Jump Point Defense

[Tanj (OP)]

Faced with multiple hostile NPRs threatening widely spread out colonies, I was forced to go on the defensive in several systems. As a quick fix I was able to build and deploy the following missile pods around the most dangerous jump points, using a small FAC carrier originally intended for other purposes to deploy and reload them.

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Missile Pod class Missile Base    493 tons     4 Crew     58.1 BP      TCS 9.85  TH 0  EM 0
1 km/s     Armour 1-5     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 0     PPV 7.5
Maint Life 11.38 Years     MSP 18    AFR 7%    IFR 0.1%    1YR 0    5YR 4    Max Repair 16 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 108 months    Spare Berths 0   
Magazine 50   


Size 5 Box Launcher (10)    Missile Size 5    Hangar Reload 37.5 minutes    MF Reload 6.2 hours
Small Missile Fire Control FC38-R100 (1)     Range 38.4m km    Resolution 100
BGM-N55-3A Sabre Anti-Ship Missile (10)  Speed: 26,000 km/s   End: 73.8m    Range: 115.2m km   WH: 6    Size: 5    TH: 112/67/33

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 Fighter for production, combat and maintenance purposes


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Missile Pod-S class Missile Base    500 tons     8 Crew     85.1 BP      TCS 10  TH 0  EM 0
1 km/s     Armour 1-5     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 0     PPV 5.25
Maint Life 9.51 Years     MSP 27    AFR 8%    IFR 0.1%    1YR 1    5YR 8    Max Repair 32 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 108 months    Spare Berths 0   
Magazine 35   


Size 5 Box Launcher (7)    Missile Size 5    Hangar Reload 37.5 minutes    MF Reload 6.2 hours
Small Missile Fire Control FC38-R100 (1)     Range 38.4m km    Resolution 100
BGM-N55-3A Sabre Anti-Ship Missile (7)  Speed: 26,000 km/s   End: 73.8m    Range: 115.2m km   WH: 6    Size: 5    TH: 112/67/33

Small Search Sensor MR25-R100 (1)     GPS 3200     Range 25.6m km    Resolution 100

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 Fighter for production, combat and maintenance purposes

These two pods classes, usually deployed in sets of 2x Sensor and 8x Missile, are perfect for just forgetting about for about a year unless something hostile came through, in which case reloading becomes a little bit more micromanagery than hoped for but still worked well.

More recently I've added a further line of defence, massively armoured single engined 'Monitors' to sit directly on top of the jump point. They're great for handling lone raiders while the rest of the fleet is elsewhere and mean I don't have to worry about reloading the missile pods after every scout. I currently keep two on station with two back home, and switch them out only when damaged or when they exceed deployment. To speed things up I generally attach a fast tug to take them to and from, although their fuel is sufficient for one or two systems if you don't mind it taking a few months. Note the original Tower class had a hanger capacity to provide on the spot repair and overhaul, but this proved not to be needed. I went with weapons I already had ready - ideally a few plasma carronades would be nice, but the spinal laser at point blank range has been pretty effective so far!

As the attachment should show, I'm pretty happy with how this arrangement is working out so far! A major attack will likely roll right over these defences though,so it is only a stop-gap solution.

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Tower class Monitor    15,000 tons     383 Crew     2637.4 BP      TCS 300  TH 200  EM 0
666 km/s     Armour 12-54     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 7     PPV 74
Maint Life 5.16 Years     MSP 2769    AFR 257%    IFR 3.6%    1YR 174    5YR 2603    Max Repair 240 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 48 months    Flight Crew Berths 11   
Hangar Deck Capacity 1000 tons     

200EP (X1.25/0.6) Magneto-plasma Drive (1)    Power 200    Fuel Use 94.33%    Signature 200    Exp 12%
Fuel Capacity 1,100,000 Litres    Range 14.0 billion km   (242 days at full power)

25cm Spinal UV Laser (20/640k) (1)    Range 256,000km     TS: 5000 km/s     Power 16-4     RM 4    ROF 20        16 16 16 16 12 10 9 8 7 6
20cm UV Laser (15/400k) (6)    Range 256,000km     TS: 5000 km/s     Power 10-4     RM 4    ROF 15        10 10 10 10 8 6 5 5 4 4
100mm Railgun (5/30kkm) (10x4)    Range 30,000km     TS: 5000 km/s     Power 3-3     RM 3    ROF 5        1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
RG Fire Control S04 48-6000 (2)    Max Range: 96,000 km   TS: 6000 km/s     90 79 69 58 48 38 27 17 6 0
Laser Fire Control 256kkm-6000kms (2)    Max Range: 256,000 km   TS: 6000 km/s     96 92 88 84 80 77 73 69 65 61
Stellarator Fusion Reactor Technology PB-1 (20)     Total Power Output 60    Armour 0    Exp 5%

