Aurora 4x
VB6 Aurora => Advanced Tactical Command Academy => Topic started by: Iranon on June 12, 2015, 03:43:07 AM
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At reasonable tech levels, I prefer 10cm Railguns. With very little tech investment, they have a higher output per ton than endgame Gauss cannons.
Putting the considerable weight savings (bulky weapons, turret gear and fire controls) into engines partially solves the accuracy issues, among other benefits.
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I don't think I've ever settled on one definitively. My TATO game had a mix of Gauss-based CIWS and 10cm lasers. Truth be told, I've never even considered mesons for AM-defence, though I'm sure I've used 10cm railguns for it because I've seen that on a few AARs and designs on the forum. It would be quite interesting, I think, to see a design utilising say, counter-missiles at extreme range, lasers at long range, railguns at medium range, and gauss at short range together.
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I've always had a soft spot for reduced sized laser batteries, even if they are completely ineffective at resisting sustained AMM fire.
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Well, I prefer it mixed. Gauss\100mm lasers for final defense fire, larger lasers for area defense, mesons for PDCs (because they don't have much choice), AMMs for long-range interception. Since they usually stay on the same level, I can't choose on which one I use more.
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I personally like meson's as they are a great backup weapon for close in defense. While they are short ranged, they still do better than railguns or gauss cannons, and their ability to ignore armor helps when enemy ships get to close. This is particularly important for jump point battles and battles within a nebula where the ranges tend to be short and rate of fire becomes important.
Brian
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I use Gauss turrets with good tracking speeds for everything except very fast dual purpose armed screens (which use railguns).
Even if railguns can get 5 times as much fire rate per ton, nothing beats the reliability of gauss turrets IMO. A beam point defense needs to work well on slower ships as well such as Capital ships and Carriers too, and that is not the case for railguns.
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I think that a combination of Gauss and Laser PD are the most efficient while Rail-Guns can be useful in certain situations but not as the main beam PD role.
Lasers are good since they can be used in so many different ways while Gauss are the best against smaller and faster missiles, lasers are better against larger, slower and more armored missiles.
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I have never really cared whether they are the best, but I use lasers simply because they fit in the double role of main beam attack(with piercing) and defense, as well as that they can easily be renamed to fit different scifi franchise roles.
For civils however I use a good amount of CIWS, as large ships can easily be covered with these things without any serious cost. For example, a TL5-6 freighter with 20 holds and 50% engines had 50 ciws which only used up 1.5% of the total mass and 4.5% of costs, but defended with 400 shots. With 50% targeting, some loss from targeting speed, but also some win from crew grade, that means around 150-200 missiles get blocked per interval. ...Complete immunization against missiles basically.
I do the same for military mothership role designs.(roughly one ciws per 25kt once they exceed 60kt)
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Mesons, because they're the only ones that work on PDCs, and because I like to use meson FACs/fighters I will be investing in the tech anyway. Also AMMs.
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I play with different tech types in different games. I kind of like pursuing rail gun tech, because they can be used as both beam offense and missile defense. With railguns, you really dont need to do CIWS research spending.
I use mesons for PDC's to skip the atmosphere, and then either laser/CIWS or railgun strategies depending on my mood.
Lasers are fun *pew pew* but by tonnage, rail guns seem to work much better.
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considering that sooner or later you will need to face really deep armor enemies I prefer piercing aspect of laser weapons any time
gauss for PD
if enemies were shield heavy rails cound be a good option
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early tech= railguns. They are hard to beat, high RoF, good damage, and decent targetting and range.
As tech progresses, I go to Gauss and Lasers. As the tech goes up, Gauss RoF becomes respectable, and the tracking tech increases make them increasingly useful. Lasers for the range, and the offense/defense capability.
I have randomed (tech generation) and wound up with Mesons. They do remarkably well, but suffer from the low RoF that lasers do.
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I use meson. Gives your invasion force an extra kick; double bonus for invasion and planetary defence. For all other ships my defence goes: ECM, shields, armour, then CIWS.
Against enemies with a much higher tech level than me I get destroyed.
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ciws is not solution for bigger fleet
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I love how varied the preferences are, with good reason for most.
Nevertheless, my own preference is quite clear:
Railguns can outperform Gauss weapons at all tech levels. Main question: "Do I have to make my ships unreasonably fast for railguns to be competitive?"
Initially, the answer is a definite "no, because early Gauss weapons are terrible".
Later, I can't quite justify the research investment into Gauss to gain a legitimate but not compelling option (more efficient if speed isn't valued much in itself)
When the effort to make Gauss weaponry competitive starts to look reasonable, I find I often have reasons other than PD efficiency to go for fast ships.
Lasers and Mesons seem quite weak in comparison, but I've employed them as multipurpose weapon to the near-exclusion of dedicated PD.
Turreted 15cm lasers do something against everything in beam range, and many things extremely well.
Mesons... have specific advantages which I found too specific on ships for the most part. However, they're a welcome option for PDCs.
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late game ASM can hit 100km/s easily
meanwhile you can push speed of ships to around 20km/s
non turreted weapon for PD is waste of time and effort in such scenario ;)
I had 140km/s 26 wh str size 5 asm in use around 2110 year with conventional start
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If I can't put it in a turret, it's not PD.
And CWIS is good for all ships, but only for the ship it's on. There's going to be leakers through your escorts, so the CIWS will hopefully clean those up.
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Maybe it's my relatively lack of experience with high-end tech... but this doesn't make sense to me.
Railguns should outperform the other non-gauss options. At worst: 4 times the volume of fire, 1/4 the tracking speed, with smaller fire controls and no need for bulky turret gear - still ahead.
And such a direct comparison would hint at incompetent design of a turretless ship, we should probably shift tonnage from weapons to engines increasing effective firepower.
I get that high-tech missiles are harder to shoot down for equal tech beam PD ships - FC, ship and turret speed scale more or less linearly with tech, missile speed more so because we'll make full use out of increased power multipliers while we'll hold back for ships (too thirsty).
Thing is, this should affect all beam tech equally. Yes, a low hit chance looks disconcerting... but what we should care about is expected number of hits.
As for PDs... I can understand it on something that's designed to operate alone, or a big fat target that we expect to get picked over other ships in the same location. Otherwise I see little point in a slightly more efficient point defence that will do nothing most of the time. "It'll take care of leakers" doesn't count if we could prevent leakers in the first place on the same budget.
