What's going on in your empire/planet/battlefield?

[xeryon]

Glad my first encounter was an immobile base with only a handful of launchers.  Facing 100's of incoming missiles with my inadequate fleet would have been demoralizing.  Although, with the opening defeat under my belt I know a little more about what might be needed. 

More training for everyone and considerably more tracking speed.  0% chance to hit just isn't going to cut it. I was sitting at about 50-60% average FT for my ships, obviously 100% is goal but it was getting late and I wanted to get this first battle completed before I called it quits for the night.  I hadn't thought about how turrets track faster than fixed mount.  The fixed railgun tracking appeared as though it should have been sufficient based on tracking speeds reported in some of the fiction I had been reading, WAY wrong on that assumption.   Railguns don't turret mount though, but mesons, lasers and gauss do?  At least these were only strength 2 warheads.  My cruiser was only lightly armored and took a lot of hits before going down which gives me hope that if I can get the tracking speed up I might be able to take down enough to close the range to fire on the source.

I tried changing my firecontrol settings but when I would select the mode and hit assign nothing appeared to change and when I would open the window back up the selection box would say "none" again.  Haven't figured out if it's my ignorance, a bug or if it was actually updating and just doesn't show it.

[TheDeadlyShoe]

Railguns can't turret mount, but they fire four shots.  They are pretty much as good at PD as other weapons, if not better - since you only need relatively small and cheap fire controls.

Were you looking in the ship screen for changing the mode, or the Combat Overview? Combat overview is waaaay easier.

[xeryon]

I believe it was the ship screen.  I'll double check to see if I was missing the easy method for managing the FC settings when I sit down to it later.

Until I have researched the prerequisite techs to upgrade/refit my ships I think I'll scope out some of the other systems suspected to be occupied.  This one happened to be a beefy orbital, I know of a couple which I have confirmed have actual ships.  With a little luck their ASMs will not be as fast and my PD might be able to be of some use.  Would be nice to salvage a few of them to kick start my lopsided research.

BTW, it completely sucks when you generate your own system and personnel and settle on a starting layout of scientists and then have your only one in propulsion die in the first two years.  Obviously, I could have rerolled personnel but that would be cheating more then I want to do.  Is there a way to generate specific leaders?  In my mind I could RP that my government labs took out a help wanted ad on Monster for a Rocket Scientist.

[Rawb]

Random Semi-related question.

How many warships do you guys actually construct? Do you have one Fleet active with around 20 or so ships or lots of smaller groups? I'm not exactly new to the game but I've never really gotten past building my first Missile Cruiser/Sensorship/PD Cruiser and I've never had to use PD yet. I've also never really designed any other tech apart from missiles due to range constraints, is it worth my time looking into beam ships? If so what kind of role are they actually used for seeing as missiles seem to be the best weapon.

Sorry if this is the wrong place to ask but you guys were on about military so I figured I'd ask here :3.

[Thiosk]

Random Semi-related question.

How many warships do you guys actually construct? Do you have one Fleet active with around 20 or so ships or lots of smaller groups? I'm not exactly new to the game but I've never really gotten past building my first Missile Cruiser/Sensorship/PD Cruiser and I've never had to use PD yet. I've also never really designed any other tech apart from missiles due to range constraints, is it worth my time looking into beam ships? If so what kind of role are they actually used for seeing as missiles seem to be the best weapon.

Sorry if this is the wrong place to ask but you guys were on about military so I figured I'd ask here :3.

Great question, probably more suited to the academy section though.  I do ship building in rounds.  My first ship building is typically just rag-tag patrol boats, able to fire off a couple missiles and designed to die rather horribly. 

The second round of ship building gets a few 15k ton range ships, and a range of smaller ships, my first gen fleet usually has 20 ships, all single role vessels. I tend to have groups of 20 ships.  I like a couple AMM vessels, and turreted beam ships.  Main line cruisers lob big missiles, usually just 3 big cruisers or so, and then smaller corvettes-- five or 6, that shoot smaller missiles.  And a sensor boat.

