Author Topic: What's going on in your empire/planet/battlefield?  (Read 263531 times)

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Offline Cavgunner

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Re: What's going on in your empire/planet/battlefield?
« Reply #1995 on: April 27, 2019, 12:33:29 PM »
In my current game, the Terran Republic has discovered nearly 100 systems but has yet to find any NPRs (including the 3 that the game started with, in a 500 star game).  As a consequence, I have been able to claim several high-quality worlds unopposed aside from the occasional Swarm or Precursor presence.  However, since I started with 500 million population, there still aren't enough people to go around even 30 years later.  Total industrial and mining output remains less than I'd like for the same reason.  Since the Republic is unable to support a massive fleet, I've focused on building a smaller number of very powerful ships.  The total size of the Navy is small, but individually my ships tend to be larger, tougher, and more heavily armed, class for class, than those in most other people's games.  Quality over quantity. 

Right now the biggest concerns are:

1) Defending the far-flung colonies from potential threats.  Some of the colonies are up to 7 jumps from Earth and have no local defense whatsoever aside from the planetary garrison brigade.
2) Improving industrial capacity while also avoiding a resource crunch.
3) Ensuring that known jump points are properly mapped with buoys so that if there is an NPR wandering around, it will be identified.

The Terran Republic's forum is here:  http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?board=256.0
 

Offline Viridia

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Re: What's going on in your empire/planet/battlefield?
« Reply #1996 on: April 28, 2019, 06:21:14 AM »
The aftermath of the Second Battle of FL Virginis, 2099, won at a heavy cost following the First Battle of FL Virginis in 2090. The wrecks depicted near the JP are from the first engagement and are designated for priority reclamation. A destroyer group will be rerouted with marine combat forces to try and board or destroy the enemy space stations located in the inner system.
 
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Offline Michael Sandy

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Re: What's going on in your empire/planet/battlefield?
« Reply #1997 on: April 29, 2019, 10:52:55 PM »
Cavgunner, my colony defense philosophy is a hierarchy:

1)  Scout first.  All systems have some kind of sensors on every jump point, either a picket ship, sensor platform, or sensor buoys.

2)  All inhabited colonies have a small PDC carrier to base scouts on.  These can probe contacts, shadow an enemy, and even if the colony is destroyed, hopefully they can shadow the invaders back to where they came from to localize their jump entry.

3)  Any colony with a significant population and industry should at least have some protection from a random missile attack.  This can be from planetary AMM PDCs, which can be quite efficient as you can get 5 second reloads easily, and you can use colony missile stocks, so you don't need to spend on magazines.  Another option is railgun orbitals.  Basically you stick a whole bunch of base tech railguns in orbit, they cost 1 BP each, and use your race's base tracking.  You can even under power them for extra cost savings.  Because all their systems are so cheap, most of the time, a maintenance failure is going to be cheap to fix, so you can have a very long endurance on them for little cost.  They provide enormous PPV for their cost, can deal with box launcher volleys quite well, and soak an enormous amount of damage for their cost.

So any colony worth protecting can have a bunch of 10,000 ton orbitals that cost about 300 BP each.  It is all about cheaply mitigating the damage an attack can do.  You won't be able to protect the shipping, especially the dumbass civilians, no matter what you do.  But early detection allows for a quicker response.  And missile defenses means that the colony itself will generally not take much damage because the enemy is likely to shoot all its missiles on approach.
 
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Offline Garfunkel

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Re: What's going on in your empire/planet/battlefield?
« Reply #1998 on: April 30, 2019, 12:07:02 PM »
I faintly recall someone posting their railgun-OWP in the Bureau at some point but would you mind posting yours as well? I quite like OWPs but the maintenance hassle always makes me wary to use them extensively.
 

Offline Michael Sandy

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Re: What's going on in your empire/planet/battlefield?
« Reply #1999 on: April 30, 2019, 02:37:04 PM »
The orbital monitor in #ship-repository was my design, pretty sure.

