Range finding Question (Or how do i increase the range on my Beam firing control

[iceball3]

"final fire" will protect the planet as it is within 10K km of the PDC, unless I am mistaken.  There are 2 meson cannon's that aren't in turret mode that could be used for "area defence" fire while the turrets could be redesigned to be more effective as they need a higher rotation speed.   The trouble with "area defence" mode is that the missile has to stop within it.  So if you are lucky due to launch range and the missile stops somewhere between 15K and 200K from the planet then you can use "area defence" mode otherwise it does not fire.

At 200k range, the point at which you lose all opportunity is against missiles going at 40,000 km/s. You can take as many as two shots on a missile at this range if they're going reasonably below 20,000 km/s.....
Setting up some beam-intercepting orbitals out a small distance out (approximately their weapon range) might probably be a good idea to help solidify defense a bit.

But yeah, probably a good idea to devote your longer range mesons to killing ships, and just make a series of "just enough capacitor to fire rate of once per 5 second increment" mesons at minimum range for the final-fire capabilities. It's worth noting that unless you're really finicky with prefabbed PDCs, actual tonnage on a particular PDC is actually not extremely important to it's ability to function, which means your primary concern, just the raw cost. And short range lowish capacitor mesons are much cheaper to manufacture. That and easier to sort from your long range mesons for setting fire control easily.

The Final Fire protecting populations concern, however, is actually something that needs testing. I have received mixed reports on whether it works or not. I might get around to doing it tomorrow night if nobody else wants to test it.

[Paul M]

At 200k range, the point at which you lose all opportunity is against missiles going at 40,000 km/s. You can take as many as two shots on a missile at this range if they're going reasonably below 20,000 km/s.....
Setting up some beam-intercepting orbitals out a small distance out (approximately their weapon range) might probably be a good idea to help solidify defense a bit.

But yeah, probably a good idea to devote your longer range mesons to killing ships, and just make a series of "just enough capacitor to fire rate of once per 5 second increment" mesons at minimum range for the final-fire capabilities. It's worth noting that unless you're really finicky with prefabbed PDCs, actual tonnage on a particular PDC is actually not extremely important to it's ability to function, which means your primary concern, just the raw cost. And short range lowish capacitor mesons are much cheaper to manufacture. That and easier to sort from your long range mesons for setting fire control easily.

The Final Fire protecting populations concern, however, is actually something that needs testing. I have received mixed reports on whether it works or not. I might get around to doing it tomorrow night if nobody else wants to test it.

I'm not really arguing against the concept but at this tech level when he has missiles that can do a 360K km hop in 5 seconds it is seems utterly pointless to have defences to stop missiles that are moving at speeds I'm more familiar with.  Or put another way it should be effective against its own weapons at a minimum.  A wolver super salvo of Magics would go through the defences of this base like a hot knife through butter.

I think personally the base needs more faster rotating meson turrets with more dedicated high tracking speed fire controls as right now he can engage only a single inbound salvo.  I would for this base have 15 or so turrets with shorter range and a 5 second recharge time...which as we both point out could be easily done for the same cost as the ones he has currently.  Leave the 2 fix mount mesons for either area fire or just anti-shipping work.  But even there the fire controls need to be at least 20K km/s as ships with anti-matter engines must move at that speed or faster.

I would also add in at least 15 size one missile launchers for counter missiles.

Let us know about the final fire but when I asked this question I was told it would work.

[Catman115 (OP)]

at this tech level

Like i said it is probably NOT helping that i am cheating to try and learn where i am supposed to be at with this game but i literally know nothing about what i am doing here.

Also i have redesigned my PDC into two different PDC concepts One for sensors and one for Missiles/Mesons.  If anyone could tell me where i have gone wrong at i would be most appreciative. 

Sensor Base:
Lookout class Planetary Surveillance Base    24 700 tons     425 Crew     14388 BP      TCS 494  TH 0  EM 0
Armour 14-75     Sensors 1200/2400     Damage Control Rating 0     PPV 0
Intended Deployment Time: 3 months    Spare Berths 1   
Troop Capacity: 5 Battalions   

State Engineering Commune Heavy Search Sensor Suite (1)     GPS 96000     Range 2 125. 1m km    Resolution 40
State Engineering Commune Heavy Missile Sensor Suite (1)     GPS 2400     Range 336. 0m km    MCR 36. 6m km    Resolution 1
State Engineering Commune Heavy Thermal Sensor Suite (1)     Sensitivity 1200     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  1200m km
State Engineering Commune Heavy EM Detection Sensor Suite (1)     Sensitivity 700     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  700m km


This design is classed as a Planetary Defence Centre and can be pre-fabricated in 10 sections

Missile/Meson Base
Stronghold class Planetary Defence Centre    78 300 tons     1333 Crew     10555 BP      TCS 1566  TH 0  EM 0
Armour 24-163     Sensors 1/0     Damage Control Rating 60     PPV 243. 3
Intended Deployment Time: 3 months    Spare Berths 1   
Troop Capacity: 10 Battalions    Magazine 10950   

