There is quite a lot here, so I will try to stick to the highlights, or lowlights as it may be.
General Comment: I don't want to go too in-depth about this, since discovery is a big part of the game, but I will say that it seems you don't have a lot of experience with jump point-based warfare in Aurora. Usually jump point defenses are heavy or nonexistent at least when facing the NPRs, so despite the hopes and dreams of many players it is usually not possible to "sneak through" a JP with a small raiding force. The short implication of this is that for a strong, successful fleet you want to design around jump point assault and defense first and foremost. Of course there are many exceptions including some of the spoiler race encounters, but this is a general thing you want to keep in mind for keeping your fleet designs well-grounded.
Revetment FLTII class Jump Destroyer
Fuel Capacity 1,467,000 Litres Range 87.1 billion km (144 days at full power)
This amount of range is probably excessive by a factor of 2 or 3, depending on the galaxy map topography. It is better to support a fleet with tankers as needed to achieve long operational ranges, so that the combat ships can dedicate more space to combat systems.
Towsley-Hyre Weapon Systems GCIWS BFC MR16km TS 20km/s (1) Max Range: 16,000 km TS: 20,000 km/s 38 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
The max range on your BFC is too low. Point defense fire takes place at 10,000 km, so with a range of 16,000 km you will have only 37.5% accuracy factor from range - in addition to other accuracy loss from fast missile speeds and reduced size of the Gauss cannons. I would recommend keeping a 1x size multiplier which at this tech level should give 80,000 km range and thus 87.5% accuracy factor from range under point defense conditions.
Raytheon-Mitsubishi AEGIS AMM VLS (5) Missile Size: 1 Rate of Fire 10
Raytheon-Mitsubishi EGIS AMM MFC R5Mkm (1) Range 57.4m km Resolution 1
Raytheon-Mitsubishi SM1BK1 AMM R5Mkm (325) Speed: 52,400 km/s End: 1.6m Range: 5.1m km WH: 1 Size: 1.0000 TH: 506/303/151
Mohammad Electronic Systems AEGIS ASS(L) (1) GPS 84000 Range 236.5m km Resolution 300
Mohammad Electronic Systems AEGIS MDS (1) GPS 3 Range 3.5m km MCR 317.9k km Resolution 1
Mohammad Electronic Systems AEGIS ASS(S) (1) GPS 14000 Range 115.9m km Resolution 100
Tortorici-Cugini TS W250 HS5 (1) Sensitivity 90 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 75m km
You're going to have some problems here:
- Only five AMM launchers will not be very useful against a large wave of enemy missiles.
- 5m km range is excessive for AMMs. It can make sense for dual-purpose missiles but I don't think that's the use case here.
- Even if 5m km range makes sense, you won't get it because your RES-1 active sensor has only 318k km range. Active sensors need to match or exceed fire control ranges.
- The problem with such long range is you need an excessively large MFC (and active sensor, unless using scouts to extend your sensor envelope) which is a waste of tonnage. Use shorter AMM range and more launchers instead.
- Perhaps because of the long range, the actual missile is very slow. At the approximate tech levels you have, AMM speed should easily exceed 70,000 km/s and a good AMM design can probably break 80k. I can get a 5m km range AMM with a speed in this range at your approximate tech level very easily, so the actual design has some flaw as well. Make sure you have a very high engine power multiplier tech level (3.0x max should be easy at this tech level) as it is critical for good missile designs.
My fleet is all equipped with Gauss cannons as PD weapons to allow for the squadrons to cover each other if they ever get jumped bu fighters or missiles.
This is an excellent practice.
London class Missile Frigate
Raytheon-Mitsubishi VLS S6-ULR (10) Missile Size: 6.00 Rate of Fire 2450
Raytheon-Mitsubishi AEGIS SM MFC R300Mkm (2) Range 293.7m km Resolution 300
Raytheon-Mitsubishi SM2 BK1 ASM S6 R100M (100) Speed: 30,367 km/s End: 54.9m Range: 100m km WH: 9 Size: 5.9934 TH: 253/151/75
I would prefer to see a lot more launchers per ship, especially since you seem to be using reduced-size launchers. Size-6 launchers at 30% size take up 90 tons each, so you can easily put 20 of them (1,800 tons) on a 10k ton warship, which will give you the salvo sizes to compete against large enemy fleets without being as cheesy as box launcher spam. The key to beating point defense is volley size, not how many missiles you bring to the fight but rather how many missiles you can land on the target in one increment is what matters.
The MFC range is excessive by a lot, which means it is 9x larger than necessary and should probably be reduced in size so you can fit more missiles instead.
The actual missiles again are too slow, 40,000 km/s is easily exceeded at this tech level. As before I suspect design flaws are the culprit, not range. For ASMs, keep in mind that pure %chance to hit is not the only design criteria, a faster missile will be better against the enemy point defense even if the hit chance per missile is not quite as high.
