Federation Campaign

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

This campaign is a fairly quick setup to test the new fighter and missile tech. I haven't prepared any detailed historical background as such but the main protagonist is the Terran Federation, which is an Earth-based power based on the British Empire (surprise, surprise ) and the campaign starts in 2020. The premise is that in the late 19th century the British Empire got its hands on a crashed alien spacecraft and used that technology to expand its existing position as the dominant Earth power. There were no world wars because the British were technologically far too advanced for anyone to stand a chance and the Empire never fell. Other nations exist on Earth that are officially 'allied' with the Empire to form the Terran Federation although none have any form of space travel. I am using a standard player race setup for 1000m population.

Rather than post each missiles and fighter design separately, I thought screenshots of the appropriate F7 tech views would be easier. The ship designs will follow but the Federation has developed mainly missile and fighter tech and only has 10 and 12cm lasers. There are three missile launcher sizes designed to fire size 2, 4 and 8 missiles and the number of fighter launch rails is always 4 or 8 so that missiles can be used interchangeably between fighters and ships.







Steve

[Michael Sandy]

I think I like the changes.  The missiles can have a greater speed edge, and the fighters can too, over regular ships.

Also, with the old system, missiles often had a bit of difficulty hitting fast ships, especially fast ships with a higher engine tech.

It is still a trade off, but this looks quite workable so far.

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

[Michael Sandy]

Interesting.  I note that the Construction Ships are capable of being shifted around by the freighter and military jump ships.

Some questionable designs:
I don't get the idea of putting magazines on the escort ships.  Unlike in Starfire, carrier hulls are no more expensive than regular hulls.

The survey cruisers are interesting, but I question their cost effectiveness.  A survey cruiser spends a lot of time moving around.  The higher their speed, the more efficient they are.  And the jump engine is a lot of mass to be moving around all the time.  Uses a lot of fuel, too.

As for the Construction ships, that is a class that doesn't need a lot of engines.  They move so rarely, and for such short distances (relatively) speaking, that you save a bit by lower costs and getting them into service sooner.


A bit of analysis regarding ship sizes:
I find that early on I want at least 3 jump capable ships for survey work, and at least 2 for commercial, and minimum 1 for military.  But it would take a long time before I needed twice that number of jump capable ships.

As fleets get larger, making the fleet strategically mobile costs a smaller fraction of the total.  So if you decide that approximately 1/10 of your fleet costs will be Jump Ships, what happens when you double the size of your fleet?  Doubling the number of Jump Ships will not appreciably increase your strategic maneuverability, but you can afford to have larger jump ships, and therefore larger ships in general.

So I would generally aim for three size classes:
The first would be set by the size of an efficient survey ship.  Scouts, couriers, and the smallest escorts would be sized for that.  As I usually only need one troop transport early on, I could have one small troop transport sized to hitch along with the survey fleets.  But that would be a tight fit.

The second size would be set by the minimum sized efficient commercial ships, freighters and colony ships.  There is an efficiency to having lots of ships in that class, in being able to share or concentrate spares.  I occasionally use Jump Ships as small jump gates, stationing them at the jump points instead of escorting convoys.    To use that tactic you need a fair number of relatively cheap Jump Ships.

I need at least two Jump ships for commercial use because the demands of colonization and mineral exploitation generally go to different destinations.  Three would be better in the fleet, allowing redundancy and the ability to pull them for repairs.

The third size would be set by whatever size the main Home Fleet ships end up being.


Another consideration to patrol ship sizes:
There is a balance between patrolling a lot of locations with minimal sized armed ships, or patrolling fewer locations with larger ships.  With more and smaller ships, you can sometimes "win" by claiming the territory without a fight.  When armed patrol ship catches unarmed survey ship and says, "This is our territory, your withdrawal will be a recognition by your government that it is our territory", it may not matter that any real warship would laugh at the patrol ship.

More likely, the patrol ship would have to park on the entry warp point and inform intruding ships in the system that they can only withdraw to report if they agree to certain terms.

[Erik L]

Interesting.  I note that the Construction Ships are capable of being shifted around by the freighter and military jump ships.

Some questionable designs:
I don't get the idea of putting magazines on the escort ships.  Unlike in Starfire, carrier hulls are no more expensive than regular hulls.

The escorts use counter-missiles. So they need magazine space for their PD ammo.

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

Interesting.  I note that the Construction Ships are capable of being shifted around by the freighter and military jump ships.

Some questionable designs:
I don't get the idea of putting magazines on the escort ships.  Unlike in Starfire, carrier hulls are no more expensive than regular hulls.

I needed to keep the carrier within 10,000 tons so I opted for the maximum possible fighter capacity while adding some replacement  ordnance to the escort. Longer term, a dedicated collier is probably a better idea.

The survey cruisers are interesting, but I question their cost effectiveness.  A survey cruiser spends a lot of time moving around.  The higher their speed, the more efficient they are.  And the jump engine is a lot of mass to be moving around all the time.  Uses a lot of fuel, too.

