... and I tweak them down to 20, 25, 32, 40, 50, ...
This pushes back a bit the point where agility-spec AMMs start to dominate, lowers the maximum agility tech to (IIRC) 250 which precludes a "perfect" AMM at MaxTech, and doesn't really affect the NPRs very much since their missile designs use very little agility anyways.
However, this is a thread about missile buffs so I should stop talking now. ;)
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(at MaxTech it is possible to design a size-1 AMM with 100% hit chance and ECCM with space left over, but MaxTech is its own weird and completely unbalanced part of the game).
Yes, I will start fixing that at some point. It's just I have never got close enough to worry about it :)
I personally have found that tweaking the missile agility techs to increase by ~25% per level like most other techs has worked well. Currently the tech levels are something like 20, 32, 48, 64, 80, ... and I tweak them down to 20, 25, 32, 40, 50, ...
This pushes back a bit the point where agility-spec AMMs start to dominate, lowers the maximum agility tech to (IIRC) 250 which precludes a "perfect" AMM at MaxTech, and doesn't really affect the NPRs very much since their missile designs use very little agility anyways.
However, this is a thread about missile buffs so I should stop talking now. ;)
Speaking of missile agility, one option I was considering was allowing agility for evasion purposes, as well as interception. However, I am a little nervous on agility in general. It's something that missiles have that ships don't and the mechanic of how it actually works is not obvious (beyond the maths). I was considering removing it entirely as something of an anachronism.
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However, I am a little nervous on agility in general. It's something that missiles have that ships don't and the mechanic of how it actually works is not obvious (beyond the maths). I was considering removing it entirely as something of an anachronism.
I like that idea a lot and I think many of the veteran players would (cue Jorgen :) ). I do think it needs to be paired in an update with something to keep missile builds interesting, the ECM/ECCM rework would be a good candidate. Currently the complexity in missile design comes from balancing hit rate (speed * maneuver) and PD evasion (speed), so if we remove agility the main design decision would be warhead size vs speed which is pretty close to having a trivial optimal point (since you can calculate expected PD losses easily by assuming an enemy fleet composition, then set WH and engine size to optimize damage).
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I've been revisiting Starfire (the unpublished 3rd edition Unified Rules) for some ideas on improving missile warfare. The first area for consideration is laser warheads.
One of the things that concerns me in Aurora terms for laser warheads is the interaction of inbound missiles and point defence. A simple option is for laser warheads to ignore Final Defensive Fire, because that is only applied just before impact and they would be firing from further out. As a result laser warheads would only be hit by area fire, which is a messy mechanic in general and rarely used. I suspect that in reality, tactical officers would learn to recognize laser warhead missiles and adjust final point defence fire to engage sooner. That is not possible under the current rules.
Starfire has the Laser Torpedo, which is analogous to laser warheads in Aurora. There are several versions, but the base mechanic is converting the standard warhead into a lower amount of laser damage and applying a penalty to hit for PD (to simulate attacking from further out). I am tempted to use a similar idea for Aurora.
There would be two new factors involved in missile design: the conversion rate of the 'normal' warhead into laser damage (based on a new tech line) and the distance from the target at which the warhead would trigger (player decision). I would also have to apply some form of 'range modifier' to determine how the combination of range and base damage was converted into impact damage. To avoid making laser warheads dependent on the laser tech lines, I think it would best to assume bomb-pumped laser warheads would all be x-rays (that appears to be the case in reality) and therefore have a consistent range modifier irrespective of the other factors. This would be a lower range modifier than actual ship-mounted x-ray lasers.
For point defence, I am tempted to remove area defence entirely, as it is confusing and not that useful, and instead allow a fire control with Final Defensive Fire to be assigned a maximum range. This would then engage any missile attacking a target, or using a laser warhead, within that range. The actual location of the laser warhead detonation could be tracked and the point defence range would be calculated from the firing ship to that location (as the firing ship may not in the same location as the target ship). Because laser warhead missiles would be engaged at greater ranges, the chance to hit would be generally lower. Larger fire controls could be used to provide more accurate long-range point defence coverage, but that increases cost and reduces the amount of hull space for defensive weapons. The attacking player could choose a greater detonation range in the missile design at the expense of impact damage (to reduce PD accuracy) and laser warhead missiles could also employ ECM to further complicate the defence. Both of these options are easier with larger missiles.
I am working my way through some other missile-related Starfire concepts and I will add them in subsequent posts.
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I suspect that in reality, tactical officers would learn to recognize laser warhead missiles and adjust final point defence fire to engage sooner.
A useful ancillary change might be the ability to recognize different missile types on the Intel window as we already do for ship classes. Currently all we know when we see missiles incoming is the size, speed, thermal signature, etc. but there is no way to recognize the difference between two size-6 missiles with the same speed but different loading (or types, with the proposal here), for instance. On the other hand that could be an important possibility for deception - but if we can tell apart two ship classes of the same size and speed why not missile types?
For point defence, I am tempted to remove area defence entirely, as it is confusing and not that useful, and instead allow a fire control with Final Defensive Fire to be assigned a maximum range. This would then engage any missile attacking a target, or using a laser warhead, within that range. The actual location of the laser warhead detonation could be tracked and the point defence range would be calculated from the firing ship to that location (as the firing ship may not in the same location as the target ship). Because laser warhead missiles would be engaged at greater ranges, the chance to hit would be generally lower. Larger fire controls could be used to provide more accurate long-range point defence coverage, but that increases cost and reduces the amount of hull space for defensive weapons. Larger laser warhead missiles could also employ ECM to further complicate the defence.
I have found area defense to be useful exactly once, and that was because I was testing a heavily-modified DB with engine speeds reduced by 80%, so missiles would move slowly enough that area defense fire could engage them multiple times on approach. Which is not a sparkling recommendation for area defense, if it requires such a drastic change to be useful.
Laser warheads with a standoff distance would be interesting for making laser (and meson) turrets a viable PD factor as well, which I think is a good thing.
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(at MaxTech it is possible to design a size-1 AMM with 100% hit chance and ECCM with space left over, but MaxTech is its own weird and completely unbalanced part of the game).
Yes, I will start fixing that at some point. It's just I have never got close enough to worry about it :)
I personally have found that tweaking the missile agility techs to increase by ~25% per level like most other techs has worked well. Currently the tech levels are something like 20, 32, 48, 64, 80, ... and I tweak them down to 20, 25, 32, 40, 50, ...
This pushes back a bit the point where agility-spec AMMs start to dominate, lowers the maximum agility tech to (IIRC) 250 which precludes a "perfect" AMM at MaxTech, and doesn't really affect the NPRs very much since their missile designs use very little agility anyways.
However, this is a thread about missile buffs so I should stop talking now. ;)
Speaking of missile agility, one option I was considering was allowing agility for evasion purposes, as well as interception. However, I am a little nervous on agility in general. It's something that missiles have that ships don't and the mechanic of how it actually works is not obvious (beyond the maths). I was considering removing it entirely as something of an anachronism.
Missile agility has always been weird in the "lore" of aurora as well, given that ships can canonically turn on a dime, it's weird that missiles can but also cant at the same time. It never made sense from that perspective to have two factors like that determine hit chance.
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--- Quick and probably dumb idea but... what about shielded missiles? Like... they could have shields that scaled off of Shield tech much like how missile ECM/ECCM does. Mesons would ignore missile shields. These shields, unlike ship shields, wouldn't recharge and would only be good for so much damage. So a 3 damage shot versus a missile with 2 shields would destroy the missile, but a 2 damage shot would not. Three one damage shots would destroy it though.
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--- Quick and probably dumb idea but... what about shielded missiles? Like... they could have shields that scaled off of Shield tech much like how missile ECM/ECCM does. Mesons would ignore missile shields. These shields, unlike ship shields, wouldn't recharge and would only be good for so much damage. So a 3 damage shot versus a missile with 2 shields would destroy the missile, but a 2 damage shot would not. Three one damage shots would destroy it though.
This is an interesting thought... of course, Steve would require any kind of missile shield to remain consistent with shipborne shields, which poses a potential issue:
Shipborne shields have a power rating equal to P * HS * sqrt(HS / 10)which is the famous size^(3/2) scaling we all know and, um, "love". Since 1 MSP = 0.05 HS, for missiles this would come out to (P / 20) * MSP * sqrt(MSP / 200)or just P * MSP^(3/2) / 283approximately.
So say we want to put a 2-MSP shield generator into a size-6 missile (1/3 of the total size, probably a good benchmark point). At Epsilon Shields (P = 3) this gives us a shield of strength...0.03. I suppose we could round that up to 1, but that would mean any shield generator smaller than, like, 27 MSP (yielding 1.5 strength which would round up to 2) is equally useful, so rounding up is probably not the solution here, which leaves us with basically a useless shield. This is a similar problem to why fighter shields are not viable. I think reworking the entire shields mechanic is probably out of scope, so this idea is probably not one that will make it off the drawing board sadly.
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The general issue with agility is how big of an impact it has on general AMM efficiency... in real life missile interception is less about missiles being manoeuvrable but speed and how early you can track and target the enemy missiles and calculate the best intercept trajectory. Sure manoeuvring has some impact but not that much.
For missiles there could be a tracking sensor or part of the fire-control of point defence AMM fire controls that increase the missiles ability to track and intercept instead of missile agility... this can also be related to ECM and ECCM to some degree. So.. the longer you track a missile the more bonus you will get to not only beam but also AMM interception... or some such mechanic. This would make larger missiles easier to hit but they also should be more likely to carry counter measures as well. This could also result in missile with a booster package and a smaller missile that detach for final approach to the target.
I think that agility work decently well if it is restricted to a very limited range... I normalize agility in all my games between 80-140 roughly... too low and AMM is nearly worthless and too high they are too effective... between 80-140 is what I find a sweet spot of balance of roughly 25-35% hit rate against same level of fast ASM missiles.
When it comes to beam point defence I think that they should always be able to fire multiple times if they can outside the final-defensive fire range. That is.. if the weapon can fire two times outside their set final-fire range they should fire... there should be a margin of error for calculation and perhaps the player can decide what that is as things can change between shots.
In general I like area point defence as a concept and use it occasionally in my campaigns, laser weapons certainly can perform it in peer battles if you invest some efforts into it.
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The general issue with agility is how big of an impact it has on general AMM efficiency... in real life missile interception is less about missiles being manoeuvrable but speed and how early you can track and target the enemy missiles and calculate the best intercept trajectory. Sure manoeuvring has some impact but not that much.
For missiles there could be a tracking sensor or part of the fire-control of point defence AMM fire controls that increase the missiles ability to track and intercept instead of missile agility... this can also be related to ECM and ECCM to some degree. So.. the longer you track a missile the more bonus you will get to not only beam but also AMM interception... or some such mechanic. This would make larger missiles easier to hit but they also should be more likely to carry counter measures as well. This could also result in missile with a booster package and a smaller missile that detach for final approach to the target.
I think that agility work decently well if it is restricted to a very limited range... I normalize agility in all my games between 80-140 roughly... too low and AMM is nearly worthless and too high they are too effective... between 80-140 is what I find a sweet spot of balance of roughly 25-35% hit rate against same level of fast ASM missiles.
When it comes to beam point defence I think that they should always be able to fire multiple times if they can outside the final-defensive fire range. That is.. if the weapon can fire two times outside their set final-fire range they should fire... there should be a margin of error for calculation and perhaps the player can decide what that is as things can change between shots.
In general I like area point defence as a concept and use it occasionally in my campaigns, laser weapons certainly can perform it in peer battles if you invest some efforts into it.
The problem with agility is that it is a 'special rule' that only applies to missiles. One of my goals with C# Aurora is to eliminate most 'special rules' in favour of an internally consistent physics framework. I do accept that AMMs without agility are less effective, but I would like to replace agility with something that doesn't break the framework. One option is to allow fractional warheads. These would deal full damage against shields but any excess fraction beyond a whole integer would be lost against armour. More importantly, they could destroy missiles which had a size in HS equal to or less than the fractional damage. This is consistent within the framework but allows AMMs to be more effective against missiles than ships. In fact, AMMs intended solely for the anti-missile role would generally be useless against ships, leaving a role for the 'dual-use AMM', with a strength-1 warhead.
For example, an AMM with a 0.5 warhead would be able to destroy missiles up to size 10. A 0.3 warhead would be able to destroy missiles up to size 6. Neither would be able to penetrate armour.
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For v2.20, I've removed missile agility and implemented fractional warheads.
http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=13090.msg164041#msg164041
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I still think you could use the missile tracking bonus for AMM as well to make AMM a bit more effective. It make sense for the same reasons it make sense for beam PD. You also would need to add tracking bonus against normal targets too I guess to be consistent though... but that also compensate for not having access to agility for ASM either. Against normal targets you would basically allways get the full tracking bonus as you always be able to track them long enough.
You also have to look at how effective ECM is if you lower the overall hit rate for AMM against ASM. If the general hit rate are 10-20%... then a gap of 10-20 of ECM will make a huge difference.
That is why I think you need some ability to increase the AMM to roughly 25-35% hit rate for peer battles. There is otherwise a risk of AMM quite often having a zero chance to hit even if they use ECCM, as the ECCM module is 0.25 MSP it also negatively impact AMM hit rate disproportionally too as only speed is used to calculate interception. In order to intercept missiles with ECM you must have ECCM on them or their hit rate plummet close to zero or actually get to zero. So AI AMM designs also now must use ECCM to be effective at all.
Perhaps add more speed levels for missiles is another way to solve the hit rate probability which make them shorter ranged but have a higher hit rate against missiles too.. although this would effect fighters allot too.
Really close range torpedoes with extreme speed also now will be very effective, especially if they carry ECM and your ECM level is just one higher than the opponent, two levels higher and only beam PD will be able to intercept them for sure. This will make fast reloading launchers a new niche in throwing many short range high yield large laser warhead missiles, who are able to engage beyond beam range and possibly also beyond PD range... seems like a fun change though.
Overall... you do need some additional ability for missile to hit their target as only using speed also diminish ASM ability to hit quite allot too... even for larger missiles as you add ECM/ECCM and warheads... it all will reduce the hit rate too disproportionally. Designing an anti-fighter missile might become a nightmare.
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Fraction warhead makes sense, though i dont see how it will make building larger ASMs more efficient to be a match for energy weapons, you can still just use size1-warhead AMMs, or im missing something and changes to launchers/launched missile size also made it in?
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Fraction warhead makes sense, though i dont see how it will make building larger ASMs more efficient to be a match for energy weapons, you can still just use size1-warhead AMMs, or im missing something and changes to launchers/launched missile size also made it in?
Fractional warheads are not intended to influence overall missile size. They are intended to replace Agility as a mechanism for increasing AMM to-hit chances, create a more consistent curve between AMM and ASM across different tech levels and add a new missile design decision, which is whether to have pure AMMs intended only for missile interception, or dual-use AMMs that can also be employed against ships.
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I've updated point defence in preparation for stand-off missiles.
http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=13090.msg164060#msg164060
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--- What about guidance packages? They'd do more or less the same thing as agility, and it'd make sense that only missiles needed such things so it's less of a special rule? Maybe have them tied to sensors?
--- Having the right firing solution is great and all, but the ability to steer the missile into that trajectory while also maintaining a high speed is surely a thing which must be considered?
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which is whether to have pure AMMs intended only for missile interception, or dual-use AMMs that can also be employed against ships.
Ah, thanks for explanation, it make sense now.
As one of the possible way to give larger missiles more usage, maybe change how warhead damage is applied, thus increasing the damage output of larger missiles less lineary?
Or making ECCM more efficient on larger missiles in some way.
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For v2.20, I've removed missile agility and implemented fractional warheads.
http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=13090.msg164041#msg164041
I understand that the point of fractional warheads is trying to give AMMs a chance to be useful when agility is removed. However, after modifying my missile optimizer and playing with the numbers a bit, I'm totally against the change of removing agility, for two reasons:
1, while the fractional warhead sizes may overcome the loss of agility for very early techs, it does not last long. For example, let's say we use 2 tiers of tech above the starting tech to design an AMM:
Warhead strength 4/MSP
Engine power 0.32/MSP
Fuel efficiency 0.8
Engine max power boost 1.5
Using a warhead of 0.05 and as short range as possible trying to get the best hit chance, the following missile is the 'optimal', with a 100% chance to hit 1880km/s.