AMM Active Search Sensor MR19-R1 (1)     GPS 240     Range 19.2m km    MCR 2.1m km    Resolution 1

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes


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Tower II class Monitor    15,000 tons     404 Crew     3215.6 BP      TCS 300  TH 250  EM 0
833 km/s     Armour 21-54     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 7     PPV 92
Maint Life 5.28 Years     MSP 1938    AFR 257%    IFR 3.6%    1YR 116    5YR 1742    Max Repair 168 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 48 months    Spare Berths 0   

250EP Fusion Rocket (X1.25/0.5) (1)    Power 250    Fuel Use 78.61%    Signature 250    Exp 12%
Fuel Capacity 1,190,000 Litres    Range 18.2 billion km   (252 days at full power)

25cm Spinal UV Laser (20/640k) (1)    Range 320,000km     TS: 5000 km/s     Power 16-4     RM 4    ROF 20        16 16 16 16 12 10 9 8 7 6
20cm UV Laser (15/400k) (8)    Range 320,000km     TS: 5000 km/s     Power 10-4     RM 4    ROF 15        10 10 10 10 8 6 5 5 4 4
100mm Railgun (5/30kkm) (12x4)    Range 30,000km     TS: 5000 km/s     Power 3-3     RM 3    ROF 5        1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Laser Fire Control 320kkm-6000kms (2)    Max Range: 320,000 km   TS: 6000 km/s     97 94 91 88 84 81 78 75 72 69
R-AMM Fire Control S04 24-12000 (2)    Max Range: 48,000 km   TS: 12000 km/s     79 58 38 17 0 0 0 0 0 0
Tokamak Fusion Reactor Technology PB-1 (18)     Total Power Output 72    Armour 0    Exp 5%

AMM Active Search Sensor MR18-R1 (1)     GPS 168     Range 18.5m km    MCR 2.0m km    Resolution 1

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes


[CharonJr]

Hehe, just had to come up with something very similar since a higher tech NPR took some objection to my salvagers getting some wrecks in their homesystem:

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Radar Plarform M class Radar Platform    485 tons     14 Crew     146.6 BP      TCS 9.7  TH 0  EM 0
1 km/s     Armour 4-5     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 0     PPV 0
Maint Life 11.22 Years     MSP 113    AFR 3%    IFR 0%    1YR 2    5YR 25    Max Repair 105 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 108 months    Spare Berths 0   


Active Search Sensor MR46-R16 (1)     GPS 1680     Range 46.2m km    Resolution 16

This design is classed as a Fighter for production, combat and maintenance purposes


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Raketen Platform M class Raketen Platform M    468 tons     6 Crew     81.9 BP      TCS 9.35  TH 0  EM 0
1 km/s     Armour 1-5     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 0     PPV 6.3
Maint Life 14.41 Years     MSP 38    AFR 4%    IFR 0.1%    1YR 0    5YR 5    Max Repair 29 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 120 months    Spare Berths 0   
Magazine 42   


Size 6 Box Launcher (7)    Missile Size 6    Hangar Reload 45 minutes    MF Reload 7.5 hours
Missile Fire Control FC38-R16 (1)     Range 38.8m km    Resolution 16
Hellfire9SR-345/21/52 (7)  Speed: 34 500 km/s   End: 10.3m    Range: 21.3m km   WH: 9    Size: 6    TH: 172/103/51

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 Fighter for production, combat and maintenance purposes


I don't know if the armor for the sensor platform will help, but at least against AMMs used in an offensive role it might.

[Arwyn]

So I am curious, why the platform vs. a minefield? The reload capability does make them reusable, but a lot more expensive. If your looking at this for warp point denial, with the expectation of getting rolled over, mines and/or monitors are a heck of a lot cheaper.

For the same costing, a beam platform (fighter sized) with your radar station would be a pretty good cost solution without the need for reload.

[TheDeadlyShoe]

Stationary beam platforms don't actually work very well for jump point defense owing to squadron jumps.

[Brian Neumann]

The problem with relying on a beam platform to defend a jump point is how far out do the attacking ships emerge.  If they are using the default range then it is not a big problem as they will be within 50,000km of center.  For a very small increase in cost and size you can get a much bigger distance.  The 4000 research point project lets you build a jump engine that is 10% bigger than the base, and gives you the ability to jump in within 250,000km of the jump point.  As a ship can appear anywhere within that radius the chances are that they will be out of range of beam armed platforms based at the jump point.

