Aurora Class Science Vessel

[Theodidactus (OP)]

Hello folks...it's been a while since I posted here.
I am in graduate school and this game provides my only relief from hours of drudgery. I have a super-long game that I've been playing for almost a year now...I went from conventional start to a system-spanning transnewtonian race with more than a century of history behind it...it's 2150 in the game right now, and the United Nations of Earth has ordered the construction of a new space navy. I have secured a hard-fought peace with the Freehold of Luyten and the Sculptor Star Empire, the only two known alien races with which the UN has established meaningful contact...however, darker threats loom on the horizon, and I have to go find them. There is a 125 system limit on this game, and I've only explored about 50 of them.

To that end, I have designed the Aurora Class Science vessel as an homage to the countless hours of fun this game has provided. I intend to use this vessel to explore new heights and depths. When completed, it will be, by tonnage, the largest ship I've built in this game so far, as well as most complicated and planned-out ship I've ever designed. The Aurora fills multiple roles, though it is primarily designed for deep space survey missions, and is capable of operating independently for many years. These missions can be extended still further with the help of two support ships, one designed especially to work in concert with the Aurora.

The ship design schematics are quite long, but I'll provide a basic overview

Tonnage, Speed, Fuel: The aurora is a 24,000 ton starship capable of moving at a top speed of 6,320 kps for 365 days, it is lightly armored and relatively heavily shielded (shields are a breakthrough technology in this game)

Crew: The Aurora has a crew of 2,000 trained astronauts, space-walkers, officers, mechanics, and support staff, luxury passenger quarters accomodate an additional 250 scientists, surveyors, and even dedicated artists, historians, entertainers, and archeologists

Armaments:The aurora is lightly armed, as we anticipate trouble in deep space from forces unknown (and the devious sculptor have betrayed us in the past). The aurora sports two class-three Moonraker positron beam cannons, as well as a state of the art "solar cannon" designed to knock out enemy electronics.

Onboard sensor package: the aurora is equipped with a standard UN-naval scanner. Its passive sensor capabilities are unrivaled in known space, the aurora can detect a 1,000-point thermal target from over 700 million kilometers away. The Aurora also sports the standard laser-gravitometric and passive geological sensor array built in to most UN science vessels

Compliment: The aurora houses 4 Seer class survey corvettes, each of which is equipped with an improved geological sensing suite. The aurora boasts an impressive variety of unmanned survey and surveillance systems, including deep space active-scanning drones, thermal and geologic sensing buoys, and stationary scanning posts

Full specs for the aurora and its support ships are below:




Aurora class Science Vessel    24,000 tons     2072 Crew     6875.5 BP      TCS 480  TH 3025  EM 750
6302 km/s    JR 3-50     Armour 3-74     Shields 25-375     Sensors 720/360/10/6     Damage Control Rating 50     PPV 30.5
Maint Life 3.22 Years     MSP 3581    AFR 230%    IFR 3.2%    1YR 520    5YR 7802    Max Repair 720 MSP
Flag Bridge    Hangar Deck Capacity 2000 tons     Magazine 190    Passengers 250   

Baltic Naval Capital Ship Jump Drive     Max Ship Size 24000 tons    Distance 50k km     Squadron Size 3
UN-MC Naval Engine (22)    Power 137.5    Fuel Use 72%    Signature 137.5    Armour 0    Exp 10%
Fuel Capacity 1,850,000 Litres    Range 192.7 billion km   (353 days at full power)
Capital Positronic Shield Generator (10)   Total Fuel Cost  150 Litres per day

Moonraker Positron Beam (2)    Range 150,000km     TS: 10000 km/s     Power 7-5    ROF 10        3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3
Apollo Solar Cannon (1)    Range 200,000km     TS: 10000 km/s     Power 10-5     RM 20    ROF 10        1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
Hwatcha ULR Fire Control System (1)    Max Range: 384,000 km   TS: 10000 km/s     97 95 92 90 87 84 82 79 77 74
Behring Shiva Compact-ICF (2)     Total Power Output 26.4    Armour 0    Exp 10%

