Aurora

by **Commodore_Areyar** » 07 Feb 2010, 17:42

Q: Does the mass of carried fighters (or larger parasites) get added to the mass of the carrier?

-will the speed of the carrier be slowed to reflect the added mass.

-how does this affect jump engines?

--will the carrier that is designed to the maximum of its J-engine weigh too much?

Aurora Download

by **mrwigggles** » 07 Feb 2010, 20:22

Commodore_Areyar wrote:Q: Does the mass of carried fighters (or larger parasites) get added to the mass of the carrier?

For PDCs, it add to build points, and presumably does so for ships as well. No extra mass is added, outside the mass from the hangar.

-will the speed of the carrier be slowed to reflect the added mass.

Well yea, more compotents you add, the slower your ship goes.

-how does this affect jump engines?

Like it always does.

--will the carrier that is designed to the maximum of its J-engine weigh too much?

[/quote]

Why would it? You designed a ship jump engine with its mass and the mass of the ship, it should work fine.

I highly suggest building a prototype, as the game doesn't penalized you for doing so.

by **Micro102** » 07 Feb 2010, 20:51

All those after-questions were based on fighters adding mass to the carrier, not the hangers for the fighters.

by **Commodore_Areyar** » 07 Feb 2010, 22:22

Micro is right: I am asking about carried fighters adding mass, not the hangars doing so.

Also I don't get the remark about fighters adding to buildpoints. That is just not true. ships or DPCs with hangar space are not built with a full complement of fighters.

example:
I have designed a small tender of 9000tons, the drive is capable of 9000tons as well, the ship has hangar space for 2000 tons of fighters.
We assign four fighters of 0.5kt, filling it to capacity.
Does the ship now weigh 11000 tons? Or does the game ignore the weight of carried stuff?

If it does weigh extra, I'd expect it to be slowed. Just like tugs are slowed by the extra mass they tow.

Also the jump engine might no longer work, depending on how and when JD validity is determined.

Playtesting my design is a bit un-handy right now, because I'm just finding out my pointdefence is worth buttkiss against my first enemy.

by **Hawkeye** » 07 Feb 2010, 23:06

No, fighters do not add to the mass of the carrier. Their mass is allready taken care of by the hangar deck.
One could argue that an empty carrier should mass _less_ than the construction cost, but I think the effect would not be worth the hassle.

by **Commodore_Areyar** » 08 Feb 2010, 08:39

Hawkeye wrote:No, fighters do not add to the mass of the carrier. Their mass is allready taken care of by the hangar deck.
One could argue that an empty carrier should mass _less_ than the construction cost, but I think the effect would not be worth the hassle.

Yeah. same principle as cargoholds then.

It would certainly be a frustrating hassle in shipdesign if totalmass would need to be calculated by hand.

On the other hand, If Steve would like to make make this more realistic. . .
hangars could be handled as having a mass that includes the maximum hangarspace during design, (avoiding confusion), while the built ship would have an empty mass of [design mass] - [hangarspace].
Mass for maxspeed or jumptransit could follow towing rules, where the total mass of tug+tugged is applied to engine power to get maxspeed.
Not really worth the trouble probably though.

by **Charlie Beeler** » 08 Feb 2010, 10:10

Commodore_Areyar wrote:
Hawkeye wrote:No, fighters do not add to the mass of the carrier. Their mass is allready taken care of by the hangar deck.
One could argue that an empty carrier should mass _less_ than the construction cost, but I think the effect would not be worth the hassle.

Yeah. same principle as cargoholds then.
It would certainly be a frustrating hassle in shipdesign if totalmass would need to be calculated by hand.

On the other hand, If Steve would like to make make this more realistic. . .
hangars could be handled as having a mass that includes the maximum hangarspace during design, (avoiding confusion), while the built ship would have an empty mass of [design mass] - [hangarspace].
Mass for maxspeed or jumptransit could follow towing rules, where the total mass of tug+tugged is applied to engine power to get maxspeed.
Not really worth the trouble probably though.

Steve has stated in the past that he did not what to code for ship mass changes for hangers, cargo and cryo holds, magazines, fuel tanks, etc etc etc. While it would be realistic to do so, the level of micro-management would be extremely detramental to game play. Not to mention to processing overhead for minimal game impact.

by **Commodore_Areyar** » 08 Feb 2010, 11:13

That is totally fine and why I didnt post it in the Academy and not in Suggestions.

Realism is not only requires attention to detail, but also attention to the realities of gameplay.
(eg realism in simulation is what weather scientists strive for and they need buildings full of supercomputers to get an approximation.)

by **ShadoCat** » 08 Feb 2010, 17:25

Charlie Beeler wrote:Steve has stated in the past that he did not what to code for ship mass changes for hangers, cargo and cryo holds, magazines, fuel tanks, etc etc etc. While it would be realistic to do so, the level of micro-management would be extremely detramental to game play. Not to mention to processing overhead for minimal game impact.

You guys can always come to me for pseudo-science BS....

Expert hand waving commences:

The inertialess TN drives that Aurora uses aren't affect by actual mass, they are affected by the amount of cross section of the ship as it pushes against the resisting interstellar dust. The hangars and holds increase the size of the ship, reducing the speed at which the engines' thrust equals the interstellar drag.

I'll go with this myself until Steve pipes up with a real answer.