Author Topic: Q-Ships  (Read 4292 times)

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Offline Starmantle (OP)

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Q-Ships
« on: December 06, 2013, 04:17:17 PM »
In World War I, Britain came up with a novel defense against German U-boats that preyed on shipping fleets.  They would heavily arm some minority of merchant vessels and keep that armament hidden and even fill the cargo holds with cork or wooden caskets so that even if they were torpedoed, they could remain afloat.

U-Boats had limited numbers of torpedoes, so a lone, heavily damaged, or otherwise vulnerable target might encourage the U-boat captain to surface and finish a ship off with a deck gun.  Once the U-boat was vulnerable, the Q-ship's panels would drop to reveal the deck guns, which would immediately open fire, hopefully sinking the U-boat.

In Aurora, missiles are valuable and a fleet of freighters or colony ships might be best engaged at close range to save ammunition.

I'm not sure if the AI thinks that way, but player vs. player, I definitely would try to close and destroy a freighter with beams unless I just had an unreasonable number of missiles.  

The Doppelganger class Q-Ship below has identical tonnage, speed, and thermal signature to the Gemini class Cargo ship.  It also has substantial passive sensor and an active sensor array that would generally stay off until needed to fire.

Its two CIWS emplacements and thick armor make it very survivable, without alerting enemy commanders that this is a military ship (like ECM and anti-missiles might).

The Q-ship will probably travel with regular formations of freighters but might instead travel alone.  

When an enemy ship comes within 150,000km, the Doppelganger will launch a devastating barrage of 240 warhead strength-49 missiles split between as many as 10 targets and without enough time for enemy anti-missile systems to engage it.  

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Doppelganger class Q-Ship    47,650 tons     447 Crew     4648.3 BP      TCS 953  TH 4000  EM 0
4197 km/s     Armour 10-117     Shields 0-0     Sensors 70/70/0/0     Damage Control Rating 40     PPV 360
Maint Life 4 Years     MSP 2469    AFR 448%    IFR 6.2%    1YR 246    5YR 3696    Max Repair 125 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 24 months    Spare Berths 0    
Magazine 2400    

500 EP Commercial Internal Fusion Drive ( 8 )    Power 500    Fuel Use 4.42%    Signature 500    Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 1,000,000 Litres    Range 85.5 billion km   (235 days at full power)

CIWS-160-2 (2x8)    Range 1000 km     TS: 16000 km/s     ROF 5       Base 50% To Hit
Size 10 Box Launcher (240)    Missile Size 10    Hangar Reload 75 minutes    MF Reload 12.5 hours
Missile Fire Control FC10-R80 (10)     Range 10.5m km    Resolution 80
Blunderbuss Mk 2 (240)  Speed: 30,000 km/s   End: 0.9m    Range: 1.6m km   WH: 49    Size: 10    TH: 180/108/54

Active Search Sensor MR54-R100 (1)     GPS 3921     Range 54.9m km    Resolution 100
Thermal Sensor TH5-70 (1)     Sensitivity 70     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  70m km
EM Detection Sensor EM5-70 (1)     Sensitivity 70     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  70m 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

For reference:

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Gemini class Cargo Ship    47,650 tons     249 Crew     1504 BP      TCS 953  TH 4000  EM 0
4197 km/s     Armour 1-117     Shields 0-0     Sensors 14/14/0/0     Damage Control Rating 1     PPV 0
MSP 20    Max Repair 125 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 24 months    Spare Berths 0    
Cargo 25000    Cargo Handling Multiplier 30    

500 EP Commercial Internal Fusion Drive ( 8 )    Power 500    Fuel Use 4.42%    Signature 500    Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 1,000,000 Litres    Range 85.5 billion km   (235 days at full power)

Thermal Sensor TH1-14 (1)     Sensitivity 14     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  14m km
EM Detection Sensor EM1-14 (1)     Sensitivity 14     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  14m km

This design is classed as a Commercial Vessel for maintenance purposes

The downside is that it's hard to dedicate a huge militarily shipyard to a project like this, particularly when it's unlikely you'll build more than one or two.  Also frankly, it's expensive and not very versatile or something that could easily team up with other fleet assets.  And a player is unlikely to fall for the trick twice.  

