PD Fighter Analysis

[Iceranger]

Railgun Fighters do well against those, give 'em 10cm Railguns with Capacitor 3, Railgun Launch Velocity 20,000 km or better and pair them with an FCS that has at least 20,000 km range... and that is the bare minimum.

30,000 km Launch Velocity and 60,000 km FCS Max Range is much more comfortable, while 20,000 km Launch Velocity and 40,000 km FCS Max Range is cost-effective. Make sure that the FCS tracking speed is matched to the fighter's own top speed if that speed exceeds your base FCS Tracking Speed, i.e. the Tracking Speed that your Beam FCS has before changing the Tracking Speed in the Component Design window.

Also, make sure all of your PD Fighters have at least a small Res 1 Active Sensor. An additional fighter dedicated to sensors is very helpful, but it is wise to ensure that it's destruction does not result in a mission kill for the entire escort formation. Of note, you could also create a bomber with AMM "Canisters" by adding some extra Box Launchers dedicated to holding a missile stage comprised of nothing but AMMs set to deploy immediately upon launch. A 20 Ton Res 1 Active Sensor and a 5 Ton Res 1 Missile FCS make a good pairing for each bomber, so when you detect the missiles, you can launch the AMMs.

Consider using 2-3 layers of armor, depending on your tech; it makes them that much harder to shoot down. A Small Craft ECM 1 module is nice to have as well, gives you a 10% evasion against missiles that lack ECCM, which is a common trait of typical AMMs as they tend to work best as cheap, high speed, high agility spam missiles.

ECM 1 might not be so valuable against AMMs for fighters. If the accuracy of the missile is high enough, the ECM can be negated. For example, if your fighter is 20kkm/s, against a AMM that has 100% chance to hit a 22kkm/s target. Then this missile will have 110% hit rate against this fighter, or 100% when it has ECM1.

Also, due to the shock damage change, even AMMs now have a chance to induce shock damage on fighters. So armor on fighters is much less valuable than before.

[Droll]

Railgun Fighters do well against those, give 'em 10cm Railguns with Capacitor 3, Railgun Launch Velocity 20,000 km or better and pair them with an FCS that has at least 20,000 km range... and that is the bare minimum.

30,000 km Launch Velocity and 60,000 km FCS Max Range is much more comfortable, while 20,000 km Launch Velocity and 40,000 km FCS Max Range is cost-effective. Make sure that the FCS tracking speed is matched to the fighter's own top speed if that speed exceeds your base FCS Tracking Speed, i.e. the Tracking Speed that your Beam FCS has before changing the Tracking Speed in the Component Design window.

Also, make sure all of your PD Fighters have at least a small Res 1 Active Sensor. An additional fighter dedicated to sensors is very helpful, but it is wise to ensure that it's destruction does not result in a mission kill for the entire escort formation. Of note, you could also create a bomber with AMM "Canisters" by adding some extra Box Launchers dedicated to holding a missile stage comprised of nothing but AMMs set to deploy immediately upon launch. A 20 Ton Res 1 Active Sensor and a 5 Ton Res 1 Missile FCS make a good pairing for each bomber, so when you detect the missiles, you can launch the AMMs.

Consider using 2-3 layers of armor, depending on your tech; it makes them that much harder to shoot down. A Small Craft ECM 1 module is nice to have as well, gives you a 10% evasion against missiles that lack ECCM, which is a common trait of typical AMMs as they tend to work best as cheap, high speed, high agility spam missiles.

ECM 1 might not be so valuable against AMMs for fighters. If the accuracy of the missile is high enough, the ECM can be negated. For example, if your fighter is 20kkm/s, against a AMM that has 100% chance to hit a 22kkm/s target. Then this missile will have 110% hit rate against this fighter, or 100% when it has ECM1.

Also, due to the shock damage change, even AMMs now have a chance to induce shock damage on fighters. So armor on fighters is much less valuable than before.

What is shock damage?

[xenoscepter]

Iceranger:

ECM 1 might not be so valuable against AMMs for fighters. If the accuracy of the missile is high enough, the ECM can be negated. For example, if your fighter is 20kkm/s, against a AMM that has 100% chance to hit a 22kkm/s target. Then this missile will have 110% hit rate against this fighter, or 100% when it has ECM1.

Also, due to the shock damage change, even AMMs now have a chance to induce shock damage on fighters. So armor on fighters is much less valuable than before.

