First serious warships

[Veneke (OP)]

I've been plodding along in my first game for a little under a century now and am thinking that I might move up to the 6. 3 patch and try a more serious game that avoids some of the more basic errors I made in this one.  I tried out these designs* and they seemed to work reasonably well, but I'm wondering if I lucked out against an easy opponent, so I was hoping for a little feedback.

* I'm still not quite sure what it was, exactly, I was facing.  Diplomacy went to pot really early on and quickly degenerated to a point where I couldn't salvage relations and no further attempts could be made.  The enemy fleet consisted of, 1 60k ton carrier, a half dozen 6k ton corvettes, and an absolute truckload of 800 ton gunboats, all armed with meson cannons.  By the by, aside from staying out of range, is there any defence against these?

County Mk II class Frigate    10,000 tons     243 Crew     2967. 7 BP      TCS 200  TH 1500  EM 360
7500 km/s     Armour 3-41     Shields 12-300     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 6     PPV 52. 16
Maint Life 2. 25 Years     MSP 1113    AFR 133%    IFR 1. 9%    1YR 297    5YR 4460    Max Repair 504 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 3 months    Spare Berths 3   

Rolls-Royce "Dynamic" ICFD P750/S50 (2)    Power 750    Fuel Use 12. 18%    Signature 750    Exp 7%
Fuel Capacity 350,000 Litres    Range 51. 7 billion km   (79 days at full power)
Ironmongers "Forcefields" E3/RR3/RT300 (4)   Total Fuel Cost  60 Litres per hour  (1,440 per day)

Triple PD "Guardsman" X-Ray Turret (4x3)    Range 120,000km     TS: 32000 km/s     Power 9-9     RM 7    ROF 5        3 3 3 3 3 3 3 2 2 2
Nordic Point Defence Fire Control S4/A60/T32/40 (2)    Max Range: 120,000 km   TS: 32000 km/s     92 83 75 67 58 50 42 33 25 17
Hawkins "Mini" Fusion Reactor P6. 25/S0. 5 (6)     Total Power Output 37. 5    Armour 0    Exp 20%

Nordic Missile Sensor MR26/40 (1)     GPS 192     Range 26. 9m km    Resolution 1

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes

Daring Mk II class Cruiser    25,000 tons     638 Crew     6760. 65 BP      TCS 500  TH 3750  EM 720
7500 km/s     Armour 10-76     Shields 24-300     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 30     PPV 110. 52
Maint Life 4. 17 Years     MSP 5070    AFR 166%    IFR 2. 3%    1YR 468    5YR 7014    Max Repair 630 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 3 months    Spare Berths 3   

Rolls-Royce "Dynamic" ICFD P750/S50 (5)    Power 750    Fuel Use 12. 18%    Signature 750    Exp 7%
Fuel Capacity 1,000,000 Litres    Range 59. 1 billion km   (91 days at full power)
Ironmongers "Forcefields" E3/RR3/RT300 (8   Total Fuel Cost  120 Litres per hour  (2,880 per day)

Twin "Runemaster" X-Ray Turret (4x2)    Range 480,000km     TS: 10000 km/s     Power 48-12     RM 7    ROF 20        24 24 24 24 24 24 24 20 18 16
Rurik Electronics "Torpedo" S4/MR240k/F15 (2)    Range 240,000km     TS: 8000 km/s     Power 15-5    ROF 15        6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6
Nordic Main Gun Fire Control S5/A240/T10/40 (2)    Max Range: 480,000 km   TS: 10000 km/s     98 96 94 92 90 88 85 83 81 79
Hawkins Fusion Reactor P25/S2 (2)     Total Power Output 50    Armour 0    Exp 20%
Hawkins "Mini" Fusion Reactor P6. 25/S0. 5 (2)     Total Power Output 12. 5    Armour 0    Exp 20%

Nordic Search Sensor MR268/40 (1)     GPS 19200     Range 268. 8m km    Resolution 100