Sorry if this seems confrontational... if I'm missing something I'd be thankful for being set straight.
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With probability, against missiles at your tracking speed or faster, 4x unturreted shots aren't as good. 4 shots at 25% to-hit gives you about a 30% chance to have a leaker, wheras one shot at 100% to-hit is a guaranteed hit. Railguns do better relatively against faster and slower missiles, and on elite ships.
I generally write off the anti-ship capability of point defense weapons, the range is just too short to be competitive unless you have a big advantage of speed and/or tech. When I do use railguns I generally use only smallest railgun whose range i can stomach in a ship-to-ship fight as the escort-type weapon.
To me the big advantage of CIWS is that it always works. Missile defense sensor destroyed? CIWS works. Just went through a jump? CIWS works. Point blank missile fire? CIWS works. It's also a pretty nominal investment research wise, you just need 11,000 RP to get the Gauss ROF 3 tech.
P.S. Missiles gaining speed faster than beams gain tracking speed is why the tracking bonus techs exist. I'm not sure if it mathematically cancels out, but it does ameliorate the problem.
P.P.S I do note that a 10CM railgun with launch velocity 1 and capacitor 1 has the hilariously low cost of 1, so it has great potential mounted as a PDC or orbital defense weapon en masse. I've usually used particle beams for that as anti-ship weapons, but the missile defense value of such a station would be hilarious.
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I'd also have to say that my answer to this is conditional.
I normally pick a couple of tech lines for weapons. A major one and a couple minor. This is usually a random choice. So I may end up with a major choice for plasma carronades, and minors in laser and missiles.
This means my point defense is going to be lasers.
I also don't allocate RP to the other tech lines until I encounter them via NPR or ruins.
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@ TheDeadlyShoe:
I get the probability behind that.
I know turrets can be ahead, but considering the overhead of turret gear and larger fire controls, we'd need a rather specific volume of incoming missiles at a rather specific speed range. Likewise, the reverse where turrets do worse than usual (high volume of fire, excessive tracking speed) should be rare against a competent opponent... but I've seen a few things from NPRs that made me scratch my head :)
On railgun calibre: I agree that 10cm railguns are generally the most useful ones. Larger often don't compare favourably to small lasers unless we have impressive capacitor tech.
In fact, I stick to 10cm railguns more than you do. For a limited anti-ship capability, I don't increase railgun size, I add limited laser armament.
if our speed and fire control irange s better than theirs, a single 15cm laser can give us flawless victories. If we take turn fire: 10cm railguns become much more useful in a knife fight if something else carves nice gashes. I don't discount them in the anti-ship role, but prefer not to have to use them that way.
On CIWS: If combat damage and losing crucial systems is a consideration, I'd rather add redundant sensors/FCs than CIWS and still risk losing most of my point defence.
Fortunately, low-tracking high-volume weapons makes FC redundancy cheaper as well.
That said, regular PD not working at point blank range (in final fire mode) and CIWS working during jump blindness were news to me, thanks for pointing that out.
@ Erik Luken:
Of course, RP considerations trump everyting else. I tend more towards picking a weird doctrine, then min/maxing ruthlessly in its implentation... but having certain lines of tech dormant until you discover them in foreign designs sounds interesting.
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@ Erik Luken:
Of course, RP considerations trump everyting else. I tend more towards picking a weird doctrine, then min/maxing ruthlessly in its implentation... but having certain lines of tech dormant until you discover them in foreign designs sounds interesting.
Of course, if the observed tech for example is a 10cm laser and I'm on 20cm gauss, I may not pick up the laser line because its perceived example is less than my tech :)
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early in the game when low tech rails face low tech missiles ( especialy power factor ) rails may be ok
but in a moment your speed power factor is max the gap between turreted and non turreted PD widens fast with tech progression
there are situations ( not only hipotetical - I faced them in game few times ) where even max tech turreted gausses have problems
railguns would be overcome much faster
I have no time now and have no game left in saves to compare tech 5 railguns
but lets compare quad r5 gauss turret with 50km tracking tech + 60% bonus tech ( 25-30hs aprox) on 15km/s ship and similar tech rails within same mass vs 100 100km/s salvo
and we will have winner
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For such a test the overall weight/cost should be equal I think, because personally I doubt I would use a gauss platform with the same speed as it would be needed for railguns.
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Just fooled around a bit with some designs (fairly high-tech), but even then a 15km/s railgun-ship with enough weapons to have the slightest chance to serve as PD needs tons of engines:
Railgun PD class Cruiser 15 000 tons 533 Crew 6050 BP TCS 300 TH 2250 EM 0
15000 km/s Armour 5-54 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 6 PPV 81
Maint Life 2.18 Years MSP 1512 AFR 300% IFR 4.2% 1YR 427 5YR 6412 Max Repair 281 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 12 months Spare Berths 2
300 EP Internal Fusion Drive (15) Power 300 Fuel Use 74.4% Signature 150 Exp 15%
Fuel Capacity 485 000 Litres Range 7.8 billion km (6 days at full power)
10cm Railgun V9/C3 (27x4) Range 75 000km TS: 15000 km/s Power 3-3 RM 9 ROF 5 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 0 0 0
Fire Control S01 37.5-50000 (1) Max Range: 75 000 km TS: 50000 km/s 87 73 60 47 33 20 7 0 0 0
Inertial Confinement Fusion Reactor Technology PB-1 (3) Total Power Output 3.6 Armour 0 Exp 5%
Inertial Confinement Fusion Reactor Technology PB-1 (3) Total Power Output 18 Armour 0 Exp 5%
Inertial Confinement Fusion Reactor 60 PB-1 (1) Total Power Output 60 Armour 0 Exp 5%
Active Search Sensor MR57-R1 (1) GPS 240 Range 57.6m km MCR 6.3m km Resolution 1
This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
The gauss-ship looks much better IMO:
Gauss PD class Cruiser 15 000 tons 382 Crew 4215 BP TCS 300 TH 750 EM 0
5000 km/s Armour 5-54 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 6 PPV 195.84
Maint Life 1.1 Years MSP 1054 AFR 300% IFR 4.2% 1YR 876 5YR 13144 Max Repair 331 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 12 months Spare Berths 0
300 EP Internal Fusion Drive (5) Power 300 Fuel Use 74.4% Signature 150 Exp 15%
Fuel Capacity 425 000 Litres Range 6.9 billion km (15 days at full power)
Quad Gauss Cannon R6-100 Turret 50k (6x24) Range 60 000km TS: 50000 km/s Power 0-0 RM 6 ROF 5 1 1 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 0
Fire Control S01 37.5-50000 (1) Max Range: 75 000 km TS: 50000 km/s 87 73 60 47 33 20 7 0 0 0
Active Search Sensor MR57-R1 (1) GPS 240 Range 57.6m km MCR 6.3m km Resolution 1
This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
Roughly same weigth of fire with much superior tracking. Even a slow railgun-ship looks better than the faster design:
Railgun PD 5k class Cruiser 15 000 tons 650 Crew 5252 BP TCS 300 TH 750 EM 0
5000 km/s Armour 5-54 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 3 PPV 171
Maint Life 1.19 Years MSP 656 AFR 600% IFR 8.3% 1YR 475 5YR 7129 Max Repair 240 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 12 months Spare Berths 0
300 EP Internal Fusion Drive (5) Power 300 Fuel Use 74.4% Signature 150 Exp 15%
Fuel Capacity 535 000 Litres Range 8.6 billion km (19 days at full power)
10cm Railgun V9/C3 (57x4) Range 75 000km TS: 12500 km/s Power 3-3 RM 9 ROF 5 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 0 0 0
Fire Control S00.2 37.5-12500 (1) Max Range: 75 000 km TS: 12500 km/s 87 73 60 47 33 20 7 0 0 0
Inertial Confinement Fusion Reactor Technology PB-1 (8) Total Power Output 48 Armour 0 Exp 5%
Inertial Confinement Fusion Reactor Technology PB-1 (3) Total Power Output 3.6 Armour 0 Exp 5%
Inertial Confinement Fusion Reactor 60 PB-1 (2) Total Power Output 120 Armour 0 Exp 5%
Active Search Sensor MR57-R1 (1) GPS 240 Range 57.6m km MCR 6.3m km Resolution 1
This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
Twice the guns for a bit less tracking speed.
But even without running any tests I can not see many high-tech battles were the rails look superior to me. Starting at 30km/s missile speed the gauss should be better.
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Are you seriously comparing these with 250000RP Gauss, Turret and and Fire Control techs and 40000RP engine tech? Of course that's not going to work out for railguns.
Even "balanced tech" is flattering for the Gauss ship, because someone focusing on railguns for PD may skip Gauss and Turret technology entirely and spend it on engines... which has all sorts of other benefits, wherever high speed isn't needed we save fuel.
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Kept even below the levels the Sneer suggested, but yes, the tech cost for the gauss are way higher. 3 techs needed for gauss turret vs. 1 for rails.
A more appropriate test might be a fixed TP (e.g. 1 million TP) for the complete design, thus the rail-ship should have better engines and targeting. But I think that at a certain level the gauss will still be better.
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K, time for a more realistic test.
1st test with 300k TP, ships have to have 5 armor, a range of 20bkm and a deployment time of 1 year as basic
parameters (and the engines have to be size 10, multiplier of 1.0, active sensors are identical).
Gauss:
Tribal class Cruiser 18 150 tons 357 Crew 2823.5 BP TCS 363 TH 1440 EM 0
3966 km/s Armour 5-61 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 7 PPV 153.75
Maint Life 1.15 Years MSP 681 AFR 376% IFR 5.2% 1YR 526 5YR 7895 Max Repair 226 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 12 months Spare Berths 1
160 EP Magneto-plasma Drive (9) Power 160 Fuel Use 72% Signature 160 Exp 10%
Fuel Capacity 1 450 000 Litres Range 20.0 billion km (58 days at full power)
Quad Gauss Cannon R3-100 Turret (5x16) Range 30 000km TS: 25000 km/s Power 0-0 RM 3 ROF 5
1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Fire Control S02 24-25000 (1) Max Range: 48 000 km TS: 25000 km/s 79 58 38 17 0 0 0 0 0 0
Active Search Sensor MR5-R1 (1) GPS 42 Range 5.9m km MCR 640k km Resolution 1
This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
Lets see what we can get with a similar BP using rails.
Tribal class Cruiser 15 250 tons 385 Crew 2857.6 BP TCS 305 TH 3200 EM 0
10491 km/s Armour 5-54 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 4 PPV 60
Maint Life 1.27 Years MSP 468 AFR 465% IFR 6.5% 1YR 305 5YR 4576 Max Repair 100 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 12 months Spare Berths 1
200 EP Internal Fusion Drive (16) Power 200 Fuel Use 54% Signature 200 Exp 10%
Fuel Capacity 950 000 Litres Range 20.8 billion km (22 days at full power)
10cm Railgun V3/C3 (20x4) Range 30 000km TS: 10491 km/s Power 3-3 RM 3 ROF 5 1 1 1 0 0
0 0 0 0 0
Fire Control S01 24-12500 (1) Max Range: 48 000 km TS: 12500 km/s 79 58 38 17 0 0 0 0 0 0
Magnetic Confinement Fusion Reactor Technology PB-1 (6) Total Power Output 60 Armour 0 Exp 5%
Active Search Sensor MR5-R1 (1) GPS 42 Range 5.9m km MCR 640k km Resolution 1
This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
The gauss is still better, even at equal tech/BP levels, the only disadvantage is the gauss needing a 20% larger shipyard. But since my TP usage might have been less than optimal for the railguns (too much emphasis on FC) lets add another level of engine tech (80k TP).
Tribal Mk2 class Cruiser 13 350 tons 350 Crew 2803.4 BP TCS 267 TH 3250 EM 0
12172 km/s Armour 5-50 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 3 PPV 60
Maint Life 1.04 Years MSP 394 AFR 475% IFR 6.6% 1YR 366 5YR 5491 Max Repair 125 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 12 months Spare Berths 1
250 EP Magnetic Fusion Drive (13) Power 250 Fuel Use 54% Signature 250 Exp 10%
Fuel Capacity 800 000 Litres Range 20.0 billion km (18 days at full power)
10cm Railgun V3/C3 (20x4) Range 30 000km TS: 12172 km/s Power 3-3 RM 3 ROF 5 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Fire Control S01 24-12500 (1) Max Range: 48 000 km TS: 12500 km/s 79 58 38 17 0 0 0 0 0 0
Magnetic Confinement Fusion Reactor Technology PB-1 (6) Total Power Output 60 Armour 0 Exp 5%
Active Search Sensor MR5-R1 (1) GPS 42 Range 5.9m km MCR 640k km Resolution 1
This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
Another 2kt lighter, but still fairly slow. And as the final test - if BP is not the restriction, but shipyard size is - roughly the same size as the original gauss-ship (while keeping the MFC engines for the rail).