*Another hat tip to GenJeFT for the short-range missile idea.
« Last Edit: December 06, 2013, 04:23:48 PM by Starmantle »
 

Offline Varee

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Re: Q-Ships
« Reply #1 on: December 06, 2013, 06:42:01 PM »
Another thing is aurora label ship by name not appearance so when the ship get inside active sensor range, the opponent can identify it as not the same as other ship. This make it a very valuable target as you dedicate an absurd amount of resource to make that work so i dont think it will worth the cost
 

Offline Starmantle (OP)

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Re: Q-Ships
« Reply #2 on: December 06, 2013, 09:04:08 PM »
Well, it's not a bad idea to have a series similar freighters in the same fleet anyway - one with a thermal sensor, another with an EM sensor, a few with various-resolution size-1 active sensors, or even a standard variant with just an extra size-1 fuel tank.  These could all be made at the same shipyard, so there's not a lot of reason not to do that.  And heck, I should have thought of that before anyway - it could save a lot of space those dual passive sensors take up on the Gemini.  

So any time the enemy would see a convoy of freighters it'd just be a variety of ship classes traveling together, all at 47,650 tons, all heat signature 4000, all lumbering along at slow speeds, and (maybe) with a variety of low-power active sensors up.

That still looks like a freighter fleet to me - and there wouldn't be a lot to distinguish the Q-ship.  

So if they engage commercial ships, they'd either have to eliminate all freighters and colony ships with missiles, or they'd close to short range to take them out more cheaply and fall into the trap.

I suppose if a player made a habit of only engaging freighter fleets with cannon-armed fighters, that would be a reasonable counter, and not a bad idea anyway.  

But yeah - the cost of the shipyard retools and the cost of the Q-ship itself are pretty large.  Likely prohibitively so.  Though if it ever got to fire on an enemy fleet battle, it could make up that investment incredibly fast.

It also occurs to me that in a pinch, this thing would be a halfway decent planetary bombard ship, jump point defense ship, or even jump point attack ship provided there was a gate up.  Even though it's painfully blunt, slow, and not generally re-loadable.  

But yeah.  People who study naval doctrine never quite seemed to be able to decide if the real-world Q-ships were worth it either.  But they were clever and interesting, occasionally successful, and forced the enemy to change their tactics and be more cautious around even obviously outgunned commercial targets.  
« Last Edit: December 11, 2013, 05:06:00 PM by Starmantle »
 

Offline MarcAFK

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Re: Q-Ships
« Reply #3 on: December 07, 2013, 03:20:46 AM »
Apart from the cost being absurd since real life Q ships were very cheap, just grab a normal cargo ship, fill it with cork, add a deck gun and some light armour and you're done, your main problem is as already mentioned the way aurora identifies ships by class so you couldn't easily do it more than once. A better bet might be to make small low emission wolf packs that follow your freighters around with only passive sensors on, chances are your enemy won't have it's best sensors available for commerce raiding unless you're trading through his home systems, or his main fleet is attacking, in which case a q ship is toast anyway.
So perhaps take that 40kton q ship and see what you can produce with the same speed, range and deployment time, while having perhaps 1/20th the thermal emission and enough of those box launchers to still take out a frigate or destroyer.
What you have there could possibly take out or seriously damage a whole armada, real Q ships were only supposed to destroy submarines which historically were smaller than any other warship other than pt/torpedo boats.
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Offline Starmantle (OP)

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Re: Q-Ships
« Reply #4 on: December 07, 2013, 05:09:32 PM »
Yep.  It's certainly not efficient.

Can I get my civilians to make some kind of... space cork?  Because that would be awesome.