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes

Orion class Fleet Support Vessel    50,000 tons     1115 Crew     8739. 1 BP      TCS 1000  TH 7500  EM 720
7500 km/s    JR 6-50     Armour 15-120     Shields 24-300     Sensors 28/28/0/0     Damage Control Rating 81     PPV 0
Maint Life 4. 44 Years     MSP 12849    AFR 246%    IFR 3. 4%    1YR 1054    5YR 15813    Max Repair 1596 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 3 months    Spare Berths 1   
Flag Bridge    Tractor Beam     

BAE "Mother of God" J50000(6-50) Military Jump Drive     Max Ship Size 50000 tons    Distance 50k km     Squadron Size 6
Rolls-Royce "Dynamic" ICFD P750/S50 (10)    Power 750    Fuel Use 12. 18%    Signature 750    Exp 7%
Fuel Capacity 5,000,000 Litres    Range 147. 8 billion km   (228 days at full power)
Ironmongers "Forcefields" E3/RR3/RT300 (8   Total Fuel Cost  120 Litres per hour  (2,880 per day)

Nordic Search Sensor MR268/40 (1)     GPS 19200     Range 268. 8m km    Resolution 100
Nordic Missile Sensor MR26/40 (1)     GPS 192     Range 26. 9m km    Resolution 1
Thermal Array THS28/S2/40 (1)     Sensitivity 28     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  28m km
EM Array EMS28/S2/40 (1)     Sensitivity 28     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  28m km

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes

Queen Elizabeth class Carrier    50,000 tons     984 Crew     7983. 1 BP      TCS 1000  TH 7500  EM 720
7500 km/s     Armour 15-120     Shields 24-300     Sensors 28/28/0/0     Damage Control Rating 80     PPV 0
Maint Life 5. 45 Years     MSP 8983    AFR 250%    IFR 3. 5%    1YR 507    5YR 7609    Max Repair 336 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 3 months    Flight Crew Berths 322   
Flag Bridge    Hangar Deck Capacity 10000 tons     

Rolls-Royce "Dynamic" ICFD P750/S50 (10)    Power 750    Fuel Use 12. 18%    Signature 750    Exp 7%
Fuel Capacity 2,000,000 Litres    Range 59. 1 billion km   (91 days at full power)
Ironmongers "Forcefields" E3/RR3/RT300 (8   Total Fuel Cost  120 Litres per hour  (2,880 per day)

Nordic Search Sensor MR268/40 (1)     GPS 19200     Range 268. 8m km    Resolution 100
Nordic Missile Sensor MR26/40 (1)     GPS 192     Range 26. 9m km    Resolution 1
Thermal Array THS28/S2/40 (1)     Sensitivity 28     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  28m km
EM Array EMS28/S2/40 (1)     Sensitivity 28     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  28m km

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes

TSR-02 class Fighter    460 tons     4 Crew     233. 4 BP      TCS 9. 2  TH 160  EM 0
17391 km/s     Armour 1-5     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 0     PPV 4
Maint Life 0 Years     MSP 0    AFR 92%    IFR 1. 3%    1YR 26    5YR 383    Max Repair 54 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 0. 1 months    Spare Berths 6   

Rolls-Royce "Pepper" ICFD P40/S1 (4)    Power 40    Fuel Use 280. 02%    Signature 40    Exp 20%
Fuel Capacity 5,000 Litres    Range 0. 7 billion km   (11 hours at full power)

Fighter 10cm "Bullseye" X-Ray Laser (2)    Range 60,000km     TS: 17391 km/s     Power 3-1. 5     RM 7    ROF 10        3 3 3 3 3 3 0 0 0 0
Nordic Fighter Fire Control (1)    Max Range: 60,000 km   TS: 16000 km/s     83 67 50 33 17 0 0 0 0 0
Hawkins "Mini" Fusion Reactor P6. 25/S0. 5 (1)     Total Power Output 6. 25    Armour 0    Exp 20%

