Home of Light Defence Fleet

[sloanjh]

Sloppily, by using the rule of thumb that one success at a 1-in-X chance requires 1/2 X tries (for values of X <20).

Oh, and fourteen points of armour results in a one in fifteen chance of destruction (0.0666666666...)


Keep in mind that cloaking tech won't make your massive sensor any harder to spot (on EM passives), and that NPRs generally follow a strategy of either 'attack the biggest ships' (as by definitions the jumpship has to be at least tied for the biggest ship in the fleet) or 'attack the strongest sensor' (since blinding a fleet is almost as good as - and frequently a precursor to - a kill).

If you assume that the bad guy keeps firing until the drone is destroyed, and that all drones are eventually destroyed (i.e. the bad guy can take arbitrarily many shots so that we can do an infinite sum of a geometric series), then a 1/15 chance of destruction (and yes, it's 1/15 because the formula uses 1+armor in the denominator) using shoot-look-shoot salvos of size 1 results in exactly 15 AMM expended per drone, on average.  I was curious about this a few weeks ago, so I sat down and summed up the various series.

If the enemy is shooting bigger salvos, then you have to treat each salvo as a single missile with a higher PKill, then do the same analysis.  For example, the Pk of a N-shot salvo in this case would be (1-(14/15)^N), since (14/15)^N is the probability that all N shots will miss.  The total shots are then N/(1-(14/15)^N)  This will result in average AMM expenditures being higher due to overkill within a salvo.  For N/15 small, this will be a small effect (since 1 - (1-1/15)^N = N/15*(1+O(N/15)), as can be seen by doing a binomial expansion of (1-1/15)^N.  For N/15 big, you can obviously get big overkill effects.  A good rule of thumb is that the percent wastage due to overkill will be proportional to PKill (you can work out the exact factor by looking at the next term in the binomial expansion) - this estimate will be good when PKill is small compared to 1.

Hmmmm it occurs to me (because of the implicit "1" in a missile's armor, resulting in the 14 vs. 15 confusion), that if the bad guy is firing 5v1 salvos and you're just trying to soak up his AMM, then might better off just sending 4 unarmored drones in size-1 salvos (min 20 AMM) than 1 armor-14 drone (expected roughly 15 AMM).  You'd have to crank the build vs. cost numbers and see which is cheaper.

John
 
PS - apologies to everyone who already knows the above....

[jseah (OP)]

Having a good scout with large passive sensors and cloaked to appear really small helps a lot in figuring this out before your main ships get shot at when you thought they were invisible.

Thanks, that was actually the idea behind me doing stealth research.  My passive sensor scouts were going to be highly stealthy. 

I have just realized that I can easily gun for 15k RP cost tech (takes me only a month and a half) and so will be doing a general round of upgrades. 


sloanjh:
Great!  That means my decoy drone idea is back in business! 
I was a bit too lazy to run the calculation, especially since I'm a biologist now and am forgetting all my math. 

A few frigates with drone box launchers would be an awesome addition to my fleet. 
Given I'm pushing 30 ships soon and will be exceeding 50 ships within the next two years, plus that it appears I am stuck on a linear warp chain for at least three jumps, I can afford quite a bit of specialization. 

And given the continuous stream of sensor FACs coming from my shipyards, the future WyrmC will not be mounting backup active sensors.  I think I have enough backups already and the backup sensor is cutting my AMM deployment by 1/3.  (4 AM sensor FACs with 4 more in queue, 2 more planned after new jumpships allow FAC carriers to transverse jumppoints.  6 AS sensor FACs with 2 more in queue, no more planned for now)

[Felius]

Eh?  Reduces cross section?  =/
That's the description for the tech. . .  But ok, I'll take your word for it.  

Still, that just means I have to rush out 93% reduction and efficiency 6.   Might take a year and a half or so, but well, the James Callaghan (the command ship) is already insanely expensive and the sensor suite is definitely worth the price of better protection.  

Effiency 6 gives me a total tonnage of 12 ktons, with 0. 07 size = 840 tons, being that my command ship now looks slightly smaller than my FACs.  


And if it operates that way, I could go the way of a totally cloaked fleet, forcing any enemy to close to less than half range to even shoot at me.   I estimate that dropping combat power by 1/3 could get all my ships cloak devices.  

