A new guy with a first warship in need of critique.

[Detros]

I now noted your ASM suite on Agamemnon has active radar of resolution 80 while fire controls are resolution 60. You can probably turn both bit down as your ASMs have range of only 100M km while these two sensors have range 200M km. Unless you have sensors on those missiles, having greater range active radar is fine but fire controls need to see the target only while firing so you should match them with missile range. And the different resolution of MFC and AS can lead to confusion when you see a target only on one of those.

Everyone seems to be in agreement about my sensor kerfuffle . . .  some combination of going a little redundancy-crazy or being unsure of ship roles down the line led me there.  Next-generation warships should be more efficient on that front if I can get over my hang ups.  I'm very inclined to go with Detros's suggestion of size-1 reserve sensors . . .  I don't know if I can stomach an individual ship being completely blind.  Sensor tech improvements are definitely on my docket (EM sensitivity already bagged and corresponding strength improvement is coming up after a tracking speed improvement).

I am putting 1 size TH+EM sensors on nearly everything, even commercial ships (you know, they are needed for traffic control). Every ship with guns (except CIWS-only ones) gets reserve ASM active sensor. BFCs are doubled as are other military systems. Scouts and sensor ships get full suite of active sensors and TH+EM of size 4. Sensor platforms and PDC can go to size 10 or so. I don't like the big size (50) sensors as they make seeing just too easy, are expensive to research, take sooo much space and you get reeeally blind if you somehow lose them. No "spinal sensors" for me.

[Iranon]

It may be good practice to give major warships enough sensors to be tactically self-sufficient... a size-1 resolution-1 active for most, coarser resolution for primary missile attackers.
Sometimes I didn't even do that, and put various size-1 sensors on a civilian auxiliary ship along with some fuel, cryogenic transport etc, or rely on long-endurance scout fighters which have some advantages (less likely to be shot at, can do some scouting without annoying the neighbours too much).

Tbh, none of this matters much for a small navy. But as you field more ships, it pays to formulate a design doctrine that gives you the flexibility and redundancy you want without undue cost/duplication.

[obsidian_green (OP)]

Here are the successor designs, an opportunity to see if I'm learning my lessons here. 

Missile Cruiser Project class Missile Cruiser    20 000 tons     568 Crew     5380.52 BP      TCS 400  TH 4000  EM 1800
10000 km/s     Armour 6-65     Shields 60-240     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 43     PPV 78.4
Maint Life 5.19 Years     MSP 5549    AFR 96%    IFR 1.3%    1YR 343    5YR 5148    Max Repair 1000 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 12 months    Flight Crew Berths 17   
Hangar Deck Capacity 1000 tons     Magazine 632   

2000 EP Magnetic Fusion Drive (2)    Power 2000    Fuel Use 48.57%    Signature 2000    Exp 16%
Fuel Capacity 1 500 000 Litres    Range 27.8 billion km   (32 days at full power)
Theta S4-RC240/288 Shields (15)   Total Fuel Cost  180 Litres per hour  (4 320 per day)

Triple Gauss R4-100/TS25000 Turret (2x12)    Range 40 000km     TS: 25000 km/s     Power 0-0     RM 4    ROF 5        1 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0
FC S02 R48k-TS25000 (Gauss Turret) (2)    Max Range: 96 000 km   TS: 25000 km/s     90 79 69 58 48 38 27 17 6 0

ML S6-RL150s (50% Reduction) (    Missile Size 6    Rate of Fire 150
S1-RL6 (AMM) Missile Launcher (    Missile Size 1    Rate of Fire 5
MFC-32/3.5mk-R50t (AMM-2) (2)     Range 32.3m km    Resolution 1
MFC-173mk-R4000t (ASM-2) (4)     Range 173.9m km    Resolution 80

Active Search (PD) MR6mk/AM705k-R1 (1)     GPS 36     Range 6.5m km    MCR 706k km    Resolution 1
Active Search MR350mk-R4000t (1)     GPS 22400     Range 350.6m km    Resolution 80

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes

First ship in class very likely to be the Sun Tzu and I'm glad I decided to post because I could probably stand to mount a smaller active long range sensor, which just needs to be strong enough for the ship to use its ASMs. The Julu class area defense cruisers also have yet to be officially named:

