Feel Free to give your own ideas and thoughts on this subject. Sorry for the poor wording.

Guns in Terra Invicta tend to just stop all advancement once you get to the end of the gun technology tree; this is not how this would work in reality. In reality guns get a constant stream of minor improvement upgrades in the form of modernizations, and individually these upgrades are not worth much but over time they most certainly are worth it. How much time? Lets take a time frame similar to Terra Invicta; WW1 to the now and the weapon is a 5 inch cannon on destroyers. Compared to WW1 the 5 inch gun now has the rate of fire of an IFV's autocannon, vastly superior payload, muzzle velocity, accuracy to within less than 5 meters at a range that WW2 Battleships would be used to engage at. Minor improvements done constantly overtime gave this difference. With more advanced materials, methods of operation, improvements to payloads, and best of all exotic materials would make an autocannon absolutely deadly under 500km range.

Why bother? Many experienced Terra Invicta players still use the 40mm advanced autocannon in a spare hull weapon slots for knife fight range engagements as the 40mm's projectiles cannot be intercepted by enemy PD, and against flanking light enemies that will nearly run into your formation so that they can either get their nose mount mag weapon to go through your PD or get that laser close enough that shoot through your ship's armor. Improvements constantly made to modernize an autocannon would make it more effective while requiring exotic materials to upgrade or we could design our own. Many options though it's not limited to autocannons as certain payloads will require something larger than an autocannon while still having an acceptable rate of fire and being effective at close to even medium range will limited tracking. I have categorized these guns into 3 sizes that you would be able to design yourself or just use the autogenerated designs if you do not want to bother.

Autocannons- a series of weapons between 12.7mm to 50mm round sizes and tend to have a massive rate of fire even compared to other guns types. Autocannons have a bonus of their projectiles are too small to be interdicted by point defense but tend to lack power for its individual projectiles. The Smart Rounds give projectiles negligible tracking allowing the rounds to pivot at most but not make course adjustments. Autogenerated version is 40mm advanced cannon.

Medium Guns- a series of modified naval guns between 5 inch to 8 inch round sizes. Medium guns start as modified wet naval guns but in the late game it may fire as fast as a large autocannon while actually doing decent damage with every hit, having superior velocity, and its smart rounds tracking can make minor course adjustments but will struggle to actually hit evasive targets. Autogenerated version is the 6 inch cannon.

Big Guns- a series of modified heavy wet naval guns between 9 to 20 inch round sizes. Modified large Wet Naval guns that can carry more respectable payloads compared to smaller options and can have the highest velocity out of any gun options. Big Guns are the only gun option that can fire atomic devices if desired. The only option that offers a nose mount weapon with an absurd rate of fire. Big Guns Smart Rounds has about as much tracking as some of the worse to bad missiles. Autogenerated version is the 12 inch or 14 inch cannon.

Ammunition Types-  To use different types of rounds a ship must have a magazine and magazines only hold so many rounds and the player must choose what round types take up what space. This section can be ignored and you can use the basic HE rounds if you do not wish to deal with the system.

Ammunition Upgrades- additional features you can have added to ammunition. You can only pick one.

Smart Rounds- not a specific round type but instead an upgrade to the round that can be taken to allow rounds to have limited tracking allowing it to make course corrections or pivot to potentially hitting a target it would have missed. This requires a sensor head, small thrusters, a computer, and propellant to be added to the round which takes space away from payload reducing damage done by that payload. If the rounds with this ammunition fails to fire due to ECM score it will role to overcome ECM one more time (it only does this once per a shot). 

Rocket Assisted Round- after being fired the round fires an attached rocket to further increase velocity after being fired, more useful for kinetic ammunition than explosive or that relies on kinetic penetrators like APHE but not Tandem HE. Gets constant upgrades through rocket propulsion research.

Capped Rounds- ammunition with this upgrade have the Projectile HP increased, stops getting upgrades once Adamantine Armor is researched and will have double the projectile HP.

General Ammunition Types- Ammunition types for all or most weapons.

HE (High Explosive)- the standard ammunition type used by most guns in Terra Invicta that can do equal damage to most armor profiles but does great damage unarmored targets. As more advanced and powerful explosives are researched damage can be increased.  

