Missile Battle Group of the Yuan Hegemony

[Atlantia (OP)]

EDIT: New designs a couple posts down.

Here we are, the first generation of missile-based ships. I submit to you all for comment (or pointing out obvious things I've missed.)

First up is the workhorse, the Kirkuk. Note that I've designed the fire control to be of far longer range than the ASM, in anticipation of future improvements or alternate designs. Should I just those weak passive sensors? They're the same ones I've been using for a couple decades. I plan on having at least four of these, probably more, per group.

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Kirkuk class Missile Cruiser    9,400 tons     772 Crew     1470.56 BP      TCS 188  TH 800  EM 0
4255 km/s     Armour 6-39     Shields 0-0     Sensors 16/16/0/0     Damage Control Rating 6     PPV 36
Maint Life 4.66 Years     MSP 587    AFR 117%    IFR 1.6%    1YR 44    5YR 663    Max Repair 63 MSP
Magazine 547    

Internal Confinement Fusion Drive E5M (8)    Power 100    Fuel Use 50%    Signature 100    Armour 0    Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 250,000 Litres    Range 95.7 billion km   (260 days at full power)

CIWS-160 (2x6)    Range 1000 km     TS: 16000 km/s     ROF 5       Base 50% To Hit
ASML-6 (6)    Missile Size 6    Rate of Fire 45
ASMFC 1 (50HS-98m, 20hs-15.7m) (2)     Range 98.0m km    Resolution 50
Cometchaser ASM Mk I (91)  Speed: 20,000 km/s   End: 35.7m    Range: 42.9m km   WH: 7    Size: 6    TH: 206 / 124 / 62

Active Search Sensor MR49-R50 (1)     GPS 3150     Range 49.0m km    Resolution 50
Thermal Sensor TH2-16 (1)     Sensitivity 16     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  16m km
EM Detection Sensor EM2-16 (1)     Sensitivity 16     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  16m km

Next is the fleet's AMM defence, the Sky Larrisa. Yay for Random Name. These will be at least four per battle group.

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Sky Larrisa class Missile Frigate    8,050 tons     517 Crew     1475.16 BP      TCS 161  TH 700  EM 0
4347 km/s     Armour 6-35     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 8     PPV 6
Maint Life 5.02 Years     MSP 916    AFR 64%    IFR 0.9%    1YR 61    5YR 909    Max Repair 210 MSP
Magazine 517    

Internal Confinement Fusion Drive E5M (7)    Power 100    Fuel Use 50%    Signature 100    Armour 0    Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 250,000 Litres    Range 111.8 billion km   (297 days at full power)

CIWS-160 (2x6)    Range 1000 km     TS: 16000 km/s     ROF 5       Base 50% To Hit
AMML-1 (6)    Missile Size 1    Rate of Fire 10
AMMFC 1 (Missile-3m) (3)     Range 27.7m km    Resolution 1
Lightchaser AMM Mk I (517)  Speed: 43,200 km/s   End: 1m    Range: 2.5m km   WH: 1    Size: 1    TH: 374 / 224 / 112

Active Search Sensor MR23-R1 (1)     GPS 210     Range 23.1m km    Resolution 1
And here's the sensor ship, the Rakshasa. I've included a couple top-of-the-line lasers. Think they'll get any use? And I realised that I need to design a power plant that'll go better for them. If I actually keep the lasers, I'll slap on a basic Tokamak reactor and call it good. For now I'm dealing with lower tech.

