Ship AI, Carriers, escape, oh my!

I don't necessarily disagree with the end result of what you want, but I want to disagree with the comparison to modern warfare, which I have seen a few different places on the forums. To assume that the dynamics of future warfare are the same as current warfare is a huge fallacy. In contemporary warfare small, agile units and vehicles are especially useful because our weapons are not particularly accurate. Armor is less useful because weapons are powerful enough to penetrate it. It is not hard to imagine that in the near future computer targeting could vastly improve, That, combined with faster ammunition speeds, could create weapons that are pinpoint accurate, even against very fast targets. If that happens; small, quick craft lose almost all of their advantage. If you can hit anything, then you want craft that can take and dish out more punishment. Similarly, if armor technology were to take a leap ahead of weapons technology, suddenly heavily armored units could become very valuable, even if they are easy to hit.

I'm not saying that there shouldn't be better balance between many small ships and fewer large ships. I am just saying that making an argument for a game set in the future based on current technology is flawed. The reason to do it would be that it makes the game more fun and dynamic, not that it reflects the current military paradigm.

I think it'll be a nice change to add fighter/bomber support in battle, also would look amazing

Carriers/fighters are the things I'm looking forward too the most.  Been a long time coming, and I hope Stardock does it good.

I guess the major reason I focus on modern warfare and tactics is well since I'm in the military. I've had to build target packets for both conventional (standard uniformed armies) and non-conventional forces. (insurgents)With games like this I just think of modern military doctrine. It's not the carrier that is powerful. In our modern Navy the carrier is actually rather weak and must have a fleet to protect it. It's what it carries that brings heavy firepower to the front lines.  I guess the idea of big giant ships with large cannons taking out tiny ships just takes balance out of the game. Now if that ship was armed to the teeth with small AA guns and was more or less a giant gun boat then yes that makes more sense. Also adding these AA weapons to your big battleships come at a price, less room for you big cannons to take out other giant ships. Makes it where the is no true overpowered ship because all ships have a counter.

Well one thing to keep in mind is in modern warfare a single F22 is more than capable of taking out a Carrier or Battleship with a single missile.  That is not the case is most futuristic space combat media examples. 

In Star Wars or Battle Star Galactica a single fighter would NEVER be able to take down one of the larger battle ships. They might be able to slowly accumulate damage on them, maybe take out a gun or two or maybe a sensor pod, but they would never destroy them.  That is the roll of other Capital ships.

In most future-ish game sims Carriers usually serve the roll of fighter screens or taking out enemy support units like frigates or corvettes.  They tend to do very poorly against Capital ships designed to fight other Capital ships.

Didn't the opening episode on the New Battlestar Galatica show some scenes where the Galatica took TWO broadsides of hits by nuclear anti ship missiles and 'shrugged' them off?

That kind of durability means fighters would do very marginal damage to a capital ship. The hit points analogy is good in this example.

I don't necessarily disagree with the end result of what you want, but I want to disagree with the comparison to modern warfare, which I have seen a few different places on the forums. To assume that the dynamics of future warfare are the same as current warfare is a huge fallacy. In contemporary warfare small, agile units and vehicles are especially useful because our weapons are not particularly accurate. Armor is less useful because weapons are powerful enough to penetrate it. It is not hard to imagine that in the near future computer targeting could vastly improve, That, combined with faster ammunition speeds, could create weapons that are pinpoint accurate, even against very fast targets. If that happens; small, quick craft lose almost all of their advantage. If you can hit anything, then you want craft that can take and dish out more punishment. Similarly, if armor technology were to take a leap ahead of weapons technology, suddenly heavily armored units could become very valuable, even if they are easy to hit.

I'm not saying that there shouldn't be better balance between many small ships and fewer large ships. I am just saying that making an argument for a game set in the future based on current technology is flawed. The reason to do it would be that it makes the game more fun and dynamic, not that it reflects the current military paradigm.

