Fighter in Early Technology Era, what should I do?

[Alfapiomega]

Both the tug and the fighter are very very slow. My first generation ships are a minimum of 2,500 km/s and that is slow. Fighters are at least 8,000 km/s at first generation for me.

I call nonsense on those numbers. Getting 2500 km/s is almost impossible on a Nuclear Thermal engine. 8000 km/s for fighter as well.

[MarcAFK]

That can't be right, I just started a game with 1000 RP and nuclear 5kthermal engines, my pre researched colony ships were using commercial engines at just over 2000 km/s. I imagine a design using more engines and with double power might at least approach 4k

[Charlie Beeler]

I call nonsense on those numbers. Getting 2500 km/s is almost impossible on a Nuclear Thermal engine. 8000 km/s for fighter as well.

Note he said first generation not nuclear thermal.  It's quite common for players to start with nuclear pulse or even ion engines.  In that case the the numbers are quite reasonable. 

[Erik L]

It has a bridge so that it can act seperately of its host ship, I think, either way I had spare room to fill the 500 tonnage gap.   In terms of capacity it makes no difference if a ship is 250*2 to 500 bay ratio or less because.   with tech limitations I cant reach a 150*3 to 500 bay ratio to warrent shaving off tonage for the sack of.   Much better to boost tuning the gears to meet tonnage limits.  We as a race imagine our space tech to field nimble scout carriers an vast swarms of high tech missile fighters supplanted by legions of inexpensive sleds.   

Fighters (500 tons and under) don't need a bridge.

[drmzsz7]

Its not really a fighter, its a geo survey ship so it has to have autonomous capabilities.

[Alfapiomega]

Note he said first generation not nuclear thermal.  It's quite common for players to start with nuclear pulse or even ion engines.  In that case the the numbers are quite reasonable. 

Ah, my bad. He was refering to a NT ship so I thought he meant it like that. Didn't realize he could mean something else

[drmzsz7]

And your absolutely correct 5k is bogus out of the box, nuclear thermal engines, I had to use sm mode to research engine power improvements to about 20k rp before I could fit even a 5km/s engine on a 1k frame with thermal engines. No chance at a 250 fighter hitting 2.5k from the gate.

Out the box smallest 250 fighter I could fit together, biggest engines with enough missiles to be worth being cannon fodder.
Mind you its navalized, it requires a carrier for its maximum 4m range.

Lasher - Navalized Gunboat class Fighter    245 tons     2 Crew     30.7 BP      TCS 4.9  TH 10  EM 0
2040 km/s     Armour 1-3     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 0     PPV 1.8
Maint Life 0 Years     MSP 0    AFR 49%    IFR 0.7%    1YR 2    5YR 27    Max Repair 6 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 3 months    Spare Berths 1    
Magazine 12    

5/1 Thermal Fighter Engine (2)    Power 5    Fuel Use 99%    Signature 5    Exp 10%

Size 4 Gunboat Pod (3)    Missile Size 4    Hangar Reload 30 minutes    MF Reload 5 hours
Gunboat ASM Suite (1)     Range 4.1m km    Resolution 5
1/1 ASM Torpedo v1 (12)  Speed: 5,000 km/s   End: 14.8m    Range: 4.4m km   WH: 1    Size: 1    TH: 25/15/7

Anti-Fighter 200/610/0 (1)     GPS 12     Range 610k km    Resolution 4

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 Fighter for production, combat and maintenance purposes

[Erik L]

Its not really a fighter, its a geo survey ship so it has to have autonomous capabilities.

In Aurora, any ship 500 tons or under is classed as a fighter. Any ship 500-1000 tons is classed a FAC/Gunboat. Any ship greater than 1000 tons is whatever you want to call it.

[Charlie Beeler]

It's really dependent on how you define "out of the box".  Assuming you start with the initial population of 500m, and you're in no way required too, that gives 120k RP.  It's not difficult to have nuclear pulse engine tech and max engine power of x2.  With this tech it's quite simple to have a 250t/5hs fighter with a speed of 3200kps. 

Even restricting RP allocation to baseline nuclear thermal it doesn't require SM'ing anything, just a different RP allocation. 

[drmzsz7]

Well in the game im RP running using aurora engine, a ship is anything with a bloody bridge on it, but if it makes ya feel better, Ill call it a geo survey FIGHTER from now on, either way it does the same job Intra system as some 8k behemoth.

0 Rp Start + RP up to box launcher's, RP for basic engine, rp for missile tracking, RP for launcher, rp for missile within 150 frame! I love this!! 150 means at 500 hangar a 2+1 increase in storage space takes place! Wooo kadeshi swarmers!

Tribal class Navalized Fighter    150 tons     1 Crew     18.9 BP      TCS 3  TH 5  EM 0
1666 km/s     Armour 1-2     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 0     PPV 0.6
Maint Life 0 Years     MSP 0    AFR 30%    IFR 0.4%    1YR 1    5YR 17    Max Repair 8 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 0.1 months    Spare Berths 9   
Magazine 4   

Cyclon 5 v1.1.1 (1)    Power 5    Fuel Use 99%    Signature 5    Exp 10%

Gremlin 4 v0.06 (1)    Missile Size 4    Hangar Reload 30 minutes    MF Reload 5 hours
Sweeper .8 v1.2 (1)     Range 1.4m km    Resolution 1
4/1 ASM Ballista v4k.663m (1)  Speed: 4,000 km/s   End: 1.9d    Range: 663.5m km   WH: 1    Size: 4    TH: 14/8/4

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 Fighter for production, combat and maintenance purposes

[Erik L]

Well in the game im RP running using aurora engine, a ship is anything with a bloody bridge on it, but if it makes ya feel better, Ill call it a geo survey FIGHTER from now on, either way it does the same job Intra system as some 8k behemoth.

Just saying you can call it what you wish, but Aurora will treat it as a fighter, meaning it is built via fighter factories and not shipyards. Call it a toaster if you wish

[drmzsz7]

haha i know its a bit of an advantage early game as my main shipyard arent used up on a retool.

[alex_brunius]

Great points, but to counter with the RP currently in play, well gaze at our current tech, the space shuttle which is 0.0825 tons unloaded, but at launch jumps to a whopping 2200 tons. I don't imagine mankinds first historical move is going to be building a 8k ton space monster because the necessary support tech would be ridiculously massive as to be impossible.

According to Wikipedia the space shuttle:

Can carry 24.4 tons into orbit.
Weights 78.0 tons empty
Has a total fully loaded system weight of 2000 tons (including boosters and tank)
Has a speed of 7.7 km/s

[MarcAFK]

That sounds about right,though I think the orbiter itself only weighs about 69 tons. I just want to jump in and point out that I had great trouble designing fighters that slow with conventional engine tech, so basically I said screw it, and made mine 100-200 km /s.

[drmzsz7]

Your right, apparently google converter doesnt like copy/paste, it reads the first digit of the whole number only, so it gave a sub tonnage number lol