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[Micro102]

Thinking about it... Lasers with range enough to travel 20 seconds could still count as a hit as we already have hit chance. Then you could just delay the damage, like "in 15 seconds the damage will tick". Anyone see any flaws with that?

[Rince Wind]

Ships could change course during that time, and it would need to be checked because then it shouldn't hit. It would also need to figure out if it is just a new order to move to another ship/whatever in the same place as the original order, because that would not change course. This could easily lead to abuse by changing course all the time, or even just speed.
You could also just say that a small ship that is a couple times the distance from earth to the moon away is just not reliably hittable anymore at that distance, beams are not coherant enough anymore, anything that changes ballistics course in any way, the slightest manufacturing error in the barrels or the charge itsels, even if it is just nanometers, would cause you to miss. You might not be good enough to guarantee that kind of quality control even at maximum techlevel.

Shooting at maximum distance is discouraged in c# anyway. Your chance to hit is pretty bad, and you have a 1 in 100 chance that your beam weapon will malfunction and needs maintenance supplies to keep working. I had a particulary unlucky ship that had almost 1/3 of all breakdowns in combat and went through all its supplies. It had 14 left at the end of the battle, without suffering combat damage.

[da_nang]

Maybe an additional tech line for a "Wormhole Laser" or something.

• Increased range due to a small wormhole temporarily opening.
• Increase size due to wormhole generator (dependent on laser focal size).
• Increased power draw due to wormhole generator.
• Laser (and Microwave?) only since EM waves have no mass (less spacetime interference?).

Now we just need an explanation for the damage and accuracy. Preferably without changing the original laser model without making it OP. Wormhole stability issues, perhaps? Energy leaks?

[Micro102]

Ships could change course during that time, and it would need to be checked because then it shouldn't hit. It would also need to figure out if it is just a new order to move to another ship/whatever in the same place as the original order, because that would not change course. This could easily lead to abuse by changing course all the time, or even just speed.
You could also just say that a small ship that is a couple times the distance from earth to the moon away is just not reliably hittable anymore at that distance, beams are not coherant enough anymore, anything that changes ballistics course in any way, the slightest manufacturing error in the barrels or the charge itsels, even if it is just nanometers, would cause you to miss. You might not be good enough to guarantee that kind of quality control even at maximum techlevel.

Shooting at maximum distance is discouraged in c# anyway. Your chance to hit is pretty bad, and you have a 1 in 100 chance that your beam weapon will malfunction and needs maintenance supplies to keep working. I had a particulary unlucky ship that had almost 1/3 of all breakdowns in combat and went through all its supplies. It had 14 left at the end of the battle, without suffering combat damage.

But isn't that what the to-hit chance is suppose to simulate? There is no air resistance or drop due to gravity and ships are expected to already be moving. We can't expect the pilots to just sit there for 5 seconds as projectiles hurl towards them. The miss chance is exactly because the ship is moving within those 5 seconds. Who cares if it moves again in the next 5 seconds? Drop the hit chance even more and have reaction speed and ship size take part in the calculations.

[Rince Wind]

Yeah, but the to hit is for a ship moving in a straight line at a known speed while the beam is on the way. You'd give it a lot more time to react, which should lower to hit chances.

[Damiac]

Yeah, but the to hit is for a ship moving in a straight line at a known speed while the beam is on the way. You'd give it a lot more time to react, which should lower to hit chances.

There's no reason lasers and other beam weapons couldn't just shoot further, and just track the target like Mass Driver packets do to planets.  The 5 second tick time combined with light speed is a completely arbitrary way to handle things either way.  Yeah, it's "unrealistic", but so is the current situation.  Light can travel a far greater distance than 5 light seconds.

The more important issue than realism is, does this make beam weapons effectively worthless? Seeing how most people play this game, I'd say yes. Beams seem to be mostly for defense against the other guy's missiles. Why choose the super duper short range weapon systems over the super duper long range weapon systems?

The fact is, the game already has FTL sensors. Active sensors can see any distance in an instant. That means whatever they are actively transmitting travels faster than light. Why can't that be weaponized? Why are we pretending light speed is a limit when it obviously isn't here?

So I think the whole 5 light second limit should be removed, and let the tech just keep scaling up the range as you go, with some scifi sounding names for the tech that imply FTL.  Remember, this game world already has an entire extra fluidic dimension under the surface that throws the laws of physics out the window anyway.

I suspect steve enjoys playing with missiles more than beams (Probably a lot of aurora players do, after all, there's more designing with the missiles) and so he doesn't mind beams being subpar. 

