Ships of the Solar League

[Shadow (OP)]

I'm opening this thread to allow for comments and inquiries about the ship designs I've posted on the wiki. I used to have a page for my old Terran Federation, but I overwrote it with this one since I'm generally happier with the new designs.

Here's my newest design, the Rheinland-class Strike Cruiser, designed to run targets down and put house-sized holes in them.

I'm currently retooling my shipyards for an initial building run of eight vessels.

Rheinland class Strike Cruiser    12,000 tons     1313 Crew     5416.4 BP      TCS 240  TH 1440  EM 1800
12000 km/s     Armour 8-46     Shields 60-300     Sensors 36/36/0/0     Damage Control Rating 6     PPV 54
Annual Failure Rate: 192%    IFR: 2.7%    Maint Capacity 1693 MSP    Max Repair 288 MSP    Est Time: 2.02 Years

GN-160M5 ICARUS InerCon Fusion Drive (18)    Power 160    Fuel Use 50%    Signature 80    Armour 0    Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 350,000 Litres    Range 105.0 billion km   (101 days at full power)
GenCore Xi-class R300/25 Barriers (12)   Total Fuel Cost  300 Litres per day

Raytheon Spartan-320 CIWS (2x6)    Range 1000 km     TS: 32000 km/s     ROF 5       Base 50% To Hit
EADS Durandal 300mm/VC68 Naval Railgun (6x4)    Range 420,000km     TS: 12000 km/s     Power 21-8     RM 6    ROF 15        7 7 7 7 7 7 5 5 4 4
Durandal FCS 240-8 (2)    Max Range: 480,000 km   TS: 8000 km/s     98 96 94 92 90 88 85 83 81 79
Type XII InerCon Fusion Reactor (4)     Total Power Output 48    Armour 0    Exp 5%

Artemis ALS 86-20 (1)     GPS 2160     Range 86.9m km    Resolution 20
Hunter PST 2.36 (1)     Sensitivity 36     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  36m km
Hunter PSE 2.36 (1)     Sensitivity 36     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  36m km

ECCM-3 (2)         ECM 40

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes

The anti-missile protection should be enough against light warheads: the Rheinland is meant to charge in after the enemy has wasted its heavier missiles against the gauss turrets of the Sussex-class frigates (and possibly a newer design in the not so distant future). I'm also considering designing a fast anti-missile corvette class to follow and protect the strike cruisers, since they're quite faster than the aforementioned frigates and the missile-armed Percivals.

[Narmio]

That is a very nice piece of hardware! How many years in are you?

Why the 8k/s tracking speed limit on the fire control, though? Wouldn't that be better bumped up to the 12k/s of the ship? Or is it just too large at that point?

Also there's no Damage Control unit, which even given your very impressive defenses might be worthwhile - without one there's very little chance of getting things running again if you take hits while closing.

I also prefer Gauss turrets to CIWS just because the enemies mostly seem to target a single ship exclusively, so in any situation where your CIWS-armed ships aren't operating alone there's a force multiplication effect from using normal turrets.

[Shadow (OP)]

I began my Trans-Newtonian game in 2050, and it's now 2087. So I'm 37 years in.

The fire control modules are already 200 tons each, and bumping up the tracking speed would've added 100 tons to that. A tracking speed of 12k km/s is only really useful against Star Swarm "warriors", and perhaps missiles in a pinch. But that advantage, in the Rheinland's case, would've come at an unreasonable cost: I'd have to either remove an FCS (and therefore restrict all railguns to a single target at a time) or strip 200 tons worth of other carefully considered equipment.

As for damage control, to be honest I don't really know how the mechanics of that would work in the heat of battle. I have no experience with those modules...

And yes, Gauss turrets are generally the best anti-missile option. However, I mount those on specialized vessels like the Sussex or the hypothetical fast corvette class since they're huge given the maximization of tracking speed and barrels. That said, I have just done a test, and a single-barrelled Gauss turret and its dedicated fire control would weigh 750 tons. That's almost exactly the weight of two CIWS platforms, and the cruisers would be able to defend each other: that means there would be eight turrets firing together at enemy salvos. Hmm. Something to consider, at least for future designs or potential refits.