A possible counter strategy for this kind of thing is to give sensors to the missiles and fire them at a waypoint near the passive contact.  I've done it with some success (some becase they freaking out tech and out numbered me by a lot) against a few precursors warships in a system, all of them having a fair amount of ECM, with thermal sensor equipped missiles. 

[jseah (OP)]

Well, I ran into a stable wormhole so =/

I can't wait for cloak devices to come up so I shall just have to rush out more ordnance production and ECCM research. 

Ship production is already massively outpacing my crew recruitment.  I am worried that firing delays will end up costing me my fleet but eh, I have 10 destroyers and 20 frigates as my offensive arm, able to throw upwards of 300 missiles a minute. 


Do you think it would be worth it to develop an extremely costly dual-role laser?  I could mount a recharge rate 5s 15cm soft-xray laser on a 20kkm tracking mount (turret is already being researched, albeit slowly), which would give me both anti-missile and anti-ship capability.  Especially anti-beam fighter capability which ought to come in useful against the Hive ships. 
I could put out a laser frigate design, meant as escort to my main fleet. 

[jseah (OP)]

I have been pondering the problem of my command ship having to hang back to be safe from enemy fire. 

The reason why I cannot hang back more than 1 million km is because the AMM sensor on my command ship is restricting it's movement.  That sensor provides the main AMM coverage for my fleet. 

Therefore, I ask, would it be worth it to move my AMM sensor to a dedicated sensor frigate class and have the command ship be purely anti-ship sensors?  I could mount maximum size sensors in that case, and it can see 50 tons at 88 million km, which means my AMM sensor coverage outranges my anti-ship missile range... (size 6 missiles are at 9 million km though, which is enough I guess)

Of course, I still want my command ship since I do actually need to see stuff beyond 88 mkm.  And dedicated 1kton sensors would net 393 mkm range, and the 5kton sensor has a whopping 880 mkm range!
 - Meaning that my command ship need not even be in the same combat space as my combat ships.  Plus, I calculate some extra space will be available meaning my next-gen command ship can go higher than my fleet speed or have extra armour.  And that the AMM sensor frigate would have 6 layers of armour (no point making it go faster than fleet). 
 - Also means that I won't have to use my command ship in risky warp point assaults. 

Cost is incredible but I think I can afford it. 

[Brian Neumann]

Do you think it would be worth it to develop an extremely costly dual-role laser?  I could mount a recharge rate 5s 15cm soft-xray laser on a 20kkm tracking mount (turret is already being researched, albeit slowly), which would give me both anti-missile and anti-ship capability.  Especially anti-beam fighter capability which ought to come in useful against the Hive ships. 
I could put out a laser frigate design, meant as escort to my main fleet. 

Yes, it will be worth it in the long run.  If this laser maxes out your fire control range then it will serve quite well as a primary anti-ship weapon in addition to point defense.  The 15cm laser is about the best weapon in terms of cycle time, size and damage.  After this the weapons get bigger fairly quickly and while there damage per shot goes up even faster they end up doing about the same total damage over time due to the higher power requirements untill you have significantly bigger capaciters.  The one place that the 15cm is lacking is armour penetration so while you end up doing the same total damage most of the time, you are sandblasting the armour rather then deep penetration shots.  Against lightly armoured ships this works against you as the big lasers will penetrate and do damage without needing multiple hits.  Against heavily armoured ships it doesn't matter as much as you end up taking a lot of the armour off before you get any internals anyway.  I don't tend to upgrade my lasers much untill I have capaciter 10 tech so that I can fire my 20cm lasers every 5 seconds.  After that it is more a question of style than anything else.

Brian

[ZimRathbone]

I have been pondering the problem of my command ship having to hang back to be safe from enemy fire. 
Cost is incredible but I think I can afford it. 

The answer here will be very situational, depending on the weapons suite of the rest of your fleet and your prefered operating parameters, but my tuppenceworth is that its ALWAYS a good idea to have more than one sensor of each type throughout the fleet to avoid mission kills due to bad luck. 

I usually include command ships with the main body of a fleet so that they gain the benefit of other ships last ditch point defence (excepting CIWS of course) - all too often when  I had them hang back they were then ambushed by Gunboats or similar coming from an unexpected direction with insufficient escorts to deal with the threat.