    Victory class Orbital Defence Monitor    10 650 tons     101 Crew     335.2 BP      TCS 213  TH 0  EM 0
    1 km/s     Armour 1-43     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 4     PPV 180
    Maint Life 20.52 Years     MSP 1079    AFR 226%    IFR 3.2%    1YR 5    5YR 73    Max Repair 19 MSP
    Intended Deployment Time: 0.1 months    Spare Berths 6   

    Fuel Capacity 50 000 Litres    Range N/A

    brrrt 10cm Railgun V1/C1 (60x4)    Range 10 000km     TS: 5000 km/s     Power 3-1     RM 1    ROF 15        1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
    Flak Control Fire Control S00.5 32-4000 (3)    Max Range: 64 000 km   TS: 4000 km/s     84 69 53 37 22 6 0 0 0 0
    Bulk Power Pressurised Water Reactor PB-1 (15)     Total Power Output 30    Armour 0    Exp 5%

    This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes


20 years maintenance should be enough for most purposes.  You can always self-destruct and salvage it and reuse most of the components.
« Last Edit: April 30, 2019, 02:39:57 PM by Michael Sandy »
 
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Offline Michael Sandy

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Re: What's going on in your empire/planet/battlefield?
« Reply #2000 on: April 30, 2019, 02:42:13 PM »
The choice of reactor is actually deliberate.  It is all about components as armor.  So primitive reactors that each generate 1 power and have 1 HtK are ideal, as size is no great concern.
 

Offline Jorgen_CAB

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Re: What's going on in your empire/planet/battlefield?
« Reply #2001 on: May 02, 2019, 05:12:25 PM »
Here is a small drone that I like to put at colonies... often together with rail gun defences as well. Railguns are good for shooting down very large volleys but these drones shoot down anything and can be deployed from PDC directly.

Code: [Select]
Phalanx class Point Defence Drone    487 tons     3 Crew     122.4 BP      TCS 9.74  TH 0  EM 0
1 km/s     Armour 1-5     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 0     PPV 8.2
Maint Life 0 Years     MSP 0    AFR 97%    IFR 1.4%    1YR 50    5YR 749    Max Repair 60 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 0.1 months    Spare Berths 1   


Single Gauss Cannon R3-85 Turret (1x4)    Range 30 000km     TS: 40000 km/s     Power 0-0     RM 3    ROF 5        1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Fire Control S01 40-10000 (FTR) (1)    Max Range: 80 000 km   TS: 40000 km/s     88 75 62 50 38 25 12 0 0 0

I also like these on my ships as missile defences...

Code: [Select]
Shield class Point Defence Drone    487 tons     3 Crew     115.4 BP      TCS 9.74  TH 40  EM 0
4106 km/s     Armour 1-5     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 0     PPV 7.4
Maint Life 0 Years     MSP 0    AFR 97%    IFR 1.4%    1YR 33    5YR 488    Max Repair 45 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 0.1 months    Spare Berths 1   

40 EP Magneto-plasma Drive (1)    Power 40    Fuel Use 489.16%    Signature 40    Exp 25%
Fuel Capacity 5 000 Litres    Range 0.4 billion km   (25 hours at full power)

Single Gauss Cannon R3-85 Turret (1x4)    Range 30 000km     TS: 30000 km/s     Power 0-0     RM 3    ROF 5        1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Fire Control S00.7 40-7500 (FTR) (1)    Max Range: 80 000 km   TS: 30000 km/s     88 75 62 50 38 25 12 0 0 0

Note that the Phalanx class have twice the tracking speed of any regular ship mounted Gauss weapon and the shield variant have 50% more tracking speed. This is due to them using fighter fire-controls.

They are more expensive than cheap rail-guns but will knock down small volleys fired en mass that the big stations will not do. They also serve well as training platforms of new pilots and the fighter pilot bonus for beam weapons make them dead accurate. You could even make the Gauss gun even smaller and with a twin gun instead because they are so accurate they usually will get over 100% to hit rate and that is good when the base chance is relatively low.

Above tech is made with 5000km/s base tracking speed.
 