Point Defence Cruiser Project class Area Defence Cruiser    20 000 tons     650 Crew     7188.6 BP      TCS 400  TH 4000  EM 1200
10000 km/s     Armour 6-65     Shields 40-240     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 43     PPV 110.6
Maint Life 5.69 Years     MSP 7414    AFR 96%    IFR 1.3%    1YR 388    5YR 5819    Max Repair 1000 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 12 months    Flight Crew Berths 18   
Hangar Deck Capacity 1000 tons     

2000 EP Magnetic Fusion Drive (2)    Power 2000    Fuel Use 48.57%    Signature 2000    Exp 16%
Fuel Capacity 1 500 000 Litres    Range 27.8 billion km   (32 days at full power)
Theta S4-RC240/288 Shields (10)   Total Fuel Cost  120 Litres per hour  (2 880 per day)

Quad 15cm C6/TS25000 Far UV Laser Turret (2x4)    Range 300 000km     TS: 25000 km/s     Power 24-24     RM 5    ROF 5        6 6 6 6 6 5 4 3 3 3
Triple Gauss R4-100/TS25000 Turret (3x12)    Range 40 000km     TS: 25000 km/s     Power 0-0     RM 4    ROF 5        1 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0
FC S08-R240k-TS25000 (FUV Turret) (2)    Max Range: 480 000 km   TS: 25000 km/s     98 96 94 92 90 88 85 83 81 79
FC S02 R48k-TS25000 (Gauss Turret) (3)    Max Range: 96 000 km   TS: 25000 km/s     90 79 69 58 48 38 27 17 6 0
P10-S1 Magnetic Confinement Fusion Reactor (5)     Total Power Output 50    Armour 0    Exp 5%

Active Search (PD) MR6mk/AM705k-R1 (1)     GPS 36     Range 6.5m km    MCR 706k km    Resolution 1

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes

I have yet to design the primary surveillance ship that will accompany the two pairs of these in my battle groups, but the carrier/flagship/jumpship is nearly designed ... just waiting on scientists to finish designing a 40,000t military jump drive. At present, I can manage 10,000t of hangar space, but I may have to trim that down to fit some CIWS, some reserve sensors, or more shields. My missile-armed strikefighters weigh in at just under 250t, so I can manage 16 of them and 1000t of auxillary (probably sensor) craft with half that space. I've designed interceptors at ~300t, but I debate whether two squadrons of 6 fighters is worth that space when the battle group's escorts are so strong in point defense already and the carrier needs a few extra systems of its own.

Spacecraft Carrier Project class Carrier    34 500 tons     1022 Crew     7700.4 BP      TCS 690  TH 8000  EM 1200
11594 km/s     Armour 6-94     Shields 40-240     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 110     PPV 0
Maint Life 8.34 Years     MSP 13950    AFR 95%    IFR 1.3%    1YR 357    5YR 5358    Max Repair 1000 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 12 months    Flight Crew Berths 120   
Flag Bridge    Hangar Deck Capacity 10000 tons     

2000 EP Magnetic Fusion Drive (4)    Power 2000    Fuel Use 48.57%    Signature 2000    Exp 16%
Fuel Capacity 3 000 000 Litres    Range 32.2 billion km   (32 days at full power)
Theta S4-RC240/288 Shields (10)   Total Fuel Cost  120 Litres per hour  (2 880 per day)

Active Search (PD) MR6mk/AM705k-R1 (1)     GPS 36     Range 6.5m km    MCR 706k km    Resolution 1

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes

Thanks for having a look and double that for all the great advice.

EDIT: Almost forgot, my Gauss turrets don't seem to be working on those previous ADCs, so I should probably mention that here (I've posted about it, specifically, in the Academy sub-forum) in case someone notices what might be wrong before I start building these (hopefully) beauties. I doubt it's a combat interface/assignment/PD setup issue because the range indicator radius doesn't display on the System Map; I don't think it's a design issue either, but maybe someone sees something I missed?

[Sleepymoon]

Your AMM fire control way outranges your Missile Detection Range.
Your ships don't have a lot of range and the boosted engines will make it difficult to build tankers that can keep up.
You don't need sensors on your carrier.
Don't forget to put magazines on your carrier if you want to reload fighters.
You should probably have some electronic warfare systems.