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Rakshasa class Fleet Scout    7,200 tons     573 Crew     1503.2 BP      TCS 144  TH 600  EM 0
4166 km/s     Armour 5-33     Shields 0-0     Sensors 55/55/0/0     Damage Control Rating 7     PPV 12
Maint Life 6.16 Years     MSP 913    AFR 59%    IFR 0.8%    1YR 41    5YR 618    Max Repair 210 MSP

Internal Confinement Fusion Drive E5M (6)    Power 100    Fuel Use 50%    Signature 100    Armour 0    Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 200,000 Litres    Range 100.0 billion km   (277 days at full power)

20cm C4 Far Ultraviolet Laser (2)    Range 256,000km     TS: 4166 km/s     Power 10-4     RM 5    ROF 15        10 10 10 10 10 8 7 6 5 5
CIWS-160 (3x6)    Range 1000 km     TS: 16000 km/s     ROF 5       Base 50% To Hit
Fire Control S04 128-4000 (1)    Max Range: 256,000 km   TS: 4000 km/s     96 92 88 84 80 77 73 69 65 61
Stellarator Fusion Reactor Technology PB-1 (2)     Total Power Output 12    Armour 0    Exp 5%

Active Search Sensor MR23-R1 (1)     GPS 210     Range 23.1m km    Resolution 1
Active Search Sensor MR200-R75 (1)     GPS 15750     Range 200.1m km    Resolution 75
Thermal Sensor TH5-55 (1)     Sensitivity 55     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  55m km
EM Detection Sensor EM5-55 (1)     Sensitivity 55     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  55m km

I'm sticking to 4000km/s+ because I like speed, though I realise it's hardly a blistering pace that these ships'll be traveling at. Just realised I oughta get some damage control, eh? Better start researching that.

If you'd like to see and haven't gleaned from the designs above, here are my two missile designs:
AMM:

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Missile Size: 1 MSP  (0.05 HS)     Warhead: 1    Armour: 0     Manoeuvre Rating: 26
Speed: 43200 km/s    Endurance: 1 minutes   Range: 3.6m km
Cost Per Missile: 1.37
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 1123.2%   3k km/s 364%   5k km/s 224.6%   10k km/s 112.3%
Materials Required:    0.25x Tritanium   0.87x Gallicite   Fuel x25
AMM:

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Missile Size: 6 MSP  (0.3 HS)     Warhead: 7    Armour: 0     Manoeuvre Rating: 31
Speed: 20000 km/s    Endurance: 50 minutes   Range: 60.0m km
Cost Per Missile: 4.275
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 620%   3k km/s 186%   5k km/s 124%   10k km/s 62%
Materials Required:    1.75x Tritanium   4.95x Gallicite   Fuel x2500
I'm eager to test these out because the custom system I'm in is surrounded by Swarm in one system and Precursors in the other two. I want to smash them all. (I'll be designing fighters for the Swarm, probably.) This means I'm working on a jump escort. Fortunately these ships aren't huge. Then I just have to deal with the problem of not having senior-enough officers to command them.

Thanks in advance for your input!

[Charlie Beeler]

Your ASM's sre way to slow for your drive tech.  It looks like your have too much space allocated to warhead and manouvering.

[Arwyn]

Overall, they arent bad at all. There are a couple of things that you could do to make them more effective though.

Fleet as a whole,
Your carrying a LOT of engineering sections. 4 to 5 years is a lot of maintenance to be lugging around. Fuel is going to run out first. If your intending them to operate away from a base for long periods of time, it makes sense, but if they arent going to be out for years at a time, its weight and space that might be better spent elsewhere.


The Kirkuk;
Other than the points mentioned above. Your FC being overpowered is actually a good thing. It gives your growth as well as burn through capability against enemy ECM. Thats a good thing against Precursors!

If the Kirkuk isnt your primary sensor platform, I would pull the passives. They are really to small to be effective. Your Thermal signature on that ship is going to get you spotted LONG before your passives are going to do you any good. If the Kirkuk is your primary sensor platform, you need to look at upgrading them.

Your active Sensor is definitely too short. You should be able to see out as far as the FC, or your FC being long ranged is wasted.

The Sky Larrisa;
1st, your AMM ships have 6 launcher and three FC? Are your going for 2 AMMs per enemy missile for your defense doctrine? If it is, then your combo works well with it, if your doing 3 per missile, your wasting a FC.

