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Offline Arekonator (OP)

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First fleet design, doctrine and related questions
« on: July 19, 2017, 03:24:48 PM »
Hi, I am new player during my very first playthrough and i only recently ran into two separate alien factions.   Neither of them can be interacted with diplomatically, so i suppose they are precursors and *spoilers*.   Based around the engagement with my survey ships i designed my first real military fleet, working around the few information i got before they got destroyed. 

So here is what i came up - Carrier Task Group. 
2* Light Carriers, each with with: 2* Fighter- Scout, 13* Beam Fighter, 5* Fighter Bomber
3* Light Cruiser
1* Recon Frigate

Configuration:
Carriers
Code: [Select]
Kirov class Light Carrier    24 450 tons     373 Crew     2727.5 BP      TCS 489  TH 1500  EM 0
3067 km/s     Armour 5-75     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 24     PPV 0
Maint Life 7.89 Years     MSP 2673    AFR 199%    IFR 2.8%    1YR 76    5YR 1140    Max Repair 112.5 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 24 months    Flight Crew Berths 70   
Hangar Deck Capacity 10000 tons     Magazine 136   

Malinovsky-Danilov Light Cruiser 300 EP Magneto-plasma Drive (5)    Power 300    Fuel Use 18.27%    Signature 300    Exp 7%
Fuel Capacity 2 500 000 Litres    Range 100.7 billion km   (380 days at full power)

Tupolev Torpedo Mk,1 (10)  Speed: 32 000 km/s   End: 26.2m    Range: 50.4m km   WH: 25    Size: 14    TH: 160/96/48

Backup Sensor Active Search Sensor MR1-R1 (1)     GPS 10     Range 1.1m km    MCR 114k km    Resolution 1

Strike Group
2x Suchoj 1S Fighter-Scout   Speed: 12877 km/s    Size: 9.94
13x Suchoj 1 Fighter   Speed: 12877 km/s    Size: 9.94
5x Tupolev 1 Fighter-bomber   Speed: 12877 km/s    Size: 9.94

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
Strike Craft:

Code: [Select]
Suchoj 1 class Fighter    497 tons     4 Crew     217.4 BP      TCS 9.94  TH 64  EM 0
12877 km/s     Armour 1-5     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 0     PPV 4
Maint Life 0 Years     MSP 0    AFR 99%    IFR 1.4%    1YR 55    5YR 832    Max Repair 96 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 0.1 months    Spare Berths 0   

(Heavy Fighter) Samborski -Bieniek  Engineering 128 EP Magneto-plasma Drive (1)    Power 128    Fuel Use 271.53%    Signature 64    Exp 20%
Fuel Capacity 10 000 Litres    Range 1.3 billion km   (28 hours at full power)

Prokhorov 15cm C6 Ultraviolet Laser (1)    Range 192 000km     TS: 12877 km/s     Power 6-6     RM 4    ROF 5        6 6 6 6 4 4 3 3 2 2
Lebedev Techsystems Fighter Fire Control S00.5 96-2500 (FTR) (1)    Max Range: 192 000 km   TS: 10000 km/s     95 90 84 79 74 69 64 58 53 48
Przygoda  & Piwko Fighter Tokamak Fusion Reactor Technology PB-1.25 (1)     Total Power Output 6    Armour 0    Exp 20%

This design is classed as a Fighter for production, combat and maintenance purposes
Code: [Select]
Suchoj 1S class Fighter-Scout    497 tons     3 Crew     187.4 BP      TCS 9.94  TH 64  EM 0
12877 km/s     Armour 1-5     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 0     PPV 0
Maint Life 0 Years     MSP 0    AFR 99%    IFR 1.4%    1YR 54    5YR 815    Max Repair 96 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 0.1 months    Spare Berths 1   

(Heavy Fighter) Samborski -Bieniek  Engineering 128 EP Magneto-plasma Drive (1)    Power 128    Fuel Use 271.53%    Signature 64    Exp 20%
Fuel Capacity 15 000 Litres    Range 2.0 billion km   (43 hours at full power)

Suchoj Fighter General Active Search Sensor MR70-R100 (1)     GPS 6400     Range 70.4m km    Resolution 100
Suchoj Fighter PD Active Search Sensor MR1-R1 (1)     GPS 16     Range 1.8m km    MCR 192k km    Resolution 1