[obsidian_green (OP)]

Your AMM fire control way outranges your Missile Detection Range.
Your ships don't have a lot of range and the boosted engines will make it difficult to build tankers that can keep up.
You don't need sensors on your carrier.
Don't forget to put magazines on your carrier if you want to reload fighters.
You should probably have some electronic warfare systems.

Thanks. Primary missile detection will be on that sensor ship I haven't yet designed. The sensor on the cruiser is just a backup in case things go bad for my recon ship ... I just hope my AMM has at least 20 mil km range and I didn't revise my design decision (but I think I built the missile first, so I should be okay there).

My engines should be only modestly boosted, I certainly didn't go over 1.5; I read somewhere around here that x1.00 engines were inefficient and EP should be either above or below that (hope the extra 0.5 isn't overboard). In order to retain the capabilities and fleet speed I desired, I needed to trade range, but I figure 28 billion km was enough when I was never pressed to use anywhere close to the 47 billion km range of my rangiest previous designs. My un-designed tankers can take their time as long as I still have enough fuel to conduct operations at destination ... fleet can even keep speed with slower tankers and top off just before entering a contested system if I need to. I guess I'm saying it was a choice (hopefully not a bad one) rather than an oversight.

I'm intending to mount small sensors on every capital ship, enough to use their systems if primary recon goes down. If things go bad, possible PD fighters might need the carrier's emergency actives to defend it and the carrier itself might need it if I find room for a gauss turret or two (none of which seem to be working in my game anyway---they don't even display max weapon range, which makes me suspect it isn't a Combat Assignments problem on my part).

I haven't forgotten the carrier's mags, but the reminder is welcome, just in case I do forget it when it really counts, lol. I'm waiting for the jump drive to come off the drawing board so I can see how much space I have to work with. I might opt for custom size magazines, depending on what I have to give up and still meet my tonnage goal.

[Iranon]

My engines should be only modestly boosted, I certainly didn't go over 1.5; I read somewhere around here that x1.00 engines were inefficient and EP should be either above or below that (hope the extra 0.5 isn't overboard).

That might have been me, and stems from engine costs scaling: quadratically below 1.0, linear above. If 1.0 is reasonable for our speed/range requirement, 0.85 or 0.9 often saves fuel and BP; ship slightly larger for the same capability, but cheaper.

That is a very local phenomenon though. The numbers put your engines at 50Hs and 1.6 power. That is rather stressed. Using 30% of your engine weight in fuel as in your cruisers is about the most performance you can cram into a given tonnage (theoretical optimum is 40%, for almost no measurable increase), with no consideration of fuel efficiency.
While it would result in individually less capable ships at 20000t, I'd probably be happier with 4x 0.8 power engines and building more of them.

[obsidian_green (OP)]

That might have been me, and stems from engine costs scaling: quadratically below 1.0, linear above. If 1.0 is reasonable for our speed/range requirement, 0.85 or 0.9 often saves fuel and BP; ship slightly larger for the same capability, but cheaper.

That is a very local phenomenon though. The numbers put your engines at 50Hs and 1.6 power. That is rather stressed. Using 30% of your engine weight in fuel as in your cruisers is about the most performance you can cram into a given tonnage (theoretical optimum is 40%, for almost no measurable increase), with no consideration of fuel efficiency.
While it would result in individually less capable ships at 20000t, I'd probably be happier with 4x 0.8 power engines and building more of them.

Thanks. I guess that 1.5 number was a goalpost I shifted to get to even fleet speed while retaining my tonnage, which shouldn't have been the hard limit I imposed on myself when that only matters for the jump-carrier.

If I have a spare PP scientist (my top gal is still working on the jump drive) that can get new engine designs out close to the time the jump drive comes off the drawing board, I may redesign and maybe get a little more range in the bargain ... probably at the cost of cutting even more hangar space from my poor carrier and adding another six-or-more months of shipyard work. Starting to get nervous that something nasty is going to pop into the Solar System while my only functional battle group is off playing with the neighbors . I have to first finish up a fight over some alien wreckage that's now eating my attention before I can make sound build decisions. 

If not these, then my next generation of warships will definitely be informed by your engine advice.

