Iron Moon class Orbital Point Defense Base

[Starmantle (OP)]

Nothing special here, but I like the feel of these:


The four Iron Moon class Orbital Point Defense Bases have been silent sentinels hanging in the night sky of Earth for a year and a half now and make up the majority of static home world missile defense capability, though they're assisted by the offensive missile batteries of the Oberon class Fortress PDC on Earth, several wings of ground-based fighters, aging ISSMB silos, and typically both one light cruiser fleet and one battle cruiser fleet moored in orbit. 

70.2% of the Iron Moon's tonnage is dedicated to 24 fast-tracking twin gauss turrets and their fire controls, able to engage 12 salvos of incoming missiles at a time for infinitely sustained planetary defensive fire.  Each Iron Moon is thought to be able to shoot down 84 missiles of a theoretical 50,000 km/s speed every 5 seconds.  For larger salvos, each Iron Moon carries additional Active Defense Pod racks with a total of 220 Meteor MK II anti-missiles, which can be resupplied by orbital terminals. 

The base also carries a point-blank anti-ship battery of 16 Mk III Nova Bombs to destroy enemy capital ships that get into close range after their missile-based attacks have been thwarted.  For self-defense, the Iron Moon has double the shield strength of most battle cruisers and strength 9 armor, plus state of the art electronic countermeasures. 

The base has a fairly powerful missile sensor and backup corvette sensor, plus a small engine that could allow it to relocate at least between satellites of a planetary system.  Being a 30,000 ton ship, it can be maintained by any fleet base able to perform maintenance on battle cruisers.   

Iron Moon class Orbital Point Defence Base    30 000 tons     749 Crew     6868 BP      TCS 600  TH 120  EM 3840
200 km/s     Armour 9-86     Shields 128-300     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 8     PPV 454.44
Maint Life 1.39 Years     MSP 1145    AFR 900%    IFR 12.5%    1YR 646    5YR 9692    Max Repair 192 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 1 months    Spare Berths 1   
Magazine 380   

120 EP Internal Fusion Drive (1)    Power 120    Fuel Use 611.07%    Signature 120    Exp 30%
Fuel Capacity 195 000 Litres    Range 0.2 billion km   (11 days at full power)
Theta R300/384 Shields (32)   Total Fuel Cost  512 Litres per hour  (12 288 per day)

Twin Gauss Cannon R3-100 Turret (24x8)    Range 30 000km     TS: 25000 km/s     Power 0-0     RM 3    ROF 5        1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Fire Control S02 40-25000 (12)    Max Range: 80 000 km   TS: 25000 km/s     88 75 62 50 38 25 12 0 0 0

Active Defense Pod (220)    Missile Size 1    Hangar Reload 7.5 minutes    MF Reload 1.2 hours
Size 10 Box Launcher (16)    Missile Size 10    Hangar Reload 75 minutes    MF Reload 12.5 hours
Missile Fire Control FC25-R1 (2)     Range 25.9m km    Resolution 1
Missile Fire Control FC18-R50 (2)     Range 18.3m km    Resolution 50
Meteor Mk II (220)  Speed: 60 000 km/s   End: 0.4m    Range: 1.3m km   WH: 1    Size: 1    TH: 840/504/252
Nova Bomb Mk III (16)  Speed: 34 600 km/s   End: 1.6m    Range: 3.4m km   WH: 64    Size: 10    TH: 323/193/96

Active Search Sensor MR6-R50 (1)     GPS 240     Range 6.1m km    Resolution 50
Active Search Sensor MR34-R1 (1)     GPS 192     Range 34.6m km    MCR 3.8m km    Resolution 1

ECM 40

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 Military Vessel for maintenance purposes

[83athom]

1) I would suggest using reduced size Gauss so you can fit more without having a lot of wasted space due to the turret gears. My most used over the games is the 4HS.
2) Your AMMs don't have quite enough range. I would try to push them to at least 3m km.
3)The Nova's are mostly useless. I would try to  get their range to be very far (60m km+) as you want to destroy incoming ships before they get to close.
4) Remove the engine. This allows greater maintenance as the engines are the biggest eaters of maintenance. This also makes the design overall cheaper to produce (which is what you want in a defense base) 4.5) You should have a dedicated tug ship (commercial).
5) More defenses. Armor levels on something like this should be around 12 thick and shields should be at least 1-1 but preferable 1.5-1 (450-300 in this case).

EDIT;
6) Pods are not the best choice for PD missiles.
7) Not enough FC for the number of launchers
8 ) If you only intend for this to sit over colonies (or starbases with recreation modules), then reduce the deployment time to 0.1 months.