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

My own notes:
 - They were all designed with the intention that they'd operate as a fleet: 1 Queen Elizabeth Carrier with 10 TSR-02 fighters (it was only as I was writing this that I realized I could have put 20 in it), 2 Daring Cruisers, 2 County Frigates and 1 Orion FSV.  The FSVs wouldn't stay with the combat group, and instead either hold position at the jump point, or withdraw to the preceding system.
 - My previous attempt at making warships used an exceptional amount of fuel to get any kind of decent range (the Mk I County and Daring used 1 and 5 million litres respectively), so I may have erred too heavily on the side of fuel efficiency at the expense of speed with these designs.  I've not yet quite got a feel for the approximate speed I should be aiming for at each engine tech level.
 - I couldn't bring myself to save on tonnage by reducing the number/size of active sensors in the fleet.  I could definitely have done so with the Daring and County classes, they weren't ever going to go on independent patrol or act as a squadron leader.  I also seriously underestimated the difference between active sensor range and the range of the beams.  It was one thing to read that the guns would reach X distance, and quite another to keep zooming in and realizing that, nope, they have to get closer.
 - It might just have been luck or the situation, but the main guns on the Daring, and its particle beams, were exceptionally effective despite my initial concerns about the turning speed.
 - On that note, the fighters were extremely underwhelming.  Too big, too slow, under-armed, and with a miserable rate of fire that I wasn't able to compensate for (shrinking  the lasers down helped fit them in, but recharge times jumped.  I had hoped that they'd engage the enemy at roughly the same range as the main guns started becoming accurate, and supplement damage, but they really didn't measure up.  If I had actually brought the full complement, instead of half of it, it might have been a different story.  At some point, lots of strength 3 shots have got to count for something, right?
 - The carrier wasn't much better.  It had too few fighters, and really no other saving grace.  In practice I used it as a sensor platform, and a combat hospital and supply ship.
 - The FSV could probably have done without its active sensors.  I'd have liked it to be able to take more ships in a single jump but my tech wasn't quite there and it was already absurdly heavy.  I had initially hoped that the carrier could have housed the jump drive to move the fleet, and so have 6 combat warships per fleet, but at the tonnage limitation in my shipyards and the minimum requirements I had set for the carrier (I had already stripped it of things I wanted it to have, like PD lasers), I just couldn't make it work.


I'm sure I've done a hundred and one other things wrong too, and it's probably a bit perverse to get feedback on these designs and then go toying with missiles (I've only experimented with lasers and the particle beam, and the latter not terribly much - as you might be able tell, it's at a lower tech level than the lasers), but I would appreciate any advice/tips/feedback.

[ShadowLop]

Strip out some maintenance. 4 years on the Daring? 5 on the Elizabeth? Too much, especially when the County can't go that far. If ships are meant to work together, they should have similar maintenance lives. If they're supported by a ship that can restock maintenance supplies like the Orion, they should have enough of a maintenance life to make their deployment time, or enough MSP to repair the largest component.

The Carrier only needs 80 Crew Berths for a full compliment of it's allocated fighters. Make it 100 for safety/larger fighters and that'll be enough. Ships can run home overloaded with survivors with spare supplies after combat. During combat you won't be picking up anyone anyway.

Since the Support Vessel isn't going to be fighting, you could probably strip some engines for fuel tanks. I find having the fleet at reduced speed when attached to support ships makes it easier to remember to detach them. Add fuel tanks for the support ship and you can strip some from the combat ships too. They only need 7 days of fuel, 13 days max (Someone calculated 40% engine size in fuel tanks if you'd prefer) for when you need to run over, shoot up some enemies then run back to the supply ship. I doubt any combat will last more than a week at most. Since it has no guns, the carrier can also run slower and hang back a hundred mkm or so - add some larger sensors. The supply ship shouldn't have fleet sensors, since it'll be too far from combat. The carrier would be close enough, so you should be able to add some larger sensors to it instead to act as fleet sensor. This also means that the carrier can be fleet sensor and the smaller ships can fit more guns/shields.

Speaking of Support vessels: 15 armor and 24 shields? Strip them out. Maybe 4 layers of armor for stray shots at most. It shouldn't be going anywhere within range of enemies.