This design is classed as a Fighter for production, combat and maintenance purposes
Code: [Select]
Tupolev 1 class Fighter-bomber    497 tons     2 Crew     138.2 BP      TCS 9.94  TH 64  EM 0
12877 km/s     Armour 1-5     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 0     PPV 4.2
Maint Life 0 Years     MSP 0    AFR 99%    IFR 1.4%    1YR 34    5YR 517    Max Repair 96 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 0.1 months    Spare Berths 2   
Magazine 28   

(Heavy Fighter) Samborski -Bieniek  Engineering 128 EP Magneto-plasma Drive (1)    Power 128    Fuel Use 271.53%    Signature 64    Exp 20%
Fuel Capacity 10 000 Litres    Range 1.3 billion km   (28 hours at full power)

Torpedo Bomber Size 14 Box Launcher (2)    Missile Size 14    Hangar Reload 105 minutes    MF Reload 17.5 hours
Tupolev Missile Fire Control FC50-R90 (1)     Range 50.1m km    Resolution 90
Tupolev Torpedo Mk,1 (2)  Speed: 32 000 km/s   End: 26.2m    Range: 50.4m km   WH: 25    Size: 14    TH: 160/96/48

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 maintenance purposes
Cruisers
 
Code: [Select]
Kursk 3 class Light Cruiser    10 300 tons     239 Crew     2023.5 BP      TCS 206  TH 900  EM 0
4368 km/s     Armour 5-42     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 15     PPV 54.46
Maint Life 2.1 Years     MSP 614    AFR 169%    IFR 2.4%    1YR 186    5YR 2790    Max Repair 288 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 24 months    Spare Berths 0   

Malinovsky-Danilov Light Cruiser 300 EP Magneto-plasma Drive (3)    Power 300    Fuel Use 18.27%    Signature 300    Exp 7%
Fuel Capacity 1 000 000 Litres    Range 95.6 billion km   (253 days at full power)

Triple Prokhorov 10cm C3 Ultraviolet Laser Turret (2x3)    Range 120 000km     TS: 20500 km/s     Power 9-9     RM 4    ROF 5        3 3 3 3 2 2 1 1 1 1
Single Prokhorov 20cm C5 Ultraviolet Laser Turret (3x1)    Range 384 000km     TS: 10000 km/s     Power 10-5     RM 4    ROF 10        10 10 10 10 8 6 5 5 4 4
PD Turret Fire Control S04 96-20000 (1)    Max Range: 192 000 km   TS: 20000 km/s     95 90 84 79 74 69 64 58 53 48
Advanced Primary Beam  Fire Control S04 192-10000 (1)    Max Range: 384 000 km   TS: 10000 km/s     97 95 92 90 87 84 82 79 77 74
Przygoda  & Piwko Cruiser Tokamak Fusion Reactor Technology PB-1.05 (4)     Total Power Output 33.6    Armour 0    Exp 7%

Backup Sensor Active Search Sensor MR1-R1 (1)     GPS 10     Range 1.1m km    MCR 114k km    Resolution 1

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
Recon Frigate
Code: [Select]
Sevastopol class Recon Frigate    7 300 tons     168 Crew     1325 BP      TCS 146  TH 600  EM 0
4109 km/s     Armour 4-33     Shields 0-0     Sensors 120/110/0/0     Damage Control Rating 4     PPV 15.98
Maint Life 2.2 Years     MSP 454    AFR 106%    IFR 1.5%    1YR 126    5YR 1884    Max Repair 288 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 24 months    Spare Berths 0   

Malinovsky-Danilov Light Cruiser 300 EP Magneto-plasma Drive (2)    Power 300    Fuel Use 18.27%    Signature 300    Exp 7%
Fuel Capacity 750 000 Litres    Range 101.2 billion km   (285 days at full power)

Triple Prokhorov 10cm C3 Ultraviolet Laser Turret (1x3)    Range 120 000km     TS: 20500 km/s     Power 9-9     RM 4    ROF 5        3 3 3 3 2 2 1 1 1 1
PD Turret Fire Control S04 96-20000 (1)    Max Range: 192 000 km   TS: 20000 km/s     95 90 84 79 74 69 64 58 53 48
Filipowski  & Kopec  Incorporated Pebble Bed Reactor Technology PB-1 (3)     Total Power Output 9    Armour 0    Exp 5%

Main TG Search Sensor Active Search Sensor MR35-R100 (1)     GPS 3200     Range 35.2m km    Resolution 100
Main TG sensor (PD) Active Search Sensor MR4-R1 (1)     GPS 44     Range 4.8m km    MCR 527k km    Resolution 1
Sobolev Dedicated Thermal Sensor TH15-120 (1)     Sensitivity 120     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  120m km
Dedicated Passive EM Detection Sensor EM10-110 (1)     Sensitivity 110     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  110m km

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
I almost completely ignored missiles mostly for RP purposes (and partly because the game as whole was little bit overwhelming at first and missiles seemed like too much extra fiddling). 

