My first ever combat ship, need serious help!

[roug (OP)]

I have been playing Aurora 4x before ( a few years ago ) but never actually got so far as to build warships.

So this is my first attempt.
I would like to start with simple designs (no missiles)

I have not left sol (i have found jump points) i want to be ready if i meet someone outside my home space.
I can also build jump engines.
My lasers has range of about 1.4m km but i cannot make a fire control with that range.



Guardian class Destroyer      17 442 tons       262 Crew       4 853,9 BP       TCS 349    TH 800    EM 0
2293 km/s      Armour 1-59       Shields 0-0       HTK 470      Sensors 11/11/0/0      DCR 7      PPV 162,23
Maint Life 0,61 Years     MSP 2 017    AFR 348%    IFR 4,8%    1YR 3 300    5YR 49 496    Max Repair 2087,20 MSP
Commander    Control Rating 1   BRG   
Intended Deployment Time: 12 months    Morale Check Required   

Bari Thrust Magneto-plasma Drive  EP160,00 (5)    Power 800    Fuel Use 50,0%    Signature 160    Explosion 10%
Fuel Capacity 4 000 000 Litres    Range 82,5 billion km (416 days at full power)

Salvetti & Triarsi 45,0cm C10 X-Ray Laser (1)    Range 600 000km     TS: 8 000 km/s     Power 53-10     RM 70 000 km    ROF 30       
Ebbert-Tabor Quad Salvetti & Triarsi 20cm C10 X-Ray Laser Turret (1x4)    Range 600 000km     TS: 20000 km/s     Power 40-40     RM 70 000 km    ROF 5       
Mckillip-Sabados Beam Fire Control R600-TS15200 (70%) (2)     Max Range: 600 000 km   TS: 15 200 km/s     98 97 95 93 92 90 88 87 85 83
Masek-Coghlan Magnetic Confinement Fusion Reactor R40 (2)     Total Power Output 79    Exp 5%

Dorsch-Gallon Active Search Sensor AS52-R100 (2)     GPS 3600     Range 52,1m km    Resolution 100
Landis-Velten Active Search Sensor AS11-R1 (2)     GPS 36     Range 11,2m km    MCR 1,2m km    Resolution 1
Hew Electronics EM Sensor EM1,0-11 (70%) (1)     Sensitivity 11     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  26,2m km
Hew Electronics Thermal Sensor TH1,0-11 (70%) (1)     Sensitivity 11     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  26,2m km
ELINT Module (1)     Sensitivity 5     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  17,7m km

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes


Overkill or ok design?

[Pedroig]

Couple of things:

1.  Warships usually have armour.  Armour 1-59 is not armoured, that is just a skin to keep the air in.  You should have min or 5 layers of armour at this point.

2.  MSP/Maint life Is less than your deployment time.  This ship will blow up.

3.  AFR is 348% and you don't have enough supplies to fix everything once, much less 3.5 times a year.  You need more engineering spaces, this will help 3 above too.

4.  For Magneto-plasma engine your ship is VERY SLOW, you will never get in laser range of anything but a planet.  Your engines are too efficient fuelwise. You want Power not efficiency.

5.  You have no PD/CIWS.  If you face missiles you will die, a lot, especially with only 1 layer of armour.  You should have min or 5 layers of armour at this point.

6.  You've been neglecting sensors .

Take a rummage through some of the other ships posted in this board.  Use them as a base and then update to your current tech.

[Kamilo]

You need more MSP. Look at your max repair msp of 2087,2 msp and your storage of 2017 msp.

Personally your engines have to much power with 800. Tune that down a bit and maybe go for a hs 10 engine with a power of 300 or maybe less. Doing that will provide you with more range and you could get rid of a few million litres of fuel.

[Jorgen_CAB]

All of the advice above are good and I would like to expand on them a bit...

1. You need to look at every design and give it a real purpose which inclide range, speed, deployment time, weapons, sensors and defences.

2. All warships need some armour, at least to withstand the occasional hit... so somewhere bwteeen 3-4 for a lightly armoured ship, 5-8 for a medium armoured ship and anything above that for good armour protection. At you technology levels...

3. Maintenance and more important maintenance life usually are somewhere between 1.5 to 3 times the intended deployment of a ship. You always want it to be higher at least by 50% to the intended deployment time.

4. You need the amount of MSP to be at least as much as the max MSP need... usually you want it to be twice as high as any battle damage have the cost of repairing doubled, but that depends if you want to repair that expensive component from battle damage or not. If it is a very expensive sensor or something you might not want to bother about it for example. But you need to have at least as much as the max component with you in MSP.

5. You really need to consider if a range of 82 billion km of range is really necessary... this ship carry an awful allot of fuel for its size. In genera you probably can keep the range for most warship at between 15-30 billion km and use tankers to top them of when they need more fuel. But you might have a very good reason for that range, just realise you pay a premium in maintenance fees and combat load for so much fuel in a military ship... you also might consider more fuel efficient engines if you really want such range.

