Lately I’ve been doing some baseline analysis of Aurora and I think some fundamental things could use some updating.
First some outlines of how the game mechanics currently stand.
Mechanics of engines and movement speedFor military ships maximum speed can be calculated as (((base engine power*engines install)/hull spaces)*1000). Each engine is 5hs and ships have no limitation on the number of engines they may mount.
Gunboat engines are defined as being the same 5hs but 2x the base engine power and limited to a single installation. GB speed can be calculated as ((((base engine power * 2)*engines install)/hull spaces)*1000).
Fighter engines are defined as being 1hs but 3x the base engine power and limited to a single installation. FTR speed can be calculated as (((base engine power * 3)/hull spaces)*1000).
Missile engines are 5x the base engine power and that Missile Size Point(MSP) is .05hs. Missile speed can be calculated as (((((base engine power * .05)*5)*msp of engines install)/msp of missile)*1000).
For purposes of this discussion commercial engines are not includedbase engine rating 5 8 12 16 20 25 32 40 50 60 80 100
| (5hs) ship engine output 25 40 60 80 100 125 160 200 250 300 400 500
| ship speed with 25% mass to engine 1250 2000 3000 4000 5000 6250 8000 10000 12500 15000 20000 25000
| (5hs) FAC engine output 50 80 120 160 200 250 320 400 500 600 800 1000
| 1000t (20hs) FAC Speed 2500 4000 6000 8000 10000 12500 16000 20000 25000 30000 40000 50000
| (1hs) Fighter engine output 15 24 36 48 60 75 96 120 150 180 240 300
| 500t (10hs) fighter speed 1500 2400 3600 4800 6000 7500 9600 12000 15000 18000 24000 30000
| base missile engine rating 1.25 2 3 4 5 6.25 8 10 12.5 15 20 25
| Max missile speed with 50% mass to engine 12500 20000 30000 40000 50000 62500 80000 100000 125000 150000 200000 250000
|
Beam Fire Control RangesThe established baseline is that all beam weapons are restricted to no more than the speed of light(C) limited to a maximum time segment of 5 seconds. For purposes of discussion I have rounded C to 299,792 kps giving a maximum possible beam range of 1,498,960km. Also for purposes of discussion maximum effective range is the range at which hit probability drops to 50%. As it stands Beam Fire Control baseline 50% Range max’s out at 175,000km and with 4x that becomes 700,000km. This is actually short of the stated baseline by less than 7%.
A lot of people will argue that beam weapons can be designed with ranges far in excess of 1,498,960km, this is true especially with Lasers (Max range of 20,160,000km). The counter argument is that the beam maximum range is the range at which it will inflict damage without a limit time limitation.
Beam Fire Control Tracking SpeedsThe baseline tracking speeds match the equivalent tech level of military ship speed with 25% mass dedicated to engines. This can be modified to a maximum gain of 4x baseline speeds. While this does not match missile speeds, it does keep the chance of beam PD in a usable range.
Current fire control speeds |
baseline 1,250 2,000 3,000 4,000 5,000 6,250 8,000 10,000 12,500 15,000 20,000 25,000
| 4x 5,000 8,000 12,000 16,000 20,000 25,000 32,000 40,000 50,000 60,000 80,000 100,000
|
Turret Tracking SpeedsThe baseline turret tracking speeds matchup with the same level baseline fire control tracking speed. Turret hull space can be calculated as:
((beam hs * # of beams)+(roundup(total beam hs * .1,0)*roundup(requested turret speed/base turret speed,0)))
SUGGESTIONS:1. Change fighter engines to 5x instead of 3x of baseline. The reason being that full size fighters (10hs-500ton) are only capable of 60% of the speed of an equivalent full size gunboat(20hs-1000ton). At 4x they are 80%, but at 5x they at least match. Yes this means that fighter engines functionally are at the same power level as missiles with a better fuel curve. The difference is that missiles have variable engine power for their mass while fighters have a fixed power level, by comparison.
2. Change the turret tracking speeds to being equivalent to the 4x fire control tracking speed instead the baseline. This doesn’t seem like much of a change at first. The main thing this does is it allows turrets to match equivalent level fire controls at the 4x level with only 10% additional mass over the beams mounted instead of 40%. It incidentally allows for single turreted gauss cannon in a 500ton fighter that matches the fighter fire control speed some fuel and not much else.
(I’d really like to see the Gauss Cannon Size vs Accuracy(tech type 143) changed to .1-1hs instead of the .5-6hs, but I know that’s not going to happen) 3. This last one has the highest chance of being unbalancing. Change the beam fire control ranges to allow 4x range to match the equivalent level max range of lasers. The current binding restriction is about the only Einsteinium/Newtonian restriction to game mechanics. Until the later tech levels it’s not much of a change. Since active scan functionally gives realtime tracking to anything within range, and the systems are all trans-newtonian it’s not that much of a leap.
baseline 10,000 16,000 24,000 32,000 40,000 48,000 60,000 75,000 100,000 125,000 150,000 175,000
| 4x 40,000 64,000 96,000 128,000 160,000 192,000 240,000 300,000 400,000 500,000 600,000 700,000
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| baseline 3,750 10,000 22,500 50,000 100,000 180,000 280,000 400,000 720,000 1,200,000 1,760,000 2,520,000
| 4x 15,000 40,000 90,000 200,000 400,000 720,000 1,120,000 1,600,000 2,880,000 4,800,000 7,040,000 10,080,000
|
I’ve been playing with a database with suggestions 1 and 2 lately under the v5.42 program. So far I have not found these changes to be unbalancing or causing any error propagation. I do not advise others to make these changes since there is still a strong possibility that I’ve introduced issues that I haven’t identified yet. These are not changes that can be made under the SM Mode, they require the database password. Nor will I distribute modified databases.
Suggestion 3 is just that, a thoroughly untested suggestion.
Word of warning to others that may try #1, fighter engines (tech type 130) cannot be changed by itself. There is either a table control entry I haven’t found or hardcoding that force the ShipDesignComponents table entry to be a full 5hs engine at 5x power instead of a 1hs engine and requires manual intervention on the table as well.