Mothership

[Vynadan (OP)]

Victorys Crucible class Mothership    2,896,800 tons     56795 Crew     161524 BP      TCS 57936  TH 150000  EM 0
2589 km/s     Armour 20-1810     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 1     PPV 0
Maint Capacity 100035 MSP    Max Repair 200 MSP
Tractor Beam    
Jump Gate Construction Ship: 150 days
Fuel Harvester: 200 modules producing 12000000 litres per annum
Maintenance Modules: 250 module(s) capable of supporting ships of 50000 tons

Solid Core Anti-matter Drive E0.3 (300)    Power 500    Fuel Use 3%    Signature 500    Armour 0    Exp 1%
Fuel Capacity 100,000,000 Litres    Range 2071.2 billion km   (9259 days at full power)

This design is classed as a Commercial Vessel for maintenance purposes

Currently I try to design a mothership for a fleet far away from home. It's supposed to be capable of maintaining (maintancing? English fail :3) the fleet and its escort bases, provide fuel and generally sit around looking good. My methane breathers have a doctrine favouring large ships, but I've limited myself to a max of 50k tons for military vessels so far, so this mothership could handle anything I send along with it. Since I couldn't fit a jump engine on it, it can simply construct jump gates and because I doubt maintenance modules can maintain the ship they're set on, I tried to keep it commercial. The heavy armour is an attempt to compensate for the lack of shields and weapons, but it's never supposed to be around without a fleet anyway. Basically I imagine it to hop from sorium filled gas giant to the next and extend the time my fleet can stay spaceborne by a great deal. Not yet added are passive sensors, but they'll be added. The only maximum I set for it is a mass of about 3.3m tons. (Because of a SuperTerraformer of that size I've built. A once in a lifetime investment XD)
I'm aware that it's not really a neccessity to have a mothership like that around, but I wanted to build one anyway  My question is, is the maintance capacity or the fuel storages overdone? While I'll have to resupply the mothership with supplies once in a while it's supposed to be the fleet's main tanker and gulps quite some from its own engines too.
The tractor beam is just for convinience should an occasion ever arise - with the size the ship has it didn't matter much.

Along with the mothership, but not yet designed, will be a couple 50k ton bases. They're for the motherships defense if the main fleet is either away or additional firepower should the combat reach the mothership. I planned for one base to have missile supplies (because I couldn't recall whether magazines can be placed on commercial vessels, if they can, I'd do that on the mothership too) and a couple fighters, a second type of base for PD and offensive means.

[Vanigo]

No, magazines are military systems.

You've got a couple problems with this design. First of all, fuel harvesters and maintenance modules can't be used at the same time. Maintenance modules are only useful at a population, and you can't put a population on a gas giant. You'll need to split the fuel harvesting off into a second ship in a second fleet. Similarly, maintaining ships costs minerals. Not many, but some. You'll need some cargo space, and maybe some asteroid mining ships or something.
Really, though, if you're going to put this much effort into a military support city-ship, why not go all the way and have a whole orbital habitat so you can build maintenance supplies and missiles on-site? Actually, I suppose you could do the former with just automated mines and engineering brigades. Take forever to train them all, though.

By the way, is the tractor beam so this thing can tow its support bases? Be aware, a ship can only tow one other ship, no matter how many tractor beams it mounts. I believe, however, that if the support bases mount tractor beams, they can both clamp onto the mothership and it does pretty much the same thing.
Oh, and FYI you can mount CIWS on civilian vessels. So do it.

[Vynadan (OP)]

Oops. Didn't know maintenance modules only work on populations. That does sort of screw it up a little.
I should have guessed that maintance costs minerals on modules just as it does on planets. That increases the logistic effort some more 
I once oogled with engine less module-ish ships dedicated to active sensors, that's how I came to the idea to add a tractor beam. But really, I didn't have any specific thing in mind, I just saw the little space it'd use up compared to the ship's size and placed one on it. Nothing I have should really slow this thing down with its engine power. From towing a severally damaged battleship to the next planet with the required metals for repairs to just trying out what happens if I try to tractor an enemy ship ... XD No idea.

