Help with designing.

[spoongoon (OP)]

So, just started a new game.
I´m at nuclear pulse era technology and would like to keep my navy small until I get better tech.
Any help would be appreciated before I commit to building.
How badly will I get my ass kicked with these:

Main combatant

Star class Missile Frigate    6 000 tons     166 Crew     903.16 BP      TCS 120  TH 180  EM 300
3000 km/s     Armour 3-29     Shields 10-300     Sensors 1/8/0/0     Damage Control Rating 3     PPV 25
Maint Life 1.9 Years     MSP 282    AFR 96%    IFR 1.3%    1YR 101    5YR 1511    Max Repair 270 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 6 months    Spare Berths 1    
Magazine 265    

360 EP Nuclear Pulse Engine (1)    Power 360    Fuel Use 78.26%    Signature 180    Exp 12%
Fuel Capacity 525 000 Litres    Range 20.1 billion km   (77 days at full power)
Gamma R300/336 Shields (5)   Total Fuel Cost  70 Litres per hour  (1 680 per day)

Size 5 Missile Launcher (5)    Missile Size 5    Rate of Fire 50
Missile Fire Control FC53-R100 (1)     Range 53.8m km    Resolution 100
ASM Comet (53)  Speed: 12 800 km/s   End: 68.5m    Range: 52.6m km   WH: 9    Size: 5    TH: 55/33/16

Active Search Sensor MR51-R100 (1)     GPS 6400     Range 51.2m km    Resolution 100
EM Detection Sensor EM1-8 (1)     Sensitivity 8     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  8m km

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

Escort

Vanguard class Escort    6 000 tons     181 Crew     944 BP      TCS 120  TH 180  EM 300
3000 km/s     Armour 3-29     Shields 10-300     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 4     PPV 30.84
Maint Life 2.68 Years     MSP 393    AFR 72%    IFR 1%    1YR 78    5YR 1172    Max Repair 270 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 6 months    Spare Berths 0   

360 EP Nuclear Pulse Engine (1)    Power 360    Fuel Use 78.26%    Signature 180    Exp 12%
Fuel Capacity 525 000 Litres    Range 20.1 billion km   (77 days at full power)
Gamma R300/336 Shields (5)   Total Fuel Cost  70 Litres per hour  (1 680 per day)

Twin 10cm C3 Near Ultraviolet Laser Turret (4x2)    Range 90 000km     TS: 12000 km/s     Power 6-6     RM 3    ROF 5        3 3 3 2 1 1 1 1 1 0
Fire Control S04 48-12000 (1)    Max Range: 96 000 km   TS: 12000 km/s     90 79 69 58 48 38 27 17 6 0
Pebble Bed Reactor Technology PB-1 (     Total Power Output 24    Armour 0    Exp 5%

Active Search Sensor MR3-R1 (1)     GPS 48     Range 3.8m km    MCR 418k km    Resolution 1

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes

[NihilRex]

Lower your maintenance life and deployment time, or add more fuel - right now you have Maint for 2 years, 2.5months of fuel, and 6months of deployment time.

If you just need military protection to calm down your colonies, use PDCs instead.

[ComradeMicha]

Hi spoongoon,

I am amazed at your peculiar mix of technologies here.  Nuclear Pulse is rather low-level, so I would not expect nuclear-pulse-powered ships to have gamma shields or fast-firing laser turrets.  Interesting!

My criticism with the designs would be:

• Fuel consumption is too high - 500k litres is plenty for a 6k-ton-ship, but if you only get 77 days (minus shields) out of it then your engines are too greedy.
• imbalance between maintenance life (1. 9 years), deployment time (6 months) and range (77 days), as NihilRex already pointed out
• your goal is to keep a tiny navy at low tech levels, yet your main combatant only has 5 missile launchers.  I would drop the shields and add more launchers.
• slow missiles - you are hoping to score a lucky hit with one of your big warheads, but you have very few launchers per ship and the missiles travel awefully slow and have low hit chances. . .  Personally, I prefer faster missiles with smaller warheads and then more of those.  Your way may work against low-tech enemies, but anything with point defence will laugh at your tiny snail salvoes.  ;)
• rather short-ranged active sensors.  I'd shoot for at least 100m km, so you can spot smaller ships at your desired range of about 60m km

My advice would be to invest in the next level of engine technology and design faster missiles, then build a main combatant with a lot more launchers (maybe even box launchers) but less protection.

[alex_brunius]

Lower your maintenance life

Lower maintenance life on the missile frigate is probably not a good idea since that will bring the available MSPs below max repair.


And I don't agree that 2x deployment time compared to fuel use in max speed is a waste either. In practice fuel consumtion will often be lower due to protecting a jump point or colony, or due to escorting slower civilian ships.

[spoongoon (OP)]

Thank you all for suggestions. I´m still new at this.
I did a trans newtonian start and tried to have 2 levels in each category thus the strange mix.
How should the technological progression happen. Engines first? then maybe missiles?
My main concern was however to have all the industry techs, that was where I spent most points.

How big a population do you usually start with?
I took 835 million and meritocracy to get those research labs.
That gave me 300000 research points. I still have the starting save so maybe you could tell me
how to better spend them.

One more thing, I wanted to have a conventional start but last time I did that
the game became unplayably slow around 60 years in (just when things were getting interesting).
So I tought I might get more mileage out of TN.

[Barkhorn]

Lower maintenance life on the missile frigate is probably not a good idea since that will bring the available MSPs below max repair.


And I don't agree that 2x deployment time compared to fuel use in max speed is a waste either. In practice fuel consumtion will often be lower due to protecting a jump point or colony, or due to escorting slower civilian ships.

