Need a little help with design

[alex_brunius]

@Marc: Do you mean changing the power/efficiency modifier to x2 ? It increases fuel consumption like 11 times.  

No bigger engines are more fuel efficient. So if you have a ship design with one or two engines instead of 6 smaller ( with same total tonnage ) they will be a bit more efficient.

[Brian Neumann]

No bigger engines are more fuel efficient. So if you have a ship design with one or two engines instead of 6 smaller ( with same total tonnage ) they will be a bit more efficient.

One thing to think about with the engines and shock damage is how vulnerable do you want to be to a single lucky hit taking out all of your ability to move.  In addition the bigger engines will do a lot more damage if they explode.  Think of the classic "Golden BB" shot which took out the Hood during WWII.  Larger engines are more efficient, and having just a couple instead of 6 would still make a noticeable difference on your fuel efficiency.

Brian

[Erik L]

@Erik: Level 4 reload rate based launchers are now a priority.      ETA nov 2042 just before the construction of 3 first generation cruisers.     

@Marc: Do you mean changing the power/efficiency modifier to x2 ? It increases fuel consumption like 11 times.   

With Reload tech, the level of tech = 30second reload for the same size missile. So reload 3 means you have 30s reload on size 3 missiles. Each size past that adds 10s reload. Just FYI

[Hawkeye]

@Erik: Level 4 reload rate based launchers are now a priority.      ETA nov 2042 just before the construction of 3 first generation cruisers.     

@Marc: Do you mean changing the power/efficiency modifier to x2 ? It increases fuel consumption like 11 times.   

Larger engines are more fuel efficient than smaller ones.
On the other hand, if you go for a single, huge engine, all it takes is one unlucky hit and your ship is dead in space.

The 6 engines on your design are great for keeping your ship going under fire, but are wasting lots of fuel. Going with 2 x 180 power or 3 x 120 power engines might be advisable.

[MarcAFK]

Oh sorry my mistake, I didn't make it clear that I meant tyou should replace the 6 engines with 1 or 2 larger engines with the same total power, actually since they will be more efficient you could bump the multiplier up a little too and get some extra speed....
And Brian, as I recall the hood and Bismark were basically equally matched the both had the same 15 inch guns and were teh same size and displacement, with around the same power. However the hood had slightly less of her displacement as armour than the bismark, but still around a third of her weight was armour protection, so it's kind of laughable to call that ship a battle cruiser when it couldn't possibly have been any better protected...
Well, regardless It was a magazine explosion which took her out which was probably either bad luck, poor safety measures, or poor design.

[Brian Neumann]

snip

Well, regardless It was a magazine explosion which took her out which was probably either bad luck, poor safety measures, or poor design.

No argument about the what actually destroyed the Hood.  Just saying that sometimes a lucky hit can do these things.  With only 1 engine on a ship if that lucky hit takes out the engine, your ship is in a world of hurt.  If the engine explodes then most ships are going to be crippled, or just killed outright.  With more engines the size of the explosion will be less (assuming the same total space devoted to engines), and if any engines survive you will still have the option of pulling back.  Plus in this game a stationary target is pretty much dead unless it was designed from the start to be stationary (pdc's or orbital defense bases)

Brian

[borisoff (OP)]

My new generation fleet should look something like this, please take a look and give me some advise.       Let's say the default setting will look like 2 cruisers, 6 light cruisers, 4 PD destroyer escort, 1 supply ship, 1-2 colliers, 1-2 tankers, 1 radar ship(not included yet).     

