Majestic sistership Valiant, first improved Majestic-class actually won the first battle. Wuhuu!

Big ships are great, but I learned the truth about the war. It's not the guns that make victory but logistic. After making big fleet I was struggling to keep up my with my industry and espesically lack of minerals.

So this for everyone who wants to make big ships. Be prepared to invest to mining industry too.

My guess is that if you have 40,000 ton ships at Ion tech, you are running with reduced research rate or something.  It is otherwise hard to have really large ships at ion tech, because if the resources that went into the shipyard went into research labs instead, you would be out of Ion tech in less time than that shipyard could build something.

So if you want settings that really encourage big ships early, something like 10%-20% research rate sounds about right.  Bump the economy up by a factor of 2-3, and you get the production capacity to build larger ships and the tech rate isn't going to obsolete them too fast if you are putting similar levels into boosting your research as boosting your fleet production.

I think the biggest advantages large ships have in C# are the shields and the effects of having your best officers concentrated on one ship.  If you have an engagement between 8 5,000 ton ships and 1 40,000 ton behemoth, the advantage the behemoth will have in a beam fight is that at extreme range, it can do more damage past enemy shields that they can regenerate.  This is balanced by the fact that a multi ship formation could simply withdraw the ship whose shield took damage while the other ships closed.

I would expect that an early behemoth ship would have to get repeated upgrades to its beam weapon fire controls and beams to maintain at least some edge in long ranged beam combat.

Ion tech is a bit early for ECM tech, but capital ships in general benefit more from ECM than smaller ships do.

I have mixed feeling about the troop capacity.  My beam warships have cryotroops, on the theory that they will be the ships closest to enemy crippled ships, and already fast and durable enough to close vs a mostly crippled ship, so having boarding capacity on capital ships makes some sense.

you should use smaller increments, that way it will stop once they are detected/close.

I'm looking for the advice how to design new classes and defeat these enemy ships.

How good are their AMMs? Did your box launched missiles get through their PD?

As nuclearslurpee said, you can totally kite their energy-armed ships, so it's really just the missiles that might be an issue.

I guess we know the proper response to this act of malice and aggression! *Nuclear Launch detected* Turn their planet to glass and slag.

Today at 2013, September 10th. Aliens known as Drummonville Commune have defeated the Majestic battleship in battle of GJ Alpha. First of the class, pride of the fleet has been brutally annihilated by the savage enemy. Incompetent commander is to blame for the this great defeat. But alien used sneaky tactics to camp jump gates too. This is a major loss for the Terran Imperium. Further losses of several frigates was reported.

Earth naval command is fully aware of this extreme situation and are planning for future counter-strike... Majestic M02 class is planned for shipyard, but it takes about 2 years to finish. Alert-plans for fighters & corvettes have been issued.

This is a sad day for the Terran Imperium, but also the reminder how savage the aliens are. They are attacking unarmed diplomatic stations and in their language there is no word for 'mercy'. Like one of the great leader in the past said, it is our time to do great things and prepare for the worst.

"Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts"

Majestic M02

Majestic M02 class Battleship      39,999 tons       1,289 Crew       7,102.3 BP       TCS 800    TH 4,025    EM 1,110
5031 km/s      Armour 8-104       Shields 37-370       HTK 226      Sensors 33/55/0/0      DCR 59      PPV 240.3
Maint Life 3.67 Years     MSP 4,328    AFR 328%    IFR 4.6%    1YR 499    5YR 7,481    Max Repair 402.5 MSP
Magazine 220   
Commodore    Control Rating 5   BRG   AUX   ENG   CIC   FLG   
Intended Deployment Time: 6 months    Morale Check Required   

Randell Ion Drive R-805M 'Upgraded' (5)    Power 4025    Fuel Use 54.06%    Signature 805    Explosion 14%
Fuel Capacity 3,972,000 Litres    Range 33.1 billion km (76 days at full power)
Dehoff Defence Gamma S37 / R370 Shields (1)     Recharge Time 370 seconds (0.1 per second)

Kenmore KE-15 C4 Ultraviolet Laser (26)    Range 192,000km     TS: 5,031 km/s     Power 6-4     RM 40,000 km    ROF 10       
Ziegenfuss 2 x Z-10C4 PD Laser Turret (10x2)    Range 120,000km     TS: 16000 km/s     Power 6-8     RM 40,000 km    ROF 5       
Calvano KE-15 Beam Fire Control (3)     Max Range: 192,000 km   TS: 5,000 km/s     95 90 84 79 74 69 64 58 53 48
Calvano Z-10C4 PD Beam Fire Control (2)     Max Range: 128,000 km   TS: 16,000 km/s     92 84 77 69 61 53 45 38 30 22
Koth Stellarator Fusion Reactor R48-PB20 (2)     Total Power Output 96.2    Exp 10%
Koth Stellarator Fusion Reactor R40-PB20 (2)     Total Power Output 81.8    Exp 10%
Koth Stellarator Fusion Reactor R8-PB20 (1)     Total Power Output 8.3    Exp 10%

Holloman HAST-5 Box Torpedo Tube (44)     Missile Size: 5    Hangar Reload 111 minutes    MF Reload 18 hours
Kieser 'Vulcan' Torpedo Fire Control 40 (1)     Range 28m km    Resolution 40
Kieser 'Vulcan' Torpedo Fire Control 120 (4)     Range 33m km    Resolution 120
Cress Anti-Ship Torpedo AST-2 'Vulcan' (44)    Speed: 40,000 km/s    End: 10.9m     Range: 26.3m km    WH: 4    Size: 5    TH: 133/80/40

Lamonda Active Secondary Search Sensor L-13/120 (1)     GPS 1512     Range 32.8m km    Resolution 120
Strickler Torpedo Warning TW-11/1 (2)     GPS 11     Range 6.1m km    MCR 545.7k km    Resolution 1
Lamonda Active Search Sensor L-36/20 (1)     GPS 630     Range 28.5m km    Resolution 20
Lamonda Active Search Sensor L-25/120 (1)     GPS 3024     Range 46.3m km    Resolution 120
Dumaine EM Sensor DEM-55 (1)     Sensitivity 55     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  58.6m km
Schenkel Thermal Sensor M-TH3.00-33.00 (1)     Sensitivity 33     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  45.4m km

Gould-Parkin ECCM-1 (1)         ECM 10

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

Hell's vengeance boils in my hear

I didn't have shields. I guess I was extremely lucky. Survey ship was in jump gate when it was attacked so it jumped to other side, badly damaged thought. Shortly after my Skimmer class frigates arrived with high power microway and PD lasers. I thought that this must be their home system so I only used non-lethal microwave and this was enough to scare the aliens away.
Usually my surveys ships just blow up, but not this time.

It seems little microwave will keep their surveys ships away from my system. Probably diplomats on Earth might disagree, but microway-attack is a common practice now on for frontier firigate captains. Captains are angry, because aliens almost destroyed survey ship. Diplomats are on the way, so things might change in the future.

Edit: It seems this was not their home system. I will explore some more. Great fun so far.

your survey ship... survived hostile contact?  do you survey with battlecruisers?  i don't think an alien has ever announced hostility to me through less than 100, 150 points of damage.