How do you guys identify features of NPR ships?

[Iestwyn (OP)]

I've been having fun reading the Imperium playthrough posted by Steve. One of the things that impressed me was the way he took what looked (to me) like sparse sensor, weapon, and behavior data and determined a LOT about the enemy ships. I know he made the game and all, but it was still really cool to a noob like me.

How do you guys identify NPR ships? He was able not only to determine their role (geosurvey, scout, diplomacy, orbital defense), but detailed weapon profiles and even the strength of their active sensors. So what cues do you guys look for?

Thanks in advance!

[Kristover]

I know in my case, it is mostly by observing the behavior of the ships first and then looking at the weapons observed, movement speed, and the size of the vessels.  I'll give an example, I recently had 14 ships make a run at my home world - 3 large 165K ships, 4 25K ships that I hadn't seen previously, and 7 8K ships that I had seen before sporting gauss cannons and I previously assessed to be escort frigates.  The 25K ships quickly revealed themselves to be sporting 10 lasers (I categorized them as cruisers).  The 165K were too big and slow to be warships but given they were staying close to the rest of the ships and right before I started engaging with missiles broke off.  I categorized them as possible troop ships and after the battle, I managed to catch up and destroy one of them and when I salvaged the wreck, it had a troop bay in it.

Bottom Line:  Play a bit and you start seeing these patterns and you can make some reasonable guesses.

[Iestwyn (OP)]

Huh... That's really interesting. I guess that begs another question: does the AI design and command ships based on a standard set of roles? If so, do we know what they are?

[Steve Walmsley]

If you open up the Intelligence window, you can see all the data you have gained on alien ships. That includes speed, observed weapons, sensors, armour, ECM, etc., plus the last known status of each ship.

For example, here is known data on the Necron Ankh class.

[Iestwyn (OP)]

Well, either that's new from the last time I played or I was never as good as I thought I was. XD Either way, that's really useful! Does this window tie into the new ELINT modules? I'm not 100% sure I understand them yet.

Also, do NPRs use templates or roles when designing their ships? Or are you not at liberty to disclose that information?

[mostly_harmless]

About that Intelligence and Foreign Relations screen.  In mine, the details of the observed weaponry is always clipped, i. e.  I cannot read the whole line.  Is there a way to make this wider or export the list as text?

Thanks
Thomas

[db48x]

Well, either that's new from the last time I played or I was never as good as I thought I was. XD Either way, that's really useful! Does this window tie into the new ELINT modules? I'm not 100% sure I understand them yet.

I'm pretty sure he's salvaged a wreck of one of those, so he has quite a lot of information about them. Otherwise you get information about the weapons from observing them firing and hitting something, and about the sensors from observing their actives with your passives. That usually means engaging them in combat, but you can potentially also observe two NPRs fighting and gain intel that way.

Also, do NPRs use templates or roles when designing their ships? Or are you not at liberty to disclose that information?

I could be wrong, but I think that the auto-designed ships are done using the same design system as is used by the AI. This gives us a way to directly observe it.

From what Steve has said on the forums, the game has a list of strategic doctrines that the AI can choose from. Each doctrine informs the ship classes that the AI will design. For example, there might be a doctrine that combines gauss turrets with particle lances and puts them on large ships with shields, and another that uses lasers and missiles on small ships with just armor. I suspect that the doctrine defines a role for each of its ship classes which the AI uses to determine what it actually does with the ships after they are built.

Also, probably the spoilers have a single pre-set doctrine, rather than choosing randomly.

[Iestwyn (OP)]

I could be wrong, but I think that the auto-designed ships are done using the same design system as is used by the AI. This gives us a way to directly observe it.

From what Steve has said on the forums, the game has a list of strategic doctrines that the AI can choose from. Each doctrine informs the ship classes that the AI will design. For example, there might be a doctrine that combines gauss turrets with particle lances and puts them on large ships with shields, and another that uses lasers and missiles on small ships with just armor. I suspect that the doctrine defines a role for each of its ship classes which the AI uses to determine what it actually does with the ships after they are built.

Well, that's fascinating.

[Michael Sandy]

Getting an accurate read on the range on beam weapons is a little tricky, because you will only get information from a hit.  And if they miss because of fire control inaccuracies, you won't know what range they COULD hit at.  The best way to get data is to capture examples of the ships, of course.

I build a class of scouts that are basically nothing but a boosted engine and a fuel tank, and one of their jobs is to get an estimate of the range enemy weapons have.  I RP it that it is actually a sophisticated drone craft.

If you have a small stealthy scout shadowing the enemy fleet on passives, you can get an idea when they detect your fleet by when they change course in response to your fleet.  I strongly recommend sending in scouts WELL ahead of your fleet to gather information.  Weeks ahead, if possible.  You can also do stunts like turn on a noisy active sensor on a fast scout, close in, but out of the range they could engage such a small target, and then flee and observe when they lose interest.  That won't be an exact indication of the range it can detect the sensor, or if it was a planetary sensor outpost that detected the sensor or the mobile units.

If you CAN find out the exact range of the enemy missiles, then you can bleed them dry by simply having a faster ship duck into and out of that missile envelope.  Carefully and tediously.

[Black]

Also, probably the spoilers have a single pre-set doctrine, rather than choosing randomly.

I think that there might be some variation for spoiler designs as I encountered Precursor destroyers of various sizes and they have sometimes railguns and sometimes lasers but I never saw them use both in the same game.

[misanthropope]

butchering all hands aboard really streamlines the process, i find.