Review my Beam Ships (Magnetic Fusion Era)

[AlStar (OP)]

It's occurred to me that while I've put my 2¢ in on a number of people's ship designs, I don't think I've ever asked for input on my own. These are pulled from my currently active game, which is just about to enter its 13th year. I'd be interested if anyone has any thoughts/insights on how I might improve them.

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Varg VII class Destroyer      9,000 tons       254 Crew       2,582.5 BP       TCS 180    TH 1,150    EM 0
12778 km/s      Armour 4-38       Shields 0-0       HTK 44      Sensors 11/11/0/0      DCR 4-4      PPV 30
Maint Life 0.80 Years     MSP 1,317    AFR 162%    IFR 2.2%    1YR 1,648    5YR 24,720    Max Repair 1,725 MSP
Baron    Control Rating 1   BRG   
Intended Deployment Time: 6 months    Morale Check Required   

Overtuned Magnetic Fusion Drive  EP2300.00 (1)    Power 2300    Fuel Use 17.94%    Signature 1150.0    Explosion 11%
Fuel Capacity 554,000 Litres    Range 61.8 billion km (55 days at full power)

Gomis-Belanger 10cm C3 Far Ultraviolet Laser (10)    Range 120,000km     TS: 12,778 km/s     Power 3-3     RM 50,000 km    ROF 5       
Bisson Electronics Beam Fire Control R120-TS12500 (1)     Max Range: 120,000 km   TS: 12,500 km/s    ECCM-2     92 83 75 67 58 50 42 33 25 17
Carey-Lalande Tokamak Fusion Reactor R36-PB60 (1)     Total Power Output 36.2    Exp 30%

Girard-Girard Active Search Sensor AS50-R200 (1)     GPS 4200     Range 50.1m km    Resolution 200
Girard-Girard Active Search Sensor AS8-R1 (1)     GPS 21     Range 8.6m km    MCR 771.7k km    Resolution 1
Girard-Girard Thermal Sensor TH1.0-11.0 (1)     Sensitivity 11     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  26.2m km
Girard-Girard EM Sensor EM1.0-11.0 (1)     Sensitivity 11     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  26.2m km

Electronic Warfare Jammers:   Missile 1   

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
This design is classed as a Warship for auto-assignment purposes

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Progdish VI class Corvette      11,000 tons       329 Crew       3,017 BP       TCS 220    TH 1,150    EM 0
10454 km/s      Armour 5-44       Shields 0-0       HTK 63      Sensors 11/11/0/0      DCR 14-12      PPV 48
Maint Life 0.86 Years     MSP 1,785    AFR 242%    IFR 3.4%    1YR 2,064    5YR 30,961    Max Repair 1,725 MSP
Baron    Control Rating 1   BRG   
Intended Deployment Time: 10 months    Morale Check Required   

Overtuned Magnetic Fusion Drive  EP2300.00 (1)    Power 2300    Fuel Use 17.94%    Signature 1150.0    Explosion 11%
Fuel Capacity 762,000 Litres    Range 69.5 billion km (76 days at full power)

Billet Ordnance 12cm C4 Near Ultraviolet Laser (6)    Range 120,000km     TS: 10,454 km/s     Power 4-4     RM 30,000 km    ROF 5       
Gomis-Belanger 10cm C3 Far Ultraviolet Laser (8)    Range 144,000km     TS: 10,454 km/s     Power 3-3     RM 50,000 km    ROF 5       
Brand-Cuno Beam Fire Control R144-TS10000 (2)     Max Range: 144,000 km   TS: 10,000 km/s    ECCM-2     93 86 79 72 65 58 51 44 38 31
Carey-Lalande Tokamak Fusion Reactor R36-PB60 (2)     Total Power Output 72.4    Exp 30%

Girard-Girard Active Search Sensor AS8-R1 (1)     GPS 21     Range 8.6m km    MCR 771.7k km    Resolution 1
Girard-Girard Active Search Sensor AS50-R200 (1)     GPS 4200     Range 50.1m km    Resolution 200
Girard-Girard Thermal Sensor TH1.0-11.0 (1)     Sensitivity 11     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  26.2m km
Girard-Girard EM Sensor EM1.0-11.0 (1)     Sensitivity 11     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  26.2m km

