Beginner Ship Review

[Destroid (OP)]

So I'm on my first game, and just finished up my first battle.   Unfortunately I got stomped by some 300 800ton FACs with Mesons.

My fleet is composed of two different ships, a command ship that houses the sensors:

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OsirisIII class Command Ship    9,450 tons     899 Crew     2524.14 BP      TCS 189  TH 500  EM 0
5291 km/s     Armour 1-39     Shields 0-0     Sensors 220/140/0/0     Damage Control Rating 9     PPV 15
Annual Failure Rate: 79%    IFR: 1.1%    Maint Capacity 1502 MSP    Max Repair 336 MSP    Est Time: 2.88 Years
Magazine 323   

ICF Drive - Military (10)    Power 100    Fuel Use 60%    Signature 50    Armour 0    Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 100,000 Litres    Range 31.7 billion km   (69 days at full power)

CIWS-160 (2x6)    Range 1000 km     TS: 16000 km/s     ROF 5       Base 50% To Hit
AMM-1-Tube (15)    Missile Size 1    Rate of Fire 10
AMMFC MkII (3)     Range 47.0m km    Resolution 1
Rattler AMM (323)  Speed: 41,000 km/s   End: 6.1m    Range: 15m km   WH: 1    Size: 1    TH: 505 / 303 / 151

Missile Search Sensor 3M/400 (1)     GPS 224     Range 31.4m km    Resolution 1
Deep Space Active Probe IIL (1)     GPS 20160     Range 364.4m km    Resolution 60
Thermal Sensor TH20-220 (1)     Sensitivity 220     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  220m km
EM Detection Sensor EM10-140 (1)     Sensitivity 140     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  140m km

ECM 20

Missile to hit chances are vs targets moving at 3000 km/s, 5000 km/s and 10,000 km/s

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes

And a missile cruiser to carry the anti shipping payload:

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HollanderIII-FE class Cruiser    6,000 tons     636 Crew     1251.26 BP      TCS 120  TH 300  EM 0
5000 km/s     Armour 1-29     Shields 0-0     Sensors 16/12/0/0     Damage Control Rating 4     PPV 28
Annual Failure Rate: 72%    IFR: 1%    Maint Capacity 521 MSP    Max Repair 112 MSP    Est Time: 3.12 Years
Magazine 490   

ICF Drive - Military (6)    Power 100    Fuel Use 60%    Signature 50    Armour 0    Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 100,000 Litres    Range 50.0 billion km   (115 days at full power)

AMM-1-Tube (8)    Missile Size 1    Rate of Fire 10
ASM-5-Launcher (4)    Missile Size 5    Rate of Fire 50
ASMFC MkII (1)     Range 47.0m km    Resolution 16
AMMFC MkII (2)     Range 47.0m km    Resolution 1
Sunburst-IIE ASM (50)  Speed: 36,000 km/s   End: 11.1m    Range: 24m km   WH: 8    Size: 5    TH: 252 / 151 / 75
Rattler AMM (240)  Speed: 41,000 km/s   End: 6.1m    Range: 15m km   WH: 1    Size: 1    TH: 505 / 303 / 151

Active Search Sensor MR19-R100 (1)     GPS 3200     Range 19.2m km    Resolution 100
Thermal Sensor TH2-16 (1)     Sensitivity 16     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  16m km
EM Detection Sensor EM2-12 (1)     Sensitivity 12     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  12m km

ECM 20

Missile to hit chances are vs targets moving at 3000 km/s, 5000 km/s and 10,000 km/s

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes

I went in with 3 Osiris III and about 10 Hollanders, eventually ran out of ammunition (after destroying about 80 or so) and was destroyed.   I'll be going in again with more ships, but this time I will manage my range a bit better, bring an ammo carrier and deploy a new missile with a thermal sensor so I don't waste so many self destructing shots.   The new missile has unchanged performance from the Sunburst, but has WH6 instead of 8, no ECM and a size 0. 7TH sensor that will detect sig1000 @ 490,000km.   The targets are sig160, is this sensor strong enough to save some missiles?  Are these ships ok for general purpose combat against missile armed opponents?

[Brian Neumann]

Your missiles and fire control are horribly short ranged for shooting at anybody with missiles of their own.  In general I would say that they need to have a range around 80-100mkm at the apparent tech level you are at.  You might want to try designing a ship with a speed of 9000km/s and a laser with a range of 80-100k km.  This would let you stay ahead of the fac's and out of their range.  Remember that mesons have half the range of the same sized lasers assuming equal range multipliers.  It should not be hard to design a fac with a single 12 or 15cm laser.  Don't worry about the cycle time if is 10 or 15 seconds.  You just want the range.  Remember that enough missiles to kill all of those fac's is going to cost a lot of resources while the laser fac's resources are useable later for another purpose.

Good Luck

Brian

[Destroid (OP)]

Cheers, it's quite hard to tell at first what is practical or not in this game.