[Starmantle (OP)]

1. Don't reduced sized Gauss weapons have a proportionately reduced chance to hit?  How would that help me?
2. Don't have enough range for what exactly?  There are longer-range anti-missiles in the arsenal, but these don't have to be long-range, they just have to be able to hit an incoming missile targeting the same location.  It's so the base can generate a surge of missile protection for a single large attack wave.  They don't need to carry a lot of fuel to do that.
3. The planet has a 350m KM ASM for that.  Novas are meant for point-blank fire if the enemy is unable to achieve victory at range and closes for a beam engagement.  They're designed to avoid AMMs because they're not in the air long enough to be targeted.  I've never seen a target survive more than a few Nova Bombs.
4. The engine is a fraction of 1% of the cost and space.  Removing it did not increase maintenance life and given that it's going to be in orbit almost all of the time, maintenance life is pretty irrelevant.  But I agree that I'd want to use the Tug to take it outside of a planet's system of satellites.  To have shields, this thing already needed fuel pods.  Might as well add a small engine for character as much as anything. 
5. Why?  If I did that, I'd have to remove 1/3 of the big Gauss turrets.  Whereas survivability is nice, it's far more important that these things be able to defend Earth than to only defend themselves. 

6. They are if they're there as a hedge against single, massive waves of enemy missiles, actually.  That system is 5.3% of the bulk of the base and can destroy a wave of 200 missiles on top of what the turrets can take out.  That sounds pretty great to me. 
7.  If you're just looking at the launchers, you're mostly missing the point.  The missile systems are tiny backup/contingent systems able to deal with ASM surges if they come up and to destroy close-range combatants.  All missile tubes and fire controls together make up less than 10% of the tonnage.
8.  I've seen plenty of glitches where the computer thinks a fleet has moved away from orbit for a bit when it hasn't and I've been slapped with morale and maitenence time because of it.  I'm hedging against that problem, but I agree that absent it, reducing deployment time would be good. 

[83athom]

1. Don't reduced sized Gauss weapons have a proportionately reduced chance to hit?  How would that help me?

Fitting more barrels per size, and savings from the weight of turret gears. Right now I am using a 5HS (85%) turret and a twin 2HS turret, both with 20,000km/s tracking speed. The total turret size of the 5 is 375 tons and the twin is 295, the first has 125 tons of gears and the second only 95 tons of gears.

2. Don't have enough range for what exactly?

Galactic Invaders and NPR missile spam of 300 or so missiles per wave every 15-30 seconds.

There are longer-range anti-missiles in the arsenal, but these don't have to be long-range, they just have to be able to hit an incoming missile targeting the same location. It's so the base can generate a surge of missile protection for a single large attack wave.  They don't need to carry a lot of fuel to do that.

But missile attacks always comes in waves, and the single burst will only hit 1 salvo and any missiles that don't hit is wasted.

3. The planet has a 350m KM ASM for that.  Novas are meant for point-blank fire if the enemy is unable to achieve victory at range and closes for a beam engagement.  They're designed to avoid AMMs because they're not in the air long enough to be targeted.  I've never seen a target survive more than a few Nova Bombs.

Ok then. I just wanted to stress that the closer the enemy is to one of your planets, the more likely that it isn't going well for you.

5. Why?  If I did that, I'd have to remove 1/3 of the big Gauss turrets.  Whereas survivability is nice, it's far more important that these things be able to defend Earth than to only defend themselves.

I didn't know if you had a bigger yard or something. If you are constrained to 30,000 then so be it. I was just pointing out that it can't do its job of protecting things if it gets knocked out. As the Gauss have unlimited ammo, they have exponentially better affects the longer they stay firing. I don't remember if Steve made the change for turrets being external or not (probably not), so the more damage it can absorb with shields and armor before the guns go down the more  it can keep shooting down targets.

7.  If you're just looking at the launchers, you're mostly missing the point.  The missile systems are tiny backup/contingent systems able to deal with ASM surges if they come up and to destroy close-range combatants.  All missile tubes and fire controls together make up less than 10% of the tonnage.

I am looking at the Gauss, and that is why I'm being critical about the missiles. You can potentially shoot down 192 missiles (likely will hit only 120) that is targeting the TG the PD base is in, per increment. Area defense mode will not work as the missiles that your enemy is likely to use will go through the range before your guns fire. I am being critical of your missiles because you need to thin out the waves at range before they reach gauss engagement range. While I do see you have 4 of them, they will be overwhelmed by the masses I've seen the AI wield. Although that may be because I usually play at ~250% difficulty with all spoilers on.

[Iranon]

Reduced size doesn't really change much with regard to turret gear compared to full size with the same number of barrels... it's the same percentage of weapon weight.
However, for the same tracking speed, a quad turret saves some weight in gears compared to 4 singles, so I'd prefer reduced-size quads over full-sized doubles.
Not sure if you can also gain something by rounding... as stated, 85% and 17% Gauss cannons have a higher output (102%) per HS.

I don't really see a problem with the missiles. They seem designed for point-blank last resort volleys, but long-ranged enough to comfortably outrange beams if required... which requires no real concessions in fuel load of the missiles or fire controls of the ship. Longer-ranged missiles may be useful, but that's a slippery slope... might as well complain this ship is a bit too slow and lacks mission endurance; that's not the point.

As far as I can see, several basic PDCs would probably be more practical. No continuous cost, and we get free armour for each.
That Mesons suck per HS doesn't matter if we don't need to haul them around, they are dirt cheap and PDCs can get around the high crew requirements. We need 3 Meson cannons to do the job of a Gauss cannon, but it ends up cheaper. If we want many fire controls to engage many simultaneous salvos, it may even be more economical to fit 4 times the number and avoid turrets and sophisticated fire controls.
But all that isn't important if we have other priorities than ruthless min/maxing and want to put a bloody Iron Moon in the sky instead of cowering under a mountain. The design is practical enough, it has plenty of flavour... good job!