Drone Bay (1)    Missile Size 25    Rate of Fire 625
ARC-II Drone Command Center (1)     Range 1,036.8m km    Resolution 100
Slylandro Orbital Probe (7)  Speed: 0 km/s   End: 720d    Range: 0m km   WH: 0    Size: 10    TH: 0 / 0 / 0
Wukong Thermal Observatory (3)  Speed: 0 km/s   End: 1800d    Range: 0m km   WH: 0    Size: 12    TH: 0 / 0 / 0
Houwang Scanning Buoy (2)  Speed: 0 km/s   End: 1800d    Range: 0m km   WH: 0    Size: 12    TH: 0 / 0 / 0
Neptune Deep Space Probe (3)  Speed: 16,000 km/s   End: 1250m    Range: 1200m km   WH: 0    Size: 20    TH: 26 / 16 / 8

U.N. Second Generation Naval Scanner (1)     GPS 48     Range 11.5m km    Resolution 1
Albion Thermal Observatory (1)     Sensitivity 720     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  720m km
Sykes All-Sky Electromagnetic Sensor (1)     Sensitivity 360     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  360m km
Improved Gravitational Sensors (5)   10 Survey Points Per Hour
Improved Geological Sensors (3)   6 Survey Points Per Hour

Survey Group
4x Seer Survey Corvette   Speed: 8200 km/s    Size: 10


Seer class Survey Corvette    500 tons     13 Crew     313.5 BP      TCS 10  TH 82  EM 0
8200 km/s     Armour 1-5     Shields 0-0     Sensors 24/1/0/2     Damage Control Rating 0     PPV 0
Maint Life 10.26 Years     MSP 196    AFR 4%    IFR 0.1%    1YR 3    5YR 51    Max Repair 150 MSP

UN-MC Fighter Engine (1)    Power 82.5    Fuel Use 7200%    Signature 82.5    Armour 0    Exp 50%
Fuel Capacity 50,000 Litres    Range 2.5 billion km   (3 days at full power)

U.N. Second Generation Naval Scanner (1)     GPS 48     Range 11.5m km    Resolution 1
U.N. Second Generation Sensor (1)     Sensitivity 24     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  24m km
Improved Geological Sensors (1)   2 Survey Points Per Hour

Kircher class Survey Cruiser 4,550 tons     452 Crew     1911 BP      TCS 91  TH 550  EM 0
6043 km/s     Armour 1-24     Shields 0-0     Sensors 24/1/6/10     Damage Control Rating 15     PPV 0
Maint Life 8.57 Years     MSP 1313    AFR 33%    IFR 0.5%    1YR 32    5YR 479    Max Repair 150 MSP
Tractor Beam     

UN-MC Naval Engine (4)    Power 137.5    Fuel Use 72%    Signature 137.5    Armour 0    Exp 10%
Fuel Capacity 200,000 Litres    Range 109.9 billion km   (210 days at full power)

U.N. Second Generation Naval Scanner (1)     GPS 48     Range 11.5m km    Resolution 1
U.N. Second Generation Sensor (1)     Sensitivity 24     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  24m km
Improved Gravitational Sensors (3)   6 Survey Points Per Hour
Improved Geological Sensors (5)   10 Survey Points Per Hour

Mercury Bay class Support Vessel    16,500 tons     984 Crew     3070 BP      TCS 330  TH 1650  EM 0
5000 km/s     Armour 5-57     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 20     PPV 0
Maint Life 11.13 Years     MSP 3326    AFR 108%    IFR 1.5%    1YR 49    5YR 738    Max Repair 69 MSP
Magazine 2330   

UN-MC Naval Engine (12)    Power 137.5    Fuel Use 72%    Signature 137.5    Armour 0    Exp 10%
Fuel Capacity 4,100,000 Litres    Range 621.2 billion km   (1437 days at full power)

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes

[Icecoon]

Nice. These are on 5.6 right? Just in case, maybe CIWS or another sort of missile defence should be implemented too, if things will go bad. The passive sensors are great, even the spoilers do not have such huge passive sensor capability. Just for curiosity, how big are those sensors?
Its an interresting design, that could fulfill its intended role.

[ollobrains]

id make a few changes for 6.21 but the idea behind it is sound

[TheDeadlyShoe]

Cool ship - the passenger accommodations are a nice touch .  But the maintenance life is an issue for the role of deep space mothership.  I suspect the 24 kt military jump drive is driving up your maintenance costs.  You could try commercial engines/ jumpdrive, it is hard on the tonnage but it will drastically increase the maintenance life. 

Also, why both the Kirchers and the Seers?

