My very first beam cruiser

[Alfapiomega (OP)]

Hello!

I would like to know the opinion of local experts on the design I came up with during my let's play. It's the very first beam ship I even created so all feedback is welcome. I was originally going for a fast, small gunboat but all the things I wanted to put on it turned it to large (I have very limited shipyard size due to conventional start in 2050 and the current year being 2082), extremely slow cruiser that will mainly fill following roles:

 *escorting survey vessels through jump points and doing active scans of new systems
 *defending planets and jump points
 *serving as something that will calm down the civilians because they want protection

Raptor class Cruiser    7,850 tons     219 Crew     927.675 BP      TCS 157  TH 31  EM 0
394 km/s     Armour 5-35     Shields 0-0     Sensors 10/10/0/0     Damage Control Rating 24     PPV 43.52
Maint Life 2.71 Years     MSP 295    AFR 123%    IFR 1.7%    1YR 57    5YR 862    Max Repair 77 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 12 months    Spare Berths 1    

Military Engine Class I "Comet" (2)    Power 31.25    Fuel Use 165.96%    Signature 15.625    Exp 12%
Fuel Capacity 750,000 Litres    Range 10.3 billion km   (303 days at full power)

Quad 12cm C2 Near Ultraviolet Laser Turret (2x4)    Range 120,000km     TS: 8000 km/s     Power 16-8     RM 3    ROF 10        4 4 4 3 2 2 1 1 1 1
Fire Control S16 96-5000 (1)    Max Range: 192,000 km   TS: 5000 km/s     95 90 84 79 74 69 64 58 53 48
PWR 4000/100tons (4)     Total Power Output 16    Armour 0    Exp 5%

Short Range Sensors Mk. I - 60/5 (1)     GPS 60     Range 3.0m km    Resolution 1
Medium Range Sensor - 60/5 (1)     GPS 2400     Range 19.0m km    Resolution 40
Thermal Sensor Array Basic Mk. I (1)     Sensitivity 10     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  10m km
EM Detection Array Basic Mk. I (1)     Sensitivity 10     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  10m km

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes

Now things that bother me:
* extremely low speed (Nuclear technology) - probably no fix for that, only researching better engines (it's already on 125% output)
* lack of long range sensor - I wanted this thing to be very small so it has only short range and medium range sensor. Should I maybe create another with 8000 or 1000 tons as optimal and adding it? It would better fill the role and have the possibility to detect things like shipyards and freighters on a very decent distance
* Armour size is relatively high but as this thing is very slow I think it's appropriate for it to have good armour. I am already researching composite to alleviate some of the stress

Thank you in advance for any comments!

PS: The Turret has a faster tracking speed as I intend to research new targeting speed right after the composite armour which will then have TS of 8000 km/s

[bobterrius]

Hello.

Nice start, but:

For me, beam weapon must go along with high speed.

Without you cannot choose the time and place of the figth (even in defence).


Maybe it's possible to take out the Res 1 active sensor (as you don't need to detect missil: nothing to destroy them).

Maybe put a bigger activ sensor res 20 or 40.

Try also to put one other engine along with fuel tank.

[Alfapiomega (OP)]

Hello.

Nice start, but:

For me, beam weapon must go along with high speed.

Without you cannot choose the time and place of the figth (even in defence).


Maybe it's possible to take out the Res 1 active sensor (as you don't need to detect missil: nothing to destroy them).

Maybe put a bigger activ sensor res 20 or 40.

Try also to put one other engine along with fuel tank.

Hey!

Thank you for the comment! The ship has both resolution 1 and resolution 40 active sensor plus the thermal and EM sensor. I have the 40 for medium range scans and the resolution 1 to see missiles. However I am wondering what you meant by “nothing to destroy them”. I put the quad turrets on the ship so it could target incoming missiles and defend iself or a planet it would be stationed on from them. Did I do something wrong? Lasers are capable of destroying missiles, aren’t they?