Now i've run a "simulation" (read: "i savescumed and attempted the engagement") and i am already aware of few issues that i need to adress:
Some fire controls dont quite have range in the full weapon range - 20cm lasers on cruisers are ahead of my FC range technology and on the fighters its also combination with size constraint. 
Didnt knew how missile size works in relation to magazine size when i designed them, so i  need to refit them so they can at least load two full salvos. 

In the fight i dispatched fighters (bombers were not quite ready at the time) when i detected enemy and when i reached certain distance, they were sending small salvos of size 1 missiles aganist my fighters.   The missiles were apparently very fast because i only spoted them for single increment before impact despite my anti-missile sensor having 1.  8m range.   And ocassionally when the relative speeds aligned, they were able to cross whole range and hit me in single increment, before i got any chance for PD fire.   Which leads to another question: I had "Error in PDFinalFire" spam most of the time when the missiles impacted.   I tried to google but failed to found workaround (at least without hampering my survivability by changing PD fire setting).   Could it be caused by having fighters in two squadrons at same place instead just one bigger one?
Despite that and obviously insufficient tracking speed the fighters were working through incoming missiles with only small losses, at least until sensor fighters got hit at which point i became blind against incoming fire and got promptly slaughtered, so i scrapped the simulation. 

Also i am unsure how to fit jump drive into the fleet (so far i am relying on jump gate constructors).   Original plan was to fit the jump drive on modified version of the carrier but sufficient jump drive would be so big and expensive that i would not be able to build/refit it without retooling the shipyard, which would cost me the ability to build the standard version.   And designing dedicated ship to build at another shipyard, which i would have to artificially inflate in size, so the carriers can tag along just feels kinda wasteful, because my economy isnt exactly the strongest.   And if so, i am not even sure what kind of ship that should be.   Maitenance/collier/tanker/hospital all-in-one support ship? Dedicated PD cruiser? I am lost on that one. 

So, any tips to improve and solution to my issues are welcome. 
« Last Edit: July 19, 2017, 03:27:28 PM by Arekonator »
 

Offline DuraniumCowboy

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Re: First fleet design, doctrine and related questions
« Reply #1 on: July 19, 2017, 06:23:09 PM »
Here are a few ideas/points:
1)  As far as not seeing the missiles, its because you probably don't have an active resolution 1 active sensor in the vicinity of your fighters.  Just because your larger unit can see the enemies some times leads you to think you will see the missiles.  As it stands now, you are basically seeing them on your strength 1 thermals just before impact and don't have any ability to use point defense.
2)  Consider making 250 ton fighter designs where possible.  They are like 4-5 times harder to detect, so the enemy fire controls won't even be able to acquire you before you can fire missiles.
3)  Consider adding some guass cannon point defense to all your ships.  The lasers are good, but heavy.  Myself, I like to make tiny 17% Guass Cannon turrets and just throw a few on every military ship I build.  It might seem like a 17% turret will never hit, but with fast tracking, missile tracking, crew bonus etc they will have a reason % to hit.  The trade off is basically like having one shot at 100% vs something like 10 shots at 30% for the same weight (those probably aren't exact figures, but I think you get the drtift)
4)  For your carrier, I like 20-30% tonnage into hangars.  You are high, which means your carrier is more of a fighter barge than a warship (which is OK if that's what you want).  The big difference being rearming.  With 136 magazine space, you can carry 10 of your size 14 torpedoes.  You'll probably find having less fighters with multiple sorties will be a lot more valuable.  I would add point defense too.  You can easily get away with an 18 month deployment time, 1.5-2 year maintenance life and ~35B fuel so you can free up a lot of space there.
5)  You're fighters are very well designed for your engine level.  As mentioned, I use small 250 ton fighters when I can.  I would suggest you consider a rail gun fighter in place of the laser, and add a tiny res 1 active sensor will also allow for the beam fighters to do their own point defense, even when isolated.  I would also look at adding a thermal sensor to the recon fighter.
6)  For the cruiser, it will work with 1/3 less fuel.  If the idea is to use it for point defense, then I would get rid of the big turret and replace it with as many 10cm rail guns and small guass cannon turrets as you can handle.  Think wall of lead.  The current ship just doesn't have enough shots to splash more than 1-2 missiles per salvo.
7)  I would pull a lot of fuel from your recon frigate.  The passive EM sensor strength is probably a lot higher than you need.  If you can research a bigger thermal sensor then consider that.
8)  For transit operations, I normally build complimentary "scout designs" with the same tonnage as my other ships.  Normally the small boys are jump destroyers and jump destroyers.  Most of my designs have very light armament but the best passives I can spare.  To jump your carrier, you may want to build a jump capable collier, as I find that the jump dive space penalty just too much to make an effective capital ship that can stand up to fire.
9)  Also, consider using the same exact engine size to tonnage ratio for your whole fleet.  That will give them all the same speed.  As it stands now, when your fleet operates together, many ships actually have engines that aren't completely used, which essentially means you are packing less weapons, ammo, armor, etc than you could otherwise pack.  Obviously fighters don't follow this and I do make some specialty frigates and destroyers that are over engined so they can chase stuff down.
 