Missile Size: 1.0000 MSP (2.5000 Tons) Warhead: 0.0500 Radiation Damage: 0 Manoeuver Rating: 10
Speed: 18,800 km/s Fuel: 18 Flight Time: 80 seconds Range: 1.52 Mkm
Cost Per Missile: 0.48250 Development Cost: 48
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 188.0% 3k km/s 62.7% 5k km/s 37.6% 10k km/s 18.8% 20k km/s 9.4% 50k km/s 3.8% 100k km/s 1.9%
In the current version, we can have the following missile, with agility 48/MSP, also 2 tiers above the starting tech. It hits 2100km/s with a 100% chance.
Missile Size: 1.0000 MSP (2.5000 Tons) Warhead: 1 Radiation Damage: 1 Manoeuver Rating: 25
Speed: 8,400 km/s Fuel: 19 Flight Time: 132 seconds Range: 1.12 Mkm
Cost Per Missile: 0.75021 Development Cost: 75
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 210.0% 3k km/s 70.0% 5k km/s 42.0% 10k km/s 21.0% 20k km/s 10.5% 50k km/s 4.2% 100k km/s 2.1%
Thus, only for the 1st tier of tech the AMMs perform slightly better than the current game, afterwards, it is a straight across-board nerf. Another example at higher tech (Ion engine):
Warhead strength 4/MSP
Engine power 0.32/MSP
Fuel efficiency 0.8
Engine max power boost 1.5
Missile agility 80/MSP
No agility:
Missile Size: 1.0000 MSP (2.5000 Tons) Warhead: 0.0504 Radiation Damage: 0 Manoeuver Rating: 10
Speed: 72,800 km/s Fuel: 54 Flight Time: 14 seconds Range: 1.02 Mkm
Cost Per Missile: 1.83260 Development Cost: 183
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 728.0% 3k km/s 242.7% 5k km/s 145.6% 10k km/s 72.8% 20k km/s 36.4% 50k km/s 14.6% 100k km/s 7.3%
Current:
Missile Size: 1.0000 MSP (2.5000 Tons) Warhead: 1 Radiation Damage: 1 Manoeuver Rating: 37
Speed: 35,200 km/s Fuel: 79 Flight Time: 29 seconds Range: 1.05 Mkm
Cost Per Missile: 1.66029 Development Cost: 166
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 1302.4% 3k km/s 434.1% 5k km/s 260.5% 10k km/s 130.2% 20k km/s 65.1% 50k km/s 26.0% 100k km/s 13.0%
The 100% hit speed is 7280km/s vs 13024km/s, with the AMM without agility only having a 16.7% chance to destroy an S6 missile on a hit, and being more expensive compared to the current version.
One additional result: at high tech when all missiles can reach the speed cap (light speed), AMM will always have a 10% hit chance, rendering them largely useless.
2, after removing agility, missile design basically becomes 'get the highest engine power and profit' other than in some extreme cases (read, extreme long-range missiles). For example, let's say we are designing an AMM at early tech, with the following techs (1 tier above the starting tech)
Warhead strength 3/MSP
Engine power 0.25/MSP
Fuel efficiency 0.9
Engine max power boost 1.25
Using a warhead of 0.05, i.e., the smallest useful warhead for AMMs to maximize the potential to play with engine and fuel sizes. In this case, for any missiles with a range of less than 44.6Mkm (laughable extreme for early tech AMMs), the max engine power boost is the best choice.
Missile Size: 1.0000 MSP (2.5000 Tons) Warhead: 0.0501 Radiation Damage: 0 Manoeuver Rating: 10
Speed: 10,200 km/s Fuel: 433 Flight Time: 4,376 seconds Range: 44.64 Mkm
Cost Per Missile: 0.27253 Development Cost: 27
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 102.0% 3k km/s 34.0% 5k km/s 20.4% 10k km/s 10.2% 20k km/s 5.1% 50k km/s 2.0% 100k km/s 1.0%
In the end, I'd suggest something similar to what Jorgan_CAB has mentioned, limit the agility tech to a smaller range and have a linear increase instead of completely removing it. This way AMMs can be more viable in the early game (still much worse than beam PD), while avoiding them being too powerful late game compared to beam PD. There were some numbers I crunched for an earlier similar discussion http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=11904.msg140898#msg140898 (http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=11904.msg140898#msg140898)
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important and valuable analysis
I note that if we are removing Agility entirely, there is no need to maintain the base Maneuver Rating at 10; we can happily set the base rating to 20 or 25, based on what we feel would be economical to keep AMMs vs ASMs a competitive decision. I suspect the exact value for good game balance probably is going to depend on a potential ECM/ECCM rework, though.
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important and valuable analysis
I note that if we are removing Agility entirely, there is no need to maintain the base Maneuver Rating at 10; we can happily set the base rating to 20 or 25, based on what we feel would be economical to keep AMMs vs ASMs a competitive decision. I suspect the exact value for good game balance probably is going to depend on a potential ECM/ECCM rework, though.
The Maneuver Rating affects the chance to hit for all missiles, not just AMMs. Ramming uses the same calculation.
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important and valuable analysis
I note that if we are removing Agility entirely, there is no need to maintain the base Maneuver Rating at 10; we can happily set the base rating to 20 or 25, based on what we feel would be economical to keep AMMs vs ASMs a competitive decision. I suspect the exact value for good game balance probably is going to depend on a potential ECM/ECCM rework, though.
Indeed, adjusting the base MR could mitigate the situation, but perhaps we will still see ineffective AMMs.
Instead of comparing the (optimal) missiles under the new mechanism against the current ones, I have done some quick napkin math to see how will missiles in general perform in the new setting.
Since the MR is fixed, higher missile speed means higher accuracy, and the accuracy is now only a function of missile speed and target speed (let's exclude E-war for now).
Speed = EP/HS*1000 km/s = (engine power per HS) * (engine HS) * (engine power multiplier) / HS * 1000 km/s = (engine power per HS) * (engine power multiplier) * (engine HS) / HS * 1000 km/s
Let's use E to denote (engine power per HS), and use some rule of thumb (engine HS)/HS values, to see how well the new missile model performs.
- For a slow beam warship, let's assume it uses 1.2x engine power, 40% engine ratio, then its speed is 480E km/s (1.2*0.4*1000)
- For a fast beam warship, assume it uses 1.5x engine power, 50% engine ratio, then its speed is 750E km/s (1.5*0.5*1000)
- For a fighter, assume it uses 3x engine power, 50% engine ratio, then its speed is 1500E km/s
- For an ASM, assume it uses 6x engine power, 60% engine ratio, then its speed is 3600E km/s
- For an AMM, assume it uses 6x engine power, 90% engine ratio, then its speed is 5400E km/s.
Then when MR is fixed to 10, we have:
- The ASM has a 3600/480E*10%=75% chance of hitting the slow beam ship, 48% chance of hitting the fast beam ship, 24% chance of hitting the fighter.
- The AMM has a 112.5% chance of hitting the slow beam ship, 72% chance of hitting the fast beam ship, 36% chance of hitting the fighter. Likely the AMM won't do any damage to these ships anyway. The AMM has a 15% chance of hitting the ASM. When it does hit, it is likely to have a less than 100% chance of destroying the ASM due to having to use a smaller warhead.
And this relationship won't change much as tech level progresses. Yes, missiles can use smaller warheads to achieve the same damage, but the reduction is relatively small compared to the engine ratio used in the examples. And when we consider E-war, such saved MSP should probably be devoted to E-war components.
Thus, having a fixed MR makes missiles much less useful and there is nothing much that can be done in the design choices to mitigate this.
Edit: calculation was corrected based on nuclearslurpee's feedback.
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I find outright removing agility to be unfortunate, as it offered some design choices also for offensive missiles, in balancing terminal speed vs accuracy on designs. I feel its 'MSP usage' could easily enough be explained by additional thrusters, fuel or guidance computers for more aggressive maneuvers, or some combination of them. Thus I also think adjusting the scaling and or just working to improve the mechanism would have been nice.
I do really like the fractional warhead idea though.
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- For an ASM, assume it uses 3x engine power, 60% engine ratio, then its speed is 1800E km/s
- For an AMM, assume it uses 3x engine power, 90% engine ratio, then its speed is 2700E km/s.
This is actually not going to give a correct comparison, because missiles will typically use much more than 3x EP modifier due to the availability of overboost (up to 6x).
In this case, if we say the ASM and AMM both use 6x boost instead of 3x, the hit rate for the AMM against the ASM does not really change, but the ASM will be twice as effective against ships in terms of hit rate (75% against slow beam ship, 48% against fast beam ship, 24% against fighter).
This means that if we push the (fixed) maneuver rating up to, say, 20, the ASM will have basically a perfect hit rate against ships (FWIW I think your rule-of-thumb designs are a bit faster than most players use, but that's not important here) while the AMM will have a hit rate of 30% and is effective at a ratio of 3.3:1 - which, for example, means that AMM defense is cost-effective against size-4 missiles as you only expend 3.3 MSP of AMMs per 4 MSP of ASMs destroyed (I think it is safe to presume that the hit/kill ratio is basically 1.0, if you've put the wrong size of warhead on your AMMs that is a separate, strategic error). At this point then the question is what options the ASM user has to regain cost parity or effectiveness which channels into the EWar discussion.
If we leave the maneuver rating at 10, then AMMs are cost-effective against size-7 or larger missiles with these numbers. In that case, however, we need to look at some practical considerations, namely ASMs will rarely use the same maximum EP modifier than AMMs do since they require a longer range than AMMs (I usually find my ASMs require 75% or 80% of the maximum EP modifier to reach my desired combat range). So in practice, AMM efficiency is not likely to be 15% but closer to ~20% which gives a ~5:1 ratio. Of course short-range ASMs using the full 6x modifier are possible but this is a tactical choice which plays more like an extended-range beam ship doctrine than traditional standoff missile warfare.
Ultimately, all of this is talking around the fact that missile warfare in Aurora is all-or-nothing - you either have enough AMMs (or beam PD) to destroy the enemy volley(s), or you don't and you take damage - we don't really have a set of mechanics for which small numbers of leakers are the norm. Fixed vs Variable Maneuver Rating does not change this fact, so we need to explore some other mechanical means of upsetting that balance (EWar rework, Jorgen's proposal about missile tracking bonus, launcher size change, etc.). The exact value of a fixed maneuver rating is only a balancing knob which we can only tune once we know what set of mechanics we are working with.
FWIW, returning to the original thread topic, I think a launcher size change could interact well here... if we set a fixed MR, then there is some ASM size breakpoint above which AMMs are cost-effective, but the ability to generate larger salvo sizes for size>1 ASMs means the cost-effective and tactically-effective (i.e., per-HS) breakpoints are in general different - meaning that a "total" AMM defense will likely be cost-effective, but a sufficiently large ASM volley which damages or destroys ships can recoup the cost in damage to the enemy's fleet rather than the cost of their missile logistics.
All this aside... I don't mind either having Agility or not. I don't find it to be interesting for gameplay, personally, but I don't care if it stays in. To me it is just a balancing knob and not an interesting feature in and of itself.
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This is actually not going to give a correct comparison, because missiles will typically use much more than 3x EP modifier due to the availability of overboost (up to 6x).
In this case, if we say the ASM and AMM both use 6x boost instead of 3x, the hit rate for the AMM against the ASM does not really change, but the ASM will be twice as effective against ships in terms of hit rate (75% against slow beam ship, 48% against fast beam ship, 24% against fighter).
Ah indeed my bad, I knew something didn't feel right!
Indeed using 6x engine power makes the ASM twice as effective, which might be OK, but the AMM hit ratio against the ASM remains the same unless the base MR is increased.
If we leave the maneuver rating at 10, then AMMs are cost-effective against size-7 or larger missiles with these numbers. In that case, however, we need to look at some practical considerations, namely ASMs will rarely use the same maximum EP modifier than AMMs do since they require a longer range than AMMs (I usually find my ASMs require 75% or 80% of the maximum EP modifier to reach my desired combat range). So in practice, AMM efficiency is not likely to be 15% but closer to ~20% which gives a ~5:1 ratio. Of course short-range ASMs using the full 6x modifier are possible but this is a tactical choice which plays more like an extended-range beam ship doctrine than traditional standoff missile warfare.
I doubt the current design method of missiles can carry over when agility is entirely removed. Long-range missiles will be much less effective compared to now, as they cannot trade size for agility to make up for the loss of accuracy due to lower speed.
Also, since AMMs will be more engine heavy with the change, their cost density will be higher than that of the ASMs. Under the current game mechanics, I routinely see my S1 AMMs cost more than 1/3 of my longer-ranged S6 ASMs (shorter-ranged ASMs tend to be more expensive), so I doubt in the new mechanism 5:1 will be anywhere close to acceptable.
Ultimately, all of this is talking around the fact that missile warfare in Aurora is all-or-nothing - you either have enough AMMs (or beam PD) to destroy the enemy volley(s), or you don't and you take damage - we don't really have a set of mechanics for which small numbers of leakers are the norm. Fixed vs Variable Maneuver Rating does not change this fact, so we need to explore some other mechanical means of upsetting that balance (EWar rework, Jorgen's proposal about missile tracking bonus, launcher size change, etc.). The exact value of a fixed maneuver rating is only a balancing knob which we can only tune once we know what set of mechanics we are working with.
As long as we are playing with random numbers (binomial distributed in the case of missile interception, to be exact), the all-or-nothing result cannot be avoided. It is basically the law of large numbers, the number of expected intercepts tends to concentrate around the expected value. And the probability of 'I brought just enough PD to shoot all down but not more' (in this case, how many leaks will be mainly determined by the variance of all the random numbers involved) is very low given how different ship designs can be. Thus when missile volleys and PD clash, it will always be all-or-nothing.
So if the goal is to alleviate the all-or-nothing behavior, we are barking at the wrong tree imo.
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In general I like area point defence as a concept and use it occasionally in my campaigns, laser weapons certainly can perform it in peer battles if you invest some efforts into it.
I've gotten good results out of it from larger (25cm and up) railguns. It can often be a better choice to fire early on an incoming salvo to ensure that the weapons have cycled again by the time the follow-up salvo is approaching closer range. More importantly, however, I think area fire will be much more useful with the introduction of laser warheads, because laser warheads will also make launcher rate-of-fire an actual design choice outside of "full-size AMM launchers always, everything else only 30% launchers to maximize salvo size." The need for maximized salvo sizes itself stems from the fact that missiles in Aurora are "dumb;" they beeline for the target without a thought as soon as they clear the tube and there's no way to delay one or two (vectoring them towards outlying steerpoints that are staggered) to ensure a simultaneous time-on-target arrival. Due to this, everything is determined by a one-time throwdown; total throw weight vs. total PD fire mustered. With laser warheads being able to attack outside of point-blank PD range - at distances that only larger, slower-cycling beam weapons (or AMMs) can effectively engage at - launcher rate-of-fire suddenly becomes significant. Ships with just a few magazine-fed launchers could do significant damage to a fleet bristling with 10cm rail and gauss that could shrug off massive salvos of size-4 missiles. This would be even more interesting if the standoff-warhead options benefited from economies-of-scale that made larger standoff warheads more powerful and/or more long-ranged for the MSP, in turn incentivizing the creation of size 2 AMMs that can engage such weapons at safe distance. While they'd consume more space in the magazines and cycle slower, they'd also be up against much smaller salvos (due to larger missile size) and the missiles would be slower. If we assume (as is common in sci-fi) a bomb-pumped x-ray laser as the default standoff warhead option, using the current damage fall-off-at-range table lasers use would make perfect sense.
In combination this would significantly change the number of variables present in missile combat. By giving missiles more than one viable method of successfully delivering damage, it gives defenders more than one defensive challenge to prepare for. If we include reworked ECM and perhaps missile sensors, I think this would result in a "decision space" large enough to be interesting, but narrow enough to be dealt with. Anyone familiar with Nebulous: Fleet Command's recent overhaul of missile combat will note some parallels there; real-world considerations were drawn on for inspiration, but simplified enough to keep the variables interesting, but manageable. In any technological epoch there's engineering considerations that constrain the design space like this; the boundaries of possibility are limited by extant technology, but there's still important trade-offs to be made within that space. So it also fits from a realism perspective.
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The need for maximized salvo sizes itself stems from the fact that missiles in Aurora are "dumb;" they beeline for the target without a thought as soon as they clear the tube and there's no way to delay one or two (vectoring them towards outlying steerpoints that are staggered) to ensure a simultaneous time-on-target arrival.
This actually used to be possible in very old VB6 versions and it was possibly the most OP thing that has ever been in the game. You can still read about this tactic in Steve or Kurt's oldest AARs for instance.
This would be even more interesting if the standoff-warhead options benefited from economies-of-scale that made larger standoff warheads more powerful and/or more long-ranged for the MSP, in turn incentivizing the creation of size 2 AMMs that can engage such weapons at safe distance.