Example AMM:

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Missile Size: 1.00 MSP  (2.500 Tons)     Warhead: 1    Radiation Damage: 1    Manoeuvre Rating: 40
Speed: 52,800 km/s     Fuel: 50     Flight Time: 14.5 seconds     Range: 765,600 km
Cost Per Missile: 2.167     Development Cost: 217
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 2112.0%   3k km/s 704.0%   5k km/s 422.4%   10k km/s 211.2%

Materials Required
Tritanium  0.255
Gallicite  1.912
Fuel:  50
Railgun Figher

Code: [Select]

New Class class Escort      500 tons       27 Crew       189.1 BP       TCS 10    TH 204    EM 0
20439 km/s      Armour 1-5       Shields 0-0       HTK 4      Sensors 0/0/0/0      DCR 0      PPV 3
Maint Life 8.46 Years     MSP 127    AFR 10%    IFR 0.1%    1YR 3    5YR 47    Max Repair 102.00 MSP
Lieutenant Commander    Control Rating 1   
Intended Deployment Time: 0.1 days    Morale Check Required   

Internal Fusion Drive  EP204.00 (1)    Power 204.0    Fuel Use 1336.70%    Signature 204.00    Explosion 30%
Fuel Capacity 9,000 Litres    Range 0.2 billion km (3 hours at full power)

10cm Railgun V20/C3 (1x4)    Range 20,000km     TS: 20,439 km/s     Power 3-3     RM 20,000 km    ROF 5        1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Beam Fire Control R40-TS20000 (1)     Max Range: 40,000 km   TS: 20,000 km/s     25 17 8 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Tokamak Fusion Reactor R3 (1)     Total Power Output 3    Exp 5%

Active Search Sensor AS1-R1 (1)     GPS 2     Range 1.8m km    MCR 160.6k km    Resolution 1

ECM 10

This design is classed as a Fighter for production, combat and planetary interaction
Armored Escort

Code: [Select]

New Class - Copy class Escort      500 tons       24 Crew       177.7 BP       TCS 10    TH 204    EM 0
20438 km/s      Armour 2-5       Shields 0-0       HTK 3      Sensors 0/0/0/0      DCR 0      PPV 3
Maint Life 1.64 Years     MSP 80    AFR 100%    IFR 1.4%    1YR 35    5YR 526    Max Repair 102.00 MSP
Lieutenant Commander    Control Rating 1   
Intended Deployment Time: 0.1 days    Morale Check Required   

Internal Fusion Drive  EP204.00 (1)    Power 204.0    Fuel Use 1336.70%    Signature 204.00    Explosion 30%
Fuel Capacity 9,000 Litres    Range 0.2 billion km (3 hours at full power)

10cm Railgun V20/C3 (1x4)    Range 20,000km     TS: 20,438 km/s     Power 3-3     RM 20,000 km    ROF 5        1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Beam Fire Control R40-TS20000 (1)     Max Range: 40,000 km   TS: 20,000 km/s     25 17 8 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Tokamak Fusion Reactor R3 (1)     Total Power Output 3    Exp 5%

Active Search Sensor AS1-R1 (1)     GPS 2     Range 1.8m km    MCR 160.6k km    Resolution 1

This design is classed as a Fighter for production, combat and planetary interaction
Fast Escort:

Code: [Select]

New Class - Copy class Escort      500 tons       26 Crew       197.6 BP       TCS 10    TH 222    EM 0
22243 km/s      Armour 1-5       Shields 0-0       HTK 3      Sensors 0/0/0/0      DCR 0      PPV 3
Maint Life 1.53 Years     MSP 80    AFR 100%    IFR 1.4%    1YR 39    5YR 583    Max Repair 111.00 MSP
Lieutenant Commander    Control Rating 1   
Intended Deployment Time: 0.1 days    Morale Check Required   

Internal Fusion Drive  EP222.00 (1)    Power 222.0    Fuel Use 1281.36%    Signature 222.00    Explosion 30%
Fuel Capacity 10,000 Litres    Range 0.3 billion km (3 hours at full power)

10cm Railgun V20/C3 (1x4)    Range 20,000km     TS: 22,243 km/s     Power 3-3     RM 20,000 km    ROF 5        1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Beam Fire Control R40-TS21875 (1)     Max Range: 40,000 km   TS: 21,875 km/s     27 18 9 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Tokamak Fusion Reactor R3 (1)     Total Power Output 3    Exp 5%

Active Search Sensor AS1-R1 (1)     GPS 2     Range 1.8m km    MCR 160.6k km    Resolution 1

ECM 10

This design is classed as a Fighter for production, combat and planetary interaction
 - I'm not entirely convinced that the ECM 1 is less valuable after building the above examples, but that's not the point of this reply. I feel the point about shock damage is misleading, and so in the spirit of the thread I'll chime in. The value of armor isn't against shock damage, it's against sandblasting. The Escort invests 25 Tons for it's ECM 1,and while the Example AMM could and would spam it to oblivion and then some, BasileusMaximos is doing something very wrong to get within 766,000 km of the enemy in a bomber to start with. The Armored Escort on the other hand, even at Composite Armor Tech, invests a mere 35 tons t literally double the amount of armor that the Example AMM must grind through. The Fast Escort is simply faster than 20,000 km/s so the ECM 1 is still valuable even against the Example AMM.

