Sirius Business - a C# Aurora forum game. v2.5

[Nikolai II]

Not sure what to do about Red 4.

It appears to be composed of three ships... a Gard (confirmed AMM-PD), a Vosges (suspected Gauss PD) and a Yonne, a commercial-engined ship (suspected Dropship) which limits the speed of the entire squadron to 2,500 kps. Without the civilian ship they would move at 13,642 kps.

Our four-ship Sabre force outposting the other side of the Lernea jump point are all Sabre IXs. They have no missile defenses at all. Since they are such small craft (2,000 tons each) they have only a few armor boxes and the Gard will kill all four of them pretty quickly with his size-1 missiles.

So our choices for the Sabre squadron are:

1) Simply avoid the enemy Red 4 squadron. Stay out of AMM-PD range. There are plenty of other forces coming up from Earth, they'll arrive here before the enemy Red 4 force can travel very far (at 2,500 kps); and they will kill these puppies easily... with a Fighter strike, for instance. Or with a large Gunship, which can't be sandpapered away with size-1 missiles. Let someone else, who isn't helpless against size-1 AMM missiles, deal with them.

2) Sacrifice the Sabres to wipe out the Yonne now. This of course will free the escort to move at 13,642 kps from then on.

3) Try to kill the Gard before it can wipe out the Sabre squadron. This will NOT be easy, since the Gard has an 89-point shield and ECM-6. The Sabres are ECCM-0.

Honestly, I favor choice #1. Just avoid Red 4. They're only moving at 2,500 kps. How far will they actually get before our reinforcements arrive?

Just combine 1 and 2. Keep a distance and harry them from behind. Or even from several angles. If they separate from Yonne, one harrier can advance and kill it while the others scatter. And else you keep proper track of them in case something happens that inclines you towards suddenly needing to kill the Yonne. (Say if you learn it carries just one huge Meganuke or something else unfeasibly scary.)

 

[SteveZAX]

If the Sabres can get to the Jump gate before Red 4 gets there, they can engage Red 4 (preferably the Gard, especially if their shields DROP from jump shock) while Red 4 is in jump shock, and then jump thru to Harmony them selves to avoid counter fire.
If the Home fleet is close enough, they can deal with the survivors of Red 4 in Lernea.

 

[Wagonlitz]

and a Yonne, a commercial-engined ship (suspected Dropship)

Hadn't we already seen their drop ship.clasd

Gard has an 89-point shield and ECM-6. The Sabres are ECCM-0.

As its more than 5 different, won't that mean 0% chance to hit then?

I agree you should do what's most enjoyable for you
And sacrificing Sabres for this battle indeed seems of wuestionavlr worth.

If the Sabres can get to the Jump gate before Red 4 gets there, they can engage Red 4 while Red 4 is in jump shock, and then jump thru to Harmony them selves to avoid counter fire.
If the Home fleet is close enough, they can deal with the survivors of Red 4 in Lernea.

That could be an idea.

 

[randakar]

If the Sabres can get to the Jump gate before Red 4 gets there, they can engage Red 4 (preferably the Gard, especially if their shields DROP from jump shock) while Red 4 is in jump shock, and then jump thru to Harmony them selves to avoid counter fire.

That's smart. Hit and run. I like it.

Hadn't we already seen their drop ship.clasd

Apparently they have multiple classes for this purpose. I would not know why else they would group a commercial slug with fast warships.

As its more than 5 different, won't that mean 0% chance to hit then?

It's 10% reduction per level, remember? So -60%, not -100%.

It depends on the sabres own hit chances against them too, those don't start out on 100% either. -60 is still a lot.

 

[blue emu]

If the Sabres can get to the Jump gate before Red 4 gets there, they can engage Red 4 (preferably the Gard, especially if their shields DROP from jump shock) while Red 4 is in jump shock, and then jump thru to Harmony them selves to avoid counter fire.
If the Home fleet is close enough, they can deal with the survivors of Red 4 in Lernea.

Jump shock does not drop their shields.

The problem with the "shoot and scoot" tactic is that nothing prevents the Modrons from just following us back through the jump point and then killing us on the other side while we are in jump shock.

Since Sabres carry no jump drive, we will always suffer the maximum length of jump shock every time we transit. If the Modrons just follow us through, they will kill us quickly unless we can recover before they do and then jump BACK through the gate. Then they'll follow us again. Rinse and repeat.

I'd rather just withdraw our Sabre force from the jump point, let these ships through, and then re-occupy the jump point behind them.

The Sabres don't constitute a blockade. They are much too weak. They are just a picket squad. I propose withdrawing the pickets temporarily.

 

[RobbieAB]

Is it worth having the Sabres shadow Red 4 to maintain the contact?

 

[blue emu]

Is it worth having the Sabres shadow Red 4 to maintain the contact?

I was going to have Agent 007 shadow them.

For surveillance vessels, we have one Spy class (passive sensors) in Lernea, and two Agent class (active sensors) and one Spy in Harmony.

So we could order the second Agent (that's the one already in contact, Agent 007) to just trail after Red 4 at a discrete distance.

 

[randakar]

Eminently sensible. Let's make it happen.

 

[Wagonlitz]

It's 10% reduction per level, remember? So -60%, not -100%.