Tribal Mk3 class Cruiser 18 200 tons 503 Crew 3765 BP TCS 364 TH 4250 EM 0
11675 km/s Armour 5-61 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 4 PPV 93
Maint Life 1.03 Years MSP 517 AFR 662% IFR 9.2% 1YR 487 5YR 7301 Max Repair 125 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 12 months Spare Berths 1
250 EP Magnetic Fusion Drive (17) Power 250 Fuel Use 54% Signature 250 Exp 10%
Fuel Capacity 1 100 000 Litres Range 20.1 billion km (19 days at full power)
10cm Railgun V3/C3 (31x4) Range 30 000km TS: 11675 km/s Power 3-3 RM 3 ROF 5 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Fire Control S01 24-12500 (1) Max Range: 48 000 km TS: 12500 km/s 79 58 38 17 0 0 0 0 0 0
Magnetic Confinement Fusion Reactor Technology PB-1 (9) Total Power Output 90 Armour 0 Exp 5%
Magnetic Confinement Fusion Reactor Technology PB-1 (3) Total Power Output 3 Armour 0 Exp 5%
Active Search Sensor MR5-R1 (1) GPS 42 Range 5.9m km MCR 640k km Resolution 1
This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
For a roughly the same performance as the gauss-ship the rail would need at least another 10 guns, so it looks like at 300k TP for ship systems the gauss is already ahead of the rails. But the rail-ship itself will be harder to hit due to its better speed.
If the armor is removed for additonal guns we get fairly close to the gauss-ship, with gauss still being slightly better and the rail-ship a bit heavier.
Tribal Mk4 class Cruiser 18 350 tons 587 Crew 3773.6 BP TCS 367 TH 4250 EM 0
11580 km/s Armour 1-61 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 4 PPV 120
Maint Life 1.05 Years MSP 514 AFR 673% IFR 9.4% 1YR 464 5YR 6965 Max Repair 125 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 12 months Spare Berths 2
250 EP Magnetic Fusion Drive (17) Power 250 Fuel Use 54% Signature 250 Exp 10%
Fuel Capacity 1 100 000 Litres Range 20.0 billion km (19 days at full power)
10cm Railgun V3/C3 (40x4) Range 30 000km TS: 11580 km/s Power 3-3 RM 3 ROF 5 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Fire Control S01 24-12500 (1) Max Range: 48 000 km TS: 12500 km/s 79 58 38 17 0 0 0 0 0 0
Magnetic Confinement Fusion Reactor Technology PB-1 (12) Total Power Output 120 Armour 0 Exp 5%
Active Search Sensor MR5-R1 (1) GPS 42 Range 5.9m km MCR 640k km Resolution 1
This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
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How does the difference in tracking speed actually compare? It would be interesting to see what the theoretical kill ratio of each of those designs would be against missiles of various speeds.
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we would need a cross table vs diffrent misile speeds :)
I'm unfortunately too busy this weekend ... maybe in a few days I;d go for it
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OK
I did at least half of job so I start summery ( this post will be modified so it is a part so far )
assumtpions
PD is part of bigger ship not a dedicated PD ship
I carve out enough space to put FC+ 2 quad gauss turrets and compare to similar space using railgun setup
it is worth mentioning while gausess increases rof , railguns hits max for in tier 3 tech in 10cm v3/ c3 with 4 shots per gun
it is worth mentioning that it is difficult to calculate total cost for rail system as plant costs are usually neglected as needed for engines
it is worth noting that increasing plant efficiency allows to mount more railguns pre tech level
ships could be made a bit faster but I assumed some typical average designs -ie 4km for magneto era ships
all ship speed fits adequate gun system level - it differs in game but i wanted to do as equal conditions as possible
there is no diffrence in size of PD Fire control as gausses uses a bit bigger - you can add 1 more gun to railgun comparison if you want ot cover it
techs
1. gauss r-1 system 2quad = 8shots every 5 sec with 8km/s tracking
eq rail 10cm v1/c1 system can fit 15 guns so 60shots every 15 sec with ship speed = tracking at 1km/s tech
tech cost very similar
2. gauss r -2 system 2 quad = 16 shots every 5 sec 12 km/s tracking
eq rail 10cm v2/c2 can fit 16 guns with 64 hot every 10 sec with ship speed = tracking at 2km/s
3. gauss r-3 system 2quad = 24shots every 5 sec with 16km/s tracking
eq rail 10cm v3/c3 system can fit 17 guns so 68shots every 5 sec with ship speed = tracking at 3km/s tech (ion eng)
in this place railguns hits its maximum efficiency a they have 5 sec rof - no further tech can change number of shot or size of guns that is critical
till this place railguns are cheaper than gauss - however it is not budget ruining diffrence
things start getting interesting in megneto plasma era
4. gauss r-3 system 2quad = 24shots every 5 sec with 16km/s tracking - gaus stay with old design in this tech level as their jump is huge and next level guns fits by cost level 5 tech - so no new gauses but better tracking so 20km/s trasking on this level
eq rail 10cm v4/c4 system can fit 18 guns so 72shots every 5 sec with ship speed = tracking at 4km/s tech (magneto eng )
interesting situation , isn't it ?
railguns offers 3 times shots volume vs 1/5 tracking - all will depend on missile types ( it should be diffrent analysis later )
5. gauss r-4 system 2quad = 32 shots every 5 sec with 25km/s tracking
eq rail 10cm v5/c5 system can fit 19-20 guns so 76-80shots every 5 sec with ship speed = tracking at 5km/s tech (early fusion tech )
at this point technology cost between gausses and railguns is pretty similar
railguns offer twice the volume for 1/5 tracking - do you see the trend ?- it is because rails can not lower size or increase rof
from this point further analysis is pointless as gausses still have 2 rof upgrades ahead and relation on similar tech turrets to average ship speeds is like 4:1 so keep constant in terms of relative tracking and accurancy
of course you may go for faster ships when using railguns
so you can pump tracking possibly up to 30% for a cost of lower comparable efficiency somewhere else
10cm railguns are much better weapon when other then PD situation - sheer volume of shots guarantee this
but as a long term choice for PD - gausses are winner
I can only guess ( thinking of doing some calculations later) that non perfect in terms of power multiplier missile engines means that pre magneto / early fuzion you face relatively slow missiles so rails got advantage os some kind and later vs modern really fast missiles tracking will be a killing factor for this kind of PD
wall of text
I'd like to check how this tech level PD system would behave vs missiles of its era to check PD umbrella efficiency
but this will be another time
sorry for spelling - I had very limited time when running this and I'm not native ;)
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Played around a bit as well and got some data.
