a more scalable armada

[joeclark77 (OP)]

In my current game, my glorious battle fleets consist of one Falcon jump ship, two Excelsior-D laser destroyers, and two Reliant carriers.  I have four of these fleets.  Designs are below.  They seem to work well under certain conditions.  Using the fighters, they have the ability to make a massive first strike (a volley of 160x Sidewinder or Copperhead missiles, depending on the target).  They have good range for combat ships (because they have 0.75 power engines) and the lasers are powerful up close.  Because the jump ship can squadron jump the whole fleet, they can move and fight pretty elegantly.

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Excelsior-D class Destroyer    16,000 tons     446 Crew     3602.2 BP      TCS 320  TH 720  EM 0
4500 km/s     Armour 10-56     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 5     PPV 78.92
Maint Life 1.93 Years     MSP 704    AFR 409%    IFR 5.7%    1YR 246    5YR 3694    Max Repair 168 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 24 months    Spare Berths 1   

90 EP Internal Fusion Drive (16)    Power 90    Fuel Use 27.47%    Signature 45    Exp 7%
Fuel Capacity 800,000 Litres    Range 32.8 billion km   (84 days at full power)

20cm C5 FUV Laser Cannon (8)    Range 320,000km     TS: 6250 km/s     Power 10-5     RM 5    ROF 10        10 10 10 10 10 8 7 6 5 5
Quad R3/C3 Meson Cannon Turret (2x4)    Range 30,000km     TS: 16000 km/s     Power 12-12     RM 3    ROF 5        1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
FUV Cannon Fire Control S05 160-5000 (2)    Max Range: 320,000 km   TS: 5000 km/s     97 94 91 88 84 81 78 75 72 69
Meson Fire Control S08 48-16000 (1)    Max Range: 96,000 km   TS: 16000 km/s     90 79 69 58 48 38 27 17 6 0
Tokamak Fusion Reactor P-8 (8)     Total Power Output 64    Armour 0    Exp 5%

8HS FAC Sensor MR82-R20 (1)     GPS 3360     Range 82.6m km    Resolution 20
8HS Missile Sensor MR18-R1 (1)     GPS 168     Range 18.5m km    Resolution 1
8HS Ship Sensor II MR233-R160 (1)     GPS 26880     Range 233.8m km    Resolution 160

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Falcon class Jump Destroyer    16,000 tons     366 Crew     2839.6 BP      TCS 320  TH 720  EM 0
4500 km/s    JR 5-100     Armour 13-56     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 14     PPV 30.92
Maint Life 2.19 Years     MSP 1444    AFR 512%    IFR 7.1%    1YR 405    5YR 6079    Max Repair 236 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 24 months    Spare Berths 1   
Flag Bridge    Troop Capacity: 1 Company    Drop Capacity: 1 Company   

J18000(5-100) Military Jump Drive     Max Ship Size 18000 tons    Distance 100k km     Squadron Size 5
90 EP Internal Fusion Drive (16)    Power 90    Fuel Use 27.47%    Signature 45    Exp 7%
Fuel Capacity 800,000 Litres    Range 32.8 billion km   (84 days at full power)

Quad R3/C3 Meson Cannon Turret (2x4)    Range 30,000km     TS: 16000 km/s     Power 12-12     RM 3    ROF 5        1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Meson Fire Control S08 48-16000 (1)    Max Range: 96,000 km   TS: 16000 km/s     90 79 69 58 48 38 27 17 6 0
Tokamak Fusion Reactor P-8 (3)     Total Power Output 24    Armour 0    Exp 5%

8HS Missile Sensor MR18-R1 (1)     GPS 168     Range 18.5m km    Resolution 1

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Reliant class Light Carrier    16,000 tons     233 Crew     2286.8 BP      TCS 320  TH 720  EM 0
4500 km/s     Armour 2-56     Shields 0-0     Sensors 112/88/0/0     Damage Control Rating 5     PPV 0
Maint Life 2.75 Years     MSP 1447    AFR 409%    IFR 5.7%    1YR 275    5YR 4124    Max Repair 112 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 24 months    Flight Crew Berths 28   
Hangar Deck Capacity 6250 tons     Magazine 320   

90 EP Internal Fusion Drive (16)    Power 90    Fuel Use 27.47%    Signature 45    Exp 7%
Fuel Capacity 1,000,000 Litres    Range 41.0 billion km   (105 days at full power)

Sidewinder-B (40)  Speed: 35,000 km/s   End: 72.7m    Range: 152.6m km   WH: 4    Size: 4    TH: 163/98/49
Copperhead-A (40)  Speed: 28,000 km/s   End: 70.2m    Range: 117.9m km   WH: 9    Size: 4    TH: 121/72/36

