Calling all Ship Inspecters!

[voknaar (OP)]

So in my play around game I've encountered a NPR (I assume since it has a pop on a planet i had my eye on colonising) and I've just detected large numbers of signatures in orbit and while not too concerning a few minutes later i discover 17 TH:50 Sig's  directly behind my poor geosurvey ship. Luckily moving 2500km/s while the survey ship is chugging along at about 2800km/s ish. They are only just under 750k km directly behind so my assumption they are missiles moving embarrassingly slow or ships moving slower than my geosurvey. If they are ships I'm assuming they are beam ships due to them closing in.

Anyway thats the situation. I can already see it heading south for the poor fellas. Now its time for me to design a missile ship to shoot chocolate rainbows and happy warm feelings in the form of radioactive explosive goodness.


this is the initial design i have at the moment I'm looking for suggestions on how to improve it. Its to serve as the long range offencive punch of a list of designs. I've yet to build any further designs to accompany it.

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Victory class Missile Cruiser    14,650 tons     1194 Crew     2443.76 BP      TCS 293  TH 600  EM 300
4095 km/s     Armour 5-53     Shields 10-400     Sensors 18/32/0/0     Damage Control Rating 8     PPV 30
Annual Failure Rate: 214%    IFR: 3%    Maint Capacity 834 MSP    Max Repair 80 MSP    Est Time: 2.62 Years
Magazine 964   

Ion Engine E8 (M) (20)    Power 60    Fuel Use 80%    Signature 30    Armour 0    Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 400,000 Litres    Range 61.4 billion km   (173 days at full power)
Gamma R400/16 Shields (5)   Total Fuel Cost  80 Litres per day

Size 6 Missile Launcher (5)    Missile Size 6    Rate of Fire 90
Missile Fire Control FC108-R50 (70%) (M) (5)     Range 108.6m km    Resolution 50

Active Search Sensor MR36-R50 (70%) (M) (1)     GPS 3200     Range 36.2m km    Resolution 50
Thermal Sensor TH3-18 (M) (1)     Sensitivity 18     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  18m km
EM Detection Sensor EM4-32 (70%) (M) (1)     Sensitivity 32     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  32m km

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes 
I should have most of the basics covered, but I'll let the techsperts give it the green light for production

[Arwyn]

First couple of things;

1) What is the range of your current missiles?
2) Your missile fire control seriously outranges your ability to actually see targets (FC range is 108m k/m, Sensors are 36m k/m)
3) Your launchers are very slow at 90 seconds to reload.
4) Its better to have bigger Thermal Sensors over EM detection sensors

The rest of the ship looks pretty good. Your speed is good for the engine tech, maint is very good, fuel is average.

Recommendations;
1) I would recommend shrinking your missiles down to something that has a slightly better rate of fire, like size 4 or so. It also lets you pack more tubes, which is important if the NPR has any sort of anti-missile capability. It also improves your reload rate. Also lets you pack more missiles. When it comes to missile boats, more ammo = better.
2) Add more missile tubes, 5 for a cruiser is pretty small.
3) Spend some RP on improving your missile reload rates.
4) Swap the passive thermal and EM sensors. If you want one bigger, go with Thermal over EM.
5) Having a little extra range on the fire control is good if the NPR has ECM, but 3 times the range of your active sensors is too much. Downsize the sensor, it will save you crew, minerals, and space.
6)

[Erik L]

Also, if you send out this ship from the yards as is, the magazines will be empty. You should click the Ordnance/Fighters tab on the class design screen and specify a loadout. Thus when the ship is built, or in a fleet given the "Load ordnance at colony" command, it will have its magazines topped off.

Another thing you should do in fleet composition at least is never assume the enemy is lower tech than you. Prepare for the worst as best you can. Then when you are a number of levels beyond them, it is a pleasant surprise. Rather than the other way around and being a nasty shock.

As for the contacts you saw, based on my own designs, your pursuers could possibly be other survey ships.

[Brian Neumann]

Another place you can save some money/space is with your electronics.  To save money, don't include the protection (70%) from being burned out with a microwave weapon.  Your shields will also protect you from the microwaves, and as far as the active sensors go you only need to have 1 working in your fleet for all of your ships to be able to shoot.  I would leave it on the fire control as losing that does make your ship toothless.  One fire control for every 5 missiles is usually a good balance, just make sure you have at least 2 so you can split your fire against small stuff, and against damage leaving you with no fire control working.
Also, your resolution sucks for most purposes. Very few ships are going to be in that size range.  Usually it will be gunboat range (16-20) and then something closer to 100+ in size.  It would be better to have 3 active sensors, one sized for missiles (res 1) and about 2-3 hs in size, the second also in the 2-3 hs but with a resolution of 16, the third with a resolution 200+  This one needs to be able to see about 1.5 times your missiles range.  The extra sight allows you to be moving away from your target while the missile closes and still allow you to maintain targeting.  You can probably make room for all of this by removing most of your extra fire control, put in 1 fire control for resolution 1 so you can fire pd missiles out of your bigger launchers at a reasonable range.  Losing 2 salvo's of offensive missiles can give you 8-12 counter missile salvo's depending on the size launcher you end up using.  I personally like the size 4 launcher as that is a fairly versitile size.

Good Luck
Brian

[voknaar (OP)]

This is the missile I designed for the launcher

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Missile Size: 6 MSP  (0.3 HS)     Warhead: 8    Armour: 0     Manoeuvre Rating: 13
Speed: 16700 km/s    Endurance: 37 minutes   Range: 37.6m km
Cost Per Missile: 3.7417
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 217.1%   3k km/s 65%   5k km/s 43.4%   10k km/s 21.7%
Materials Required:    2x Tritanium   1.8167x Gallicite   Fuel x2500
I've yet to build either the ordinance or the ship. It'll likely have 2 or more other ships such as AMM ships and beam armed ships. I'll add more designs for critic as i make them.

