The Nullan are a happy little race of fuzzy methane breathers, who share a collective consciousness (hive mind.) Their homeworld, Nebulon, is located in the middle of a level 4 nebula, and home to nearly 2.5 billion hard-working Nullan (I got a bit lucky in system/world gen.)
As a rule, all of their ships are fast and heavily armored, to deal with the large amount of dust within their system. The nebula is expansive, containing at least nineteen nearby systems, and most of their colonies are built within its comforting haze. Only recently did they expand outside of its confines, to a system called Sil-Gamir, rich in mineral resources. Exploration of the outside systems proved somewhat of a shock for the agoraphobic little Nullan, and you can imagine their surprise upon discovering an alien race one jump point from Sil-Gamir.
-- Contact: thermal(warm).
Quizzical-mood"interested? Large. Four ships(eggs).
Quizzical-mood"suprised? More? Small, unarmored ships(eggs)? Very fast. Very many. Approaching. Unmanned.
Quizzical-mood"apprehensive? ... Friendly? --
At which point the first wave of enemy missiles impacted with the geosurvey ship.
The Nullan sat, stunned, for five seconds, until the next wave impacted, blasting through the armor, and the ship exploded.
Horrified, the remaining survey fleet immediately stopped everything they were doing and raced towards the Sil-Gamir jump point at full speed. A few days later, their first battle fleet arrived and took up station on the friendly side of the point. It was a rag-tag collection of beam destroyers and gun boats. While they were the undesputed kings within the nebula, these ships were completely unprepared to fight against the horrific new weapons that had been used upon the Nullan. Their only hope was they might be able to focus enough damage on anything that came through the jump point to destroy it before it could fire back. In the meantime, the Collective began frantically turning its resources towards understanding and developing anti-missile technology. It would be a useless waste of resources within the nebula, but apparently was critical for survival outside of it.
As they improved their understanding, they began to make plans for the next-generation of combat ships, a fleet which would let them safely extend their reach into the vast expanse of open space.
(Note: I am playing with overhaul and maintenance off, so these are a little light on maintenance storage.)
First- their destroyer groups. These would be comprised of eight ships each- two Destroyers, two destroyer escourts, and four gunboats. Their primary purpose was defense of their colonies within the cloud of the nebula, where they could utilize the system of jump gates the Nullan had built.
Fang class Gunboat 7,000 tons 670 Crew 1245 BP TCS 140 TH 960 EM 150
6857 km/s Armour 6-32 Shields 5-300 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 1 PPV 31.28
Maint Life 0.78 Years MSP 111 AFR 392% IFR 5.4% 1YR 142 5YR 2136 Max Repair 77 MSP
Magneto-plasma Drive E8 (12) Power 80 Fuel Use 80% Signature 80 Armour 0 Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 100,000 Litres Range 32.1 billion km (54 days at full power)
Delta R300/20 Shields (2) Total Fuel Cost 40 Litres per day
Twin Gunboat R6/C4 Meson Cannon Turret (4x2) Range 60,000km TS: 16000 km/s Power 6-8 RM 6 ROF 5 1 1 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 0
PD Fire Control S04 32-16000 (4) Max Range: 64,000 km TS: 16000 km/s 84 69 53 37 22 6 0 0 0 0
Stellarator Fusion Reactor Technology PB-1 (4) Total Power Output 24 Armour 0 Exp 5%
Blasstumaam class Destroyer 13,300 tons 1525 Crew 2490 BP TCS 266 TH 1840 EM 300
6917 km/s Armour 6-50 Shields 10-300 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 11 PPV 70
Maint Life 0.19 Years MSP 117 AFR 1415% IFR 19.7% 1YR 607 5YR 9100 Max Repair 115 MSP
Magneto-plasma Drive E8 (23) Power 80 Fuel Use 80% Signature 80 Armour 0 Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 200,000 Litres Range 33.8 billion km (56 days at full power)
Delta R300/20 Shields (4) Total Fuel Cost 80 Litres per day
Particle Beam-4 (10) Range 150,000km TS: 6917 km/s Power 10-4 ROF 15 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4
Destroyer PB Fire Control S06 128-6000 (2) Max Range: 256,000 km TS: 6000 km/s 96 92 88 84 80 77 73 69 65 61
Destroyer Stellarator Fusion Reactor Technology PB-1 (9) Total Power Output 108 Armour 0 Exp 5%
Active Search Sensor MR9-R95 (1) GPS 1520 Range 9.4m km Resolution 95
The design of the Destroyer escourt was not yet completed, but would feature a more expansive sensor array, and additional point-defense mesons. For extra-nebular combat, a second class of Destroyer would add a jump engine that could take it, along with a destroyer and two gunboats, through a jump point. It would also remove the mesons- nowhere near fast enough to track missiles (despite the best efforts of the Nullan to develop the technology.) Instead, it would utilize the new Thorn Series Anti-Missile Missile:
Missile Size: 1 MSP (0.05 HS) Warhead: 1 Armour: 0 Manoeuvre Rating: 15
Speed: 51200 km/s Endurance: 1 minutes Range: 3.0m km
Cost Per Missile: 1.2283
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 768% 3k km/s 255% 5k km/s 153.6% 10k km/s 76.8%
The missile technology developed by the Nullan also opened up a new tactical possibility they had not considered before- fighters. Small, fast, unarmored ships. Completely useless within the nebula due to their poor armor, but outside of it, they might be a great tactical benefit. Thus they also imagined a new class of ship- a carrier. It would be accompanied by two additional escourts, based off the extra-nebular destroyer escourt, but without jump drives. Instead, the carrier itself could take these through the jump point.
