I've fought a few skirmishes against this NPR, and noticed they had significantly slower ships and missiles. So I assumed pushing into one of the main colony systems wouldn't be a big deal. Still, before transiting my entire (small) fleet, I usually send one Task Force through first. That task force was immediately blown to pieces (see the attached image...it's about 100 ships).
I know Aurora is at least somewhat influenced by David Weber's Starfire universe. In Starfire, they invented SBMHAWK (Strategic Bombardment Missile Homing All The Way Killer) Pods, basically automated containers full of box-launchers that they push through a warp point to spam missiles on the opposite side with no warning (and no transit shock). What is the approximate Aurora equivalent of this tactic? A fighter with no engine, just box launchers and a fire control?
One thing I've tried in a previous game was sending normal strike fighters through a constructed jump gate. Sure, some of them get shot down but often they are so fast they can move outside the enemy's energy weapon range, recover from transit shock, and then turn and launch anti-ship missiles.
But against such a huge defensive force, I'd need a dozen supercarriers, to be followed by a dozen assault dreadnoughts with 15 layers of armor or something equally ridiculous. And the dreadnoughts would probably still get shot to pieces. There were ~80 Strength 3-4 energy weapon impacts against my 4 frigates in a span of 60 seconds.
Here is my current primary anti-ship combatant:
Luda class Missile Frigate 4,950 tons 138 Crew 1376.2 BP TCS 99 TH 153.6 EM 0
6464 km/s Armour 5-25 Shields 0-0 Sensors 14/18/0/0 Damage Control Rating 23 PPV 23.4
Maint Life 3.16 Years MSP 608 AFR 56% IFR 0.8% 1YR 91 5YR 1369 Max Repair 640 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 12 months Spare Berths 1
Magazine 240
Shenyang M640 Turbo Fusion Drive (1) Power 640 Fuel Use 129.53% Signature 153.6 Exp 16%
Fuel Capacity 750,000 Litres Range 21.1 billion km (37 days at full power)
Jiangnan BL-6 (6) Missile Size 6 Hangar Reload 45 minutes MF Reload 7.5 hours
Jiangnan ML6-75 (4) Missile Size 6 Rate of Fire 60
Phazotron Missile Director FC54-R20 (1) Range 54.1m km Resolution 20
ASM-3 Sarissa (40) Speed: 40,000 km/s End: 20.8m Range: 50m km WH: 16 Size: 6 TH: 186/112/56
NRIET GraDAR MR56-R20 (1) GPS 1400 Range 56.3m km Resolution 20
NRIET Thermal Detector 1-14 (1) Sensitivity 14 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 14m km
Phazotron EM Detector 1-18 (1) Sensitivity 18 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 18m km
Missile to hit chances are vs targets moving at 3000 km/s, 5000 km/s and 10,000 km/s
And I only have about ~15 of these. My research priorities and naval construction are optimized for a small fleet of decent-range missile ships. As for my Energy Weapons, I have a decent Gauss Cannon quad turret for missile defense, Soft X-Ray Lasers, and some moderate research into Meson weapons (480k range @ 20 second recharge). I'm somewhat under-militarized, and totally unprepared for a "Omaha Beach.... in space" scenario. Any suggestions? Note: I'm playing an Earth start with a population of 3 billion, so I have the shipyards and construction factories to churn out a large military quickly, but I'd prefer some clever solutions so I'm not just feeding precious resources into a meatgrinder.