Regarding the engines: there is a problem due to the size of the ship. Each additional engine only raises the speed by a small margin (like 40 km/s) due to the size of armor and other equipment so if I had 8 of them the ship was still going only 520 km/s or so. That is why I think there is no solution to it other than maybe completely changing the design. But I am unwilling to do so unless this is completely worthless. I would instead use this as guardian on planet orbits and jump points where it has an advantage. Would that work?

[bobterrius]

OK, I understand better your doctrine.


But, it seems to me that only "8000 km/s" tracking speed is low to catch missile.


And even if you use this kind of ship as static defense for planet you can put bigger sensor on PDC on the surface of the planet.

It's for this reason that I think that you don't really need to have a res 1 sensor onboard.


Moreover, if you use it as jump point defence, the ennemy will not have the time to fire missile before you hit it.

[Jorgen_CAB]

The ship is fine for the technology used in my opinion. The speed of a ship is not all that important if it is mainly for defensive purposes. If it was designed to be an offensive beam ship then speed would be of a much higher concern.

8000km/s in tracking speed is pretty fine at this tech level, we can't really expect too much in this regard. Faster turrets and tracking speed will obviously develop over time.

The sensors on the ship is probably what you can expect as well for this class. If you want to increase the range you could of course increase the resolution but then you degrade the range of detecting smaller ships as well, but at the same time you also increase the chance you are yourself detected with the active scanner.

One change I would do later on would be to use 10cm turreted laser in a quad turret and a few 15-20cm main combat lasers with no turrets. That would make the ship a very good defensive ship able to engage both ships and missiles quite efficiently.

Speed is only important later when and if you want to use beam weapons as a primary offensive weapon. Me personally never do that because it leave you extremely vulnerable if you face an enemy that are faster than you are. I use heavy beam  weapons as a means to defend/attack jump points and as a means to defend a fleet from a faster enemy with beam weapons. I would only consider using my beam weapons offensively if I meet a hostile race that are inferior to me.

When I reach about Ion or Plasma drives I usually have three levels of laser defences sometimes I switch the primary laser canons with particle beams. My main PD is 10cm lasers in a twin-quad turret with maximum tracking speed, 15cm lasers in 2x tracking speed and 20-30cm lasers with no turrets for close range beam combat/defence.

There is almost no point in putting beam weapons on a planet with an atmosphere, beam weapons are very bad in that environment. You might want to place heavy beam batteries on the Moon that has no atmosphere, but at this tech level that is pointless since the range and accuracy is just too poor for protecting the earth.

In practical terms going forward I would say that detecting and intelligence gathering of the opponent is way more important than the speed of your ships. That way you know when and where to put your ships in a position to overwhelm the enemy. I rarely construct ships with more than 20-25% of their weight with engines, often even less. Basically the larger the ship the less engines I put on them with lower efficiencies. I rather build more ships with a lower cost and more weapons and more scout/recon vessels with decent speeds.

What you might consider is to add a 250t boat bay and add a small recon ship with a res 100 sensor and a very small EM sensor, this could have a decent speed.  

Personally I would scale down my engines to about 100% efficiency and use slightly more engines to weight ratio and add a boat bay with a scout vessel. You could then reduce the fuel tanks to about 500.000 litres and still get an increased range, fuel is probably an issue for you this early in the game. Perhaps increase the ships size to about 8-9000t or so. It is not easy to build efficient ship designs at these tech levels because almost anything you meet out there will outclass you no matter what...

Also... be wary of scale creep.

[Alfapiomega (OP)]

OK, I understand better your doctrine.


But, it seems to me that only "8000 km/s" tracking speed is low to catch missile.


And even if you use this kind of ship as static defense for planet you can put bigger sensor on PDC on the surface of the planet.

It's for this reason that I think that you don't really need to have a res 1 sensor onboard.