Offline Michael Sandy

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Re: What's going on in your empire/planet/battlefield?
« Reply #2002 on: May 02, 2019, 06:27:50 PM »
I think that having both railgun stations and gauss can be pretty effective.  The gauss are good against rapid fire missiles, like AMMs.  Plus, being fighter sized, they are more easily packed up and used offensively.  On a build point basis, the railgun station is going to be better than the gauss+PDC carrier.

Lets see, the Victory is 60x4 at 5,000 km/s every 30 seconds.  So it could take out 30 missiles that were going 40,000 km/s, but only every 30 seconds.  Most long range missile fire is going to be spaced out a bit.

The Phalanx is 4 shots at 40,000 every 5 seconds.  At about 1/3 the nominal cost, probably more like 1/2 once the carrier PDC is factored in.

The Phalanx can far better handle small volleys and rapid fire.

The fighter bonus officers help the Phalanx a lot, but the very long expected careers of the Orbital Station Victory means that given a decent training commander they will have significant bonus from crew grade.

The Phalanxes would be a lot easier to ramp up.  You are pretty much committing a large shipyard to building and upgrading the Orbital Stations.  And retooling is expensive and time consuming for large shipyards.
 

Offline Cavgunner

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Re: What's going on in your empire/planet/battlefield?
« Reply #2003 on: May 02, 2019, 06:40:08 PM »
The orbital monitor in #ship-repository was my design, pretty sure.

    Victory class Orbital Defence Monitor    10 650 tons     101 Crew     335.2 BP      TCS 213  TH 0  EM 0
    1 km/s     Armour 1-43     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 4     PPV 180
    Maint Life 20.52 Years     MSP 1079    AFR 226%    IFR 3.2%    1YR 5    5YR 73    Max Repair 19 MSP
    Intended Deployment Time: 0.1 months    Spare Berths 6   

    Fuel Capacity 50 000 Litres    Range N/A

    brrrt 10cm Railgun V1/C1 (60x4)    Range 10 000km     TS: 5000 km/s     Power 3-1     RM 1    ROF 15        1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
    Flak Control Fire Control S00.5 32-4000 (3)    Max Range: 64 000 km   TS: 4000 km/s     84 69 53 37 22 6 0 0 0 0
    Bulk Power Pressurised Water Reactor PB-1 (15)     Total Power Output 30    Armour 0    Exp 5%

    This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes


20 years maintenance should be enough for most purposes.  You can always self-destruct and salvage it and reuse most of the components.


Forgive me for asking, but doesn't the 1km/sec base speed override the non-turreted tracking speed of any direct fire weapon this vessel has?
 

Offline Father Tim

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Re: What's going on in your empire/planet/battlefield?
« Reply #2004 on: May 02, 2019, 07:35:58 PM »
Forgive me for asking, but doesn't the 1km/sec base speed override the non-turreted tracking speed of any direct fire weapon this vessel has?

It shouldn't.  The rule is the higher of unit speed or empire base beam FC speed.
 

Offline Cavgunner

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Re: What's going on in your empire/planet/battlefield?
« Reply #2005 on: May 02, 2019, 08:11:58 PM »
Ah, I see.  The key term being "base beam FC speed."
 

Offline Jorgen_CAB

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Re: What's going on in your empire/planet/battlefield?
« Reply #2006 on: May 03, 2019, 01:10:54 PM »
I think that having both railgun stations and gauss can be pretty effective.  The gauss are good against rapid fire missiles, like AMMs.  Plus, being fighter sized, they are more easily packed up and used offensively.  On a build point basis, the railgun station is going to be better than the gauss+PDC carrier.

Lets see, the Victory is 60x4 at 5,000 km/s every 30 seconds.  So it could take out 30 missiles that were going 40,000 km/s, but only every 30 seconds.  Most long range missile fire is going to be spaced out a bit.

The Phalanx is 4 shots at 40,000 every 5 seconds.  At about 1/3 the nominal cost, probably more like 1/2 once the carrier PDC is factored in.