I am paying for flexibility. When jump points are discovered, the nearest ship can probe it rather than waiting for the jump ship and when the fleet moves into a new system to begin surveying, the ships can start as soon as they arrive, rather than waiting for the jump ship to catch them up. Finally, if the fleet gets in trouble, each ship is capable of escaping by itself without being trapped by the loss of a jump ship. Its an experiment as I have always had a single escorting jump ship in the past for each survey fleet. I'll see how it works out.

As for the Construction ships, that is a class that doesn't need a lot of engines.  They move so rarely, and for such short distances (relatively) speaking, that you save a bit by lower costs and getting them into service sooner.

You are probably right, especially as jump gate component availablity is usually more of an issue than construction ship speed.

A bit of analysis regarding ship sizes:
I find that early on I want at least 3 jump capable ships for survey work, and at least 2 for commercial, and minimum 1 for military.  But it would take a long time before I needed twice that number of jump capable ships.

As fleets get larger, making the fleet strategically mobile costs a smaller fraction of the total.  So if you decide that approximately 1/10 of your fleet costs will be Jump Ships, what happens when you double the size of your fleet?  Doubling the number of Jump Ships will not appreciably increase your strategic maneuverability, but you can afford to have larger jump ships, and therefore larger ships in general.

So I would generally aim for three size classes:
The first would be set by the size of an efficient survey ship.  Scouts, couriers, and the smallest escorts would be sized for that.  As I usually only need one troop transport early on, I could have one small troop transport sized to hitch along with the survey fleets.  But that would be a tight fit.

The second size would be set by the minimum sized efficient commercial ships, freighters and colony ships.  There is an efficiency to having lots of ships in that class, in being able to share or concentrate spares.  I occasionally use Jump Ships as small jump gates, stationing them at the jump points instead of escorting convoys.    To use that tactic you need a fair number of relatively cheap Jump Ships.

I need at least two Jump ships for commercial use because the demands of colonization and mineral exploitation generally go to different destinations.  Three would be better in the fleet, allowing redundancy and the ability to pull them for repairs.

The third size would be set by whatever size the main Home Fleet ships end up being.

That is very similar to the way I have operated in past campaigns.

Another consideration to patrol ship sizes:
There is a balance between patrolling a lot of locations with minimal sized armed ships, or patrolling fewer locations with larger ships.  With more and smaller ships, you can sometimes "win" by claiming the territory without a fight.  When armed patrol ship catches unarmed survey ship and says, "This is our territory, your withdrawal will be a recognition by your government that it is our territory", it may not matter that any real warship would laugh at the patrol ship.

More likely, the patrol ship would have to park on the entry warp point and inform intruding ships in the system that they can only withdraw to report if they agree to certain terms.

I still haven't reached a point in a campaign where two sizeable empires are fighting a long term war and patrol ships become important. It will be very interesting to see how patrol designs evolve in that environment. Scouting nearby systems is going to be very important as I don't think substantial jump point defences are going to be very common and there are going to be a lot of systems that are claimed by both sides yet not permanently defended by either.

Steve

[Father Tim]

Your PD lasers can destroy a missile/fighter at more than twice the range of your 50% accuracy.  You really need to either squeeze in a double range, quadruple speed PD fire control in place of the single range, quad speed version you're curently using, or research a couple of steps up the beam fire control range tech.

I like the jump-capable survey ships.  In my own Alzarian Scrolls, I've gone for a more 'Age of Exploration' feel than 'US Navy in space' - individual, lightly-armed vessels wandering all over, exploring this 'new world', making friends with/slaves of the native populations and engaging in occasional battles with other powers.  When a sufficiently promising colony site is encountered, heavy merchant traffic moves in to exploit it and demands Royal Navy protection for shipping.  Heck, the first pair of jump gates were built by a 'private concern' and charged 'tolls' on all shipping passing through until the government nationalized them 'for the public good'.  #:-]

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

Your PD lasers can destroy a missile/fighter at more than twice the range of your 50% accuracy.  You really need to either squeeze in a double range, quadruple speed PD fire control in place of the single range, quad speed version you're curently using, or research a couple of steps up the beam fire control range tech.

The fire control range is the distance at which you have a 50% chance to hit so their true range is almost double for low chances to hit. Also, the Illustrious class will almost always be using point blank mode to protect the carriers while other ships provide area point defence. I do need to improve fire control tech though.

I like the jump-capable survey ships.  In my own Alzarian Scrolls, I've gone for a more 'Age of Exploration' feel than 'US Navy in space' - individual, lightly-armed vessels wandering all over, exploring this 'new world', making friends with/slaves of the native populations and engaging in occasional battles with other powers.  When a sufficiently promising colony site is encountered, heavy merchant traffic moves in to exploit it and demands Royal Navy protection for shipping.  Heck, the first pair of jump gates were built by a 'private concern' and charged 'tolls' on all shipping passing through until the government nationalized them 'for the public good'.  #:-]

That sounds like a fascinating game - any chance of more after action reports?

Steve

[Michael Sandy]

Something to consider:
For fire control redundancy, consider a 1/2 range, x4 speed system as a secondary.  It won't take up much space, and will allow a ship to at least defend itself against missiles at point blank range.

One of the dangers of multi-stage missiles is that ideally you want to intercept them much further out.  Further out, the first stage is moving more slowly, and after it separates there are more targets.  Still, it is better to have some capability for point defense.