Seguetuur class Carrier 27,350 tons (?) 1713 Crew 4122 BP TCS 547 TH 3760 EM 450
6873 km/s Armour 5-80 Shields 15-300 Sensors 36/36/0/0 Damage Control Rating 11 PPV 0
Maint Life 0.01 Years MSP 94 AFR 5984% IFR 83.1% 1YR 6800 5YR 102002 Max Repair 210 MSP
Flag Bridge Hangar Deck Capacity 10000 tons
Magneto-plasma Drive E8 (47) Power 80 Fuel Use 80% Signature 80 Armour 0 Exp 5%
(Under design- jump engine, unknown tonnage)
Fuel Capacity 500,000 Litres Range 41.1 billion km (69 days at full power)
Delta R300/20 Shields (6) Total Fuel Cost 120 Litres per day
Carrier Active Search Sensor MR168-R100 (1) GPS 21000 Range 168.0m km Resolution 100
Active Search Sensor MR5-R1 (1) GPS 96 Range 5.8m km Resolution 1
Thermal Sensor TH6-36 (1) Sensitivity 36 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 36m km
EM Detection Sensor EM6-36 (1) Sensitivity 36 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 36m km
The Seguetuur would also carry 24 fighters, broken into four combat wings of six each.
Sting class Fighter 310 tons 11 Crew 42.5 BP TCS 6.2 TH 53 EM 0
8548 km/s Armour 1-4 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 0 PPV 3
Maint Life 0 Years MSP 0 AFR 62% IFR 0.9% 1YR 3 5YR 41 Max Repair 11 MSP
FTR Magneto-plasma Drive E960 (1) Power 52.8 Fuel Use 9600% Signature 52.8 Armour 0 Exp 50%
Fuel Capacity 5,000 Litres Range 0.3 billion km (9 hours at full power)
Fighter Meson Cannon (1) Range 15,000km TS: 8548 km/s Power 3-3 RM 1.5 ROF 5 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Fire Control S01 24-3000 (FTR) (1) Max Range: 48,000 km TS: 12000 km/s 79 58 38 17 0 0 0 0 0 0
Fighter Stellarator Fusion Reactor Technology PB-1 (1) Total Power Output 3 Armour 0 Exp 5%
FTR Active Search Sensor MR0-R5 (1) GPS 11 Range 280k km Resolution 5
Every carrier group would always be accompanied by two additional extra-nebula destroyer groups, so the full battle group is comprised of 19 ships:
1x Carrier
2x Carrier Escourts
4x Beam Destroyers
8x Gunboats
4x Destroyer Escourts
Additionally, there will be several low-profile long range scout ships, utilizing passive-only sensors, and engines with 35% thermal emissions. Sacrificing the traditional armor for speed, they will be almost non-functional within the nebula, far too slow, but outside of it, they should help provide advanced threat warning and response.
Palintir class Scout 4,500 tons 430 Crew 925 BP TCS 90 TH 224 EM 240
7111 km/s JR 3-50 Armour 1-24 Shields 8-300 Sensors 80/80/0/0 Damage Control Rating 1 PPV 0
Maint Life 1.08 Years MSP 128 AFR 162% IFR 2.2% 1YR 110 5YR 1644 Max Repair 81 MSP
J4500(3-50) Military Jump Drive Max Ship Size 4500 tons Distance 50k km Squadron Size 3
Magneto-plasma Drive E7 Low Thermal (8) Power 80 Fuel Use 70% Signature 28 Armour 0 Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 100,000 Litres Range 57.1 billion km (93 days at full power)
Delta R300/20 Shields (3) Total Fuel Cost 60 Litres per day
Thermal Sensor TH10-80 (1) Sensitivity 80 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 80m km
EM Detection Sensor EM10-80 (1) Sensitivity 80 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 80m km
Although untested, the standard operating procedure for systems with known threats will be for the scouts to jump in-system and begin spreading out. They will be followed by the destroyer wings, and finally, the carrier, which should be able to remain far behind the fleet while still supporting them with its massive sensor array. Hopefully the AMM technology will be effective enough to allow the destroyers and gunboats to get within range of their targets.
(I don't really know, I've never built a whole beam-heavy fleet before...)