[Starmantle (OP)]

Helpful feedback, all.

The downside with PDCs as I understand it it that damaging them means nuclear winter, dead population, and destroyed infrastructure.   Because Gauss is so efficient to defeat continuous attack and can't cut through atmosphere, the Iron Moon is really key.  But for context, here's the slightly older Oberon class Fortress.  There's two on Earth, one on Luna, one on Mars, and two in other systems.  These are supported by a big sensor base (with huge res 1 and res 100 sensors) and some really old missile bases that can still pack a punch at close range.  The CIWS and battalion are for RP purposes as much as anything, to be real. 


The Oberon's primary armament is 360 missile tubes that can launch the Gorgon Missile at 340m KM and can reload every 20 minutes.  These use the same missiles and fire control as the Manticore class Barrage Battle Cruisers to be able to coordinate salvos easily.  There are an additional 4 tubes that can fire every 15 seconds so the base isn't helpless between volleys.  ECCM units and extra power built into the fire controls should generally defeat strong enemy ECM.  There are also two fire controls that would allow the Gorgon to target enemy fighter craft at 115m KM.

Long Range Missile Defense is accomplished with 30 missile tubes primarily firing the Longclaw Mk I anti-missile, with the shorter-range Meteor Mk II as a backup.  A battery of a dozen twin meson cannons are a final line of missile defense, along with a small CIWS system and thick armor protection.

Except the Meson turrets, every weapon system, sensor, and fire control used b the Oberon is already used in the newer battle cruiser fleets, reducing research costs. 

Oberon class Fortress    45 900 tons     1159 Crew     9367 BP      TCS 918  TH 0  EM 0
Armour 16-114     Sensors 1/192     Damage Control Rating 10     PPV 513.36
Intended Deployment Time: 1 months    Spare Berths 1   
Troop Capacity: 1 Battalion    Magazine 4186   

R6/C4 Meson Cannon (2)    Range 60 000km     TS: 6250 km/s     Power 4-4     RM 6    ROF 5        1 1 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 0
Twin R4.5/C4 Meson Cannon Turret (12x2)    Range 45 000km     TS: 25000 km/s     Power 6-8     RM 4.5    ROF 5        1 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0
CIWS-250 (2x8)    Range 1000 km     TS: 25000 km/s     ROF 5       Base 50% To Hit
PDC Fire Control S02 60-25000 (4)    Max Range: 120 000 km   TS: 25000 km/s     92 83 75 67 58 50 42 33 25 17
Tokamak Fusion Reactor Technology PB-1 (10)     Total Power Output 8    Armour 0    Exp 5%
Tokamak Fusion Reactor Technology PB-1 (6)     Total Power Output 96    Armour 0    Exp 5%

PDC Size 1 Missile Launcher (30)    Missile Size 1    Rate of Fire 5
PDC Size 4 Missile Launcher (25% Reduction) (360)    Missile Size 4    Rate of Fire 1200
PDC Size 4 Missile Launcher (4)    Missile Size 4    Rate of Fire 15
Missile Fire Control FC181-R1 (1)     Range 181.4m km    Resolution 1
Missile Fire Control FC518-R100 (12)     Range 518.4m km    Resolution 100
Missile Fire Control FC115-R5 (2)     Range 115.9m km    Resolution 5
Missile Fire Control FC25-R1 (1)     Range 25.9m km    Resolution 1
Gorgon (720)  Speed: 34 400 km/s   End: 165.2m    Range: 340.9m km   WH: 9    Size: 4    TH: 206/123/61
Meteor Mk II (210)  Speed: 60 000 km/s   End: 0.4m    Range: 1.3m km   WH: 1    Size: 1    TH: 840/504/252
Longclaw Mk I (1096)  Speed: 57 600 km/s   End: 6m    Range: 20.9m km   WH: 1    Size: 1    TH: 691/414/207

Active Search Sensor MR0-R1 (1)     GPS 5     Range 670k km    MCR 73k km    Resolution 1
Active Search Sensor MR8-R100 (1)     GPS 480     Range 8.6m km    Resolution 100
Active Search Sensor MR302-R100 (1)     GPS 16800     Range 302.4m km    Resolution 100
Active Search Sensor MR34-R1 (1)     GPS 192     Range 34.6m km    MCR 3.8m km    Resolution 1
Active Search Sensor MR6-R50 (1)     GPS 240     Range 6.1m km    Resolution 50

ECCM-2 (2)         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 19 sections

[Michael Sandy]

I actually like the Nova missiles.  The philosophy is heavy point defense to deal with long ranged fire, and short ranged missiles to deal with an enemy that tries to close to beam weapons.

The planetary defense force should have some long ranged capacity to deal with scouts, I suppose, making the best use of planetary sensors, but the longer ranged your missiles are, the more expensive it is to deal a given amount of damage.