Please go easy

[wodin (OP)]

My first design.    .    .    I followed the tutorial and then started to make it into an all purpose ship.    .    .    .    this is the limit of my tech at the moment.    .    .    these will be my first Military ships going out into space the year is 2025.    .    .    .    please advise.    .    .    I expect they will all be space debris within 2 minutes of contact

Ark Royal class Cruiser    14,050 tons     1628 Crew     1469. 5 BP      TCS 281  TH 575  EM 0
2046 km/s     Armour 2-51     Shields 0-0     Sensors 10/10/0/0     Damage Control Rating 41     PPV 64
Annual Failure Rate: 75%    IFR: 1%    Maint Capacity 1373 MSP    Max Repair 45 MSP    Est Time: 8. 51 Years
Magazine 115   

Nuclear Thermal Engine E10 (23)    Power 25    Fuel Use 100%    Signature 25    Armour 0    Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 500,000 Litres    Range 64. 0 billion km   (362 days at full power)

Twin 10cm C3 Near Ultraviolet Laser Turret (2x2)    Range 90,000km     TS: 15000 km/s     Power 6-6     RM 3    ROF 5        3 3 3 2 1 1 1 1 1 0
15cm C3 Near Ultraviolet Laser (2)    Range 180,000km     TS: 3000 km/s     Power 6-3     RM 3    ROF 10        6 6 6 4 3 3 2 2 2 1
Twin R1. 5/C2 Meson Cannon Turret (1x2)    Range 15,000km     TS: 10000 km/s     Power 6-4     RM 1. 5    ROF 10        1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Fire Control S04 96-3000 (1)    Max Range: 192,000 km   TS: 3000 km/s     95 90 84 79 74 69 64 58 53 48
Fire Control S04 24-12000 (2)    Max Range: 48,000 km   TS: 12000 km/s     79 58 38 17 0 0 0 0 0 0
Pebble Bed Reactor Technology PB-1 AR-0 (9)     Total Power Output 27    Armour 0    Exp 5%

Size 5 Missile Launcher (6)    Missile Size 5    Rate of Fire 75
Missile Fire Control FC45-R100 (1)     Range 45. 0m km    Resolution 100
Size 5 Anti-ship Missile (23)  Speed: 10,000 km/s   End: 15m    Range: 9m km   WH: 5    Size: 5    TH: 66 / 40 / 20

Active Search Sensor MR10-R100 (1)     GPS 2000     Range 10. 0m km    Resolution 100
Active Search Sensor MR0-R1 (1)     GPS 10     Range 500k km    Resolution 1
Thermal Sensor TH2-10 (1)     Sensitivity 10     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  10m km
EM Detection Sensor EM2-10 (1)     Sensitivity 10     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  10m 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



Trouble is I sent out three previous version with a missile system and I didn't realise I had to give the missiles  fuel etc.   .   .   so I will have to restart.   .   .   but if this ship is OK I shall use this design. . . . my missile range is quite short but I wanted to stick with the power to range ratio. . . . I need them if they do hit to cause some sort of damage. . .

[James Patten]

You need much more armor.  You only have 2 layers.  10 would be better.

If you can close with Precursors and survive their onslaught of missiles, you might be able to kill some.  Trouble is looks like you have no anti missile capability.

[wodin (OP)]

I was thinking of more armour. . . .  my twin turret laser is supposed to be my limited I know anti missile system. . . I'm trying to find a balance my annual failure rate is already high. . . having low tech is hard work. . .

Like I said it started off as the tutorial ship and I decided to up it's firepower abit more. . . . missiles was all guess work. . . . I will add another laser turret and some armour. . . then I expect i will have to add more engines and it goes on and on and on;)

[Hawkeye]

Ok, here you go

Armor:
Pretty low. While not a dedicated brawler, it does have short(ish) ranged lasers and mesons, so it WILL get close to the enemy. Whith only armor 2 it will be toast after the second salvo that hits it.