Essentially gauss (5 quad turrets) is better even than the somewhat pimped Tribal Mk4 (40 rails), except at low speeds due to Mk4s larger number of guns. The lower modifier can not be compensated by the higher number of projectiles/guns. And since the results look fairly linear to me it should be easy to calculate which is better for any combination.
In short: At half the gauss turrets tracking speed the railguns need double to volume of fire to compensate.
PS: Is there any way to display an attached image (except using an external service)?
edit: Ah, it does display the image ;)
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you did not show assumptions :)
what tech level ? ship speed ? etc
also 40 railgun uses aprox 5 quad turrets space ( see my post above )
comparing to 20 is pointless
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Those are the designs I posted earlier with 300k TP used on ship techs, Tribal gauss, Tribal rail, Tribal rail Mk4.
Those are pure PD designs, so the gauss gets away with overall fleet speed while fhe rails have to be much faster to get better to hit chances and due to it much higher BP needed for the Mk4.
If you use the same BP you will not be able to fit in more than 20 rails for comparable to hit chances.
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BP doesn;t really matter unless you are stremlining production and building all the time
it is tonnage that is important to get maximum utility for your vessel
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Yes, but fixed weight does not change anything about the results. E.g. 13x 10HS engine yields a speed of 8333 with 30 guns (79% Chance to hit at 12.5k at a speed of 8333 with 30 guns will cause 63.2 hits) while 40 guns with just 10 engines (speed of 6289) will cause 63.6hits at roughly the same weight (bit more actually due to addional reactors needed).
And when having to build a fleet as quickly as possible (e.g. found some unfriendly aliens) BP is important.
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diffrent approach
when I have few designs that have multiple weapon system I have limited space in order to have same speed with same engines
that's why BP is at least secondary ( it is like having 2-4 triple to quad guass turrets as PD or mass equivalent )
also my shipyards stay idle for 60-70% time so BP cost is not important unless emergency
I rarely loose ships ( most time I frakk up I loose whole fleet - but it is rare)- use some light modernizations to keep them in line long enough and so on
Gauss are clear win for PD in middle to late game
Rails are win in early game and under favourable conditions can be good PD in middle game ( when you fight NPR instead of spoilers - as NPR missile ar far worse and often terribly slow - )
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But there is a point when railguns will be better and this is when the tech based tracking speed is higher than the ship-speed based tracking Speed - whenever speed/engines are traded for rails at ship speeds below the tech based tracking speed the number of projectiles go up without the to hit chances going down:
Tribal class Cruiser 16 150 tons 576 Crew 2748.8 BP TCS 323 TH 1400 EM 0
[b]4334 km/s[/b] Armour 5-56 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 3 PPV 150
Maint Life 1.1 Years MSP 319 AFR 695% IFR 9.7% 1YR 265 5YR 3976 Max Repair 100 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 12 months Spare Berths 0
200 EP Internal Fusion Drive (7) Power 200 Fuel Use 54% Signature 200 Exp 10%
Fuel Capacity 970 000 Litres Range 20.0 billion km (53 days at full power)
10cm Railgun V3/C3 (50x4) Range 30 000km [b]TS: 6250 km/s[/b] Power 3-3 RM 3 ROF 5 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Fire Control S00.5 24-6250 (1) Max Range: 48 000 km TS: 6250 km/s 79 58 38 17 0 0 0 0 0 0
Magnetic Confinement Fusion Reactor Technology PB-1 (15) Total Power Output 150 Armour 0 Exp 5%
Active Search Sensor MR5-R1 (1) GPS 42 Range 5.9m km MCR 640k km Resolution 1
This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
But unless really slow ship speeds are used gauss should still be better, starting at around 25kkm/sec missile speed.
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in this case no matter your tech tracking is what your ship speed is
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Railguns on slow ships are only competitive in th very early game.
3HS + power for 4 shots at basic speed doesn't compare well to ~8 HS for a 4x tracking speed Gauss barrel once we have Gauss RoF 3.
Going for 1.5 the basic FC speed often gives us more effective firepower on the same budget, even if we don't value speed in itself (if I wasn't valuing speed, I wouldn't favour Railguns though).
My own tests were a little more flattering to Railgun ships than CharonJr's:
Fast turretless beam ships are tight designs, they have little mission tonnage but get higher value out of it.
As such, anything we spec that costs weight (armour, sensors, small engines forcing us to carry more fuel, electronic warfare) hurts them a lot more than it hurts turreted Gauss ships. Same for any small inefficiencies like not hitting the idea FC speed.
Still, my numbers don't differ too much:
Flower-G class Destroyer Escort 9 100 tons 215 Crew 1363 BP TCS 182 TH 720 EM 0
3956 km/s Armour 4-38 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 4 PPV 92.73
Maint Life 1.07 Years MSP 374 AFR 165% IFR 2.3% 1YR 330 5YR 4948 Max Repair 324 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 10 months Spare Berths 0
720 EP Magneto-plasma Drive (1) Power 720 Fuel Use 23.05% Signature 720 Exp 9%
Fuel Capacity 250 000 Litres Range 21.5 billion km (62 days at full power)
Quad Gauss Cannon R3-100 Turret (3x12) Range 30 000km TS: 16000 km/s Power 0-0 RM 3 ROF 5 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Fire Control S04 64-16000 (1) Max Range: 128 000 km TS: 16000 km/s 92 84 77 69 61 53 45 37 30 22
This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
vs
Flower-R class Destroyer Escort 9 000 tons 243 Crew 1432 BP TCS 180 TH 1440 EM 0
8000 km/s Armour 4-38 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 4 PPV 36
Maint Life 1.11 Years MSP 398 AFR 162% IFR 2.2% 1YR 327 5YR 4907 Max Repair 324 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 10 months Spare Berths 0
720 EP Magneto-plasma Drive (2) Power 720 Fuel Use 23.05% Signature 720 Exp 9%
Fuel Capacity 250 000 Litres Range 21.7 billion km (31 days at full power)
10cm Railgun V4/C3 (12x4) Range 40 000km TS: 8000 km/s Power 3-3 RM 4 ROF 5 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0
Fire Control S02 64-8000 (1) Max Range: 128 000 km TS: 8000 km/s 92 84 77 69 61 53 45 37 30 22
Stellarator Fusion Reactor Technology PB-1 (6) Total Power Output 36 Armour 0 Exp 5%
This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
At Magneto-Plasma drives I could still get 2/3 as many shots at twice the tracking speed out of R3 Gauss guns on a comparable ship (slightly larger, slightly cheaper, same engine)... i.e. 50% more effective firepower against reasonably fast missiles.