I always favor bigger ships.  Once I have that big first fleet, I've got enough shipyards that I can start developing some beam offense.  I usually build up a beam based strike fleet at that time.

By now my tech level is getting good, so the next generation is a much more advanced and synched fleet.  I have bigger yards, so run them off on production lines to get them trained up as soon as possible.  I still tend to operate in autonomous groups of 20-30 ships at this stage, but I'll have 3 or 4 of those.

Getting the maintenance and fueling up to par, as well as the secondary stuff of colliers and tankers to support that takes some additional time.  But by the time I have ICF engines, I usually have a basic troop transport capacity, tankers, colliers, main and support ships for the original primary fleet.

In the third round of ship building, I maintain that strategy, but get extra groups and start incorporating carriers.  I've never used a fleet with carriers, though, as my games tend to crash by the time I'm producing 50kton carriers and associated jumpships

[Owen Quillion]

With regards to missiles and beam weapons, missiles are totally awesome massive-ranged purveyors of death and will work fantastically right up until your magazines go dry and your once-mighty warship is now nothing more than a target. Getting missile reloads to a battlefront means significant logistical overhead, and I have more than once used the vast majority of my homeworld's missile stockpile on a protracted campaign. The gist is that they're the absolute stars of the show tactically and a pain-in-the-ass strategically.

Beam weapons, by comparison, require knife-fight ranges and will keep on ticking as long as they (and their reactors) aren't exploded. Having beam-elements in the fleet is great for picking off wounded or already-weak enemies, and can be a life saver if the enemy's own beam ships manage to close. I don't have a ton of experience and haven't exactly run any numbers, but my impression is that beams will generally deal out more damage faster than a missile ship with similar tonnage devoted to weaponry, which is useful in some situations.

Generally speaking, a fleet should have both - beams are a great way to save ammo and can help you cut your way out of a pinch.

[Nathan_]

Random Semi-related question.

How many warships do you guys actually construct? Do you have one Fleet active with around 20 or so ships or lots of smaller groups? I'm not exactly new to the game but I've never really gotten past building my first Missile Cruiser/Sensorship/PD Cruiser and I've never had to use PD yet. I've also never really designed any other tech apart from missiles due to range constraints, is it worth my time looking into beam ships? If so what kind of role are they actually used for seeing as missiles seem to be the best weapon.

Sorry if this is the wrong place to ask but you guys were on about military so I figured I'd ask here :3.

Beams are good, but represent an enormous opportunity cost atleast in terms of research(beam FC/turrets/beam weapons themselves in addition to missiles is pricey). If you have the resources for them, get them, otherwise skip them.

[Thiosk]

I take a balanced approach to beam vs missile in every game.  I love lasers, I'm now enamoured with gauss PD (no reactors!), but to use them you have to fly through a hailstorm of death and destruction until you close to range, which means heavy armor, lots of engines, preferably shields, and PD escorts. 

All quite doable, but for that first fleet, I forgo them entirely and pursue them only after the gen1 fleet is complete.

[TheDeadlyShoe]

The number of warships depends a lot on the size of ships you are constructing... which depends a lot on your game setup, your level of industry and technology, mineral inputs, etc.

Big warships are generally better, but theres all sorts of potential inefficiences and problems. You need big, expensive yards with big, expensive retooling costs.  Jumpdrive research costs explode after like drive size 35-45, especially for the early game... so its hard to develop those large drives. And when you do build those jump vessels, I end up with the problem of them being too rare and valuable to commit to jumppoint assaults. 

I like to target a size I can build a decent quantity of, decently fast. 6000 tons is what I used in my latest Conventional game for my first and second generation warships.   Having at least several squadrons (2-4 ships each) of a ship class gives a great deal of flexibility in terms of training and deployments.  If you have only a couple squadrons of larger vessels, you can end up with a situation where you can't refit or overhaul one squadron because it's needed for defense while the other squadron is probing or attacking.

