What's going on in your empire/planet/battlefield?

[TheDeadlyShoe]

So i was mounting my first ground invasion ever - of a low-tech NPR 1 jump from Sol.   Things almost went swimmingly, but I frittered away a brigade trying to board ships that still had active engines.  So unfortunately I didnt have enough combat strength left to force a surrender.     I didn't want to paste the world, they represent no serious threat at this point (all combatants destroyed, no source of minerals).   But they still had some AMM PDCs so I didn't want to hang around in orbit- my cruisers armor was getting seriously degraded.   So I left the three brigades onplanet and pulled back to recruit more men.  Unfortunately. . .  thats when my engineers managed to crack open 5 vaults of robotic soldiers in a single week on Mars.   I have 5 garrison battalions and 10 engineers onplanet but they are getting overwhelmed.   I dropped a couple assault battalions from Earth but it looks like im going to have to either nuke Xanadu (Npr homeworld) and pick up the brigades there or nuke the robot soldiers on mars.  Can I even do that? Heh.

[sublight]

"Sir, I think we just made them angry."

Trying out my first multiple player controlled races game I created a Martian vs Venisian conventional start scenario. The Martians decided the best way to ensure dominance would be a preemptive drone strike to cripple the Venisians. 40x 300 million km self-guided strength 8 drones later and the Venisians are 'crippled' by all of a 3% production radiation penalty, 2 lost PDCs, and maybe 10% lost industry/population. It'll be another 9 months before the planets align again, and the Venisians have nearly finished their background work for antimissile missiles...

[dgibso29]

Just moved my 1st and 2nd cruiser squadrons (2 missile, 2 laser escort, 1 scout/command, 1 gunboat carrier (3 1kt corvettes), and 1 support/jump vessel each) just out of what I believed to be the maximum range of the AMMs of a known precursor anti-missile station. My outbound wave of right around 200 ASMs, which I put small EM and TH sensors on (Very good idea) has just detected an inbound salvo of 64 size missiles... traveling at over 43,000km/s.


I'm a little scared. Now to see if my immediate course reversal upon launching my initial wave will pay off (I detected a res 1 active sensor and launched early, assuming the worst. I was correct.)

[Mormota]

I am building my 3rd generation of ships, and when I ordered 550 Abwehr-2 AMMs and 555 Krieg-2 ASMs, I noticed something massively weird.  An Abwehr-2 takes 210, while a Krieg-2 takes 21 tons of Uridium.  I was shocked, checked the mining tab, projected usage of Uridium is around 128k tons.  I go to the missile design window, however, replicate their design, and it doesn't show it'd need Uridium.  My missiles don't have sensors and are size 2 and 3, respectively.

On another note, I built 30 fighters, but they keep having maintenance failures.  My shipyards can't repair them, and their carriers are still a long time away.  Any idea?

[blue emu]

I am building my 3rd generation of ships, and when I ordered 550 Abwehr-2 AMMs and 555 Krieg-2 ASMs, I noticed something massively weird.  An Abwehr-2 takes 210, while a Krieg-2 takes 21 tons of Uridium.  I was shocked, checked the mining tab, projected usage of Uridium is around 128k tons.  I go to the missile design window, however, replicate their design, and it doesn't show it'd need Uridium.  My missiles don't have sensors and are size 2 and 3, respectively.

A rare but known bug.

On another note, I built 30 fighters, but they keep having maintenance failures.  My shipyards can't repair them, and their carriers are still a long time away.  Any idea?

Build some Airfield PDCs to hold the Fighters until your carriers are ready.

[Mormota]

A rare but known bug.

Does that mean I can't use those missiles? I mean, aside from spending 128k tons of Uridium on them.

Build some Airfield PDCs to hold the Fighters until your carriers are ready.

I can't see them in the build menu.  Are they a special sort of installation, or do I have to design them somehow?