The Rakshasa
If you are going to have 4 res 1 sensors in the fleet on the Sky Larissas, then having one on the Rakshasa is a bit redundant. You may want to shave that off for some space savings.

With only two 20cm lasers firing every 15 seconds, the ships isnt going to be doing that well against other NPR's with beams ESPECIALLY the swarm! You might want to swap out one of them for a couple of 10cm lasers. Big slow beams are great for offensive punch, but having something firing at 5 seconds is very very important in most beam combats. Especially against small fast ships like the swarm. You need some distance to counter their mesons and a decent ROF.

The missiles:
Your AMM missiles are good. The speed is good, the agility and accuracy are both good. Good design. For ICF level drives though, you may want to tinker with them and see about nudging the speed up higher though.

You ASM's are WAY too slow for your tech level. 20,000 km/s is pokey for ICF tech, you should be at least at 30,000 or more with them. At size 6, and 20,000 km/s they are going to be pretty easy to spot and intercept. Thats not a good thing. Agility and range are ok, so you may want to look at shaving down the warhead a point and putting that into speed.

[Atlantia (OP)]

Thanks to both of you so far! I've made a bunch of changes, with more coming down the line.

Let's start with missiles. I've since researched the next level of missile upgrades, so now I'm ACTUALLY running ICF on my missiles. I've written in parentheses points-value ratio for each attribute.

Lightchaser AMM Mk II: (0.167-1, 0.573-2.865, 0.01-25, 0.25-20)

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Missile Size: 1 MSP  (0.05 HS)     Warhead: 1    Armour: 0     Manoeuvre Rating: 30
Speed: 57300 km/s    Endurance: 1 minutes   Range: 3.6m km
Cost Per Missile: 1.705
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 1719%   3k km/s 570%   5k km/s 343.8%   10k km/s 171.9%
Cometchaser ASM Mk II: (1-6, 2-10, 1-2500, 2-160)

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Missile Size: 6 MSP  (0.3 HS)     Warhead: 6    Armour: 0     Manoeuvre Rating: 37
Speed: 33300 km/s    Endurance: 30 minutes   Range: 59.9m km
Cost Per Missile: 5.5083
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 1232.1%   3k km/s 407%   5k km/s 246.4%   10k km/s 123.2%
Now, I built up a large stock of the first gen missiles, so I'll use those up before switching over to this gen or later ones.

And now for the ships: I've gotten up a couple tech levels of armour and increased slightly the armour on each ship, moved speeds up to 5000+, reduced maintenance life to around 2 years, maintained operational range at about a hundred billion km, dumped the weak passives on the combat ships, added one damage control unit to each. All are a little leaner and meaner.

Kirkuk:
At Arwyn's suggestion, I've upped the strength of the active sensor (took the one off the Rakshasa sensor ship, designed a new one for that).

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Kirkuk class Missile Cruiser    9,300 tons     818 Crew     1660.36 BP      TCS 186  TH 1000  EM 0
5376 km/s     Armour 7-39     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 13     PPV 36
Maint Life 2.12 Years     MSP 335    AFR 230%    IFR 3.2%    1YR 100    5YR 1501    Max Repair 147 MSP
Magazine 547   

Internal Confinement Fusion Drive E5M (10)    Power 100    Fuel Use 50%    Signature 100    Armour 0    Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 250,000 Litres    Range 96.8 billion km   (208 days at full power)

CIWS-160 (2x6)    Range 1000 km     TS: 16000 km/s     ROF 5       Base 50% To Hit
ASML-6 (6)    Missile Size 6    Rate of Fire 45
ASMFC 1 (50HS-98m, 20hs-15.7m) (2)     Range 98.0m km    Resolution 50
Cometchaser ASM Mk I (91)  Speed: 20,000 km/s   End: 35.7m    Range: 42.9m km   WH: 7    Size: 6    TH: 206 / 124 / 62

Active Search Sensor MR114-R50 (1)     GPS 7350     Range 114.3m km    Resolution 50

Sky Larrisa:
Realised that it's better to be safe than sorry in terms of launchers-to-FC ratio, made it 3-1. I don't need to worry about missile shortages.