My command ships are rarely the biggest units in a fleet - frequently being 1 size class down to make them less obvious targets once youre within the enemy's active range, and I sometimes have fleet scouts (bigarse sensors, engines and very little else) to perform independant roles which can sometimes be useful in a distraction mode as well.

[EarthquakeDamage]

Yes, it will be worth it in the long run.  If this laser maxes out your fire control range then it will serve quite well as a primary anti-ship weapon in addition to point defense.  The 15cm laser is about the best weapon in terms of cycle time, size and damage.  After this the weapons get bigger fairly quickly and while there damage per shot goes up even faster they end up doing about the same total damage over time due to the higher power requirements untill you have significantly bigger capaciters.  The one place that the 15cm is lacking is armour penetration so while you end up doing the same total damage most of the time, you are sandblasting the armour rather then deep penetration shots.  Against lightly armoured ships this works against you as the big lasers will penetrate and do damage without needing multiple hits.  Against heavily armoured ships it doesn't matter as much as you end up taking a lot of the armour off before you get any internals anyway.  I don't tend to upgrade my lasers much untill I have capaciter 10 tech so that I can fire my 20cm lasers every 5 seconds.  After that it is more a question of style than anything else.

If you're interested in DPS, IIRC the best weapon is always the highest caliber with a 5 second cycle time.  As your capacitors improve, the caliber will also improve.  I think the highest DPS at max tech occurs at 30cm as a result.

[jseah (OP)]

I usually include command ships with the main body of a fleet so that they gain the benefit of other ships last ditch point defence (excepting CIWS of course) - all too often when  I had them hang back they were then ambushed by Gunboats or similar coming from an unexpected direction with insufficient escorts to deal with the threat.

I don't think I have to worry about gunboats too much.  393 mkm range for a 1kton sensor means I get to see gunboats with alot of warning, time enough to bring my fleet around. 

Fighters would be a bigger problem though.  Perhaps I should make a 0.5k ton sensor instead

[jseah (OP)]

I'm about to do a next-generation version of my entire fleet and have an interesting question to ask. 

Do you try to pump as many missiles as possible into the sky in as short time as possible? (never mind salvo size)
Or should you favour single large salvoes?

I could take 0.33 size / 20x reload launchers and stuff 24 launchers into my frigates and still have a 10 minute reload time (about the time it takes for one salvo to reach enemies at max range). 
So I have 3x the salvo size but salvoes come one at a time, each facing the full might of enemy anti-missile fire instead of leaking in from a prior wave. 

Which do you think is better?  So far, I have no problems overwhelming enemies, my "test" salvo intended to try out their AMM defence completely wiped their fleet. 
(having a fleet big enough to throw a 3x a fighter complement's worth of missiles from normal launchers tends to do that)

I can forsee problems against the swarm if I'm using this strategy.  While my fleet will chuck out over 3 years of missile production in a single salvo such that it will be basically impossible to stop it all, hitting alot of small targets who will be overkilled with a 24 missile salvo can be problematic. 

I could still have 16 launchers in 0.5x size and have them reload in 2 minutes. 

[Hawkeye]

The "lots of small targets" problem isn´t realy a problem.
Assign, say, 6 tubes to your FC, fire at one target. Assign 6 other tubes to your FC, fire at next target and so on.

Personally, I am now in the "missilestorm" (blot out the stars with your salvo) camp

I have seen salvos of up to 100 missiles being shot down against a group of three NPR CEs, so I go for realy huge salvos.
One drawback is, however, overkill. With many small salvos, any salvo in flight, when the target dies, will look for another target. With one large salvo, all missiles will slam in that target, even if half the missiles would be sufficient to kill it.

[jseah (OP)]

Oh, hmm. 

Since my light carriers (the ones that can go with my fleet) can actually fit a frigate in their hangers, would it then be possible to mount box launchers...?

Box launchers on frigates. >.>

0.15x size = 53 missiles per frigate, although half an hour reload per frigate/carrier is stupidly long. 

EDIT:
Oh, and because my destroyers won't fit (obviously), they can have the normal size launcher. 
That means my frigates become the fleet killers while destroyers are the anti-fighter/FAC fleet escorts. 

[jseah (OP)]

Ok, my fleet is going through a major refit. 

New engines, new sensors, new firecontrols, new launchers, new armour; the works. 

Also, since the previous and only engagement of my fleet resulted in me demolishing the precursors without taking a single point of damage, using only the most trained half of my fleet, I feel I can afford to specialize my ships a bit more. 