The argument that targeting systems of the future will provide pinpoint accuracy and take out fast targets is flawed.  All through our history, technology has provided more sophisticated weaponry and targeting systems to one side of a conflict.  And, yet, those same forces experienced defeat on the battle field. Overwhelming numbers can neutralize any force.  The Chinese did it to us in the Battle of Chosin Reservoir; Russia did it to the Germans in the Battle of Stalingrad, and the Zulus did it to the British in the Battle of Isandlwana.  The defeated force possessed technologically advanced weaponry and the victor just provided overwhelming numbers.  But, the real question is can a light fighter type ship be effective against a large armada.   Pirate ships should fall into this category and in an asymmetrical warfare role.  Further, the US Military is investing in smaller, lighter, and more lethal force (i.e., Special Forces).  There is something to be said about a light forces that keeps gnawing away at those big heavy capital ships.  You need deep pockets to keep up with the war of attrition, but it is possible.        

I have to disagree with your entire premise. Future combat will encroach on relativistic velocities, where small agile ships will be able to cover HUGE areas of space in short periods of time. AI assisted targeting, laser/new weapon tech will make speed and maneuverability the most important factor. Imagine being launched from a carrier as a fighter craft several AU's out from the sun. you accelerate towards your targets, and because there is no resistance in the form of air etc. you can reach speeds close to C. Say you are traveling at .9C and merely let a few tennis-ball sized spheres of Tungsten drift forward on your original trajectory as you slow down.

These spheres will be carrying a velocity of .90C and slow large targets would be completely obliterated if only one of these landed with such a devastating force. If you can accelerate to say .97C (entirely plausible and possible within the laws of physics) Your initial light signal when you were launched will only be minutes if not seconds ahead of your ship. So once an enemy sees your ship way out on the edge of the solarsystem, you're actually only 20 seconds away from the inner solarsystem, and your nice little tungsten shots will slam into any ship too slow to move. Targeting at such high velocities is beyond human ability, so AI targeting would be required to calculate these shots and how they will relate to the curvature of space-time, particulate matter etc.

Once the surprise is lost then targeting with dumb munitions such as these will be quite difficult and lower speed combat will serve a purpose. Missiles, energy weapons etc. would pack a greater punch at lower speeds.

Ship roles and AI to govern the targeting is essential to good game-play and immersion, and basing strategies on modern day laws of physics or scientific theory is perfectly acceptable.

I've always viewed combat in Galactic Civilizations to be a closer analog to World War 1-2 surface combat, with one glaring exception: the sea itself isn't waiting to swallow a ship damaged below the waterline, so torpedoes can't be a relatively easy kill like the Yamato and Shinano were. Tiny and small hulls are closer to being torpedo boats and DEs rather than aircraft, but both comparisons fail to account for the infinite "ammunition" that GC ships have.

The thing about space is smaller craft are not going to be faster, they might be a bit more maneuverable (which is almost a moot point in such a vast area) but a battleship is going to be able to simply outrun them.

Destroyer sized hulls should be the smallest for any space warfare. Fighters would only be good in planetary actions.

Though something that would work is a ship that deploys a bunch of drone weapons platforms. They don't zip around like a bunch of mosquitoes on crack, but rather sit there and lay down a torrent of withering fire. You would have a hard time taking them all out if they dispersed and they would have better fields of fire, allowing for more concentrated firepower than turrets on the surface of a ship.

EDIT: If such a system was implimented, they could be used more effectively on the defense, having their drones ready to rock immediately. On the attack they would need to take the time to deploy after battle was joined (as the drones would be too slow to move into the attack while disembarked)

For the military folks, dont think of them in terms of a carrier, think of them working like a team of infantry with ATGMs deploying from an APC, with conventional battleships like the MBTs

Wrong unfortunately. Mass is not negated in space. Only weight is. Nothing in space is "at a stop" It's always in motion with respect to something else. ALWAYS. For example if you are "stationary" with respect to an asteroid you're actually still in motion, QUITE fast actually and the relative velocities with respect to other objects are just that... relative and varied.