Electronic Warfare Jammers:   Missile 1   

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
This design is classed as a Warship for auto-assignment purposes


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Rulg V class Cruiser      13,000 tons       382 Crew       3,316.8 BP       TCS 260    TH 1,150    EM 0
8846 km/s      Armour 7-49       Shields 0-0       HTK 68      Sensors 11/11/0/0      DCR 4-3      PPV 58
Maint Life 0.88 Years     MSP 1,857    AFR 285%    IFR 4.0%    1YR 2,109    5YR 31,630    Max Repair 1,725 MSP
Troop Capacity 250 tons     Boarding Capable   
Earl    Control Rating 3   BRG   AUX   ENG   
Intended Deployment Time: 12 months    Morale Check Required   

Overtuned Magnetic Fusion Drive  EP2300.00 (1)    Power 2300    Fuel Use 17.94%    Signature 1150.0    Explosion 11%
Fuel Capacity 1,016,000 Litres    Range 78.4 billion km (102 days at full power)

Martineau-Bergeron 15.0cm C3 Near Ultraviolet Laser (5)    Range 180,000km     TS: 8,846 km/s     Power 6-3     RM 30,000 km    ROF 10       
Gomis-Belanger 10cm C3 Far Ultraviolet Laser (11)    Range 150,000km     TS: 8,846 km/s     Power 3-3     RM 50,000 km    ROF 5       
Coutu-Blanchard Beam Fire Control R192-TS8000 (2)     Max Range: 192,000 km   TS: 8,000 km/s    ECCM-2     95 90 84 79 74 69 64 58 53 48
Carey-Lalande Tokamak Fusion Reactor R36-PB60 (2)     Total Power Output 72.4    Exp 30%

Girard-Girard Active Search Sensor AS50-R200 (1)     GPS 4200     Range 50.1m km    Resolution 200
Girard-Girard Active Search Sensor AS8-R1 (1)     GPS 21     Range 8.6m km    MCR 771.7k km    Resolution 1
Girard-Girard Thermal Sensor TH1.0-11.0 (1)     Sensitivity 11     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  26.2m km
Girard-Girard EM Sensor EM1.0-11.0 (1)     Sensitivity 11     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  26.2m km

Electronic Warfare Jammers:   Sensor 1    Missile 1   

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
This design is classed as a Warship for auto-assignment purposes

[Caskie]

I am in no way at all an expert and am pretty much a beginner at the game in terms of my overall knowledge.  I just learned about jump shock and squadron jumps through wormholes (the hard way, twice).

There are lots of people that will prefer for all of their mainline ships to go the same speed.  I'm not one of those people.  Although I think there are some advantages.

Maybe you should update some of the weapons on the cruiser? If you upgraded the longer range one Near UV ones, you would do more damage.  You're firing twice as slowly with bigger guns so maybe by making it also Far UV instead it would make those shots count more.

Maybe also turretting the lasers on it, since it's a bit slower? The destroyer and corvette are pretty fast so it might not be such a problem.

Maint.  life might also be an issue but I'm not sure exactly how it all works.

[Kiero]

Varg VII Destroyer
- Its deployment time is very short, 6 months would suggest that it would be stationed at a maintenance site and respond to a specific detected threat in the system.
I would shorten its range to about 20 billion kilometres and even that would be much.
- Maintenance (MPS) of a beam-based ship is not enough. I won't even cover engine failure (1725 MPS, you have 1317 MPS on board). I would double or even triple the available MPS.
- The range of beam weapons is very short, especially since you have technologies (Coutu-Blanchard Beam Fire Control R192-TS8000).
- The number of sensors is also probably not necessary. Active sensor detecting missiles but no weapons to attack them. He would also get rid of EM and temperature sensors, this could be provided by colonies or a dedicated ship/station.

