Ahh! Aliens are real! And hostile! (Help!)

[Teiwaz (OP)]

So it's my first "real" game, and the very first system I start to chart contains hostile aliens who nuked my survey ship.  I don't have so much as an off-earth mining colony, and I'm already in an interstellar war!

At the moment I have no military, or even pretty pictures of a military on an engineer's desk somewhere.  So it's emergency measures time, and I could use some advice/feedback on my designs.

I don't know much about the aliens.  My survey ship managed to get some active scans in before it was destroyed.  It identified 2 classes, the 6000-ton "Chippewa" (saw 8. ) and the 12,000 ton "Battlehawk" (saw 3. ) The "Zambia" (my survey vessel) was struck by 10 str 6 missiles.  I believe this was from the Battehawks - the Chippewas ran right down my throat (they caught up with the Zambia and were at 0km range when the Zambia was destroyed) with no attacks prior to the 10 hits that wrecked the Zambia.  The Battehawks were a little under 3. 5m km out when the Zambia was destroyed, I don't know whether this represents the range of their missiles or just the range at which they were able to detect the Zambia, which was only 4000 tons and was running without active sensors.  Both the Battlehawks and the Chippewas have a maximum observed speed of 4666 km/s.

As mentioned, I currently have no navy.  Also, my naval shipyards are very limited.  I have 2 yards, one with 3 slipways of 11000 tons, and one with 3 slipways of 4000 tons.  I'm going to be designing for those limitations as I won't have time to expand and retool them.

Given my time limitations, it's probably best to just go with two designs to avoid retooling for now.  My 11000 ton ship is probably going to be a missile cruiser - beating the aliens' speed is of course critical, and I'll do what I can to outrange them.  I'm torn between making the 4000-ton frigate an AMM escort and making it a combat vessel to deal with the Chippewas.  In any case, I'm going to need to get some missiles into production ASAP.  Here's what I've got so far, I'd love feedback:

First, my anti-ship missile:

Code: [Select]

Sabre Anti-Ship Missile Mk1
Missile Size: 5 MSP  (0.25 HS)     Warhead: 4    Armour: 0     Manoeuvre Rating: 11
Speed: 24000 km/s    Endurance: 56 minutes   Range: 81.0m km
Thermal Sensor Strength: 0.03    Detect Sig Strength 1000:  30,000 km
Cost Per Missile: 3.055
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 264%   3k km/s 88%   5k km/s 52.8%   10k km/s 26.4%
Materials Required:    1x Tritanium   0.03x Uridium   1.83x Gallicite   Fuel x4500

Second, my anti-missile missile:

Code: [Select]

Lancet Anti-Missile Missile Mk1
Missile Size: 1 MSP  (0.05 HS)     Warhead: 1    Armour: 0     Manoeuvre Rating: 14
Speed: 36000 km/s    Endurance: 1 minutes   Range: 2.3m km
Cost Per Missile: 0.95
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 504%   3k km/s 168%   5k km/s 100.8%   10k km/s 50.4%
Materials Required:    0.25x Tritanium   0.462x Gallicite   Fuel x25

I'm thinking that the AMM's range may be too long, given how massive the fire control had to be to match it.  (It's 350 tons!) But it already only has a 1-minute endurance, and its current engine power / maneuverability seemed to provide about the best hit % against 10k km/s + targets, so I'm not sure what to do about that.  Maybe my engine tech (started with Ion with random techs) is just much better than my active sensors?

[Teiwaz (OP)]

Also, my fire controls are reporting ranges of 0km in the ship design window, but when I designed them, they had ranges to fairly closely match the missiles.   Why is this?

Update: My component summary says their detection strength is 0? How is that possible? (I gave them str 16 actives and sensitivity 6 EM passives)

[EarthquakeDamage]

Disclaimer:  Take this with plenty of salt, as I'm a terrible player.  

At your tech level, the anti-missile range is more than sufficient.  You may want to sacrifice some fuel for agility, as your hit chance is pretty low.

Your anti-ship missiles have too much range IMO.  I'd add some punch or, better yet, crank the hit rate with some agility.  And/or just make them smaller.

You can back up your missile defense with some point-defense beam weapons.  When your AMM stocks run out, you'll still have some defense.  If your rate of fire for gauss cannons is less than 4, try 10cm railguns instead.  On the other hand, your tracking speed is probably terrible, so you may want to design some gauss turrets (probably single, since gauss cannons weigh up to ~300 tons).  Set their tracking speed to match (or slightly exceed) the enemy's fastest missile.