Using a small force to move a Massive object results in very little alteration to it's vector. Using a small force on a small object will change it's vector to a larger degree. kicking a object the size of a moon with your foot will do next to nothing in altering it's vector, kicking an object the size of a tennisball and made of silicate rock will alter it's vector by a relatively significant amount.

I'm pretty sure you didn't understand my premise, so here it is: There are many ways future tech could develop, particularly relevant to this discussion, in the areas of targeting vs. evasive capabilities and damage mitigation vs. weapon power. That is one of the fun things about a future setting: we get to write the rules, because we have no idea what the rules will actually be. Given this, balance between large and small ships should be based on what feels the most fun, not on the realities of contemporary warfare. Because the tech is made-up it can be adjusted to fit the balance that works best for the game.

The reason I posted is not because I disagree with the premise of the OP, but because as we discuss what will be best for the game, we should do it in terms of the game, not in terms of contemporary or hypothetical future technology.

You are assuming the fighter has the same engine as the battleship, your whole argument is a fallacy.

Also, that affects acceleration. But there is no maximum speed, and aerodynamics make zero difference as well.

After its shields had been taken down by the concentrated fire of the Rebel fleet, and I would tend to think that a fair amount of luck was involved in that crash actually causing the Executor's demise - there are, after all, only about 20 seconds between the time the A-Wing hits the bridge and the time Executor hits the Death Star. Had there been more time for damage control teams to respond, I would expect that an auxiliary command center would have been able to reassert control over the ship and prevent it from ramming the Death Star.

No idea about Battle Star Galactica, but the two Death Stars are among the largest capital ships I can think of in any work of science fiction (and yes, at the very least the first Death Star is a ship rather than a station, and there wouldn't be much point to the second if it were not also mobile), and both of these were destroyed by a handful of fighters. Granted, the first arguably fell to a design flaw and the second could be said to have fallen due to its incomplete state, but they are nevertheless examples of capital ships destroyed by the action of a small number of fighters.

Smaller size vessels have the potential to have significantly better acceleration rates than the larger vessels have, even if the engines on the smaller craft aren't really as 'good' as the engines on the larger craft. If we make the simplistic assumption that all of our designs follow the same basic plan, then we can say that the ship's mass goes up with the cube of its length and its rear surface area goes up with the square of its length. Thus, in order for the acceleration rates to be constant across all sizes, the engine exhaust pressure must increase linearly with the ship's length.

In reality, of course, you're not going to be using the same basic plan for all ship sizes, and a ship's mass is likely to increase somewhat faster than its volume as you require greater strength in the various members for larger structures. I also could not say whether or not you could expect to be able to increase the exhaust pressure of the engines at least linearly with the length of the vessel if all you do to change a design is multiply its dimensions by a scaling factor.

I would also point out that the smaller vessels are likely to be more agile because the bending stresses involved in turning are related to the size and distribution of the vessel about the axis of rotation. While there could be a size of vessel beneath which making the ship smaller will not allow you to make it turn faster due to other design considerations, there is a point where the size of the vessel will become an impediment to its ability to turn.

There is a maximum speed under real physics, and while aerodynamics are effectively immaterial in space there are other reasons why you might wish to keep the profile of the ship small. Nor is it necessarily the case that your space ships do not need to consider atmospheric performance, though it's relatively unlikely in my opinion that a large capital ship would be designed to be capable of atmospheric flight (though we must remember that, at least in Galactic Civilizations II, the ships are built at the planets; while the larger vessels are almost certainly built in orbital shipyards, I would not consider it surprising if the smaller vessels were constructed on the planet's surface, and so aerodynamics would not be something that could be completely ignored).