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Offline Michael Sandy

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Re: First fleet design, doctrine and related questions
« Reply #2 on: July 19, 2017, 07:06:43 PM »
During my surveying phase, I built a lot of 15,000 ton commercial jump drive ships, 2 size 50 engines, the smallest commercial jump drive I could build, and a bunch of fuel tanks.  I called them mobile jump stations, and they would stay at a jump point until the survey was complete.

My first military ships were all commercial engined ships, so that they could make use of my existing jump drive capacity.  However, I also built a bunch of tugs and 15,000 ton carriers that had no engines.  So I could pair the carriers with the jump stations, if necessary, to get military drive ships around.

Also, they are useful for getting really high boost military ships around without exhausting my fuel.
 
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Offline DuraniumCowboy

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Re: First fleet design, doctrine and related questions
« Reply #3 on: July 19, 2017, 07:35:34 PM »
In my current game, here is my biggest jump ship, a jump cruiser.  It mostly creeps around and drops buoys and launches drones when not helping jump my other ships:

Code: [Select]
Defiance Mk2 class Scout Cruiser    12 000 tons     268 Crew     1871.5 BP      TCS 240  TH 960  EM 0
4000 km/s    JR 3-50     Armour 3-46     Shields 0-0     Sensors 88/56/0/0     Damage Control Rating 26     PPV 20.94
Maint Life 2.31 Years     MSP 585    AFR 192%    IFR 2.7%    1YR 148    5YR 2224    Max Repair 191 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 24 months    Spare Berths 0   
Magazine 300   

J12000(3-50) Military Jump Drive     Max Ship Size 12000 tons    Distance 50k km     Squadron Size 3
160 EP Magneto-plasma Drive (6)    Power 160    Fuel Use 63%    Signature 160    Exp 10%
Fuel Capacity 1 750 000 Litres    Range 41.7 billion km   (120 days at full power)

2xGC-3 Gauss Cannon R2-17 Turret T16K (4x6)    Range 20 000km     TS: 16000 km/s     Power 0-0     RM 2    ROF 5        1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
BFC-F-4 Fire Control S02 32-16000 (1)    Max Range: 64 000 km   TS: 16000 km/s     84 69 53 37 22 6 0 0 0 0

ASML-3L Size 6 Missile Launcher (33% Reduction) (5)    Missile Size 6    Rate of Fire 1800
MFC-S-3 Missile Fire Control FC164-R100 (1)     Range 164.6m km    Resolution 100
SB6-1 DP EM/TH Passive Buoy (3)  Speed: 0 km/s   End: 0m    Range: 0m km   WH: 0    Size: 5.956    TH: 0/0/0
D6-ACT-2 (2)  Speed: 4 000 km/s   End: 7.7d    Range: 2670.3m km   WH: 0    Size: 6    TH: 13/8/4
D6-TH-2 (2)  Speed: 4 000 km/s   End: 8.1d    Range: 2794.6m km   WH: 0    Size: 6    TH: 13/8/4
ASM-3A (43)  Speed: 18 700 km/s   End: 133.9m    Range: 150.3m km   WH: 9    Size: 6    TH: 99/59/29