Falchion FLTII class Frigate
7000 km/s
Contrary to prevailing opinion, I think the speed is fine. A missile-first fleet should have beam ships to escort the missile ships and supplement in situations where missiles are not ideal - especially when trying to force a jump point, heavy beam firepower is essential to secure a foothold as missile do not hit as hard as beams per ton/HS. As such, speed is not so critical given the class's role in a fleet - but if you were playing a fleet based around beam weapons then indeed more speed would be preferable.
Armour 4-41 Shields 37-426
Delange Defence Industries Naval Grade Shield(D) SS37 R26 W650 (1) Recharge Time 426 seconds (0.1 per second)
I would recommend to use the largest shield generator size you can. Shield size scales with strength as Size^(3/2) so larger generators are much more efficient. As it is, this shield is borderline as it provides just under one armor layer's worth of protection.
I will say that the armor is rather thin for a ship of this tech level, you should be able to have at least 6-8 layers without much trouble. For the missile ships it is not so important, missile combat is usually about not being hit at all in the first place, but a beam ship
will get shot at so it needs the protection. Alternatively, use more shields.
Kratos Defense 25.00cm SFUV Naval Laser (1) Range 320,000km TS: 7,000 km/s Power 16-2 RM 50,000 km ROF 40
Kratos Defense 20cm FUV Naval Laser (3) Range 320,000km TS: 7,000 km/s Power 10-2 RM 50,000 km ROF 25
Needs more guns.
Any feedback is super appreciated as I said I am pretty new to the game and haven't encountered some of the terrifying enemies some of these other people have. I am planning on building a light carrier (30kt) to replace the Revetment with my FFGs but I am struggling hard with the Hangar capacity (5k vs 10k) so tips there are also appreciated.
Design the fighter wing first, then figure out what kind of carrier you need to deploy it. Note that while 500-ton fighters are the most efficient per-ton, in most cases 250 or 300-ton fighters or similar are equally as useful and can have certain advantages, particularly in forcing the enemy to split fire with limited fire controls (smaller fighters = more targets per X tons). For the carrier design, don't get too married to round numbers for the hangar space - design the strike squadron and then a carrier to carry one, two, or more of those squadrons (plus magazines for reloading, extra fuel, and so on). You might also consider having a small complement of fighter-sized scouts as these are often very effective units.
Usually for carriers you can sacrifice the defenses somewhat since they should not get within range of the enemy weapons, which can help you find space for other essentials.
I think the general wisdom is 50% hull space as engines, but I could be mistaken there.
Usually anywhere in the range of 30% to 40% engine mass fraction is acceptable (this is roughly the range the NPRs use), or a bit lower if you want to use EP multipliers and drink a lot more fuel. ;-) Some players who only care about min/max will use 50% engine fractions with a high boost multiplier, 20 layers of armor, and then whatever weapon they think is most powerful to build functionally invincible ships that can outrun any NPR ship, tank any amount of damage, and defeat NPR fleets without losses. Personally, I find this to be terribly boring as it lacks roleplay interest and to be frank the NPRs are so uncompetitive (unless they have a massive tech advantage) that exploiting them is wholly unnecessary.
Also as mentioned earlier I was designing a CVL, so I figured I would throw it in here for feedback.
Additionally I feel my magazine space might be a little low, the fighter bombers only have 4 reloads a piece but I also don't know if they are even worth using in the first place so I would be interested to hear your thoughts.
Usually 4 reloads for fighters is fine, if you need more you should be replenishing from auxiliary ships between battles.
Breacher class Assault Shuttle 250 tons
Troop Capacity 100 tons
It is too small, unless you have maxed-out boarding troops then only 100 tons is not enough to survive the battle.
The Conqueror is a armored fighter I would intend to send in to try and distract enemy PD away from my missiles / fighter bombers while also harassing damaged or fleeing ships.
It is an interesting concept, but I don't think it would be very useful in that role. However, railgun fighters are quite strong on their own as Steve has shown in his BSG campaign, so the design is probably fine in practice - it just might not work the way you think it will. Do note that railgun fighters need to be deployed
en masse to be effective.
Demolisher class Fighter-bomber
BAE Systems Missile Rack S6 (4) Missile Size: 6.00 Hangar Reload 122 minutes MF Reload 20 hours
BAE Harpoon FMFC R80Mkm (1) Range 84.3m km Resolution 100
BAE Harpoon ASM R30Mkm (4) Speed: 40,567 km/s End: 12.3m Range: 30m km WH: 9 Size: 6.0000 TH: 338/202/101
Missiles are too slow, and you should be able to fit more than four launchers on a 500-ton fighter. I usually use size-4 missiles on my fighter-bombers, and I put 4x launchers on a 250-ton frame, so you should be able to put 5 or 6 size-6 box launchers on this. Remember, the key to missile warfare is overwhelming volley fire - as many birds in the air at once as possible.
Also as before check that your missile, MFC, and sensor ranges all match up (currently they do not).
Hope some of this is helpful and/or informative to yourself and others.