Comparing this on a RP budget instead of equal tech would help the railgun vessel, but wouldn't put it in the lead. However: Twice the speed (8k instead of just under 4k in my case) at no additional fuel use is normally hugely expensive, we are getting it at a bargain. How much does it matter? For a pure escort, it may only postpone obsolescence... or it may be central to your doctrine.
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I think this is rather simple.
Given you fight against someone with your own level of technology you generally are not going to want to use Rail-guns for ships dedicated to PD service outside the early game tech levels.
You can make exceptionally fast gunships into decent PD ships as a secondary role, but outside that you want to use either lasers or Gauss as your main PD defenses.
If you go with a high speed beam fleet then it might be considered but it will still be very inefficient in comparison with a fleet that dedicate much less tonnage and cost to engines and by extension maintenance and upgrade costs on their ships.
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I'm not sure I agree.
Railgun ships on an equal tech basis won't do quite as well at point defense if speed is no issue in itself... but if you're comparing things on a RP budget and have more to spend on engines, every other military and civilian design gets better, as do the missiles.
Discounting armoured missiles or plasma torpedos (neither currently a concern?), lasers don't get benefits from their higher damage as PD. And as I argued, having them track fast is unlikely to overcome the RoF advantage of Railguns (Gauss, of course, have both). So while I can get behind arguments that Gauss weaponry does better... I can't for Lasers.
Regarding upgrades: Engine upgrades would be expensive for railgun ships consisting of 50% engines. Upgrades are generally inefficient, getting new engines for increased tracking speed isn't worth it. However: As opposed to slower escorts with turreted PD, you don't need to make engine upgrades just so the ships can keep up with your main fleet. You may wish to mothball obsolescent ships that aren't worth their running cost in everyday operations, but they'll do their thing without slowing anything down decades later.
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it is always woth to upgrade fire controls or ewar but engines ? it will be close to 50% or more cost of new ship it is not justified ;)
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Most of my PD is provided by 10cm-15cm rapid fire laser cannons carried by the massive numbers of heavy fighters my fleets carry
(i have at least 1 fighter bay/10000tones on most ships)
capital ships (15000+ tones) may have 1-2 15cm-25cm quad laser turrets on them, but other then that my main line ships are pure missile carriers
at the end of the day nothing beats 100+ amm's flying out of your ship every 5 seconds
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100 amm even fast ones can be beaten by 30-40 quad gauss turrets
with 1 per 5-8kt of fleet tonnage such PD can be mounted on 200kt fleet
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100 amm even fast ones can be beaten by 30-40 quad gauss turrets
with 1 per 5-8kt of fleet tonnage such PD can be mounted on 200kt fleet
true, but what about the enemy 200kt fleet that has 50% missile ships(20%LRmsl 20%AMM 10%mag 25%eng 25%misc)?
that works out to 96 size 1 AMM and 72 size 6 LRM or 240 size 1 AMM per volley. . .
and your quad Gauss are probably taking up 1/5th of your hull space that could be used for things that actually shoot enemy boats :P
Ive always found what a 30hs Gauss battery can do a 10xAMM battery with a 300 round magazine can do better
at least until you start meeting 100000km/s++ missiles, at that point its a game of "who has the bigger coiler" and my laser fighters start paying dividends since they can hand out 1. 4m km from the main group and shred anything that crosses their 2. 8m km range diameter
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To add to that: You only need a 30kt specialized amm or mini-asm ship to come up with said 100 salvo and still have around double the magazine endurance of classical missile ships. If the enemy wants to spend 200kt fleet to counter that, please, I have Admiral posts who get paid in shiny medals for luring enemies into crippling military spending like this. ;D
In the case of 100 amms, you are better of investing in a 6k shield vehicle for 100 regeneration total immunity (requiring, depending on tech, 30-75kt mission tonnage usually), which would still not be effective, but surely better than a pd fleet here. PD's job is to counter 'legitimate' missiles, and they are great with that, but clouds of tiny meteors require tanking, or simply outgunning.(or praying)
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You have really never met really nasty spoilers ....
I witnessed 10k+ od amm missiles shot at me
what kind of amm ship can help you survive anything like this ???
only size + shields + PD can do this
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That is what was meant, nothing survives size-1 missile weaponry when done seriously. Just theoretically speaking, if you have a certain target of a certain predicted firing volume, like those 100 amm (could be pdc fortification you want to get through), then probably shields or armor (for normal sized ships) are your best investment. Still bad, but better than PD, so the best amongst losers.
Only other option is to trick the ai into wasting its amm on worthless targets or ones it cannot hit, but that is cheap.
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:P 100 AMM at later tech levels is a 400-900 damage instadeath volley :P
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the only thing in your arsenal helping you vs amm is reasonable amount of gauss turrets
either you have or you are dead
but you also need good shields tech and deep armor on relatively big ships
AI tend to underestimate amount of salvos needed to kill
nevertheless I survvived with most of my TF such situation twice
having many ships damaged and 1-2 crippled
with amm focus it would be impossible
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but where do you even fit the guns on your ship if you use gauss turrets big enough to shut down AMS barrages?
its not that I am against Gauss as an AMS system, Gauss are great AMS guns, but they are ONLY AMS guns.
if for your theoretical 10kt of ship you are putting a decent quad Gauss and Targeting system that's 10-15% of the HS down the drain that could be loaded with things that would actually be useful in a fight down the drain, thats my main issue with using gauss.
is you are using less then 10%, its not nearly effective enough to stop anything at all until the later tech levels
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if for your theoretical 10kt of ship you are putting a decent quad Gauss and Targeting system that's 10-15% of the HS down the drain that could be loaded with things that would actually be useful in a fight down the drain, thats my main issue with using gauss.
is you are using less then 10%, its not nearly effective enough to stop anything at all until the later tech levels
That is a very.... aggressive design philosophy you have there ;D
Do you also consider all other defensive measures like Shields and armor to be "hullsize down the drain"??