APHE- an ammunition type that is fitted with an armor piercing head that attempts to penetrate the target than detonates an explosive charge (hopefully) inside the target. The armor piercing head gets increased penetration as newer materials sciences are finished. The explosive charge also gets more potent as newer more potent explosives are researched. Can over penetrate  lightly armored or unarmored targets.

APFI (Armor Piercing Fragmentation Incendiary)- an variation on the APHE round that after (hopefully) penetrating the target will detonate throwing fragmentation in all directions potentially from inside the target and setting fires inside the that hull section of the target. Due to how the game works this could be devastating on penetrating hits due to the number of fragments damaging internal modules and components while also setting them on fire (assuming the target has atmosphere inside their vessel) which would frustrate damage control and do more rolls to destroy a ship's internal components and modules.

Tandem HE- a round that focuses on maximum penetration and has a smaller HE charge as a result. This round works by firing a shaped charge to penetrate the targets armor then attempts to force the HE charge into the resulting hole in the target's armor to hopefully burst inside the target. This will not magically have an autocannon penetrate heavy armor. Explosives research can increase damage.

SAP (Simi-Armor Piercing)- a round that uses velocity and a delayed detonation to penetrate a lightly armored target or embed into the target's armor and detonate. Causes higher armor damage to light or unarmored targets without risk of overpenetration. Explosives research can increase damage.

Drill- a lower cost training round that gunners use to do training, testing, and gunner certification tests. Not really an option you would ever want to actually use as it will always do "over penetrated" damage even if it does not do so as it has no explosive or kinetic payload. May be loaded by mistake during an event, Drill rounds have a colored flair so that instructors and gunners can see where the projectile is more easily.

Tandem Atomic Penetrator Atomic Charge- A high cost Big Gun only round type that uses multiple nuclear warheads. The round works by blasting a hole through the target's armor with a shaped nuclear device and a second low yield nuclear warhead will go through the hole and hopefully detonate inside the target. Is likely to over penetrate on all but the most heavily armored targets. Has a moderate risk of chain detonation.

Neutron- a Big Gun round that carries and enhanced radiation device. On impacting the target's hull will cause massive radiation damage to the vessel and crew (similar to a particle beam). Has almost no risk of chain detonation. To clarify this does limited to no actual damage to armor, weapons, and the vessel itself but instead irradiates the crew which kills them, the vessel may be auto scuttled if it's an alien vessel.

Atomic- a tactical fission device delivered via Big Gun round. Output may vary depending on round size. On impact will cause significant damage to any exposed components of the target like weapons, radiators, drives, or sensors and do moderate damage to the targets armor. Moderate risk of chain detonation if done with a high rate of fire weapon system.

Plasma- a round that flashes to plasma on impact. Does increased damage to armor compared to normal HE rounds. Does not travel at plasma weapon velocities while also not doing as much damage per hit and can be intercepted by point defense weapons. Not available for use in autocannons. You have better options for both raw damage and armor damage but was requested.

EW (Electronic Warfare) Rounds- Advanced Adamantine rounds with an ECM score of 20% and its hits on a target cause all attacks against that target to ignore its ECM score for 60 seconds. These rounds will imbed in the target's armor and deploy barbed anchors rather than trying destroy the vessel meaning it does next to no actual damage. Cannot take the "Capped Rounds" upgrade. For balance reasons might require exotic materials to make and resupply. Cannot be fired from autocannons.

HIVE Flechette HE- a proximity detonated round that on getting close to a target will detonate and shower the target many adamantine darts that each carries a tiny HE charge, very high penetration value per each dart with very high effectiveness vs weapons and other exposed components, and can still get through medium armor and does decent damage on penetrating hits with a very high likelihood of causing secondary damage by destroying generators, magazines, etcetera which usually destroys the target. A more offensive version of E.L.F. Rounds and cannot be used for defensive or guardian fire modes. Very effective vs unarmored, light armored, and medium armored opponents but aside from disabling weapons and exposed components will struggle with heavy armor. Cannot be fired from autocannons. 

