Hello everyone!

I've been browsing forum for quite some time, found most answers I've been looking for, but just one thing bugs me: can you spy on precursors? So far my attemps with espionage teams on their listening posts have proven ineffective. Do espionage require population present on the colony?

Great game btw, thumbs up Steve

Yeah,my Drive and sensors are most advance rather than others in my Research plan-field.

Just because r from many battle experience: speed-sensors are main weapon in Missiles tactic.
And sure are from 90 years in campaign.

F-92 B class Fighter-bomber    380 tons     24 Crew     290.6 BP      TCS 7.6  TH 36  EM 0
19736 km/s     Armour 1-4     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 0     PPV 3.6
Annual Failure Rate: 11%    IFR: 0.2%    Maint Capacity 48 MSP    Max Repair 180 MSP    Est Time: 1.65 Years
Magazine 24    

FTR Solid Core Anti-matter Drive E375 (1)    Power 150    Fuel Use 3750%    Signature 36    Armour 0    Exp 100%
Fuel Capacity 20,000 Litres    Range 2.5 billion km   (35 hours at full power)

FTR Sidewinder-2 WingBox (12)    Missile Size 2    Hangar Reload 15 minutes    MF Reload 2.5 hours
AS FTR Missile Fire Control FC120-R18 (50%) (1)     Range 64.8m km    Resolution 18
AS Sidewinder 2 T2 (12)  Speed: 80,000 km/s   End: 30m    Range: 144m km   WH: 8    Size: 2    TH: 533 / 320 / 160

Missile to hit chances are vs targets moving at 3000 km/s, 5000 km/s and 10,000 km/s

This design is classed as a military vessel for maintenance purposes
This design is classed as a fighter for production and combat purposes

This dastardly swift silence boat r most deadly around into space ever see.
12 Sidewinder with Warhead 8 are a huge power in a single shot.And when u launch 30 fighters are very hard to beat'em.

Well, my two cents.

Fighters are _very_ small. This, in turn, means they are _very_ hard to detect at longer range. To see a 300t fighter at a distance of 25 million km, you need a 2.000t, res-6 active sensor (at sensor strength 10, about half that at sensor strength 21). Arming fighters with long range missiles is deadly to most opponents (they´ll never see it coming)
Fighters are build by your industry, freeing the shipyards for other ships
Fighters are easy to replace (you need a carrier to bring them to the front lines though)
While the fighters do battle, your carrier can sit at a safe distance instead of being in the thick of it an risk them being shot.

When they _do_ get shot at, they tend to die in droves
The salvo an individual fighter can launch is pathetic, so you have to have a lot of them.
Fighters usually use box launchers, therfore no staying power
In a prolonged war, fuel may become an issue

i feel like a right noob considering my first frigate is 11 490 tons and you guys are talking about 10 000 battleships

It is all a matter of perspective. Some people call 12k tons a frigate. To me, that is a cruiser. A frigate is in the 4500 ton range. There is no "right" way to designate a specific tonnage to a ship class.

What is the techno babble reason for rail guns and gauss weaponry to be poo?

I get why meson, microwave and laser are poo at long ranges, they loose cohesion with distance. A rail and gauss shouldn't be loosing velocity, and the mathematical interception models shouldn't be to hard to do, especially if they can calculate them for missiles.

I don´t realy know, but my guess would be: Effective range, not range per se (they don´t loose damage over distance, just have shorter range than lasers)

Both, gauss and railguns use a "bullet" which moves at less than lightspeed, so hitting a target over several lightseconds is just so much harder. Missiles, on the other hand, have their on-board-guidance. They follow the target like our fire-and-forget missiles today (think Hellfire or Harpoon) so they can compensate for the targets manouver during the flight.

Say, you are shooting at a target two lightseconds (600.000km) out.
Your target is a spherical spaceship 100m in diameter.
Your target can accelerate at 100g.

If you are using a laser, it takes the beam 2 seconds to reach the target.
After those 2 seconds, your target can be anywhere in a "circle" with a radius of 2000m, so a single shot has a chance to hit of 1 to (2000m / 100m)^2 = 1/400
If a railgun "bullet" moves at 50% lightspeed, the chance is only 1/4th of this.

Hm, thinking of this, realisticly, we probably shouldn´t be able to hit anything at 1+ lightsecond without internal guidance