I made the missile firecon as it was because at the time I thought I would need to have sensors capable of targeting incoming missiles, essentially being a FC for AMM designed ships, its been corrected. My current EM sensor tech is higher than thermal. The EM tech in the design was the latest available, while the Thermal sensor is both smaller and less sophisticated. Thermal Sensors is in the Que at the moment after Max Tracking bonus is done.  I have a poor missile reload rate of 2. I've encountered this NPR rather early in my game with no military forces whatsoever in play.

[Arwyn]

Looking at the missile, you probably want to review that as well. The missile is big, slow, and has poor maneuverability.

The big thing would be reducing you warhead a bit and getting a larger engine in the missile. This serves two purposes, it increases speed, and increases your chances to hit.

65% chance to hit a 3km/s is pretty poor, you definitely want to push that up as much as you can.

[Arwyn]

Just to give you an idea, here is a similar sized cruiser from one of my games with Ion tech engines.

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Napoleon class Cruiser    14,500 tons     1266 Crew     2622.6 BP      TCS 290  TH 315  EM 900
3103 km/s     Armour 6-52     Shields 30-300     Sensors 55/55/0/0     Damage Control Rating 19     PPV 48
Annual Failure Rate: 186%    IFR: 2.6%    Maint Capacity 1017 MSP    Max Repair 150 MSP    Est Time: 2.21 Years
Flag Bridge    Magazine 1128   

Applied Dynamics Ion Engine (15)    Power 60    Fuel Use 60%    Signature 21    Armour 0    Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 300,000 Litres    Range 62.1 billion km   (231 days at full power)
Delta R300/15 Shields (12)   Total Fuel Cost  180 Litres per day

CIWS-160 (1x6)    Range 1000 km     TS: 16000 km/s     ROF 5       Base 50% To Hit
Hunter ASM6 Missile Launcher (8)    Missile Size 6    Rate of Fire 40
Oberest Forest Missile Fire Control (2)     Range 124.7m km    Resolution 100
Hasta ASM6 (188)  Speed: 30,000 km/s   End: 33.3m    Range: 60m km   WH: 8    Size: 6    TH: 110 / 66 / 33
Missile to hit chances are vs targets moving at 3000 km/s, 5000 km/s and 10,000 km/s

Rollins Hitech M92 Search Sensor (1)     GPS 8400     Range 92.4m km    Resolution 100
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




[voknaar (OP)]

So do you think I should go for a smaller launcher with faster reload? I've been having difficulty in getting the TH chances higher than what they are. Add agility and the chance goes down add engine power, range is greatly reduced etc. I'll have another fiddle and see if theres a way to get these missiles working for me

With half the warhead strength gone (space dumped into engine) the missile has higher hit chance with less damage. Still trying to keep to the limit of size 6 for the already designed launcher.

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Missile Size: 6 MSP  (0.3 HS)     Warhead: 4    Armour: 0     Manoeuvre Rating: 15
Speed: 20000 km/s    Endurance: 31 minutes   Range: 37.5m km
Cost Per Missile: 3.125
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 300%   3k km/s 90%   5k km/s 60%   10k km/s 30%
Materials Required:    1x Tritanium   2.55x Gallicite   Fuel x2500


This next design is a little smaller but still has similar to hit chances

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Missile Size: 4 MSP  (0.2 HS)     Warhead: 4    Armour: 0     Manoeuvre Rating: 16
Speed: 17000 km/s    Endurance: 33 minutes   Range: 33.7m km
Cost Per Missile: 2.2833
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 272%   3k km/s 80%   5k km/s 54.4%   10k km/s 27.2%
Materials Required:    1x Tritanium   1.4433x Gallicite   Fuel x1500


[Erik L]

Most AMM are size 1. While you can fire them out of larger launchers, the best RoF is out of a size 1 launcher.

[voknaar (OP)]

Most AMM are size 1. While you can fire them out of larger launchers, the best RoF is out of a size 1 launcher.

The above designs are Anti ship missiles by intention. My missile tech is extremely poor due to being only a few years in with no MK research specialist and only at randomly generated prebrought techs in this area.  praying for a decent scientist to turn up for work one day soon. I havn't progressed yet in my game I'm wanting to learn enough about the warship design aspect get them building right away.

I'm also having more immediate conserns due to me living in Christchurch at the moment which is a disaster zone at the moment.

[Brian Neumann]

You do not need to have a specialist to reasearch tech in a particular field.  The benifit is that their reasearch bonus is four times greater in their specialty.  If you want some more tech in missiles just take the best scientist you have and assign them to reasearch the missile tech.  Most early techs are fairly cheap, and will have a major impact on your capabilities.  You probably will want at least missile reload rate 3, warhead size x4 and matching agility.  This will give you some decent starting missiles that will have a mutch better chance of hitting things.

Good Luck
Brian

[Peter Rhodan]

This is my first time really study the forums - I normally favour fast ships much more than any of you guys - interesting
I have always gone for a ship rather than a weaponed up one. . .   hmmmmm

[Narmio]

This is my first time really study the forums - I normally favour fast ships much more than any of you guys - interesting
I have always gone for a ship rather than a weaponed up one.  .  .    hmmmmm

With only Ion engine level tech, like the ships in this thread, it's pretty hard to get faster than about 6kk on ships, 9kk on facs and 12kk on fighters.  And even that is quite a significant engine percentage - I think around 50-65%.

If I'm using beams offensively, I'll have ships with engine percentages around 55-70, saving weight by cutting down on things like shields.  Most of the time, though, I'll use missiles for the bulk of my offense and have engine percentages around 40.  The saved weight goes into shields and magazine space.