Anyways, this bodes ill for my empire.  My only non-missile tech that is worth anything is meson technology, but even that is not very good.  I also have some short-ranged lasers for my fighters, but neither of these two is capable enough to mount as offensive weapons on cruisers.

[HaliRyan]

I can't see them in the build menu.  Are they a special sort of installation, or do I have to design them somehow?

You design PDCs the same way you design ships in the class design window. There's a dropdown at the top of the window that lets you switch between PDC and ship designs.

Then just make a PDC design with a bunch of hangar decks so the fighters can land on it, and maybe some maintenance to repair them, and you can build your fancy new airfield-style PDCs with regular industrial output.

 

[Vynadan]

The bug simply raises the costs, as far as I know. You're safe to use those missiles, but they were expensive to build. Copying and re-researching the new design without the costs is a simple way to fix it. Obsolete the old expensive design and build the bugfixed ones.

[Mormota]

I see, thanks!

I wonder, is it a bit slow if I'm only making my first extra-solar colony 51 years in? I have huge amounts of minerals in Sol, and I encountered what I think to be Precursors in my first system.  There were also 3 wrecks there, and I accidentally turned wreck display off, so you can imagine how scared I was when I thought those wrecks disappeared.  That made me design my first generation of warships.  (Well, technically second, because I made a light meson-armed corvette to satisfy the Martian colony's need for protection. ) After finding the system to be empty, I fired a few missiles on the planet where the wrecks were – and still are, thankfully – then ran away.  Now I've designed my third generation of warships, consisting of a carrier, fighters, a command ship with lots of sensors, a cruiser and an escort.  I wonder if they're good enough though.

Let me post the designs.

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Baden class Escort    5 100 tons     412 Crew     1282.5 BP      TCS 102  TH 500  EM 0
4901 km/s     Armour 3-26     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 2     PPV 10
Maint Life 3.43 Years     MSP 1314    AFR 104%    IFR 1.4%    1YR 170    5YR 2557    Max Repair 280 MSP
Magazine 550   

Magnetic Confinement Fusion Drive E4 (4)    Power 125    Fuel Use 40%    Signature 125    Armour 0    Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 100 000 Litres    Range 88.2 billion km   (208 days at full power)

Abwehr-2 Launcher (5)    Missile Size 2    Rate of Fire 10
Abwehr-2 Fire Control (1)     Range 92.4m km    Resolution 1
Abwehr-2 (274)  Speed: 62 500 km/s   End: 4.8m    Range: 18m km   WH: 1    Size: 2    TH: 833 / 500 / 250

Abwehr-2 Active Sensor (1)     GPS 280     Range 30.8m km    Resolution 1

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


Code: [Select]

Emden class Carrier    13 250 tons     947 Crew     2196 BP      TCS 265  TH 750  EM 0
2830 km/s     Armour 5-49     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 6     PPV 65.76
Maint Life 3.87 Years     MSP 5621    AFR 234%    IFR 3.3%    1YR 594    5YR 8912    Max Repair 480 MSP
Hangar Deck Capacity 4250 tons     

Magnetic Confinement Fusion Drive E4 (6)    Power 125    Fuel Use 40%    Signature 125    Armour 0    Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 300 000 Litres    Range 101.9 billion km   (416 days at full power)

Triple Meson 320 Bereich-Abwehr Turret (2x3)    Range 320 000km     TS: 20000 km/s     Power 48-15     RM 32    ROF 20        1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
Meson 320 Fire Control (1)    Max Range: 320 000 km   TS: 20000 km/s     97 94 91 88 84 81 78 75 72 69
Magnetic Confinement Fusion Reactor Technology PB-1 (1)     Total Power Output 40    Armour 0    Exp 5%

Strike Group
10x Bremse Fighter   Speed: 9036 km/s    Size: 8.3

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes


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Bremse class Fighter    415 tons     15 Crew     122.8 BP      TCS 8.3  TH 75  EM 0
9036 km/s     Armour 1-4     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 0     PPV 4
Maint Life 0 Years     MSP 0    AFR 83%    IFR 1.2%    1YR 16    5YR 244    Max Repair 56 MSP