Come on guys. Star Wars is fiction. Battle Star Galactica is fiction. Star Trek is fiction. Each hedged on science to enhance the enjoyability of their story from time to time. And you can see more of this in David Webber's "Honor Harrington" series, where, even though he used a great deal of scientific information to support his stories, he too found he had to hedged with science slightly to keep the reader's focus on his story.

As long as the hedging isn't so bad that it challenges the credibility of the story, what is the harm. Having a story (or game) be 100% scientifically accurate is:

1) Difficult, if possible at all, because our knowledge of science is incomplete and is continually changing, with us receiving surprises and shocks to our understanding almost on a daily basis.

2) Becomes too much of a distraction from the story or the fun of the game.

I agree.  This is a game.  More specifically, this is a science fiction game and ultimately it is meant to be fun.  Space fighters are cool staples of science fiction, and based on this,  I think they should have been introduced long ago whether or not they make sense according to what we presently perceive  as science fact.

It's funny, but I don't recall ever seeing any arguments on the Fallen Enchantress boards about dragons not being scientifically possible.  I wonder what's behind all the apparent huff over fighters in Galciv.

Fallen Enchantress isn't in a genre that has "science" in the name, nor is it in a genre which is considered particularly likely to have some basis in real science. Not that that necessarily means much, but there is an expectation that science fiction makes some use of science fact (though how much is another story), and that expectation results in discussions such as this. Also, as far as these types of discussions go, this one isn't too bad.

I personally neither support nor oppose the inclusion of starfighters, as it is only a game. and as long as it makes a reasonable amount of sense within the game universe I don't really care. I do nevertheless find these kinds of discussions amusing as long as they don't devolve into pissing contests. And, in my opinion, given the game's size claims for Tiny-hull vessels in Galactic Civilizations II, we already had starfighters, they just weren't the short-range kind that require carriers to reach the combat zone, and this would tend to suggest that battles in Galactic Civilizations II occur under a set of conditions which at least allow fighter-like vessels to be useful.

The greatest difficulty in writing scientifically-accurate stories, at least as far as the current understanding of science is concerned, isn't so much that our understanding of science is incomplete as that many of the people writing science fiction are not well-acquainted with science, as many of them have not pursued professions in a technical field. Then there are the kinds of things which go on in works like Star Trek, where the writers sometimes choose to ignore real science because real science apparently makes the plot less interesting. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, of course, but it can lead to some implausibilities, such as how in Star Trek ejecting the warp core is apparently the solution to about half the problems a starship can encounter.

I'm rather ambivalent on the use of other works of fiction to either support or oppose the inclusion of anything within a specific work, if said work is not set within the same universe as those other works. I'd much rather see arguments based upon the known characteristics of the setting and, since Galactic Civilizations is science fiction, also based in real science (or at least the subset of real science which is applicable to the setting). Since Galactic Civilizations is a fictional universe, deviations from real science are excusable and expected. However, that the conditions or technology in Universe A are right for some specific aspect of that universe to be reasonable does not imply that the conditions or technology in Universe B are right for the same technology, as this isn't really any different from saying that since magic cannot create food in the Harry Potter series then magic cannot create food in the Death Gate Cycle. The universe of Galactic Civilizations is fundamentally different from the universes of Star Trek, Star Wars, or any other science fiction setting you care to bring up, and while all of these are (presumably) working off the same basic ruleset (some shared subset of real science), the way that the "superscience" works (i.e. the stuff which isn't part of real science) need not have anything in common between the settings. This is a significant flaw when basing an argument for the inclusion of a superscience feature of one universe in another universe on that feature's existence within that other universe or that feature's existence within any number of other universes, as the superscience of one universe need not follow the same rules as the superscience of another universe (regardless, it would be nice if the superscience at least followed consistent rules within its universe, which isn't always the case, at least in any readily apparent manner). That "everyone else" is doing something is not, on its own, a good argument for why I should do that thing (not to mention that there are a number of reasonably good works which do not include starfighters, which could be brought up to counter claims along the lines of "everyone else" has them).