Therefore, new fleet composition will be:

2 command ships (R16 and R100 sensors, flag bridge)
Jumpships as necessary (3 in service, 3 more planned)
6 FAC carriers for additional reach
4 dedicated sensor frigates (R1 sensors, this sensor is humongous, it's max range is 40mkm beyond the range of my Gawain AS missile)
 - Policy is to only ever have one online at any time; during a fleet action, if one starts taking damage, two will go active
 - they have 6 layers of armour, which will hopefully provide some defence
2 spy frigates (large passive sensors, thermal reduced engines, cloaking device 95%)
12 missile destroyers
24 missile frigates
10 AMM escort frigates
10 dual role laser frigates

assigned as necessary from assessment of the threat. 


In particular, the new design and fleet doctrine is to use 33% reduction missile launchers.  This has a reload time of 500 seconds. 
Since the previous fleet action, the single salvo of less than half the fleet totally overwhelmed precursor PD, I have decided that large salvoes are the way to go. 
Another major decision factor was that 33% launchers take much less than 33% crew (3 vs 50).  Currently, I am suffering from a lack of trained crew. 

The decision not to use 25% reduction launchers was the 2500 second reload time, which would mean I have only 1 salvo during fleet actions (missile travel time is ~600 seconds)
Partially factoring into decision was that 25% launchers take more crew per launcher than 33% (5 vs 3).  And having more launchers means the crew requirement for 25% is much higher than the 33% launcher. 

So here's the new ChimeraB Frigate:
Note the massively reduced crew requirement and the higher speed from unstable engines. 
Also of note is the 3x larger salvo size.  The ChimeraB's salvo size is more than three times larger than the Chimera and is 50% higher than the 1st generation Ettin class Destroyer!
ECCM 4 is awaiting the return of salvagers who have enough points to give me ECCM 4. 

Magazine size was not correspondingly increased as 3x launcher number with 10x reload time means my depletion time is actually longer than before. 

Code: [Select]

ChimeraB class Frigate    6,000 tons     385 Crew     1202.78 BP      TCS 120  TH 750  EM 0
6250 km/s     Armour 4-29     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 14     PPV 42.9
Annual Failure Rate: 72%    IFR: 1%    Maint Capacity 501 MSP    Max Repair 63 MSP    Est Time: 4.21 Years
Magazine 370   

Internal Confinement Fusion Drive E7.5 (6)    Power 125    Fuel Use 75%    Signature 125    Armour 0    Exp 20%
Fuel Capacity 185,000 Litres    Range 74.0 billion km   (137 days at full power)

Size 5 Missile Launcher (33% Reduction) (26)    Missile Size 5    Rate of Fire 500
Missile Fire Control FC83-R16 (1)     Range 83.2m km    Resolution 16
'Gawain' Size 5 Anti-ship Missile (74)  Speed: 55,200 km/s   End: 18.2m    Range: 60.4m km   WH: 6    Size: 5    TH: 202 / 121 / 60

ECCM-3 (1)         Missile to hit chances are vs targets moving at 3000 km/s, 5000 km/s and 10,000 km/s

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposesThe EttinB class destroyer is much the same, only with 46 launchers. 


Barring further hiccups, another 24 frigates are planned after the current construction base expansion eats up my available workers, with a proportional increase in other classes, essentially doubling the fleet size.  I need an internal battlegroup as I have a wormhole in one of my border systems. 

With 24 frigates and 10 destroyers traveling in a pack, a full salvo of missiles will number 1084 which will hopefully demolish any opposition. 

[jseah (OP)]

Some more progress.  I am now somewhere around mid-way through year 12. 
 - Side comment: I am not clear how I am progressing so fast.  The transition from Internal Confinement Drive to Magnetic Confinement Drive happened so fast that I couldn't even refit my fleet to the power boosted Internal Confinement before Magcons arrived on the scene.  Consider that I have arrived at Magcon from Ion Engines in 12 years...
 - The transition from ICF to MagCon should be slower given how long Steve's NATO campaign took to do that, but my labs copped it in about year.  =/ ?  Sure, I have alot of labs and haven't been resource crunched nor nuked.  But surely it can't be THAT fast. 
 - Furthermore, I held back on researching MagCon as I was diverted by the cloaking techtree.  If I knew I could do it so fast, I would have gunned straight for it without redesigning ships. 