 - Armor is probably a lot less valuable than it was in VB6, but I feel like you might be devaluing it a bit overtly. Shock Damage is inherently RNG, while sandblasting the armor is not. 35 Tons for double the endurance is a tremendous return on investment, and cheaper than shields to boot. ECM 1 is a nice to have, but ECM 2 or 3 would certainly be much better. I think a lot of it comes down to design, but this thread is called "PD Fighter Analysis" so I felt compelled to chime in... even if I'm splitting hairs. I did learn something though! I learned that AMMs scale way harder than I previously thought. >.>; @BasileusMaximos - I would encourage you to make a new thread about this, so we could better help you. The range of your bombers, ASMs, the range of the enemy AMMs, their tech level, your tech level... these things matter a lot. We'd need that to give you a good solution.

[xenoscepter]

Shock Damage is damage that goes through the armor. That is to say Shock Damage is applied directly the internal structure, i.e. Crew Quarters, Engines, Weapons Systems, Fuel Tanks, and so on. HtK, which stands for, "Hit to Kill" is a measure of your ship's overall toughness, it's basically your Hit Points. I don't know if HtK takes armor into account or not.

[hubgbf]

Shock damage is additionnal damage whose probability depends on the damage and the total HS.

cf : http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg111676#msg111676

[xenoscepter]

http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg111676#msg111676

Well then, a warhead of 1 versus a 500 Ton (10HS) hull would have a 10% chance of doing shock damage. That would mean 1 in 10 AMMs would go through, so the Armored Escort could take the 9 hits and maybe see 1 Shock Damage, 2 at most before the armor gave out given how Aurora calculates RNG. So that armor is even more effective than I thought! The shock damage would be up to 2 points though if it did hit, but honestly that's not a big deal overall as by the time such an AMM managed to inflict shock damage the armor is almost gone anyway... so whats the extra point of damage really worth at that rate?

[Iceranger]

Iceranger:

ECM 1 might not be so valuable against AMMs for fighters. If the accuracy of the missile is high enough, the ECM can be negated. For example, if your fighter is 20kkm/s, against a AMM that has 100% chance to hit a 22kkm/s target. Then this missile will have 110% hit rate against this fighter, or 100% when it has ECM1.

Also, due to the shock damage change, even AMMs now have a chance to induce shock damage on fighters. So armor on fighters is much less valuable than before.

 - I'm not entirely convinced that the ECM 1 is less valuable after building the above examples, but that's not the point of this reply. I feel the point about shock damage is misleading, and so in the spirit of the thread I'll chime in. The value of armor isn't against shock damage, it's against sandblasting. The Escort invests 25 Tons for it's ECM 1,and while the Example AMM could and would spam it to oblivion and then some, BasileusMaximos is doing something very wrong to get within 766,000 km of the enemy in a bomber to start with. The Armored Escort on the other hand, even at Composite Armor Tech, invests a mere 35 tons t literally double the amount of armor that the Example AMM must grind through. The Fast Escort is simply faster than 20,000 km/s so the ECM 1 is still valuable even against the Example AMM.

 - Armor is probably a lot less valuable than it was in VB6, but I feel like you might be devaluing it a bit overtly. Shock Damage is inherently RNG, while sandblasting the armor is not. 35 Tons for double the endurance is a tremendous return on investment, and cheaper than shields to boot. ECM 1 is a nice to have, but ECM 2 or 3 would certainly be much better. I think a lot of it comes down to design, but this thread is called "PD Fighter Analysis" so I felt compelled to chime in... even if I'm splitting hairs. I did learn something though! I learned that AMMs scale way harder than I previously thought. >.>; @BasileusMaximos - I would encourage you to make a new thread about this, so we could better help you. The range of your bombers, ASMs, the range of the enemy AMMs, their tech level, your tech level... these things matter a lot. We'd need that to give you a good solution.

The point of armor is never to protect against shock damage, it is never the way how armor works anyway. In VB6 armored fighters allow you to defend against sandblasting without worrying about the probability of shock damage. That's why I say armor now is less valuable than before (in VB6). Not sure how that is over devaluing it.