What the hell is wrong with this picture?

[madpraxis (OP)]

And. . . uh. . hello! So I wandered over here from bay 12, of course Played for weeks now.  Read many many things on the forum, constantly refer to the wiki, and I have a question/problem here.
Ship Design:
SturmFuer class Frigate    14,800 tons     1036 Crew     3302 BP      TCS 296  TH 364. 8  EM 0
5135 km/s     Armour 10-53     Shields 0-0     Sensors 36/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 5     PPV 40
Maint Life 2. 96 Years     MSP 1697    AFR 350%    IFR 4. 9%    1YR 289    5YR 4335    Max Repair 192 MSP

Magneto-plasma Drive E5 (19)    Power 80    Fuel Use 50%    Signature 19. 2    Armour 0    Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 350,000 Litres    Range 85. 1 billion km   (191 days at full power)

Twin 12cm C4 Far Ultraviolet Laser Turret (4x2)    Range 200,000km     TS: 7900 km/s     Power 8-8     RM 5    ROF 5        4 4 4 4 4 3 2 2 2 2
Fire Control S08 160-8000 (2)    Max Range: 320,000 km   TS: 8000 km/s     97 94 91 88 84 81 78 75 72 69
Stellarator Fusion Reactor Technology PB-1 (6)     Total Power Output 36    Armour 0    Exp 5%

Active Search Sensor MR7-R1 (1)     GPS 42     Range 7. 6m km    Resolution 1
Active Search Sensor MR133-R50 (1)     GPS 5250     Range 133. 6m km    Resolution 50
Thermal Sensor TH2-36 (1)     Sensitivity 36     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  36m km

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
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Now, I'm living in a nebula that's at 500km/s.  And my targets are going at 3000km/s.
Shouldn't I be getting better then this?:
SturmFuer 001 - Fire Control S08 160-8000 targeting Acclamator 002 at 0k km: Base Chance to Hit: 12% (Fire Control To Hit: 100% Modified by Crew Grade: 100% Modified by EW: 60% Modified by Dust Density: 12%)

According to what I know, and what the range band shows on the design screen, at 200k and target speed of 3km/s I should be getting in the 50% range, yet I was getting 0.  And. . . well. . point blank range I should be at 98%. . . .

So my question is, is there anything inherently wrong with my ship design? My components? What am I doing wrong here basically

[Charlie Beeler]

Your facing both a EW and nebula density that degrades fire control performance. 

[madpraxis (OP)]

Ah, ok.  I was afraid that is what the problem was.  So this probably means I should pop out some eccm research then I'm guessing As a temporary measure, would making my fire control even longer range help to combat that nasty ecm some (at least until I get some eccm to plop on the fire control)?
I think most of my confusion stemmed from the fact that 97-72=25. . . . not 0

[Brian Neumann]

Countering their ecm will help somewhat.  Increasing your range should also help.  Part of the problem is that the minimum range it checks is 10,000km.  This is true even if your ships are only a couple of km apart.  In a nebula this translates to a lot longer range so your fire control is at a poorer base number due to the range.  Effectivly for fire control purposes the minimum range seems to be (actual range x level of nebula).  So if you are in a level 4 nebula then it is figuring the range as if it was 40,000 km.

Brian

[madpraxis (OP)]

Ouch.  Makes me glad I chose not to start in the level 11 nebula.  Instead I chose 5 Ok, other then my guys (in)ability to hit stuff, design of the ship.  Is it good? I've never really tried beam weapons before, just stuck with size 1 and 5 missiles with insane ranges and speed without much punch, so this whole 'pew pew' bit is untested and untried for me.  Thankfully, as long as I STAY in the nebula I have this insane edge against whichever of the secret terrors I'm up against. . . mainly them using only missiles it seems.  And ramming.  Lots of ramming. 

[Brian Neumann]

Your ship looks reasonable.  It has a couple of things to think about.  The res 1 scanner is pretty much useless in the nebula.  Are you planning on taking this ship elsewhere?  If not then I would remove it and the passive sensor and put all the extra space into a bigger passive sensor.  Right now you are only seeing about 25 million km which is really not that far.  While the passive sensors range is also reduced by the nebula, a nebula by its nature pushes ships up in size.  The bigger the ship the bigger the thermal signature, and usually the bigger the em signature from its sensors.  The only other thing I would change is to switch the lasers for mesons.  In a level 5 nebula they will have the same range (fire control is affected by the nebula not the weapon itself) and every hit will be ignoring armor.  The only thing the mesons are not good for is pd against the invaders.  Against normal missiles mesons work just fine, and they even seem to ignore the missile armor if it has any.  I would also build a dedicated sensor ship to see your targets a good long ways off so you can maneuver around them to advantage.  You will probably have a bit of a speed advantage in the nebula after all so use it.

Brian

[madpraxis (OP)]

They actually did rather well out of the nebula too.  I had the res 1 sensor on there so that way I could pop out of the jump gate outside of the nebula and wait for them to fire missiles at me, shoot down a few and pop back in.  Then after blowing up a few in the nebula that where sadly trying to ram me as I ran away I got a little crazy.  I went after them in normal space.  The 66 missiles in a salvo got me eventually.  Each one was managing to get 1-5 per salvo.  Sadly, they all died, one after the other It seems that it is rather hard to outrun missiles going 45k km/s. . . .

I did run the big ships out of missiles it seems.  My super heavy armoured drop ships almost made it to them too.  It is amazing how much damage you can suck up with 20 armour by the way.  Now I think I'll start reasearching some of the low missile techs and make a hurkin huge drone filled with size 1 missiles and stay way the hell back from them.  A literal hailstorm of doom met the last drop ship.
And mesons, will give those a try.  Am thinking of making a rather large defense post with some heavy parasites packing mesons.  Keep those people out, its my space snot dammit!