Where to Begin...

[Jumpp]

I don't know if that'll work or not.  I suspect it'd give you a lot of trouble.

A simpler and more conventional start would be to just go for missiles as your offense and defense.  I'll tell you what I do.

Tech-wise I like to start with:
- the active-grav and EM sensitivity upgrades costing 4000 and 8000
- fuel consumption at 0.7
- magneto-plasma drive tech (Expensive, but worth it.)
- max engine power 1.5x
- research rate 240 (so painful to research this, but super nice to have right out the gate)
- duranium armor
- NO thermal reduction - it's a luxury item in the early game, and these starting RP are precious.  Gotta make each point count.
- warheads 5xMSP
- missile agility 48x MSP
- launcher size 0.33, 20x Reload (big salvos are more important than high ROF on anti-ship missiles)
- launcher reload rate 3

With that starting tech, you'll be able to make these missiles:

- A size-1 antimissile with a maneuver rating of 20 and a speed of 28,800.  (Engine is x3 power, size 0.6)
- A size-5 anti-ship missile with a maneuver rating of 18, a speed of 21,120, and a warhead of 9 (Engine is x3 power, size 2.2)

I suggest using a 25HS engine at 1.20 power mod for your main warship drive.  That's a 960-EP engine, and one of those will push an 8,000 ton hull at 6,000 kps, a perfectly respectable speed.  That's a 2500-ton engine, and with 610 tons of fuel it'll have a range of around 25 billion km, which doesn't sound like a lot but turns out to be easy to live with once you try it.  Spending 3110 tons of an 8,000-ton ship on fuel and engine isn't bad.

Just throwing some things together I was able to come up with this:

Code: [Select]

Indianapolis class Cruiser    16,000 tons     241 Crew     2640.6 BP      TCS 320  TH 1920  EM 0
6000 km/s     Armour 6-56     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 6     PPV 82.5
Maint Life 1.02 Years     MSP 619    AFR 341%    IFR 4.7%    1YR 600    5YR 9003    Max Repair 480 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 36 months    Spare Berths 1   
Magazine 755   

960 EP Magneto-plasma Drive (2)    Power 960    Fuel Use 55.21%    Signature 960    Exp 12%
Fuel Capacity 1,200,000 Litres    Range 24.5 billion km   (47 days at full power)

Size 5 Missile Launcher (33% Reduction) (50)    Missile Size 5    Rate of Fire 1000
Missile Fire Control FC48-R160 (1)     Range 48.6m km    Resolution 160
Missile Fire Control FC15-R16 (1)     Range 15.4m km    Resolution 16

Active Search Sensor MR48-R160 (1)     GPS 7680     Range 48.6m km    Resolution 160
Active Search Sensor MR15-R16 (1)     GPS 768     Range 15.4m km    Resolution 16

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes

That's about typical of my usual starting cruiser.  An AMM ship of similar tech might look like this:

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Antietam class Frigate    8,000 tons     184 Crew     1375.84 BP      TCS 160  TH 960  EM 0
6000 km/s     Armour 4-35     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 5     PPV 20
Maint Life 1.76 Years     MSP 537    AFR 102%    IFR 1.4%    1YR 212    5YR 3187    Max Repair 480 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 36 months    Spare Berths 0   
Magazine 323   

960 EP Magneto-plasma Drive (1)    Power 960    Fuel Use 55.21%    Signature 960    Exp 12%
Fuel Capacity 650,000 Litres    Range 26.5 billion km   (51 days at full power)

Size 1 Missile Launcher (20)    Missile Size 1    Rate of Fire 10
Missile Fire Control FC10-R1 (1)     Range 10.6m km    Resolution 1

Active Search Sensor MR10-R1 (1)     GPS 128     Range 10.2m km    Resolution 1

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes

I'm sure other readers will be able to point out flaws in these designs, but I think they're a reasonable starting point.

As you improve your tech you'll want to upgrade your ships and missiles to stay current.  Here's what I do:

- Replace electronics (sensors, ECM, ECCM) with newer models every chance you get.
- Replace armor any time it becomes available.  You'll generally be able to trade the space savings for a few more layers of armor.
- Avoid replacing launchers on your ship-killers or drives on any warship.  These are a huge fraction of the cost of the ship.  Instead, just make newer-generation models and let the old generation limp along at somewhat slower speeds.  Totally obsolete ships make an ideal binky for frontier worlds that crave more protection.
- Try to get improvements in several areas (engine power, warhead/MSP, agility/MSP) before doing up a new generation of missiles.  Big coherent salvos are nice, and it's hard to do that when each ship of the line is carrying a rainbow of missile variants.