Speed:
Good for the tech (IMO probably even a bit much, but each to his own)

Maintenance:
Overkill, plain and simple. Personally, I go for a Est. Time of 2 to 3 years

Fuel:
OK

Armament:
Good PD suit, even if the Meson turret does nothave its own firecon (hint hint)
Not sure the two 15cm lasers will do you much good, once the range gets short enough to use them, but it is allways nice to have some backup.
Ammo is woefully low. Only enough missiles for three full and one short salvo will not be enough to kill anything larger than a FAC, I´m afraid.
Also, the missiles are terribly short ranged (for missiles, that is) any missile carrying opponent will vastely outrange you. They are also damn slow, but with nuclear thermal engines tech, I don´t think there is a lot you could do there (lowering the warhead to a damage-4 one might free a little space and keeps the penetrating power the same)

Sensors:
The active anti-ship sensor is very short range. This is ok for a brawler that has a fleet-scout with it, but for a missile combatant it is practicaly blind. You have a good ranged missile firecon. What when you research some techs and start building longer ranged missiles?
The active anti-missile sensor is also very short range. A size-6 or smaller missile will only be detected out to 80.000km, which is extremely short range. Not sure your turrets can even engage faster enemy missiles, as they could pass those 80k klicks within a single 5-second increment.

Passiv sensors are good.

Suggestions:

Rip out one or two engines. This should not make the ship a lot slower but free some space.

Try to put the 15cm lasers into turrets (perhaps two twin-turrets) and forget the 10cm ones and the mesons. That way, you can use the 15cm for both, PD and Anti-Ship work and save on firecons.
Alternatively, leave the lasers as is and just rip out the mesons

Up the armor as much as you can get away with and put some more magazine space in.

Increase range of the active sensors (perhaps raise resolution to something around 130 to 150) for the anti-ship.

For the missile, I can´t offer a lot of help. Personally, I don´t bother with them, unitl I have at least nuclear pulse missile drives.

[Giggle]

Being quite a noob myself, I don't know if my opinion about this design is good or not but for the moment, I only encountered ennemies which could go waaaaayyyy faster than my ships.

In my humble opinion, your Ark Royal is neither fast enough, nore capable of very long distance engagement, and it lacks the armor needed to withstand ennemy fire during the approach. 

Maybe take off some beam armament and put more engines, or wait for the next engine technology. 
You could also make a ship with the long range missiles, and another for close defense with lasers and so.  You would have lighter ships and lighters ships go faster. 
Not as fast as ships painted in red though.

Or you can completly give up the idea of going fast, and then, take off some engines and increase armor and base your strategy on "those bastards will have to reload one day or another"

[chrislocke2000]

I've come to the general conclusion that multi role ships are not a good option in this game, by the time you double up on multiple fire controls and different systems you end up with ships that become so big you can then really struggle to get the balance of armour and engines right.

Another big issue for ships like this is whether you want them just for home defense of actually going out to fight. If its the later I would go for something much smaller at this tech level - basically down to the research and construction costs of building associated jump engines for the ships to move them around the place.

[wodin (OP)]

Right the ship has gone to the salvage yard.  .  .  .  .  .  .  so with my current tech I maybe best dropping missiles altogether.  .  . 

This was the latest design.  .  .  .  still not good enough.  .  .  the lasers were from the tutorial so I just expanded from there.  .  .  I'm going to start again.  .  .  . 

Ark Royal class Cruiser 14,250 tons 1352 Crew 1436 BP TCS 285 TH 575 EM 0
2017 km/s Armour 5-52 Shields 0-0 Sensors 10/10/0/0 Damage Control Rating 28 PPV 49
Annual Failure Rate: 203% IFR: 2.  8% Maint Capacity 504 MSP Max Repair 45 MSP Est Time: 2.  84 Years
Magazine 105

Nuclear Thermal Engine E10 (23) Power 25 Fuel Use 100% Signature 25 Armour 0 Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 450,000 Litres Range 56.  8 billion km (326 days at full power)

Twin 10cm C3 Near Ultraviolet Laser Turret (2x2) Range 90,000km TS: 15000 km/s Power 6-6 RM 3 ROF 5 3 3 3 2 1 1 1 1 1 0
15cm C3 Near Ultraviolet Laser (2) Range 180,000km TS: 3000 km/s Power 6-3 RM 3 ROF 10 6 6 6 4 3 3 2 2 2 1
Twin R1.  5/C2 Meson Cannon Turret (1x2) Range 15,000km TS: 10000 km/s Power 6-4 RM 1.  5 ROF 10 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Fire Control S04 24-12000 (3) Max Range: 48,000 km TS: 12000 km/s 79 58 38 17 0 0 0 0 0 0
Fire Control S04 96-3000 (1) Max Range: 192,000 km TS: 3000 km/s 95 90 84 79 74 69 64 58 53 48
Pebble Bed Reactor Technology PB-1 AR-0 (9) Total Power Output 27 Armour 0 Exp 5%