Moreover, if you use it as jump point defence, the ennemy will not have the time to fire missile before you hit it.

You are right of course! But this is the first ship of the navy, very first one that I have ever created and I don't have sufficient technology yet to make it good. I need something to start with which is this I am only 30 years into the game so consider this a prototype of what the navy will use and try to improve. Could it work as a basic thing to manufacture?

And yes, again you are right about the PDC's. I want to design a PDC too for each of my colonies but first I wanted to propose a ship design to see if the weapons are ok

BTW - if I put laser on a PDC they would have penalty for shooting through the athmosphere, right?

[Alfapiomega (OP)]

The ship is fine for the technology used in my opinion. The speed of a ship is not all that important if it is mainly for defensive purposes. If it was designed to be an offensive beam ship then speed would be of a much higher concern.

8000km/s in tracking speed is pretty fine at this tech level, we can't really expect too much in this regard. Faster turrets and tracking speed will obviously develop over time.

The sensors on the ship is probably what you can expect as well for this class. If you want to increase the range you could of course increase the resolution but then you degrade the range of detecting smaller ships as well, but at the same time you also increase the chance you are yourself detected with the active scanner.

One change I would do later on would be to use 10cm turreted laser in a quad turret and a few 15-20cm main combat lasers with no turrets. That would make the ship a very good defensive ship able to engage both ships and missiles quite efficiently.

Speed is only important later when and if you want to use beam weapons as a primary offensive weapon. Me personally never do that because it leave you extremely vulnerable if you face an enemy that are faster than you are. I use heavy beam  weapons as a means to defend/attack jump points and as a means to defend a fleet from a faster enemy with beam weapons. I would only consider using my beam weapons offensively if I meet a hostile race that are inferior to me.

When I reach about Ion or Plasma drives I usually have three levels of laser defences sometimes I switch the primary laser canons with particle beams. My main PD is 10cm lasers in a twin-quad turret with maximum tracking speed, 15cm lasers in 2x tracking speed and 20-30cm lasers with no turrets for close range beam combat/defence.

There is almost no point in putting beam weapons on a planet with an atmosphere, beam weapons are very bad in that environment. You might want to place heavy beam batteries on the Moon that has no atmosphere, but at this tech level that is pointless since the range and accuracy is just too poor for protecting the earth.

In practical terms going forward I would say that detecting and intelligence gathering of the opponent is way more important than the speed of your ships. That way you know when and where to put your ships in a position to overwhelm the enemy. I rarely construct ships with more than 20-25% of their weight with engines, often even less. Basically the larger the ship the less engines I put on them with lower efficiencies. I rather build more ships with a lower cost and more weapons and more scout/recon vessels with decent speeds.

What you might consider is to add a 250t boat bay and add a small recon ship with a res 100 sensor and a very small EM sensor, this could have a decent speed.  

Personally I would scale down my engines to about 100% efficiency and use slightly more engines to weight ratio and add a boat bay with a scout vessel. You could then reduce the fuel tanks to about 500.000 litres and still get an increased range, fuel is probably an issue for you this early in the game. Perhaps increase the ships size to about 8-9000t or so. It is not easy to build efficient ship designs at these tech levels because almost anything you meet out there will outclass you no matter what...

Also... be wary of scale creep.

Hey Jorgen!

Thank you very much for the message. I somehow entirely missed it when I was writing a response to the other post and just noticed it now during lunch

I am so glad that I got the design right, I was afraid that I left out something really obvious and made myself look like a dumbass

Regarding your comments – any reason why you would prefer the 10cm to 12cm? Or did you say that because you would add some heavy non-turreted lasers for anti-ship purpose thus having turreted PD and non-turreted offensive weapons?
I went with all in the turret because IMO two larger quad turrets are better than two smaller turrets and beam weapons that would have tracking speed of only 1250 km/s which is truly awful. I don’t think I could hit anything with that; even the turret speed upgrade is my priority.