FTR Magnetic Confinement Fusion Drive E400 (1)    Power 75    Fuel Use 4000%    Signature 75    Armour 0    Exp 25%
Fuel Capacity 15 000 Litres    Range 1.6 billion km   (50 hours at full power)

Fighter Laser Cannon (1)    Range 120 000km     TS: 9036 km/s     Power 4-4     RM 3    ROF 5        4 4 4 3 2 2 1 1 1 1
Fighter Laser Fire Control (1)    Max Range: 120 000 km   TS: 25000 km/s     92 83 75 67 58 50 42 33 25 17
Bremse reactor (1)     Total Power Output 5    Armour 0    Exp 5%

This design is classed as a Fighter for production, combat and maintenance purposes


Code: [Select]

Prinz Eugen class Cruiser    5 750 tons     421 Crew     1244.5 BP      TCS 115  TH 500  EM 0
4347 km/s     Armour 10-28     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 2     PPV 15
Maint Life 4.41 Years     MSP 2271    AFR 132%    IFR 1.8%    1YR 189    5YR 2830    Max Repair 280 MSP
Magazine 555   

Magnetic Confinement Fusion Drive E4 (4)    Power 125    Fuel Use 40%    Signature 125    Armour 0    Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 100 000 Litres    Range 78.2 billion km   (208 days at full power)

Krieg-2 Launcher (5)    Missile Size 3    Rate of Fire 15
Krieg-2 Fire Control (1)     Range 83.2m km    Resolution 100
Krieg-2 (185)  Speed: 20 800 km/s   End: 60m    Range: 74.9m km   WH: 9    Size: 3    TH: 145 / 87 / 43

Krieg-2 Active Sensor (1)     GPS 28000     Range 308.0m km    Resolution 100

ECCM-1 (1)         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

I am still researching passive and active sensors for the command ship, but it will have an approximate range of 150 million/billion kilometers.  I can't remember which.  Probably million.

[HaliRyan]

Million, and you should probably consider trying to lighten the load on that fighter. 400+ tons is HUGE.

The balance point on speed between equal tech FAC and fighter engines is a 1000 ton FAC will have the same speed as a 300 ton fighter. IMO at much over 300 tons you should seriously consider carrying FACs instead for the added speed/payload/range.

[Vynadan]

With conventional starts I usually spend 50+ years alone in Sol without even probing for jump points - but I'm a total turtle, so ... xD

For the designs you might want to open a thread in the bureau of ship design section instead of posting them here.

[Jacob/Lee (OP)]

I decided to turn on Invaders for the first time in my 63 year game. I have 6 discovered NPRs (two being those legendary non-TN races with boatloads of low-tech infantry) and atleast one of the others is facing a bad mineral crisis. I have the Swarm (Is it condemned to one queen/system or can there be more created from wrecks? AFAIK there are only 2 systems with the Swarm yet there are 9 Queens and a Matriarch (Is there anything special about the Matriarch, or is it just an over-glorified Queen?)) on and they seem to be doing really nothing, since they populate backwater systems and no NPR has the tech (or the intelligence ) to kill them off. I have the Precursors on, who, unlike the Swarm, are causing the NPRs some real trouble. Might as well be stepping into a nuclear minefield when an NPR enters Precursor turf.

Anyway, if worse comes to worst I'm just going to bite the plasma torpedo and deal with it. This game is slowing down a lot (note to self: put a limit <1000 on the systems next time) and getting quite boring.

Oh, and about the Swarm:
WHAT THE frakk 67 workers and 700+ soldiers?!

[Vynadan]

Backwater systems or not, wipe the Swarm and your movement calculations should decrease significiantly =)

[dgibso29]

Just transited into my first Nebula... a level 21 beast.

[lavenders2]

ATM, nothing.  It has been a year, and nothing has really happened.  Made my first missile ship, surveyed some places, that's about it really