With an orbital habitat module, I'd also need cryogenic transport since the habitat doesn't support population while moving if I recall that correctly?
Can engineer brigades construct ordnance? I guess adding some troop capacities won't hurt especially if some invasion force is to be carried alongside (yay for one more purpose for the ship), but I imagine their production speed is rather slow - I aim for supplying a fleet after all. Gotta look into how much cargo I'll need for a couple automated mines and ordnance factories. That however puts me into a strategic disadvantage shouldn't there be the required metals around. Plus I'd need one or two GSVs in the fleet ...
Hm.
Damn, Aurora is complex =D

Also, woot, CIWS. Gonna do that. Should've known that before launching my terraformer XD

[Vanigo]

Engineer brigades can't construct ordinance, but they are significantly smaller than a construction factory and the cryotubes and habitat modules to run it. Honestly, between hauling everything around and needing to find a planet with all the right minerals, ordinance factories are probably more trouble than they're worth. Engineers building maintenance supplies is probably worthwhile, though - engineer brigades don't build very fast, but maintenance supplies are only a quarter of a BP each. At your tech level, I imagine you could get thousands a year without much difficulty, and with only three minerals needed, finding a suitable body won't be too hard.

It's probably worth bringing some deep space tracking facilities along; no shipborne sensor can match them.

[Vynadan (OP)]

Victorys Crucible class Mothership    3,282,100 tons     57540 Crew     232493 BP      TCS 65642  TH 250000  EM 0
3808 km/s     Armour 30-1967     Shields 0-0     Sensors 24/24/0/0     Damage Control Rating 1     PPV 0
Maint Capacity 100044 MSP    Max Repair 200 MSP
Troop Capacity: 200 Battalions    Cargo 550000    Cargo Handling Multiplier 800    Tractor Beam     
Jump Gate Construction Ship: 60 days
Maintenance Modules: 250 module(s) capable of supporting ships of 50000 tons

Gas Core Anti-matter Drive E0.3 (400)    Power 625    Fuel Use 3%    Signature 625    Armour 0    Exp 1%
Fuel Capacity 150,000,000 Litres    Range 2741.8 billion km   (8333 days at full power)

CIWS-200 (200x8)    Range 1000 km     TS: 20000 km/s     ROF 5       Base 50% To Hit
Thermal Sensor TH1-24 (1)     Sensitivity 24     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  24m km
EM Detection Sensor EM1-24 (1)     Sensitivity 24     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  24m km

This design is classed as a Commercial Vessel for maintenance purposes

The new design now features its sensors, quite some CIWS defense (although I realised quite a lack in targeting research, I've so long based my military on missiles only), 50% larger fuel storages and a minor increase in armour. The cargo allows for both some automated mines and additional ressources or other structures to be transported and the troop capacity is large enough to fit engineers along with an invasion force. With its cargo handling system it gets down to a 6h loading time.

I still see the need for better CIWS research and perhaps the obsolate state of the sensors, since it'll be always with an escort.

To Seek To Find class Fuel Harvester Base    49,100 tons     1125 Crew     6806 BP      TCS 982  TH 900  EM 0
5728 km/s     Armour 10-119     Shields 0-0     Sensors 24/24/0/0     Damage Control Rating 1     PPV 0
Maint Capacity 87 MSP    Max Repair 352 MSP
Fuel Harvester: 5 modules producing 360000 litres per annum

Gas Core Anti-matter Drive E0.3 Stealth (9)    Power 625    Fuel Use 3%    Signature 100    Armour 0    Exp 1%
Fuel Capacity 10,000,000 Litres    Range 12219.7 billion km   (24691 days at full power)

Thermal Sensor TH1-24 (1)     Sensitivity 24     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  24m km
EM Detection Sensor EM1-24 (1)     Sensitivity 24     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  24m km