[Barkhorn]

The missile cruiser has quite small volleys.  AI PD is pretty weak usually, but you could still have trouble scoring hits.  I think you've got your fire controls backwards; there isn't much reason to have so many anti-ship FC's, while you could use two more AMM FC's.  2-3 AMM launchers per AMM FC is usually smart.

You may get better final defensive fire coverage from having more Gauss turrets, but making them smaller.  As it is, you can only target 2 missile salvos at a time.  Your GC's can theoretically kill 24 missiles in FDF, assuming they're all in 2 or fewer salvos.  But worst case scenario is when they're all in individual salvos, in which case 22 will make it through FDF.

Not sure you really need a dedicated sensor ship given the fact that you have such powerful actives.  For example, if your missile cruiser was at the sun, you could detect a 4000 ton nearly at Jupiter.

That jump engine is going to take an eternity to research and is going to cost a fortune to build.

I like the ADC aside from that minor point about the GC turrets.

[obsidian_green (OP)]

The missile cruiser has quite small volleys.  AI PD is pretty weak usually, but you could still have trouble scoring hits.  I think you've got your fire controls backwards; there isn't much reason to have so many anti-ship FC's, while you could use two more AMM FC's.  2-3 AMM launchers per AMM FC is usually smart.

My ASM design philosophy was to overwhelm enemy FCs rather than overwhelming the PD weapons themselves; is that a mistake? I haven't yet faced enemy missile attacks that needed more than one AMM fire control and I thought I might be overly cautious in fitting that second one in this design, lol.

You may get better final defensive fire coverage from having more Gauss turrets, but making them smaller.  As it is, you can only target 2 missile salvos at a time.  Your GC's can theoretically kill 24 missiles in FDF, assuming they're all in 2 or fewer salvos.  But worst case scenario is when they're all in individual salvos, in which case 22 will make it through FDF.

I don't intend these ships for independent operations, certainly don't plan on sending any into combat individually. So final fire coverage for a battle group with pairs of the cruisers would be a total of 10x3 GC turrets facing salvos likely already weakened by 4 (at present, you say I need more) AAM FCs, 4x4 15cm laser turrets, and maybe 6-9 fighters each armed with 2 reduced-sized GCs at 25% accuracy.

Not sure you really need a dedicated sensor ship given the fact that you have such powerful actives.  For example, if your missile cruiser was at the sun, you could detect a 4000 ton nearly at Jupiter.

That jump engine is going to take an eternity to research and is going to cost a fortune to build.

I like the ADC aside from that minor point about the GC turrets.

I probably should scale down the actives to the range of the ASM. I might have been conflating the benefits of over-ranged FCs with active sensor requirement (and maybe that only apply to beams anyway?) or I might have been trying to get good mid-resolution range without designing a dedicated sensor for the purpose---both thoughts crossed my mind every time I designed a LR active and I don't remember which choice I went with. I haven't yet designed a fleet surveillance ship, so I may need to rethink doctrine. 350m km actives get me halfway to Jupiter, which might be overkill as you say and too much to be repeated on two ships if I dedicate one to that purpose instead and scale back the cruiser actives to the ~173m km range of my ASM FCs (the missiles themselves range at 150m km, iirc).

40,000t carrier needs a jump engine that gets the job done, and since smaller ships can't jump bigger it has to go on the carrier. That design crept up in size from an initial plan for a 30,000t carrier, but my "definite" (since I may be revising after forgetting to account for magazine space) requirements of 10,000km/s fleet speed and 10,000t of hangar space required a much more massive ship. I tell myself that's going to be my warship-size limit, but we'll see, lol.

[Detros]

40,000t carrier needs a jump engine that gets the job done, and since smaller ships can't jump bigger it has to go on the carrier. That design crept up in size from an initial plan for a 30,000t carrier, but my "definite" (since I may be revising after forgetting to account for magazine space) requirements of 10,000km/s fleet speed and 10,000t of hangar space required a much more massive ship. I tell myself that's going to be my warship-size limit, but we'll see, lol.

