Aurora 4x

C# Aurora => C# Bureau of Design => Topic started by: 381654729 on July 17, 2020, 05:04:30 PM

Title: Choosing an offensive beam parasite
Post by: 381654729 on July 17, 2020, 05:04:30 PM
I also posted this on Discord, but would like some more input.

I have the following carrier. Primary role is defending a single populated system, either alone or as a distraction for more substantial forces to show up. Secondary role is to assemble several of these into a makeshift fleet as required.

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Olympus class Heavy Carrier      109,797 tons       2,021 Crew       18,804 BP       TCS 2,196    TH 9,900    EM 68,700
4508 km/s      Armour 8-204       Shields 2290-536       HTK 441      Sensors 180/180/0/0      DCR 88      PPV 0
Maint Life 1.04 Years     MSP 6,208    AFR 1663%    IFR 23.1%    1YR 5,752    5YR 86,276    Max Repair 990 MSP
Hangar Deck Capacity 42,000 tons     
Captain    Control Rating 5   BRG   AUX   ENG   CIC   PFC   
Intended Deployment Time: 6 months    Flight Crew Berths 840    Morale Check Required   

Magneto-plasma Drive  EP1980.00 (5)    Power 9900    Fuel Use 22.21%    Signature 1980    Explosion 12%
Fuel Capacity 8,000,000 Litres    Range 59.1 billion km (151 days at full power)
Theta S229 / R536 Shields (10)     Recharge Time 536 seconds (4.3 per second)

Active Search Sensor AS304-R300 (10%) (1)     GPS 108000     Range 304m km    Resolution 300
Active Search Sensor AS45-R1 (10%) (1)     GPS 360     Range 45.4m km    MCR 4.1m km    Resolution 1
Active Search Sensor AS97-R10 (10%) (1)     GPS 3600     Range 97.8m km    Resolution 10
Thermal Sensor TH10-180 (1)     Sensitivity 180     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  106.1m km
EM Sensor EM10-180 (10%) (1)     Sensitivity 180     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  106.1m km

ECM 30

Strike Group
60x Hornet Interceptor   Speed: 24039 km/s    Size: 9.98
12x Bombardier Fast Attack Craft   Speed: 24607 km/s    Size: 19.99

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes

The current parasites (range bands shown for 30,000km, target speed 10,000km):

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Hornet class Interceptor      500 tons       29 Crew       211.9 BP       TCS 10    TH 240    EM 0
24039 km/s      Armour 1-5       Shields 0-0       HTK 3      Sensors 0/0/0/0      DCR 0      PPV 3
Maint Life 1.81 Years     MSP 26    AFR 20%    IFR 0.3%    1YR 10    5YR 149    Max Repair 120 MSP
Lieutenant Commander    Control Rating 1   
Intended Deployment Time: 3 days    Morale Check Required   

Magneto-plasma Drive  EP240.00 (1)    Power 240    Fuel Use 881.82%    Signature 240    Explosion 30%
Fuel Capacity 9,000 Litres    Range 0.4 billion km (4 hours at full power)

10cm Railgun V60/C3 (1x4)    Range 32,640km     TS: 24,039 km/s     Power 3-3     RM 60,000 km    ROF 5        1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Beam Fire Control R33-TS25000 (1)     Max Range: 32,640 km   TS: 25,000 km/s     8 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Tokamak Fusion Reactor R3-PB80 (1)     Total Power Output 3    Exp 40%

This design is classed as a Fighter for production, combat and planetary interaction

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Bombardier class Fast Attack Craft      1,000 tons       58 Crew       492.7 BP       TCS 20    TH 492    EM 0
24607 km/s      Armour 1-8       Shields 0-0       HTK 7      Sensors 0/0/0/0      DCR 0      PPV 6
Maint Life 0.27 Years     MSP 30    AFR 80%    IFR 1.1%    1YR 111    5YR 1,662    Max Repair 246 MSP
Lieutenant Commander    Control Rating 1   
Intended Deployment Time: 3 days    Morale Check Required   

Magneto-plasma Drive  EP492.00 (1)    Power 492    Fuel Use 615.89%    Signature 492    Explosion 30%
Fuel Capacity 14,000 Litres    Range 0.4 billion km (4 hours at full power)