Can you explain how this would motivate size-2 AMMs? Assuming that Steve would keep the maximum standoff of laser warheads at 5 LS (1.5m km) to be consistent with every beam weapon and BFC in the game, and knowing that current size-1 AMMs comfortably exceed 2m km range after very low tech levels, I'm not seeing the logic here.
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If the goal is to alleviate the all-or-nothing behavior of the current missile-PD interaction and encourage 'regular' launchers and larger missiles, I think the launcher size idea is in a good direction. It makes creating larger salvos with larger missiles easier.
As I mentioned in my earlier post, larger salvos don't alleviate the all-or-nothing behavior. In fact, they create the problem. It's the law of large numbers working against us. Essentially, each missile-PD interaction is modeled by a dice roll with a probability p of a successful intercept, after all bonuses and penalties are applied. Adding/changing mechanisms such as ECM and tracking bonus only changes p, but not the dice roll itself.
As an example, assume on the PD side, there are n=2000 guns controlled by a BFC, each with a p=10% chance of shooting down a missile after all bonuses/penalties. Then, the number of successful interceptions is a binomial distribution B(n,p) = B(2000, 0.1). As N is large enough (there is a check for this), we can approximate this by a normal distribution N(np, np(1-p)) = N(200, 180), with mean 200 and variance 180. The mean part is easy, it means these many guns are expected to shoot down 200 missiles. The variance part can be used to determine the 3-sigma interval, where sigma^2 = 180, giving sigma~=13.4. Thus, there is a 99.8% chance that between ~160 to ~240 (200 - 3 * 13.4 to 200 + 3 * 13.4) shots are hit. That means, when the number of incoming missiles is outside 160 and 240, the result is almost determined: below 160 all will be shot down, and above 240 there must be leakers. When the number is between 160 and 240, the closer to 200 the better, there is a chance some will get through whenever you try. Given how flexible ship designs are, there is a much larger chance that a missile volley containing less than 160 or above 240 missiles, than just falls in between that interval.
There are a few ideas already came up before that, after some thought, can actually alleviate the all-or-nothing behavior, we just need to put them together so they break the law of large numbers.
The first is actually in VB6 Aurora and earlier versions of the C#, i.e., each BFC can only target one missile salvo (i.e., a group of several missiles launched by a single MFC). Of course, this does not stop a BFC from controlling 2000 guns, but it definitely discourages that since a second simultaneous salvo will completely bypass the PD guns.
On top of the first limit, I'd like to add a second constraint that each missile salvo can be only engaged by one BFC/MFC at a time.
The third is limiting how many missiles can be directed by a single MFC on the attacking side, i.e., the missile salvo size. This can be a separate tech line, going from maybe 4 up to 12, not too high so we don't trigger the law of large numbers. MFCs can be made cheaper to counterbalance this nerf, and the number of missiles guided can be chosen as a parameter when designing an MFC, where lower numbers make the MFC even cheaper. This limitation will make mass box launcher ships harder to make as more MFCs are required, but for fighters and bombers, nothing has changed.
With these changes, we are preventing the number of shots from going too high during one interception. This will significantly increase the effectiveness of the attacking missiles when the missile volley size is smaller than the defender's PD capability. Again, as ship design is flexible, there is nothing stopping people from designing massive ships with multiple BFCs each guiding 200 guns with a 10% chance to hit, trying to stop all missiles. But it is more reasonable, in the above example, to have 20 BFCs each controlling 100 guns. Of course, the attacker can always bring overwhelming firepower to saturate the PD, but let's check the cases when a smaller number of attacking missiles are used. Against 20 salvos of 4 missiles, totaling 80 missiles in a volley, each salvo actually has a 2.4% chance of some missiles getting through, whereas, in the above example, there is a 2.8E-24 chance of any missiles getting through. If those 80 missiles are grouped into 10 salvos of 8 missiles, based on the 2nd constraint above, only 10 BFC can engage. In this case, each missile salvo has a 20% chance of getting something through.
Combining this with the initial idea of missile launcher size changes (which also discourages box launchers, just we don't need to nerf the box launcher as hard), it should achieve the goal of alleviating the all-or-nothing behavior.
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I removed the requirement for a single BFC to engage a single salvo in order to prevent small craft gaining an inbuilt advantage due to their smaller salvo sizes. I don't want to get into a situation where two identical waves of missiles have different chances to penetrate defences because one is artificially divided into a larger number of small salvos.
This mechanic would lead to missile ships having more fire controls to gain that advantage, then beam ships needing to have more fire controls to handle smaller salvos, which then would make fire controls really expensive as a proportion of ship cost, leading to cost reductions in fire controls to avoid imbalance in the new paradigm of ship design and eventually we just end up back where we started.
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This mechanic would lead to missile ships having more fire controls to gain that advantage, then beam ships needing to have more fire controls to handle smaller salvos, which then would make fire controls really expensive as a proportion of ship cost, leading to cost reductions in fire controls to avoid imbalance in the new paradigm of ship design and eventually we just end up back where we started.
Basically this. In practice, if you place more limits on fire controls, you'll see designs shift to use a larger number of fire controls and fractionally fewer guns or missiles in order to get whatever is a reasonably good number of shots/AMMs per salvo. You don't upset the all-or-nothing paradigm, you just shift some percentages around a little bit.
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This mechanic would lead to missile ships having more fire controls to gain that advantage, then beam ships needing to have more fire controls to handle smaller salvos, which then would make fire controls really expensive as a proportion of ship cost, leading to cost reductions in fire controls to avoid imbalance in the new paradigm of ship design and eventually we just end up back where we started.
Basically this. In practice, if you place more limits on fire controls, you'll see designs shift to use a larger number of fire controls and fractionally fewer guns or missiles in order to get whatever is a reasonably good number of shots/AMMs per salvo.
This part is correct and what I intended, the goal is to prevent reaching the place where the law of large numbers applies. It is the underlying culprit of the all-or-nothing-ness. With missile interceptions limited to a smaller number of guns against a smaller number of missiles, it is more likely that a smaller volley will get through, or a larger volley will be blocked.
If the BFCs are too expensive, we can reduce their cost(at least for the tracking speed multiplier part).
You don't upset the all-or-nothing paradigm, you just shift some percentages around a little bit.
On the contrary, I am exactly upset the all-or-nothing paradigm mathematically, preventing the law of large numbers from working against us. You can never prevent the 'all' side as there is nothing to prevent bringing an overwhelming force. But the 'nothing' side can be alleviated based on my math.
As long as the number of shots being large, however the to-hit probability change is just shifting percentages around. Changing E-war, adding tracking bonuses, and adding stand-off warheads all fall into this category in the end.
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Basically this. In practice, if you place more limits on fire controls, you'll see designs shift to use a larger number of fire controls and fractionally fewer guns or missiles in order to get whatever is a reasonably good number of shots/AMMs per salvo.
This part is correct and what I intended, the goal is to prevent reaching the place where the law of large numbers applies. It is the underlying culprit of the all-or-nothing-ness. With missile interceptions limited to a smaller number of guns against a smaller number of missiles, it is more likely that a smaller volley will get through, or a larger volley will be blocked.
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I don't think this will happen. The current mechanics are not "one weapon per missile salvo" or some similar even spread; rather, a fleet in final fire mode will repeatedly target one missile salvo at a time until it is gone, then move on to the next salvo, and so on - one salvo at a time.
In the proposed case, assuming we carry over the same mechanics, the only thing that changes here is that we fire one BFC at a time instead of one weapon at a time, and the natural adjustment to this is that players will use more BFCs and, due to conservation of tonnage/BP, fractionally fewer weapons.
FWIW, I in practice already use basically this proposed change for my ASMs, trying to balance launchers and MFCs to get 4-5 missiles per salvo, specifically because I try to take advantage of the mechanics to force enemy PD weapons to waste shots against dead salvos (not my proudest moment, I admit), even with box launcher-based ships. Nothing about this somehow precludes the all-or-nothing nature of PD, it just shifts the balancing points around.
Also FWIW, I don't think trying to eliminate the all-or-nothing nature is a productive direction for missile balance. Not only is it (IMO) pretty much baked into the mechanics of Aurora (to change this requires reframing the entire PD mechanics into a shot-per-missile framework instead of the current missiles-per-shot system), but Aurora is really based around the strategic more than tactical game, so in the big picture missile warfare is really about creating the strategic conditions to destroy the enemy with overwhelming firepower. The problem in this picture is that the tactical mechanics push towards a pretty obvious optimum (box launchers + smaller missiles) to create those strategic conditions and overwhelm enemy PD - what we'd like to accomplish is creating more viable routes to establishing overwhelming strategic firepower so that missiles can be an interesting and competitive alternative to beam weapons without having to resort to box launcher-only doctrines.
All this said, I'm not opposed to the proposed fire control changes as I do think they're more interesting and realistic (and do help to shift away from box launcher porcupines a little bit). I just don't think framing it as a magic bullet to change the game's math is correct.
Also FWIW:
I removed the requirement for a single BFC to engage a single salvo in order to prevent small craft gaining an inbuilt advantage due to their smaller salvo sizes. I don't want to get into a situation where two identical waves of missiles have different chances to penetrate defences because one is artificially divided into a larger number of small salvos.
I don't necessarily see this as a problem. I always imagine the individual salvos as groups of missiles flying in tight formation slaved to a single MFC, so separate salvos might be separated by much larger distances (albeit still much smaller than 1,000 km, still) to function as basically separate targets. So having mechanics which depend on the salvo (i.e. "formation") size makes sense to me.
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I removed the requirement for a single BFC to engage a single salvo in order to prevent small craft gaining an inbuilt advantage due to their smaller salvo sizes. I don't want to get into a situation where two identical waves of missiles have different chances to penetrate defences because one is artificially divided into a larger number of small salvos.
That's not artificial - those missiles are being independently controlled to approach from different angles or perform different evasive maneuvers or what have you. A fire control isn't just a 'launch' button, its a targeting and processing computer.
If someone dedicates more resources to a functionality, let them have that functionality be enhanced.
This mechanic would lead to missile ships having more fire controls to gain that advantage, then beam ships needing to have more fire controls to handle smaller salvos, which then would make fire controls really expensive as a proportion of ship cost,
This sounds like an interesting design choice - perhaps with a dedicated 'number of simultaneous targetable salvos' modifier? Standard 2-5 per FC or some such, or perhaps start at 2 for a standard BFC, and be affected by the TrackingSpeed multiplier.
leading to cost reductions in fire controls to avoid imbalance in the new paradigm of ship design and eventually we just end up back where we started.
What? Why would there be cost reductions?
We're talking about how much better beams are than missiles, but it seems like every time something is suggested that might make missiles worthwhile there's an automatic jump to buff beams to compensate.
On the contrary, I am exactly upset the all-or-nothing paradigm mathematically, preventing the law of large numbers from working against us. You can never prevent the 'all' side as there is nothing to prevent bringing an overwhelming force. But the 'nothing' side can be alleviated based on my math.
I'm with Iceranger on this, I think we're looking at this wrong. Like the OP stated: small waves are pointless, so nobody uses them. But if we tone down how all-or-nothing *PD* is, we might see them used more.
If someone wants a mega-wave of missiles, they'll want to have as few FCs as possible to leave space for missiles, but it could also be viable to field half as many missiles with lots of FC in order to overwhelm enemy tracking.
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I don't think this will happen. The current mechanics are not "one weapon per missile salvo" or some similar even spread; rather, a fleet in final fire mode will repeatedly target one missile salvo at a time until it is gone, then move on to the next salvo, and so on - one salvo at a time.
They are statistically the same. Say there are 2000 shots vs 200 missiles, each shot has a 0.1 chance to hit. It doesn't matter if the shots (trials) are repeated against 1 missile until it is gone, distributed evenly, or however you want to order them. Once there are 200 successful trials (connecting shots) rolled, all 200 missiles are destroyed. If all shots are rolled and there are less than 200 successes, some missiles get through.
FWIW, I in practice already use basically this proposed change for my ASMs, trying to balance launchers and MFCs to get 4-5 missiles per salvo, specifically because I try to take advantage of the mechanics to force enemy PD weapons to waste shots against dead salvos (not my proudest moment, I admit), even with box launcher-based ships. Nothing about this somehow precludes the all-or-nothing nature of PD, it just shifts the balancing points around.
Yes under the current mechanism wasted shots per turret exist, but this (like everything else) can be alleviated by designing turrets having an expected shot of 1, i.e., increasing the granularity of the shots to reduce wastes.
Also FWIW, I don't think trying to eliminate the all-or-nothing nature is a productive direction for missile balance.
I think many of the discussions around missile balance are related to all-or-nothing, without realizing it. Because of the all-or-nothing nature, everyone wants to stay on the 'all' side, thus the box launcher spam, thus the AMM spam, thus the proposal of reducing launcher size for larger missiles so it is easier to launch more larger missiles. The stand-off warhead basically tries to reduce the hit chance against larger missiles, making it easier for them to get on the 'all' side. ECM/ECCM is more feasible on larger missiles, again trying to get them on the 'all' side.
By breaking all-or-nothing, the attacker doesn't necessarily need overwhelming firepower to at least get something through. Of course, more is better, but it is more interesting that during combat a lesser or equal force can get its tactical advantage by doing something.
Not only is it (IMO) pretty much baked into the mechanics of Aurora (to change this requires reframing the entire PD mechanics into a shot-per-missile framework instead of the current missiles-per-shot system)
As I mentioned above, these two are statistically identical. It doesn't matter if you roll dice until one missile dies then proceed to the next missile, or roll once per missile, then in the end if there are additional shots go back from the start. They are statistically the same.
The only targeting change needed in my proposal is each salvo can only be engaged once by one BFC. This is not intended to nerf BFCs, but again to avoid going into the region where the law of large numbers works against us.
In short, by limiting the number of missiles in a salvo, limiting one salvo per defending BFC/MFC and one defending BFC/MFC per salvo, we create a scenario where the missile interceptions are in small batches, where the law of large numbers no longer applies, so the attacker doesn't always need an overwhelming number of missiles to hope to get some through.
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If someone wants a mega-wave of missiles, they'll want to have as few FCs as possible to leave space for missiles, but it could also be viable to field half as many missiles with lots of FC in order to overwhelm enemy tracking.
Yes, but if you are only firing half as many missiles due to have lots of FC, the defender only needs half as many weapons, so they can have lot of FC too. The overall situation isn't changing.
I will be posting some missile updates over the next few days that should have a much greater impact on missile combat in general
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If someone wants a mega-wave of missiles, they'll want to have as few FCs as possible to leave space for missiles, but it could also be viable to field half as many missiles with lots of FC in order to overwhelm enemy tracking.
Yes, but if you are only firing half as many missiles due to have lots of FC, the defender only needs half as many weapons, so they can have lot of FC too. The overall situation isn't changing.
I will be posting some missile updates over the next few days that should have a much greater impact on missile combat in general
As I mentioned multiple times, there is nothing preventing either side from bringing overwhelming forces. As I have demonstrated in my argument, the number of missiles has to be closer to the number of the effective shots for missile warfare to be not one-sided. However, these numbers tend to be very large, hundreds or thousands in a battle. However, the number of fire controls on either side is usually an order of magnitude less, thus it is much more likely one is close to the other, creating an interesting, not one-sided scenario.
I really hope there are other good ideas to resolve this. But as I said in my above post, many of the ideas are fundamentally just changing the interception chance, which does not matter when the law of large numbers apply.
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just posting some of my desires for missile combat, changes to both E-WAR and missiles.
Missiles:
I want detonation range, i want laser warheads, I want configurable detonation range for missiles that can be set during combat and I want proper decoys that use E-WAR.
E-WAR:
in terms of e-war i want some kind of added thing, in honorverse the controllers of the PD turrets have to learn the patterns, and configure their systems to match, and they have to deal with the decoys disguising themselves and understanding whats a decoy and not i want a similar experience, if decoys become much much more viable then it massively reduces potential cost needed to overcome defenses
which makes costs go down overall for missiles against beam PD and means you dont have to rely so much on Alpha salvo.
basically as you see more of the missiles come in your computers begin to fight against their electronic warfare and have a percent change as time goes on to understand whats a decoy or what inst
if it doesnt understand it shoots the decoys if it does make that check it shoots the real missileshigher EW tech means you have a higher chance of this, the more time in sensor range and being seen the more this chance increases over time so as you do fighting your stuff gets better and better this may then require your opponent to swithc tactics to use a longer detonation range because decoys are less effective meaning they cant get in as close.
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just posting some of my desires for missile combat, changes to both E-WAR and missiles.
Missiles:
I want detonation range, i want laser warheads, I want configurable detonation range for missiles that can be set during combat and I want proper decoys that use E-WAR.
