How big are your fleets?

[linkxsc (OP)]

Just a minor curiosity on my part. I myself usually once I get into the swing of the game will try to get about 30-40 warships before trying to intentionally take out NPRs.
Usually by that point I try to have ~10-14 Navy yards, for varying classes of ships (usually some type of spotting ship with good sensors, couple escorts, couple missile ships, couple fast gunboats for chasing down stragglers, some kind of carrier, and 30-40 slipways worth of FAC building), and try to go for 3-4 fleets. I generally use civilian designs for tankers, troop transports, and additional maintenence.
Oh yeah, and a ton of fighters that I keep at home and in hangar "stations" around systems I'm claiming.

How big do you guys build your military before branching out a lot? Note I usually tend towards an 8000t ship (for general use) because you can modify shipyards up to that quite fast, along with adding slipways. And how many navy yards is "too much"

[GreatTuna]

I typically have about 15-17 military shipyards, about 2/3 of them are dedicated to custom or "experimental" designs, because an actual fleet is surprisingly good at unification.
Fleets usually stand at shipyard systems, and I divide them when needed. PDCs though are maintenance-free, and therefore I put them in every system I can.

I prefer to have technological edge over quantity, so my fleets tend to be rather small. About 10-15 ships, along with 30 fighters is typically enough for everyone.
Size of main combatants is 5kton for Quick Response team (is not considered a fleet), and 15, 30kton for the fleet itself.

And how many navy yards is "too much"

There is never "too much" navy yards! (until you run out of workers, that is)

[Viridia]

I've never really started a war with more than twenty to thirty ships, in part due to the fact that I think I tend to go off half-cocked; I've an awful tendency not to bother setting up stockpiles or reserves, just head straight in, and that's something I'm trying to change with the current Starship Troopers-themed game.

[83athom]

Tell me, is this too much?

[Vandermeer]

Tell me, is this too much?

When are you going to document something of your big sized UNSC game? Waiting since before christmas I think by now.

[83athom]

When are you going to document something of your big sized UNSC game? Waiting since before christmas I think by now.

That was just a test game. The real one will come when the next update comes. The only thing I am kind of sad about it no really big components (ie oversized railguns, gauss, ect.)

[MarcAFK]

I generally make my first large fleet at nuclear pulse, then run out of fuel training them up, by the time the fuel problem is over I'm replacing everything with new ION designs which are so much more efficient that I have overabundant fuel again.
Right now, early ION, 25 years in my fleet is around 374k tons.
9,000 ton destroyers x16
6,000 ton Ammo ships x6
6,000 ton  light carriers x 3
6,000 ton sensor ships x2
4,000 ton frigates x16
4,000 ton sensor ships (spotters for the frigates) x4
3,000 ton corvettes x 24
12,000 tons of fighters.
These are all obsolete nuclear pulse which need replacing, my yards at the moment are:
N - 4 - 16,000
N - 4 - 10,900 -Expanding to 16,000
N - 6 -  5,292  -Expanding to  6,000
N - 6 -  2,284  -Expanding to  6,000
C - 6 -  132,000
C - 3 -  132,000- Adding slipway.
I have another 2 naval yards in construction for FAC's to replace the one that is now expanding to 6000. I can't expand much more than this as I have barely 25 million people to spare on earth, I may have to start moving industry to mars to combat their unemployment.

[GodEmperor]

My fleets are usually as follows:

FAC/OWP : up to 3k tons
DD/DDG/FFG/FF - 7-9k tons
CL/CA - 10-15k tons
BC/BB/DN/SDN - 20k tons and upwards.

Usually i have 10 escorts ( DD/CL/CA )and 5 capitals ( BC and upwards ) in one fleet.

But then again i always add minerals on Earth by SM mode.

[Vandermeer]

That was just a test game. The real one will come when the next update comes. The only thing I am kind of sad about it no really big components (ie oversized railguns, gauss, ect.)

I know that problem. I have come around to fake bigger cannons by making special fire controls that call themselves "turret" or something similar, so for example you pair up 15 particle beams in a "fusion lance" fire control, and it kind of becomes a bigger beam in mind at least.