37.50cm C0.3 Soft X-ray Laser (1)    Range 384,000km     TS: 24,607 km/s     Power 37-0.3     RM 60,000 km    ROF 620        37 37 24 18 14 12 10 9 8 7
Beam Fire Control R384-TS6250 (1)     Max Range: 384,000 km   TS: 6,250 km/s     58 53 48 43 38 33 28 23 19 14
Tokamak Fusion Reactor R0-PB80 (1)     Total Power Output 0.3    Exp 40%

Active Search Sensor AS4-R1 (1)     GPS 4     Range 4.5m km    MCR 408.7k km    Resolution 1

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes

I am considering replacing the 12 Bombardiers (and 4 Hornets) with 4 Peregrines instead:

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Peregrine class Gunboat (P)      3,500 tons       204 Crew       1,805.1 BP       TCS 70    TH 1,728    EM 0
24690 km/s      Armour 2-20       Shields 0-0       HTK 19      Sensors 0/0/0/0      DCR 0      PPV 17
Maint Life 0.15 Years     MSP 161    AFR 196%    IFR 2.7%    1YR 1,095    5YR 16,427    Max Repair 864 MSP
Commander    Control Rating 1   BRG   
Intended Deployment Time: 3 days    Morale Check Required   

Magneto-plasma Drive  EP1728.00 (1)    Power 1728    Fuel Use 328.63%    Signature 1728    Explosion 30%
Fuel Capacity 46,000 Litres    Range 0.7 billion km (8 hours at full power)

52.50cm C6 Soft X-ray Laser (1)    Range 384,000km     TS: 24,690 km/s     Power 72-6     RM 60,000 km    ROF 60        72 72 48 36 28 24 20 18 16 14
Beam Fire Control R384-TS25000 (1)     Max Range: 384,000 km   TS: 25,000 km/s     92 84 77 69 61 53 45 38 30 22
Tokamak Fusion Reactor R6 (1)     Total Power Output 6    Exp 5%

Active Search Sensor AS4-R1 (1)     GPS 4     Range 4.5m km    MCR 408.7k km    Resolution 1

ECM 30

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes

The intended function of both the Bombardier and Peregrine is to stay out of range of enemy beams while the interceptors protect them from missiles, to deal damage without retaliation. Compared to the Bombardier, the Peregrine has the exact same weapon range, but shoots doubly-damaging shots ten times quicker, has an extra layer of armor for at least some chance against AMMs, has a bit more flying range, has superior tracking speed, and has ECM. However, it is 3.5 times the size, which is much easier to shoot at and much more costly if one gets shot. Other small differences in function also exist, each with their pros and cons.

I am mostly looking for feedback on which of the two long-range beam craft to field, though other feedback is welcome too.
Title: Re: Choosing an offensive beam parasite
Post by: hubgbf on July 17, 2020, 06:28:34 PM
Main point : with 1 year of maintenance life, your carriers won't delay the ennemy long...
you also need spare maintenance to replenish your fighters.
Put more engineering spaces and less maintenance storage.

2nd point : why do you have such big active sensors? Do you really need a 300 mkm sensor which will say to everybody where you are?
If you plan to defend your system, jut emplace some deep space tracking station on some asteroid. It is stealthier.
And use scout fighters.
Same thing for your fighters, you do not need to have an active sensor on each of them.
And what about your AS45-R1 ? if your fighters are deployed on a defensive position, you do not need it, if not, you have no defense against missile, so why do you care ?
As your ship will operate solo, perhaps CIWS will be more usefull.



About your concept, my current magneto plasma unoptimized fleet of 16*6k ships has 60 AMM launchers, range 3.7 mkm. Nearly the same size as your behemoth.
Speed is roughly 4 kkms. I'll flee to increase my opportunity window. Closure rate is 20 kkms.
Your fighters will need 165 seconds to be able to fire. It means that I will fire 16 times. 960 shots vs 72 fighters. Or rather 12...
You've got 60 railgun (1*4) with TS 24kkms firing at 60 AMM with a 38kkms speed. You'll have only one shot as you must be in final defensive fire.
Do you think you'll have a good enough hit ratio ? How many hit to make your fighters useless ? 3-4 as every hit which go through the armor will mission-kill your fighter I think.
Let's consider your 5-armor fighter. The second hit has 20% to hit at the same place and do internal damage (= mission kill), the third, 40% the forth 60%, and the sixth is sure to mission kill your fighter.