[XxoriginxX (OP)]

Well, due to me starting with that 10 billion population. . .  I tend to start with a lot of tech points. . .  Probably way too many.  I might just have to scale things back a bit. . .

[Jumpp]

10 billion is excessive.  This game offers you the tools to break it, should you choose to use them.  It's more of a sandbox in a lot of ways.  You've sort of got to define your own challenges, and then enforce those rules yourself.  If you don't understand the game really well, it's easy to tweak the starting settings in a way that'll take much of the challenge out of the game.

[Jorgen_CAB]

Yes, even at 3-4 billion your wealth income is huge at the start and the population growth are so high that you don't really need to build any colonies anywhere except mining colonies. Sure the trading income is nice but I have ended up with millions upon millions in wealth in my reserve.

[Rabid_Cog]

Think of the population not as your actual number of people on the planet but as the number of 'educated, contributing citizens'. Sure there are a few billion more people, but most of them live in Africa and other horribly backward places, doing nothing but eating maize and popping babies. Not really useful for a TN society.

[Jorgen_CAB]

Yes... I usually view my populations as the part that are educated enough to matter. They would not include children or the old either, just the able bodied and working class. So, any population such as on Earth would perhaps be 1/3 to 1/4 of the total population at most.

[Shaitan]

I like to envisage them as the entitled upper class (service guarantees citicenship).

[Charlie Beeler]

- launcher size 0.33, 20x Reload (big salvos are more important than high ROF on anti-ship missiles)

This is a something that I strongly disagree with.  The reason being that it works ok against some NPR's because they have fleets that are small in number.  But once you face one that using small ships in quantity the lack of ROF can be a killer.  The extremely slow ROF takes away too much tactical flexibility.

Don't get me wrong.  Having something in your fleet(s) that has this kind of a hammer is not a bad idea.  Having the fleet depending on it is.

This is just my opinion based on experience,  YMMV.

[Shaitan]

Going for the alpha strike very much puts your eggs all in one basket. Either you lob enough ordinance in that first strike to annihilate your foes and can celebrate your one sided victory, or the strike wasn't large enough and your commanding officers now have a lot of letters to write to grieving families before handing in their resignations.

Very effective when it works, but it has to work, otherwise you're boned.

[Jorgen_CAB]

In a game where you have a human brain on both sides you need both. Both are easily defeated if you deploy them exclusively. The same goes with fast versus armoured and slower missiles etc.

You can, for example, design missiles to waste the opponents AMM stock. Once he is depleted you engage with large volleys of high yield missiles in order to overwhelm gauss and laser point defences.

Smaller volleys of fire can easily be countered with good point defences which saves your stock of AMM, while alpha strikes are effectively stopped by good shields.

In general I tend to miniaturize bigger launchers (5+) and keep the smaller as standard launchers if not fitted on FAC or Fighter crafts.

To be franc, against AI NPR both tactics work equally well as long as you can throw enough missiles against them so they can't shoot them all down.

[Jorgen_CAB]

Going for the alpha strike very much puts your eggs all in one basket. Either you lob enough ordinance in that first strike to annihilate your foes and can celebrate your one sided victory, or the strike wasn't large enough and your commanding officers now have a lot of letters to write to grieving families before handing in their resignations.

Very effective when it works, but it has to work, otherwise you're boned.

That is only true if you go for box launchers. You can miniaturize your launchers and fire many salvoes and restock from colliers in the same way you otherwise do. I would never fit a ship with box launcher that do not have a hangar to reload them in. That is like giving yourself a huge disadvantage that a smart enemy could exploit pretty easily.

I have had ships equipped with size 8 launchers miniaturized into size 2 (0.25) in big battle cruisers. About 30-50 in one salvo and magazines for perhaps two to three salvoes and colliers for more will ensure heavy strikes on big capital ships. They are not really meant for a swarm of destroyers, that is what you use your smaller cruisers equipped with smaller shorter ranged missiles. Smaller ships are really not powerful enough to deal with really large ships on a tonnage for tonnage basis. That is at least my experience so far when I play with no AI.

[Shaitan]

That is only true if you go for box launchers.

Aye, you are correct, in action I tend to view it as a sliding scale, with box launchers at one end, representing the full alpha, come home with your shield or on it approach, and at the other, you have the more cautious full reload tactically flexible approach.

What works best for you is probably always going to be very situational, depending on the interaction between the current tactical, logistical, intelligence and strategic situation. Personally I think sacrificing rate of fire for throw weight leaves you critically vulnerable to the unknown and the unexpected, but if you modify your approach to account for this, or cover it in other areas, then it might never be a problem.

That might though, that's the bit I don't like. I'm a bloodbowl player, that next 1 is just a dice throw away.