PD Fighter Analysis

[Cobaia (OP)]

Hello,

I'm currently trying to understand which figther would be better at PD Mission.

These are my designs:

Code: [Select]

Sting class Fighter (P)      500 tons       26 Crew       773.9 BP       TCS 10    TH 854    EM 0
85510 km/s      Armour 1-5       Shields 0-0       HTK 3      Sensors 0/0/0/0      DCR 0      PPV 3
Maint Life 1.80 Years     MSP 96    AFR 20%    IFR 0.3%    1YR 37    5YR 555    Max Repair 426.88 MSP
Lieutenant Commander    Control Rating 1   
Intended Deployment Time: 1 days    Morale Check Required   

Rolls Royce Fighter PCAMD - FC0.16 - TR100 - HS4.6 - EP953.76 (1)    Power 853.8    Fuel Use 337.86%    Signature 853.76    Explosion 29%
Fuel Capacity 39 000 Litres    Range 4.2 billion km (13 hours at full power)

Arsenal Corp Railgun - D4/1 - ROF5 - R090 (1x4)    Range 75 000km     TS: 85 510 km/s     Power 3-16     RM 90 000 km    ROF 5       
Skynet Fighter Railgun BFC - R075 - TS5 - EH2 (1)     Max Range: 75 000 km   TS: 5 000 km/s     87 73 60 47 33 20 7 0 0 0
Rolls Royce PCAMPP - PB100 - PO16.0 (1)     Total Power Output 16    Exp 50%

Skynet Fighter MASS - R12 - EH2 (1)     GPS 10     Range 12.6m km    MCR 1.1m km    Resolution 1

This design is classed as a Fighter for production, combat and planetary interaction


Code: [Select]

Bite class Fighter (P)      500 tons       22 Crew       783.8 BP       TCS 10    TH 854    EM 0
85510 km/s      Armour 1-5       Shields 0-0       HTK 2      Sensors 0/0/0/0      DCR 0      PPV 3.66
Maint Life 2.05 Years     MSP 98    AFR 20%    IFR 0.3%    1YR 31    5YR 467    Max Repair 426.88 MSP
Lieutenant Commander    Control Rating 1   
Intended Deployment Time: 1 days    Morale Check Required   

Rolls Royce Figther PCAMD - FC0.16 - TR100 - HS4.6 - EP953.76 (1)    Power 853.8    Fuel Use 337.86%    Signature 853.76    Explosion 29%
Fuel Capacity 30 000 Litres    Range 3.2 billion km (10 hours at full power)

Arsenal Corp Twin Fighter Gauss - ROF8 - R60 - ACC8 Turret (3x16)    Range 60 000km     TS: 60000 km/s     Power 0-0     RM 60 000 km    ROF 5       
Skynet Figther Gauss BFC - R075 - TS60 - EH2 (1)     Max Range: 75 000 km   TS: 60 000 km/s     87 73 60 47 33 20 7 0 0 0

Skynet Fighter MASS - R12 - EH2 (1)     GPS 10     Range 12.6m km    MCR 1.1m km    Resolution 1

This design is classed as a Fighter for production, combat and planetary interaction


First, if you have any comments on the designs it would be appreciated.
Second, As is, my understanding says that the railgun variant of the fighters would be the best approach due to higher Tracking Speed. Is this sentence true?

[Iceranger]

Ah, the typical gauss vs railgun

First of all, your railgun fighter has a BFC with tracking speed too low for its weapon. Your BFC should have tracking speed as close as your weapon.

Second, you don't need a turreted gauss on a fighter. The fighter's high speed means hull-mounted weapons have higher tracking speed than your 60kkm/s turret.

Third, since you already have the gauss RoF 8 tech, a hull-mounted gauss will be slightly better than a railgun. They have the same shot per HS (4 per 3HS), while the gauss gun does not require a power plant.

[Cobaia (OP)]

Ah, the typical gauss vs railgun

First of all, your railgun fighter has a BFC with tracking speed too low for its weapon. Your BFC should have tracking speed as close as your weapon.

Second, you don't need a turreted gauss on a fighter. The fighter's high speed means hull-mounted weapons have higher tracking speed than your 60kkm/s turret.

Third, since you already have the gauss RoF 8 tech, a hull-mounted gauss will be slightly better than a railgun. They have the same shot per HS (4 per 3HS), while the gauss gun does not require a power plant.

Well then that clears the waters. Those pieces of information were missing from my thought process, the BFC TS for the railgun figther and unturreted version of the gauss. That way I can make a smaller figther.

Thank you!

[liveware]

I haven't quite gotten far enough in any of my campaigns to confirm, but my understanding is that higher tech gauss cannons are more hull-space efficient than high tech rail guns. However, at low tech levels, rail guns are more spatially efficient. So there is an argument to be made for using rail gun fighters at low tech levels instead of larger gauss turreted corvettes or FACs.