I will say, however, that Galactic Civilizations II appears to allow for starfighters, as the Tiny ship hulls are of a size appropriate for fighters, and under the assumption that combat takes place without the use of the superluminal drives and that carriers are not too much of a liability within a fleet, I see no apparent reason why a Tiny hull with the full hyperdrive and long-term life support rig that Tiny vessels in GCII include would be viable while a Tiny hull lacking the full hyperdrive and long-term life support rig would not be viable (this is, however, ignoring arguments about the viability of the Tiny hull in GCII, and the relatively low viability of the Tiny hull in GCII relative to the larger hulls is a potential argument against the viability of short-range fighters similar in scale to Tiny-hull ships within the universe of Galactic Civilizations).

I guess what I should have emphasized was that starfighters are "cool staples of science fiction".  I'm not advocating that just because Star Trek has food replicators, that we should have them in Galciv as well.  I just think that starfighters are THAT iconic to this genre.  Sure, maybe magic can't make food in the Harry Potter universe like it apparently can in the Death Gate Cycle, but they both DO have magic (I assume - not familiar either).  I guess my point is that something as classic as starfighters belong in a game like Galciv simply because of there inherent coolness.  To NOT include them would be like making a vegetarian hamburger.  Certainly possible, but it wouldn't taste as good.

Clouds of fighters swarming around strafing capital ships are a huge part of the backdrop of what a lot of people imagine a space battle to look like (well, it is for me anyway).  The notion is cool, fun, and not so far of an imaginary leap as a lot of other systems that are already included in the game.  Some things just fit, and I think carrier-based starfighters surely do.

I just hope Carriers are done right. Having tiny and small hulls loaded with weapons, without worrying about packing life support and engines will make them very deadly in combat. Also makes end game combat not just a game of max out who has the most big ships. This really balances the game and makes even small empires stand a chance against a huge empire that didn't balance their fleet.

i must disagree ejecting the warp core only accounted for about 5% of the solutions at least 50% of problems were solved by connecting the affected system to the deflector dish

Or diverting warp power *to* the effected system, then connecting it to the deflector dish.

To be fair, the warp core was a point-failure component for the ship. If it goes, the ship is simply gone, so preparing to ditch it at the first sign of trouble was just common sense. Of course, then the ship was essentially immobile and defenseless, but that's better than dead.

The deflector dish was used so often because it was the highest-energy system on the ship, after the engines. Even the main shields and weapons didn't handle as much energy from a single installation (according to the tech manual for TNG, anyway).

...

Anyway, on topic: Tiny hulls in GC2 were absolutely devastating if used defensively. Massed fleets covered by and covering a military starbase could take an equivalently sized fleet of huge hulls, even more so if the huge hulls needed life support and engines. They weren't terribly good on offence, though, and people wanted ships that could do everything.

It's not about the engine. It's about the energy required. Say we use a tech like Ion Propulsion. It derives a given thrust for a certain amount of energy. To increase the thrust we must increase the power (size) of the engine, adding to it's mass. It's a viscous cycle.

To accelerate in Space in micro gravity at high speeds it would be lethal to any organic entity inside if you were accelerating through space. Especially with sudden changes in vector.

The way to avoid this is to free-fall through space as a means to accelerate. If you are free falling you do not experience the crushing forces of acceleration. You can free fall by warping space-time infront of the ship to different amounts. Generating a micro-singularity would accomplish this. No wif you had a cerain amount of energy you could generate in a power-source for a ship you could generate a micro-singularity of a certain size.

You would have to have this micro singularity flash into and out of existence at tiny fractions of a millimeter in succession to avoid having any mass (the ship) cross the event horizon giving the micro-singularity actual mass and a means to exist independent of the whatever-tech can create them, as a micro singularity creates a small but incredibly high gradient warp in space-time a smaller ship will fall rather fast. A larger ship would fall at a slower rate unless you could create a larger warp in space time (requires more energy). The smaller ship has less of a sort of a resistance to leave the space curvature it's on thus falls at a faster rate. Both ships can hit the desired top speed as there is nothing limiting it except for the gradient of the space-time curve. If it's a steep enough curve then the ships can reach .99C but never the speed of light. EVER.

