Jump Gate Defence "Base"

[Garfunkel (OP)]

Only 250 tons, so can be built by fighter factories and dragged to a JP by tug/carrier. Having a single full-size engineering space zeroes all the maintenance numbers so I assume it's never going to fail. Hopefully I'm correct. Only four missiles but I'm planning of placing twenty or so of these on each JP - that's 80 missiles, should give a pause to any attacker and of course I can pump them out easily enough. The FC is over-engineered to combat enemy ECM.

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Outreach class Jump Point Defence Base    250 tons     15 Crew     48.1 BP      TCS 5  TH 0  EM 0
1 km/s     Armour 1-3     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 1     PPV 2.4
Maint Life 0 Years     MSP 120    AFR 0%    IFR 0%    1YR 0    5YR 0    Max Repair 11 MSP
Magazine 16    


Size 4 Box Launcher (4)    Missile Size 4    Hangar Reload 30 minutes    MF Reload 5 hours
APG-10 (1)     Range 25.7m km    Resolution 30

F/BPS-9 (1)     GPS 336     Range 8.6m km    Resolution 30

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes

Except I can't see it in the Fighters construction tab, so what am I doing wrong?

[Vynadan]

It's classed as a military vessel - that means it's neither commercial (hence will have maintenance failures) and is not classed as a fighter (you'll need a fighter engine in the design for that), which means it's not elligible for factory production, either.

I don't think tiny factory-producable defence bases are feasable, really. Maybe something FAC-sized with lots of engineering spaces and cheap production costs. Debates about the up- and downsides of 'bases' already exist in quantities on the forums here.

[Garfunkel (OP)]

Ah, silly me, of course. Stupid fighter engine. Well, I'll build a few on slipways and see whether they break immediately or what happens.

[xeryon]

With that size they should build very quickly anyway.  Yes it will take up a shipyard but you could easily dedicate a backwater colony with a 2 slip 1000ton yard just to build these if they work well enough.

[TheDeadlyShoe]

if you're going to build it in a shipyard anyway you could scale up with more box launchers without adding to the crew requirements.

[Person012345]

I imagine it will have maintenance failures, because the 0% is probably rounded down from the actual value (which will be something like 0.01% or w/e), but they will be few and far between, and it has enough MSP to survive 10 failures of the biggest part (and shouldn't be too hard to re-supply either).

[Garfunkel (OP)]

if you're going to build it in a shipyard anyway you could scale up with more box launchers without adding to the crew requirements.

That's a negative. I could do it but adding even a single box launcher more drops the Maintenance Life to ~60 years instead of 0. I prefer to build few more "satellites" that I don't have to replace.

[Decimator]

You'll have to replace it eventually anyway, as components will fail more often as the maint clock increases.

[Garfunkel (OP)]

Yes but if that happens, on average, after 60+ years of service... 

[ollobrains]

60 years is 780 turns of the 30 day timer

[LtWarhound]

I use a 200 ton version of this design, the Trapdoor Spider class JPD base, and have been quite pleased with them.  20+ size 1 box launchers (warhead strength 3 or 4, depending on tech), decent sensors, deployed in packs of 5 (fills a hanger bay on the small craft tender).  The low cost, small crew size and almost excessive time-to-failure perfectly fills the need for a long term low fiddle-factor defense network.  I've tried various other options, such as mines, drones, buoys, larger bases, mobile unit, and keep coming back to this solution.

[Erik L]

The biggest problem I have with mines as they currently are in Aurora, a minefield is one-shot. Any that detects a ship fires off. A couple sacrificial ships can wipe out a JP defense minefield in 10 seconds.

[ollobrains]

At some point perhaps mines could be split into seperate types and tech trees adapated as well as expanding their role in combat and perhaps an anti mine ship to

[Garfunkel (OP)]

Update: eighteen of these guys have been sitting on JPs in Sol, maintenance clocks with 3.17 - 3.03, when the first malfunction came. With 120 maintenance supplies, this isn't a problem unless I get really, *really*, unlucky with the RNG. They haven't seen any action yet, though I'm moving them all to a new location now that a stable wormhole appeared only 1 jump away from Sol, so they can watch over that.

[Garfunkel (OP)]

Well, these guys finally had their first combat and it ended in a disaster for them - all 18 were destroyed and their missile armament was far too light to deal sufficient damage. OTOH, judging them fairly is difficult as the enemy was three gigantic Invader ships.

Still, the principle works (very low maintenance requirements) and I'll probably use them in the future as well.