However, being difficult as I am, I have been employing gauss cannons exclusively on my fighter designs for my recent campaigns.

Another test I want to perform is a comparison between lasers set to area defense vs gauss set to FDF. Lasers have a significant range advantage over gauss.

[Cobaia (OP)]

Another question I can't wrap around, what about the accuracy modifier? Since you are making the gauss smaller the ACC is going down. What about the Railgun ACC vs the Mini Gauss ACC? Is that a factor?

[Migi]

I think because the BFC of the railgun fighter has a tracking speed of 5000, the tracking of the railgun will be limited to 5000.

Also I think the gauss fighter doesn't benefit from the turret because the turret tracking is lower than the speed of the ship.

If I'm reading this right, the gauss cannon fighter has 48 shots at 60% accuracy so I would be inclined to say that it has a large advantage in weight of fire, irrespective of the tracking issues, and should be better at shooting enemy missiles.

[rainyday]

You can calculate the efficiency of your point defense like this. First get the base accuracy of your fire control at 10k km against the missiles using the box on the right hand side of the ship design window. For example you could set this 35000 km/s to see the fire control accuracy against missiles traveling that speed. These are the numbers beside your fire control.

Then you can figure it out like this:

Railgun = 4 shots @ 87% accuracy = 4 * 0.87 = 3.48 expected hits

Gauss Turrets = 48 shots (3x16) @ 8% of 87% accuracy = 48 * 0.87 * 0.08 = 3.34 expected hits

So in this case even if your turret tracking speed was the same as the fighter speed the rail gun would still be better. I suspect that's because you're wasting some tonnage on turret mounts. At RoF8 Railguns and Gauss should have the same performance per HS.

[Iceranger]

Another question I can't wrap around, what about the accuracy modifier? Since you are making the gauss smaller the ACC is going down. What about the Railgun ACC vs the Mini Gauss ACC? Is that a factor?

On an average sense, a railgun firing 4 shots with 100% accuracy each is equivalent to a 3HS (50%) gauss firing 8 shots with 50% accuracy each. Factoring in other accuracy bonuses/penalties, in general, the railguns will have less variance in its performance than the 3HS gauss.

[Zincat]

So, I'm going to go a bit off-track but... what do you guys actually use PD fighters for? Apart from escorting bombers, obviously.

I prefer PD warships for other tasks. So I'm curious to hear if people have creative uses for PD fighters.
I mean, of course you can use fighters to double up as PD for anything...but I always found PD warships to be a better source of PD for fleets, and of course PD bases to protects planets or orbitals.

[SpikeTheHobbitMage]

I haven't quite gotten far enough in any of my campaigns to confirm, but my understanding is that higher tech gauss cannons are more hull-space efficient than high tech rail guns. However, at low tech levels, rail guns are more spatially efficient. So there is an argument to be made for using rail gun fighters at low tech levels instead of larger gauss turreted corvettes or FACs.

However, being difficult as I am, I have been employing gauss cannons exclusively on my fighter designs for my recent campaigns.

Another test I want to perform is a comparison between lasers set to area defense vs gauss set to FDF. Lasers have a significant range advantage over gauss.

Gauss 8 is superior to a pair of 10cm railguns for PD due to not needing a reactor.  Slower Gauss guns are only competitive because they can be turreted.

Range penalties tend to make area defence a niche option at best.  Note that ADF mode almost* always fires at longer ranges than FDF mode.  If your accurate range is less than 10x the enemy missile speed then they will overdrive your laser and you won't get second shots in.  You also need a 2x ROF advantage vs the enemy launchers to get second shots in after the first volley.  An FDF Gauss 3 will still outperform such a setup.

*There is a rare corner case where ADF can fire at point blank but it is difficult to set up and unreliable at best.

So, I'm going to go a bit off-track but... what do you guys actually use PD fighters for? Apart from escorting bombers, obviously.

I prefer PD warships for other tasks. So I'm curious to hear if people have creative uses for PD fighters.
I mean, of course you can use fighters to double up as PD for anything...but I always found PD warships to be a better source of PD for fleets, and of course PD bases to protects planets or orbitals.

PD fighters are an early game option for system defence and are an acceptable supplement for fleet PD.  They can also catch and kill enemy fighters.

[Droll]

Gauss 8 is superior to a pair of 10cm railguns for PD due to not needing a reactor.  Slower Gauss guns are only competitive because they can be turreted.

Range penalties tend to make area defence a niche option at best.  Note that ADF mode almost* always fires at longer ranges than FDF mode.  If your accurate range is less than 10x the enemy missile speed then they will overdrive your laser and you won't get second shots in.  You also need a 2x ROF advantage vs the enemy launchers to get second shots in after the first volley.  An FDF Gauss 3 will still outperform such a setup.

*There is a rare corner case where ADF can fire at point blank but it is difficult to set up and unreliable at best.

