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Post by airc777 on Nov 28, 2018 21:36:51 GMT
Posting this here instead of suggestions because I haven't fully fleshed out this idea but:
Currently the way the game defines win condition it doesn't really care how recoverable your crews are, just that your crews are the last ones to die. So we leave empty tankers drifting in space and we finish missions with gunships that have shredded radiators and punctured fuel tanks. So for realism sake what if we add some escape pod functionality, or at the very least a 'return to friendly occupied gravity well' mission parameter?
I'm thinking all we would need to include is a launch able craft with a small reactor, an MPD, an inflatable crew module, an inflatable fuel tank, and a pump to draw whatever fuel remains from the carrier craft. Inflatable modules and launching with empty tanks would decrease size and mass to where they shouldn't be to much of a burden to add to many existing designs. Or if we had the option of having the main craft itself stage and have the armor and weapons and such detach like a payload fairing and then have the craft launch it's own crew module and a reactor and a engine.
There are also a lot of other applications for other methods of staging that could also be useful, like having missiles and drones mounted exterior of the carrier instead of housed internally in massive blast launchers and magazines. Or having drop tanks with there own engines so adding lots of drop tank mass doesn't ruin a crafts thrust to mass ratio. Or being able to re dock launched drones. Or other carrier functionality like being able to rearm and preform limited repair on top of just refueling.
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Post by AtomHeartDragon on Nov 29, 2018 21:20:47 GMT
Currently the way the game defines win condition it doesn't really care how recoverable your crews are, just that your crews are the last ones to die. So we leave empty tankers drifting in space and we finish missions with gunships that have shredded radiators and punctured fuel tanks. I actually do my best to leave my "spent" ships in stable orbits around something that isn't the Sun and minimize own losses (I also try to build ships to keep crews alive even as they start resembling charred stumps). I agree that game should definitely score based on proportion of crews still alive and not escaping to infinity on hyperbolic trajectories, it should also score based on ships operational or still salvageable (counted in credits - The Astronomer ). Return to friendly gravity well would be a nice objective in some missions - in some of the remaining ones you are already there (defensive) or secure orbital superiority. Escape pods would have limited utility in space. Unless you are on an intercept with hard ground or hurtling to infinity (or heading specifically for Jupiter's Van Alen's belt, or suffering from nasty reactor mishap and can't toss the reactors instead due to your ship's construction) you are probably going to be better off staying in your wreck - it gives you more supplies, physical (there is likely to be a lot of fine debris repeatedly intersecting your orbit) and radiation shielding and possibly even some residual functionality. You are likely not going to be able to use reactors (because you can't know how much of your crew will be alive and still in shape to care for it), just an RTG (and a small one at that, what's with required radiators?) and won't be able to have enough supplies to survive puttering back home with an anaemic MPDT. The main advantage of an escape pod is that it is much easier to change trajectory of a balloon with a bunch of survivors inside than of a hulk of a heavily armed and armoured ship, so you could conceivably put yourself in stable orbit even if your ship is going to escape or lithobrake (and it can sometimes be useful if your shadow-shields got shredded and the wreckage is hot, but not hot enough to make the whole endeavour pointless) - you can then push away with some simple solid fuel/hypergolic rocket and enter stable orbit, hopefully different enough from either of the battling fleets' orbits to not get repeatedly shotgunned by the debris, and wait for evac or getting taken POWs (which I imagine would realistically happen whenever practically doable, save maybe for RFP getting just a little bit too bloodthirsty). For tankers MPDT should probably be standard equipment allowing them to take long way home after they get drained to the point of military irrelevance. They should afford taking enough supplies and sparing enough propellant for that.
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Post by airc777 on Nov 29, 2018 22:08:22 GMT
Return to friendly gravity well would be a nice objective in some missions - in some of the remaining ones you are already there (defensive) or secure orbital superiority. Perhaps "complete other mission parameters with at least x remaining delta velocity and at least one remaining functional and powered weapon system" would be a better metric for "occupying" the entirety of the Jovian system. Context of the narrative of each mission matters, but very little of the infrastructure or merchant fleet traffic that we are supposed to be defending or occupying is actually modeled in game. In The Jovian Lunar Tour's narrative you are supposed to be preventing the launch additional ships constructed at Io and Europa but its not exactly difficult to finish the mission in a state where you don't have the delta v to get back to Europa after defeating the fleet at Io. Maybe modeling some ship to surface warfare wouldn't hurt.
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