8HS Thermal Sensor TH8-112 (1)     Sensitivity 112     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  112m km
8HS EM Detection Sensor EM8-88 (1)     Sensitivity 88     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  88m km

Strike Group
2x Lion Lifeboat   Speed: 14285 km/s    Size: 4.9
20x Rogue Fighter-bomber   Speed: 12500 km/s    Size: 5.6

Missile to hit chances are vs targets moving at 3000 km/s, 5000 km/s and 10,000 km/s

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Rogue class Fighter-bomber    280 tons     1 Crew     83.7 BP      TCS 5.6  TH 35  EM 0
12500 km/s     Armour 1-3     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 0     PPV 2.4
Maint Life 0 Years     MSP 0    AFR 56%    IFR 0.8%    1YR 5    5YR 72    Max Repair 26.25 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 0.1 months    Spare Berths 9   
Magazine 16   

35 EP Internal Fusion Fighter Drive (2)    Power 35    Fuel Use 240.65%    Signature 17.5    Exp 17%
Fuel Capacity 5,000 Litres    Range 1.3 billion km   (29 hours at full power)

Size 4 Launch Rail (4)    Missile Size 4    Hangar Reload 30 minutes    MF Reload 5 hours
Fighter Missile Fire Control FC21-R20 (1)     Range 21.7m km    Resolution 20
Sidewinder-B (4)  Speed: 35,000 km/s   End: 72.7m    Range: 152.6m km   WH: 4    Size: 4    TH: 163/98/49

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Lion class Lifeboat    245 tons     4 Crew     80.1 BP      TCS 4.9  TH 35  EM 0
14285 km/s    JR 1-50     Armour 1-3     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 0     PPV 0
Maint Life 0 Years     MSP 0    AFR 49%    IFR 0.7%    1YR 5    5YR 82    Max Repair 26.25 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 1 months    Spare Berths 1   
Cryogenic Berths 200   

J300(1-50) Fighter Jump Drive     Max Ship Size 300 tons    Distance 50k km     Squadron Size 1
35 EP Internal Fusion Fighter Drive (2)    Power 35    Fuel Use 240.65%    Signature 17.5    Exp 17%
Fuel Capacity 25,000 Litres    Range 7.6 billion km   (6 days at full power)
The problems with this setup are:
1. The carriers have thin armor, so they wouldn't last long if the enemy was striking first.
2. The carriers can only reload the fighters once, so they lack endurance.  In my recent conquest I had to have this fleet constantly attended by colliers (with commercial engine speeds).
3. Adding extra ships like colliers or troopships would take away the squadron jump ability.
4. The big one: although my shipyards can build four carriers at once, I can only build fighters one at a time.  I cannot scale this model up without spending decades building fighters.  And then I'd have the joy of micromanaging them!

I'm going to keep these four task groups and keep upgrading them, but I think their roles will be to patrol my own space and/or clear systems of spoilers.  Meanwhile, I want to come up with a new fleet design that's scalable, so that as many ships as I build, they can all fit together into it.  That will be the basis of my war armada, so I can take on my frenemies who have 30-40 ships in a roving fleet.  My shipyards and maintenance bases are standardized at 16000T but will be upgraded to 18000T soon, and I have four such shipyards with (soon) four slipways each.  I'm thinking of keeping one shipyard in reserve and coming up with three designs: a laser destroyer like the Excelsior but faster, a missile-lobbing ship, and an anti-missile ship.

The anti-missile ship is the one I'm most undecided on.  The meson turrets on my existing fleet worked pretty good in combat.  I have some new tech though, so I can make faster-tracking fire controls and faster turrets which is good.  One other thing I can do is make larger mesons with more range.  But would that do me any good?  As far as I know, point-blank defenses always get a shot, so why not just go with the shortest-range smaller mesons, and set them to defend at range of 10kkm?  Is there a benefit to sizing up?

Also, my recently-defeated enemy gave me some gauss cannon tech, and I now have the ability to make gauss guns that fire 4 times per second with a comparable level of muzzle velocity tech.  Are these better than meson turrets for missile defense?  What would you do?

[Whitecold]

It doesn't matter how many fighters you can build simultaneously, it matters how fast you build them. If it goes too slow, just build more fighter factories.
For the missile defense, longer range only helps if you can squeeze in another shot, so it depends how fast the expected threat is. Also you will need 5s reload for this to possible work. Of course, longer range PD can make a good secondary armament for close combat. Gauss is designed to be used as PD, I tend to use a mixture of PD systems, lasers or mesons for long range and Gauss for close in.
If your carriers run out of ammo, you need more magazines, ammo supply is always the main problem with missile-designs. Else you might consider beam-armed fighters/FACs to load onto your carriers, they wouldn't need ammo and leave their allotment for the other fighters.
If you want a supply train, you might build them a separate jumpship, and keep them in a TG in a neighboring system, out of harms way.