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Warrior Knight class Missile Cruiser    11 100 tons     341 Crew     1540 BP      TCS 222  TH 480  EM 0
2162 km/s     Armour 4-44     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 6     PPV 70
Maint Life 3.69 Years     MSP 520    AFR 164%    IFR 2.3%    1YR 59    5YR 889    Max Repair 168 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 12 months    Spare Berths 1    
Magazine 490    

120 EP Ion Drive (4)    Power 120    Fuel Use 63%    Signature 120    Exp 10%
Fuel Capacity 750 000 Litres    Range 19.3 billion km   (103 days at full power)

Size 7 Missile Launcher (10)    Missile Size 7    Rate of Fire 70
Missile Fire Control FC73-R50 (1)     Range 73.5m km    Resolution 50
Size 7 Anti-ship Missile SR mk II (60)  Speed: 20 600 km/s   End: 62m    Range: 76.6m km   WH: 8    Size: 7    TH: 103/61/30

Active Search Sensor MR71-R50 (1)     GPS 8400     Range 71.3m km    Resolution 50

ECCM-1 (1)         ECM 10

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



Harbringer class Destroyer Escort    5 650 tons     105 Crew     778.8 BP      TCS 113  TH 240  EM 0
2123 km/s     Armour 4-28     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 2     PPV 47.94
Maint Life 1.23 Years     MSP 172    AFR 127%    IFR 1.8%    1YR 118    5YR 1769    Max Repair 132 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 12 months    Spare Berths 4    

120 EP Ion Drive (2)    Power 120    Fuel Use 63%    Signature 120    Exp 10%
Fuel Capacity 500 000 Litres    Range 25.3 billion km   (137 days at full power)

Twin Gauss Cannon R3-100 Turret (2x6)    Range 30 000km     TS: 21000 km/s     Power 0-0     RM 3    ROF 5        1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Fire Control S04 32-12000 (1)    Max Range: 64 000 km   TS: 12000 km/s     84 69 53 37 22 6 0 0 0 0

Active Search Sensor MR5-R1 antimissile 500kkm (1)     GPS 84     Range 5.0m km    MCR 549k km    Resolution 1

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes


Narcatil  class Maintenance Vessel    6 000 tons     82 Crew     562.7 BP      TCS 120  TH 240  EM 0
2000 km/s     Armour 3-29     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 3     PPV 0
Maint Life 32.67 Years     MSP 11176    AFR 96%    IFR 1.3%    1YR 20    5YR 305    Max Repair 60 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 12 months    Spare Berths 0    
Cargo Handling Multiplier 5    

120 EP Ion Drive (2)    Power 120    Fuel Use 63%    Signature 120    Exp 10%
Fuel Capacity 500 000 Litres    Range 23.8 billion km   (137 days at full power)

CIWS-120 (1x6)    Range 1000 km     TS: 12000 km/s     ROF 5       Base 50% To Hit
This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes


Incepteris class Tanker    18 450 tons     100 Crew     1180.1 BP      TCS 369  TH 750  EM 0
2032 km/s     Armour 3-62     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 3     PPV 0
MSP 120    Max Repair 37.5 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 12 months    Spare Berths 0    
Cargo Handling Multiplier 10    

150 EP Commercial Ion Drive (5)    Power 150    Fuel Use 11.93%    Signature 150    Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 10 000 000 Litres    Range 817.6 billion km   (4656 days at full power)

This design is classed as a Commercial Vessel for maintenance purposes


Iron Duke class Collier    6 250 tons     89 Crew     701.6 BP      TCS 125  TH 240  EM 0
1920 km/s     Armour 3-30     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 2     PPV 0
Maint Life 2.63 Years     MSP 140    AFR 156%    IFR 2.2%    1YR 29    5YR 430    Max Repair 60 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 12 months    Spare Berths 0    
Magazine 1020    Cargo Handling Multiplier 10    

120 EP Ion Drive (2)    Power 120    Fuel Use 63%    Signature 120    Exp 10%
Fuel Capacity 500 000 Litres    Range 22.9 billion km   (137 days at full power)

Size 7 Anti-ship Missile SR mk II (140)  Speed: 20 600 km/s   End: 62m    Range: 76.6m km   WH: 8    Size: 7    TH: 103/61/30

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

My PD destroyer escort class needs to be redesigned, because the tracking speed of turret and fire control doesn't match.       I don't know if I should somehow make fire control reach over 20k tracking speed or lower the turret's TS.       Also is 30k (64k ?) range enough to protect my fleet ? The main concern, which I recognize for now is the weight of these models.       It will take ages to build them all.     