And regarding the boat bay – in the video I thought about it but this ship doesn’t really seem like a good scout at all. I wanted a scout originally but this heavy thing is way too slow for it. The range and fuel is there so that it could reach the jump points (even the distant ones) where it would escort the Lilian II class ships through into the new system, wait at the jump point and in case need arises defend them. However it won’t venture anywhere in the new systems as it would be quickly overwhelmed. I will create a different, smaller and fast unarmed ship or go with another big overhaul of the Lilian II class ships giving them a small pinnacle that could be used to scout the habitable planets before they conduct a survey there.

Regarding the scare – my largest military shipyard is 6000 tons so conserving space is a priority or this one won’t see the daylight for even more (it will take 2 years just to upgrade the New York Shipbuilding to this size). Would it be really worth adding extra engines and increasing the size?

[bobterrius]

BTW - if I put laser on a PDC they would have penalty for shooting through the athmosphere, right?

Yes.

What I say: the PDC is disarmed, only a big active sensor base. The weapons are onboard fleet defence force.

[Jorgen_CAB]

Regarding your comments – any reason why you would prefer the 10cm to 12cm? Or did you say that because you would add some heavy non-turreted lasers for anti-ship purpose thus having turreted PD and non-turreted offensive weapons?
I went with all in the turret because IMO two larger quad turrets are better than two smaller turrets and beam weapons that would have tracking speed of only 1250 km/s which is truly awful. I don’t think I could hit anything with that; even the turret speed upgrade is my priority.

I was mainly looking into how the future outlook might be.

For now a 12cm cannon can be a good middle ground at this tech level. When you advance further you might want to build more dedicated weapon systems. The 10cm cannon is very good as point defence because it is 25% lighter and require 25% less power. You can also miniaturize it and get good results from it later on. But it will only be a dedicated short range PD system. The 12cm laser does not have good enough range to fire more than once at most inbound missiles, even low tech ones.

Heavier lasers will require very expensive beam fire-controls if placed in fast turrets and also be very expensive with advanced capacitors and power generators if used as dedicated PD. Therefore most restrict heavier lasers to lower tracking speeds and often to the default speed.
I agree that 1250km/s is most likely too slow to hit most ships you are likely to encounter with higher technology, they hit your own ships just fine. I usually go with a mix of x2 and standard depending on known enemy speeds. If I have no clue about an enemy I just go with a speed that could hit my own ships. I can't really prepare for something my society have difficulty even to imagine.

I generally put my 15cm lasers in x2 times my tracking speed technology so they can multi-task as PD and ship killers, including faster FAC crafts and not just standard warships.

My advice was more of a natural development into the future, I see no direct reason to change the design that you presented above. Other might find some smart things in which to improve on it (with regard to the technology at hand), but to me it seems just fine for what it is designed to do.

And regarding the boat bay – in the video I thought about it but this ship doesn’t really seem like a good scout at all. I wanted a scout originally but this heavy thing is way too slow for it. The range and fuel is there so that it could reach the jump points (even the distant ones) where it would escort the Lilian II class ships through into the new system, wait at the jump point and in case need arises defend them. However it won’t venture anywhere in the new systems as it would be quickly overwhelmed. I will create a different, smaller and fast unarmed ship or go with another big overhaul of the Lilian II class ships giving them a small pinnacle that could be used to scout the habitable planets before they conduct a survey there.

I agree that you should perhaps not include a boat bay into this design, not in the way you intend to use it. I would even go so far as to classify the ship as a Monitor and not a Cruiser. Not that this matter, it just feels more like the equivalent of a Monitor than a Cruiser. 

Regarding the scare – my largest military shipyard is 6000 tons so conserving space is a priority or this one won’t see the daylight for even more (it will take 2 years just to upgrade the New York Shipbuilding to this size). Would it be really worth adding extra engines and increasing the size?

Just my bad experience of how it generally goes. 

