first fighter early game

[ghostwalker788 (OP)]

fighter i made as soon as i started trans newtonian start
did i do good?

Tribal class Fighter    500 tons     15 Crew     56. 4 BP      TCS 10  TH 10  EM 0
1000 km/s     Armour 1-5     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 0     PPV 6
Maint Life 0 Years     MSP 0    AFR 100%    IFR 1. 4%    1YR 12    5YR 183    Max Repair 24 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 3 months    Spare Berths 2   

10 EP Nuclear Pulse Engine (1)    Power 10    Fuel Use 155. 65%    Signature 10    Exp 12%
Fuel Capacity 55 000 Litres    Range 12. 7 billion km   (147 days at full power)

Gauss Cannon R1-100 (1x2)    Range 10 000km     TS: 2000 km/s     Accuracy Modifier 100%     RM 1    ROF 5        1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Fire Control S00. 5 16-2000 (FTR) (1)    Max Range: 32 000 km   TS: 8000 km/s     69 37 6 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

This design is classed as a Fighter for production, combat and maintenance purposes

[ghostwalker788 (OP)]

updated

Tribal senser class Fighter    460 tons     15 Crew     50. 4 BP      TCS 9. 2  TH 10  EM 0
1086 km/s     Armour 1-5     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 0     PPV 6
Maint Life 0 Years     MSP 0    AFR 92%    IFR 1. 3%    1YR 11    5YR 158    Max Repair 24 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 3 months    Spare Berths 2   

10 EP Nuclear Pulse Engine (1)    Power 10    Fuel Use 155. 65%    Signature 10    Exp 12%
Fuel Capacity 10 000 Litres    Range 2. 5 billion km   (26 days at full power)

Gauss Cannon R1-100 (1x2)    Range 10 000km     TS: 2000 km/s     Accuracy Modifier 100%     RM 1    ROF 5        1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Fire Control S00. 5 16-2000 (FTR) (1)    Max Range: 32 000 km   TS: 8000 km/s     69 37 6 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Active Search Sensor MR0-R8 (1)     GPS 13     Range 270k km    Resolution 8

This design is classed as a Fighter for production, combat and maintenance purposes

[MarcAFK]

A few points I have noticed about the design;
First, the ship is very slow for Nuclear pulse, especially for a fighter, make sure you use the highest multiplier engine you have available for fighters, on the 'create design' window for engines you will see a list of modifiers, select the 'power/efficiency modifiers' and use the bottom most selection, it should be something like x1.5 or something.
Add more engines to get even better speed.
Second there is an issue with your fire controls, a basic rule of weapon fire control is that maximum tracking speed is limited by a ships top speed unless it is in a turret. Turrets are of course too big to put into a fighter so you need a fast fighter to have a high tracking speed.
Finally tracking speed is also limited by your tracking speed technology, which I see is 2000km/s, fighter fire controls can get a x4 multiplier which I can see you have taken advantage of, though your ship isn't fast enough to use the 8000km/s tracking speed.
And finally there is range, guass cannons have a very low range of 10,000 kilometers, so your fire control doesn't need to be very long ranged unless you really want the greater hit chance provided by the better fire control. I would drop to a 16,000 kilometer fire control range to save some space.
And finally your deployment time is too long for a fighter, you'll notice it only has range for 26 days, so you can safely reduce deployment time to 1 month which will save some space.
All saved space should be used for more engines, in fact I would even recommend cutting down slightly on sensor size if possible too.

[ghostwalker788 (OP)]

thanks ill update the fighters

[ghostwalker788 (OP)]

this more effective


Tribal Mark-2 class Fighter    500 tons     13 Crew     52. 4 BP      TCS 10  TH 50  EM 0
5000 km/s     Armour 1-5     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 0     PPV 3
Maint Life 0 Years     MSP 0    AFR 100%    IFR 1. 4%    1YR 5    5YR 80    Max Repair 12 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 3 months    Spare Berths 0   

10 EP Nuclear Pulse Engine (5)    Power 10    Fuel Use 155. 65%    Signature 10    Exp 12%
Fuel Capacity 5 000 Litres    Range 1. 2 billion km   (64 hours at full power)

Gauss Cannon R1-50 (1x2)    Range 10 000km     TS: 5000 km/s     Accuracy Modifier 50%     RM 1    ROF 5        1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Fire Control S00. 5 10-1250 (FTR) (1)    Max Range: 20 000 km   TS: 5000 km/s     50 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Active Search Sensor MR0-R8 (1)     GPS 13     Range 270k km    Resolution 8

This design is classed as a Fighter for production, combat and maintenance purposes

[Iranon]

Too large a weapon, it's weighing your fighter down needlessly and you can't make use of those nice fast-tracking fighter fire controls. You'll get better accuracy with a reduced-size weapon and putting the saved weight into engines or turret gear.