After the first salvo I'll know which of your fighters are point defense, I'll be able to concentrate on your bombers, or decide to fin your PD fighters if your hit ratio is not low enough for my tastes.
Another point, with a RoF of 620 seconds, you'll better try to fire at a very short range to do 37 damage and bid for a shock damage or a mission kill shot (magazine, power plant, engine, sensor, etc...). 620 seconds = 62 salvoes of 60 AMM if I have enough magazine.

The AI won't do the same thing, perhaps, but I doubt it will change the result.
basic assumption : AMM made to intercept missiles smaller and faster than your fighters will be do better against fighters.
And your fighters will be slower than the AMM, thus having a worst to-hit ratio.

If you want to use beam fighters, I suggest you do it in another way.
Use microwave aboard armored fighters instead of PD fighters. You'll go through and will be able to destroy the AMM fire control. Even a 2 layered fighter is far more difficult to shot with AMM.
As soon as the fire control of AMM (and beam) ships are destroyed, you close with your bomber and fire. Then you wait for reload while shooting microwave to keep them blind.

Note : you can keep some PD fighters to defend your carrier, or if you think your opponent will have fighters too.
Title: Re: Choosing an offensive beam parasite
Post by: Jorgen_CAB on July 17, 2020, 06:40:43 PM
There are a few things to think about when it comes to using small ships for beam combat. The first thing is to have them survive to reach the beam range at all and then to survive getting inside the beam combat range to fire their weapons.

The best way to use beam fighters and FAC is probably some really powerful laser reduced size laser or a particle lance. You dash in to range fire and dash out to recharge the weapon and rinse repeat until the enemy is defeated.

But you really need to be able to survive and speed will not make you do that alone, you also need either armour or shields. I would prefer some decent shields as you can recharge them while recharging the weapons or armour if you rely more on the particle lance with less recharge rates.

Trying to use DPS to fight with smaller ships or worse fighters can often be very difficult, especially if the enemy have decent beam weapons or worse good multi-purpose PD weapons.

In my opinion your gunships and fighters have no endurance and a single hit can be catastrophic to any of them even at pretty large ranges. As I said speed is not something you really can rely on, you will be hit regardless eventually and you can't bring ships where a single hit can cripple you or worse.

In my opinion fighters make very poor beam combat weapons against capital ships, even FAC are quite week. I would definitely goo with the gunboat approach. I would also add shields and a decent amount of armour so they can survive the dash in and out. Shields also make them way less susceptible to shock damage.

There is nothing wrong with deploying a 42kt gunboat that incorporate both the railguns and then main beam in one package. Perhaps you want more spinal weapons and you could bring say 6x7000t gunboats instead... still decent shields and armour possible.
Title: Re: Choosing an offensive beam parasite
Post by: liveware on July 17, 2020, 07:54:45 PM
I have tried several variants of beam fighters. I conclude that they are just not that great in Aurora because the beam weapons themselves are large, and fighters benefit most from being small, which allows for reduced crew and very high speeds even with very small engines. And also you can cram 4x 125 ton fighters into the same hangar space as a 500 ton heavy fighter. This could change at higher tech levels, I've never really progressed a game past inertial confinement engine tech and soft x-ray laser tech. Gauss cannons are the only viable fighter sized 'guns'  in my opinion. Missile fighter/bombers are quite excellent.

Beams (lasers/particle beams), I think, are best on large ships which are able to take advantage of the long engagement ranges that large beams offer.

Plasma carronades are a different animal. They can deal quite a lot of damage at short range but are still quite heavy, even the smallest ones. A PC FAC might be feasible, but a fighter is probably not, except at high engine tech levels.

Below are a couple of my extremely basic missile fighters and supporting scout craft from early on in a recent game of mine. They operate from colonies or 10 kton scout carriers. I use these mostly to provide PPV to keep colonies from rebelling, but they can provide some moderate defensive capabilities against lower tech NPRs. The bombers are also useful for launching surveillance missile-satellites in hostile systems, which keeps my scout craft out of danger. The extremely small size of missile box launchers and missile fire controls allows for much better performance than larger 500 ton 'heavy' fighters, in my opinion.