E-WAR:
in terms of e-war i want some kind of added thing, in honorverse the controllers of the PD turrets have to learn the patterns, and configure their systems to match, and they have to deal with the decoys disguising themselves and understanding whats a decoy and not i want a similar experience, if decoys become much much more viable then it massively reduces potential cost needed to overcome defenses
which makes costs go down overall for missiles against beam PD and means you dont have to rely so much on Alpha salvo.
basically as you see more of the missiles come in your computers begin to fight against their electronic warfare and have a percent change as time goes on to understand whats a decoy or what inst
if it doesnt understand it shoots the decoys if it does make that check it shoots the real missileshigher EW tech means you have a higher chance of this, the more time in sensor range and being seen the more this chance increases over time so as you do fighting your stuff gets better and better this may then require your opponent to swithc tactics to use a longer detonation range because decoys are less effective meaning they cant get in as close.
There will be stand-off laser warheads with ranges configurable in design, but not in combat. I have some other warheads in mind too. I will probably add some form of decoys, but I am considering potential mechanics at the moment. The idea of tactical intelligence on decoys is an interesting one, but I suspect people would just deploy updated same-tech decoys on a regular basis to avoid that, so I need to be careful about creating tedium rather than decisions. Also, if we did that with decoys, you could argue the same for missiles and that would also mean regular missile updates. Probably easier to leave that alone (the TacIntel part).
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Imho the thing we want to tackle as stated is the zero sum game and I think the best way to do that is EWAR Decoys and detonation range.
essentially right now if you have enough PD 100% of missiles are shot down and you do 0 damage as the missile player leaving you with a "i have to retreat or go into beam combat"
This i think can be corrected by the evolving war of E-WAR and decoys,
If the PD has to reach maximum effectiveness over time during combat against missiles then it means the missile player can do atleast some damage, this effectiveness meaning instead of 100% its say 90% and growing to 100% during combat at a certain range, this eventually causes all missiles to be stopped at the most damaging range and for the missile player to use longer range detonation warheads to get through which cause far less damage but do some while expending missiles, this also puts a greater point for beam ships to carry more armour thus reducing number of PD weapons.
This can be seen as tacint and i think it would make the interaction far more enjoyable.
next is decoys, decoys use EWAR and should be unlocked via electronic warfare, the amount of decoys used improves the chance of your missiles not being hit and the higher EW you have the better chances the enemy PD is confused, the opposite is true for the defender who using eccm to distinguish and the computers target proper ones, instead of the base +10% linear chance to hit this changes to a more enjoyable experience as you get better at distinguishing these decoys the missile combat gets easier to defend against assuming you didnt already take too much damage.
This incentivises the missile fleet to try to use its dumb munitions as much as it can initially to break through as well as its decoys but overtime it has to move to laser warheads to get any damage through, this may cause unforseen consequences overall but i think systems like this will create flexibility and decision making for the player on what types of warheads to employ, and for the defending player the investment into ECCM and better crew training to learn quicker the enemies patterns and missiles.
basically i want honoverse and this is ho wi see it working ingame.
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For v2.20, I've removed missile agility and implemented fractional warheads.
http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=13090.msg164041#msg164041
I understand that the point of fractional warheads is trying to give AMMs a chance to be useful when agility is removed. However, after modifying my missile optimizer and playing with the numbers a bit, I'm totally against the change of removing agility, for two reasons:
1, while the fractional warhead sizes may overcome the loss of agility for very early techs, it does not last long. For example, let's say we use 2 tiers of tech above the starting tech to design an AMM:
Warhead strength 4/MSP
Engine power 0.32/MSP
Fuel efficiency 0.8
Engine max power boost 1.5
Using a warhead of 0.05 and as short range as possible trying to get the best hit chance, the following missile is the 'optimal', with a 100% chance to hit 1880km/s.
Missile Size: 1.0000 MSP (2.5000 Tons) Warhead: 0.0500 Radiation Damage: 0 Manoeuver Rating: 10
Speed: 18,800 km/s Fuel: 18 Flight Time: 80 seconds Range: 1.52 Mkm
Cost Per Missile: 0.48250 Development Cost: 48
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 188.0% 3k km/s 62.7% 5k km/s 37.6% 10k km/s 18.8% 20k km/s 9.4% 50k km/s 3.8% 100k km/s 1.9%
In the current version, we can have the following missile, with agility 48/MSP, also 2 tiers above the starting tech. It hits 2100km/s with a 100% chance.
Missile Size: 1.0000 MSP (2.5000 Tons) Warhead: 1 Radiation Damage: 1 Manoeuver Rating: 25
Speed: 8,400 km/s Fuel: 19 Flight Time: 132 seconds Range: 1.12 Mkm
Cost Per Missile: 0.75021 Development Cost: 75
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 210.0% 3k km/s 70.0% 5k km/s 42.0% 10k km/s 21.0% 20k km/s 10.5% 50k km/s 4.2% 100k km/s 2.1%
Thus, only for the 1st tier of tech the AMMs perform slightly better than the current game, afterwards, it is a straight across-board nerf. Another example at higher tech (Ion engine):
Warhead strength 4/MSP
Engine power 0.32/MSP
Fuel efficiency 0.8
Engine max power boost 1.5
Missile agility 80/MSP
No agility:
Missile Size: 1.0000 MSP (2.5000 Tons) Warhead: 0.0504 Radiation Damage: 0 Manoeuver Rating: 10
Speed: 72,800 km/s Fuel: 54 Flight Time: 14 seconds Range: 1.02 Mkm
Cost Per Missile: 1.83260 Development Cost: 183
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 728.0% 3k km/s 242.7% 5k km/s 145.6% 10k km/s 72.8% 20k km/s 36.4% 50k km/s 14.6% 100k km/s 7.3%
Current:
Missile Size: 1.0000 MSP (2.5000 Tons) Warhead: 1 Radiation Damage: 1 Manoeuver Rating: 37
Speed: 35,200 km/s Fuel: 79 Flight Time: 29 seconds Range: 1.05 Mkm
Cost Per Missile: 1.66029 Development Cost: 166
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 1302.4% 3k km/s 434.1% 5k km/s 260.5% 10k km/s 130.2% 20k km/s 65.1% 50k km/s 26.0% 100k km/s 13.0%
The 100% hit speed is 7280km/s vs 13024km/s, with the AMM without agility only having a 16.7% chance to destroy an S6 missile on a hit, and being more expensive compared to the current version.
One additional result: at high tech when all missiles can reach the speed cap (light speed), AMM will always have a 10% hit chance, rendering them largely useless.
2, after removing agility, missile design basically becomes 'get the highest engine power and profit' other than in some extreme cases (read, extreme long-range missiles). For example, let's say we are designing an AMM at early tech, with the following techs (1 tier above the starting tech)
Warhead strength 3/MSP
Engine power 0.25/MSP
Fuel efficiency 0.9
Engine max power boost 1.25
Using a warhead of 0.05, i.e., the smallest useful warhead for AMMs to maximize the potential to play with engine and fuel sizes. In this case, for any missiles with a range of less than 44.6Mkm (laughable extreme for early tech AMMs), the max engine power boost is the best choice.
Missile Size: 1.0000 MSP (2.5000 Tons) Warhead: 0.0501 Radiation Damage: 0 Manoeuver Rating: 10
Speed: 10,200 km/s Fuel: 433 Flight Time: 4,376 seconds Range: 44.64 Mkm
Cost Per Missile: 0.27253 Development Cost: 27
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 102.0% 3k km/s 34.0% 5k km/s 20.4% 10k km/s 10.2% 20k km/s 5.1% 50k km/s 2.0% 100k km/s 1.0%
In the end, I'd suggest something similar to what Jorgan_CAB has mentioned, limit the agility tech to a smaller range and have a linear increase instead of completely removing it. This way AMMs can be more viable in the early game (still much worse than beam PD), while avoiding them being too powerful late game compared to beam PD. There were some numbers I crunched for an earlier similar discussion http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=11904.msg140898#msg140898 (http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=11904.msg140898#msg140898)
I agree with and suggest you reevaluate the change to agility as mathematically this will nerf AMMs and cause missile design to be less interesting, you state that the removal was based on the rule exception agility has and that it is located nowhere else in aurora, however missiles have plenty of those see 2x power boost special rule which missiles have, I feel this change would of been fine if replaced by some other system but the math shows that it will negatively effect the intended outcome people want and what i believe you want here.
Am not saying to readd agility but either do that or make a replacement that makes more sense for you and adjusts the math iceranger shows
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EDITED TO REDUCE CLUTTER
--- Another weird idea, but what if bigger missiles were cheaper? Maybe the idea is that the systems can be less expensive because they don't need to be as compact to do the same thing?
--- OH! What about flares!? So basically, you spend MSP on these flares, right? You can spend it both on number of flares and the efficacy of said flares. Every time PD engages a missile, a flare is consumed which gives a sort of bonus to avoid being hit. It could conceivably extend even further and allow flares to apply salvo wide, with the drawback that all missiles with salvo wide flares would deploy those flares if/when the salvo is engaged, rendering multiple missiles with salvo wide flares in a single salvo redundant.
--- Could even have the flare efficacy scale to missile size, so bigger missiles need more msp in efficacy to get a better bonus than smaller ones. Then have the flare capacity scale to missile size allowing bigger missiles to spend less msp for the same number of uses relative to a smaller missile.
--- Maybe allow missiles to carry a wide area ECM, that is divided up evenly amongst missiles in the salvo? Make big missiles useful for ECMing whole salvos.
--- Perhaps have decoys, but they're split between missile decoys to attract any missiles shot at them, and one for beam PD to attract shots from those. So you would need to spend msp on the right type of decoy. With flares and salvo wide ECM and/or salvo wide flares, you could have massive dedicated Decoy Drones.
--- Maybe let missile sensors or ECCM grant a chance to detect and/or ignore decoy missiles? Maybe allow Missile FCS to operate in an Anti-Decoy mode, but requiring it to be on a one-to-one basis? So basically you can add some redundant Missile FCS's and each one can negate the decoys of one salvo? Same with Beam FCS's so there's a reason to add extras sometimes outside of redundancy / anti-fighter swarm.
--- Yet another weird idea... Shield Launchers. Basically, a missile launched from a "Shield Launcher" would gain shields equivalent to the ability of the shield launcher. The shield launcher would impart a certain shield strength according to it's design, and would need to wait for the shield to recharge before it could fire again regardless of missile reload speed.
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--- Another weird idea, but what if bigger missiles were cheaper? Maybe the idea is that the systems can be less expensive because they don't need to be as compact to do the same thing?
One of the bigger problems facing a missile doctrine today is cost, especially in Gallicite. With the initially proposed changes to missile launcher sizes to allow more MSP to fit into the same amount of launchers missile doctrines may become more viable, but it'll also exacerbate the cost problem. Making larger missiles cheaper proportionally to how many more launchers could fit under the proposed change would offset this.
I'd also support something like a flat 50% cost reduction for missiles or just missile engines.
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EDITED TO REDUCE CLUTTER
--- Another weird idea, but what if bigger missiles were cheaper? Maybe the idea is that the systems can be less expensive because they don't need to be as compact to do the same thing?
I think this might be a good way to promote big missiles.
--- OH! What about flares!? So basically, you spend MSP on these flares, right? You can spend it both on number of flares and the efficacy of said flares. Every time PD engages a missile, a flare is consumed which gives a sort of bonus to avoid being hit. It could conceivably extend even further and allow flares to apply salvo wide, with the drawback that all missiles with salvo wide flares would deploy those flares if/when the salvo is engaged, rendering multiple missiles with salvo wide flares in a single salvo redundant.
I like this. This effectively makes it easer for larger missiles to go through PD despite having a smaller salvo size. This is kind of the old missile armor, slightly worse than that (as flares/chaffs are released no matter whether the PD shot is hit or not, while armor is only deducted when the shot actually hits). Perhaps each flare only has a certain chance to force a PD shot to miss. Perhaps it can also be countered by ECCM as you mentioned.
--- Could even have the flare efficacy scale to missile size, so bigger missiles need more msp in efficacy to get a better bonus than smaller ones. Then have the flare capacity scale to missile size allowing bigger missiles to spend less msp for the same number of uses relative to a smaller missile.
I'd prefer giving it a minimum size so it can only be effectively mounted on larger missiles.
--- Maybe allow missiles to carry a wide area ECM, that is divided up evenly amongst missiles in the salvo? Make big missiles useful for ECMing whole salvos.
Very interesting, so you can mix a special missile in a salvo. Although currently in the game, different missile types launched together are considered different salvos.
--- Perhaps have decoys, but they're split between missile decoys to attract any missiles shot at them, and one for beam PD to attract shots from those. So you would need to spend msp on the right type of decoy. With flares and salvo wide ECM and/or salvo wide flares, you could have massive dedicated Decoy Drones.
This is basically PD flare and AMM flare, perhaps just combining them into one would suffice.
--- Maybe let missile sensors or ECCM grant a chance to detect and/or ignore decoy missiles? Maybe allow Missile FCS to operate in an Anti-Decoy mode, but requiring it to be on a one-to-one basis? So basically you can add some redundant Missile FCS's and each one can negate the decoys of one salvo? Same with Beam FCS's so there's a reason to add extras sometimes outside of redundancy / anti-fighter swarm.
Also interesting.
--- Yet another weird idea... Shield Launchers. Basically, a missile launched from a "Shield Launcher" would gain shields equivalent to the ability of the shield launcher. The shield launcher would impart a certain shield strength according to it's design, and would need to wait for the shield to recharge before it could fire again regardless of missile reload speed.
I think this has been ruled out as right now missiles and ships calculate armor and shield the same way, so there is no effective way to give missiles shields, according to Steve.
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--- To clarify on the flares versus decoys, the flares would impart a chance to miss the missile in question while decoys would cause PD fire to be attracted TO the missile in question.
--- So a missile with Beam PD Decoy and Flares would pop it's flares if an AMM was shot at it, but wouldn't attract the AMM. When it got to the Beam PD, if it had flares it would pop those when shot at, but would ALSO attract that Beam PD fire to it, forcing the PD to shoot at it before the actual damage dealing missiles.
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OK brainstorming, so what about... boarding pods? If a large missile can have troop space inside it, plus ECM plus HTK and then the boarding rules apply to the very fast boarding pod if it makes contact with a ships hull without shields.
Another idea, a Bose-Einstein Condensate ram, attacks the outer hull at range like a shaped charge, spreading like high velocity jello, condensing the armour into the synchronous mass and peeling off a large spread of the outer layer (not penetrating but removing armour layers) which then splashes and rebounds with a chance of hitting any other vessels in the same location like a flak blast. Each one point of hull / condensate amalgam then becomes one lump of rebound and can hit or miss the hull of another vessel meaning a proportion of the original strike value is lost but the remainder creates secondary surface damage on other ships within a given range. Chance is per ship so a dense stack has a higher proportion of secondary damage.
Shield blasting volumetric detonations maybe using radiation amplification tech like a neutron bomb on large warheads which detonate at range and cause damage to shields only, on all ships within range of the blast, which depends on the size of the detonation therefore missile size, hence large missiles are better and can detonate further away escaping close range PD.
Reflective fairings could be a manufacturing cost penalty which give missiles invulnerability against laser and microwave fire.
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The need for maximized salvo sizes itself stems from the fact that missiles in Aurora are "dumb;" they beeline for the target without a thought as soon as they clear the tube and there's no way to delay one or two (vectoring them towards outlying steerpoints that are staggered) to ensure a simultaneous time-on-target arrival.
This actually used to be possible in very old VB6 versions and it was possibly the most OP thing that has ever been in the game. You can still read about this tactic in Steve or Kurt's oldest AARs for instance.
I can see why the feature was removed - it belongs to a level of complexity a step above what Aurora has been trying to model so far. Without the rest of that complexity there's not much point to having it.
Can you explain how this would motivate size-2 AMMs? Assuming that Steve would keep the maximum standoff of laser warheads at 5 LS (1.5m km) to be consistent with every beam weapon and BFC in the game, and knowing that current size-1 AMMs comfortably exceed 2m km range after very low tech levels, I'm not seeing the logic here.
I'm presuming that ECM/ECCM will be given more depth past the current mechanic of (if I recall correctly) 0.25MSP fixed cost to include either, as well as higher-speed AMMs to ensure they can reach intercept range of the laser warhead in time. (To keep it consistent with ship rules, perhaps we'd have the option of 0.25MSP to get our racial Compact ECM/ECCM tech in, and pay .50 MSP for our non-compact ECM/ECCM?) It's also possible that the nature of the weapon (a single-use bomb-pumped x-ray laser) will result in maximum ranges greater than what a ship powered laser can manage (if one uses a significantly large missile and warhead,) creating a niche case for a 1.2 or 1.6 or 2.0 MSP AMM.