[Jorgen_CAB]

Yes.

What I say: the PDC is disarmed, only a big active sensor base. The weapons are onboard fleet defence force.

In my personal experience these PDC tend to be very expensive in both research and production cost, especially this early in the game. Later when the economy is more developed I would certainly consider such PDC at most main worlds. For now I would rely on a smaller 500t shuttle and a hangar PDC. The ship would fit the fastest engines possible and a small active sensor to paint any incoming threat. A good coverage of the tracking stations should pick up enemy ships early enough for you to send out your scouts to support any missile bases you might have.

The ship themselves would actually not need much more than the resolution 1 active sensor system. The larger sensor will not actually do that much good. And if you want to save some space and cost it could probably be remove all together and replaced with a smaller much faster more dedicated scout ship. The larger cruiser is not a good scout anyway and detecting a ship at 3m km is certainly good enough for their weapons and purposes.

[Hawkeye]

Just to expand on laser sizes.
As far as I can tell, you have researched capacitor 2.
Once you reach cap-3, a 10cm laser will fire every 5 second, doubling the rate of fire in comparison to your 12cm, making it much more efficient in an anti-missile role.

At the same time, the 15cm laser (same mass as the 12cm laser) also reaches a ROF of 10 like your 12cm one, while having better range and dealing more damage.
You will need to research cap-4 to get the 12cm to shoot every 5 seconds and thus getting an advantage in close range combat.

As for the speed of your ship:
If you use it for warp point defense, I agree with Jorgen, that it is all right, given your technology.
If you intend to use it in a mobile defense (like as a defense fleet patroling between Earth and Mars, for example), it will die horribly, however, without ever fireing a single shot at the enemy. Every meeting engagement in deep space with an enemy that has weapons of longer range, that enemy is bound to be staying out of your range while picking your cruiser apart.

Note on laser PDCs and atmosphere:
Yes, lasers in PDCs are pretty much useless in those circumstances.
If I want to use a laser based defense for a habitable planet, I therefore build orbital defense bases. They can be rather small and thus cheap, so I can build a whole bunch of them (usually split between a PD base and an offensive beam base)
Something like this:

Trafalgar class Orbital Weapon Platform    3,500 tons     105 Crew     647.8 BP      TCS 70  TH 0  EM 420
1 km/s     Armour 4-20     Shields 14-400     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 1     PPV 20.46
Maint Life 1.55 Years     MSP 116    AFR 98%    IFR 1.4%    1YR 55    5YR 825    Max Repair 154 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 1 months    Spare Berths 0   
Magazine 125   

Fuel Capacity 50,000 Litres    Range N/A
Vickers Type Gamma/1.5 Electromagnetic Shield (7)   Total Fuel Cost  84 Litres per hour  (2,016 per day)

Quad Elswick 4" NUV Laser Cannon Mk. 76 Turret (1x4)    Range 90,000km     TS: 16000 km/s     Power 12-12     RM 3    ROF 5        3 3 3 2 1 1 1 1 1 0
Pollen Fire Control System 64-16000 (1)    Max Range: 128,000 km   TS: 16000 km/s     92 84 77 69 61 53 45 37 30 22
Brown-Curtiss Type 4.5 GCF-Reactor (3)     Total Power Output 13.5    Armour 0    Exp 5%

Britisch Aerospace Company Sylver VLS (5)    Missile Size 1    Rate of Fire 10
High Angel Control System 9.6/1 (1)     Range 9.6m km    Resolution 1
British Aerospace Starflash IV (125)  Speed: 38,400 km/s   End: 1.9m    Range: 4.4m km   WH: 1    Size: 1    TH: 243/146/73

Barr & Strout Type 6.4/1 Radar System (1)     GPS 80     Range 6.4m km    Resolution 1

If you want a pure beam defense base, replace the launchers and magazines with another turret, or if you want an anti-ship beam base, replace all weapons with larger lasers.
This base uses more advanced technology, but the concepts stays the same.

