Post by: Elouda on April 05, 2010, 07:28:47 PM
Firstly, the 'core', containing the engines and passive sensors.
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Type 28 Modular Combat Vessel class Modular Vessel Core 6000 tons 561 Crew 1087.8 BP TCS 120 TH 540 EM 0
9000 km/s Armour 2-29 Shields 0-0 Sensors 22/22/0/0 Damage Control Rating 5 PPV 0
Annual Failure Rate: 57% IFR: 0.8% Maint Capacity 567 MSP Max Repair 45 MSP Est Time: 6.12 Years
Type 23 M/IE Engine (18) Power 60 Fuel Use 80% Signature 30 Armour 0 Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 350,000 Litres Range 131.3 billion km (168 days at full power)
Type 13 SQR Passive Thermal (1) Sensitivity 22 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 22m km
Type 13 SDR Passive EM (1) Sensitivity 22 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 22m km
This design is classed as a military vessel for maintenance purposes
In addition to this, I designed 3 different kinds of module to attach to the core;
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Type 28 Mission Module - Laser class Mission Module 4000 tons 385 Crew 783 BP TCS 80 TH 0 EM 0
1 km/s Armour 2-22 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 3 PPV 26
Annual Failure Rate: 42% IFR: 0.6% Maint Capacity 367 MSP Max Repair 240 MSP Est Time: 2.19 Years
Tractor Beam
Type 25 Twin Laser Turret (T24 15cm/R10 N-UV) (2x2) Range 180,000km TS: 10000 km/s Power 12-6 RM 3 ROF 10 6 6 6 4 3 3 2 2 2 1
Type 24 SPG/L Laser FCS (1) Max Range: 192,000 km TS: 9000 km/s 95 90 84 79 74 69 64 58 53 48
Type 24 P4.5E5 GCF Reactor (3) Total Power Output 13.5 Armour 0 Exp 5%
Type 17 SPY Area Search (1) GPS 4800 Range 52.8m km Resolution 20
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 purposesCode: [Select]
Type 28 Mission Module - ASM class Mission Module 4000 tons 349 Crew 677.4 BP TCS 80 TH 0 EM 0
1 km/s Armour 2-22 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 2 PPV 18
Annual Failure Rate: 64% IFR: 0.9% Maint Capacity 212 MSP Max Repair 128 MSP Est Time: 1.79 Years
Magazine 408 Tractor Beam
Type 15 S4R Missile Launcher (6) Missile Size 4 Rate of Fire 80
Type 17 SPG/M Missile FCS (1) Range 52.8m km Resolution 20
Type 21 RGM Harpoon (102) Speed: 18,700 km/s End: 32.5m Range: 36.5m km WH: 4 Size: 4 TH: 131 / 78 / 39
Type 17 SPS Active Search (1) GPS 5120 Range 56.3m km Resolution 40
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 purposesCode: [Select]
Type 28 Mission Module - AMM class Mission Module 4000 tons 324 Crew 731.4 BP TCS 80 TH 0 EM 0
1 km/s Armour 2-22 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 3 PPV 12
Annual Failure Rate: 42% IFR: 0.6% Maint Capacity 343 MSP Max Repair 100 MSP Est Time: 3.51 Years
Magazine 396 Tractor Beam
Type 20 S1R Missile Launcher (12) Missile Size 1 Rate of Fire 10
Type 20 SPG/M Missile FCS (3) Range 2.1m km Resolution 1
Type 20 RIM Stinger (396) Speed: 24,000 km/s End: 1.6m Range: 2.3m km WH: 1 Size: 1 TH: 176 / 105 / 52
Type 20 SPD Missile Detection (1) GPS 96 Range 1.1m 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 purposesThese 'latch' onto the core ship, dropping its speed to 5400km/s, still well above the speed of my main fleet units (4000-4500km/s). This probably means I could have gotten away with a smaller tug, or bigger mission section, but its a work in progress.
I built them with the tractor on the module rather than the ship for flexibility - this way if needed, I could stick these onto existing units for extra oomph, move them along with commerical traffic, or as Ill mention later, put several on one ship.
Advantages I can see this having;
-I can drop off modules at planets to act as orbital defences.
-I can swap out modules for overhauls and repairs.
-I can swap out modules as needed for mssion.
-I can transfer maintenance and even fuel, etc. between modules and the core, so in this sense its no worse than a single ship.
-My ships have an smaller TCS than a similar 'one-part' ship.
-I can build these as a joint project in a smaller yard.