I think many of the discussions around missile balance are related to all-or-nothing, without realizing it.
This is an insightful comment. We've all been trying to work within the one dynamic we have, without trying to move outside it, and one reason for that, I think, is that defense saturation is a real life concern for missile defense; with striking at range (AAMs) and ECM (jammers) both ways to mitigate the problem. But due to various simplifications necessary for a game (especially one originally based on tabletop rules) and the ongoing re-balancing process as the game is re-invented from its VB6 self, there is effectively only one way to stop missiles: to shoot them down with energy based point defense.
The problem with ECM/ECCM is that it's mostly reliant on strategic resource allocations made over the course of years (i.e. current state-of-the-art in related tech) and presents no serious design choices at the ship design stage except for the lightest of warships (it's only a few hundred tons and the benefits are usually well worth it.) It should be noted that this is fairly true to life; there's sharply diminishing returns for simply increasing the power output of a jammer, as a jammer that's too loud just becomes a homing beacon (home-on-jam.) In my experience, since the (much, much needed) improvement in energy weapons in C# there's little to no reason to bother with AMMs - even accounting for NPR's not learning of reduced-size launchers till recently, my all-raingun armed ships have been able to wade through fire with ease, and enemy fleets with few dedicated escorts can still soak up an impressive number of missiles due to the contributing fire of primary batteries. Though I haven't tried to quantify this with Numbers, it really feels like AMMs are just not worth the tonnage. Ergo why salvo mass is paramount in turn; to break through that all-or-nothing final-defensive-fire flak screen. (Larger guns cycle slower but if NPR's knew to set them to area fire the longer reach could make up for that, and in either case if you push the limits you're still right back to 10cm rail and gauss turrets, at best.)
Of course, I could be wrong. There could be a wide space in which a certain ratio of energy defense to AMM defense could fare much better against incoming salvos than just energy alone - it'd take analysis skills beyond my own to investigate. But I think the fact we're having this conversation at all is testament to the fact that we're not encountering that space often enough in play to satisfy us; there's not many engagements where the salvos break through and do some damage, but not decisive damage. And even if they did there seems to be a paucity of engagements that start with such an exchange, and are then continued by the gunships closing for direct combat. I don't think we can blame NPR's for that, but ourselves. We'll always be able to out-optimize NPR's because they're dumb. AI is dumb, and people with multi-million dollar budgets have tried and often failed to make them less dumb. So it's up to us to design "reasonable" ships that don't bully the NPR's too much so we can have interesting fights. Fair enough.
... but those ships themselves feel boring. As someone else in this thread lamented, having a few big "torpedo launchers" on a ship to complement beam weapons is effectively useless. This goes for entire fleets, too. Just a little energy or a little missile isn't going to make the difference in most engagements. So you're back to that theoretical missile engagement --> follow-up energy engagement, so what does your reasonable, non-NPR bullying fleet look like? Well, 70% missile, 30% energy? 60-40, maybe? That's it. That's what the decision space boils down to for you - a ratio. And you're always keenly aware that you may end up like Yamato at Midway, holding a bunch of limp battleships in your hand as you charge around looking for a battle-line engagement after the enemy carriers have slam-dunked you hard. As that example shows, that's a realistic danger - further incentivizing an all-or-nothing approach in either missiles or energy weapons to maximize the return on investment and ensure every ton of hull is contributing towards success of the overall strategy instead of risking being dead weight (perhaps literally.) Real-life navies optimize as best they're able, too! But their conflicts are still fraught with uncertainty and danger because they don't have the nice, predictable sterility that the high levels of abstraction of a tabletop rules-set provides.
In sum, we need a wider design space.
Standoff missiles definitely help provide that by allowing for effective anti-ship attack outside the energy point-defense envelope. This immediately presents new choices to both attacker and defender by introducing a whole new possible paradigm for missile attack; one governed by much smaller salvos of much larger missiles, which themselves are countered by rapid-fire AMM launchers and/or dedicated long-range energy weapons, like turreted lasers (which, due to their nature, will also have a dual anti-ship role, much as batteries of 10cm rail or gauss turrets do against fighters or in very close brawls.) Now both sides have to weigh their offense and defense more carefully, it's not just "bring as much of X or Y as possible," but "how much do I devote against saturation attack by old-fashioned nukes, and how much do I invest in ranged defenses?"
This is still only two options, of course. Utilizing ECM more dynamically would go against how it's used for ship vs. ship combat (it's either present or it isn't and its efficacy is determined by long-term investment, not design-time choices.) But we do still have decoys - and this is in fact how Nebulous decided to complicate matters. Currently the game has three sizes of missiles - size 1 (much like an Aurora AMM, usually used for point-defense but also capable of light anti-ship work en-masse,) size two (your solid, reliable all-rounder missile) and size three (big, slow, but devastating torpedoes.) It also has two types of missiles - standard and hybrid, the latter being staged missiles. Unlike Aurora, the second stages are of unique design, being "sprint" missiles moving much faster than you can get the base weapon to move, but having severely constrained release range. This leads to a dynamic where sprint missiles that stage are very, very hard to stop, but if you invest in expensive niche capabilities meant to counter those expensive niche missiles, you can quite readily pop these weapon's slow cruise boosters before they stage. But it's effectively impossible to adequately protect against all potential threats within the point limit - long-range energy weapons to pop those hybrid missiles, AMMs to knock down heavy armored torpedoes, and rapid-fire CIWS to fend off Aurora-style old fashioned SARH saturation attack. One class of threats almost always has to be covered by less effective means, and for me that typically means decoys - and due to a variety of seeker options, it can be hard to carry a sufficient array to reliably spoof every potential attack!
Nebulous is a more complex game on the tactical level than Aurora, so we needn't import all that, but one more paradigm, something to give us a kind of "rock-paper-scissors" set of choices in offense and defense, may prove ideal in recreating that realistic dynamic where you have too few resources to robustly guard against every possible threat your foe's fleet doctrine may have, so you have to use tactics and strategy to mitigate those risks. For instance, we could just make missiles much more dangerous so they can generally swamp any point defense if they get a good, solid alpha strike in, and then make Aurora "carrier battles in space;" first one to get a shot off typically wins and the real work of interception happens at a good distance by carrier launched fighters. And that dynamic would work. It'd even feel a bit less arbitrary than the one-time shooting match of PD vs. alpha strike. But soon we'd be back to optimizing things to the limit, like two duelists shuffling in a straight line along an elevated plank, even if the plank was a bit wider than before. I think it'd be much more interesting, and suited for Aurora's intended use as an RP tool, to have the aforementioned uncertainty dynamic, where you can never adequately guard against all threats in the tonnage you have, and if you do, you leave yourself vulnerable to someone who focused their offense keenly on one area. The key, then, is to either specialize, or generalize, and use other tactics (stealth, scouting, distant pickets, clever tricks with sensor-equipped missiles, whatever else we can think of) to cover one's disadvantages and play to ones advantages (for the generalist, that means finding the enemy's disadvantage and positioning to exploit it.)
I'm bad at game design. I have no idea what the best way to implement this is. But there's plenty of people in here who could... if it actually would advance Steve's overall development goals for Aurora.
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It's also possible that the nature of the weapon (a single-use bomb-pumped x-ray laser) will result in maximum ranges greater than what a ship powered laser can manage (if one uses a significantly large missile and warhead,) creating a niche case for a 1.2 or 1.6 or 2.0 MSP AMM.
I suppose it's not impossible. Large ship-based lasers are range-limited by the BFC (and cannot exceed 5 LS due to Aurora's hard limit). Without a BFC and given that a laser warhead is a spread of damage rather than a precision strike, I could see Steve lifting the range limit for that special case - though it leaves a question as to how a range limit should be determined, since the theoretical maximum range of a laser at MaxTech is 30m km if I've calculated correctly (if you use the Advanced Spinal mount) which is pretty excessive and bring up some serious questions about targeting.
That being said, AMM range is really pretty trivial. At Ion Drive tech level, I can easily draw up an AMM with 5m km range, ~25% to 33% hit chance (depending on target ASM speed at the same tech level), and superior speed to any realistic ASM at that tech level (25k or 30k km/s for Ion Drive). For comparison, the maximum range of a 37.5cm Far UV Advanced Spinal Laser (i.e. comparable tech level) is less than 2m km, and again I doubt it will make sense to set the range for laser warheads based on maximum laser technology.
In my experience, since the (much, much needed) improvement in energy weapons in C# there's little to no reason to bother with AMMs - even accounting for NPR's not learning of reduced-size launchers till recently, my all-raingun armed ships have been able to wade through fire with ease, and enemy fleets with few dedicated escorts can still soak up an impressive number of missiles due to the contributing fire of primary batteries. Though I haven't tried to quantify this with Numbers, it really feels like AMMs are just not worth the tonnage.
AMMs become necessary chiefly to defeat box launcher-based salvos which can overwhelm energy PD. As NPRs do not use this tactic (maybe the new FACs do, but I'm not sure how effectively as I haven't fought them yet), AMMs are generally pretty unimportant and not cost-effective.
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Personally, I don't think we can stake-through-heart kill the all-or-nothing dynamic of missile warfare in Aurora. In part, to me this feels by design, because Aurora is more about strategic superiority than tactical, and the level of combat modeling is really based on fleets rather than individual ships as the maneuver units (hence fleet-wide PD instead of per-ship CIWS in most cases).
At this point, I think Steve is on the right track generally with the idea of adding more tactical options for missiles which can open up design space beyond the small-ASM meta we current have - the strategic dynamic is the same in any case but it's fun to have more tactical options to get there and ideally a guessing game in terms of PD doctrines will keep things interesting. I would like to see the fire control changes that have been discussed but this depends on how Steve chooses to think about the salvo mechanic as he has already noted.
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Regarding the salvo engaging mechanics for PD, thanks to @mtm84 on the community discord, I found an interesting connection between the current mechanism and the one in VB6.
Let's consider a model where each BFC will engage its first salvo with the normal chance to hit p until the salvo is completely destroyed, then the second salvo with a hit chance of a * p, where 0<= a <=1, the third salvo with a hit chance of a^2 * p, and so on, until it runs out of shots from the guns it controls.
The current salvo engaging mechanism has a = 1, i.e., one FC can engage an unlimited number of salvos.
The VB6 engaging mode, where one BFC can only engage one salvo, in the above model means a = 0.
I think this connection can actually makes some potentially interesting new engagement model to break the law of large numbers (as I discussed in my earlier posts), while not so restrictive as the VB6 model. The lower the parameter a is, the better it avoids going into the region where the law of large numbers applies. The larger a is, the less impact of having too few BFCs matters.
Maybe make the parameter a researchable, going from say 0.4 to 0.8 in several steps.
The engagement model should be somewhat similar to what we have now, each BFC always picks the fastest and the largest available salvo to engage with the aforementioned hit chance, until it runs out of shots. Every time it completely destroys a salvo, its hit chance gets reduced. The explanation for this reduction can be that the need to redirect guns to a new target in a pinch reduces the accuracy.
Personally, I don't think we can stake-through-heart kill the all-or-nothing dynamic of missile warfare in Aurora. In part, to me this feels by design, because Aurora is more about strategic superiority than tactical, and the level of combat modeling is really based on fleets rather than individual ships as the maneuver units (hence fleet-wide PD instead of per-ship CIWS in most cases).
Indeed there is no way to completely kill the all-or-nothing dynamic as there is no way to prevent someone bring an overwhelming missile array or PD array into the battlefield. What I hope is to increase the chance that some of the missiles get through when the PD side is a bit more than your salvo size.
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Let's consider a model where each BFC will engage its first salvo with the normal chance to hit p until the salvo is completely destroyed, then the second salvo with a hit chance of a * p, where 0<= a <=1, the third salvo with a hit chance of a^2 * p, and so on, until it runs out of shots from the guns it controls.
The current salvo engaging mechanism has a = 1, i.e., one FC can engage an unlimited number of salvos.
The VB6 engaging mode, where one BFC can only engage one salvo, in the above model means a = 0.
I still prefer the idea of going back to one fire control per salvo (both offensive and defensive), but this approach would require less rebalancing of mechanics and fire control costs and still sounds interesting and realistic enough that I would go for this. Maybe a fixed value of a = 0.5, though; if it is a tech line then we would see the balance shift over time which may or may not be the desired result.
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In a similar vein, we could apply the "AMMs per missile" setting to energy PD.
I.e. right now energy PD is applied as efficiently as possible, shooting at a missile until it is destroyed then moving to the next. More "realistic," at least for final fire, is that you would precommit how many shots to take at each missile. For bonus points, in final defensive fire mode we should "know" what ship is targeted by a missile and allow the shots per missile setting to be based on which vessel is targeted.
Like the beam fire control: salvo modification, this would cause a dramatic increase in the variance of interception effectiveness, which in turn forces far larger resource expenditures in order to guarantee 100% interception.
I *think* this would go a long way to mitigating the all or nothing nature of missile engagements by making leakers much more common.
Unlike the beam fire control modification, it also would introduce a tactical choice: you can gamble on complete coverage by allocating the minimum number of shots per missile (useful for cases where you are outclassed and hoping to get a cool story), or you can sacrifice some ships to ensure others come through unscathed by upping the # of shots per missile for the important assets. Escorts foregoing their own defense to shepherd a beam superdreadnought into range make for great AARs.
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Thank you Iceranger for bringing forth some of my idle thoughts on this matter. I like the concept of affecting chance to hit as to me it makes for more interesting design choices, and I like the concept of minimum and maximum CTH so that there is always a chance of a hit, and there is always a chance of a miss/failure, both in beam and missile combat.
Maybe a fixed value of a = 0.5, though; if it is a tech line then we would see the balance shift over time which may or may not be the desired result.
I think tech causing a balance shift is almost always a desired result of researching in general. In this case the value seems pretty tunable, and could also be affected by things beside a tech, like ecm/eccm, crew training/morale, etc. Maybe not in dramatic ways but even small adjustments to this value can cause noticeable changes in combat at scale I think.
Overall, I fell that affecting CTH makes more sense verses hard limits on what fire controls are capable of. To within reason of course. the 5 Ls range limit on beams makes perfect sense for example.
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If someone wants a mega-wave of missiles, they'll want to have as few FCs as possible to leave space for missiles, but it could also be viable to field half as many missiles with lots of FC in order to overwhelm enemy tracking.
Yes, but if you are only firing half as many missiles due to have lots of FC, the defender only needs half as many weapons, so they can have lot of FC too. The overall situation isn't changing.
That's only true in a missiles-vs-dedicated-pd situation. And also only with 1 type of enemy.
- Full gunboats will be less able to meaningfully engage missiles, due to having few FCs. Or they're using more tonnage on FCs for a dual role.
- If you've encountered one enemy built around swarms of small volleys and a different enemy that uses big waves, you have to make strategic decisions and compromises in ship design.
It's a matter of enabling missile tactics, rather than 'biggest wave wins, fire & forget'.
The defenses built to engage Torpedo bombers shouldn't be equally effective against ship-fired cruise missiles, but they're modeled the same.
I will be posting some missile updates over the next few days that should have a much greater impact on missile combat in general
Alright, looking forward to what's in store! I do hope the OP's suggestion of cutting down launcher size makes it in, and the return to laser/stand-off missiles is also interesting!
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In a similar vein, we could apply the "AMMs per missile" setting to energy PD.
I.e. right now energy PD is applied as efficiently as possible, shooting at a missile until it is destroyed then moving to the next. More "realistic," at least for final fire, is that you would precommit how many shots to take at each missile. For bonus points, in final defensive fire mode we should "know" what ship is targeted by a missile and allow the shots per missile setting to be based on which vessel is targeted.
Like the beam fire control: salvo modification, this would cause a dramatic increase in the variance of interception effectiveness, which in turn forces far larger resource expenditures in order to guarantee 100% interception.
I *think* this would go a long way to mitigating the all or nothing nature of missile engagements by making leakers much more common.
Unlike the beam fire control modification, it also would introduce a tactical choice: you can gamble on complete coverage by allocating the minimum number of shots per missile (useful for cases where you are outclassed and hoping to get a cool story), or you can sacrifice some ships to ensure others come through unscathed by upping the # of shots per missile for the important assets. Escorts foregoing their own defense to shepherd a beam superdreadnought into range make for great AARs.
Interesting idea. I assume that in this model you gain an additional chance to hit when engaging a small amount of missiles and have a penalty for engaging greater numbers. I like the concept in principle, but maybe there is another option that achieves something similar without the need for changing fire control assignments.