Brian

[CharonJr]

Yup, the range makes beam platforms fairly useless up until the late game IMO.

BTW, my poor platforms just have been killed, 2 30k ships were a tad too much for 8 missile platforms, overall the plan called for 20, but I brought out 2x 4 missile platforms + 1 sensor when they were completed.

Lesson learned: Only deploy them when all are build/ready, not before Switched off the active sensor as soon as my missiles had hit, but obviously 20mkm range is close enough for those aliens to see them anyway (or they just went where they saw the active sensors before).

[Arwyn]

No argument that the range for beams isn't fantastic. NPR's do tend to be stupidly aggressive, so if you do have a station illuminating the warp point with active sensors, you will often see them bracket the active sensor target and charge it. Unarmed scouts tend to immediately run the other direction, which can also be helpful.

I built a battery of fighter sized beam bases, then bracketed a problematic warp point with four groups of them set up on the corners of a imaginary square with the warp point in the center. The bases were located at just under max weapon range from the warp point. In this case, 100,000km. Admittedly not very long range. Active sensor platforms were set up further behind the beam bases in four groups of two, only 1 station in each group active at a time. Max observed speed of the NPR was 2250 k/ms to 2750 k/ms.

The result worked moderately well. Not perfect, but it was doing a decent job killing scouts, and smaller warships. Bigger fleets would push through, but take damage doing so. 4 groups of sixteen of these were pretty effective. In all the encounters, I believe I only had one occasion where two groups ever engaged a group at the same time, with pretty poor hit results.

On more than one occasion, I had enemy ships get blown to slag at point blank range as they jumped in on top or next to the beam group.

The whole point to these was to have some sort of defense that wasn't going to consume tons of missiles. The war with the NPR was killing me economically, missile consumption was so high that industry couldn't keep up, so I needed something cheap that wouldn't tie up shipyards or drain minerals at a disastrous rate. Since these got built as fighters, they were on a separate production track, and didn't interfere with warship production.

These little bases did the trick. Killed the leakers, killed the smaller warships groups, and mauled the bigger fleets when they blew past. As my economy recovered, I started emplacing groups of mines further back behind the beam bases, well back from the warp point. They were too far back to engage the warp point, but if a fleet pushed past the bases, one or more mine groups would launch. THAT did wonders against bigger fleets.

Biggest problem I had with these was the NPR anti-missile escorts, they would kill 2 to 3 of these stations every volley if I didn't kill them first. Still, at just under 90 bp, they were cheaper than the mineral costs of the minefields I had been using, and I had no wasted missiles.

Here are the bases in question, tech was mid-ion;

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Punji class Beam Defence Base    478 tons     20 Crew     88.9 BP      TCS 9.55  TH 0  EM 0
1 km/s     Armour 1-5     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 0     PPV 4
Maint Life 6.43 Years     MSP 29    AFR 7%    IFR 0.1%    1YR 1    5YR 18    Max Repair 29 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 36 months    Spare Berths 1   


12cm C4 Near Ultraviolet Laser (1)    Range 120,000km     TS: 3000 km/s     Power 4-4     RM 3    ROF 5        4 4 4 3 2 2 1 1 1 1
Toller M64/3000 Fire Control (1)    Max Range: 128,000 km   TS: 3000 km/s     92 84 77 69 61 53 45 37 30 22
Powertek PR-1/4.5 Reactor (1)     Total Power Output 4.5    Armour 0    Exp 5%

This design is classed as a Fighter for production, combat and maintenance purposes

[CharonJr]

Finally managed to engage and destroy those 2 30k monsters, in the end each took about 100 WH9 missiles (hits that is, needed about 150 each due to PD/misses). And this battle did show another weakness of laser platforms (at least vs. higher tech NPRs), once they have recovered from jump shock it is pretty certain they will actually outrange the platforms (is the AI actually smart enough to try to move to max range/out of range of enemy fire?). But yup, I know what you mean about the missiles being very hard on the economy, those 300 missiles will take about 6 month to be replaced at full production.

In this particular case I think it wouldnt really have mattered if there were lasers or missiles on those platforms, those 30k monsters had 13 lasers and a couple of missiles each, were moving at 5.5k while having very good armor as well (no idea how many rows of armor a 30k ship would have, but based on the 900damage it took to take one of them down 10 does not seem unreasonable, the first flight of 50 missiles each didnt not even cause any loss of atmosphere).

[Bremen]

In my experience if enemy missile ships jump through and see an armed defender, they'll immediately try to open the range. Enemy beam ships will close, but that doesn't buy you much. So I tend to favor the missile pod approach for stationary defenses; if I want beam based defenses I usually use high endurance meson FACs. For those who really like their big defense bases, some sort of fighter base might be worthwhile; meson fighters would have the speed to catch up and gut any ships that jump in.