-If overwhelmed, I can drop the module and run for it. With 9000km/s speed, this would have saved some of my ships from a bunch of 10000km/s 800ton gunboats a few years back.
Disadvantages include;
-Having to sacrifice 500tons for the tractor
-Shields/armour wont combine
-Have to build various components, and theyre a pain to track on the ship screen.
-As this is 'several' ships, jump drives need to handle larger squadron sizes.
Other ideas for components include a 'hangar module', a 'tanker module' and a 'survey module' with suitable equipment. Another possibility is a 'commercial' variant of the tug, which means that it needs no maintenance.
After I had combined one ship, I had what I thought was the bright idea to stick two of them onto one ship. We'll, it worked, and I found a bug as a result, so I guess I should go report it in the right place. The problem is that the whole combination retains the same speed as before the 'combination', regardless of how many I attach. This might be resolved by allowing only a single device to attach to a ship at a time.
So in the end I had 30,000tons of ship moving around at 5400kps. The rest of my fleet began to wonder when they would be scrapped.
Post by: The Shadow on April 05, 2010, 07:42:08 PM
Great idea!Since the tugs are multi-purpose anyway, you could just make it a point to put jump drives on them. Cute part is, the drive only has to be big enough to carry the tug - the module comes along for free! (Even several modules, if you use more than one.)
I wonder, can a military vessel *with no engines* go through a jump point via a commercial jump drive in the tug? The technobabble has to do with the high power of military engines, after all. (Though I suppose the reactors could count too.) And a tug with enough commercial engines on it to be interestingly fast would be very big, anyway.
Post by: The Shadow on April 05, 2010, 07:48:05 PM
EDIT: I'm also curious how NPR's are going to react to these things. Will they shoot at the weapon module, or the tug? Once they shoot up the weapon module, does the tug get off scot-free? Or what?
EDIT: Have you verified that ships being towed can fight?
Post by: Elouda on April 05, 2010, 08:05:38 PM
Quote from: "The Shadow"
Out of curiosity, why put the tractor beams on the modules instead of on the tugs?
EDIT: I'm also curious how NPR's are going to react to these things. Will they shoot at the weapon module, or the tug? Once they shoot up the weapon module, does the tug get off scot-free? Or what?
Flexibility. This way theres less 'dead weight' on the tug, making it better at escaping, and a better courier. This way the modules can also be moved about by commerical traffic by 'hitching' a ride, or brought along as extra payload on normal combat ships. It also meant that it was possible to chain link them, which is not possible with a tractor on just the tug. Probably why it broke.
I've just used these against an NPR, and the tug was the first to go. No idea if it was coincidence or intentional. And yes, they can fight. Or well, the modules can, but theyre technically the ones doing to 'towing' - so no, I havent tried to see if when attached to a normal ship that ship can still fight.
EDIT; I just put a military jump drive on the tug - it works, though with a squadron size of 3 it can only jump itself and two modules. Still useful though. Ill let you know how it goes with the commerical one later. One solution might be a dedicated 'jump module' that gets left behind at the warp point when a fleet enters.
Post by: The Shadow on April 05, 2010, 11:23:41 PM
EDIT: Also, putting the tractor on the module does make sense. When you think about it, it's only the equivalent of two engines - so you're saving space, really.
EDIT: In the long run, if you pursue this doctrine, you'll probably want different varieties of tug - combat models and more "workhouse" ones.
Post by: UnLimiTeD on April 06, 2010, 06:13:41 AM
Neat designs, and a very interesting choice to have the tractors on the module.
I think NPRs sort of always target the biggest ship, don't they?
Post by: Elouda on April 06, 2010, 06:42:11 AM
Quote from: "UnLimiTeD"
Someone suggest a close tractor to let ships actually combine! With shields! Oh wait, I already did that.
Neat designs, and a very interesting choice to have the tractors on the module.
I think NPRs sort of always target the biggest ship, don't they?
I dont know about that - this same NPR, when I engaged it with a fleet of destroyers (~5000tons) and light cruisers (~10000tons) earlier, knocked out 3 of my escort anti-missile destroyers first, before moving onto the cruisers. This thinned out my defensive fire enough to result in the destruction of the fleet. This made me think the NPR was just being smart, but if they always target the biggest ship then it was probably just a fluke.