What if all the firing assignments against a single wave are preset before any firing takes place. In other words, if you have 50 inbound missiles and 100 shots, every missile is engaged twice but no more than twice. That mechanic would waste some shots against missiles already killed and some would penetrate if the allocated shots missed. That is much more realistic than the current method, allows potential leakers even with overwhelming defence and eliminates any concerns about salvo sizes because every missile would be treated as part of the overall wave.
There are some complexities. Under the current system Ship A may be capable of attacking a missile heading for Ship B, but doesn't need to fire because Ship B's own point defence shoots it down. In the above scenario, Ship A would have to decide beforehand whether to fire on the missiles, regardless of whether Ship B shoots it down. There is also the question of what happens if two ships in different locations are simultaneously attacked and a third ship has to decide which to protect. Ships would also have to avoid overkill to prevent wasting MSP, and also to save slower firing weapons from wasting their shots. Finally, there are different weapon types with different capabilities and CTH, so they would have to allocated in a reasonable way.
Maybe your originally mentioned limit on fire control could be used differently. A fire control could be given a targeting priority rating and a limitation to not engage if the target was already targeted x times by higher priority fire controls.
I really like the concept if I could make it work without too much complexity. I would need to completely change how PD is handled, as it currently happens as each salvo moves in turn.
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So how do multigun turrets currently work?
I am imagining quad turret with 5 shot gauss giving 20 shots. But what if there were really 5x4 shots, ie each volley from the turret was in parallel for the 4 guns because they are firing synchronously and are targeted by the one BFC, so if it targets a particular salvo in one shot then the salvo gets 4 strikes come what may. This would commit the turret to the shot and turrets with more shots per volley would produce more overkill if the salvo was wiped out in less than four strikes.
This would end up favouring small salvo sizes against multigun turrets if the targeting was per salvo but if it was per missile it could have a significant effect on PD turret mechanics cf ship to ship turrets. PD turrets would probably not want go beyond two shots per volley (dual turret) requiring a greater investment in tonnage but ship to ship turrets could still go higher (quad) to good effect with turret size savings due to slower tracking.
Also CIWS would be a different animal.
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I think that CIWS should not interact with normal PD but simply shoot at any leakers as a final layer... this would actually make CIWS important even on regular ships. CIWS should just shoot missiles for as many shots as they have and fire more effectively that way. So they could potentially shoot down as many missiles as they have shots and never waste shots on overkill.
I think that would be an interesting dynamic of how PD would work if it was changed.
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Interesting idea. I assume that in this model you gain an additional chance to hit when engaging a small amount of missiles and have a penalty for engaging greater numbers. I like the concept in principle, but maybe there is another option that achieves something similar without the need for changing fire control assignments.
I don't think you need to vary the accuracy based on the number of missiles targeted for this proposal to have the desired effect. I do agree that figuring out an appropriate UI to make this useable might be challenging. As a starting point, though, it is exactly the same idea as applies to AMMs where you set how many AMMs to shoot at a given target so that UI could be stolen.
What if all the firing assignments against a single wave are preset before any firing takes place. In other words, if you have 50 inbound missiles and 100 shots, every missile is engaged twice but no more than twice. That mechanic would waste some shots against missiles already killed and some would penetrate if the allocated shots missed. That is much more realistic than the current method, allows potential leakers even with overwhelming defence and eliminates any concerns about salvo sizes because every missile would be treated as part of the overall wave.
This is precisely what I'm proposing.
I added two additional wrinkles:
1. The User sets the number of shots per missile, rather than it just being #shots/#missiles. This would rarely be used without wrinkle 2
2. The user sets the number of shots per missile based on which ship the missile is targeting
There are some complexities. Under the current system Ship A may be capable of attacking a missile heading for Ship B, but doesn't need to fire because Ship B's own point defence shoots it down. In the above scenario, Ship A would have to decide beforehand whether to fire on the missiles, regardless of whether Ship B shoots it down. There is also the question of what happens if two ships in different locations are simultaneously attacked and a third ship has to decide which to protect. Ships would also have to avoid overkill to prevent wasting MSP, and also to save slower firing weapons from wasting their shots. Finally, there are different weapon types with different capabilities and CTH, so they would have to allocated in a reasonable way.
If we only apply these changes to final defensive fire (idea being that since it's last minute there is no time to wait and see the effects, but in every other mode you have at least 5 seconds to spread out your shots to get the current, 0 waste behavior), most of these questions are eliminated. For different weapon types with different CTH, if the number of shots is a per fire control setting the only within fire control accuracy variation is with gauss turrets...perhaps instead of a number of shots per missile, you set an "expected kill" probability and that determines how many shots to take?
Maybe your originally mentioned limit on fire control could be used differently. A fire control could be given a targeting priority rating and a limitation to not engage if the target was already targeted x times by higher priority fire controls.
I really like the concept if I could make it work without too much complexity. I would need to completely change how PD is handled, as it currently happens as each salvo moves in turn.
If you require the user to set per beam fire control how many shots to allocate per incoming missile, whether or not that varies depending on which ship is targeted, you won't *have* to change that each salvo moves in turn and experience FDF in turn since we'll just take however many shots we can until we run out. But it would still be better if the change were made, so that we don't get weird scenarios where the PD is supposed to prioritize the flagship but doesn't do anything because the salvos targeting the flagship moved last and all the shots were expended on the earlier, lower priority salvos.
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I think it would have to apply to all point defence because ranged PD can effectively function as point-blank PD and I think we should assume that all firing decisions are made simultaneously in a given increment.
The least complex way of handling this seems to be:
- Give each fire control an assigned number of missiles (FCAM), regardless of point defence mode - this will have to be a new parameter in addition to PD mode.
- Assign each ship a point defence priority (which to protect first)
- Conduct missile movement and determine the list of missiles that are about to hit each ship.
- Cycle through all targeted ships, starting with the highest priority
- Cycle through each missile targeted on each ship
- Assign a point defence shot to each missile
- The shot for each missile should come from the closest ship to the point of missile detonation, which could be itself. Where ships are equally close, the shot should come from a weapon associated with the fire control with highest FCAM.
- If all missiles have shots assigned and there are still available weapons, the cycle should repeat for a second shot and if necessary for third, fourth, etc. shots.
- In no cases during the process, will any weapon be assigned to a missile if that missile has already been allocated shots equal to the FCAM or greater.
- All weapons fire simultaneously and the results are assessed
- Possibly (as Jorgen_CAB suggested) CIWS is ignored until this point and then get a final shot at any leakers.
EDIT: Some weapons are less likely to hit - railguns vs gauss turrets for example, or firing at range vs point blank. Perhaps there should be another parameter for a fire control, which is how many actual physical shots comprise a 'shot' for the purposes of engagement. Or maybe simply a FC priority, which is used for ordering instead of using the FCAM for ordering. That way you can assign railgun fire controls (for example), a low priority and high FCAM and ensure that higher accuracy shots from other weapons are assigned first.
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I think it would have to apply to all point defence because ranged PD can effectively function as point-blank PD and I think we should assume that all firing decisions are made simultaneously in a given increment.
The least complex way of handling this seems to be:
- Give each fire control an assigned number of missiles (FCAM), regardless of point defence mode - this will have to be a new parameter in addition to PD mode.
- Assign each ship a point defence priority (which to protect first)
- Conduct missile movement and determine the list of missiles that are about to hit each ship.
- Cycle through all targeted ships, starting with the highest priority
- Cycle through each missile targeted on each ship
- Assign a point defence shot to each missile
- The shot for each missile should come from the closest ship to the point of missile detonation, which could be itself. Where ships are equally close, the shot should come from a weapon associated with the fire control with highest FCAM.
- If all missiles have shots assigned and there are still available weapons, the cycle should repeat for a second shot and if necessary for third, fourth, etc. shots.
- In no cases during the process, will any weapon be assigned to a missile if that missile has already been allocated shots equal to the FCAM or greater.
- All weapons fire simultaneously and the results are assessed
- Possibly (as Jorgen_CAB suggested) CIWS is ignored until this point and then get a final shot at any leakers.
This is a great approach and is likely to make PD less 'all-or-nothing' than it is now.
Although I don't quite see the point of the parameter FCAM. Without it, this tie "Where ships are equally close, the shot should come from a weapon associated with the fire control with highest FCAM" can be broken by randomly choosing a ship that still has shots, or choosing the FC with the highest chance to hit and assign a shot. Or maybe instead of starting with the closest ships, starts with ships with the highest hit chance (which is likely to be the closest ships anyway, and the closest ships with better officers/tracking bonus/ECM and such will be chosen first).
- Possibly (as Jorgen_CAB suggested) CIWS is ignored until this point and then get a final shot at any leakers.
This seems to be a great way to give CIWS more love and actually it suits its purpose.
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I think it would have to apply to all point defence because ranged PD can effectively function as point-blank PD and I think we should assume that all firing decisions are made simultaneously in a given increment.
The least complex way of handling this seems to be:
- Give each fire control an assigned number of missiles (FCAM), regardless of point defence mode - this will have to be a new parameter in addition to PD mode.
- Assign each ship a point defence priority (which to protect first)
- Conduct missile movement and determine the list of missiles that are about to hit each ship.
- Cycle through all targeted ships, starting with the highest priority
- Cycle through each missile targeted on each ship
- Assign a point defence shot to each missile
- The shot for each missile should come from the closest ship to the point of missile detonation, which could be itself. Where ships are equally close, the shot should come from a weapon associated with the fire control with highest FCAM.
- If all missiles have shots assigned and there are still available weapons, the cycle should repeat for a second shot and if necessary for third, fourth, etc. shots.
- In no cases during the process, will any weapon be assigned to a missile if that missile has already been allocated shots equal to the FCAM or greater.
- All weapons fire simultaneously and the results are assessed
- Possibly (as Jorgen_CAB suggested) CIWS is ignored until this point and then get a final shot at any leakers.
This is a great approach and is likely to make PD less 'all-or-nothing' than it is now.
Although I don't quite see the point of the parameter FCAM. Without it, this tie "Where ships are equally close, the shot should come from a weapon associated with the fire control with highest FCAM" can be broken by randomly choosing a ship that still has shots, or choosing the FC with the highest chance to hit and assign a shot. Or maybe instead of starting with the closest ships, starts with ships with the highest hit chance (which is likely to be the closest ships anyway, and the closest ships with better officers/tracking bonus/ECM and such will be chosen first).
- Possibly (as Jorgen_CAB suggested) CIWS is ignored until this point and then get a final shot at any leakers.
This seems to be a great way to give CIWS more love and actually it suits its purpose.
The main purpose of FCAM is to avoid overkill. If you assign main weapons a low FCAM, they won't fire if the PD weapons are sufficient to handle the attack. Also, I've added an edit to my original post regarding the ordering of fire. Probably better to use a separate parameter.
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What if all the firing assignments against a single wave are preset before any firing takes place. In other words, if you have 50 inbound missiles and 100 shots, every missile is engaged twice but no more than twice. That mechanic would waste some shots against missiles already killed and some would penetrate if the allocated shots missed. That is much more realistic than the current method, allows potential leakers even with overwhelming defence and eliminates any concerns about salvo sizes because every missile would be treated as part of the overall wave.
This is great and you should do it. ;D
So how do multigun turrets currently work?
Multi-gun turrets function as a single weapon, which is one reason why full-size multi-gun Gauss turrets are prone to wasting shots.
I think that CIWS should not interact with normal PD but simply shoot at any leakers as a final layer... this would actually make CIWS important even on regular ships. CIWS should just shoot missiles for as many shots as they have and fire more effectively that way. So they could potentially shoot down as many missiles as they have shots and never waste shots on overkill.
I think that would be an interesting dynamic of how PD would work if it was changed.
+1 to this too.
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Now this is a real change. I like it, as it gives potential for some leakers to get through and eliminates some other weirdness.
Instead of number of shots, sum of tracking speed (tracking capacity) should determine distribution of shots. To shoot down a missile moving at 20k km/s, you need a shot with a tracking speed of 20k km/s. Or two shots with 10k km/s, and so on. That way you don't have 10% to-hit gauss considered equally effective to turreted weapons.
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Missile costs are far too much in their current form and need to be rebalanced to have an equal equation against beam based fleets.
Current logic behind missiles being expensive is that they provide a significant advantage in range against beam foes and enable the potential of wiping out an enemy fleet without being touched yourself which is invaluable.
However with new laser warheads and other munitions + a redirection to larger missiles I believe the costs will effect the use of missiles especially if the idea is to have reloadable launchers be more viable, so I recommend the following:
Reduce the costs of all "dumb" missiles ie missiles without laser warheads, without ECCM, without ECM (Notably decoys in whatever form should be reduced as well), specifically the gallicite cost, people especially with box launchers are having to fire entire fleets worth of BP at opponents.
Keep current costs for "smart" missiles, ECM, ECCM, Laser warheads, Advanced guidance etc, the current costs being high are fine in these areas as these will be more selective missiles or you expect to pay extra for what you get, so for example an AMM which costs 50 minerals currently with no ECM or ECCM or anything would cost say 30 instead and if it did have ECM and ECCM or advanced guidance retargeting its cost would be 50.
Furthermore the main cost of missiles is the logistics of moving them around strategically, larger missiles should be reduced in cost and all dumb munitions while higher tech munitions with specialised warheads, levels of electronic warfare and additional guidance should be more expensive, IRL missiles avionics are some of the most expensive part of the weapon.
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Reduce the costs of all "dumb" missiles ie missiles without laser warheads, without ECCM, without ECM (Notably decoys in whatever form should be reduced as well), specifically the gallicite cost, people especially with box launchers are having to fire entire fleets worth of BP at opponents.
The most significant fix here would be to simply halve gallicite costs. Missiles already have a unique 2x overboost multiplier which is hand-waved as due to single-use engines blah blah blah, so we can apply the same justification to reducing the cost as well.
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Missile costs are far too much in their current form and need to be rebalanced to have an equal equation against beam based fleets.
Current logic behind missiles being expensive is that they provide a significant advantage in range against beam foes and enable the potential of wiping out an enemy fleet without being touched yourself which is invaluable.
However with new laser warheads and other munitions + a redirection to larger missiles I believe the costs will effect the use of missiles especially if the idea is to have reloadable launchers be more viable, so I recommend the following:
Reduce the costs of all "dumb" missiles ie missiles without laser warheads, without ECCM, without ECM (Notably decoys in whatever form should be reduced as well), specifically the gallicite cost, people especially with box launchers are having to fire entire fleets worth of BP at opponents.
Keep current costs for "smart" missiles, ECM, ECCM, Laser warheads, Advanced guidance etc, the current costs being high are fine in these areas as these will be more selective missiles or you expect to pay extra for what you get, so for example an AMM which costs 50 minerals currently with no ECM or ECCM or anything would cost say 30 instead and if it did have ECM and ECCM or advanced guidance retargeting its cost would be 50.
Furthermore the main cost of missiles is the logistics of moving them around strategically, larger missiles should be reduced in cost and all dumb munitions while higher tech munitions with specialised warheads, levels of electronic warfare and additional guidance should be more expensive, IRL missiles avionics are some of the most expensive part of the weapon.
Earlier today I posted something in the OP on missile engines. They are now half Gallicite and half Boronide in terms of mineral requirements.
While missiles will be a little more expensive with the new changes, they will also probably be larger so the cost per MSP launched may not be any higher. The other changes I am making should make missiles more effective, which should create a cost reduction in overall missile expenditure, even if individual missiles are not cheaper. I need to see the new paradigm in action before I start playing with costs.
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In a similar vein, we could apply the "AMMs per missile" setting to energy PD.
I. e. right now energy PD is applied as efficiently as possible, shooting at a missile until it is destroyed then moving to the next. More "realistic," at least for final fire, is that you would precommit how many shots to take at each missile. For bonus points, in final defensive fire mode we should "know" what ship is targeted by a missile and allow the shots per missile setting to be based on which vessel is targeted.
Like the beam fire control: salvo modification, this would cause a dramatic increase in the variance of interception effectiveness, which in turn forces far larger resource expenditures in order to guarantee 100% interception.
I *think* this would go a long way to mitigating the all or nothing nature of missile engagements by making leakers much more common.
Unlike the beam fire control modification, it also would introduce a tactical choice: you can gamble on complete coverage by allocating the minimum number of shots per missile (useful for cases where you are outclassed and hoping to get a cool story), or you can sacrifice some ships to ensure others come through unscathed by upping the # of shots per missile for the important assets. Escorts foregoing their own defense to shepherd a beam superdreadnought into range make for great AARs.