[Alfapiomega (OP)]

I was mainly looking into how the future outlook might be.

For now a 12cm cannon can be a good middle ground at this tech level. When you advance further you might want to build more dedicated weapon systems. The 10cm cannon is very good as point defence because it is 25% lighter and require 25% less power. You can also miniaturize it and get good results from it later on. But it will only be a dedicated short range PD system. The 12cm laser does not have good enough range to fire more than once at most inbound missiles, even low tech ones.

Heavier lasers will require very expensive beam fire-controls if placed in fast turrets and also be very expensive with advanced capacitors and power generators if used as dedicated PD. Therefore most restrict heavier lasers to lower tracking speeds and often to the default speed.
I agree that 1250km/s is most likely too slow to hit most ships you are likely to encounter with higher technology, they hit your own ships just fine. I usually go with a mix of x2 and standard depending on known enemy speeds. If I have no clue about an enemy I just go with a speed that could hit my own ships. I can't really prepare for something my society have difficulty even to imagine.

I generally put my 15cm lasers in x2 times my tracking speed technology so they can multi-task as PD and ship killers, including faster FAC crafts and not just standard warships.

My advice was more of a natural development into the future, I see no direct reason to change the design that you presented above. Other might find some smart things in which to improve on it (with regard to the technology at hand), but to me it seems just fine for what it is designed to do.

I agree that you should perhaps not include a boat bay into this design, not in the way you intend to use it. I would even go so far as to classify the ship as a Monitor and not a Cruiser. Not that this matter, it just feels more like the equivalent of a Monitor than a Cruiser. 



Just my bad experience of how it generally goes. 

Thank you! And yes, you are right. Monitor seems appropriate now.

[Alfapiomega (OP)]

Just to expand on laser sizes.
As far as I can tell, you have researched capacitor 2.
Once you reach cap-3, a 10cm laser will fire every 5 second, doubling the rate of fire in comparison to your 12cm, making it much more efficient in an anti-missile role.

At the same time, the 15cm laser (same mass as the 12cm laser) also reaches a ROF of 10 like your 12cm one, while having better range and dealing more damage.
You will need to research cap-4 to get the 12cm to shoot every 5 seconds and thus getting an advantage in close range combat.

As for the speed of your ship:
If you use it for warp point defense, I agree with Jorgen, that it is all right, given your technology.
If you intend to use it in a mobile defense (like as a defense fleet patroling between Earth and Mars, for example), it will die horribly, however, without ever fireing a single shot at the enemy. Every meeting engagement in deep space with an enemy that has weapons of longer range, that enemy is bound to be staying out of your range while picking your cruiser apart.

Note on laser PDCs and atmosphere:
Yes, lasers in PDCs are pretty much useless in those circumstances.
If I want to use a laser based defense for a habitable planet, I therefore build orbital defense bases. They can be rather small and thus cheap, so I can build a whole bunch of them (usually split between a PD base and an offensive beam base)
Something like this:


If you want a pure beam defense base, replace the launchers and magazines with another turret, or if you want an anti-ship beam base, replace all weapons with larger lasers.
This base uses more advanced technology, but the concepts stays the same.

Thank you, I thought it might have been because of the energy output

And regarding the stations - I had exactly the same idea. I will use the turrets to create mounted satellite orbital platforms. Just a question though - say they have a size of 2000 tons and speed of 1km/s. If I create a ship that has boat bay of appropriate size (2000 tons), would I be able to load them in after constructing them on Earth it and deploy them at colony sites?

[Jorgen_CAB]

Yes it is possible to load any ship into a hangar if it fits. In your case a "ship" with 1km/s movement.

[coco146]

Turrets are quite heavy.  Considering the weight there you may want to swap them for a larger number of lasers and power plants,  I don't usually find much use for turrets on frontline combat ships.