Post by: UnLimiTeD on April 06, 2010, 07:58:29 AM
I didn't test that myself, so far, my combat ships are the same size, and I've yet had only one meaningful battle, which was against a precursor, and I didn't really pay attention in which order he wiped my fleet^^
Post by: ZimRathbone on April 06, 2010, 08:53:45 AM
I have often had enemy units target my BCS (Battle Control Ships) , as they have big noisy sensor arrays and tend to be amoungst the biggest units in my fleets in prefernce to my missile armed strike units or screen units (which are often much smaller, so may not have been picked up by enemy actives as they are sometimes below the enemy sensor resolutions)
Post by: Kurt on April 06, 2010, 05:46:37 PM
Quote from: "Elouda"
After someone keyed me into the fact that you could use tractor beams to simulate modules on ships, I went ahead and did just that - and I have to say its worked out rather well, though I've yet to test these in combat!
<snip>
Advantages I can see this having;
-I can drop off modules at planets to act as orbital defences.
-I can swap out modules for overhauls and repairs.
-I can swap out modules as needed for mssion.
-I can transfer maintenance and even fuel, etc. between modules and the core, so in this sense its no worse than a single ship.
-My ships have an smaller TCS than a similar 'one-part' ship.
-I can build these as a joint project in a smaller yard.
-If overwhelmed, I can drop the module and run for it. With 9000km/s speed, this would have saved some of my ships from a bunch of 10000km/s 800ton gunboats a few years back.
Disadvantages include;
-Having to sacrifice 500tons for the tractor
-Shields/armour wont combine
-Have to build various components, and theyre a pain to track on the ship screen.
-As this is 'several' ships, jump drives need to handle larger squadron sizes.
Other ideas for components include a 'hangar module', a 'tanker module' and a 'survey module' with suitable equipment. Another possibility is a 'commercial' variant of the tug, which means that it needs no maintenance.
After I had combined one ship, I had what I thought was the bright idea to stick two of them onto one ship. We'll, it worked, and I found a bug as a result, so I guess I should go report it in the right place. The problem is that the whole combination retains the same speed as before the 'combination', regardless of how many I attach. This might be resolved by allowing only a single device to attach to a ship at a time.
So in the end I had 30,000tons of ship moving around at 5400kps. The rest of my fleet began to wonder when they would be scrapped.
I'm fairly sure that when Steve implimented the "Tractor" concept within Aurora he looked at it from the point of view of "Tug with tractor tractoring base/slower ship", and not the way which you have implemented it, which is the other way around with the tractor on the towed unit rather than the tug. Because of that he didn't consider what you did with it, which is to attach multiple towed units to one tug, so that is why Aurora isn't calculating the speed correctly, Steve never considered that someone would attach multiple pods to one tug.
Having said that, I like your idea. This may be something I'll play around with in one of my campaigns. Although, I have to say that your defenses are very light for my tastes. Level 2 armor and no shields? Wow, talk about an eggshell!
Hmmm...while you gain flexibility in being able to reconfigure your fleet for different missions (depending on pod availability), you also gain a vulnerability, in that once an enemy learns to target your tugs, your pod force becomes an immobile base guarding nothing (if the encounter takes place in deep space). While Aurora's AI targeting routines are almost certainly simplistic, probably along the lines of "Target the largest enemy ship" or "Target the closest enemy ship", a real opponent (or a human run NPR) would almost certainly figure this out fairly quickly, based on the differences in emissions between tug and pod.
Once your pods are immobilized the enemy doesn't even have to engage them, as long as the pods aren't within range of something he values and he can keep relief forces away, the pods will eventually fail maintenance checks and fall apart.
This will take some thought...
Kurt
Post by: UnLimiTeD on April 06, 2010, 06:31:54 PM
It has the tremendous advantage of allowing you to tech up the weapons and sensors without having to refit your entire force all the time, you just scrap the pods and add new ones.
Also, with higher tech levels, you can grant the Tug Higher armor and shields, and have your fleets functions on weaker pods.
This gives the enemy a tough choice for what to shoot at.
I like the idea, even if it has severe weaknesses, in an emergency situation you could use your commercial Tugs to Tow Battle Stations onto the frontline.
Will definitively find a place in my first RP campaign, though I'm waiting on 5.1 for that, and maybe it's not viable anymore by then.^^
Post by: welchbloke on April 07, 2010, 03:24:54 AM
I haven't used tractors for a long time so can someone remind me if a mothership and tractored unit can pass through a JP together?
Post by: Brian Neumann on April 07, 2010, 05:58:57 AM
Quote from: "welchbloke"
This is a very interesting idea; like several of the other respondants I think I may have to try this concept out for myself. Nice OneYes, but each counts as a seperate ship. If you are using a jump gate then there is no problem. If you are using a ship for a combat transit then a tug + module counts as 2 ships toward the limit.