Yes AMMs and Laser PD for example can be a bit more dual-purpose and have decent uses against close range enemies too, but much less so then a dedicated anti-ship system that don't have excessive fire-controls, targeting speeds, over-specced sensors to detect size 1 targets and so on...
Myself I like using alot of my HS for defensive systems even if it means a big logistical strain to carry around. Since in my experience when going up against an enemy of similar capabilities it often means the difference between a badly mauled/blown up fleet and an untouched fleet.
In my experience relying on AMMs only is to unreliable early game and to expensive logistics and Industry wise lategame.
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I have posted design and philosophy in ship design thread - "joining the big leagues" also in aurora chat " battlefiled thread" there is small coverage of operation vs spoilers with weaponery total data
I dont want to spam thread with my ships design details
with very heavy and dense missile salvo + good speed my designs need to survive long enough to deliver a blow to enemy so I try to have defensive abilities as high as possible
and amm spam is often enough to think about as a normal combat situation
for fortification amm breaking ..... prepare civilian ship - 20 layers of armor - throw 50 ciws on top - let them shoot - build another magnet after battle
cheap and effective but needs some precise calculation in tactical use
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That is a very. . . . aggressive design philosophy you have there ;D
Do you also consider all other defensive measures like Shields and armor to be "hullsize down the drain"??
I dont understand the question, how can you not enjoy more Dakka
Lotsa Dakka Battlekroozer class Cruiser 49,550 tons 936 Crew 12501.2001 BP TCS 991 TH 422.4 EM 4500
2663 km/s Armour 10-120 Shields 150-300 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 100 PPV 420
Maint Life 7.48 Years MSP 15768 AFR 196% IFR 2.7% 1YR 495 5YR 7425 Max Repair 1400 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 12 months Spare Berths 3
Magazine 2800
880 EP Magneto-plasma Drive (3) Power 880 Fuel Use 31.73% Signature 140.8 Exp 11%
Fuel Capacity 1,000,000 Litres Range 11.4 billion km (49 days at full power)
Epsilon Heavy Shields (50) Total Fuel Cost 750 Litres per hour (18,000 per day)
Size 4 More Dakka (700) Missile Size 4 Hangar Reload 30 minutes MF Reload 5 hours
Dakka Targeter (1) Range 588.0m km Resolution 1
Dakka Spotter (1) GPS 7000 Range 438.3m km Resolution 5
ECCM-3 (1) ECM 30
but in all seriousness, outside of RP reasons and personal rules I dont use gauss early, even if you win the missile->empty magazine phase by taking out maybe 1-2 more missiles per wave then my laser armed Beamhound AMS fighters, they would would mince you in short order from well outside your gauss firing range (:P 1 hanger bay for 2 heavy fighters costs the same as a gauss gun space wise)
at magneto-plasma (which is my favorite era to play around in) a 20hs quad gauss defense system will at most kill 5 unarmored missiles, while for 20hs I can have 7 size 4's or sandblast you with 14 size 1's for 10 volleys
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the bigger the military ships go through the game the less specialized I try to do them
I lost battle recently only because AI targeted most important ships 1st ,bad luck -1 fleet
but it was 1st generation with relatively small hulls so it was heavily specialized
once I cross 15-20kt with level 3-4 techs I start to build a round up ships
so loosing 1-2 of 10 does not break my ablilities
and yes - box launchers are basis of my offensive doctrine as well
however 1 FC per 700 missiles seems too few ;)
and range is awful - looks like colony planetary defence gunboat
p.s. gauss PD is 17% size on last design
p.p.s. like it was stated earlier in this thread the more advanced gauss the more it shines vs everything else
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There is no adequate defence against small missile spam.
One 4x-tracking Gauss barrel weighs in at around 8HS. Even in the best possible case with maxed-out rate of fire and no misses... it hardly matters if we shoot down 6 out of 53 incoming missiles (that's how many size-1 box launchers we can fit on equal tonnage. It gets worse when we take into account fire control and crew requirements).
Beam PD isn't enough. Ton for ton, shields and armour aren't either. AMMs don't work as we'd need to expend several times as much ordnance and still take damage, we'd be better off using AMMs offensively. The only thing that helps is an alpha strike with our own missiles that are too small to be worth intercepting.
*
However, the strategy that's uncounterable in equal-resource duels may be terrible in many realistic situations. Most engagements are asymmetrical, economy and logistics matter. If beams can handle realistic threats cleanly, they have a major advantage over missiles.
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amm defence works only as long as you have magazines full
amm vs amm is not good or efficient idea as well
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Ive worked it out, the best AMS system vs AMM swarms is (drumroll PLEASE!): Shields (surprise :P)
how I got to this conclusion (my math may be wrong a bit but meh)->
Gauss:
,75 HS Gauss is 8 shots at 12,5% = 1hit -> in a max speed turret (100km/s) its 4,08 HS for 4 hits
since a missile travels at 290km that's a 1/3 hit chance +100% tracking time bonus -> 1/1,5
1/1,5 * 4 = 2,6 potential missile kills
2,6 * 9(damage per missile) = 23. 4 damage avoided
23. 4 / 4 = 5,8 damage avoidance per HS
shields (once charged) have 10hp per HS :P ditto
*this assumes that the enemy is lobbing all their LR AMMS at you in single slow reloading volleys
*in case where enemy is using real missiles - other rules apply
*in case where enemy is lobbing a continuous stream of missile fire 1hs point defense per 1-3 shields is your best
TL|DR : shield are your friend
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I voted in the "None. Missiles or RAMMING SPEED." category, and while yes that is my main way of missile defense (shields are a part of this), I also use gauss cannons a lot. While most of you are using specialized smaller craft to counter missiles, those of us who use the larger craft are not so limited with our options. My standard cruiser is in the 100kt to 200kt range. That allows me to put a lot of defensive systems on it to block most of the damage. I can have many small defensive weaponry as well as a lot of armor and shield all to increase survivability against those ASM/AMM spams. And once you have fleets that have a dozen or so of ships around that size (and role), very little of what your defending against can actually harm you.