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Sparta class Missile Interceptor      125 tons       1 Crew       10.6 BP       TCS 2    TH 9    EM 0
3606 km/s      Armour 1-2       Shields 0-0       HTK 1      Sensors 0/0/0/0      DCR 0      PPV 0.2
Maint Life 9.55 Years     MSP 20    AFR 25%    IFR 0.3%    1YR 0    5YR 6    Max Repair 5 MSP
Magazine 2   
Lieutenant Commander    Control Rating 1   
Intended Deployment Time: 1 months    Morale Check Required   

TMG Improved Nuclear Thermal Engine  EP8.96 (1)    Power 9.0    Fuel Use 267.26%    Signature 8.96    Explosion 10%
Fuel Capacity 7,000 Litres    Range 3.8 billion km (12 days at full power)

TMG Size 1.0 Box Launcher (2)     Missile Size: 1    Hangar Reload 50 minutes    MF Reload 8 hours
TMG Missile Fire Control FC2-R1 (1)     Range 2.5m km    Resolution 1
OLGM II (2)    Speed: 6,200 km/s    End: 0.3m     Range: 0.1m km    WH: 1    Size: 1    TH: 20/12/6

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 Fighter for production, combat and planetary interaction

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Athens class Missile Bomber      125 tons       1 Crew       10.6 BP       TCS 2    TH 9    EM 0
3606 km/s      Armour 1-2       Shields 0-0       HTK 1      Sensors 0/0/0/0      DCR 0      PPV 0.2
Maint Life 9.40 Years     MSP 20    AFR 25%    IFR 0.3%    1YR 0    5YR 6    Max Repair 5 MSP
Magazine 2   
Lieutenant Commander    Control Rating 1   
Intended Deployment Time: 1 months    Morale Check Required   

TMG Improved Nuclear Thermal Engine  EP8.96 (1)    Power 9.0    Fuel Use 267.26%    Signature 8.96    Explosion 10%
Fuel Capacity 7,000 Litres    Range 3.8 billion km (12 days at full power)

TMG Size 2.0 Box Launcher (1)     Missile Size: 2    Hangar Reload 70 minutes    MF Reload 11 hours
TMG Missile Fire Control FC2-R1 (1)     Range 2.5m km    Resolution 1
OLASM I (1)    Speed: 6,200 km/s    End: 0.4m     Range: 0.1m km    WH: 2    Size: 2    TH: 20/12/6

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 Fighter for production, combat and planetary interaction

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Cairo II class Missile Spotter      125 tons       1 Crew       11.8 BP       TCS 2    TH 9    EM 0
3606 km/s      Armour 1-2       Shields 0-0       HTK 1      Sensors 0/0/0/0      DCR 0      PPV 0
Maint Life 8.99 Years     MSP 20    AFR 25%    IFR 0.3%    1YR 0    5YR 7    Max Repair 5 MSP
Lieutenant Commander    Control Rating 1   
Intended Deployment Time: 1 months    Morale Check Required   

TMG Improved Nuclear Thermal Engine  EP8.96 (1)    Power 9.0    Fuel Use 267.26%    Signature 8.96    Explosion 10%
Fuel Capacity 7,000 Litres    Range 3.8 billion km (12 days at full power)

TMG Active Search Sensor AS1-R1 (1)     GPS 1     Range 1.3m km    MCR 113.5k km    Resolution 1
TMG Active Search Sensor AS8-R100 (1)     GPS 200     Range 8.3m km    Resolution 100

This design is classed as a Fighter for production, combat and planetary interaction

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Thebes class Scout      125 tons       1 Crew       11.1 BP       TCS 2    TH 4    EM 0
1545 km/s      Armour 1-2       Shields 0-0       HTK 1      Sensors 1/1/0/0      DCR 0      PPV 0
Maint Life 9.22 Years     MSP 20    AFR 25%    IFR 0.3%    1YR 0    5YR 6    Max Repair 5 MSP
Lieutenant Commander    Control Rating 1   
Intended Deployment Time: 26 months    Morale Check Required   