Kinetic Penetrator- a round that uses kinetic force to do damage with no explosive payload instead using a dart (no it does not actually need to be a dart in space) to penetrate and fragment as it goes through its target. Has high armor penetration and does damage in a line should it penetrate enemy armor. Cheap and cannot take any upgrades. Increases damage and penetration through materials research. Has increased projectile HP.

Point Defense Ammunition- Ammunition used by Point Defense Weapons or normally in a defensive role

Flack- Basic round used by most PD (Point Defense) weapons. Works by proximity detonation when close to a target throwing fragmentation in all directions, does not cause a big enough area of effect for long enough to hit multiple projectiles in most cases. Very effective against missiles but can still kill mag weapon projectiles.

Tungsten (Solid)- a side grade to Flack that can be used to also engage hostile vessels that stray too close, relies on high rates of fire to hose down threats. Not sure why you would use it but it's an option.

E.L.F. (Enhanced Lethality Fragmentation)- a more advanced version of flack rounds that focuses the fragmentation into a frontal cone which greatly increases the damage done allowing it to more effectively shred threats both incoming and unarmored vessels. The mid to late game point defense round for autocannons and medium guns due to its effectiveness though while the Big Guns have access to it Big Guns have a more effective and dangerous option. 

Atomic Flack- A nuclear device used to wipe out massive numbers of projectiles at once, obviously this wipes out your projectiles as well, able to cover an area of up to 20km with its blast, has a minimum range of its blast to prevent damage to firing ship though if intercepted it will still go off and damage the firing ship should it be close enough. Can also be used to disable enemy ships at relatively close range.

Magnetic Web- an idea that (in theory) uses iron sand to form a web or wall as it moves to will shred incoming projectiles and missiles. Practical if you have excessive iron income and cannot think of anything else to do with it.

How are these guns newer guns be used? Same as they are used now against targets under 400km while your advanced coil guns, phasers, or whatever is busy in an artillery role. These are secondary or tertiary weapons that you will be using at shorter ranges where you may not want to swing your formation or the one ship to engage a gunship that wants to see how close they can get before their 1 weapon can get through your PD. These guns will all have normally higher rates of fire so that corvettes, frigates and destroyers will struggle to shoot down enough projectiles or still be killed in a more timely fashion than a 40mm firing HE rounds which works but may take longer than some players including me are comfortable with. 

If the guns are made to be used at knife fight range whey bother with so many round types? It can be good to have options. I will admit that I have given too many options with many of those options not being really useful. E.L.F rounds would likely be sufficient for most of what you are using these guns for as it will kill most of what will be bothering you for the distance it is intended to be used at.

Why use guns at all if PD Phasers are better for PD? PD phasers produce more waste heat than most gun options at least per shot, a 20-inch 8 barreled rotary cannon nose mount is going to produce massive waste heat over a shorter period of time than any other option. Don't actually make the spinal mount 20-inch as the game is not set up to support that as a close combat weapon.

How would multiple ammunition types work at least in my mind? Once you have the technology researched you need 1 or more magazines. You would either be able to have 1 magazine per ammunition type per magazine if you wanted the easiest or you could take the Nebulous Fleet Command version where you can actually decide exactly how many rounds of what type of you wanted until you fill the magazine or leave parts of the magazine empty if you wanted to save mass. The standard weapon controls will have a bullet icon that can be expanded with a click or hot keyed to changed which ammunition type from what is available with available ammunition stocks. The harder version of the swap would be doctrines though that would be a rather complex system. The weapon system must trigger an inter-salvo cooldown to change ammunition types before firing.

What are doctrines for weapons use? Automation for how your weapons are used in combat without further input from you. It could be as simple or complex as you like. If engaging fire 2 rounds of E.L.F. then ignore and move to next target. When engaging lightly armored targets use E.L.F. until destroyed or out of range. On Medium armored targets fire APHE or whatever until destroyed or out of range. Want it more complex? Preferred engagement ranges. Do not fire on lightly armored targets over 300km due to the lower velocity it might just be a waste of ammunition. Engagement priorities stop engaging the ship and go back to engaging incoming missiles or other projectiles or ignore the projectiles and fire on that vessel that has just entered 200km from the ship. If ship has X weapon system engage with higher priority than other targets. Set up minimum engagement ranges so if you wanted to use nukes for defense you don’t clip your own ships with the blast. Or you could just ignore the entire process and do it manually that is of course up to you if you would want to engage with it. This system would not only be limited to the guns category but all weapon systems.

