How do you use Orbital Habitats?

[blue emu (OP)]

Do you tow them to non-colonizable worlds, and set up a colony in orbit? What can be put in them> Anything that a colony can hold?

[Thiosk]

As I understand it, the habitats provide a workforce for planetary installations.  For example, you could have some manned-mines on a planet, operated by the folks living in orbital habitats.  I havn't started building them yet, though.

[Charlie Beeler]

Do you tow them to non-colonizable worlds, and set up a colony in orbit? What can be put in them> Anything that a colony can hold?

Search is your friend!  The information is out there.   

http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php/topic,2631.0.html

[Peter Rhodan]

The mechanics are not really what he is asking about - he wants to know what people actually use them for. I have used them in my previous game but decided they weren't worth the effort - but I was only using them to allow me to use ordinary mines on a not very colonizable world.
AS with Carriers I am not sure of the cost effectiveness and would be very happy to hear of good ways of using them.

[blue emu (OP)]

... As with Carriers I am not sure of the cost effectiveness and would be very happy to hear of good ways of using them.

If you mean Aircraft (Fighter) Carriers, I find them hellishly effective if used in mass (say, enough to carry 250-300 Fighters). The main problem is finding enough Officers to run all those Fighters.

[Iamwinterborn]

The main problem is finding enough Officers to run all those Fighters.

Well, perhaps you just need to start, ah, conscripting some Paxtonites to fly them? Rather than just using the volunteers?  I say start with the devs...  :winkwink: 

[Peter Rhodan]

Aren't fighters very vulnerable to AMM's ??
I can see an average fighter at about 20-25mk (should double that on my new generation of sensor ships) and my current AMMs have 35mk range at 50k speed - obviously if the fighters ahve a missile that is longer ranged than I can see them that is ok - but once I find the Carriers (My ship senssors are going from 610k to over 1mk shortly) and close with them, it then becomes problematical for carrier based forces I believe.  AMMs (even 50k 35mk range ones) cost so much less than fighters...

Input welcome from Carrier 'jocks'  ...

[ardem]

Fighters are extremely vulnerable to all missiles, this is why people go for the missile style fighter instead of the laser fighter, it about getting in and ut of the engagement area as quick as possible and limit exposure to the enemies missiles.

[welchbloke]

Aren't fighters very vulnerable to AMM's ??
I can see an average fighter at about 20-25mk (should double that on my new generation of sensor ships) and my current AMMs have 35mk range at 50k speed - obviously if the fighters ahve a missile that is longer ranged than I can see them that is ok - but once I find the Carriers (My ship senssors are going from 610k to over 1mk shortly) and close with them, it then becomes problematical for carrier based forces I believe.  AMMs (even 50k 35mk range ones) cost so much less than fighters...

Input welcome from Carrier 'jocks'  ...

I deliberately created an enemy that has AMMs with a longer range than my fighter missile.  In the first engagement against them I lost about 50 fighters but fragged the enemy.  Fighters are attrition units so I work on the assumption that I need enough of them to survive enemy fire so that their missile salvo is still overwhelming in size.  My large carrier groups can put more than 150 fighters into space at once.  I'm just about to bring some AMM armed fighters into service, the idea is defend the 'bombers' on approach from enemy missile fire.  I'll let you know how it goes.

[Mel Vixen]

Orbital hubs i use for GM-Settlers. I produce say 25 million of Moonpeople (made for ridicoulous low grav and temperature) which wouldnt survive on earth. thanks to the Orbital habs ability to simulate "any" gravity and atmosphere i can use them to house my Moonies.

I also have a military variant of a hab as mobile shipyard/maintaince system. It houses 1000 Asteroid miners, some maintaince-mods 500k people a tug for the shipyard and a couple of factories for ordonance and other stuff i might need is in a collection of cargo bays. Its freaking slow (and uses commercial engines) and cant jump yet on itself (got some 100K researchpoints for a fitting ef 20 jumpengine to do) and took 20 years to build but it works as advancing basefor my taskgroups.

[blue emu (OP)]

Aren't fighters very vulnerable to AMM's ??
I can see an average fighter at about 20-25mk (should double that on my new generation of sensor ships) and my current AMMs have 35mk range at 50k speed - obviously if the fighters ahve a missile that is longer ranged than I can see them that is ok - but once I find the Carriers (My ship senssors are going from 610k to over 1mk shortly) and close with them, it then becomes problematical for carrier based forces I believe.  AMMs (even 50k 35mk range ones) cost so much less than fighters...

Input welcome from Carrier 'jocks'  ...

We can use my current game on the Paradox Forum as an example.

The year is currently 2057, but I've had substantially the same fleet set-up for nearly 10 years. I have two battle fleets (plus a third fleet that holds my "siege train" for attacking defended planets).