AGS-S-4 Active Search Sensor MR156-R100 (1)     GPS 11200     Range 156.8m km    Resolution 100
Northrop Grumman Thermal Sensor TH8-88 (1)     Sensitivity 88     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  88m km
Hopkins Dynamics EM Detection Sensor EM4-56 (1)     Sensitivity 56     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  56m 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

As I said, I think my next major jump ship will be a 20kton jump collier.  Researching the drive will be rough.
 

Offline Barkhorn

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Re: First fleet design, doctrine and related questions
« Reply #4 on: July 19, 2017, 08:52:12 PM »
Resolution 1 sensors only have their max range against 50 ton or larger contacts.  A size 1 missile is only 2 tons or so.  Your sensors will only see them 150,000km out or so, and if they're faster than 30,000km/s, you might not see them until after they've already hit.
 

Offline El Pip

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Re: First fleet design, doctrine and related questions
« Reply #5 on: July 20, 2017, 02:20:02 AM »
On the anti-missile sensor point, at the risk of stating the obvious the MCR (Minimum Contact Range) for Res 1 sensors picking up the smallest size of missile is already shown on the design output. In this case your 1.8m km range sensor will actually only pick up a missile at 192,000 km.

Also standard warning, Missile Tracking Bonus is bugged and doesn't work in the current versions of Aurora. Makes the low-accuracy Gauss approach much less attractive.
 

Offline obsidian_green

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Re: First fleet design, doctrine and related questions
« Reply #6 on: July 20, 2017, 02:43:47 AM »
I'm a couple of generations into fleet designs in my first playthrough and waiting for a few techs before designing my third. As you progress, you'll want to avoid headaches that are mostly logistical in nature.

- For battle groups you're probably better off with a dedicated jump tender (also suggested by DuraniumCowboy) that has a specific secondary role as a sensor platform, tanker, etc. since it needs to be at least as large as the largest warship. My current military jump tenders aren't really designed to hang with the combatants, as I tried to save costs by making them commercial ships, which (iirc) didn't allow me to equipped them with shields, magazines, or other useful auxiliary functions. I might have stumbled into a good setup, as I leave them at the jump points and they can act as (not quite adequate) reserve fuel, but it would be more convenient if I didn't have to---a design I'll be exploring in the future.

- You've already seen the need for this, but break out the calculator so you can design magazines that fit your needs. I've settled on a standardized 288 capacity magazine that fits well with my size-6 ASMs and launcher multiples of 4. My carriers carry 24 strikefighters with 3 launchers each, which means 72 missiles per full sortie; three of my standard magazines on the carrier gives me 144 ASMs or 2 reloads for the strike element. I'd like more, but as ship designing quickly teaches, space is always limited, lol. When you can describe your basic ASM scheme in a similar way, I think it will make operations easier. (AMM schemes are made easier by the size-1 missiles best fit for the role---more flexibility there.) It might seem like a headache, but missiles have the range you're going to need for successful engagements, and is absolutely necessary if you're slower than the enemy.

- AMMs are useful. I've managed to avoid several disasters without "battle simulation" because I've been able to run and because AMMs helped winnow the numbers on some insane missile volleys when my battle groups got too close for the enemy's comfort while I was trying to close to laser range (sometimes after running out of ASMs, sometimes because I was being stingy with them). I had warships turned to Swiss cheese, but I managed to get them out and avoid a situation where I would have had to watch the survivors die.

- Probably a good idea to bring "shuttles" for a variety of roles, the most utilized for me being the capture of alien lifepods (and the occasional retrieval of my own). My current battle group also carries marine assault shuttles (with small cryo-drop modules) though boarding actions incur a lot of time-interrupts just to tell you how many seconds until the next real report---a bit of a headache I'm loathe to repeat. I carry scout-fighters too, but I've designed them rather poorly, I think --- their utility redundant to my group surveillance ship and without a res-1 sensor that would allow my gauss fighters (not ideal, but lighter than a railgun design at the speed I want) the ability to protect the strikefighters.