TMG Improved Nuclear Thermal Engine  EP3.84 (1)    Power 3.8    Fuel Use 51.03%    Signature 3.84    Explosion 5%
Fuel Capacity 12,000 Litres    Range 34.1 billion km (255 days at full power)

TMG Thermal Sensor TH0.2-1.0 (1)     Sensitivity 1     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  7.9m km
TMG EM Sensor EM0.2-1.0 (1)     Sensitivity 1     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  7.9m km

This design is classed as a Fighter for production, combat and planetary interaction

So let's consider a hypothetical match up: 1x of your Hornets against 4x of my Athens (500 tons vs 500 tons). Your Hornet is faster but my Athens have longer range. If you're managing your Hornet well you could kite my missiles. If I'm managing my Athens well I will never let you get close enough to engage. You can only shoot at me (or my missiles) from at most 32k km, but your BFC tracking speed is good enough to possibly guarantee that you'd destroy all 4 of my Athens' missiles.  So I might instead run a mix of 2/2 Sparta/Athens or 3/1 Sparta/Athens. Then I could overwhelm your railguns and score some hits. And I could launch from well outside of your Hornet's engagement range of 0.2b km. So I could probably hit-and-run you to death if I manage my fighters correctly.

I can also keep my scout carrier(s) (from which I would deploy my fighters) outside of the max sensor range of your carrier, so without external sensor support you would not ever see my scout carrier.
Title: Re: Choosing an offensive beam parasite
Post by: 381654729 on July 17, 2020, 08:03:20 PM
@hubgbf:

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Main point : with 1 year of maintenance life, your carriers won't delay the ennemy long...
you also need spare maintenance to replenish your fighters.
Put more engineering spaces and less maintenance storage.

Reinforcements, if required, can be sent in 10 days, so a year is plenty. The ship has zero storage bays and 58 engineering spaces.

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2nd point : why do you have such big active sensors? Do you really need a 300 mkm sensor which will say to everybody where you are?
If you plan to defend your system, jut emplace some deep space tracking station on some asteroid. It is stealthier.
And use scout fighters.
Same thing for your fighters, you do not need to have an active sensor on each of them.
And what about your AS45-R1 ? if your fighters are deployed on a defensive position, you do not need it, if not, you have no defense against missile, so why do you care ?
As your ship will operate solo, perhaps CIWS will be more usefull.

The enemy already knows where I am, because I have people living there, and there's no way to hide 9900EP of heat. All the sensors on the carrier add up to 2.5% of its displacement, so I considered it worthwhile for the redundancy.

I considered scout fighters, and can still swap some current parasites for some, but they will either require protection or stay with the strike group. Since beam ships have so little range, a minimum-size sensor can already do the job, so I have decided against dedicated scouts for now. The AS45-R1 is this sensor.

I have considered CIWS on the carrier, but decided the tonnage is better spent on more shields. This can be a design decision to make for sure.

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About your concept, my current magneto plasma unoptimized fleet of 16*6k ships has 60 AMM launchers, range 3.7 mkm. Nearly the same size as your behemoth.
Speed is roughly 4 kkms. I'll flee to increase my opportunity window. Closure rate is 20 kkms.
Your fighters will need 165 seconds to be able to fire. It means that I will fire 16 times. 960 shots vs 72 fighters. Or rather 12...
You've got 60 railgun (1*4) with TS 24kkms firing at 60 AMM with a 38kkms speed. You'll have only one shot as you must be in final defensive fire.
Do you think you'll have a good enough hit ratio ? How many hit to make your fighters useless ? 3-4 as every hit which go through the armor will mission-kill your fighter I think.
Let's consider your 5-armor fighter. The second hit has 20% to hit at the same place and do internal damage (= mission kill), the third, 40% the forth 60%, and the sixth is sure to mission kill your fighter.

I have run the numbers prior to designing the whole thing, and 60 ships, at 4 shots of 24,039km/s tracking speed per shot, add up to a total PD capability of 5,769,360 km/s per 5s interval. This is good for shooting down 100 missiles, probably a bit less due to overkill effects, optimized against these fighters specifically (using Iceranger's tool), or 150 of your unoptimized AMMs, per 5s.

If you're only firing 60 at a time, I only expect to lose a few fighters at most, not to mention I also have the option, with my faster fighters, to disengage and retreat to the carrier, which is practically impervious to AMMs because it has over 2000 shield points.