I mean really, isn't this the only change that's necessary? The new laser missile gives a nice variety in weapon choice. The "guaranteed a hit eventually" mechanics steve just added are lovely, meaning missiles aren't strictly less cost efficient than the armor they're destroying cuz of misses + lack of agility (ignoring PD of course). Missiles now use a much nicer spread of resources that we typically have to spare. And then missiles tend to get a few leakers so that it's not so all or nothing, even if you have "enough PD for everything" it's perfect. Other than the fact that volly size is still vastly superior to fire-rate problem, I don't think much else is really necessary, is it?
The changes that make big missiles/launchers more space efficient were also cool and good, but I don't feel like anyone found a satisfying solution to the submunitions problem; obviously you can proportionately and directly hurt the efficiency of splitting up munitions as was suggested, but I can't help but feel there's something off about it. cause like. . . it simply is not reasonable that that should significantly cost you in tonnage? I guess you're fitting little cylinders inside of a bigger cylinder, which is bound to have some wasted space but. . . idk that only implies an increased volume not so much tonnage, and such things can be cubes in space. Also I think it is desirable that a long-range rocket with a single munition payload has none or very little wasted space, cuz it's only cluster bombs that deserve the nerf, although admittedly it is probably fine either way. And don't forget to account for the increased fire rate of big missiles in the munitions nerf.
The only thing I can think of as being risky for submunitions is that people are probably going to want longer range AMM's now that their ability to kill an ASM technically scales with distance and time, not just speed, which leaves the big guy more vulnerable prior to deploy, but that applies equally to any large missile, and I don't expect the AI will do a forward scouting strategy.
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Now this is a real change. I like it, as it gives potential for some leakers to get through and eliminates some other weirdness.
Instead of number of shots, sum of tracking speed (tracking capacity) should determine distribution of shots. To shoot down a missile moving at 20k km/s, you need a shot with a tracking speed of 20k km/s. Or two shots with 10k km/s, and so on. That way you don't have 10% to-hit gauss considered equally effective to turreted weapons.
I like the principle in theory, but I think it might be difficult for players to calculate this on the fly when working out PD assignments. Number of missiles is an easier concept. I think if I implement both FCAM (need a better name) and PD priority, it will allow players to allocate low to-hit weapons after higher to-hit and avoid mis-assignment causing leakers.
Also, this is going to make beam FC design more interesting because you will need to start thinking about potential PD allocations when designing fire controls. Ships are likely to have more mixed FC types.
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I am starting to code the new PD mechanics as described above, which of course means I am running into issues I hadn't considered yet :)
So far, I have made the following changes:
- Each Ship Class has a new attribute called PD Protection Priority, with 1 the highest, no maximum and a default of 5. This indicates which ships are the most important for other ships to protect.
- Each Beam Fire Control is assigned a Point Defence Priority from 1 to 5, with 1 being the highest and 3 the default. This is the order in which fire controls (across all ships) are checked to assign shots against inbound missiles.
- Each Beam Fire Control is assigned a Fire Concentration from 1 to 10, with 1 being the highest and 3 the default. If this many shots are already allocated against a missile, this fire control will ignore that missile for targeting purposes.
Of course, missiles aren't always fired against ships. They also target populations and ground forces. STOs can also be used for PD. That creates the question of where populations sit in term of protection priority and also how STO handle fire concentration. I think the latter is easy - they will just always fire everything. For the former, I think the simplest answer is to give the population its own PD Protection Priority. I could make that configurable, although it might be easier to assume that any inhabited world is priority 5 and any uninhabited world is priority 15, or some other number either side of the default ship priority.
Happy to hear other opinions. Below is the current Combat view for assignments
EDIT: I've decided to use the existing Colony Importance field that is used for governor assignment as the basis for population PD priority. I reversed the order so that 0 is high priority, which matches the various ship-based priorities.
(http://www.pentarch.org/steve/Screenshots/PointDefence001.PNG)
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I am starting to code the new PD mechanics as described above, which of course means I am running into issues I hadn't considered yet :)
So far, I have made the following changes:
- Each Ship Class has a new attribute called PD Protection Priority, with 1 the highest, no maximum and a default of 5. This indicates which ships are the most important for other ships to protect.
- Each Beam Fire Control is assigned a Point Defence Priority from 1 to 5, with 1 being the highest and 3 the default. This is the order in which fire controls (across all ships) are checked to assign shots against inbound missiles.
- Each Beam Fire Control is assigned a Fire Concentration from 1 to 10, with 1 being the highest and 3 the default. If this many shots are already allocated against a missile, this fire control will ignore that missile for targeting purposes.
Of course, missiles aren't always fired against ships. They also target populations and ground forces. STOs can also be used for PD. That creates the question of where populations sit in term of protection priority and also how STO handle fire concentration. I think the latter is easy - they will just always fire everything. For the former, I think the simplest answer is to give the population its own PD Protection Priority. I could make that configurable, although it might be easier to assume that any inhabited world is priority 5 and any uninhabited world is priority 15, or some other number either side of the default ship priority.
Happy to hear other opinions. Below is the current Combat view for assignments
EDIT: I've decided to use the existing Colony Importance field that is used for governor assignment as the basis for population PD priority. I reversed the order so that 0 is high priority, which matches the various ship-based priorities.
(http://hxxp: www. pentarch. org/steve/Screenshots/PointDefence001. PNG)
This is great news, and thank you for the hard work Steve.
I was wondering if you've given any thought in terms of the layered PD defense and how as a player, and an AI for that matter, you'd really prefer if your long range laser PD shot at the Laser warhead missiles instead of the "Dumb" missiles. It would be cheating to simply "Know" which missiles have laser warheads as there shouldn't really be an obvious way to tell before they detonate, but at the same time, there might be variations in speed, heat given off etc, something that would allow for either a manual, or automatic targeting priority, the latter possibly being that the Long range defense mode gets an increasing bonus depending on how many missiles it shoots down within an engagement or something towards correctly targeting laser warheads. Though, assumptions could be made that larger missiles mean laser warheads in most cases, but a player might exploit this and build size 8 dumb missiles and size 7. 99 laser warheads, and essentially use the dumb missiles as decoys.
I believe that some kind of system here will be crucial in terms of allowing for specific counter-play against laser warheads from beam heavy/beam exclusive fleets, although it should by no means be perfect.
Finally, I would like to suggest the possibility of adding some kind of "Kinetic" kill vehicle warhead that can be used on AMM's. It would increase the AGI or maneuverability of AMM's to a certain point a flat or percentage bonus, to potentially offset some of the need for utter AMM over-match, increasing hit chances against missiles, while the downside would be that it becomes useless against everything except other missiles.
As for the re-targeting device, it might be worth it to simply increase it's cost per missile so that it remains reasonable for a size 6 ASM, but it becomes unreasonable for an AMM in terms of cost. There might also be a limited number of reattacks, an increase in size or a combination of all three.
Thanks again for the wonderful work you've done thus far.
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I was wondering if you've given any thought in terms of the layered PD defense and how as a player, and an AI for that matter, you'd really prefer if your long range laser PD shot at the Laser warhead missiles instead of the "Dumb" missiles. It would be cheating to simply "Know" which missiles have laser warheads as there shouldn't really be an obvious way to tell before they detonate.
PD systems will engage laser warheads just before they detonate. I could add tactical intelligence on missiles, but as soon as the first one exploded you would know the correct range to engage, so that seems like a lot of work for no real gameplay difference. I decided to just skip that and allow immediate engagement at the correct range.
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--- So Missile Maneuver rating is fixed to 10, could we keep the Tech that increases it and just have it be a flat bonus? So, Missile Agility tech for 32 per msp, just ups the Maneuverability from 10 to 32, etc. Obviously it would need tweaking, but still...
--- Technobabble could be that agility is part of engine mass, both for ships and missiles, but ships aren't trying to run into other ships in the way missiles do, so the missiles have a tech line to make them better at that.
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Finally, I would like to suggest the possibility of adding some kind of "Kinetic" kill vehicle warhead that can be used on AMM's. It would increase the AGI or maneuverability of AMM's to a certain point a flat or percentage bonus, to potentially offset some of the need for utter AMM over-match, increasing hit chances against missiles, while the downside would be that it becomes useless against everything except other missiles.
There's two big issues with kinetic kill from a realism standpoint - which I say as someone who famously says we should think less about realism:
- The damage is actually quite massive and probably exceeds what you would see from a warhead detonation. For example, a size-1 (2.5 ton) AMM with a speed of 20,000 km/s (this is quite early tech level) has a kinetic energy of 500 petajoules, which is about the same energy as a 120 megaton nuclear warhead - more than twice as much as the largest nuclear warhead ever detonated (Tsar Bomba) if I recall correctly. While damage numbers in Aurora are very obfuscated, you can do some back-of-envelope estimate of damage against conventional (i.e., steel) armor and find that one point of damage comes out to something like 100 kilotons to perhaps a megaton. This means that just one or a few kinetic-kill missiles is enough to destroy even a decent-size warship, and pretty much the only way we can handwave this away is to make some claim about very low hit probabilities at space combat ranges (which brings up some uncomfortable questions about beam weapons...).
- There is no good justification to say that a kinetic-kill missile can only be used against other missiles; any weapon which can hit a missile can also hit a ship. Which means that we have to allow those blatantly OP 120+ damage missiles to target enemy ships, there is no reasonable way around that. And I hope even the most hardcore "Aurora isn't balanced!!" zealot can readily see why this is a problem.
Again, you can try to add kinetic-kill and say that the limitation of that weapon type is poor accuracy, due to the challenge of trying to strike a physical target instead of just detonating somewhere in the vicinity; however, then you have to deal with uncomfortable questions about why railguns and Gauss cannons can hit targets reliably but a guided missile has a fractional-percentage chance to hit the same target. Therefore the best solution for kinetic-kill missiles is to glance about awkwardly and pretend they were never mentioned.
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PD systems will engage laser warheads just before they detonate. I could add tactical intelligence on missiles, but as soon as the first one exploded you would know the correct range to engage, so that seems like a lot of work for no real gameplay difference. I decided to just skip that and allow immediate engagement at the correct range.
Well it's more that when missiles are the same size, and give off the same readings or similar ones, it'd be very hard to determine what it what in terms of dumb or laser pumped warheads. That said, this might be a topic that should be reexamined if you do Ewar changes and introduce decoys and such. With a chance that the defenders engage the wrong missiles. That said, it does mean that the mixing of dumb and laser warheads will be less effective, which will certainly swing balance back in favor a bit towards multi layered defenses. You could otherwise after all end up in a situation where your long range PD shoots at dumb warheads and the laser ones all go off with no issue, which would ultimately mean adding dumb warheads not as threats but as decoys and possibly fully focusing on laser warheads to avoid having even deal with final defensive fire.
Finally, I would like to suggest the possibility of adding some kind of "Kinetic" kill vehicle warhead that can be used on AMM's. It would increase the AGI or maneuverability of AMM's to a certain point a flat or percentage bonus, to potentially offset some of the need for utter AMM over-match, increasing hit chances against missiles, while the downside would be that it becomes useless against everything except other missiles.
There's two big issues with kinetic kill from a realism standpoint - which I say as someone who famously says we should think less about realism:
- The damage is actually quite massive and probably exceeds what you would see from a warhead detonation. For example, a size-1 (2. 5 ton) AMM with a speed of 20,000 km/s (this is quite early tech level) has a kinetic energy of 500 petajoules, which is about the same energy as a 120 megaton nuclear warhead - more than twice as much as the largest nuclear warhead ever detonated (Tsar Bomba) if I recall correctly. While damage numbers in Aurora are very obfuscated, you can do some back-of-envelope estimate of damage against conventional (i. e. , steel) armor and find that one point of damage comes out to something like 100 kilotons to perhaps a megaton. This means that just one or a few kinetic-kill missiles is enough to destroy even a decent-size warship, and pretty much the only way we can hand wave this away is to make some claim about very low hit probabilities at space combat ranges (which brings up some uncomfortable questions about beam weapons. . . ).
- There is no good justification to say that a kinetic-kill missile can only be used against other missiles; any weapon which can hit a missile can also hit a ship. Which means that we have to allow those blatantly OP 120+ damage missiles to target enemy ships, there is no reasonable way around that. And I hope even the most hardcore "Aurora isn't balanced!!" zealot can readily see why this is a problem.
Again, you can try to add kinetic-kill and say that the limitation of that weapon type is poor accuracy, due to the challenge of trying to strike a physical target instead of just detonating somewhere in the vicinity; however, then you have to deal with uncomfortable questions about why rail guns and Gauss cannons can hit targets reliably but a guided missile has a fractional-percentage chance to hit the same target. Therefore the best solution for kinetic-kill missiles is to glance about awkwardly and pretend they were never mentioned.
Alternatively it could be a proximity fuse or fragmentation/flachete warhead. Given the inability to armor Missiles, it would make sense that they'd be more susceptible to proximity nuclear detonations rather than direct ones, which are what missiles usually do. I'm not so much interested in what exactly the tech is, it's more to find an alternative to re-targeting modules for AMM's to give them more tune-ability for their roles.
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Alternatively it could be a proximity fuse or fragmentation/flachete warhead. Given the inability to armor Missiles, it would make sense that they'd be more susceptible to proximity nuclear detonations rather than direct ones, which are what missiles usually do. I'm not so much interested in what exactly the tech is, it's more to find an alternative to re-targeting modules for AMM's to give them more tune-ability for their roles.
(Haven't had a good chance to read through some of the recent posts, so sorry if its been suggested already)
I think the idea of a fragmentation warhead as an option would be nice. With the removal of agility, AMM's would likely be taking a hit to their performance, so I think a warhead option that reduces the warhead strength (25-50% ?) but gives an increase in the chance to hit would be a way to help them out. The bonus to hit should probably scale logarithmically with warhead size, to avoid guaranteed hit missiles with a large enough warhead. Using the fragment warhead against ship targets, either it should simply do no damage, or it should deal a number of strength-1 hits equal to the rounded-down warhead strength. If we assume the latter, then it would be basically useless against armoured ships, sandblasting away layers of armour rather than penetrating. At the same time, an increase in the chance to hit would be worth the reduced total damage and penetration when dealing with fast, lightly armoured ships (fighters, FACs, etc). I think that this would open up the design space a bit and allow for better anti-fighter missiles, that can also be used to shoot down missiles in a pinch.
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I saw this discussion on another list and immediately thought of a similar idea. Some type of fragmentation warhead that is better at damaging fragile missiles, but no better or perhaps ineffective vs full size ships.
The method would be a proximity explosion rather than a near direct hit vs the target and the WH fragments or even radiation/emp having a greater chance to harm a missile that would not be very effective vs a ship.
First the anti-missile warhead only works on strength 1 warheads. It increases the effective MR vs missiles by some amount (possibly tech dependent). It either works like a normal 1pt WH vs ships or could even be completely ineffective.
This could even pull the teeth of those Precursor massive AMM swarms that are more dangerous then the current ASM volleys. :)
I think it could also make sense as an anti-fighter missile perhaps a smaller MR bonus or even counted a strength 2 WH vs fighters. And Just a normal 1 pt WH vs FACS.
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Alternatively it could be a proximity fuse or fragmentation/flachete warhead. Given the inability to armor Missiles, it would make sense that they'd be more susceptible to proximity nuclear detonations rather than direct ones, which are what missiles usually do. I'm not so much interested in what exactly the tech is, it's more to find an alternative to re-targeting modules for AMM's to give them more tune-ability for their roles.
Current missiles basically work as proximity-fuse nukes in the lore, if not quite mechanically due to the damage profile. Basically, get close to the target, explode, and hope to catch the target with at least some of the blast wave (Steve has indicated he considers missiles to use shaped charges). The trick is that when ships are sub-km size targets moving at 1,000s of km/s, even getting close enough for proximity blasts is actually quite a challenge.
Mechanically this could be represented more faithfully (broad armor ablation, random damage range, etc.) but this is the nominal lore for missiles.
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OK so if the base is a shaped charge, then the AMM WH is some type of proximity spherical explosion. Enough to hurt a missile an a higher probability of hit, but too unfocused to damage a ship.
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In a similar vein, we could apply the "AMMs per missile" setting to energy PD.
I.e. right now energy PD is applied as efficiently as possible, shooting at a missile until it is destroyed then moving to the next. More "realistic," at least for final fire, is that you would precommit how many shots to take at each missile. For bonus points, in final defensive fire mode we should "know" what ship is targeted by a missile and allow the shots per missile setting to be based on which vessel is targeted.