[83athom]

The fleet composition ratios is as follows;
Fighter/Bomber; 2/1 (wings of two each)
Fighter/Gunship; 4/1
Prowler/Frigate; 2/1
Frigate/Destroyer; 2/1
Destroyer/Cruiser; 3/2
Cruiser/Battlecruiser; 4/3
Battlecruiser/Capital;2/1 (flexible)
Super Capitals; Special

[GodEmperor]

Cruisers; 100,000-250,000 tons
Battlecruisers; 250,000-500,000 tons
Capital; 500,000-1,000,000 tons
Super Capital; 1,000,000+ tons

How is that even possible without abusing SM mode ( adding minerals ) like me ?

Isn't it a little counterintuitive, i mean how many engines you have to use to give it some reasonable speed ? How much fuel, how fragile this whole thing is ( one secondary explosion can doom whole ship to chain reaction ) ??

[Vandermeer]

Ships of larger size are not in the least more fragile, unless maybe when you fight serious amounts of mesons.(but a smart commander knows how to avoid that) Otherwise they turn out to improve even on the size/durability ratio, as for example shields begin really to shine the larger a single unit is (exploiting shield regeneration), and also armor does weight less per layer due to improved surface-to-volume ratio of bigger ships, so you can easily have 10+ layers and only have it weight less than 5% still. (not to mention that enemy damage scatters a lot more over larger hulls, so critical hits {~hitting the same spot luckily and achieve penetration} become immensely unlikely statistically on those giants)
Engines and costs are not a problem too. You don't build these ships right at the start of course, but I have found myself being able to put 100kt designs out as early as 40-50 years into the game easily with home system resources. ...And later there comes an age in the game where such abundance of resources exists, that you can just afford huge ships without bother (or "abuse" of sm mode... - I myself never cheated so far, except maybe for tiny design corrections when something was bothersome).

At the bottom of this post I have a 300kt cruiser that actually costs so little that I could easily afford an armada of 20 of them if I wanted to. (..only reason I don't is because I find it bothersome to micromanage too many carrier role ships, and because I need the hangar to store them too)
Fuel is not an issue either as soon as you have at least one valuable gas giant in your supply chain. (making fuel on ground is ridiculously ineffective compared to this) I ended up storing billions of liters extra fuel in any of my games despite only using large ships. They are actually more fuel effective even, because you use more efficient engines on those, and give the hunting to faster fighters/bomber.

Other occasions where I set out to build huge ships:
http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php/topic,7297.msg75070.html#msg75070
http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php/topic,6721.msg68767.html#msg68767
http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php/topic,6738.msg68949.html#msg68949

...The fortresses scratch on the limit of what is possible and affordable in Aurora, as I had to strip mine valuable gallicite planets for some years to make those possible. Setting 3mt battleships into space costs near to nothing when you are 100 years into a standard game however.
Don't judge it before you have tried it. It works well.

[83athom]

How is that even possible without abusing SM mode ( adding minerals ) like me ?

Isn't it a little counterintuitive, i mean how many engines you have to use to give it some reasonable speed ? How much fuel, how fragile this whole thing is ( one secondary explosion can doom whole ship to chain reaction ) ??

When you have Venus (in Sol) and other similar planets (in nearby systems) that have well over several hundred thousand at the least of every resource (the most so far of a single mineral not on one body not a gas giant is 17 million, no sm), it is quite easy. And I am able to move a 5 million ton station section about 1000km/s with the engines on my cruisers alone for about 40b km, I don't think fuel/engines are a problem. Also, these big ships fragile? My light cruisers are able to withstand over 20 damage an increment without the shields draining in the slightest. Also they are able to hold large amounts of AM capability, so you would have to close to close range while the big ships are hammering away. So the only reason that chain reactions would be a problem is when the ship's fight is already lost. Keep in mind the numbers they will be traveling in.

[Vortex421]

It may be worth starting a new thread to discuss ship class sizes.  I've tried to work off of Corvettes being about 4,000 tons, Destroyers up to about 9,000, Cruisers up to about 15,000, etc., but those sizes sound mammoth!  It'd take fifty of my cruisers to deal with one of yours it sounds like.

[Vandermeer]

It may be worth starting a new thread to discuss ship class sizes.

Started