As an aside, I found that it's actually possible to refit a freighter into Q-ship reasonable efficient- and that military shipyards able to make the Q-ship can also make the freighter without retooling.  But that's not really enough to make it all worth it.

I was hoping to find a design that's not only efficient to make, but also not much of a drain on fuel or logistics.  And those commercial engines helped with that. 

Hrrm - I wonder if the freighter-escort/ pocket corvette idea (that I posted over in the bureau of ship design) would work on these faster freighters.

*draws up a design*

Yeah - these little freighter escorts could keep up with the freighters, have a long maintenance life, and I could make 49 of them for the cost of a Q-ship - and all without having to use a shipyard.  There's a design with a sensor and extra fuel and an alternate design without the sensor but with an extra layer of armor. 

Of course now we're assuming that the enemy will close to 150,000 km without being able to spot a 500 ton ship, which means something like a size-1 resolution-100 sensor.  Well, unless they leave the sensor ship behind and close with other ships.  Or alternately, I guess we could fire much earlier if we had reason to believe the pirate ships didn't have anti-missile defense.  But in this case, we're not losing much if we fail.

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Q-Class class Freighter Escort    500 tons     5 Crew     94 BP      TCS 10  TH 21  EM 0
4200 km/s     Armour 4-5     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 0     PPV 4.5
Maint Life 17.85 Years     MSP 59    AFR 4%    IFR 0.1%    1YR 0    5YR 5    Max Repair 31.5 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 36 months    Spare Berths 1   
Magazine 30   

42 EP Internal Fusion Drive (1)    Power 42    Fuel Use 44.28%    Signature 21    Exp 10%
Fuel Capacity 50,000 Litres    Range 40.7 billion km   (112 days at full power)

Size 10 Box Launcher (3)    Missile Size 10    Hangar Reload 75 minutes    MF Reload 12.5 hours
Missile Fire Control FC10-R80 (1)     Range 10.5m km    Resolution 80
Blunderbuss Mk 2 (3)  Speed: 30,000 km/s   End: 0.9m    Range: 1.6m km   WH: 49    Size: 10    TH: 180/108/54

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


Quote
QS-Class class Freighter Escort    500 tons     5 Crew     97 BP      TCS 10  TH 21  EM 0
4200 km/s     Armour 3-5     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 0     PPV 4.5
Maint Life 17.71 Years     MSP 61    AFR 4%    IFR 0.1%    1YR 0    5YR 6    Max Repair 31.5 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 36 months    Spare Berths 1   
Magazine 30   

42 EP Internal Fusion Drive (1)    Power 42    Fuel Use 44.28%    Signature 21    Exp 10%
Fuel Capacity 60,000 Litres    Range 48.8 billion km   (134 days at full power)

Size 10 Box Launcher (3)    Missile Size 10    Hangar Reload 75 minutes    MF Reload 12.5 hours
Missile Fire Control FC10-R80 (1)     Range 10.5m km    Resolution 80
Blunderbuss Mk 2 (3)  Speed: 30,000 km/s   End: 0.9m    Range: 1.6m km   WH: 49    Size: 10    TH: 180/108/54

Active Search Sensor MR5-R50 (1)     GPS 280     Range 5.5m km    Resolution 50

Missile to hit chances are vs targets moving at 3000 km/s, 5000 km/s and 10,000 km/s

And as with the freighter-escorts I posted earlier, variants focused on sensors, Gauss turrets, long range missiles, etc. are possible. 
 

Offline Tor Cha

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Re: Q-Ships
« Reply #5 on: February 28, 2016, 07:02:37 PM »
Try Putting a Hanger or 6 on a Freighter in a Refit.   your Ships will be a Different ship till they realize that you refitted them.

If your the one doing the raiding then Have a CVL or CVE that can Cloak and Make sure you send your Fighters in at Max Range.
Kill the Ships then back to the Carrier, Make sure to Have your Carrier Powered down and in Ast field if Possible.