Certainly a dedicated fleet with miniaturized size-1 launchers will erase my strike force, as will time-matched salvos (though difficult to match properly with the fighters such a large fraction of missile speed), but those are very specialized designs that I do not expect to face, even role-playing assuming a competent human opponent.

If my numbers prior to designing this whole package did not work out so favorably, I would have went for a more traditional design with missiles and gauss, which I had done for previous defense ships.

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If you want to use beam fighters, I suggest you do it in another way.
Use microwave aboard armored fighters instead of PD fighters. You'll go through and will be able to destroy the AMM fire control. Even a 2 layered fighter is far more difficult to shot with AMM.
As soon as the fire control of AMM (and beam) ships are destroyed, you close with your bomber and fire. Then you wait for reload while shooting microwave to keep them blind.

Microwaves are an interesting idea that I will definitely keep in mind. I consider microwaves, paired with boarding pods, the ideal jump defense paradigm, because shields do not survive transit, but that's another story. I can easily swap some or all of my parasites for microwave ships.

I can't agree with armoring these fighters. By armoring them to 2 layers, their speed reduces to 22084km/s, which represents a net loss of 469,200km/s of PD ability, which means 8.5 fewer optimized missiles, or 12.3 fewer of your AMMs, shot down per 5s. This is not acceptable to me. Armored fighters may have a place somewhere, but not in this plan.

@Jorgen_CAB:

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But you really need to be able to survive and speed will not make you do that alone, you also need either armour or shields. I would prefer some decent shields as you can recharge them while recharging the weapons or armour if you rely more on the particle lance with less recharge rates.

Recharging shields while recharging lasers is a concept I had totally neglected, but it makes a lot of sense. I'd need much larger ships for it though. Stripping the second layer of armor on the Peregrine only lets me fit a single shield point, which is funny, but probably not effective.

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Trying to use DPS to fight with smaller ships or worse fighters can often be very difficult, especially if the enemy have decent beam weapons or worse good multi-purpose PD weapons.

The Hornet has a BFC range slightly longer than the minimum required for PD. The intent is to use this range to engage enemy fighters if they try to target the Bombardier or Peregrine, which are indeed vulnerable to this kind of attack if they cannot stay at range. I don't know how well the plan would work, though.

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There is nothing wrong with deploying a 42kt gunboat that incorporate both the railguns and then main beam in one package. Perhaps you want more spinal weapons and you could bring say 6x7000t gunboats instead... still decent shields and armour possible.

A 42kt, 3x engine boost parasite sounds like a lot of fun, but then it can't be deployed anywhere else because it needs a hundred thousand ton carrier to move it around. Ships have to get pretty big for shields to be effective, and the optimal size for them remains to be seen. Presenting a bigger target and taking a bigger loss in case one ship goes down are real problems though, and is one of the difficulties I face when deciding between my two existing designs. The logistics of losing loadout flexibility with larger parasites is probably outside the scope of this discussion. though.

@liveware

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So let's consider a hypothetical match up: 1x of your Hornets against 4x of my Athens (500 tons vs 500 tons). Your Hornet is faster but my Athens have longer range. If you're managing your Hornet well you could kite my missiles. If I'm managing my Athens well I will never let you get close enough to engage. You can only shoot at me (or my missiles) from at most 32k km, but your BFC tracking speed is good enough to possibly guarantee that you'd destroy all 4 of my Athens' missiles.  So I might instead run a mix of 2/2 Sparta/Athens or 3/1 Sparta/Athens. Then I could overwhelm your railguns and score some hits. And I could launch from well outside of your Hornet's engagement range of 0.2b km. So I could probably hit-and-run you to death if I manage my fighters correctly.

Comparing fighter-bombers and beam fighters ton for ton is not fair because it ignores the carrier's need to carry both magazines and anti-missile defense. Even if you say these factors reduce your bomber to 3/4 of my interceptors' tonnage, though, scaled to equal tech, a 110kt carrier of them probably beats mine. Or at least stalemates it, since my best strategy is to simply never launch any fighters until I detect missiles.