You might also want to consider making anti-meson variants of each ship: Strip out all armor and shields since they do nothing, add more sensors and fire controls as backups since sod's law says they WILL get shot first, make high-HTK components, etc.

I wouldn't bother with the fighters when you're fighting mesons, too. They're not big enough to have the redundant systems to survive more than 1-2 shots at most and they have no MSP to repair the damage.

That's all I can think of for now.

[Veneke (OP)]

Thanks for the feedback.

I didn't think to match the maintenance lives but that does make sense.  Only a week or two of fuel though? That feels a little low.  It would avoid losing a few hundred thousand litres of fuel from a lucky hit; that'd be pretty sweet.

[ShadowLop]

Thanks for the feedback.

I didn't think to match the maintenance lives but that does make sense.  Only a week or two of fuel though? That feels a little low.  It would avoid losing a few hundred thousand litres of fuel from a lucky hit; that'd be pretty sweet.

1-2 weeks is the maximum time that the warships should be spending away from either a colony or a tanker.
Military ships should be refuelling from the tanker, not having to schlep it along the entire time themselves. It also means you can have a large (COMMERIAL!!) fuel ship follow your fleet, while your warships are small and lithe enough to fight effectively. This would mean the commercial tanker would need it's own jumpdrive but you could fit more MSP or equipment in the support ship if it doesn't need to supply the fleet with fuel as well.
If you're concerned about losing fuel from hits, use more smaller tanks. It's a higher cost, but the mass is the same:

Using 6 standard tanks:

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Sydney class Geosurvey Ship    4,500 tons     85 Crew     769 BP      TCS 90  TH 500  EM 0
5555 km/s     Armour 1-24     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/5     Damage Control Rating 1     PPV 0
MSP 107    Max Repair 125 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 12 months    Spare Berths 2   

500 EP Commercial Internal Fusion Drive (1)    Power 500    Fuel Use 3.54%    Signature 500    Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 300,000 Litres    Range 338.9 billion km   (706 days at full power)
Using 1 large, 1 standard:

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Sydney - Larger Tank class Geosurvey Ship    4,500 tons     85 Crew     749 BP      TCS 90  TH 500  EM 0
5555 km/s     Armour 1-24     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/5     Damage Control Rating 1     PPV 0
MSP 104    Max Repair 125 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 12 months    Spare Berths 2   

500 EP Commercial Internal Fusion Drive (1)    Power 500    Fuel Use 3.54%    Signature 500    Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 300,000 Litres    Range 338.9 billion km   (706 days at full power)
Using 30 small tanks:

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Sydney - Small tanks class Geosurvey Ship    4,500 tons     85 Crew     799 BP      TCS 90  TH 500  EM 0
5555 km/s     Armour 1-24     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/5     Damage Control Rating 1     PPV 0
MSP 111    Max Repair 125 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 12 months    Spare Berths 2   

500 EP Commercial Internal Fusion Drive (1)    Power 500    Fuel Use 3.54%    Signature 500    Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 300,000 Litres    Range 338.9 billion km   (706 days at full power)
Inerestingly, the ship with smaller tanks also has a substantially longer maintenance life without increasing the failure rate:

Standard:

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Maint Life 0.65 Years     MSP 115    AFR 180%    IFR 2.5%    1YR 178    5YR 2664    Max Repair 125 MSPLarge tank:

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Maint Life 0.6 Years     MSP 112    AFR 180%    IFR 2.5%    1YR 187    5YR 2808    Max Repair 125 MSPSmall tanks:

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Maint Life 0.84 Years     MSP 119    AFR 180%    IFR 2.5%    1YR 141    5YR 2122    Max Repair 125 MSP
The component that breaks is chosen at random, so with more small tanks, it's more likely one of them will break, while being easy to fix, than a more expenesive component.

Keep in mind though, beam ships would need a little more fuel than missile ships, since they need to run around a bit more, while missile ships can sit at max range and lob missiles...though the missiles themselves also need fuel... Someone should make a table of efficiency for that.