There's an alternative to worrying about tracking speed:  Ship speed.  Your effective tracking speed is the better of your weapon/fire-control speed and your ship speed.  If you design some small fast ships (e.g. fighters), they should have an easy time swatting enemy missiles.  With enough speed and numbers, they may survive well enough in CQB to take down the enemy ships, too.

As for your fire control range, I think it's limited to your longest-ranged beam weapon.  Stick a weapon in the design and the listed range should change.

[dooots]

Also, my fire controls are reporting ranges of 0km in the ship design window, but when I designed them, they had ranges to fairly closely match the missiles.   Why is this?

Update: My component summary says their detection strength is 0? How is that possible? (I gave them str 16 actives and sensitivity 6 EM passives)

Its a bug that seems to have something to do with having the missile design and create research project windows open at the same time.  Would be nice if it could get fixed but I've never been able to reproduce it so Steve can fix it.

The only work around I know of is to make the sensors again.  You can use sm mode to instant research them if you want or role play it as someone screwing up.

[Giggle]

In my opinion, the points you spent in thermal sensor strengh on your size 5 missile is a waste of space.
A missile uses the sensor of the launching ship, except if its target is already destroyed, or if the lauching ship is destroyed, so going without onboard sensor is not a big problem in my opinion.
And with a 0.03 sensor strengh, your missile will autodirect itself if, and only if it is already very close to the target : the window of usefullness is very short.
When your missile's auto-targeter will swith on, either the targets will be too far, or your missile will already be located in some random part of your opponent's anatomy.

In your specific tactical situation, a good question would be "do you plan to invade them or just prevent an invasion of your own space ?"
If you want to defend your door and wait for better tech before planing an invasion, then your military will blocade the Jump Gate : in this situation, you don't need a very long range missile, a faster, big hitting one would be more efficient.
The size 5 you designed is more intended for classical long range battles, not "gate camping".

Your AMM seems fine to me, but it will have difficulties to hit fast moving targets such as... other missiles. You should back it up with beam defense or gauss guns.
Gauss guns are good for low tech civilisations and first ship designs : no need of powerplant technology, because it does not use power plant.

[chrislocke2000]

Given your ship yard constraints and I guess a fairly serious urgency to get some defences in place it sounds like some 11k missile cruisers and some 4k AM escorts would be the way to go. You biggest issue is going to be building sufficient missiles to actually arm those ships in any reasonable amount of time. Your also not really going to have the chance to train the crew for fast response times, hence sitting on the gate with energy weapons may not be the best bet at this stage.

I would spend less time trying to out pace those enemy ships and focus in on being able to deliver some significant volleys at the enemy ships. You won't have the ordnance for an attirtional fight so plenty of launchers and several MFCs for each ship is probably the way to go. I would personally be looking at sitting my defense fleet a good 10 mil k off of the gate with actives on to give me time for my fleet to be able to fire co-ordinated salvos at the hostiles.

In terms of building the ships as fast as you can its also well worth diverting you industry to build the main components ahead of actually commissioning the ships. This drastically reduces the overall build time and should allow you to get the first batch out in eight to twelve months.

I also agree on the anti ship missiles, less range more punch!

You might also think about building some PDCs on earth in the mean time...

[Brian Neumann]

A quick note about building part of the ships with your industry.  In most cases you will be able to build 1/2-2/3 of almost any ship design you are looking at within one month.  This will reduce the build time of the ship by the amount it has been pre built.  I have in the past built engines, turret weapons and large fire control/sensors with my industry and taken a 18 month build time down to 3 months.  The biggest drawback to this for you will be can you build enough missiles for the ships to have a full magazine.  If you do not think you will be able to then I would suggest going with box launchers.  Your total magazine capacity will be lower than with traditional ships, but you will be able to throw very heavy salvo's.  If you do not want to have to bring the ships back to earth to re load then use the 1/4 size launchers.  This will probably give you somewhere around 80 missiles that can be fired simultaneously.  By doing this you will also reduce the need to coordinate your ships firing.  As long as a couple of ships can fire together they have a good chance to get through the pd of the targets.  Especially if you can fire soon enough for them to still be sensor blind when they would need to fire their anti-missiles off.

Good Luck
Brian

[Charlie Beeler]

You may be between a rock and a hard place.  What is the current state of your tech without further research?  Engines, active sensor strength, fire controls (beam and missile), beam fire control tracking speed, turret speed, missile warhead strength per msp, beams, etc etc etc.

It sounds like you've bumped into regular NPR.  The bad news is that they may come through the jump point before your ready.  Plan for ships that can be quickly turned out from your shipyards (1000-4000 ton max).  concentrate on quantity at first.  If you don't have many ordinance factories concentrate on the smallest single beam ship that will track a 6000ton 5000kps target. 