Progdish VI class Corvette
- The same when it comes to MPS, here I would try to reduce the AFR. There is a good chance that at least 2 times in a year this ship will fail. If twice it will be the engine then you don't have enough MPS.
- 10454 km/s I would try to maintain a similar velocity for all ships forming the fleet. So this ship is a bit slow.
- As above I would reduce the range.
- I would standardise the lasers and get rid of one Brand-Cuno Beam Fire Control R144-TS10000 (2).

Rulg V class Cruiser
- very slow for this engine technology
- more likely to be in the yard undergoing repairs than in the field.
Not enough MPS.
- as above unifying the lasers and getting rid of one Coutu-Blanchard Beam Fire Control R192-TS8000 (2)
- Intended Deployment Time: 12 months, would suggest it could operate at medium range. I would then reduce the range to around 30 billion km.
- Such a small number of boarding personnel would probably not even be able to handle a civilian ship. Unless it is defence personnel.

It would be good for you to write what roles these ships are to fulfil, are they to operate in groups or independently, etc.?

[AlStar (OP)]

It would be good for you to write what roles these ships are to fulfil, are they to operate in groups or independently, etc.?

Thanks for the input - I hadn't considered the MSP situation in regards to the engine. It's a brand-new engine that I recently developed to maximize speed, but I (obviously) hadn't considered the impact doubling the engine size would do to repair costs.

Previous engine:

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Astruc Marine Magnetic Fusion Drive  EP1000.00
Engine Power 1000    Fuel Use Per Hour 178.9 litres    Fuel per EPH 0.179
Thermal Signature 500.0    Explosion Chance 10%
Military Engine
Cost 750   Size 2,500 tons   Crew 50   HTK 7
Materials Required: Gallicite  750
New generation engine:

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Overtuned Magnetic Fusion Drive  EP2300.00
Engine Power 2300    Fuel Use Per Hour 412.6 litres    Fuel per EPH 0.179
Thermal Signature 1150.0    Explosion Chance 11%
Military Engine
Cost 1725   Size 5,000 tons   Crew 115   HTK 10
Materials Required: Gallicite  1,725
Regarding the fire controls, I normally put one on the "defensive" lasers (10cm) and one on the "offensive" lasers (larger). I suppose I could reduce that to just the one, although, if nothing else, I like having some redundancy, since a beam ship without a working fire control is even more useless than one without an engine. I do need to improve range - that's one of the sticking points. We're currently only at a base range of 96,000 km, so while we have a theoretical max range of 150,000 km on the 10cm, all the way up to 800,000 km on 25cm, we can only get to 336,000 km, and that's on a 175 ton brute of a fire control.

250 tons isn't much, but it's enough for 20 Boarding Cannoneers (CAP / 24 Arm / 12 HP) led by a Boarding HQ. Ideally, the teams from multiple ships all board at once, but a single team has managed to take over a Raider ship that I knocked out the engines before.

Generally speaking, everything travels as a group, which means the Cruisers slow things down, but they'll drop out of formation for high-speed intercepts / beam duals - they're mostly there as meat shields; as our current major threat is a Precursor base that fires bunches of ASMs at us, and they tend to target the Cruisers first.

The other thing worth noting is that, due to our civilization never (ever) producing a Missiles / Kinetic Weapons scientist, we're not using Gauss, Railguns, or AMMs. At this point, I've decided it's a RP thing, even if a scientist eventually shows up.

[PartiellesIntegral]

I agree with Kiero's points. 

I'd add that for the Varg 4 armor isn't a lot for the tonnage, especially considering the short range of the weapons.  Same for the Progdish.

I'd always tack on a BFC with the highest range and acceptable tracking speed against ships because the hit chances go down with (rangemax-range)/rangemax, so a longer ranged BFC will lead to more hits at range. 
You can see this when you look at the numbers next to your BFC components.  They indicate the basic hitchance in default increments of 10,000km unless changed.  For example the Bisson Electronics Beam Fire Control has a hitchance of (120000-100000)/120000=17% at 100,000 km, which is pretty bad considering you're going to do 1 damage per hit at that range and be in range of enemy fire.  Compare this to your Coutu-Blanchard Beam Fire Control with 192,000 km which yields a hit chance of (1929000-100000)/192000=48% hit chance at 100,000km.  If you use a 384,000 km BFC you'd get a lot more out of your lasers.