The option I have seen others mentioned several times and which I have myself used too is to have one big ship with sensor and jump engine with only self defence capabilities while you have multiple same sized ships bristling with guns or with hangar space. That way those combatants don't get bogged with size of jump engines. For Sun fleet from my previous game of Pentagram I went step further and separated sensor and tender ship. In current Trisabria I have cruisers (15kt) and destroyers (7.5kt) with guns, frigates (3750t) with sensors and so far no separate military tender, only pack of gatebuilders and combined mili+civ jump tenders.

[obsidian_green (OP)]

The option I have seen others mentioned several times and which I have myself used too is to have one big ship with sensor and jump engine with only self defence capabilities while you have multiple same sized ships bristling with guns or with hangar space.

I might have considered that option, but I had already exceeded 30,000t for the carrier because of the speed and hangar space requirements I imposed, though I'll be breaking my hangar space requirement in favor of magazine capacity I forgot to include. My hard limit is the 5,000t I need for 16 strikefighters (20, if I can get their tonnage down to 200 at the next level of engine tech) and 1000t of sqaudron support craft, but I'd like another 5,000 tons of flexibility, especially if I find my strike squadron needs protection. I've got a 6 ship limit to squadron-jump at present, so no secondary escort carrier can tag along without I break doctrine.

My doctrine requires my carrier to be defended by pairs of the cruiser designs I posted and that jump drive might as well be carried on the ship receiving the most defense rather than on a ship whose actives might draw enemy fire. If I ever find myself suddenly biting off far more than I ever hoped of chewing (missile volleys with a salvo number per volley vastly exceeding my FCs, for instance), I'm detaching that surveillance ship and sending it one direction while the rest of the TG runs for their lives.

One thing that isn't reflected in my ship designs and is turning out to be a problem is my ordnance loadout. I'm in a (probably relatively at 5 jumps from Sol) distant fight and I've run out of ASMs. I sent my "old" Agamemnon B-class missile cruisers out with 42/423 ASM/AMM loadout (it's a pair of them, so 84 total ASMs), so I'm now empty on my ASMs and I still have over 600 AMMs between the two of them ... the TG PD has been performing so well, I disabled the AMMs after wasting a couple hundred. Now wishing I had been less fearful of enemy missile attack.

[I_Sicarius_I]

Jeez, after reading these i dont know if my warships are super effective or super inefficient.  My cruisers start at 40kt and my first fielded ship was a 56kt cruiser haha.  Also.  My first batch of dighters are periodically crashing and killing all my officers.  I was under the impression that they would stat docked on the planet but is that not the case? Btw i started playing yesterday and went in balls deep.  First go. 

[Iranon]

Size in itself has nothing to do with that.

At comparable tech level and expenditure on my navy, I've mass-produced cheap 100.000t designs in one game and fielded fewer 12000t-designs with a higher unit cost and far greater logistics burden in another.
And I was equally satisfied with either.

[obsidian_green (OP)]

Jeez, after reading these i dont know if my warships are super effective or super inefficient.  My cruisers start at 40kt and my first fielded ship was a 56kt cruiser haha.  Also.  My first batch of dighters are periodically crashing and killing all my officers.  I was under the impression that they would stat docked on the planet but is that not the case? Btw i started playing yesterday and went in balls deep.  First go.

I too am on my first play ... and it seems this game doesn't have a shallow end of the pool. It's great.

You need a hangar to house those fighters (a PDC will work), designate whatever sports the hangar as a mothership (may or may not be necessary, three "landing" orders seem similar), and you'll need to "land" those fighters or they will fall apart on you fairly quickly, based on what I read before I started designing mine.

Those last designs were tweaked again before I began shipyard retooling, helped by a new armor tech that bought me weight savings and extended all ships to 38 days of full burn, but the biggest change is that my carrier will just have to do without a jump drive. I've designed a dedicated, fleet speed jump tender for the purpose and kept my full, intended 10,000t of hangar space and added 1152 in magazine capacity (maybe I designate the carrier as collier since 36 attacks of 16x3 fighters might be excessive?).

[Barkhorn]

Size in itself has nothing to do with that.

At comparable tech level and expenditure on my navy, I've mass-produced cheap 100.000t designs in one game and fielded fewer 12000t-designs with a higher unit cost and far greater logistics burden in another.
And I was equally satisfied with either.

I currently have 4 fuel harvester bases in different systems, each one weighing in at just over 1 million tons.

Tugging them to their destination took years.