Size 5 Missile Launcher (75% Reduction) (4) Missile Size 5 Rate of Fire 100
Missile Fire Control FC15-R100 (1) Range 15.  0m km Resolution 100
Size 5 Anti-ship Missile (21) Speed: 10,000 km/s End: 15m Range: 9m km WH: 5 Size: 5 TH: 66 / 40 / 20

Active Search Sensor MR10-R100 (1) GPS 2000 Range 10.  0m km Resolution 100
Active Search Sensor MR0-R1 (1) GPS 10 Range 500k km Resolution 1
Thermal Sensor TH2-10 (1) Sensitivity 10 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 10m km
EM Detection Sensor EM2-10 (1) Sensitivity 10 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 10m 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 purpose


Time for a rethink.  .  .  .  so am I best dropping the missiles at this level of tech? Or do I need to reconsider what i spend my tech points on when doing an instant.   As you can see I dropped the range of the missile fire control and my missile range dropped aswell trying to up the hit chance. . . . either way it's all pointless as it will be out ranged and debris before it fires. . . . what range is good for a missile on average?

I getting to understand how the systems work just not how it works in game. . . . as I have obviously no combat experience. . .  i only downloaded the game yesterday!

[Hawkeye]

Ok, I´ll give it a try.

As for missiles, there is no "good" range. It is, obviously, allways a tradoff. But around 50m looks good for a start (around 35 for very early tech)
Also, a good rule of thump is to have enough ammo for at least 10 full salvos (around 30 salvos for AMMs, but the more the better)

Things to consider:

Missiles:
You need enough to saturate the enemies PD. Even two pretty low-tech CIWS will shoot down most of your missiles, you are throwing at an enemy with only 4 missiles in a salvo. Therefore, I either go full steam missile boat or no missiles at all.
The faster your missiles are, the harder they are to intecept. Yours are pretty slow, which makes them pretty much sitting ducks for any kind of PD.
At that level, I would be very likely to forget about them for now.

Of course, going all beam weapons, has it´s drawbacks too. You must catch the prey, which in turn means, you want your ship to be faster than the enemy (Damn hard with Nuclear Thermal Enginges).
Also, you want to survive the missiles, the enemy throws at you, while you are closing. This means heavy armor/shields and/or good PD (preferably both).

You might see the problem here. High speed means lots of engines and thick armor and good PD means a lot of the remaining space taken up by passive and active defenses leaving very little for offensive weaponry.
What good is it to catch the enemy when you only mount a few popguns plinking away at him, after you cought him?

[wodin (OP)]

So my current engine tech is a big limitng factor allround then. . . so how about I spend some RP on pulse engines when starting a new game?

[wodin (OP)]

New revised version. . . . this is I hoping more of a brawler. . . . more armour, faster and more weaponry, missiles have been scrapped. . . if thsi design is OK I shall then build a light smaller missile ship to go along with it. . . .

I spent some RP on pulse engines. . . .

Ark Royal class Cruiser    22,450 tons     1639 Crew     2675 BP      TCS 449  TH 1360  EM 0
3028 km/s     Armour 10-70     Shields 0-0     Sensors 12/12/0/0     Damage Control Rating 22     PPV 48
Annual Failure Rate: 336%    IFR: 4. 7%    Maint Capacity 894 MSP    Max Repair 86 MSP    Est Time: 2. 03 Years

Military Nuclear Pulse Engine E8 (34)    Power 40    Fuel Use 80%    Signature 40    Armour 0    Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 1,150,000 Litres    Range 115. 2 billion km   (440 days at full power)