You should tech more into EW.  Level 1 won't impress anyone and I'd rather have a fire control jammer on beam weapon combatants.  I think the addition of basic EM and thermal sensors is fine.  The cost of unhardened ones should be relatively small when looking at the overall design cost. 

The ships can contribute to missile defence considering the fast firing laser, but since the weapons aren't turreted the tracking speed hit chance penalty isn't be nice.

Also your 15cm lasers have a 30kkm RM compared to the 12cm ones with 50kkm RM, which isn't pretty.

Overall I'd say these are alright albeit less efficient and more costly than they should be at dealing with low tech threats.

[AlStar (OP)]

Also your 15cm lasers have a 30kkm RM compared to the 12cm ones with 50kkm RM, which isn't pretty.

They're a generation or two older and haven't been updated; I typically only update when my capacitor technology drops the recharge time. It's entirely possible I'm missing some incremental upgrades due to this.

I'll admit my ignorance, however - what's the RM number? I'm assuming it has something to do with damage drop off?

The ships can contribute to missile defense considering the fast firing laser, but since the weapons aren't turreted the tracking speed hit chance penalty isn't nice.

We've been avoiding turrets due to the additional research and mass required; hoping that mass concentrated fire would overcome accuracy issues. Given the dozens of wrecks in the target system, results have been... mixed. We may have to bite the bullet and design a fully turreted PD platform.

[PartiellesIntegral]

RM is the range modifier for laser weapons you research in the energy weapons category.  Large range modifier translates to more damage at range, but I'm not sure about the exact formula.  You can click on the show bands box in the class window and check how the damage looks like at a certain distance.

[pedter]

Large range modifier translates to more damage at range, but I'm not sure about the exact formula.

I believe the calculation is half damage every time the range doubles (for beams that have falloff). If the base range is 70kkm, the beam maintains 100% damage out to 70kkm, drops to 50% damage by 140kkm, and 25% damage by 280kkm. I believe that would make the damage multiplier simply (base_range / distance_to_target) with a maximum of 1. Most beams have a base_range tech; carronades do not and are permanently base_range = 10kkm.

[pbhead]

So, I am also really weirded out by the 3 very different speeds for the 3 different ships.   But I mean, that's fine if they are not in a fleet together.   But, what worries me the most is. . .  your tracking speed.   No turrets. . .  means i expect your slower ship to hit air if they are supposed to shoot down ASMs.  Now, if you just are skipping point defense, that can be done, with say maybe shields.  But you dont have those either.     

They are probably pretty good against pirates which is what I presume you are fighting against.  Faster+longer range = win.  I wish the smaller ones had a bit more of a range buffer, but its probably good enough.

I rate them very dead against star swarm.   But you havent run into them yet, so maybe that is fine. 


Now, ships of that size are about the size one could consider skimping on the MSP, and deployment time and such, and put them in a carrier, or civilian carrier with maintenance units.     loading and unloading out of carriers is of course annoying micro, but so is sending everyone back to overhauls.   The best part of course is getting to use fuel efficient engines for the carrier, and   fuel hogs for the combat vessel. 

For reference, here is my beam ship that does exactly that.   3 of these jumped into an ambush (using the carrier as the jump drive) and soloed that second spoiler tag with nothing but shield damage quite nicely.  (again, faster speed+longer range = win) I think these are about 2 tech levels above you though, and they aren't designed to fight against anything with missiles either, but I think you could get something similar if you really wanted by shrinking the shield gen, and replacing it with more engine.