This design is classed as a Commercial Vessel for maintenance purposes

The mothership will likely have more than just one fuel harvester escort, simply because the low number of harvester modules i could fit within the maximum tonnage. They're outfitted with reduced thermal signature engines and intended to operate alone or off-fleet for some time. I'll try to see how far I can get my so far neglected cloaking tech to perhaps get some cloaking on these things, but I don't know how much good that'll do XD

Alacritous Mission class Module    14,000 tons     955 Crew     5592.5 BP      TCS 280  TH 0  EM 0
1 km/s     Armour 10-51     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1200/1200/0/0     Damage Control Rating 37     PPV 0
Annual Failure Rate: 92%    IFR: 1.3%    Maint Capacity 4244 MSP    Max Repair 1600 MSP    Est Time: 1.94 Years


CIWS-200 (10x8)    Range 1000 km     TS: 20000 km/s     ROF 5       Base 50% To Hit
Active Search Sensor MR19-R1 (1)     GPS 80     Range 19.2m km    Resolution 1
Active Search Sensor MR3840-R100 (1)     GPS 160000     Range 3,840.0m km    Resolution 100
Thermal Sensor TH50-1200 (1)     Sensitivity 1200     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  1200m km
EM Detection Sensor EM50-1200 (1)     Sensitivity 1200     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  1200m km

ECM 40

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes

This is a sensor module outfitted with the best sensors I could come up with. Since the mothership's signature will be visible all around the system I tried to go for early warning here. I don't have the maths of the deep space trackign stations, but I don't think this can compete with a level one installation. It at least doesn't require a 6h setup time and can be sent along the main fleet if necessary.

I've yet to design the military base types but I'll put some more effort into my tech beforehand. Since a 50k tonnage limites a carrier somewhat I planned on a carrier focused base, probably for long range fighters or even FACs, a collier dedicated non fightung but military classed base and a missile platform for AMM and ASM purposes.

Gotta admit, putting the build time, ressources and thoughts into standard military designs might bring more, but this idea just fascinates me at the moment 

[martinuzz]

Hehe, I've had a similar idea of building a 'nomad' mothership since I've started playing Aurora, but never got to actually designing one.
I'm curious:
- how long will it take your shipyard to build the darn thing?
- how many star systems will you have to stripmine to depletion to build it?
- does it have moons and asteroid belts orbiting it?

As for your sensor tag-along base.. Since it's already classed as a military vessel, you could replace it's CIWS with Gauss turrets (and firecontrols). That way, it can both protect itself and the mothership in point defense mode.

[Vanigo]

Don't forget, you can eliminate a ship's thermal signature by reducing its speed to 1 km/s. (Well, this thing might still be at 100 or so, I guess, but that's not too bad.)

[Vynadan (OP)]

If I'd try to include some civilian population and the factories for them to work in I'd for sure need a 10m tonnage ship or something XD The actual problem with a 'true' nomad ship I see is that orbital habitats aren't populated during space flight and their inhabitants frozen in cryo sleep. Freezing your population for flight time strikes me as something a race mostly living in space would never do, plus they'd prolly continue to work in their factories during flight aswell.

Retooling my already large enough shipyard will cost ~58k of both duranium and neutronium and take about half a year. I dunno how many ressources I've spent to get my shipyard to that size though. The mothership costs round about

105k duranium
62k neutronium
1500 corbomite
360 boromite
7500 marcassium
4000 vendarite
720 sorium
2500 uridium
45k gallicite

On top of that 150m litres of fuel, the maintance supplies, ressources and installations for cargo and the troop costs. About 50% of the duranium and neutronium costs come from the armour. I don't really feel like calculating the raw ressource materials and adding them up though. I'm just glad I don't need to send food along with the troops XD

Since I knew I'd go for a large ship doctrine I created a large starting system for my race, although I didn't set any ressources. I got somewhat lucky, although all major ressource depots have questionable accessibility. With the surrounding systems I've so far surveyed the only limit in my ressources is the speed I can mine them at, not their availability. I haven't stoped building automed mines at my capital for the last 50 years or so 

- does it have moons and asteroid belts orbiting it?

If you count the 50k ton bases as moons and the fleet as asteroids, yes XD