Yeah, I read a few threads on this topic and I get the idea. But then I looked up wiki and it says:
The chance of destroying a component is calculated by:
Incoming Damage / Component HTKMeaning 2 smaller engines are twice as likely to get destroyed (12 vs 25), while they take the same amount of space on the ship (= same chance to get hit). Am I getting this right? Also, bigger engines, while cost twice as much to repair, are 25% more fuel efficient, which also saves weight and resources.
As for combat situations, I predict that a ship that gets hit in combat will have to be detached and taken off the frontline anyway, because it'll slow down the whole TG. When it comes to 10Kt ship, there will be enough MSP to repair it with damage control to start to get moving again. Bigger ships will have at least 2 of such size 50 engines anyway.
That's my current rationale. Of course, I'll need to experience more combat to evaluate this. But bigger HTK is the main advantage, IMO. Or am I missing something?
Bigger HTK
per engine.
Total HTK stays more-or-less at HS/2, unless you go for 1 HS engines. So, if one engine is 25 HTK, two smaller engines would be 12 + 12 HTK, five smaller engines would be 5 + 5 + 5 + 5 + 5 HTK, et cetera.
The larger engine is more resistant to damage, both individually (per engine) and as a unit (per 50 HS). But it's more expensive to repair, takes longer to repair, and while it's damaged the ship's not going anywhere.
Uhm.. Yeah, I downsized the sensors from previous 1.2M km to 1M km (vs MS6) to save weight. I was trying to fit everything into 10Kt. Was really hard to do, considering previous generation was 12.5Kt.
But is 1M km really not enough? My current missiles are 25000 km/s, and that's 250K km per 10 sec.
The way I see it, is that your Magic AMMs have 3Mkm range, and therefore have excess fuel versus what you can actually target. Similarly, a hostile missile (of equal tech) would cross your detection envelope in a mere 40 seconds - allowing your destroyer only four AMM salvos back at it before it hits. Consider the following scenario:
Captain Lock glared at his display. The hostile contact - a ship equal in size to his Cole, if the sensor readouts were correct - had been content to stooge around near the limits of sensor range. He dearly wanted to fire Sunburns at it, but every time he'd tried to close in, the bandit had turned to keep the distance open - leading to their current stalemate, with both his ship and the enemy idling their engines to save fuel.
Then, an alarm sounded. "Vampire, VAMPIRE! Sixteen missiles inbound, 40 seconds to impact!" yelled the sensor operator.
OOC: It's probably conservative to assume 20% of a ship could be hangar space - which for 10kt ships, gives 2kt of hangars, space for four 500-ton fighters. Let's say they're your 4x4MSP design.
Captain Lock's mind whirled, as computers and gunners reacted. Sixteen vampires in four four-missile salvos. 40 seconds let his AMM launchers fire eight half-salvos of their own, totalling 32 AMMs in space before they hit. The vampires looked pretty similar to his own Sunburn missiles, which meant each AMM had a roughly 40% chance of knocking down its target. 32 times 40% gave 13 intercepts... three leakers - at those speeds, his point-defense gauss turret might stop all three, it could put enough lead downrange...
...if he fired exactly enough AMMs at each salvo to kill it - too many AMMs in one launch, and he wouldn't have enough to stop the others; too few in the first launch, and he'd have to spend a second trying to knock down the survivors.
It was going to be close...
OOC: to be fair, the Cole does have the shields, and Captain Lock doesn't yet know that these are smaller "fighter" missiles rather than his own powerful Sunburns, so he could tank two missiles without taking damage. And since they are "fighter" missiles, he doesn't have to worry about an immediate followup attack, and would have time for his shields to regenerate. But, given what he does know, can he afford to assume that?
My reaction that the antimissile scanner should be triple the size is mostly to do with matching your AMMs' range. Nevertheless, that is probably the simplest way to improve your point defense - our heroic Captain Lock would not be so worried if he could fire a fifth AMM salvo, thanks to detecting the vampires at 1.2Mkm instead of 1.0Mkm.
I should point out that I plan on introducing anti-fighter capabilities into my fleet with introduction of 20-30Kt cruiser. I'm thinning about dedicated anti-fighter radars and FCs and probably longer ranged size 2 missile. How far out should I be ready to engage fighters?
It's not so much the fighters, as the missiles they can fire. 9Mkm is pretty good for keeping fighters away; 1Mkm is not so good for keeping missiles away.
I measured it'd be either 4x MS4 or 2x MS6, not 3x MS6. Also, I do active radars on my strike fighters. Previous generation had 50M km range. 150? Would be really hard to do right now. Also, bigger volley = easier to overcome PD.
But yeah, I do LOVE to share common equipment and ammo as much as possible, so you are totally right to point it out. I'll keep trying to fit it in.
This is one area where the fighter's fire controls and sensors would NOT match the missile's capabilities. While the "right" number would depend on your specific opponent, I think 50Mkm would be plenty of range for the strike fighter's fire control. (50Mkm, minus 50% for ECM, is still 25Mkm, what I think would be comfortably out of AMM range.)
I think that's another reason to drop the active sensors from the strike fighters, and instead design a dedicated sensor fighter.
I do have a dedicated SWACS FAC (actually, the only type of FACs I intend to use). Previous generation was equipped with ~300-350M km active sensor. But what if they all get destroyed? I do get the idea of such hyper weight efficiency, I really do. But I'm not comfortable enough to gamble with this nor do I have too much space for sensor only ships. 2Ktons of hangar space is already too much, I'm thinking about trying to fit it on a 500 ton fighter. Maybe with later tech I'll squeeze it in.. I hope to.
I feel that a sensor fighter's job (or that of a SWACS FAC - swack sfack?
) isn't that of general surveillance. Instead, it's "illumination" - I know that there's an enemy in this general location, go over there and pinpoint it.
In light of that, a 300Mkm active sensor is WAY overkill for a sensor fighter. 50Mkm would be more than I would be willing to spend for, but is a match for your intended fighter missile ranges.
Keep in mind the way resolution works - larger targets are detected at the same range as the rated resolution, but smaller targets are detected at closer ranges:
target range = max range * (target resolution / sensor resolution) ^ 2To put this into perspective, the Cole's 160-resolution, 204.5Mkm search sensor? It'll detect a size-10 fighter at 0.8M kilometres. A missile would be able to doodle on that sensor's dish, being only detected at 719 (yes, that's seven hundred and nineteen - no "k" or "M") kilometres.
So you'll need to decide whether the sensor fighter should be able to pick up missiles (res-1) or fighters (res-10... unless you know how big your opponent's fighters are), before you start spending tonnage on giant "map the star system" scanners.
It's also worth noting that fighters are much simpler to replace than FACs. The former, you just build in the factory; the latter, you have to retool a shipyard to change them.
Also, I'm experiencing problems with fitting my new 100Kt carrier. Won't be able to have 45Kt of hangar space. 32, if I'm lucky. Fuel, ammo, MSPs and spare crew quarters take too much space. And 10Kt jump drive. But that's kind of a given for such a big ship.
I feel 30% hangar space is quite adequate for a general-purpose carrier. A fast "assault" or "battle" carrier would probably be closer to 20%.