Another thing is that you can just bring a tanker with you.  My warships tend to only have ~30 days worth of fuel, but I bring a few tankers with the fleet.  It's a good way to keep a high cruising range and a high speed.  Upon detecting an enemy, I detach the tankers, set their speed to something super low to reduce their thermal signature, and have them head in the opposite direction.  Then the main fleet heads towards the threat at full speed.  I've never had a battle come anywhere near 30 days, so that's been plenty of fuel.

[spoongoon (OP)]

Allright. I went back on my old save and went all out on engine and missile tech.
Here is the new design:

Star class Missile Frigate    6 000 tons     175 Crew     1186 BP      TCS 120  TH 168  EM 0
4000 km/s     Armour 4-29     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/55/0/0     Damage Control Rating 4     PPV 25
Maint Life 2.57 Years     MSP 494    AFR 72%    IFR 1%    1YR 105    5YR 1570    Max Repair 420 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 6 months    Spare Berths 1   
Magazine 325   

480 EP Ion Drive (1)    Power 480    Fuel Use 71.27%    Signature 168    Exp 12%
Fuel Capacity 510 000 Litres    Range 21.5 billion km   (62 days at full power)

Size 5 Missile Launcher (5)    Missile Size 5    Rate of Fire 40
Missile Fire Control FC110-R100 (1)     Range 110.9m km    Resolution 100
ASM Comet (65)  Speed: 24 000 km/s   End: 81.1m    Range: 116.8m km   WH: 9    Size: 5    TH: 104/62/31

Active Search Sensor MR115-R100 (1)     GPS 10500     Range 115.5m km    Resolution 100
EM Detection Sensor EM5-55 (1)     Sensitivity 55     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  55m km

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

[Whitecold]

Personally I am uncomfortable with a single engine on anything larger than a FAC. One hit and your ship might be dead in space.

[ComradeMicha]

Looks better to me, especialy the missile (though size 9 warheads still look too big to me at that tech level) but I still see your fuel consumption and the few missile launchers as a problem. In my games, I suffer greatly from fuel shortages some 20 years into the game...

As the engine has an explosion chance of 12%, I guess you are using a power multiplier larger than 100%. I usually aim for 80-90% so my fuel consumption is way down. I also agree with Whitecold, maybe two smaller engines would be less vulnerable (though also less efficient). What would you get with two engines of about 200 EP each, using an engine power multiplier of less than 100%?

With this design in mind, what would a task group look like? How many of the Star class would operate together against enemy ships, say three hostile crafts of similar size? With the to-hit-chance of 30-50% and the salvo size of 5 I would advise you to use at least 4 of your destroyers per enemy destroyer...

Maybe you could research box launchers and design a subvariant of this design that has only box launchers. That way your initial strike would pack a lot more punch while you still have the capability of finishing off crippled targets.

[Haji]

I did a trans newtonian start and tried to have 2 levels in each category thus the strange mix.
How should the technological progression happen. Engines first? then maybe missiles?

There is no single way in which technological progression should happen. However there are several factors which makes most players progress in very similar ways.

1) Missiles are the single most powerful weapon in the game. They are expensive, require dedicated facilities and if you're not careful, it's very easy to run out of them, but if they are used properly they wipe the floor with any beam armed combatant, bar certain specific situations like jump point defense (although depending on a situation, they can excel even there, if vessels are designed properly).
2) Because of the above (among other reasons) the engine technologies are one of the most important ones - if not the most important one. Faster civilian ships means it's easier to transport installations between planets, faster military ships allow you to decide the range of the engagement, faster missiles means higher chances to hit and lower engagement windows for the enemy defenses and faster counter missiles mean better protection.
3) There are some technologies that are simply not worth it on low levels. For example, armor is lighter than shields providing better protection. Shields are only useful because of their regeneration, which is important in prolonged combat. But if you're facing a short battle (against beams or large, tightly spaced missile salvos) they are much less cost effective than armor. Cloaking is similarly limited and other weapons, like microwaves or meson cannons are extremely situational, making it pointless to invest heavily in them at the beginning.

[Barkhorn]

One big advantage shields have over armor is that shields never leak.  You can't have a lucky missile hit a damaged spot and kill you while 95% of all your armor is still there.

Shields just have a health pool, not blocks like armor.  So as long as you have enough shield strength left to stop a missile, it WILL stop the missile.

[Erik L]

One big advantage shields have over armor is that armor never leaks.  You can't have a lucky missile hit a damaged spot and kill you while 95% of all your armor is still there.

Shields just have a health pool, not blocks like armor.  So as long as you have enough shield strength left to stop a missile, it WILL stop the missile.

I think you mean "shields never leak"

[Barkhorn]

I did, thanks Erik.

[Haji]

One big advantage shields have over armor is that shields never leak.  You can't have a lucky missile hit a damaged spot and kill you while 95% of all your armor is still there.

Shields just have a health pool, not blocks like armor.  So as long as you have enough shield strength left to stop a missile, it WILL stop the missile.

True, but it's still up to individual preference as to whether or not that's enough to overcome the disadvantages of being more massive and more expensive to develop, especially early on when every research point is precious and ships are small. Once you are on a reasonable technology level and have bigger ships (15kT or more) shields become much more useful.

[Jorgen_CAB]

Your ship seem fine to me except for your engine design. You only have a single engine that require 420MSP to repair. If that engine is damaged in combat you will not be able to repair it since combat damage require twice the MSP to repair than a maintenance failure. Since you only have one engine the ship will be dead in space. If you had two engines they would be cheaper and you would also need less crew and less engineering space. It also always good with some redundancy with engines so your ship is not stopped from a few lucky hits.