The only thing that can accelerate faster than the speed of light is space-time itself (proven by our understanding of physics and observations close to whatever we see as the "big bang" event. To move a ship faster than light you have to envelope the ship in space-time creating it's own sort of mini-space or universe for lack of a better term and then move that space-time in relation to the surrounding space-time.

Once a ship is moving at close to the speed of light the space-time around it is quite distorted and finishing off the "bubble" of space time around the vessel would take less energy as the velocity of the ship is doing most of the work.

The role of a fighter craft of lower mass would serve the purpose of striking larger ships before the larger ships of an attacking force arrive in the area of space the battle will commence. To stop smaller craft from accomplishing this goal you have to kill them off either by long-range fire, objects they hit in their approach or other vessels designed to intercept them. Once they are in close combat range their lower mass would equate to greater maneuverability, as to accelerate a more massive ship would require a more advanced power source and that more advanced power source could be applied to less massive ships thus the differential in maneuverability and acceleration would be preserved. So the role of the lower mass ship is still relevant.

There is a work of fiction that uses the known laws and proposed and supposed laws of physics to create a quite engaging story and method of combat/future world.

I stumbled upon it and was pleased how true to actual physical laws it adheres to. It's called the Star Carrier series by Ian Douglas. It's a must-read I say.

As long as we are talking about sub-light speed travel, there are other factors that can restrict speed, and factors that can restrict acceleration.

The  restriction of speed is how well the ship can withstand the increase of particle abrasion it suffers. How good are the particle shields and how effective are they at what speeds. Although particles in space are few and far between they are there and can cause hull abrasion, or even hull penetration. The faster the ship the more power particle ships need to deflect or disintegrate the particles in its path. This can restrict a ship's sub-light speed to less than .99999C, perhaps .8 C or .7 C. However, I think this kind of detail is rather overboard for a game.

Acceleration is limited to a crew's ability to withstand the gravitational effects imposed. Gravity panels or gravity sumps (sometimes called gravity compensators) can mitigate this affect, but requires power in correspondence with their effectiveness. Again, I think this kind of detail is over the top for a game.

Especially a game where all space travel is considered to be FTL anyway.

Oh, I don't know about that. You do always use the FTL drive for map movement, but it's fairly clear that movement within a system takes place at far less than the speed of light for all but the fastest of GCII ships, unless you assume that the ship is not moving for large fractions of the time it spends in the tiles around planets and stars even when it's just passing through or that each action takes wildly different amounts of time. After all, each ship gets to take so many actions per turn, and each turn is 1 week long. Therefore, each action takes roughly 1/(number of actions per turn) weeks to resolve. Earth is only about 8 light-minutes from the Sun, but it would require about 2 move actions to travel from Earth to Sol in GCII (could be more, on occasion), yet 8 minutes is about one twelve hundredth of a week when the fastest GCII ships have something like 50 moves per turn. Beyond that, combat almost certainly takes place at subluminal velocities, as lasers are a practical weapon and as depicted in the combat viewer of GCII propagate significantly faster than ships, missiles, and mass drivers move.

As far as counter-arguments to using a roughly even division of time between move-actions go, I'll just say that if it doesn't take roughly as long to travel 1 tile in the neighborhood of a star or planet as it does to travel 1 tile in deep space, there's no reason to draw the map the way that GCII and GCIII do, as you'd be able to depart the system in sufficiently little time that it would have no real impact on your ability to travel to another location. As far as counter-arguments for assuming that the ship is taking all the time allotted to a move action for whatever action it's undertaking, answer me this: how much sense does it make for the ship to not move for some fraction of the time?