Fuel Capacity 250 000 Litres    Range N/A
Twin State Engineering Commune Point Defense Meson Cannon Turret (5x2)    Range 15 000km     TS: 10000 km/s     Power 6-16     RM 1. 5    ROF 5        1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Quad State Engineering Commune Point Defense Meson Cannon Turret (5x4)    Range 15 000km     TS: 10000 km/s     Power 12-32     RM 1. 5    ROF 5        1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
State Engineering Communes PDC Beam Fire Control (1)    Max Range: 45 000 km   TS: 100000 km/s     78 56 33 11 0 0 0 0 0 0
State Engineering Commune PDC Power Plant (2)     Total Power Output 256    Armour 0    Exp 5%

State Engineering Commune PDC Size 12 Missile Launcher (10)    Missile Size 12    Rate of Fire 40
State Engineering Commune Size 6 Missile Launcher (5)    Missile Size 6    Rate of Fire 40
State Engineering Commune PDC Missile Fire Control (1)     Range 1 411. 2m km    Resolution 100
Size 12 PDC Torpedo (500)  Speed: 6 700 km/s   End: 1. 5d    Range: 887. 7m km   WH: 48    Size: 12    TH: 44/26/13
Size 6 Anti-ship Missile (825)  Speed: 13 300 km/s   End: 3. 1d    Range: 3524. 4m km   WH: 16    Size: 6    TH: 142/85/42

ECCM-2 (5)         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 Planetary Defence Centre and can be pre-fabricated in 32 sections

[Paul M]

Fundamental my advice is to go read either AARs or else the design section and more importantly just start a normal game and play 10 years.  At that point you will begin to see the inter-relationships between components better.  Also it will give you a sense of scale and that is important.  Right now you are over designing and at the same time under designing.

Turret rotation speed and their beam fire controls have to be designed to work together.  So if your fire control speed is 20,000 km/s then the turrets should have at least that much.  As the lowest of the pair is used.

You have a fire control that is 100K km/s tracking speed BUT only one.  You need multiples as you have 2 different weapon systems and you want to engage multiple salvos.  Plus your turrets must have a rotation speed of 100K km/s.  I'm all but flabergasted such is possible but tech dramatically improves at the upper end of the chart it seems.

The range of your sensors on the lookout are probably excessive for the standard search sensor.  But that is more a matter of taste.  However your PDC lacks a sensor system...to me that is bad practice.  If your Lookout base is destroyed the weapons on the PDC become useless.  To me any military asset must be able to perform its primary mission alone. 

The missiles are for this tech level simply too slow.  They have too much space devoted to fuel and not enough to engines.  Also you have a single fire control system.  Multiple redudent systems for fire control are very good.  More targets can be engaged and equally importantly you are safe against loosing one to a lucky hit.

Also you don't need fuel a the PDC since you have nothing to refuel...unless it is an emergency reserve of some sort.

[Gabethebaldandbold]

I would personaly recomend (if you are going for missiles) that you focus your research on power and propulsion, more specifically in engine power modificators, since missiles benefit double from those, and fuel eficiency, since it gives them a little bit more range, which is always good.
And instead of reducing reactor size, you could have put 6 times more mesons, or at least thats what I would do.

[Iranon]

I disagree with this.
As a statement: With missiles, you always have access to twice your maximum power multiplier for engines, going from 1.0 to 1.25 is the same as going from 2.0 to 2.5.
As advice: Fuel efficiency and power multiplier tend to have underwhelming rewards compared to engine tech, worth picking up when they're dirt cheap compared to other techs but they can lag behind a little.

If you achieve 25% more power by a higher multiplier, specific fuel consumption increases by ~75%
If you achieve 25% more power by a higher engine tech, you have the same specific fuel comsumption.

If you research fuel efficiency 0.4 (from 0..5), you save 20% fuel.
If you research the next engine tech and it's 25% faster, you can scale back to 0.8 your former power multiplier and save ~43% fuel. If the new one is below 1.0, the engine becomes cheaper to build (and maintain in case of ships) too.

[TheDeadlyShoe]

it costs 64,000 rp to go from TL4 Magneto-plasma to TL5 Inertial Confinement drives; it costs 60,000 rp to research every single faster engine multiplier tech put together from 1.25x to 3x.

in terms of RP efficiency, multiplier tech is basically always better for the sole purpose of improving missiles.   

[doulos05]

in terms of RP efficiency, multiplier tech is basically always better for the sole purpose of improving missiles.

Exactly. You don't put high multiplier engines on ships (maybe fighters), you put them on missiles

[83athom]

You don't put high multiplier engines on ships

That is not necessarily true. For short range patrol ships (colony garrisons), it would be better to have really high powered engines compared to the rest of the fleet. Also, for the lighter ships in the main fleet itself would benefit from higher powered engines because at normal fleet operations (traveling) they would stay slow to keep with the fleet, and during combat they can blast off at a high speed to get every edge it can.