Speaking of commercial tankers:
Relatively fresh start - Largest military shipyard: 12kt. Largest commercial: 88kt.
I don't have a JD design so I can't put it in, but it's 14kt, which makes about 84kt tanker. Move stats (*) given with dummy mass to make up for the JD.

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Amphion class Tanker    69,450 tons     385 Crew     4408.2 BP      TCS 1389  TH 7500  EM 0
4480 km/s*    Armour 2-150     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 1     PPV 0
MSP 40    Max Repair 125 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 3 months    Spare Berths 3   

500 EP Commercial Internal Fusion Drive (15)    Power 500    Fuel Use 3.54%    Signature 500    Exp 5%
Full Mass: Fuel Capacity 30,000,000 Litres    Range 1822.4 billion km   (4708 days at full power)*

This design is classed as a Commercial Vessel for maintenance purposes
I wouldn't put this much fuel in a single tanker (few missiles and there goes 30ML) but the concept is sound: Big tanker, no maintenance. Just remember it'll be the prime target for enemies.

[Veneke (OP)]

Huh, never noticed that with the fuel storage spaces.  Honestly, I'd never have noticed the problems in relying on one large tank at all if it hadn't been for a meson cannon hit that took out the larger fuel tank on one of my County class frigates.

Yeah, one of the reasons I didn't go for the commercial supply train was that all of my commercial ships are in the 150kt range, and I didn't fancy putting a jump drive on that size a ship.  I could have purpose built a civilian ship but without any kind of sensors, armour, shields or the like they'd have to be deployed quite a bit away and I like the idea of being able to send in a recovery/supply ship before the coast is entirely clear.  Of course, in practice that was the role that the carrier served so I probably need to rework things there anyway.

[alex_brunius]

Very brave going up against a meson armed enemy with a beam only warfleet.

I would never do that unless I am 100% sure I can stay out of range due to extreme tech advantage.

As an advice ( depending on how your missile tech looks ) it may be a good idea to swap out the beam fighters to missile fighters that can strike from outside the enemy range. I really love missile fighters with box launchers.

[CharonJr]

Yes, I would try to use at least some missile fighters here as well (unless your missile tech is REALLY bad).

In addition I would cut the fuel on the combat ships in half, especially since you have a tanker that would be able to travel with the fleet unless combat is about to happen very soon. And with the Orion's armor I would keep it with the fleet at all times anyway.

Instead of 2 fairly short range/damage lasers on the fighters 1 larger laser might be better since IMO for beam ships speed and range are the most important factors.

And I would lower the engineering/crew ratio on most of the ships, 2-3 times max repair (or about 1 year deploment time, whatever is higher) should be more than enough while 3 months deployment time due to limited crew seems a tad low, even considering that most naval operations should be over in less than 3 months. But having the flexibility to have a fleet (especially a beam fleet) guard a jump point for longer periods of time, or to wait in orbit of an enemy homeworld for the slower troop transports to arrive, is very helpful IMO.

Finally this fleet would have some problems vs. any enemy with a large number of missiles since it lacks PD, the frigates might be able to shot their 24 PD lasers twice before impact (first shot at fairly low chance to hit) and the fighters might be used as backup PD, but vs. enemy homeworld defenses or dedicated missile fleets it might get very ugly despite the heavy armor on those ships. Especially since you will have to face ASMs and AAMs used in a offensive role due to the low range of your fleet.

[Jorgen_CAB]

I tend to agree on the range thing on any beam combat ships.

I personally would never try to go for an offensive main capital ship fleet because such ships will be very expensive. Large expensive engines that also require many more maintenance modules, more crew and by extension more crew space. Not to mention larger fuel tanks.

I would rather build carriers with escort at slower speeds (much like your ships) and use larger gunboats that mounts at least one spinal laser (or particle beams) and perhaps a pair of 10cm IR lasers as point defence. These would be at least 1500-3000t. The main reason is that ships in this size will be able to survive much longer and you also could add an extra FC for redundancy as well. A spinal mounted laser would do devastating damage beyond most other beam weapons. I might use a couple of extremely fast fighters with a 15cm laser or a miniaturized larger calibre laser. Their role would be to engage enemy fighter, not enemy beam ships. Fighters are just too fragile for beam combat in general.