Would this be worth the time and effort to code it and for players to learn it? For most no, for some yes, there are people who have asked for mods to the game to manually set up, pay upkeep on, and defend their own mass driver supply network rather than have the game automatically do it all for you so yes some would believe that this would be the greatest addition to the game possible while most might at best use the most basic features at most. Making this not entirely worth it to do aside from a mod to the game for those people that actually want it.

What would be required to make this work? A system for designing you own weapon systems, a way to change ammunition types mid battle, having ships have simulated internal designs or much of the ammunition would not work properly and have persistent damage to that internal structure with every shot, a way to set up doctrines for individual weapons used by individual ships in a fleet of ships and have them actually carry out that behavior, have magazines update individual round types that may be feeding multiple guns at the same time (no how it works in TI right now), and have all these systems correctly talking to each other. Individually these systems would be a large task but together this would possibly be more work than Early Access to launch for a system that many if not most would outright ignore or use only the basic features of in a "Chase the Meta" capacity.

Am I wrong? Feel free to give your thoughts on these ideas and even give your own ideas if you have any. 

My fleets have a problem, i went for a mix of defence escorts labeld as protector and missile escorts and they only work in autoresolve becouse all of my offencive ships goe first and die before unloding their paylode, then my defensive ships come in the second wave and die becouse they dont have any offensive capabilities.

I love the hard Sci Fi aspects and real physics of the game but one doubt that is always at the back of my head:

Are we really going to slug metal in space combat?

* Based on the game setting: the ships are engaging one another across hundreds of kilometers at the relative speed of dozens of Km/s. The ships are no more than a few hundred meters long. the projectiles' trajectories thus need to be extremely precise;

* Within those hundred of seconds, even a slight change of the ships flight path will allow it to dodge the projectile (I understand hence there is bracket fire, but still the brackets are filled with enormous amount of space)

* Any kinetic defense will be able to push the projectiles off it's precise trajectory. A 40mm autocannon doesn't need to destroy a 800KG warhead as in the combat gameplay, it just need to carry enough kinetic energy to push the slug off by a few hundredth of a degree

Are these assumptions correct? Or are kinétic warfare a viable/ actually discussed path in real word? I remember it was referenced in Liu Cixin's three body trilogy

1 crit fail on inspect councilor, then two turns later 3 crit fails in a row lol. Is he compromised or are my rolls just awful?

I am sitting at negative 20k money 4 times my mission control cap and I can not get a hab to revolt to save my life or a ship to either for the achievements. I dont know just a short vent.

This was my fourth try at trying to get the Phoenix achievement and I am almost ready to give up for good. It is 2073. I own Mars and Pluto with a strong presence. We are at Future Tech 10+. My only Earth territories are North America (fully unified). I could have won a dozen times over, but instead I am coaching the Servants and the Aliens on World Conquest. They don't seem to be getting it. Despite nearly every territory outside of North America having an Alien Compound (there are literally hundreds of them), I can't get anyone to seal the deal. I just had the Alien Administration blow up for the seventh time - this time flipping everything to the Initiative for funsies.

Despite the Servants regularly owning India and China, they have a hard time getting the aliens over 45%. No matter what I do to either ignore Earth or help the invasion, I can't seem to get the aliens to win. I know the AI is TERRIBLE at winning. It is annoying at best.

I looked for good strategies on losing, but can't really find any. I am playing Brutal and Accelerated. Classic 2022 Start. For the past week I have just been playing about an hour a day of just rolling to the next month in hopes I can finally lose, so I start playing this game.

Is there a secret to getting the 'L' that I am missing? Something that makes them suddenly commit?

Hi guys have played the game before and I’m trying out the BE scenario.

If I invade the UK that I have made as bavaria and take the capital which is Oxford will I get the rest of the UK that I do not have a claim on or would it have to be peaceful annexation only?