Then why did a 5 level difference mean the AMM couldn't hit us?

I was going to have Agent 007 shadow them.

For surveillance vessels, we have one Spy class (passive sensors) in Lernea, and two Agent class (active sensors) and one Spy in Harmony.

So we could order the second Agent (that's the one already in contact, Agent 007) to just trail after Red 4 at a discrete distance.

Sounds good.
And yeah, withdrawing Sabres seems the way to go.

 

[randakar]

Then why did a 5 level difference mean the AMM couldn't hit us?

Because it's a reduction on top of a hit chance that is also not 100%. There is more that goes into this equation.
To give you an idea:

https://www.reddit.com/r/aurora/comments/jr2zej/missile_design_guideprocesstheory

The engine/agility balance is the hardest bit, and there are three ways to do it. The first is fiddling with the values until you get something that looks decent, which in fairness is not too bad of an approach once you get the hang of it. The second is to use an online calculator or spreadsheet and outsource your thinking to one of the brainy nerds on the official forums. The third way is to use dark magic math.

Missile accuracy is given exactly by the formula

ACC = (missile_speed) / (target_speed) * MR
The quantity MR is called the Maneuver Rating and is displayed in the missile information window as you design it. It is calculated as:

MR = 10 + ROUND(missile_agility / missile_size)
Note that because MR is rounded rather than an exact decimal, you will have the same MR over a range of missile agility values, therefore a series of agility breakpoints will exist. This is important as it lets you squeeze extra performance out of your missiles if you take advantage of the breakpoints.

If you do some math and ignore the rounding for the moment, you can calculate the "theoretically optimal" missile agility and engine masses by ignoring the fuel load (just for the moment):

Let A = missile agility per MSP
Let B = fraction of MSP allocated to engine plus agility
Define R = A * B - 10
...
Then the optimal ratio of engine size to agility size is 1 + 20 / R
and the optimal agility MSP is missile_size * (B / 2 - 5 / A)

The rest of that goes into designing other factors, but does list the hit chances. Missile speed / target speed is the biggest factor and means that high speed missiles will still have a large miss chance. And the ECCM reduction is applied on top, so if the above calculations result in 50% hit chance and then the ECM-ECCM equation reduces that by 50% you end up with 0% hit chance.

 

[RobbieAB]

There is also the ratio of missile speed to target speed to consider: note that the unhitable ships are also our fastest ships!

The interesting thing here is what the comparative hit rates suggest about the MR on the various missiles!

 

[GarfunkeL]

MR is no longer a thing since Steve overhauled lot of the missile mechanics. Speed is now even more important than before.

 

[blue emu]

MR is no longer a thing since Steve overhauled lot of the missile mechanics. Speed is now even more important than before.

Fortunately the warheads on our two-stage missiles move at 80,000 kps over the last 1.6 million km of their approach.

 

[blue emu]

ESN Agent 007 receives orders to shadow the Red 4 Squadron at distance of 40 million km.

Since the Agent II class carries a modern AS-134/R11 AWACS active sensor, this will leave the enemy ships deep inside the Agent's sensor envelope. As he approaches the jump gate he'll drop a RADAR probe. The next enemy ship that comes along will destroy it, of course, but we've got lots of probes. Even some of our unarmed vessels (such as this Agent II class) carry them.

---

Meanwhile on the Lernea side of the jump gate the Sabre picket squadron and the Spy class vessel (ESN Red Orchestra) move aside to let the enemy Red 4 Squadron through. Then they will re-occupy the jump point afterward. Red 4 is presumably headed toward inner star system, off-screen to the upper right.

---

While the flurry of activity takes place at the jump point, the three airbase space station modules are only hours away, still under tow by Super-Tugs.

A small detachment of ships (including a Carrier escorted by a Spinal-mount Destroyer) has arrived at Lernea and is refueling now.

 

[blue emu]

Our Gunships are now only 210 million km from Red 1. If they've got any missiles left, we should be finding out almost any time now.

 

[randakar]

Great, this is more or less a guarantee I will keep reloading this page for the next hour or so

 

[RobbieAB]

Is it worth sending a fighter strike at Red 4 to try and neutralise the AMM ship? Once that is gone, the Sabre squadron should be more than adequate to finish the last two ships.

 

[blue emu]

Is it worth sending a fighter strike at Red 4 to try and neutralise the AMM ship? Once that is gone, the Sabre squadron should be more than adequate to finish the last two ships.

That's my plan, yes.

Those three Super-Tugs are hauling Airbase space station modules. Two of the Fighter squadrons are obsolete, but the third one is quite modern, and is equipped with missiles that are only about 13 years old. All three Airbases have magazines loaded with even more modern missiles, as re-loads.

I was planning to take out the Gard with a Fighter strike, and then clean up with the Sabres.

The back-up plan was to use the spinal Destroyer to kill the Gard, since Blaze is too large and massive to be sand-papered away with size-1 missiles, the way the much smaller Sabres would be.

 

[blue emu]

Red 4 ignored the Agent's RADAR and continues toward the jump point.

Gunships range to target: 197 million km.

We've seen them shoot at 205 million... no?

 

[RobbieAB]

It certainly seems like they are holding fire if they have any!