Aurora 4x
New Players => The Academy => Topic started by: dersavage on January 15, 2021, 12:29:44 PM
-
So... It seems it was too much for aliens to send my recon ship to Gliese 775 system. After jumping to system my lone ship was ambushed and blown up. I dont' know much about these new aliens. I know one of their ship use missiles up to 24m range. It seems they are using energy weapons too, that was the last report of SF Raven 002.
Not sure what these shots and dmg numbers are, so what should I expect and how to design my ships against these possible intruders?
BTW, they are probably angry just because my frigate captains used non-lethal microway against their survey ships in MY SYSTEM. But it was only for self-defence and after they attacked my survey ship. But this... They destroyed my ship. This could mean war.
As always, diplomats are slow to react. Still in Earth discussing. So it seems aggressive ship captains have to make politics with guns. ;)
I attached map too for tips about strategy. Colony GJ Alpha have spaceport and very important system. Still building stuff, but important.
-
You have a lot of size-6 energy hits and a few size-9 energy hits, which corresponds to 15 cm lasers with a few spinal lasers (18.75 cm) mixed in. Missiles + lasers is a fairly common NPR design pattern.
The tricky thing about lasers is that they have both good range and high armor penetration with the gradient-3 damage template. Because of this armor is less effective, but if you can keep the range open then lasers do lose damage over distance so armor can still hold up. At point blank, a 6-damage laser will penetrate four layers of armor, so you want at least that many if you plan to engage point-blank. 9-damage lasers will penetrate up to 5 layers of armor, but since there are relatively few of the spinal lasers you could choose to ignore those and take the internal damage. On the other hand, it's "only" one more layer of armor.
Lasers can be countered in a few ways. Strong shields will negate their penetration ability as long as they hold up although they will be broken down pretty quickly. Mass ASM salvos are a good technique as always especially if the enemy has poor AMMs since laser PD is only moderately effective at best compared to rail/Gauss guns. Finally, you can build fast ships that can maintain the range so that the lasers are doing fractional damage and shoot back with particle beams, which have shorter maximum range but maintain their damage at all ranges and so can soft-counter lasers.
-
Nukes ideas are good, but to add one more possible design philosophy.
Your own lasers, but bigger or more numerous, with shields or lots o armor.
This isn't really a counter, it's just beating them at their own game. But between asm attacks from range, particle beams from range, or your own lasers you should be able to adequately fight them no matter what research you have available to you.
-
Ok, it seems I need little help how to build good PD lasers or gauss cannons.
My firigates and corvettes are unable to fire and I only get "Tribal 003 is preparing to fire but her weapons are not ready yet". So it seems only my destroyer with 15 cm laser is able to fire and none from smaller gauss or 10 cm lasers. It is because enemy uses 44,400 m/s missiles and my range on gauss is only like 30,000 km and 128,000 km for lasers?!?
I believed that they could fire even one time, but it seems all my PD guns are useless and only bigger guns fire. It's like 90% of my firepower is useless now. I really have to go back to drawing board and design my ships totally new way.
I jumped through gate, but is normal that even after one minute they canno fire at all with their PD small guns.
-
In final defensive fire mode, speed of missiles should not prevent interception, only hit chance. But if you jumped through jump point, they may be still in jump shock and that is why they do not open fire. Are the ships with 15cm lasers older than the escorts? They may have higher training and grade so they are able to fire sooner.
-
Ok, it seems I need little help how to build good PD lasers or gauss cannons.
My firigates and corvettes are unable to fire and I only get "Tribal 003 is preparing to fire but her weapons are not ready yet". So it seems only my destroyer with 15 cm laser is able to fire and none from smaller gauss or 10 cm lasers. It is because enemy uses 44,400 m/s missiles and my range on gauss is only like 30,000 km and 128,000 km for lasers?!?
I believed that they could fire even one time, but it seems all my PD guns are useless and only bigger guns fire. It's like 90% of my firepower is useless now. I really have to go back to drawing board and design my ships totally new way.
I jumped through gate, but is normal that even after one minute they canno fire at all with their PD small guns.
The problem is that jumping through a gate is equivalent to a standard transit, which prevents ships from firing for as much as three minutes. See the following:
Jump Point Transit Shock
When a ship transits a jump point, it will suffer jump shock. This temporarily disables active sensors, fire control systems and jump drives.
A ship making a standard transit will suffer a delay equal to: (120 seconds + Random 1 to 60 seconds) * Ship Bonus.
A ship making a squadron transit will suffer a delay equal to: (20 seconds + Random 1 to 10 seconds) * Ship Bonus.
The ship bonus is equal to: 2 - ((1 + Crew Grade) * Morale * Overhaul Factor).
For example, if a ship has 100% morale, an overhaul factor of 1 (which is normal) and crew grade of 10%, the ship bonus would be (2 - (1.1 * 1 * 1) = 0.9. So any delay would be multipled by 90%.
The length of jump shock for NPRs is halved. This is to compensate for the fact that humans can make much better decisions in this situation, in particular with regard to ensuring the right mix of jump ships and warships is available in the right place at the right time to take advantage of squadron transits. If I get around to coding more detailed strategic decision-making in this situation for NPRs (not a priority for V1), I'll make them the same as player races.
In short, if you think it is possible that there will be enemy ships on the other side of the jump point, you should always use Squadron Jumps.