Such a battle is kind of ridiculous to imagine, though. A dedicated AMM escort would shore up my carrier's biggest weaknesses, but then you can shore up your own weaknesses too by adding ships, and it becomes a question of fleet composition, which is its own topic.

Head to head comparisons aside, in terms of doctrine, I think of fighter-bombers as reusable first stages of extreme-range missiles. Compared to multi-stage missiles fired out of regular launchers, I have to pay for extra hangars, extra fire controls, extra armor, extra engines, and extra depreciation through obsolescence. In return I get longer range from the larger, more efficient engines, better chance for my carrier to evade detection, and if I use the fighter enough times, it pays for itself by not being disposable. I would, therefore, use fighter-bombers if these three things are important to me. For the intended role of my current designs, I'd rather do without.

Thanks to everyone for your thoughts.
Title: Re: Choosing an offensive beam parasite
Post by: Iceranger on July 17, 2020, 10:12:13 PM
Quote
About your concept, my current magneto plasma unoptimized fleet of 16*6k ships has 60 AMM launchers, range 3.7 mkm. Nearly the same size as your behemoth.
Speed is roughly 4 kkms. I'll flee to increase my opportunity window. Closure rate is 20 kkms.
Your fighters will need 165 seconds to be able to fire. It means that I will fire 16 times. 960 shots vs 72 fighters. Or rather 12...
You've got 60 railgun (1*4) with TS 24kkms firing at 60 AMM with a 38kkms speed. You'll have only one shot as you must be in final defensive fire.
Do you think you'll have a good enough hit ratio ? How many hit to make your fighters useless ? 3-4 as every hit which go through the armor will mission-kill your fighter I think.
Let's consider your 5-armor fighter. The second hit has 20% to hit at the same place and do internal damage (= mission kill), the third, 40% the forth 60%, and the sixth is sure to mission kill your fighter.

I have run the numbers prior to designing the whole thing, and 60 ships, at 4 shots of 24,039km/s tracking speed per shot, add up to a total PD capability of 5,769,360 km/s per 5s interval. This is good for shooting down 100 missiles, probably a bit less due to overkill effects, optimized against these fighters specifically (using Iceranger's tool), or 150 of your unoptimized AMMs, per 5s.

If you're only firing 60 at a time, I only expect to lose a few fighters at most, not to mention I also have the option, with my faster fighters, to disengage and retreat to the carrier, which is practically impervious to AMMs because it has over 2000 shield points.

Certainly a dedicated fleet with miniaturized size-1 launchers will erase my strike force, as will time-matched salvos (though difficult to match properly with the fighters such a large fraction of missile speed), but those are very specialized designs that I do not expect to face, even role-playing assuming a competent human opponent.

If my numbers prior to designing this whole package did not work out so favorably, I would have went for a more traditional design with missiles and gauss, which I had done for previous defense ships.

That is an interesting way of calculate PD capability. I think there is something missing. Since your tracking speed is 24039km/s and @hubgbf's AMMs are 38kkm/s, and your fighter's BFC range is 32640km, each of your shots will have a hit chance of
Code: [Select]
24039 / 38000 * (1 - 10000/32640) * 100% ~= 43.88%

Thus for 60 fighters with 4 shots each, the expected shot down will be 60 * 4 * 0.4388 ~= 105.3. This is lower than your result (150) due to the consideration of the BFC accuracy at 10kkm, but it is still much larger than the 60-missile salvos @hubgbf's fleet can throw at you each tick, you can approach with impunity. It is very unlikely in a tick the RNG works against you and you shoot down less than 60 missiles.
Title: Re: Choosing an offensive beam parasite
Post by: 381654729 on July 17, 2020, 10:46:05 PM
@Iceranger

Quote
That is an interesting way of calculate PD capability. I think there is something missing. Since your tracking speed is 24039km/s and @hubgbf's AMMs are 38kkm/s, and your fighter's BFC range is 32640km, each of your shots will have a hit chance of

Code: [Select]
24039 / 38000 * (1 - 10000/32640) * 100% ~= 43.88%

You are right. In practice, crew grade and commander bonuses should raise the estimate, while enemy ECM lowers it. In reality the number is probably close to 110 unoptimized missiles or 70 optimized ones, given the current state of my navy staffing. This is still sufficient, but nowhere near the comfortable margin I first calculated.