[iceball3]

That is not necessarily true. For short range patrol ships (colony garrisons), it would be better to have really high powered engines compared to the rest of the fleet. Also, for the lighter ships in the main fleet itself would benefit from higher powered engines because at normal fleet operations (traveling) they would stay slow to keep with the fleet, and during combat they can blast off at a high speed to get every edge it can.

Though, in the latter case, it's worth noting that the ship slowing itself down doesn't increase engine efficiency at all. It's got the same effective range and fuel consumption-per-range as before, just burns through it slower.

[Paul M]

On the topic of engine multipliers >1 on ships.  It is fair to say a good rule of thumb is: "don't do this."  Of course everyone knows:  "rules exist to be broken."  There are reasons you can choose to do so but they are situation specific.

I am seeing now the point of enhancing reactor output, for attack craft in particular, but the case for engines is very complex.  If it is sensible to do it comes down to balancing your fuel situation,  increased chance of explosion and the mission parameters you want to fulfil.  The "fuel situation" is not just how much fuel but the total cost of getting it plus the logistics overhead of feeding the "fuel hungry beasts."

It may even be worth doing if it isn't "sensible" ...  fundamentally it is a strategic choice that the player has to make based on the existing conditions.

[TheDeadlyShoe]

In combat there's only two speeds:  Faster than the enemy, and slower than the enemy. Logistical sacrifice is usually worth it to field ships faster than the enemy. The problem is you will rarely know ahead of time what the dividing line will be.  When fighting NPRs you face the unknown, and when gaming multiple empires you will usually take RP measures to hide your true capabilities (i.e. never traveling at your ships max speed outside direct combat.)

Bear in mind that the real killer on fuel is task force training and commercial operations, not combat operations.

[Iranon]

Speed isn't wasted when it affects accuracy in both directions... but yes, the ability to control the range is what you'd make major concessions for.

I'm very happy with 0.3 or 0.9 power engines taking up most of my warships. If I need more speed I try to go noticably above 1.0, which I avoid on principle.
The occasional high-performance craft can sometimes win battles without taking damage, and also simplify shipyard operations: In my current game, a shipyard tooled to a 2300BP destroyer (mostly long.ranged lasers, 10000km/s at internal fusion) can also build a 450BP escort (3333km/s, low-tech railguns). Both ships are the same size.



When you have reactor boost tech, you may as well use it... but considering how reactors don't typically make up a huge part of a ship's mass, most alternative techs save more weight per RP even when they're much more expensive.

[Catman115 (OP)]

Fundamental my advice is to go read either AARs or else the design section and more importantly just start a normal game and play 10 years.  At that point you will begin to see the inter-relationships between components better.  Also it will give you a sense of scale and that is important.  Right now you are over designing and at the same time under designing.

Alright so i have taken this advice and am now running a game to where im at Ion drives all over the place after lots of research. However i have another question (Really trying to keep all of my noob related questions to one thread sorry), how do i get fuel harvesters to deposit fuel on a colony? I know that they will drop it off on the closest colony but i can never get the fuel harvester around this Super Jovian in Proxima Centauri to actually drop off its fuel for the ships to refuel from. What am i doing wrong?

[Paul M]

My comment was more directed to the point that going to specific disagreements with general statements leads to muddy waters more than clear discussions.

My feeling on speed is that it is either sufficient or it isn't.  Either it allows me to fullfil my mission or it doesn't.  That is both what is said by The Shoe and Iranon and not exactly what they said.  There are also constraints from the entire logisitics chain which is everything from mining of sorium, refining of fuel, harvesting of fuel, location and transport of fuel, basing, mission area, support ships etc.  It is non-trivial unless you are operating at close range to your bases.  Look at one of Steve's Rigillian AARs for a clear indication how much fuel effects combat operations.  The amount you burn in combat operations may be a drop in the bucket but supporting ships at the end of the logistics chain is not a trivial detail.  Loosing millions of litres of fuel when a ship blows up is also a kick in the groin...

In starfire my navy is usually the best supported by a fleet train, and I put a lot of thought into what I need, the SCN is prepping a "Squid Support Task Group" and now that the combat ships exist the support element is getting thickened...colliers, freighters with maintenance supplies, a transport or two.  In Aurora each Battlegroup is matched by a Support Group which can double their operational radius and has at least one resupply of missiles onboard.  But those ships have to be built, upgraded, maintained and fueled.  If you want to make ships go fast then you have to have a good logistics network in place to support them or else more likely then not they won't do you much good, in my view anyway.  I just had my first flight of Armed Pinnaces run out of fuel on the way home from a short training cruise...no big deal but clearly training excersizes will be more interesting then normal.

As for the depositing fuel make sure the check box "is a tanker" is checked in the ship design view then the harvester can unload up to 90% of its fuel.  I don't bother with automating the process but just every few months do some micromanagement to get it all done the way I want.  Gives me something to do.