- What I'll be adding with my next ship crop are beam (probably) FACs ... sometimes you need to chase down relatively defenseless ships and kill them with something you can set to auto-fire without worry, which means a single fire control per craft. You give the move or follow order an you don't have to worry about reassigning targets over and over again. Convenience has become an important consideration for me.

- Some of the missile non-detection you're seeing might be related to enemy ECM level ... that's been my biggest tactical headache recently and it's cost me a number of fighters that couldn't shoot down incoming missiles and couldn't get a target lock outside enemy AMM range. Small fighters have a lot of advantages, but for me, it's also meant fire controls of shorter range than I'd like---need ECCM to counteract that effect (and that's an area of research I shirked).

I kind got into this, lol. Hope some of it is helpful.
 
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Offline DuraniumCowboy

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Re: First fleet design, doctrine and related questions
« Reply #7 on: July 20, 2017, 08:17:24 AM »
Quote
Also standard warning, Missile Tracking Bonus is bugged and doesn't work in the current versions of Aurora. Makes the low-accuracy Gauss approach much less attractive.

Thanks for the heads up.  They seem pretty effective in my current playthrough though, so at worst I would see them as being equivalent (since the % reduction and tonnage are completely proportional).  I know if I used full sized, I would have over 100% to hit on a lot of cases, so that extra accuracy is wasted on a heavier gun.  I'll keep an eye on things though.
 

Offline Barkhorn

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Re: First fleet design, doctrine and related questions
« Reply #8 on: July 20, 2017, 11:03:53 AM »
ECM does not affect detection, only fire control range.
 

Offline obsidian_green

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Re: First fleet design, doctrine and related questions
« Reply #9 on: July 20, 2017, 10:36:10 PM »
ECM does not affect detection, only fire control range.

Whoops. You're right, I'm conflating the whole issue of the un-targetable missiles. I'm facing/have faced (I wiped out the problem for the moment) difficulties similar to Arekonator and in my head I've labeled it all as ECM stuff when it was a combination of weak/non-existent PD sensors on my fighters and fire controls that need ECCM. (I'll probably be thermal-reducting fighter engines in the next ship crop as well, to make it less likely they are targeted before they get into launch range.)

Arekonator, I also forgot one other bit of advice:

- DuraniumCowboy mentioned this, but I'll stress it. You might want to give yourself a little rope/room when it comes to intended deployment times. In my second/current generation of warships, I brought down intended deployment from 18 months to 12 and that's proven to be the biggest mistake I made in that design phase (remember I also have a consistent fleet speed for warships so that I don't have to worry about logistical inconsistencies in my battle groups).

12 months has been enough time for engagements even many systems distant, but it's not enough to facilitate fleet training back home, which complicates maintenance when my massive PDC hangars (200,000 ton capacity) really only have enough space for one battle group at a time. I have one carrier training fighters while the other conducts operations, but the short deployment time is disrupting the rotation I intended ... an avoidable headache.
 

Offline Detros

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Re: First fleet design, doctrine and related questions
« Reply #10 on: July 21, 2017, 04:24:04 AM »
Resolution 1 sensors only have their max range against 50 ton or larger contacts.  A size 1 missile is only 2 tons or so.  Your sensors will only see them 150,000km out or so, and if they're faster than 30,000km/s, you might not see them until after they've already hit.
Wiki:
"One Missile Size Point (MSP, not to be confused with Maintenance Supply Points, also called MSP) equals 1/20 HS (Hull Spaces), or 2.5 tons."

"The smallest size permitted in Aurora is 1 MSP."

"Larger missiles can be spotted - and thus fires at by point defenses - at longer range than smaller ones, but there is a limit: missiles smaller than 6 MSP are treated as size 6 by sensors."

MCR is the range of detection of these smallest missiles of size 6 or smaller ones.
 

Offline Arekonator (OP)

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Re: First fleet design, doctrine and related questions
« Reply #11 on: July 22, 2017, 05:29:19 PM »
Thanks for all the advice.
I reffited most of my ships with small quad gauss turrets on top of existing lasesrs but i have yet to test them in the anti missile role.

The intended role of cruiser is to provide some PD capability to the fleet, but more imporantly, make a screen aganist cerain spoilery FAC swarms and thanks to overal focus on lasers i had range advantage and suffered only few destroyed fighters and some small damage on other ships.
Will try to engage the precursors again with my new PD arnament and then see if i still need further changes.