Finally, consider engineering a size 25 heavy missile, MIRV, or mine for defensive purposes.

[Theodidactus (OP)]

answers to questions



1: Is this 5.6?
Yes. This is an utterly ancient game that I've been playing since conventional start.


2: how big are those sensors?
Utterly massive, and while they are advanced, they're not stupidly so...it's just that they're stupidly big. I have to play aurora on a different partition on computer than I web on, for complex reasons, so I can't easily check, but I think it's a size 30 thermal sensor and a size 15 EM sensor

3: Maintenance and fuel issues?
This is the biggest sad face  from this design. When I imagined this in my head (and I've been waiting for almost a month to get to this tech level) I imagined a ship with 10 years of fuel and maintenance capability...but I just couldn't fit it all in. I could drastically increase it by cutting the armor down from 3 sheets to 1, but then I've literally just got shields to protect me, and my shield tech is not nearly as great as my sensors.

4: 25 heavy missile, MIRV, or mine for defensive purposes?
My Jovian class carriers actually sport size 20 MIRV's, which are my primary power-projection tool...cause they can hit stuff almost an AU away. I'll consider using that here, cause yeah, I don't like how lightly armored this is...I'm actually excited for it to get wrecked by the Los Angeles Lakers (You thought it said star swarm but I don't like how this could get blown out of space by any alien warship I know about.

5: why both the Kirchers and the Seers?
A few reasons, mostly just that I want to quickly survey systems and seers are great for sweeping asteroid fields, while Kirchers are great for knocking out those gas giants. Also, generally when I build fleets I think about what would be fun to imagine, rather than what would actually be good (hence the luxury accommodations) So I like the idea of a survey cruiser bristling with telescopes and then a small fleet of atmo-capable ships that conduct their surveys from the surface of the planet in question.


I have a question: There are a few things I don't like about my aurora, primarily, it lacks the fuel and engineering capacity, and has no CIWS, all of which I wanted it to have initially. What should I take off? This is really a style question rather than a practical tactics question, since this thing is filled with stuff no one actually needs. My options really are:
- The "solar cannon": Seems like something a science vessel would have, but I don't know how useful this actually is.
- the flag bridge: It's already got a bridge, it's designed to work alone, and it already needs a commodore to captain. This is probably what I'm going to slice off, but i don't know how much space that frees up, and I'm too lazy to check.
- The luxury passenger accommodations: I will never ever take these off ever, so don't even suggest it.

I have a question:I just recently invented shields, this is the first ship in known space to actually employ them. The aurora has 10 positronic shield generators  and a total shield strength of "Shields 25-375." I'm just curious how much protection this actually affords...it doesn't need to be that much, just enough to stop a stray missile strike, or hold back a barrage or two of laser fire.

[Erik L]

I have a question:I just recently invented shields, this is the first ship in known space to actually employ them. The aurora has 10 positronic shield generators  and a total shield strength of "Shields 25-375." I'm just curious how much protection this actually affords...it doesn't need to be that much, just enough to stop a stray missile strike, or hold back a barrage or two of laser fire.

They'll stop 25 points of damage and require 375 seconds to fully recharge.

[Theodidactus (OP)]

They'll stop 25 points of damage and require 375 seconds to fully recharge.

Okay cool. 25 points of damage is a little more than a salvo of missiles from the missile cruisers of the hated (but now, tentatively allied) Sculptor star empire. It's also a pretty solid broadside from a beam ship. The cycle time of course isn't great, but this isn't supposed to be a warship, and like I said, we here at the UN are just working out the particulars of shielding.

Later this week I'll post the rest of my spacefleet, including specs for the highly classified Luchador strikefighter and the Qianlong heavy cruiser. Nobody tell the Sculptor.

[xeryon]

Seems like a really fun RP vessel.  The amount of fuel carried by your Seer looks like it would be a problem though.  3 days worth of fuel is a lifetime in a battle but those craft are not going to be used that way.  Just musing out loud here, but how many asteroids will it be able to scan before it has to drive back for a refuel from the mothership?  To me it seems like the craft will be spending all it's time driving back and forth to the gas station.

[Theodidactus (OP)]

switched roles around: the kircher sweeps asteroid fields, the seers are deployed in low orbit to help the Aurora scan big planets, and also nearby moons.



As for RPing: yes definitely. after I have the kinks worked out, I plan to draw up a floorplan for the ship and print logs on this forum detailing its mission into uncharted space.