Each of the battle fleets has three 20,000-ton Fleet Carriers and a 15,000-ton Light Carrier, plus a dozen or so other ships... battle-management ships, Gauss PD vessels, anti-Fighter and anti-FAC escorts, multi-role Cruisers, etc.

Each Fleet Carrier holds 51 Strike Fighters, each armed with one size-6/strength-9 missile in a box launcher, and each Light Carrier holds 28 Air Superiority Fighters, each armed with three size-2/strength-4 missiles in box launchers. Typical engagement ranges are 54 m-km for the strike Fighters (against an ECM-40 opponent... that would be 90 m-km with no ECM) and 18 m-km for the Air Superiority Fighters (again, vs an ECM-40 opponent; it would be 30 m-km against an opponent without ECM). The Strike Fighters have res-100 fire controls, and the Air Superiority Fighters have res-4 fire controls.

These Fighters are so effective that my other ships rarely get a chance to take part in the battle... the opponent is nearly always destroyed by Fighter strikes long before he comes within range of my main battle fleet. Similarly, no opposing Fighters or FAC has ever (ever!) gotten close enough to launch a missile at me. My Air Superiority Fighters intercept and destroy them well beyond engagement range.

Regarding your 35 m-km AMM question... my strike fighters can launch a time-on-target fleet salvo of 103 one-missile salvos from well beyond that range.

[Peter Rhodan]

That's the thing - you can launch a 105 missile salvo - my 13 AMM Corvettes can launch 78 AMMs every 10 seconds - and even the Mk II version with only 4mk missile vision range means they can launch 20 what..? 20 salvos or so before your missiles reach - if any survive 1500 odd counter missiles.... and then there is my Frigates and Battleships who have AMMs and gauss cannon turrets.....

I can see your point but you can understand mine? and my frigates and battleships will do horrible things to your carriers if we get in range ...  my current anti-ship missile has a range of 118mK and that will be going up to around 150mK I believe with then next engine development...

It is interesting

would like to face off versus carriers one day and compare doctrines...

[blue emu (OP)]

How many seperate Fire Controls on those PD Corvettes?

You can only target one incoming missile salvo with each fire control... and my 153 incoming missiles (three Carriers with 51 Fighters per Carrier and one missile per Fighter) are all in seperate salvos, with one missile in each; meaning that you need to target each individual incoming missile with a seperate fire control and a seperate launch... not with a missile that's part of a PD salvo.

... in other words, a defensive salvo of 78 AMMs fired with a single Fire Control will take out ONE of my incoming missiles, leaving 152 still bearing down on your fleet. One of the main ideas of a Fighter-based, missile-armed fleet is to overload the enemy's PD by overloading his ability to simultaneously engage so many SEPERATE incoming salvos.

Note that my 153-missile spread requires only three ships (three Constellation-class Carriers). How many ships does your anti-missile defense require?

The proper basis for comparison is two opposing fleets built from roughly equal resources, in roughly equal time, at roughly equal tech levels... so if you are claiming 118 m-km missiles, you must allow them to me, as well; although I would probably trade some of that range for MIRVed warheads instead. Similarly, if your defense is based on 13 AMM Corvettes plus Frigates and Battleships, why are we assuming that my attack is going to be launched with only three ships?

[Peter Rhodan]

yes - all true - actually there are 3 FCs on each Corvette meaning I can fire at 39 salvos each 10 seconds...
Your point about resources is valid also - your 3 ships total 75,000 tons my 13 total 78,000 tons
I think the biggest operational problem with the carrier/fighter combo is the reload time - but all the same I can see advantages too
I have just opted for a missile doctrine in this game after not being entirely happy with the carriers and fighters I had in the last game.

[jseah]

How about this doctrine:

All ships are cloaked. 
They carry a giant fire con and use 33% reduction size 20 launchers to fire 900mkm range drones that have a 10mkm MIRV of 3x size 3 missiles.  ASMs which don't need fuel for long ranges can be insanely fast...

Drone:

Code: [Select]

Missile Size: 20 MSP  (1 HS)     Warhead: 0    Armour: 0     Manoeuvre Rating: 5
Speed: 12000 km/s    Endurance: 1500 minutes   Range: 1080.0m km9 MSP in MIRV
Separation at 9mkm

MIRV:

Code: [Select]

Missile Size: 3 MSP  (0.15 HS)     Warhead: 3    Armour: 0     Manoeuvre Rating: 10
Speed: 100600 km/s    Endurance: 2 minutes   Range: 10.3m kmLet's see you catch that one!

Launched at the range of 450mkm of course, to account for travelling time. 
A command ship carries the 50HS active sensor to spot ships that far out.  (my res 16 active sensor has a 1 billion km range at size 50)

XD

When your enemy shoots at you from hundreds of mkm away... What do you do?

Sure, they have a reload time of 2000 seconds, but the drones take 750 minutes to get there anyway.  Of course, I haven't researched drone engines, they could around 3x faster if I had them at my missile tech level.