As far as the missile pod designs in this thread, they look good but missile ranges seem too long. I'd suggest creating a missile with a high speed (to reach the enemy before they can get active defenses online) and large warhead, but <5 million km range.

[CharonJr]

Hmm, I am not sold on the concept of shorter missile ranges. At least I am using untrained crews here, so it is even fairly likely that the enemy will be able to recover from jump shock before my missiles are able to fire. And with low range it would be fairly easy for them to engage my platforms with AAMs and destroy them before my (likely slower) missiles can reach their targets. And with AAM sensors at close range they should easily be able to see the platforms and engage them.

At longer ranges it seems unlikely that enemy AAMs will be able to reach/see the platforms and while ASM (which might be faster than my own) have the range it seems doubtful that they have the sensors to target the 500t platforms.

Or is there any glaring mistake with my reasoning?

[Erik L]

Hmm, I am not sold on the concept of shorter missile ranges. At least I am using untrained crews here, so it is even fairly likely that the enemy will be able to recover from jump shock before my missiles are able to fire. And with low range it would be fairly easy for them to engage my platforms with AAMs and destroy them before my (likely slower) missiles can reach their targets. And with AAM sensors at close range they should easily be able to see the platforms and engage them.

At longer ranges it seems unlikely that enemy AAMs will be able to reach/see the platforms and while ASM (which might be faster than my own) have the range it seems doubtful that they have the sensors to target the 500t platforms.

Or is there any glaring mistake with my reasoning?

Long range has the potential for the enemy to recover from the sensor blindness. I'd suggest creating a short range, high speed ASM used just for JP defenses. You're trading endurance (fuel), for speed (engine). And if you have high enough reload tech, you can get more than one salvo on target.

Of course, there are always mines, but those need to be micromanaged fairly tightly.

[Tanj (OP)]

For myself I was mostly using tech and equipment I already had in place, to speed up deployment, so I researched nothing new and went with existing missile stocks. An updated version would probably benefit from a shorter ranged missile, although I'd wouldn't go under 25mkm.

That said, the Tower class Monitor design I posted above are doing great! The spinal laser is crippling to 10-15k enemy ships at point blank range, which often seem to suffer massive engine damage. As it does decent damage even as they crawl away I've only had one in twenty enemy ships make it out of energy range.

[CharonJr]

From what I have seen in the 3 JP engagements fought so far the enemy will recover from sensor blindness before my missiles are able to fire anyway (most likely due to my untrained crews), or could there be any other reason (except than no longer being blinded after the jump - via gate btw) for them to be moving right towards my sensor platforms?

And yes, since I am very short on research here as well I try to recycle as many parts as possible that I have already researched for my ships as well.

To me the range issue boils down to the question if I would be able to destroy the enemy ships before they are able to engage/destroy my platforms. And currently it looks to me like the risk is much higher at short ranges than longer ranges due to the enemies targeting problems vs. 500t platforms at longer ranges. But if the enemies movements right towards my sensor platforms (before my platforms are even able to fire) is no sign of them having recovered from sensor blindness I will surely reconsider shorter ranges.

This brings me to a question, I haven't had to fight any enemies right behind a JP for quite some time, are there different sensor blindnesses - one for scanners and one for fire controls? The more I think about it, the more I seem to remember something like this, I think I saw the enemy ships, but was not able to engage them the last time I suffered jump blindness.

[Arwyn]

One thing to look into would be to stuffing your stations into a carrier and training them up. Makes a huge difference, if you have the time to invest.

For my beam stations, I have to do that, or they are pretty poor in getting shots off. Which means they are ineffective if the bad guys move off the warp point before then.

For no time to train scenarios, I dump mines in groups around the warp point and cross my fingers.

As to the short range missiles question. I use them, I pack big warheads, super short range, and the biggest engine I can into them. Distance is short, but I can get a lot of bang for the buck into them. My favorite so far is thermal seekers. They dont trigger the NPRs to raise sensors like active sensor mines do, so I can usually count on a full strike going in initially.

[Cripes Amighty]

One thing to look into would be to stuffing your stations into a carrier and training them up. Makes a huge difference, if you have the time to invest.

You can even do this without carriers above your homeworld before you ship them off. When told to train, engine-less platforms will drop their speed from 1 to 0 and they don't move from orbit while training. I've actually used this to keep mobile ships stationary to reduce fuel usage. As long as they are in the same task group as a stationary platform, nobody moves anywhere yet they continue to gain training.