[clement]

I would suggest dropping the Flag Bridge since you probably wont be creating a separate Fleet command structure for the ship and deploying the Admiral with the ship. I believe the Flag Bridge is 5 HS which should give you 250 tons.

I tend to shy away from putting both geo and grav sensors on the same ship. If your Seer and Kircher only carried one type they would probably be more effective.

For the Aurora class, you could drop all of the Geo and Grav sensors and it could play the roll of survey mothership, deploying scientists via the Survey Corvettes. I don't remember exactly but I think those sensors are 5 HS each? That would give you another 2000 tons. With the extra space you could add another 1000 tons of Hanger Space and care 2 more Corvettes. You could add a lot more fuel and engineering spaces as well.

Your Moonraker Positron Beam could be redesigned to use a Capacitor 4 instead of 5. This would save a little bit of resources without changing the Fire Rate. It would also drop your overall power needs from 15 per 5 seconds to 13 per 5 seconds. With that change you could drop 1 of the Behring Shiva Compact-ICF reactors (which appear to generate 13.2 power per 5 seconds) and gain some additional space.

I would personally stick with just 1 weapon type in this situation. Either just the Apollo Solar Cannon and have more than 1 of them with a goal of knocking out electronics so that you can escape with the knowledge they wont effect missiles (definitely want 1 or more CIWS in this case). Or drop the Solar Cannon and just have the Positron Beam turrets and focus on using those for defense against missiles while running and for up close defense. If you drop the Solar Cannon you could run 3 of the Positron Beams off of 1 reactor and probably break even on size.

Only other change I see is that it is my understanding that the Fire Control that is shooting a drone does not need to have range to cover the distance the drone is going to travel. I mention this because I am guessing the ARC-II Drone Command Center is a large item. That may need confirmation from someone else, but from other threads I have been under the impression that a smaller Fire Control is viable, especially when targeting Waypoints, Planets and Survey Locations.

[Theodidactus (OP)]

Minor redesign

I dropped the armor from 3 sheets to 2
I took out the flag bridge
I removed the solar cannon
I took two slylandro orbital probes out of the bay

I added two Tarrasque strange matter torpedos, immense short-ranged helldeathfirekaboom missiles, with a range of 10 million kilometers
I added more fuel and engineering bays, I'm getting diminishing returns on engineering, but the ship can now fly at top speed for an entire year
I added a ciws

I'm considering clement's suggestion to drop all 3 geosurvey sensors, add another bay stocked with 2 more seers, and put that sheet of armor back on with a few more engineering bays. The ARC Drone command center isn't that big, 100 tons...it's just got a super low resolution. It's a standard piece of equipment that I strap on to every naval ship that mounts drones, though yes, in this context it's a bit overkill, but it won't save that much space.




Aurora class Science Vessel    24,000 tons     2042 Crew     6619.3 BP      TCS 480  TH 3025  EM 750
6302 km/s    JR 3-50     Armour 2-74     Shields 25-375     Sensors 720/360/10/6     Damage Control Rating 54     PPV 24.5
Maint Life 3.95 Years     MSP 4137    AFR 192%    IFR 2.7%    1YR 423    5YR 6342    Max Repair 720 MSP
Hangar Deck Capacity 2000 tons     Magazine 190    Passengers 250   

Baltic Naval Capital Ship Jump Drive     Max Ship Size 24000 tons    Distance 50k km     Squadron Size 3
UN-MC Naval Engine (22)    Power 137.5    Fuel Use 72%    Signature 137.5    Armour 0    Exp 10%
Fuel Capacity 2,000,000 Litres    Range 208.3 billion km   (382 days at full power)
Capital Positronic Shield Generator (10)   Total Fuel Cost  150 Litres per day

Moonraker Positron Beam (2)    Range 150,000km     TS: 10000 km/s     Power 7-5    ROF 10        3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3
Eagle Close-In Weapon Systems (1x6)    Range 1000 km     TS: 40000 km/s     ROF 5       Base 50% To Hit
Hwatcha ULR Fire Control System (1)    Max Range: 384,000 km   TS: 10000 km/s     97 95 92 90 87 84 82 79 77 74
Behring Shiva Compact-ICF (1)     Total Power Output 13.2    Armour 0    Exp 10%