[Rince Wind]

Have you read his Crusade campaign? Lots of beams there. I think particle beams got an upgrade with lances, or were those in VB6 Aurora as well?
I actually like beams, they are more dependable and don't run out of ammo. Once you have magneto plasma drives you are quick enough as well (you can do it with ion, but you are sacrificing quite a bit to get speeds that are useful against the precursors).
You can tinker more with missiles, yes, but it is also easier to game them, I think. Box launchers can be used to overwhelm basically any defence, or you could make 2-stage missiles that are as fast as your ships to create massive salvos. And you don't need to worry about closing too much with missile ships.

I usually mix them (not on the same ship though).

I am not against making the range of beams longer, and I think it is being discussed for the game. But as I said, 10 or 15 seconds is a lot more time to react to an incoming beam. With the FTL sensors you see the other guy shooting.

In the end I think it is because he comes from a tabletop game and then wanted to cram as much realism as possible into the base, which is not realistic with its TN-Stuff. Which makes the game easier to play, because you don't have to think about so many things.
I do wonder if he will return to a c# Newtonian Aurora after this.

[Micro102]

Yeah, but the to hit is for a ship moving in a straight line at a known speed while the beam is on the way. You'd give it a lot more time to react, which should lower to hit chances.

Yes, just add lower hit chances for further distance.

Maybe have the hit chance increase with number of shots targeted per instance to account for less room to dodge and predictive firing. (1 shot gives 15% chance, 2 shots give a 15%, and an 15.3% chance)

[EuchreJack]

Maybe an additional tech line for a "Wormhole Laser" or something.

• Increased range due to a small wormhole temporarily opening.
• Increase size due to wormhole generator (dependent on laser focal size).
• Increased power draw due to wormhole generator.
• Laser (and Microwave?) only since EM waves have no mass (less spacetime interference?).

Now we just need an explanation for the damage and accuracy. Preferably without changing the original laser model without making it OP. Wormhole stability issues, perhaps? Energy leaks?

While wormhole generators seem a little...out there, if you modify that slightly to discuss the Aether that is the backstory of tech in Aurora, it makes total sense to the setting.  Essentially, it's possible to push a beam or projectile outside of our reality into the Aether, then have it drop back into our reality.  As it is like throwing an object in gravity, in that it is affected by a force that curves it, proper computers can calculate the enemy position and cause a hit outside the 5 second window.

[da_nang]

-snip-

Oh I'm really hungry to try out the Particle Lance. Already got a ship design for it, just need some targets.

The armor penetration is huge, but you'll need to pair it with a gun with a wide armor damage pattern (missiles/particle beam long range, carronade/laser/railgun short range) just in case you can't completely penetrate a large ship.

[Rince Wind]

I found a deserted intact colony right next to Sol in 40 Eridani. And then a little later a deserted intact city 2 jumps from Sol on a cost 0 planet in Lalande XXXXX. The 1st is TL 2 and had about 570 installations, the other on is TL 1 but had a massive 1300+ installations. And an artifact with a 90% bonus for construction/production research. I am sending as many colonists there as I can, and I carry away as many installations as I can, but I am missing 41 million workers on a planet with (so far) 31 million inhabitants. And still almost 500 things to excavate on there.

Unfortunately both ruins are more than a 100 day roundtrip with my improved nuclear pulse engined freighters. Retooling for ion engined ones is underway!
The civvies are helping as well, even though I have to pay them. But the construction brigades basically dig out wealth, so who cares?

Too bad both planets are mostly useless for mining, the former inhabitants exploited all the easy stuff I guess. 40 Eridani is larger than earth as well so terraforming will take some time. I will tow my terraforming stations there when Mars is done (not much longer, I just need to add some water). There are more around a moon in Alpha Centauri, but that friggin moon has a diameter of 17400km. Even though it just needs some Oxygen it takes a long time.

I haven't found a good mining world yet though.

[EuchreJack]

You could mine asteroids and moons (unless even they all basically suck) and send the minerals to the new planets for processing.  But you probably already knew that.

[Rince Wind]

Yes, I have mining outposts on 2 comets in Sol, I haven't had the capacities to build mining ships or stations yet. Both Lalande (no comets, asteroids or moons at all in the system) and 40 Eridani (3 comets, 1 is ok, 1 useless asteroid with mines) aren't very well suited though. So I need to look further away.

[LoSboccacc]

> Cloaking Device has to be large enough for design

what the heck is a cloaking device now?

[Shooer]

Reduces the cross section of a ship that is used determine size for detection by active sensors.  So a ship with 70% cloak will appear as 30% their normal size. 

I've played a few games as a stealth focused race.  All combat ships had cloaks and masked drives.

Yes my fleet of 2k ton ships is going 2kms.  They are totally not 8k tons and capable of 5kms.