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And once you have fleets that have a dozen or so of ships around that size (and role), very little of what your defending against can actually harm you.
scratch that, this is when you should consider re rolling the universe and putting the enemy difficulty modifier 50% up
(or at least that is my opinion)
;D Loosing is fun! ;D
but in general i use the same theory mostly focusing on tanking power with minimal dedicated AMS like Gauss
my secondary Laser cannons dual purpose as AMS (paying that additional 6HS and 2HS/turret gearing is cheap enough)
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scratch that, this is when you should consider re rolling the universe and putting the enemy difficulty modifier 50% up
;D Loosing is fun! ;D
I generally play at 150%-250% anyway.
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I doubt many games pass tech level 6-8
many games possibly have most fights with tech level 3-5
and these ranges shields are not as effective
some techs / designs are not exactly tech linear
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but in all seriousness, outside of RP reasons and personal rules I dont use gauss early, even if you win the missile->empty magazine phase by taking out maybe 1-2 more missiles per wave then my laser armed Beamhound AMS fighters, they would would mince you in short order from well outside your gauss firing range (:P 1 hanger bay for 2 heavy fighters costs the same as a gauss gun space wise)
Yes, that assumes the 1-2 more missiles per wave per 20HS difference isn't decisive though, because if it is it means the fighters very soon will lack a mother-ship and the gauss defense has survived without little or no damage from some stray hits.
It also assume the offensive payload that the gauss defenses protect doesn't have any kind of anti-fighter weapons / sensors.
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It also assume the offensive payload that the gauss defenses protect doesn't have any kind of anti-fighter weapons / sensors.
Gauss / Speed / Beam_Weapons / Missiles* / Armor / Ammo
Pick 3, cant fit the rest and maintain efficiency (or at least that is how ship design works in my mind)
its what makes this game fun, there is no "best setup" to be had
*you CAN pick "missiles / missiles / missiles" as your 3 options for great fun and profit!
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it is rather
you can choose any of
2 - on early small designs
3 on mid game meds
4 on big late nasty warships
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never believed in that theory of design
a 25%HS engine on a small ship is still a 25%HS engine on a BIG ship, just because its bigger dose not mean you can get more speed out of a engine per HS
in a battle of giants there isn's really any change between battles of equal sized ships, you can only multi spec a ship unless you massively out tech your enemy
or you amalgamated your entire fleet of specialized ships into 1 massive uber brick (which just isn't a good idea (http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=7857.msg80448#msg80448))
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possibly yes
but
past tech 6 you can get any opponent who would test you enough
so only recogition point are Invaders
vs them this rule works well as I wrote
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Gauss / Speed / Beam_Weapons / Missiles* / Armor / Ammo
Pick 3, cant fit the rest and maintain efficiency (or at least that is how ship design works in my mind)
its what makes this game fun, there is no "best setup" to be had
*you CAN pick "missiles / missiles / missiles" as your 3 options for great fun and profit!
Depending on tech and what you consider Speed, it may not make sense to pick Speed and Gauss.
You can fit slightly more than 2 Railguns per quad-speed Gauss barrel (taking into account turret gear and faster-tracking fire controls vs. power plants and higher crew requirements).
So when we're concerned about performance against large waves of fast missiles, we can compare
(Gauss RoF) shots at 4x speed for Gauss
against
8 shots at (actual FC speed/basic FC speed) for Railguns
Which is more expensive depends mostly on fire controls. With a single one on a large ship, Gauss tends to be cheaper. With multiples to account for many small salvos, Railgun gets an edge in both cost- and space-effectiveness.
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There's no reason to make "quad" turrets of any kind (unless you're armoring the turrets). Four single turrets are the same size as one quad turret. So I always do single turrets and then I can use 3, 4, 5, or however many to make it fit into my desired tonnage.
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There's no reason to make "quad" turrets of any kind (unless you're armoring the turrets).
RP man. Also unless you show proof in math, I shall not believe you.
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Multi-gun mounts get a percentage of their gear tonnage shaved off as an incentive for not simply using a bunch of single mounts. The change log for 5.50 states this is for laser turrets, but I assumed it applied to all turrets (gauss included) and the phrasing was just part of Steve's pro-laser agenda :P
Have I been mistaken about this and just never noticed?
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No hard data here currently, but I am very sure that weight per barrel goes down with each additional one for Gauss as well.
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Here to confirm that it does happen that way.
Example. 6HS per gauss cannon, 6250 tracking (which is the 10% size) at my tech level
1 gun, size = 6.6
2 gun, size = 13.14 (instead of 13.2 less than 4% difference)
3 gun, size = 19.66 (19.8, 7% more efficient than 3 singles)
4 gun, size = 26.16 (26.4, 9.1% better than 4 singles)
Now lets add some armor (2)
1 = 9.44
2 = 17.63 (18.88, 7% diff)
3 = 25.53 (28.32, 11% diff)
4 = 33.26 (37.76, 13% diff)
Coincidentally, it gets even more effective the more armor you go with. Though I've never actually tried out, heavily armored turrets in game and seen their effectiveness. But as an example
Say your ship is a beam ship with 8 armor all around, and you're packing 8 more on your turrets, the difference between 1 gun, and 4 guns is 17.94 per single gun vs, 13.64 per gun in quads, almost 30% Also larger lasers seem to be more efficient in large turrets than smaller ones... but theres rarely a use for turreted large lasers in the game, maybe 15cm at best for mixed PD/AS weaponry.
Also for those of you who haven't noticed before, in the turret design window it says in the text box, how much HS/gun is getting used, by increasingly armed turrets. Its marked as SPW, to the right of the overall turret size.
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Yes, quad turrets are slightly smaller than 4 single turrets, but I think this was kicked off by a misunderstanding:
While I assumed quad mounts, I only explicitly mentioned quad-SPEED Gauss barrels, i.e. turrets with enough turret gear to give them the maximum speed for our fire control tech.
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I thought i might add my own Theorycrafting:
I think AMM ro be the number one choice. That said, i run destroyer escorts that have lasers with best resolution FCS. I think lasers offer the second best option specifically because they are long range, can be turreted, and can be used in ship to ship combat. That said, i put in some CIWS as well. They are inexpensive and i want to make sure I kill any leakers. Thus, my designs tend to have Laser, Missile, AND CIWS PD on my escorts, and just CIWS on my other ships. I focus on Cruise missiles and fighters for killing stuff