I have been trying to fit a good size thermal sensor into a 6kton cloaked scout frigate and have come to the conclusion that this is impossible.  Which means my research has to go into getting a better cloak and this will take *forever*. 
I am finishing 93% cloak in 2 months, and will embark on Cloak Efficiency 8, probably finishing late next year.  Hopefully this will let me build a 8kton cloaked thermal reduced ship with a decent thermal sensor. 
Probably going to embark on a round of missile improvements, armour and general ship stuff with an eye to fuel efficiency (already had to expand fuel production)

Meanwhile:
The Demon class Cruiser is essentially a bigger addition to the fleet.  It's not meant for solo operation (in fact I have no solo operation ships) but the impressive launchers should hopefully do a good job at swatting missiles and pesky enemy ships. 

New missile generation courtesy of the google-docs missile design spreadsheet. 

Code: [Select]

Demon class Cruiser    16,000 tons     1500 Crew     3524 BP      TCS 320  TH 2500  EM 0
7812 km/s     Armour 3-56     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 26     PPV 120
Annual Failure Rate: 128%    IFR: 1.8%    Maint Capacity 2202 MSP    Max Repair 189 MSP    Est Time: 3.78 Years
Magazine 1004   

Magnetic Confinement Fusion Drive E7.5 (16)    Power 156.25    Fuel Use 75%    Signature 156.25    Armour 0    Exp 20%
Fuel Capacity 550,000 Litres    Range 82.5 billion km   (122 days at full power)

Size 1 Missile Launcher (54)    Missile Size 1    Rate of Fire 5
Size 5 Missile Launcher (33% Reduction) (40)    Missile Size 5    Rate of Fire 500
Missile Fire Control FC62-R1 (1)     Range 62.4m km    Resolution 1
Missile Fire Control FC83-R16 (1)     Range 83.2m km    Resolution 16
'Perceval' Size 5 Anti-ship Missile (120)  Speed: 69,400 km/s   End: 14.4m    Range: 60.1m km   WH: 6    Size: 5    TH: 277 / 166 / 83
'Bramble' Size 1 Anti-missile Missile (404)  Speed: 68,500 km/s   End: 1.5m    Range: 6m km   WH: 1    Size: 1    TH: 730 / 438 / 219

Compact ECCM-3 (1)     ECCM-4 (1)         Missile to hit chances are vs targets moving at 3000 km/s, 5000 km/s and 10,000 km/s

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
The Medusa is my dual-role laser frigate, meant for cutting down crippled enemies and final point defence, as well as close in weapons if it comes to that. 

Code: [Select]

Medusa class Escort Frigate    6,000 tons     650 Crew     2023 BP      TCS 120  TH 938  EM 0
7816 km/s     Armour 4-29     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 18     PPV 36
Annual Failure Rate: 36%    IFR: 0.5%    Maint Capacity 1686 MSP    Max Repair 480 MSP    Est Time: 3.94 Years

Magnetic Confinement Fusion Drive E7.5 (6)    Power 156.25    Fuel Use 75%    Signature 156.25    Armour 0    Exp 20%
Fuel Capacity 180,000 Litres    Range 72.0 billion km   (106 days at full power)

Single 15cm C6 Soft X-ray Laser Turret (6x1)    Range 320,000km     TS: 20000 km/s     Power 6-6     RM 6    ROF 5        6 6 6 6 6 6 5 4 4 3
Fire Control S16 160-20000 (1)    Max Range: 320,000 km   TS: 20000 km/s     97 94 91 88 84 81 78 75 72 69
Tokamak Fusion Reactor Technology PB-1 AR-0 (5)     Total Power Output 40    Armour 0    Exp 5%

ECCM-4 (1)         This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
I am trying to design an independent patrol and escort cruiser but am finding it difficult to stick in the required components. 
I can make a sensor (active + passive) + jumpdrive ship.  But putting weapons on it will be difficult.  I estimate it can only carry about the weapon loadout of a frigate!  A mere 20 launchers on a 16 kton vessel?  Ridiculous!  I might need to settle for an escort squadron but that will mean another three or more shipyards or using fleet ships in squadrons instead of in the fleet. 

[Narmio]

One fire control for your 54 AMM launchers and one more for your 40 ASM launchers seems inadvisable.