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Sky Larrisa class Missile Frigate    7,350 tons     493 Crew     1422.36 BP      TCS 147  TH 800  EM 0
5442 km/s     Armour 7-33     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 13     PPV 6
Maint Life 1.82 Years     MSP 363    AFR 144%    IFR 2%    1YR 138    5YR 2067    Max Repair 210 MSP
Magazine 517   

Internal Confinement Fusion Drive E5M (8)    Power 100    Fuel Use 50%    Signature 100    Armour 0    Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 200,000 Litres    Range 98.0 billion km   (208 days at full power)

CIWS-160 (2x6)    Range 1000 km     TS: 16000 km/s     ROF 5       Base 50% To Hit
AMML-1 (6)    Missile Size 1    Rate of Fire 10
AMMFC 1 (Missile-3m) (2)     Range 27.7m km    Resolution 1
Lightchaser AMM Mk I (517)  Speed: 43,200 km/s   End: 1m    Range: 2.5m km   WH: 1    Size: 1    TH: 374 / 224 / 112

Active Search Sensor MR23-R1 (1)     GPS 210     Range 23.1m km    Resolution 1
Rakshasa:
Removed the redundant Res 1 sensor, upped the range of the ship sensor.

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Rakshasa class Fleet Scout    4,700 tons     315 Crew     938 BP      TCS 94  TH 500  EM 0
5319 km/s     Armour 6-24     Shields 0-0     Sensors 55/55/0/0     Damage Control Rating 12     PPV 0
Maint Life 2.57 Years     MSP 249    AFR 88%    IFR 1.2%    1YR 53    5YR 792    Max Repair 210 MSP

Internal Confinement Fusion Drive E5M (5)    Power 100    Fuel Use 50%    Signature 100    Armour 0    Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 150,000 Litres    Range 114.9 billion km   (250 days at full power)

CIWS-160 (3x6)    Range 1000 km     TS: 16000 km/s     ROF 5       Base 50% To Hit
Active Search Sensor MR200-R75 (1)     GPS 15750     Range 200.1m km    Resolution 75
Thermal Sensor TH5-55 (1)     Sensitivity 55     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  55m km
EM Detection Sensor EM5-55 (1)     Sensitivity 55     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  55m km
What say you all? And thanks again for the input!

[Arwyn]

Those look substantially better, and your speed came up considerably as well.

[Atlantia (OP)]

I sent them against three Precursor ships and took heavy damage, though I didn't lose any ships to the missiles themselves (even though my PD was overwhelmed by the waves of 25-30 missiles. Fortunately, I ran them dry. Need more AMM ships, at least double.). After the missiles were all gone, I accidentally hit 5 Days instead of something reasonable, so I got in ramming distance and lost three ships to ramming. Ugh. Well, at least I beat them and liberated one system.

[TheDeadlyShoe]

Personally; increase the speed of the fleet scouts still further with additional engines. 5000 km/s really isnt that fast for ICF vessels - 1 engine per 1000 tons is usually my baseline slow speed for military ships.  If you look at NPR designs, they tend towards  1.2-1.5 engines per 1000 tons.  NPR ships are what you need to outrun, but right now your fleet scout is basically only going to be able to run away from Ion Engine-tech NPRs, maybe Magneto-plasmas.  I do not think it is too much to double the current number of engines on it, if you intend on it to ever do detached duty VS staying with the fleet in Empire State formation.

Now, I built up a large stock of the first gen missiles, so I'll use those up before switching over to this gen or later ones.

I'm always tempted to do this, but I find in practice its best to use the latest missiles you have stocks to arm your combat group.  Newer missiles equals more efficiency equals less ships lost.  You can always use the old missiles for PDCs and groups on picket/defense duty.