[Hawkeye]

Try using half-sized Gauss Cannons (3 HS), like those in the CIWS. I find the resulting twin-turrets are not a whole lot larger than a CIWS. Of course, you also need a res-1 sensor and a firecon for them, but I find that tradoff to be worth it.

[Narmio]

Even if you can only fit half as many gauss turrets as CIWS, you only need three ships before you're doing better against incoming fire directed at one target.  Also, you should be able to get a smaller than 750t PD fire control - just set the range to normal (or even 50% if your beam range tech is high enough - remember they'll only be engaging at 10kkm) and the speed to 4x. Should be 200t max.

Also, I'll give a very small backup Res 1 sensor, just enough to detect a missile at 10kkm, to each ship (so essentially 0.1HS at even moderate tech levels), but I never use those. I'll always deploy offensive capital ships (each of which has at least one Gauss turret) with missile defence escorts, and use their much larger Res 1 sensors for all PD.

[Shadow (OP)]

Even if you can only fit half as many gauss turrets as CIWS, you only need three ships before you're doing better against incoming fire directed at one target.  Also, you should be able to get a smaller than 750t PD fire control - just set the range to normal (or even 50% if your beam range tech is high enough - remember they'll only be engaging at 10kkm) and the speed to 4x. Should be 200t max.

Yes, I had already noted the cruisers would be able to defend each other with a total of eight Gauss turrets (since the initial construction batch will be of eight cruisers). As for the fire control, I said the single turret and its associated fire control would weigh a total of 750 tons, not just the FC.

Try using half-sized Gauss Cannons (3 HS), like those in the CIWS. I find the resulting twin-turrets are not a whole lot larger than a CIWS. Of course, you also need a res-1 sensor and a firecon for them, but I find that tradoff to be worth it.

Hmm, that hadn't occurred to me. So it's essentially replicating the CIWS design but without the single ship coverage limitation? As long as they're a bit bigger than the actual CIWS platform, it's fine. Otherwise I'd feel dirty.

By the way, is the 50% accuracy penalty applied after or before the crew rating bonus?

[Shadow (OP)]

New design! I give you the Normandy-class Assault Ship!

Normandy class Assault Ship    8,000 tons     696 Crew     3343.2 BP      TCS 160  TH 1600  EM 1350
20000 km/s     Armour 4-35     Shields 45-300     Sensors 36/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 3     PPV 0
Annual Failure Rate: 170%    IFR: 2.4%    Maint Capacity 784 MSP    Max Repair 120 MSP    Est Time: 2.28 Years
Drop Capacity: 1 Battalion    Cargo Handling Multiplier 120   

GN-160M5 ICARUS InerCon Fusion Drive (20)    Power 160    Fuel Use 50%    Signature 80    Armour 0    Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 450,000 Litres    Range 202.5 billion km   (117 days at full power)
GenCore Xi-class R300/25 Barriers (9)   Total Fuel Cost  225 Litres per day

Hunter PST 2.36 (1)     Sensitivity 36     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  36m km

ECM 40

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes

My scientists are working on RP-intensive projects, namely solid core anti-matter power plants and better sensors across the board, so there's no new tech on the Normandy. I will be experimenting with them in combination with the Rheinland strike cruisers, using those to gun the targets down to sub-1k speeds before I sic the assault ships on them. The Normandy is essentially an enlarged dropship, and while my fighter-sized Hazard-Bs would technically be more effective, it's micromanagement hell to control 20 of them for a single boarding.

[Sheb]

Just a question, can you move troops from a troop transport to a dropship while in space?

[Charlie Beeler]

Just a question, can you move troops from a troop transport to a dropship while in space?

As long as they are in the same task group the answer is yes.  There is a TG command to facilitate this.  Be forwarned that it is a good idea to have cargo handling systems to speed the transfer.