EDIT: Partly Updated the list according to hints from Whitecold and Brian.      This game consumes lots of my free time, so I'm a bit slow with updates.      Lower range on cruiser, more salvos and tonnage, a bit more equalized speed for all ships, commercial tanker, the collier is still a bit smegty.     The TG should look something like this: 4-6 cruisers, 2-3 PD escort, 1-2 colliers, tanker, supply, radar.   I didn't know I could prefab ship components, it should make things easier in the future, thanks. 

[Whitecold]

First your light and heavy cruiser seem redundant. Both are missile combatants, armed with the same missiles. I'd decide on one design and repeat build that.
Your collier has a missile launcher, why? On the same note, your tanker is military, any reason for that? The same the sensor on the maintenance vessel is superfluous, your escorts provide multiple ones already, and CIWS does not need sensor contact. For the Escort you can't do much more than use a 4x speed fire control, and build matching turrets. 12kkm/s seems to be your limit, so use that and make up with numbers what you lack in tracking speed.
The speed of your ships varies wildly, from 1.8k to 2.8k, meaning your faster ships waste fuel and mass on drives they don't use operating in a task group. I usually have a 'marching speed' for my fleet units. Also do you want to invest the resources and fuel for military drives on your supply train, but that of course depends on your logistics setup and the probable mission profile of your fleet.

[Brian Neumann]

A couple of other comments. 
1.)  The magazine space on your light cruisers is way to low.  One salvo of your missiles is 42msp, and you can only hold 132msp, or about 3 salvo's total.  Your heavy cruiser is almost as bad with a salvo using 70msp and the ship only holding 280msp which is 4 salvo's.

2.)  The tracking speed is a limiter, so whichever is worse is what you will end up using.  There can be one other consideration.  Are you likely to be able to upgrade the tracking speed anytime during these ships useful lifespan?  If you are then having the turrets already geared to take advantage of that makes the upgrade fairly quick and easy.

3.)  To make the ships build faster, use your planet side industry to build as many of the ship components as possible.  If you have components available on the planet making a ship they will be used immediately and count as already built towards the total time you need.  Quick example if you pre-build the engines, turrets, fire control, sensors, etc. you will probably cut the total time to build the ship my more than half.  I have built ships like this in under 1 year in similar games. 

4.)  For your point defense, have you researched railguns yet?  If so then a bunch of 10cm railguns can actually provide more point defense than those gauss cannon.  Each railgun is 1/2 the size of the gauss cannon and has a better rate of fire currently.  Combine that with how much space the turret machinery is using and you probably can get more missiles shot down overall.

Brian

[borisoff (OP)]

-snip-  

4.  )  For your point defense, have you researched railguns yet?  If so then a bunch of 10cm railguns can actually provide more point defense than those gauss cannon.    Each railgun is 1/2 the size of the gauss cannon and has a better rate of fire currently.    Combine that with how much space the turret machinery is using and you probably can get more missiles shot down overall. 

Brian

Railguns can't reach more tracking speed than 4000 km/s on my ships, so I wonder if they are of any use against missiles ? Or is there any other way to rise their TS. 

[JacenHan]

You can make the ship faster. Unturreted weapons use either the base tracking speed (in your case 4000 km/s) or the ship's speed. You'll still need a fire control that can use that speed though.

[Hawkeye]

Railguns can't reach more tracking speed than 4000 km/s on my ships, so I wonder if they are of any use against missiles ? Or is there any other way to rise their TS. 

Tracking speed of a fixed gun (as the railgun) is capped at either the speed of the ship it is mounted on or the base tracking speed you have researched, whichever is larger.
The railgun has only 1/4 the tracking speed of a turret, but fires 4 "shots" each time it fires which pretty much cancels each other out.
If you can mount 2 times as many railguns than turreted gauss cannons, railguns are as good as gauss cannons with a ROF of 2. If you can mount 3 times as many rail guns, they are the equal to turreted gauss cannons with a ROF of 3.

And with one or two additional levels of launch velocity researched, they also make good secondary offensive armament.