Wave Motion Gun ships

[Michael Sandy (OP)]

Ok, it isn't really a Wave Motion Gun, but experimenting with Particle Acceleration tech I came up with some silly designs:

Damage Output 168     Rate of Fire: 2800 seconds     Range Modifier: 10
Energy Conversion Rate: 3    Tech Modifier: 2
Accelerator Size: 112    Accel HTK: 56
Power Requirement: 560    Power Recharge per 5 Secs: 1
Cost: 560    Crew: 1120
Materials Required: 112x Duranium  112x Boronide  336x Neutronium

Development Cost for Project: 1551RP


For Accelerator Size tech 1,000 + 2,000 + 4,000 + 8,000 + 15,000, ditto for Energy Conversion Rate, I came up with this monstrosity.

Ironically, the low cost per HS of the Wave Motion Gun makes a large, fairly cheap ship, that can be economically armored.  Ironic because it would be fairly ineffective in defending against a similarly armed ship.

It would have 2 or 3 Wave Motion Guns, with similar redundancy in fire control and reactors.  And maybe 5%-10% by HS in engines.

The idea would be to build cheap firepower, perhaps as a planetary defense monitor.  You put a high initiative captain on it, have it hide behind a moon or some such.  When needed, several of these monsters come out and kill or cripple enemy ships in one shot.

I figured that since increasing capacitor rate multiples the cost by the capacitor rating it would be better to have more ships with this than a slightly faster firing one.

Naturally, this is a very limited design.  It would have next to no strategic mobility as it is designed to be cheap.

Going total for cheap defense would have high density shields that don't have increased recovery.   The philosophy would be that the shields just need to protect the ship as it comes out from the cover of a moon or planet, and therefore won't have time to recover.

This type of ship is so slow that it would have to plan its position carefully in order to ensure it could fully clear a moon in 5 seconds in order to get a clear shot. lol.

As the Wave Motion Gun is a bit all or nothing, and you would have multiple reactors and targetting systems for redundancy anyway, having one Wave Motion Gun and decent secondary armament might be more practical.

[Michael Sandy (OP)]

I think that tunnel length 10 might be a bit of overkill for the Wave Motion Gun.  No point in shooting out to that range if you can't hit.

Ideally, with a weapon you can only fire once in combat you want it to have a good hit range right around where it has a good damage range.  So having more Wave Motion Guns that have shorter range would be better, depending on the fire control system.

So I designed this:
Wave Motion Dreadnought class Dreadnought    9900 tons     1372 Crew     1760 BP      Signature 198-400
2020 km/s     Armour 1     Shields 72-300     Sensors 15/9/0/0     Damage Control 0-0
Supply 800  
Magneto-plasma Drive PB-0 AR-0 (5)    Armour 0    Exp 5%

Or slightly bigger:

Wave Motion Dreadnought II class Dreadnought    15400 tons     2275 Crew     2428 BP      Signature 308-640
2077 km/s     Armour 1     Shields 90-300     Sensors 15/9/0/0     Damage Control 0-0
Supply 800  
Magneto-plasma Drive PB-0 AR-0 (    Armour 0    Exp 5%

Wave Motion Carbine (2)    Power 392-1     Range Modifier 7    Rate of Fire 1960        392 392 392 392 392 392 392 342 304 274
15cm C3 Ultraviolet Laser (5)    Power 6-3     Range Modifier 4    Rate of Fire 10        6 6 6 6 4 4 3 3 2 2
Fire Control S04 040-4000 (2)    Range: 400k km   TS: 4000 km/s     99 98 96 95 94 92 91 90 89 88
Gas-Cooled Fast Reactor PB-0 AR-0 (3)     Total Power Output 27    Armour 0    Exp 5%

Passive Sensor S5-15 (1)     Strength 15     Detect Signature 10: 1.5m km     Detect Signature 100: 15m km
Active Sensor S3-9 (1)     Strength 9     Detect Size 10: 0.9m km     Detect Size 100: 9m km

Wave Motion Carbine (1)    Power 392-1     Range Modifier 7    Rate of Fire 1960        392 392 392 392 392 392 392 342 304 274
15cm C3 Ultraviolet Laser (5)    Power 6-3     Range Modifier 4    Rate of Fire 10        6 6 6 6 4 4 3 3 2 2
Fire Control S04 040-4000 (2)    Range: 400k km   TS: 4000 km/s     99 98 96 95 94 92 91 90 89 88
Gas-Cooled Fast Reactor PB-0 AR-0 (3)     Total Power Output 27    Armour 0    Exp 5%

Passive Sensor S5-15 (1)     Strength 15     Detect Signature 10: 1.5m km     Detect Signature 100: 15m km
Active Sensor S3-9 (1)     Strength 9     Detect Size 10: 0.9m km     Detect Size 100: 9m km


The Wave Motion Carbine was:
Damage Output 168     Rate of Fire: 1960 seconds     Range Modifier: 7
Energy Conversion Rate: 3    Tech Modifier: 2
Accelerator Size: 79    Accel HTK: 39
Power Requirement: 392    Power Recharge per 5 Secs: 1
Cost: 392    Crew: 790
Materials Required: 78.4x Duranium  78.4x Boronide  235.2x Neutronium

Development Cost for Project: 1551RP


Now maybe I am misreading the Summary View incorrectly, but it appears to be listing a damage of 392 out to 70,000 km.  I had thought that 168 was bad enough.  An equal sized ship could at least have enough shields and HtK to survive a shot.  But 392 damage?  The Tunnel Size seems to be acting as a damage multiplier.  The damage chart for the Tunnel Length 10 Wave Motion Gun lists it at 560 damage, and the damage charge for Tunnel Length 1 lists it at 56 damage.  If I am extrapolating the charts right, the Tunnel Length 10 Wave Motion gun would do 70 damage at range 800,000 km and 140 damage at range 400,000 km.


The ship design has a couple of flaws.  It should probably have backups of the sensors so that a lucky shot doesn't blind it.  It is total overkill against smaller ships.  It is _huge_, which means it is pretty much restricted to a Jump Gate network.  But the damage output is so huge that it appears to be a very good way of taking out enemy capital ships.  At the very least, enemy capital ships have to stay at such a range that the Wave Motion Dreadnought's shields can probably keep up with incoming damage.

Techs used:
Ceramic Composite Armor 10,000
Accelerator Energy Conversion Rate 3 15,000
Accelerator Tech Modifier 2.0  15,000
Tracking Speed 4,000 km/s 16,000
Beam Fire Control Range 100,000  16,000
Magneto-Plasma Drive  32,000 over Ion Drive+Gas Cooled Reactor