I haven't used tractors for a long time so can someone remind me if a mothership and tractored unit can pass through a JP together?
Brian
Post by: welchbloke on April 07, 2010, 07:06:08 AM
Quote from: "Brian"
Thanks. So far combat assaults I would probably role play it as the tug has a jump drive and the number of modules a tug can take through is limited by the jump squadron size researched. Do all the ships in a single transit appear in the same spot or do they get randomised positions?Quote from: "welchbloke"This is a very interesting idea; like several of the other respondants I think I may have to try this concept out for myself. Nice OneYes, but each counts as a seperate ship. If you are using a jump gate then there is no problem. If you are using a ship for a combat transit then a tug + module counts as 2 ships toward the limit.
I haven't used tractors for a long time so can someone remind me if a mothership and tractored unit can pass through a JP together?
Brian
Post by: Father Tim on April 07, 2010, 07:27:05 AM
Quote from: "welchbloke"
Do all the ships in a single transit appear in the same spot or do they get randomised positions?
Yes. Technically, yes.
That is, your entire squadron will arrive together in a single, random location within the Jump Distance of your jump engine.
Post by: AtomikKrab on April 07, 2010, 12:07:37 PM
Post by: UnLimiTeD on April 07, 2010, 12:10:40 PM
A tractor beam with a few layers of armor and a few fuel Bunkers, and miniTugs^^
You could also tow your Missile Magazines so they don't blow up inside your ship if hit ;D
Leave them out the combat if necessary.
Btw, if you tow a ship, the speed/thermal of both gets sorta equalized on enemy sensors, you can make huge ships appear a lot faster by just towing them a little.
My Tug even showed to have shields on the enemies sensors
(personal test)
Post by: Steve Walmsley on April 08, 2010, 08:41:09 AM
Steve
Post by: UnLimiTeD on April 08, 2010, 12:29:56 PM
Post by: The Shadow on April 08, 2010, 12:36:32 PM
Quote from: "UnLimiTeD"
Aww; I saw it more as a feature.
Ditto.
Post by: Journier on April 08, 2010, 12:44:52 PM
Post by: Elouda on April 08, 2010, 01:17:08 PM
In light of this and some more playing around with this idea, I've moved away from the concept of pure tugs and pure modules, to simply using this idea to provide 'enhancement packages' that I can add to otherwise normal ships to provide more flexibility. In my current game these are 2000-3000ton lightly armoured modules that I may attached to my normal ships as needed to provide either tanker/supply/rearming support, increase firepower, enhanced sensors, or other roles as needed. They can still act as satellites and orbital bases when needed, but this way my fleet is not dependant on them.
Post by: The Shadow on April 08, 2010, 01:31:13 PM
EDIT: Though, as I think about it some more... A tractor beam is the same size as two engines. If your modules are only 2000-3000 tons, wouldn't two engines provide at least as much speed as being towed by something else? Plus they'd be capable of independent movement.
EDIT: Oh - do tractor beams work in nebulas? I've never tried it.
Post by: Caesar on May 07, 2010, 03:42:43 PM
Post by: sloanjh on May 07, 2010, 04:04:24 PM
Quote from: "Caesar"
This is a great idea! I am going to make salvage modules to send to those wrecks that have been floating around in space all those years, attached to freighters.
Just checking - did you read the part where Steve said the base premise of this thread is a bug that he's fixed? You can only have 2 ships in a tow - the tug and the towed ship.
John
Post by: Caesar on May 07, 2010, 04:14:18 PM
One on one could still be attached, right?
Post by: welchbloke on May 07, 2010, 04:40:15 PM
Quote from: "Caesar"
I don't care about that. I'd just like to split the cargo ships from the salvage modules. Saves me building time.Correct. But I think the tractor has to be on the tug not the module. I am thinking of using this to rapidly add new capability to my orbital weapons platforms if I can't spare the yardspace and/or time to refit them.
One on one could still be attached, right?
Post by: Elouda on May 07, 2010, 04:42:14 PM
Quote from: "welchbloke"
Quote from: "Caesar"I don't care about that. I'd just like to split the cargo ships from the salvage modules. Saves me building time.Correct. But I think the tractor has to be on the tug not the module. I am thinking of using this to rapidly add new capability to my orbital weapons platforms if I can't spare the yardspace and/or time to refit them.
One on one could still be attached, right?
I dont think it matters what the tractor is on, the only change was that there can only be one link between any two entities. Hard to tell since its bugged so that it does not work at all in the last version.