The Phalanx can far better handle small volleys and rapid fire.

The fighter bonus officers help the Phalanx a lot, but the very long expected careers of the Orbital Station Victory means that given a decent training commander they will have significant bonus from crew grade.

The Phalanxes would be a lot easier to ramp up.  You are pretty much committing a large shipyard to building and upgrading the Orbital Stations.  And retooling is expensive and time consuming for large shipyards.

They are meant to do different things... if you are attacked by enemy fighters/FAC then those large stations will just be overkill and not have enough fire-controls. The fire controls is the expensive part of those stations not the guns. That is why a mix can be quite important for most general defence. The other benefit is that the smaller drones are easy to move where they are needed and can be used to protect ships as well as anything else.

You also can make those Gauss turrets even smaller and still reach about 100% hit chance through crew grade and pilot bonuses, it is possible to have up to a twin turret in them and basically almost double the total effective volume of fire per fire-control.

Hangar PDC also is relatively cheap... especially when you consider no maintenance and you never have to upgrade them or replace them once built. You also pay zero maintenance for the thing inside the bays so this should also be factored in.

Here is a more streamlined Railgun platform that I like... the one with too many guns I think are too easy to saturate with small volleys from fighters...

Code: [Select]
Defiant class Orbital Defence Monitor    1 000 tons     10 Crew     63.4 BP      TCS 20  TH 0  EM 0
1 km/s     Armour 1-8     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 0     PPV 18
Maint Life 0 Years     MSP 0    AFR 200%    IFR 2.8%    1YR 6    5YR 94    Max Repair 30 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 0.1 months    Spare Berths 0   


10cm Railgun V1/C1 (6x4)    Range 10 000km     TS: 5000 km/s     Power 3-1     RM 1    ROF 15        1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Fire Control S00.5 40-5000 (1)    Max Range: 80 000 km   TS: 5000 km/s     88 75 62 50 38 25 12 0 0 0
Magnetic Confinement Fusion Reactor Technology PB-1.2 (1)     Total Power Output 6    Armour 0    Exp 16%

Another problem with PD that fire less than 5s is that any fire can be staggered to take advantage of it. Say you have 30 missiles in a box launched FAC you can fire 10 missiles in three volleys in three 5 second intervals to saturate fire controls that only fire every 15 seconds. This is why weapons that fire slower than once every 5s turns are not optimal. A few squadron of fighter that each carry three size 6 missiles could stagger them in one missile per volley in three five second turns to deal with the fire-controls and slow reload rate of the rail-gun. You can't do the same with fire controls as it take at least 5s before a weapon react once assigned to a control, as far as I remember.

This is one of the reason I'm not too happy with how the mechanics work and cheap rail-guns simply are too effective and cheap for what they can do if you don't game the mechanics. In general I don't allow the two lowest forms if rail-gun for PD in my games for that specific reason unless it is very early game and that is all you have.
« Last Edit: May 03, 2019, 02:17:57 PM by Jorgen_CAB »
 

Offline Jorgen_CAB

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Re: What's going on in your empire/planet/battlefield?
« Reply #2007 on: May 03, 2019, 01:18:47 PM »
Forgive me for asking, but doesn't the 1km/sec base speed override the non-turreted tracking speed of any direct fire weapon this vessel has?

In this case the fire control set the speed at which you can engage a missile so 4000km/s is what you get, not 5000km/s. The fire control still have to be able to deal with the speed at which the weapon can engage. The base speed only means a ship at lower than 5000km/s will be able to track at up to 5000km/s if the fire control can do that.
« Last Edit: May 03, 2019, 01:51:20 PM by Jorgen_CAB »
 

Offline Marski

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Re: What's going on in your empire/planet/battlefield?
« Reply #2008 on: May 04, 2019, 12:41:43 PM »
Busy times
 
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Offline Cavgunner

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Re: What's going on in your empire/planet/battlefield?
« Reply #2009 on: May 04, 2019, 02:31:52 PM »
Busy times


Busy?  Yes.  That would be one word.  Geez.  Good luck!