Once you've got a force that can swamp the NPR as it comes through the jump point then worry about quality ships.  If you design the best ship your yards can produce that are finished a month after the enemy shows up on your doorstep they do you no good. 

That's my opinion anyway.

[Rastaman]

Why all this violence? Can't you talk to them? They may have nuked your surveyor because they felt threatened.

[Shadow]

Yes, you can try assigning a team of diplomats to the race in question. It doesn't look like they're part of them.

[Teiwaz (OP)]

Thanks for the input, everyone. 

I've reduced the fuel supplies on my anti-ship missile and put the size into agility instead to improve my hit rating. 

The new Sabre ASM:

Code: [Select]

Missile Size: 5 MSP  (0.25 HS)     Warhead: 4    Armour: 0     Manoeuvre Rating: 16
Speed: 24000 km/s    Endurance: 28 minutes   Range: 40.5m km
Thermal Sensor Strength: 0.03    Detect Sig Strength 1000:  30,000 km
Cost Per Missile: 3.18
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 384%   3k km/s 128%   5k km/s 76.8%   10k km/s 38.4%
Materials Required:    1x Tritanium   0.03x Uridium   2.55x Gallicite   Fuel x2250

I also reduced the range on the AMMs - not because I needed the room, but because I think the 350-ton weight of a missile fire control is too much to justify on a 4000-ton escort, and so the extra range would be wasted anyway.   (Managed to squeeze an extra 4% to hit, I don't think I'm going to get any more than that with current tech. 

The new Lancet AMM:

Code: [Select]

Missile Size: 1 MSP  (0.05 HS)     Warhead: 1    Armour: 0     Manoeuvre Rating: 18
Speed: 30300 km/s    Endurance: 1 minutes   Range: 1.1m km
Cost Per Missile: 0.955
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 545.4%   3k km/s 180%   5k km/s 109.1%   10k km/s 54.5%
Materials Required:    0.25x Tritanium   0.447x Gallicite   Fuel x12.5

As for the .  1 MSP sensors on the Sabre, I was under the impression that with sensors onboard, any missiles in a salvo that overkill a target would redirect to another ship it can detect instead of self-destructing.   As I'm likely to be facing enemy fleets in close formation, they're likely to be within fairly close range of each other, right? Or has that changed? (I get a lot of my info from the fiction boards, and I know a lot of those campaigns are pretty old.  ) For .  1 MSP that seemed totally worth it?

I've tried assigning a diplomatic team to make contact with the aliens, but they're reporting that it may not be possible.   In any case, I'm not about to sit around and hope they'll figure that out without gearing up for war as the aliens have proven hostile already.  (Update: They've since given up.  These evil aliens are inscrutable!)

In terms of strategy, for the moment, my priority is jump-point defense - I'm not planning on spending time researching large military jump drives yet.   However, I do intend to force a confrontation with the Aliens ASAP, as they're simply too close to ignore (one jump point away from Earth, and the jump point is just outside the orbit of Saturn!) so I also plan to use this fleet for offense once I'm able to defend myself and spend the time to retool and build a jump cruiser. 

Here's my proposed design for the missile cruiser:

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Marauder class Missile Cruiser    11,000 tons     1028 Crew     1523.08 BP      TCS 220  TH 1071  EM 0
4868 km/s     Armour 3-44     Shields 0-0     Sensors 18/6/0/0     Damage Control Rating 5     PPV 36
Annual Failure Rate: 193%    IFR: 2.7%    Maint Capacity 1433 MSP    Max Repair 96 MSP    Est Time: 3.43 Years
Magazine 618    

Lockheed-Martin E8.8 Overcharged Ion Engine (17)    Power 63    Fuel Use 88%    Signature 63    Armour 0    Exp 7%
Fuel Capacity 150,000 Litres    Range 27.9 billion km   (66 days at full power)

Anti-Missile Launcher S-1 Mk1 (11)    Missile Size 1    Rate of Fire 10
Standard Missile Launcher S-5 Mk1 (5)    Missile Size 5    Rate of Fire 50
Missile Fire Control FC122-R100 (1)     Range 122.4m km    Resolution 100
Anti-Missile Missile Fire Control FC10-R1 (1)     Range 10.1m km    Resolution 1
Sabre Anti-Ship Missile Mk2 (64)  Speed: 24,000 km/s   End: 28.1m    Range: 40.5m km   WH: 4    Size: 5    TH: 128 / 76 / 38
Lancet Anti-Missile Missile Mk2 (300)  Speed: 30,300 km/s   End: 0.6m    Range: 1.1m km   WH: 1    Size: 1    TH: 181 / 109 / 54

Active Search Sensor MR57-R100 (1)     GPS 9600     Range 57.6m km    Resolution 100
Thermal Sensor TH3-18 (1)     Sensitivity 18     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  18m km
Sony EM1-6 Commercial EM Detection Sensor (1)     Sensitivity 6     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  6m km

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'm not entirely sure about the ordinance load.   I've currently gone for 64 Sabre ASMs and 300 Lancet AMMs?