6. You pay a huge premium for turreting those 20cm lasers with such a high tracking speed, at this technology level you should probably separate long range regular beams with more specialised smaller PD lasers... 10-12cm in your case.

The ship is really expansive and it would have huge trouble engaging at any sort of beam combat as it have no armour to speak of. The fire-controls are over engineered for the regular beam and too weak for PD work in general. The ship probably are very expensive for what it is suppose to do. I would go back to the drawing board and  think about what you want the ship to achieve and start from scratch... now look at all the factors again. You might even end up in more than one design so having two or three ships and/or supporting ships as well.

[roug (OP)]

Thanks for your help! going to redesign the ship, what TS speed should i have for PD?

[Jorgen_CAB]

Thanks for your help! going to redesign the ship, what TS speed should i have for PD?

I would recommend that you have two different beam fire-controls. One with x1 for tracking and x4 for range and one that is the opposite. The tracking speed should in best of worlds match the turret tracking speed. But there is no problem of overbuilding the turret with better tracking speed so you can replace the fire-control later on with a better one without replacing the turrets too.

[roug (OP)]

This is the updated design, i just this ship to stand close to jump points when i enter new systems, then use scout ships to explore.



Guardian class Destroyer      19 768 tons       571 Crew       8 943,3 BP       TCS 395    TH 1 250    EM 0
6323 km/s      Armour 10-65       Shields 0-0       HTK 300      Sensors 28/28/0/0      DCR 24      PPV 134,08
Maint Life 3,28 Years     MSP 4 758    AFR 223%    IFR 3,1%    1YR 669    5YR 10 039    Max Repair 652,40 MSP
Captain    Control Rating 2   BRG   ENG   
Intended Deployment Time: 12 months    Morale Check Required   

Tolan Thrust Magnetic Fusion Drive  EP250,00 (10)    Power 2500,0    Fuel Use 30,0%    Signature 125,000    Explosion 10%
Fuel Capacity 1 000 000 Litres    Range 30,4 billion km (55 days at full power)

Vanluven-Mccune 35,0cm C10 X-Ray Laser (4)    Range 600 000km     TS: 8 000 km/s     Power 32-10     RM 70 000 km    ROF 20       
Hrivnak Armaments Company Quad Heerdt Ordnance 12cm C10 X-Ray Laser Turret (4x4)    Range 280 000km     TS: 15000 km/s     Power 16-40     RM 70 000 km    ROF 5       
Siler & Gerardo Beam Fire Control R300-TS16000 (50%) (1)     Max Range: 300 000 km   TS: 16 000 km/s     97 93 90 87 83 80 77 73 70 67
Pilling-Maltba Electronic Systems Beam Fire Control R600-TS15200 (50%) (1)     Max Range: 600 000 km   TS: 15 200 km/s     98 97 95 93 92 90 88 87 85 83
Masek-Coghlan Magnetic Confinement Fusion Reactor R40 (2)     Total Power Output 79    Exp 5%

Dorow-Fletes Electronic Systems Active Search Sensor AS134-R100 (50%) (1)     GPS 24000     Range 134,6m km    Resolution 100
Borba Electronic Systems Active Search Sensor AS20-R1 (1)     GPS 96     Range 20,7m km    MCR 2,3m km    Resolution 1
Henthorn Electronics EM Sensor EM2-28 (50%) (1)     Sensitivity 28     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  41,8m km
Henthorn Electronics Thermal Sensor TH2-28 (50%) (1)     Sensitivity 28     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  41,8m km
ELINT Module (1)     Sensitivity 5     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  17,7m km

ECCM-1 (1)         ECM 10

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes

[Jorgen_CAB]

That is a pretty solid design in general... it gets my approval... 

[DFNewb]

You can take off the EM sensors if you have the ELINT. They still do something as they have a better range than the ELINT and is smaller but I never found having a stronger EM than the first ELINT really.

[Father Tim]

This is the updated design, i just this ship to stand close to jump points when i enter new systems, then use scout ships to explore.

. . .
ELINT Module (1)     Sensitivity 5     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  17,7m km
. . .

An ELINT module is not needed for the mission described.

I have not left sol (i have found jump points) i want to be ready if i meet someone outside my home space.

You won't be.

Until you know the speed, range, sensor profile, defenses, and weapons loadout of your enemy any answer could be 'right' or 'wrong'.

[Pedroig]

Much improved plan. 

Now to see what the enemy does to the plan. 

[roug (OP)]

Nice! Thanks for the feedback! 
Removing the ELINT.

[Hungaricus]

I think you should give a chance to missiles.  I think they are much more starter friendly because if you are going the beam route you have to real fast with proper BFC and all.

[Father Tim]

I think you should give a chance to missiles.  I think they are much more starter friendly because if you are going the beam route you have to real fast with proper BFC and all.

I think you should ignore missiles.

I call them 'the cocaine rule.'  It feels great when you start, but they cost a lot, make everything else seem worthless, it's almost impossible to stop, and eventually they take all your resources.

[roug (OP)]

I want to learn missiles eventually. Going to use them as long range support.