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CT-02 Cleveland 002  (Cleveland class Corvette)      8,000 tons       194 Crew       4,380.4 BP       TCS 160    TH 3,994    EM 14,400
24960 km/s      Armour 5-35       Shields 480-600       HTK 41      Sensors 18/0/0/0      DCR 5-6      PPV 17
Maint Life 2.48 Years     MSP 4,236    AFR 102%    IFR 1.4%    1YR 953    5YR 14,296    Max Repair 1,996.8 MSP
Troop Capacity 100 tons     
Captain    Control Rating 3   BRG   AUX   CIC   
Intended Deployment Time: 27 days    Morale Check Required   

Solid Core AM Drive  EP3993.60 (1)    Power 3993.6    Fuel Use 97.83%    Signature 3993.60    Explosion 24%
Fuel Capacity 501,000 Litres    Range 11.5 billion km (5 days at full power)
Omicron S480 / R600 Shields (1)     Recharge Time 600 seconds (0.8 per second)

52.50cm C8 Spinal X-Ray Laser (1)    Range 600,000km     TS: 24,960 km/s     Power 72-8     RM 70,000 km    ROF 45        72 72 72 72 72 72 72 62 56 50
Beam Fire Control R600-TS24000 (SW) (30%) (1)     Max Range: 600,000 km   TS: 24,000 km/s    ECCM-3     98 97 95 93 92 90 88 87 85 83
Gas-core Anti-matter Power Plant R8-PB80 (1)     Total Power Output 8.1    Exp 40%

Active Search Sensor AS14-R1 (1)     GPS 36     Range 14.4m km    MCR 1.3m km    Resolution 1
Thermal Sensor TH1.0-18.0 (1)     Sensitivity 18     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  33.5m km

Electronic Warfare Jammers:   Fire Control 4   

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
This design is classed as a Warship for auto-assignment purposes

[AlStar (OP)]

So, I am also really weirded out by the 3 very different speeds for the 3 different ships.   But I mean, that's fine if they are not in a fleet together.   But, what worries me the most is. . .  your tracking speed.   No turrets. . .  means i expect your slower ship to hit air if they are supposed to shoot down ASMs.  Now, if you just are skipping point defense, that can be done, with say maybe shields.  But you dont have those either.

It's partially because I'm putting off growing my shipyards - Ideally, these ships should be sized at 9k/18k/27k, so that they can use 1/2/3 engines and all end up moving the same speed.

As far as tracking speed, while it's a little anemic against ASMs (especially the cruiser), I will note that we're going totally different directions as far as armaments go - you've got one really big, really slow cannon. I'm going for coating the hull with weaponry and firing full broadsides every 5 seconds. We can afford to miss a bit more.

Shields would be good. Current top-of-the-line, unfortunately, is 500 tons for 25 strength or 750 for 46. It's a matter of cramming the damn things into my ships somehow and/or improving the tech so I can shrink them without losing too much strength.

[pbhead]

I like big guns and I can not lie. 

So.  I am no expert, but when it comes to guns, right? I look at like.  3 possible options

1.  Shots per 5 seconds per hullsize.   damage doesn't matter, PD weapons.  10 cm railguns would win, but they cant be on a turret.  (and if your ship is fast enough to not need turrets to shoot down the missiles. . .  then why are you just not walking backwards?)  Once your recharge rate gets high enough, you can even do the 75% size, 4x recharge, and still have fastest possible recharge rate.   Best PD, will tickle anything with armor.

2.  Damage per 5 seconds per hullsize.   The largest gun that matches your recharge rate.   Multipurpose weapons.  Maximum dps, that can be used as point defense as well.  (if on a turret) This feels like what you got.   My next line of ships will have some of these on quad turrets for long range point defense, while also able to add good damage against ships.   

3.  Damage per hullsize.  the largest gun possible.   Note, that as you go past your recharge rate, while the damage per hullsize increases, the damage per second per hullsize drops.   This is what I had in my design.   One shot one kill.  recharge rate doesn't matter if the first shot ends it.  Or at least pierces their armor.  Or at least has the chance to deal shock damage. 

All have their place.  Again, my enemy had no missiles, so I went big.