I've managed to just barely hold onto a speed advantage over the ships I've seen. 

The Phalanx AMM Escort:

Code: [Select]

Phalanx class Escort    4,000 tons     304 Crew     548.74 BP      TCS 80  TH 378  EM 0
4725 km/s     Armour 3-22     Shields 0-0     Sensors 18/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 1     PPV 6
Annual Failure Rate: 128%    IFR: 1.8%    Maint Capacity 86 MSP    Max Repair 56 MSP    Est Time: 1.1 Years
Magazine 297    

Lockheed-Martin E8.8 Overcharged Ion Engine (6)    Power 63    Fuel Use 88%    Signature 63    Armour 0    Exp 7%
Fuel Capacity 50,000 Litres    Range 25.6 billion km   (62 days at full power)

Anti-Missile Launcher S-1 Mk1 (6)    Missile Size 1    Rate of Fire 10
Anti-Missile Missile Fire Control FC10-R1 (1)     Range 10.1m km    Resolution 1
Lancet Anti-Missile Missile Mk2 (297)  Speed: 30,300 km/s   End: 0.6m    Range: 1.1m km   WH: 1    Size: 1    TH: 181 / 109 / 54

Sony MR9-R100 Commercial Active Search Sensor (1)     GPS 1600     Range 9.6m km    Resolution 100
Thermal Sensor TH3-18 (1)     Sensitivity 18     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  18m km

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

297 Lancets on these. 

These okay? I'm not entirely happy with the range on them, but I couldn't fit more fuel on without removing something important or going over my size limit.   When I go on the offensive, I'll make sure I have tankers on standby. 

[Ziusudra]

The active sensor on the Phalanx won't be able to see size 6 missiles until it's too late to intercept them. It should be resolution 1 like the fire control. The active finds missiles for FC to track, so if the active can't see them... Edit: Same for the Marauder, though it will see them a bit sooner.

The Marauder's anti-ship FC has 3 times the range of your AS missiles? You could save a few HS there.

[Teiwaz (OP)]

The active sensor on the Phalanx won't be able to see size 6 missiles until it's too late to intercept them.  It should be resolution 1 like the fire control.  The active finds missiles for FC to track, so if the active can't see them. . .  Edit: Same for the Marauder, though it will see them a bit sooner.

The Marauder's anti-ship FC has 3 times the range of your AS missiles? You could save a few HS there.

Blech! I assumed that because the missile fire controls had sensors built in, they'd be able to target things on their own.  That's not good!

The marauder's FC's range is to be able to target ~5000 ton vessels at max missile range.  I'm expecting a large number of smaller ships based on what my survey ship ran into.

[Narmio]

As for the .  1 MSP sensors on the Sabre, I was under the impression that with sensors onboard, any missiles in a salvo that overkill a target would redirect to another ship it can detect instead of self-destructing.   As I'm likely to be facing enemy fleets in close formation, they're likely to be within fairly close range of each other, right? Or has that changed? (I get a lot of my info from the fiction boards, and I know a lot of those campaigns are pretty old.  ) For .  1 MSP that seemed totally worth it?

If this will work, it is a great idea.  But I cannot confirm that it will work. I know that, for instance, submunitions released from a bunch captor mines will not seek new targets once they've destroyed the first.

Additionally, if operating primarily as a jump-defence force, your priority must be overwhelming first strike before your enemies get their anti-missile radar up. I would advise reduced size launchers on the missile cruiser, it's cheap to research up to the 50% size ones, so that you can double your throw-weight in a hostile-jump-in situation.  Given the likely technological advantage of your opponents, you really want that first strike to stick!

[Ziusudra]

The marauder's FC's range is to be able to target ~5000 ton vessels at max missile range.  I'm expecting a large number of smaller ships based on what my survey ship ran into.

Actually, a resolution 100 FC will be able to target 5000 ton and larger at it's rated range, the 122.4mkm in this case. Lower resolution is better for seeing smaller ships than bigger size. How big is that FC?