I honestly do not know what laser area PD is used for besides role play. A turretted laser not only would be massive because of the required tracking, negating the "firing twice" bonus, any other fleet that you are defending would have to be at best 2.8m away (which gives you like a 0.01 acc modifier since its the absolute max range). If your fleets flying are that close you might as well just have them merge together.

I tend to use 2 sizes of gauss, the max size which I call "Flak" and 25% which are my standard gauss weapons. Instead of using laser area PD just use gauss final defensive.
And if you want to escort a fleet without joining them together just use gauss area defence which is almost as good anyways.

[Droll]

As for OPs post, as people have said, gauss is more space efficient in the PD role however note that railguns allow your fighter to be OK at PD while also being great at:
a- hunting other fighters with their higher-per-shot damage railguns
b- less good but still better than gauss at swarming larger warships with railgun shots

You could say that railgun fighters can partially fill the role of both PD fighters and meson fighters even if not individually excelling in each particular role.

[SpikeTheHobbitMage]

Gauss 8 is superior to a pair of 10cm railguns for PD due to not needing a reactor.  Slower Gauss guns are only competitive because they can be turreted.

Range penalties tend to make area defence a niche option at best.  Note that ADF mode almost* always fires at longer ranges than FDF mode.  If your accurate range is less than 10x the enemy missile speed then they will overdrive your laser and you won't get second shots in.  You also need a 2x ROF advantage vs the enemy launchers to get second shots in after the first volley.  An FDF Gauss 3 will still outperform such a setup.

*There is a rare corner case where ADF can fire at point blank but it is difficult to set up and unreliable at best.

I honestly do not know what laser area PD is used for besides role play. A turretted laser not only would be massive because of the required tracking, negating the "firing twice" bonus, any other fleet that you are defending would have to be at best 2.8m away (which gives you like a 0.01 acc modifier since its the absolute max range). If your fleets flying are that close you might as well just have them merge together.

I tend to use 2 sizes of gauss, the max size which I call "Flak" and 25% which are my standard gauss weapons. Instead of using laser area PD just use gauss final defensive.
And if you want to escort a fleet without joining them together just use gauss area defence which is almost as good anyways.

FDF is supposed to protect other fleets at the same location.  If it doesn't work then that is a bug.  ADF won't actually work in that case because the missiles will hit before the ADF guns can fire.

[Cobaia (OP)]

You can calculate the efficiency of your point defense like this. First get the base accuracy of your fire control at 10k km against the missiles using the box on the right hand side of the ship design window. For example you could set this 35000 km/s to see the fire control accuracy against missiles traveling that speed. These are the numbers beside your fire control.

Then you can figure it out like this:

Railgun = 4 shots @ 87% accuracy = 4 * 0.87 = 3.48 expected hits

Gauss Turrets = 48 shots (3x16) @ 8% of 87% accuracy = 48 * 0.87 * 0.08 = 3.34 expected hits

So in this case even if your turret tracking speed was the same as the fighter speed the rail gun would still be better. I suspect that's because you're wasting some tonnage on turret mounts. At RoF8 Railguns and Gauss should have the same performance per HS.

@rainyday

I'm placing the values as follows:
Range Bands: My BFC TS
Target Speed: Incoming Missile Speed

Using the following Inputs:
Range Bands: 60.000 km/s
Target Speed: 199.600 km/s (My Size 6 ASM Missile Speed)

With those inputs I'm getting 6% chance to hit.

So 48 * 0.06 * 0.08 = 0.23 Expected hits.

Is this correct?

[SpikeTheHobbitMage]

You can calculate the efficiency of your point defense like this. First get the base accuracy of your fire control at 10k km against the missiles using the box on the right hand side of the ship design window. For example you could set this 35000 km/s to see the fire control accuracy against missiles traveling that speed. These are the numbers beside your fire control.

Then you can figure it out like this:

Railgun = 4 shots @ 87% accuracy = 4 * 0.87 = 3.48 expected hits

Gauss Turrets = 48 shots (3x16) @ 8% of 87% accuracy = 48 * 0.87 * 0.08 = 3.34 expected hits

So in this case even if your turret tracking speed was the same as the fighter speed the rail gun would still be better. I suspect that's because you're wasting some tonnage on turret mounts. At RoF8 Railguns and Gauss should have the same performance per HS.

@rainyday

I'm placing the values as follows:
Range Bands: My BFC TS
Target Speed: Incoming Missile Speed

Using the following Inputs:
Range Bands: 60.000 km/s
Target Speed: 199.600 km/s (My Size 6 ASM Missile Speed)

With those inputs I'm getting 0.08% chance to hit.

So 48 * 0.08 * 0.08 = 0.30 Expected hits.

Is this correct?

FDF is always at 10k km, so the BFC gives 87% CTH due to range.
The gauss guns get 8% accuracy.
That speed difference gives 30% CTH.

48*0.08*0.87*0.3 = 1.00 expected hits.