Quite brilliant. The latest devlog update for Nebulous improved point-defense AI by allowing guns to switch targets once sufficient shots were already en-route towards an incoming vampire, increasing the number they could engage - i.e. even in simplistic simulations, you get the same "flight time" considerations that real-life point defense has to deal with. Moreover, by incorporating Jorgen_CAB's suggestion to let CIWS have one final whack at incoming missiles, "normal" energy-based PD firing in final defensive fire mode is clarified to be firing at some distance - because actual real-life CIWS can engage one missile at a time as they're firing at such short range there's no time to mail shells towards target A and then reorient to target B. Ergo, to use the analogy of wet navy warships: "Area defense" is 5 inch dual-angle guns engaging at significant range, "final defensive fire" is down in the 40mm Bofors range bracket, and CIWS is the 20mm cannon/Phalanx CIWS last-ditch engagement.
This change accomplishes a few things: it incorporates realistic complexities of point-defense into the game with very simple and straightforward mechanics, widens the design space, and even gives the player more tactical choices to make in combat. It also gives CIWS more utility (further expanding the design space) as right now it's a very niche tool for protecting the odd commercial hull that might see combat with a fleet (tenders, supply ships etc.) or is utilized in very niche scenarios for its unique capability of being able to fire even when under jump shock (very useful for commercial hull jump tenders used for conducting warp point assaults.) It fits the nature of the weapon perfectly and expands the number of scenarios in which it's useful, further expanding the design space.
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OK so if the base is a shaped charge, then the AMM WH is some type of proximity spherical explosion. Enough to hurt a missile an a higher probability of hit, but too unfocused to damage a ship.
No... their charge is not strong enough to damage the armour of a ship if it does not do at least one point if damage. That is why Steve added fractional strength missiles as they can destroy missiles but can never really damage ships or large space structures, their yield is just to small.
All missiles likely use a shaped charge explosion no matter is used in anti missile work or anti ship work.
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The module that enables you to retarget seem interesting to me and I don't thin you will be able to really abuse it. If you put it in an AMM it will increase the size considerably (especially if you want a really fast AMM and ECCM as well), in anti ship work it will be susceptible to multiple turns of beam PD when it misses.
To be honest I'm not really sure when you want to use it... perhaps if you can launch ASM at extreme range outside enemy normal PD on really larger missiles. On AMM you still need to make sure the missile is at least as fast as the ASM they want intercept otherwise the ASM will just move away from it once it misses. It can also possibly be used if you have a really fast reloading launcher so the missiles is not overwhelmed by PD once the miss the ship they are targeted in more missiles come in every 10-15 second or so... It can also be very effective against fighters and FAC that tend to have limited PD capabilities.
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The module that enables you to retarget seem interesting to me and I don't thin you will be able to really abuse it. If you put it in an AMM it will increase the size considerably (especially if you want a really fast AMM and ECCM as well), in anti ship work it will be susceptible to multiple turns of beam PD when it misses.
To be honest I'm not really sure when you want to use it... perhaps if you can launch ASM at extreme range outside enemy normal PD on really larger missiles. On AMM you still need to make sure the missile is at least as fast as the ASM they want intercept otherwise the ASM will just move away from it once it misses. It can also possibly be used if you have a really fast reloading launcher so the missiles is not overwhelmed by PD once the miss the ship they are targeted in more missiles come in every 10-15 second or so... It can also be very effective against fighters and FAC that tend to have limited PD capabilities.
I am actually thinking about larger than size-1 AMMs with the retargeting module, because if you can make the first interception attempt far enough out, you get several chances to hit and that could make up for being e.g. size 2 instead of size 1.
For ASMs I think it is probably more useful than it feels because we have to remember that Agility has been removed, so even-tech ASMs will probably be maxing out at around 70% chance to hit, or so. The catch of course is that PD might make it a moot point.
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I am actually thinking about larger than size-1 AMMs with the retargeting module, because if you can make the first interception attempt far enough out, you get several chances to hit and that could make up for being e.g. size 2 instead of size 1.
For ASMs I think it is probably more useful than it feels because we have to remember that Agility has been removed, so even-tech ASMs will probably be maxing out at around 70% chance to hit, or so. The catch of course is that PD might make it a moot point.
Back of the envelope calcs suggest size 2 AMMs with retargeting are going to be really cost effective, possibly in exchange for reduced density of missiles killed/launcher tonnage.
For ASMs I think PD means retargeting is useless.
It's a recurring issue that missiles are a more difficult target than ships are, so accuracy related investments are more useful for AMMs than they are for ASMs.
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I am actually thinking about larger than size-1 AMMs with the retargeting module, because if you can make the first interception attempt far enough out, you get several chances to hit and that could make up for being e.g. size 2 instead of size 1.
For ASMs I think it is probably more useful than it feels because we have to remember that Agility has been removed, so even-tech ASMs will probably be maxing out at around 70% chance to hit, or so. The catch of course is that PD might make it a moot point.
Back of the envelope calcs suggest size 2 AMMs with retargeting are going to be really cost effective, possibly in exchange for reduced density of missiles killed/launcher tonnage.
For ASMs I think PD means retargeting is useless.
It's a recurring issue that missiles are a more difficult target than ships are, so accuracy related investments are more useful for AMMs than they are for ASMs.
Retargeting will also be quite useful against FAC and fighters as they usually have poor PD abilities. Or with the use of any fast reloading launchers able to fire every 5-15 seconds perhaps, so smaller missiles maybe 3-5 in size.
I agree that when it comes to box launched or reduced launcher launched missiles the retargeting will not be very useful, you rather use the half as large extra to hit module, especially in larger missiles. Beam PD will just be destroying anything that miss in this instance so there is not much point investing in them for these types of missiles.
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Back of the envelope calcs suggest size 2 AMMs with retargeting are going to be really cost effective, possibly in exchange for reduced density of missiles killed/launcher tonnage.
For ASMs I think PD means retargeting is useless.
It's a recurring issue that missiles are a more difficult target than ships are, so accuracy related investments are more useful for AMMs than they are for ASMs.
Given the inclusion of Laser warheads and the refactoring of how PD works, I don't agree.
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Back of the envelope calcs suggest size 2 AMMs with retargeting are going to be really cost effective, possibly in exchange for reduced density of missiles killed/launcher tonnage.
For ASMs I think PD means retargeting is useless.
It's a recurring issue that missiles are a more difficult target than ships are, so accuracy related investments are more useful for AMMs than they are for ASMs.
Given the inclusion of Laser warheads and the refactoring of how PD works, I don't agree.
Ooh, good catch! Retargeting laser warheads are a cool idea...
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Back of the envelope calcs suggest size 2 AMMs with retargeting are going to be really cost effective, possibly in exchange for reduced density of missiles killed/launcher tonnage.
For ASMs I think PD means retargeting is useless.
It's a recurring issue that missiles are a more difficult target than ships are, so accuracy related investments are more useful for AMMs than they are for ASMs.
Given the inclusion of Laser warheads and the refactoring of how PD works, I don't agree.
Ooh, good catch! Retargeting laser warheads are a cool idea...
I guess that Laser PD will become quite more important than it was before... now you will need a true layered beam PD in order to beat enemy incoming missile salvoes. Even combining laser warhead with smaller direct attack missiles can become quite troublesome to deal with.
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I would love to see return of missile armor, something that can take more space and allow missile to survive at least 1-2 hits from gauss
Missile armour would have to match the mechanics of ships to avoid breaking the physics. Lets run an example using laminate composite armour, which is 5th generation tech.
If we create a tiny ship to approximate a missile, using only a fighter crew quarters, we need 0.174 units of laminate composite, which is 0.0145 HS, or 0.725 tons. The 'ship' is 2.725 tons in total. 1 MSP is 2.5 tons, so that is a missile of size 1.09 MSP, that requires 0.29 MSP of space (27%) dedicated to armour in order to create a missile with 1 armour. For that size of missile, it would likely end up with no warhead.
If I add a small maintenance storage to our 'ship', that changes to 14.175 tons, or 5.67 MSP. For 1 armour, 2.175 tons of laminate is required, or 0.87 MSP (15%). The missile design could alternatively include ECM, ECCM and onboard sensors for a total of 0.75 MSP and still have space left over for additional fuel or engine, etc. For earlier armour, the situation is much worse.
Even if that was considered acceptable, we are still using the same mechanics as ships, so we also have to consider shock damage. As the missile is likely less than 1 HS and the damage would be at least 1, a shock damage check would be automatic. For each point of incoming damage, there would be a cumulative 20% chance of destroying the missile regardless of armour.
This would also either add missile damage tracking to Aurora, or some form of HTK check where a missile with 2 HTK (1 armour) would have a 50% chance of being destroyed. I would also probably have to implement some form of missile recognition to add to tactical intelligence so that the AI could prioritize inbounds that it was most likely to destroy (because if I was the defender I would want that option).
In summary, the implementation of consistent mechanics across all sizes of ships and missiles means that missile armour is not that effective in terms of mass, especially at lower tech (which is why I removed it), and would result in other mechanics being added.
I will focus instead on other options to make missiles more survivable.
While armor might be ineffective on smaller missiles, could it maybe be more effective on missiles with comically large warheads, one powerful enough to destroy a larger ship in one hit?
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If its decided that missiles might have more then 1 HTK, you could judt base it on size. 1 HTK per 50 tons or fraction there of. Size 20 missiles are 50 tons.
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If its decided that missiles might have more then 1 HTK, you could judt base it on size. 1 HTK per 50 tons or fraction there of. Size 20 missiles are 50 tons.
please make an account and get approval so we do not have to approve every post you make, much appreciated
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Couple of thoughts on a couple of different subjects in this entire thread:
1. Missile Agility NEVER made sense, that's not how missiles work in real world physics. AAM's and SAM's in atmo both are either direct fired "tracking" objects which have advantage of no G limits and smaller mass, but don't have any actual avoidance agility. Physics makes making any drastic change to a course once massive acceleration has occurred in a vector very hard to overcome the inertia.
2. AMM's should be "Flak" burst weapons to begin with, they shouldn't have to "hit" another missile directly, just get within 10k of it, detonate, and the shrapnel does the rest of the work. This would make AMM's more effective baseline since a wave of AMM's versus a wave of ASM's would result in the percentage to kill any given ASM to be given to each AMM independently, in other words, salvos target salvos but the calculations to hit are done on a per AMM warhead. So 10 AMM's versus 10 ASM's would get a total of 100 "to hit rolls". This further makes AMM's a great AMM tool, and a poor ASM tool.
3. To counter this, along with PD, ECM values on Missiles would work on a margin efficiency increase while ECCM would be a a direct reduction of that increase. So a 50% margin increase would mean the salvo size would appear to be TWICE as large, in other word every AMM or PD "hit" would have a 50% chance of hitting a "ghost". To make this "fair" and applicable to ships, the simple solution is to use the same mechanic used for engine boost, and missile ECM is twice as effective as ship ECM, but all ECCM is the same "level". This makes the trade for warhead strength and ECM a "fair" one. (This is basically making DECOY ECM or SENSOR GHOSTS which makes targeting the correct target harder, for AMM's it is assumed they will "spread out" to hit the entire ASM salvo. This is a feature which can be ADDITIVE to the sensor/FC/missile JAMMING ECM, perhaps it should be a new technology of DECOY which is basically the opposite of STEALTH)
4. Laser Warheads should be some combination of lasers and particle beams. Hard max range of 120 km, with the range efficiency being the throughput efficiency, so start with 10k end with 120k and fractional damage would still apply. So a Laser Warhead damage would be WH size*Laser Warhead Strength/(Distance/Laser Warhead Range) meaning the base 10k Laser Warhead range with a total Warhead Strength of 10 would do 0.833 damage at 120k km and the full 10 damage at 10k km or closer. This is more aligned with "hard sci fi" use of laser pumped bombs on missiles, then having a "shotgun" approach to try hitting everywhere a target might be in the next 5 seconds.
5. There should be no way of knowing what type of warhead a missile has equipped until they actually go off. The danger of "recognizing" the difference is that it makes gaming the system MORE possible. Just given the above suggestions are taken, if I know that laser warheads are going to be prioritized over nukes, then why wouldn't I put a single laser warhead in a salvo, let it take ALL the prioritized PD and before the next cycle goes off, the nukes have already exploded. Just treat salvos as salvos and don't give any unrealistic "gamey" information to guide the AI decisions.
6. Add BFC to the options to be put on the actual missile, have it work just like the Active Sensor does now, with a realistic Laser Warhead range of sub 1 light second range, it won't need to be grandoise, and doesn't make there be confusion of needing BFC's to control a function of a missile on the launcher itself. Which also means that Laser Warhead mines will be possible.
7. Retargeting missed ASM's with AMM's is simply not physically possible. Now if the pitch is to continue on and potentially target another salvo, maybe, but at a "slow" speed of 20km/s it would take two "tics" for the AMM's to get back to the location where they initially MISSED the ASM's, and then still have to be able to catch them. And that is given a very unrealistic scenario of instant turnover and taking advantage of the flat speeds versus actual acceleration which should be used while under power.
8. Retargetting of ASM's on ships could be doable, but then again, have to run the PD gauntlet twice. It is an interesting idea, which in reality would never come up, because missiles would go "ballistic" well before they ever hit their targets, and in space the amount of inertia that is built up during the acceleration phase would be too great to have enough fuel remaining to be able to do a turnover and re-engage.
9. Missile armor makes no sense, penetrating warheads do but really they are KKV's then in regards to hitting a spaceship.
10. MFC should have a tradeoff between size, range, and number of missiles controlled. Having one MFC for every 10 missiles seems like a good baseline, range to active sensor range for those 10 and then have it go down linearly so double ASR is one missile. Tech upgrades to reduce size, reduce falloff effect, and/or increase base number of missiles.
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Couple of thoughts on a couple of different subjects in this entire thread:
1. Missile Agility NEVER made sense, that's not how missiles work in real world physics. AAM's and SAM's in atmo both are either direct fired "tracking" objects which have advantage of no G limits and smaller mass, but don't have any actual avoidance agility. Physics makes making any drastic change to a course once massive acceleration has occurred in a vector very hard to overcome the inertia.
Inertia doesn't reaaally exist in Aurora 4x though. And even in real life, there's a significant difference in Missile maneuverability and it does have an impact. Larger fins means higher drag but also a larger ability to divert air to change the vector of travel for the missile. TWR (before missile burnout) is important in determining whether a missile can quickly catch up to, and overpower the vector change that whatever it's tracking has while maneuvering.
If missile agility didn't exist then the various AAMs and SAMs wouldn't have large fins for correction, they'd rely entirely on their engines or tiny fins.
A missile has to be able to quickly shift it's inertial vector by the use of aerodynamic forces in order to be able to follow it's target, particularly if it's maneuvering, otherwise, just waggling the stick a bit would mean no missiles could ever hit you due to the inertia.
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Couple of thoughts on a couple of different subjects in this entire thread:
1. Missile Agility NEVER made sense, that's not how missiles work in real world physics. AAM's and SAM's in atmo both are either direct fired "tracking" objects which have advantage of no G limits and smaller mass, but don't have any actual avoidance agility. Physics makes making any drastic change to a course once massive acceleration has occurred in a vector very hard to overcome the inertia.
Inertia doesn't reaaally exist in Aurora 4x though. And even in real life, there's a significant difference in Missile maneuverability and it does have an impact. Larger fins means higher drag but also a larger ability to divert air to change the vector of travel for the missile. TWR (before missile burnout) is important in determining whether a missile can quickly catch up to, and overpower the vector change that whatever it's tracking has while maneuvering.
If missile agility didn't exist then the various AAMs and SAMs wouldn't have large fins for correction, they'd rely entirely on their engines or tiny fins.
A missile has to be able to quickly shift it's inertial vector by the use of aerodynamic forces in order to be able to follow it's target, particularly if it's maneuvering, otherwise, just waggling the stick a bit would mean no missiles could ever hit you due to the inertia.
Even withut actual inertia, it would still take a phase to stop and a phase to turn around.
Missiles are NOT AGILE versus airborne or spaceborne targets, most of the "work" is done at the time of firing, and for anti-missile work, well they don't have avoidance to begin with, and for planes, well, the planes are more maneuverable than the missile. The missiles closure rate tends to be their biggest advantage. Very few missiles can make a 360 degree turn after the motor goes out, heck most have trouble with 90 degree turn, it is why the most common tactic for missile defense when within the No Escape Zone of a missile is to run abeam of the launch site with a heading change of at least 45 degrees from previous heading.
Now for surface targets, missiles ARE AGILE because the target is operating on a single plane and the target's velocity is a rounding error for the missile's speed and tracking ability. It's the reason why bombs with a guidance package on it can reliably hit moving targets from 10km altitude.