Drone Bay (1)    Missile Size 25    Rate of Fire 625
ARC-II Drone Command Center (1)     Range 1,036.8m km    Resolution 100
Slylandro Orbital Probe (5)  Speed: 0 km/s   End: 720d    Range: 0m km   WH: 0    Size: 10    TH: 0 / 0 / 0
Wukong Thermal Observatory (3)  Speed: 0 km/s   End: 1800d    Range: 0m km   WH: 0    Size: 12    TH: 0 / 0 / 0
Houwang Scanning Buoy (2)  Speed: 0 km/s   End: 1800d    Range: 0m km   WH: 0    Size: 12    TH: 0 / 0 / 0
Neptune Deep Space Probe (2)  Speed: 16,000 km/s   End: 1250m    Range: 1200m km   WH: 0    Size: 20    TH: 26 / 16 / 8
Tarrasque Strange-Matter Torpedo (2)  Speed: 46,000 km/s   End: 4.3m    Range: 12m km   WH: 75    Size: 20    TH: 306 / 184 / 92

U.N. Second Generation Naval Scanner (1)     GPS 48     Range 11.5m km    Resolution 1
Albion Thermal Observatory (1)     Sensitivity 720     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  720m km
Sykes All-Sky Electromagnetic Sensor (1)     Sensitivity 360     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  360m km
Improved Gravitational Sensors (5)   10 Survey Points Per Hour
Improved Geological Sensors (3)   6 Survey Points Per Hour

Strike Group
4x Seer Survey Corvette   Speed: 8200 km/s    Size: 10

[TheDeadlyShoe]

I would recommend against removing the flag bridge.  Having a Task Force commander in system provides the +survey bonuses from his staff.  I thought that was the point of including it

I would agree about removing some of the sensors.  It makes sense for this ship to be a command vessel, with its hangar bays and support fleet.  It needn't be spending time surveying.

Final suggestion: Design a jump capable FAC for probing jump points if desired. It can also serve as a lifeboat in unfortunate circumstances.

[Theodidactus (OP)]

I would recommend against removing the flag bridge.  Having a Task Force commander in system provides the +survey bonuses from his staff.  I thought that was the point of including it

I would agree about removing some of the sensors.  It makes sense for this ship to be a command vessel, with its hangar bays and support fleet.  It needn't be spending time surveying.

Final suggestion: Design a jump capable FAC for probing jump points if desired. It can also serve as a lifeboat in unfortunate circumstances.

The ship was initially supposed to be a self-sufficient deep space science vessel. I feel like I'm moving farther away from that, and that's not a good thing.

 At the same time, I am considering a few possible redesigns involving gravsurvey skiffs and a lot more hanger space. Internal ships are much more in theme with the "lone science vessel out exploring the universe" vibe...I'd hate to think that this thing couldn't get its job done without a support fleet.

So, suggestions I have accepted:
- the Kircher has been converted into a geo-survey only ship.
- The Aurora has had its geosensors removed and relies on seers to perform planetary surveys. This didn't free up quite so much space as I thought, but it does allow for the third sheet of armor to go back on...it also might allow for the addition of a boat bay or flag bridge. The flag bridge would allow for the survey multiplier suggested by the deadly shoe, the boat bay could house a scout craft.

It's also possible to lose the power plant, the moonrakers, and the fire control, which should in total free up enough to fit in a hanger bay which could fit two Viking class patrol boats (heavily armored gunboats armed with 12cm railguns) or 3 luchador class strikefighters (which are blazing fast and mount an impressive array of missiles, though that would require resupply) these might be better able to protect the ship...I feel like once something's within moonraker range, this ship's gonna be toast anyway.

[ollobrains]

well the other option is to turn on SM mode and just refuel it every time it runs out of fuel

[Theodidactus (OP)]

that would be cheating...
plus, I don't know if you know, but due to the transnewtonian laws of conservation of sorium, every time you add sorium or sorium-based fuel to the universe using SM mode, it removes sorium or sorium based fuel from another aurora universe...I might be shafting some poor aliens who want to kill you with FACs, or even depleting the fuel reserves of someone else on this forum's whole planet.





Come to think of it, the sheer amount of fuel this titan consumes may be a problem...I can't remember how much fuel I have on earth but outlying colonies like tolkien and chandra definitely have less than 10 million fuel lying around...this thing is the first ship i've run into that can actually affect planetary fuel supplies to any great degree.