One thing that stands out in my opinion is the extremely high thermal emission of those ships. They will be detected at huge distances (even if you reduce the speed). So you will have a hard time to surprise anyone with them. But it might work well against the AI. I might just prefer stealth and good reconnaissance allot more than you though.

[Veneke (OP)]

I'm not sure how much of it was bravery and how much of it was sheer newbish ignorance.  As for missiles, I hadn't touched them yet.  So lasers, of some sort, were kinda what I had to roll with.  I'm still not fully sure how you actually go about designing missiles/fire controls for missiles etc.  There were a bunch of tutorials on beam ships, and provided you remembered to match range and tracking/turret speed it didn't seem terribly hard to make stuff that worked.  There doesn't seem to be the same amount of tutorials for missile design though, so I'm kinda bumbling around a bit there.

As for the spinal mount, these were done in 6. 21 - so they weren't on the cards unfortunately.  I've since upgraded though, and will definitely keep them in mind.

My earlier designs used a one year deployment time exclusively, but I found that I ended up having to sacrifice components for fuel, or else have the fuel and deployment times not match.  Although, I suppose for jump point duty the fuel and deployment times don't have the match at all.

I had underestimated the number of missiles you would reasonably expect to face.  For the conflict these ships went into there were no missiles involved so the lack of PD was never really an issue.  Is there any good way to set up PD for beams, or do you have to use missiles? Even layering PDs with beams, gauss cannons and CIWS I get the feeling that you really need anti-missile missiles as well to deal with a full attack.

These designs were resource hogs, that's true.  It took ten years to design and manufacture three of these fleets.  I kinda matched everything based on the County frigates, and I wanted two engines, at least, on that.  Given that it had to fit everything else as well, and I wanted the maximum size engine for fuel efficiency, the tonnage just kept creeping up until eventually I just decided on 10k.  In terms of a redesign to lower fleet tonnage, would it have been better to reduce the size of the engine, or just go with the one larger engine?

I wasn't certain if reducing the thermal emissions would actually help me, so I didn't add any of the thermal reducing tech.  I knew that I was going to be detected a few dozen million kilometers out by active sensors anyway, and this wasn't a fleet that was ever going to attempt to sneak up on anything - it had to go right at them and get in close.  In hindsight, the cost to reduce emissions would have been fairly minimal, and I did have tech that reduced thermal emissions to 25%, so there was probably no good reason not to add that to the engine design.

[Jorgen_CAB]

When I build ships in general I tend to think in terms of what an enemy would do to take advantage of my weaknesses and then I try to mitigate this. I also tend to think what a human opponent would do (I also often play multiple factions so it is important for me) or have against me.

In your case I think that you lack any good reconnaissance and scouting capabilities.

If you have your Frigates running at max speed a single level of a ground based tracking station will pick them up at about 500m km (of course it depends on tech level) your larger ships at several billion. If you turn on active sensors on any ship with the resolution 100 you will be detected by almost anything system wide. This is of course all fine as long as you can take on all the enemy ships in the area and if you are faster than them, I would personally never count on that to be the case.

You have no real defense against enemy FAC with missiles, the AI like to use those.

You also have no direct reason to mount such huge active sensors, they will only reveal your position even worse. Active sensors are mainly good for being able to lock on with fire-controls. For taking a peak I would rather use a smaller faster craft (stationed with a carrier) with a smaller active sensor so I never reveal the position of my real force. I personally like to have really good passive sensors and some dedicated reconnaissance ships with extremely good thermal and EM sensor systems.

You will probably do just fine as long as you meet someone with lower technology and that does not rely on missile technology.

You obviously can make a beam fleet work but you will need allot of god PD turrets if you are up against a missile heavy opponent. However these fleets tend to become one trick ponies unless you are very careful in the way you engage the enemy.

Speed is not always so important either. As long as you can bring enough brute force then planets, jump points and colonies can't really run from you anyway. Just let the enemy ships run and hide, what good do they do without any colonies to support them?