Twin 10cm C4 Near Ultraviolet Laser Turret (2x2)    Range 90,000km     TS: 15000 km/s     Power 6-8     RM 3    ROF 5        3 3 3 2 1 1 1 1 1 0
15cm C4 Near Ultraviolet Laser (2)    Range 180,000km     TS: 4000 km/s     Power 6-4     RM 3    ROF 10        6 6 6 4 3 3 2 2 2 1
20cm C4 Near Ultraviolet Laser (2)    Range 192,000km     TS: 4000 km/s     Power 10-4     RM 3    ROF 15        10 10 10 7 5 5 4 3 3 3
Medium Range Fire Control S06 96-6000 (2)    Max Range: 192,000 km   TS: 6000 km/s     95 90 84 79 74 69 64 58 53 48
Short Range Fire Control S04 24-16000 (2)    Max Range: 48,000 km   TS: 16000 km/s     79 58 38 17 0 0 0 0 0 0
Pebble Bed Reactor Technology PB-1 AR-0 (12)     Total Power Output 36    Armour 0    Exp 5%

Active Search Sensor MR0-R1 (1)     GPS 12     Range 600k km    Resolution 1
Active Search Sensor MR49-R130 (1)     GPS 9360     Range 49. 3m km    Resolution 130
Thermal Sensor TH2-12 (1)     Sensitivity 12     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  12m km
EM Detection Sensor EM2-12 (1)     Sensitivity 12     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  12m km

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes

[Deutschbag]

To be perfectly frank I'm not sure a close-range brawler is going to do you any good at all at this tech level against precursor ships. They're simply too fast, and they all use missiles. So if you end up in an engagement with them, it'll go like this: They close to, say, 25 mkm at 5000 km/s and start lobbing missiles. You can't close on them because they have the speed advantage and can keep the range open for as long as it pleases them to do so. You can't run away because they have the speed advantage, and as long as you're in system they can run you down... I dunno, it's really a hard call. You may be best off waiting til you get ion engines before you really invest in aggressive ships.

[wodin (OP)]

Oh damn.   .   .   am I getting the hang of it though considering the tech? Also are precursors the only enemy I will face? Will it be OK against other enemies.   .   .   if there are any?

I was going to pair it with a few missile ships.   .   .   .   

I suppose if I'm roleplaying this I have to pretend I  know nothing of precursors and will be building military vessels to the max of my tech in case the federation breaks up or we do meet Aliens and with Human arrogance I think we will kick their ass with the ass kicker Ark Royal.  .  .  . 

[Narmio]

Very early on in the game massive-first-strike missile ships are probably the most effective tactical option available.  Size 2-4 missiles with ~50mkm range, warhead 4 or so, and the most reduced-size launcher you have (I think getting to 33% is pretty cheap).  Build a few destroyers or light cruisers (keeping the size down because of early game jump drive research cost) and aim to overwhelm technologically superior foes with huge volleys of 50+ small missiles at once.

Until you can get a ship to 5000+ km/s while still giving it decent (6+) armour and weapons, beams are a very tricky option.

[Brian Neumann]

As others have posted, the tech you have is very limiting.  I usually push very hard with my initial points on engine tech, fuel modifier, and either basic missile tech or a basic beam tech.  You do not have the points this early on to do more than that.  Ion engine tech is not to expensive to reach along with fuel efficiency of .7  This will probably give you ships going around 2-4k km/s.  It will also give you missiles moving around 20-30k km/s  Much more efficient and able to get to 30-50m km without to much problems.  If you go for missiles get your missile reload up to a 3 and try to push the warhead tech up as well.  For starters you can leave off the missile agility.  It will make a big difference for your point defense, but not so much on the offensive missiles.  If you go for beam weapons go for one that can be used in a pd mode.  That would be lasers, mesons, or railguns.  Railguns are lower cost, but also more limited than the turret mounted lasers and mesons.  Get your capaciter tech up to a 3 as this will allow a 5 second cycle time for the 10cm weapons and only a 10 second cycle for the 15cm lasers and mesons.  RP costs go up very fast after these points so what you do from here on is up to your style of play.  While I personally like particle beams they are not a good starting weapon system, and need to be paired with some other point defense capable weapon.

I know that these are just my preferences but they should give you some idea what to shoot for in a beginning warship.

Brian

[dooots]

You seems to be figuring it out but I would recommend that you make a few game just to see what the starting rp can get you.  It will help you see what people are recommending you do.

Also imo don't be overly worried about being able to take out precursors or any of the other special races at the start.  They are all higher tech then you and will be a tough/impossible fight at the start.  You can also run into normal NPRs that will be about the same tech level as you and should be a much easier fight.  And you should find plenty of empty systems that you can explore if you do run into a hard fight.