[Charlie Beeler]

Personally I tend to keep ASM's with around 50% MSP used for engine, 25% for warhead, and the rest balanced between fuel and maneuverability for best hit chance.  Your missiles should be able to reach 50,000 kps with a slightly smaller warhead and still have a reasonable chance to hit fast warships and still have have kind of range they currently have.

[Hawkeye]

One thing to consider: You are mounting a lot of CIWS in ships, that are aparently intended to work in a fleet.
If you could replace every two CIWS with a single Pd-turret, your fleet would have PD coverage of 9 turrets (4 Kirkuk, 4 Sky Larissa, 1 Rakshasa), as compared to the two/three CIWS each ship mounts individually.
CIWS only protects the ship it is mounted on, turrets protect the entire fleet!

Note: Having a CIWS on the Rakshasa is ok, as it is your sensor ship and will be a prime target for the enemy.

[Atlantia (OP)]

One thing to consider: You are mounting a lot of CIWS in ships, that are aparently intended to work in a fleet.
If you could replace every two CIWS with a single Pd-turret, your fleet would have PD coverage of 9 turrets (4 Kirkuk, 4 Sky Larissa, 1 Rakshasa), as compared to the two/three CIWS each ship mounts individually.
CIWS only protects the ship it is mounted on, turrets protect the entire fleet!

Oh really? Thanks! I didn't know that! All righty, laser-based PD for the next generation!

[blue emu]

Assuming roughly equal tech levels, Gauss PD is more effective than Laser PD, in my experience.

[Thiosk]

Gauss has the added bonus of not requiring reactors.  I won't use them for offensive weapons, generally, sticking to lasers there.  I've not gone with meson, PB, carronade, or rail for offensive weapons yet-- however another civ that I conquered did go for those, so maybe I'll be giving one or two of them a try soon.

[Arwyn]

In my current game, PD is all Gauss, since I had that and railguns.

In my last few games, it was a mix.
AMM for distance
12cm laser turrets for mid range (area defense)
Gauss for point blank (final defensive fire)

Once you get the 12cm lasers to 5 second fire times, they make good offensive/defensive weapons, and they have a lot more range than the Gauss.

The way it was working AMM's would take down most of the incoming birds, once they hit around 70,000 the lasers would open up, at 30,000 the Gauss would finish them off. Worked very well.

The trick was making sure that it took more than one 5 second impulse for the enemy missiles to cross the engagement threshold. Gauss are so short ranged, they are only going to get one shot. So, having the lasers there got an extra buffer.

[Thiosk]

The way it was working AMM's would take down most of the incoming birds, once they hit around 70,000 the lasers would open up, at 30,000 the Gauss would finish them off. Worked very well.

So *most* is the question I have-- what settings do you use to get AMM to *just* thin the pack?  Generally, i've seen two situations:

1:  I have enough AMM.  The AMM saturate incomings and the missiles are destroyed 3-4 million km from my fleet.
2:  I do not have enough AMM.  The AMM clean out the front edge of the incoming salvos, and are then expended.  The rest of the missiles come in at full force, and are too much for just my beam defense, saturating beams and striking home.

My solution so far has been two fold:  First, I never even bother to turn on the AMM unless there are scary quantities of incoming.  Second, one idea I've recently had is to get the AMMs to start heading out at less than their maximum range, with only 1-2 amms per missile.  The idea being that they won't manage to hit everything-- they aren't supposed to-- thus saving both additional missiles for later parts of the salvos and enabling the beam defense to pick up the slack.

I havn't found an alien angry enough to allow me to test this idea.

[TheDeadlyShoe]

Basically you run 1 AMM/missile at ranges that get you enough repeat attacks to do like 60-80% kill rate on incoming.  The primary downside of a thin-the-herd strategy is that if your AMMs are slower than the incoming missiles you will suffer a lot of wastage on the interdiction - faster missiles move first, so if your AMMs are slower then the incoming missiles will hit the fleet before the last launched AMMs do.

Another option, depending on incoming, is to activate 1 AMM ship at a time on the theory that a single ship cant handle the incoming and will generate leakers.