My first combat ships.

[MrAnderson (OP)]

Well, I haven't designed any military ships that I'd like to call "Successful". That being said, I'd like a bit of help with these designs before I embarrass myself and am forced to write about it in my fiction. I am obviously at ion techlevel, and any errors of things I could do better would be nice to know.

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Anubis class Missile Cruiser    7,400 tons     647 Crew     892.4 BP      TCS 148  TH 600  EM 0
4054 km/s     Armour 3-33     Shields 0-0     Sensors 30/12/0/0     Damage Control Rating 3     PPV 23
Maint Life 3.06 Years     MSP 226    AFR 146%    IFR 2%    1YR 36    5YR 543    Max Repair 30 MSP
Magazine 599    

Ion Engine E10 (10)    Power 60    Fuel Use 100%    Signature 60    Armour 0    Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 300,000 Litres    Range 73.0 billion km   (208 days at full power)

S5 ASM 150S (4)    Missile Size 5    Rate of Fire 150
S1 AMM Launcher 30S (3)    Missile Size 1    Rate of Fire 30
Missile Fire Control FC12-R18 (1)     Range 12.2m km    Resolution 18
AMM FC2-R1 (1)     Range 2.9m km    Resolution 1

Thermal Sensor TH5-30 (1)     Sensitivity 30     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  30m km
EM Detection Sensor EM2-12 (1)     Sensitivity 12     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  12m km

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes

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Mercury class Jump Tender    6,000 tons     579 Crew     1320.8 BP      TCS 120  TH 360  EM 0
3000 km/s    JR 3-50     Armour 2-29     Shields 0-0     Sensors 30/12/0/0     Damage Control Rating 7     PPV 0
Maint Life 2.56 Years     MSP 963    AFR 41%    IFR 0.6%    1YR 206    5YR 3090    Max Repair 900 MSP

J9000(3-50) Military Jump Drive     Max Ship Size 9000 tons    Distance 50k km     Squadron Size 3
Ion Engine E10 (6)    Power 60    Fuel Use 100%    Signature 60    Armour 0    Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 150,000 Litres    Range 45.0 billion km   (173 days at full power)

Thermal Sensor TH5-30 (1)     Sensitivity 30     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  30m km
EM Detection Sensor EM2-12 (1)     Sensitivity 12     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  12m km

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes

Edit: Just after posting this, I realized the fire controls... or lack of them. My bad, it's fixed now.

[Beersatron]

You need active sensors to go with the fire controls, same resolution and range is normally a good way of building them.

I personally would not put both ASM and AMM on the one ship, your throw weight isn't that great in ASMs and you are only going to be able to intercept one salvo at a time with 3 missiles.

Have you got missile designs?

[Iridium]

I couldn't help but notice your jump tender is only 6000 tons with a 9000 ton capable jump drive.   Sadly, the way jumping works, this will only provide jump capability to ships of 6000 tons or less.   The jump ship can bring other vessels with it up to it's own mass, regardless of how powerful the drive is.   It's best to fill out the tender with other useful equipment/armor, if you are aiming towards an exploration type jump ship you can equip it with very large passive sensors, maybe a couple of missile tubes for launching drones/probes.

[Nathan_]

Ok, first off you don't have an active sensor for either of your launchers, thats the big one, no actives no shooty. don't build a big one on your main combatants, size one is fine for them. second divide capabilities up as much as possible, That one missile cruiser should probably be several different ships, a collier, a sensor platform, an ASM ship, and an AMM ship.

Engine Design: You should harmonize the engine tonnage on your ships, they will likely travel together, so having an extra slow ship is going to hurt.

Maintenence is kinda sparse if you want to defend a jump point, otherwise that is ok. EM sensors seem to be built into active sensors, so you don't need a passive EM sensor suite.

finally 6000 is too big for your first military ships, keep them around 2-4k.

[Theokrat]

EM sensors seem to be built into active sensors, so you don't need a passive EM sensor suite.

Wait, are you sure about this?

[Steve Walmsley]

EM sensors seem to be built into active sensors, so you don't need a passive EM sensor suite.

EM sensors are part of active sensor design because they are the 'listen' side of the ping and listen function of active sensors. They don't function as regular EM sensors though. You still need to provide those separately.

Steve

[Zook]

Your cruiser has magazines for 30 salvos (4 launchers x5 MSP), or maybe 25 plus the AMMs. Sometime ships don't last ong enough to fire all that ammo. Especially since your reload rate is 1, i.e. ROF 150. That's the biggest drawback.

And your huge FC has a resolution of 18 - that's a 900-ton gunboat you can target perfectly at 12m km, while there's probably a 4000-ton destroyer 40m km away and you can't shoot at him.

[TheDOC]

For FCs the best thing i can think about is having 2 different, one with standard resolution and one for detecting small FACs and/or fighters, so you can fight efficiently against both.  Obviously you can split the sensors between 2 ships.

For this design i suggest less missile capacity and maybe some more supplies, either add some engineering spaces or an MSB.  I guess this is a mix between a scout and a cruiser, so i would suggest keeping the AMM and take off the ASM, but if you're gonna use this as a light cruiser you should keep ASM.  However, i suggest designing a Light Cruiser and arm this new class with ASM.

Also, that RoF is POOR for the ASM.  Research ASAP faster reloads.

For an AMM i suggest one with 2. 5m range and littlest warhead as possible, keep the value on 1.  Ex if you have basic tech your warhead strenght is 0. 5 HS = 1 WH.  My AMM is a 2-Size (yeah i know AMM should be S1) with 0. 5 WH 0. 5 Engine 0. 1 Fuel and 0. 9 Agility, all with basic tech (i have Thermo-Nuclear Engines).  Still, it has 8,9 Million range, which is un-needed.  I'm gonna develop the B-version with less fuel (0. 03/0. 04) and less warhead from new tech (0. 34) and design new launchers for S1, with a 0. 34/0. 32/0. 04/0. 30 balance.