How do I build a PDC?

[TallTroll (OP)]

I've been playing Aurora for a few days (very nice, btw, I like it  ), and I'm trying to get my first really serious game going.  Loosely, the plan is to build a small exploration fleet (combined Geo / Grav Survey Ship, Jump Tender, Tanker) with no guns, no sensors, and hope like hell I don't jump straight into someones homeworld, a small defense fleet for Sol (one FAC Tender with a 6 ship flotilla.  FACs have small Mesons, Tender will be a comparative monster with some missile capacity, a couple of small Gauss turrets and a CIWS, a decent search sensor, and a decent PD sensor) and a PDC backing it up.

Except I've never built a PDC before, and I don't have a good feel for what one should look like.  I'm going to build a couple of fairly big, heavy twin Meson turrets for PD (and reuse the FC from the FAC), and probably some missiles, at least AMMs.  What kind of sensor setup do I need though? I have a 10 HS thermal in research, but I'm not sure it's going to be big enough for this (it's slated for a class of scouts to watch the JPs, when I find them).

I guess I'll need a big active sensor too, but how big is big? The game will let you design humungous ones if you want, but I'd like to build this thing inside the first decade.  I'm thinking a res of 80, to pick up 4000+ tons vessels.  Anything smaller than that, I'm not too worried about, since it's unlikely to be armed.  A size 20 sensor, would apparently give me 171m km range against 4000 ton targets, but I'm wondering if that's enough.  It's a long way to walk, but missiles are fast. . .

I will at some point slap a couple of lasers on there too, although I seem to recall seeing something about lasers losing effectiveness in atmosphere.  Should I rethink that one too, perhaps?

Also, what does a PDC barracks actually do? Do I need one? More?

It'll be a couple of game years before I'm in a position to build this thing anyway, but it'd be useful to know what bits to build for it, as I think that should shorten the final build time

[Erik L]

All beam weapons outside of mesons lose effectiveness in atmosphere. Beam weapons are any non-missile.

PDC barracks are used to house troops. Troops get a bonus for being in a PDC come invasion time.

[Cocyte]

Another important thing : an active sensor designed for missile-sighting duty must have the smallest possible resolution (eg.   1).   
Also note that I think it is also applicable for missile fire controls - I could not shot at FAC with my first fighters equipped with resolution 100 FCs :s

Passive thermal or EM sensors are next to useless on PDCs - a single deep space tracking station in the same colony is far more efficient in this role.

[Theokrat]

Well obviously the active sensor should be large enough to engage enemy ships at the maximum range of your missiles, for the next 1-2 generation of missiles.

Anything beyond is mostly wasted, really - unless you can cover a jump point with a PDc sensor, in which case you would not need any active sensors of the FACs to be active when guarding said JP.

Oh and yeah, passive sensors are entirely useless for PDCs, as tracking stations are way more efficient.

[metalax]

I will at some point slap a couple of lasers on there too, although I seem to recall seeing something about lasers losing effectiveness in atmosphere.  Should I rethink that one too, perhaps?

Lasers, and other beam weapons other than mesons, loose effectivness if firing through an atmosphere. Once at an atmosphere thickness of 1(ie earths) they become entirely useless, although of course this works both ways as enemy ships can't shoot back at you with those weapons either.

Where Lasers can be of use on PDC's is after you have teched up to having a decent range, shipping the parts to a close in airless moon along with some engineers to assemble them.

[Thiosk]

Practically speaking, your active sensor range looks great.

Early game, passives tend to ultrasuck, so a good sized active sensor is the only way to really know whats going on for any useful range.  I tend to use size 20-25s throughout the game for standard command and control search ships.

[TallTroll (OP)]

OK, well I'll forget the passive sensor and lasers then.  Makes it easier to build anyway.  I haven't designed a single missile / launcher / etc yet, so I can cut them from whole cloth when I'm ready

>> you would not need any active sensors of the FACs to be active when guarding said JP.

The FAC sensors are a joke.  They're only there so they can go on a death ride to cover the withdrawal of the tender in the face of serious opposition.  The tender will need to paint the targets for them.  Essentially, I'm going to use Hydran tactics.  The FACs ride 30k out from the tender (range of the mesons) for max PD coverage, and the tender launches missiles to cover their approach.  With careful timing, the first missiles should reach PD range a little before the FACs, so the enemy PD unloads on missiles, then gets cooked by massed meson fire.

I even managed to sneak the FAC in at 900 tons, so all those res 20 sensors will have a slightly harder time seeing them, and the meson cycles at 5 secs, so they have some real bite.  Be interesting to see if any of this actually works 

>> Where Lasers can be of use on PDC's is after you have teched up to having a decent range, shipping the parts to a close in airless moon along with some engineers to assemble them.

"That's no moon. . "