R2 Gauss cannons aren't very good, investing into capacitor tech and using railguns may be a better choice if you go fo speed rather than turrets.

Required crew is reduced at 0.5 and 0.1 months deployment time, I'd keep this in mind for hangar-based fighters (the alternative is assigning engineering spaces and getting a maintenance life that'll last for the fighter's lifetime).

10k range may bite you in the bum. Not a problem with such a slow design, but a co

I probably wouldn't put a sensor on every fighter, and create a separate version

[ghostwalker788 (OP)]

i was going to make a separate fighter craft but the sensor only weighs 5 tones so i thought it wood be nice to do rather than the specific fighter went down none can see where the enemy is

so dot worry about the 17 % hit chance modifier with the small guns

also this is like year 0 tech the stuff you start with

also what range would you recomend

[MarcAFK]

Not too bad I must say, you could make a smaller more efficient fighter by cutting down to a less effective gauss cannon and lowering the sensor size significantly, you could cut the fuel and deployment time too and maybe even end up with a 300 ton design with similar performance.
But what you have is still an effective design, theres just room for improvement. You won't really see a particularly good fighter coming out at nuclear pulse tech anyway, but that ship should be pretty good for tearing apart defenceless freighters and missile ships which are out of ammo. Also in swarms that can definately take on beam combatants.

[Drgong]

For low tech fighters, I go in another direction.  I go with a fighters that have 50-60 year lifespans that I can build, then use for backwater system duty as I advance.   Thus I do not need to build any support infrastructure for the fighters such as hangers.

[Michael Sandy]

I have a bit of a roleplaying question regarding the development of fighters, especially beam fighters.

As beam fighters have to penetrate longer ranged weapon envelopes, they can't be used in small numbers.  You either have overwhelming numbers, or you are holding them back to hunt down cripples.  So I have to wonder, what prompts a race to spend a lot of tech research on speculation, and then a massive change in fleet composition?

Or do beam fighters have an intermediate role, where they are useful in small numbers?  In some of Walmsley's early Aurora stories, missile armed LACs could often get within their missile range without being detected or targeted, and then fly back to back to rearm, without taking casualties.  But beam fighters do not have that option.

Can they evolve from a forward point defense role?  A relatively heavy weapon mass, and slower fighter, designed to engage missiles ahead of the fleet, including 2-stage missiles before they separate.  Have a fleet theory of heavily armored slow missile ships which can withstand any missile leakage, and the fighters then chase down empty missile ships.  The theory is that at long ranged missile range, the point defense fighters are virtually undetectable, and therefore the enemy will have to target the ships that can actually withstand the pounding.

Or is the changeover something that happens after a major defeat that wipes out most of the fleet, requiring stuff that can be put into play FAST?  Or does the changeover happen in peace time, when the obsolete ships are progressively scrapped?

I can see beam fighters evolving from a piracy/anti-piracy concern, from a desire to have a fleet presence in all inhabited systems, in a scouting and counter scouting role... but all that adds up to maybe 10% of the warfleet.  An offensive arm beam fighter fleet would probably need to spend upwards of 50% of its fleet expenditures on beam fighters and their carriers and bases.

[MarcAFK]

I use low tech beam fighters as a cheap way of destroying enemy freighters, theres no point wasting missiles on those. They also work when enemy missile ships are out of ammo, but for the most part they are fairly useless unless you have either obscene numbers or tech advantage.

[Iranon]

I have used beam fighters/fast hangar-based ships in the forward defence role, albeit with very fast rather than heavily armed variants.
An interceptor that can keep up with enemy missiles will be able to shoot down large numbers of them, putting most other missile defence options to shame.
Can work in case of a tech advantage, poor enemy missile design, or deliberately slow missiles (which I sometimes built myself).

Offensive variants were usually microwave-based, with a tiny Gauss cannon for cleanup. Attrition will be considerable, but if these can close enemy ships will be blind and unable to respond within seconds.

Missile fighters were often very small, slow, had 20 years or so of maintenance lives. The hope was that they could deliver their missiles without being detected.

[baconholic]

10cm R3 microwave fighters are dirt cheap way to take out super expensive beam ships. They only need an engine to catch up to the enemy and blind them. Once the enemy lose their electronics, you can use whatever you like to finish them off.

[Zincat]

10cm R3 microwave fighters are dirt cheap way to take out super expensive beam ships. They only need an engine to catch up to the enemy and blind them. Once the enemy lose their electronics, you can use whatever you like to finish them off.

More like, to take out any kind of ship. Missile ships too, there's no difference. Which is why you use shields, so that microwave does not fry your sensors.