[chrislocke2000]

Personally I would dump the CIWS off of the Osiris class and add some more magazine capacity. I'd also make your ASM ships dedicated ASM ships, take out the AMM tubes and fire control and add some more size 5 launchers and magazine space.

300 hostile FACs is a lot to deal with. I built a series of missiles specifically to help deal with the little buggers - about 15m range, 100% hit chance v 10k speed and the rest in warhead. When I got to a tech position where a single volley from one of my missile ships was guaranteed to take out one FAC life got a lot easier.

[Destroid (OP)]

Decided the easiest (especially on CPU time) way to destroy the FACs was going with a my own faster FACs as suggested.   Haven't thrown them into combat yet, but these are the ships I am building, along with a flying hanger to transport them/provide fuel.   They will of course be supported by ships with more powerful sensors.

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Assassin class Fast Attack Craft    850 tons     100 Crew     302 BP      TCS 17  TH 105  EM 0
12352 km/s     Armour 1-7     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 0     PPV 4
Annual Failure Rate: 11%    IFR: 0.2%    Maint Capacity 111 MSP    Max Repair 135 MSP    Est Time: 3.28 Years

ICF CompactHO - Military (1)    Power 210    Fuel Use 660%    Signature 105    Armour 0    Exp 21%
Fuel Capacity 75,000 Litres    Range 24.1 billion km   (22 days at full power)

15cm AS Pulse Laser (1)    Range 240,000km     TS: 12352 km/s     Power 6-3     RM 4    ROF 10        6 6 6 6 4 4 3 3 2 2
DirectFC 120/7500 (1)    Max Range: 240,000 km   TS: 7500 km/s     96 92 88 83 79 75 71 67 62 58
MCF Reactor z1 (3)     Total Power Output 3    Armour 0    Exp 5%

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes


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Hornet class Fast Command Craft    850 tons     85 Crew     373 BP      TCS 17  TH 105  EM 0
12352 km/s     Armour 1-7     Shields 0-0     Sensors 28/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 1     PPV 0
Annual Failure Rate: 5%    IFR: 0.1%    Maint Capacity 274 MSP    Max Repair 216 MSP    Est Time: 6.14 Years

ICF CompactHO - Military (1)    Power 210    Fuel Use 660%    Signature 105    Armour 0    Exp 21%
Fuel Capacity 90,000 Litres    Range 28.9 billion km   (27 days at full power)

Compact Probe/800 (1)     GPS 3456     Range 121.0m km    Resolution 16
Thermal Sensor TH2-28 (1)     Sensitivity 28     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  28m km

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes


[Brian Neumann]

Both look like a good design for dealing with those facs.  Later they make good jump point guards as they will be faster than most things jumping in and will probably be in range right from the start of an attack.

Brian

[Destroid (OP)]

Well, the kiting is working well to destroy them, although very slowly as the closest range I can safely operate at I only hit for 2pts damage, 50% of the time and the turns take a very long time to process.   There seems to be more of them now although I don't know a way to check how many contacts there are without counting them.   Is this a particular type of optional enemy I can turn off?  They take an insane amount of time on the CPU to kill.   They are operating from a big mothership and seem to just hang out in the system.

[Beersatron]

Well, the kiting is working well to destroy them, although very slowly as the closest range I can safely operate at I only hit for 2pts damage, 50% of the time and the turns take a very long time to process.   There seems to be more of them now although I don't know a way to check how many contacts there are without counting them.   Is this a particular type of optional enemy I can turn off?  They take an insane amount of time on the CPU to kill.   They are operating from a big mothership and seem to just hang out in the system.

There are more of them because they used the wrecks of your last fleet to spawn more Soldiers. Have a look for your wrecks, bet they are not there anymore!

[Destroid (OP)]

The number goes up to 900! This is going to take hours of real time processing to kill them 

[Vynadan]

In the game info screen (start screen or ctrl + i) you have a checkbox to turn the star swarm on and off. I don't know if this affects systems that already have their ships in them or only newly created ones, though. Unchecking that box will at least stop them from occuring in any more systems.

[welchbloke]

In the game info screen (start screen or ctrl + i) you have a checkbox to turn the star swarm on and off. I don't know if this affects systems that already have their ships in them or only newly created ones, though. Unchecking that box will at least stop them from occuring in any more systems.

Stops the spawning of any new infestations when new systems are discovered.  Any in play remain.

[Destroid (OP)]

Thanks, I ground them down while I was watching TV shows.   In future I shouldn't have such a problem with them by using bigger fleets with more powerful guns.   I do worry what might happen if an AI runs into them and does badly resulting in a system loaded with the things.

[Brian Neumann]

Thanks, I ground them down while I was watching TV shows.   In future I shouldn't have such a problem with them by using bigger fleets with more powerful guns.   I do worry what might happen if an AI runs into them and does badly resulting in a system loaded with the things.

This has happened with I think the record being somewhere around 1500 of the combat ships and several motherships scattered around the system.  Luckily you don't usually have to fight all 1500 at one time or it would be really bad.

Brian