[Shaitan]

Well, just had my first ever hostile encounter in Aurora, and I'm not entirely sure what happened.

Discovered the System of Epsilon Eridani several years ago, noted 3 unknown wrecks orbitting the second body, so I sent a frigate squadron for a quick sweep of the system, they moved through the system without noting anything unusual and so returned to their regular station.

Comes time when the jump gate has been completed that the second body is my next target for colonisation.  (At this point I still haven't completed any surveys of the system, my survey efforts are behind where I'd like to be thanks to a black hole incident and several other factors. ) I set up a colony on the planet, and order one of the cargo squadrons to start hauling in some infrastructure and a tracking station.  Assigned an administrator and then went to check on available ground forces to use for the initial garrison.

It's at this point the line "Abandoned Installations - (Unknown race, xenologist team required)" catches my eye.  OK, the garrison chosen moves up from being a garrison brigade to a spare Mobile Infantry brigade, a xeno team is formed planetside.  (I kind of feel bad about this, especially seeing as I have a shuttle in service whose sole purpose is to ferry around my geo team).

Fast forward to the Troop ship arriving planetside and conducting unloading operations, 3 hours into the task I suddenly get a new hostile contact message! New Thermal Contact! Strength 5 Active Sensor S0 7/R84.  I'm not entirely sure what that means but I didn't stick around to find out, unloading is cancelled and the Troopship plus the still inbound cargo squadron are ordered to retreat to the other side of the jump gate.

Fleet training is cancelled and 3 task forces are hastily assembled out of my currently incomplete fleet.  A Frigate squadron holds station over Earth to act as a reserve and an emergency last ditch defence if things go terribly wrong, A second Frigate squadron pickets the jump gate Sol side.  My last Frigate squadron, and the recently completed and still half trained CL/DD squadron proceed to make the jump and picket the planet.  About 1. 5b Kms out, I remember to go into the combat summary and set up my PD fire controls.  I reach the planet without hazard, and decide to switch on shields and active sensors, to see if I can flush anything out.

4 hours later (and 2 hours after the shields finish charging), new contact!

15th November 2028 10:00:01, Epsilon Eridani, Hostile Missile Contact (x4)

15th November 2028 10:00:01, Epsilon Eridani, Hood - Fire Control S04 24-12000 H50 targeting Missile Salvo #8919 at 0k km: Base Chance to hit: 104% (Fire Control To Hit: 100%  Modified by Crew Grade: 104%)

15th November 2028 10:00:01, Epsilon Eridani, (x4) Hood: Single  TCS 24 Gauss Cannon R2-100 TurretFire Control To Hit: 100%  Modified by Crew Grade: 104% hit the target and destroyed an enemy missile.

I had no indication where the missiles came from, but considering my sensors are currently lit up (after reading the forums I do include res 0 active sensors) and I detected the missiles at 0 kms, I assume their origin is planetside.

And now, another 15 days have passed, and. . . .  nothing.

No new missile attacks, no contacts on active, nothing on passives.  Nothing.

The troopship is currently on its way back to the still picketed planet to see wether boots on the ground will reveal anything.  But the single wave of 4 missiles out of the blue has me scratching my head a little.

[Rawb]

Great question, probably more suited to the academy section though.  I do ship building in rounds.  My first ship building is typically just rag-tag patrol boats, able to fire off a couple missiles and designed to die rather horribly. 

I might make a topic there soon. So you just load up a few launchers on a ship so you aren't completely defenseless?

The second round of ship building gets a few 15k ton range ships, and a range of smaller ships, my first gen fleet usually has 20 ships, all single role vessels. I tend to have groups of 20 ships.  I like a couple AMM vessels, and turreted beam ships.  Main line cruisers lob big missiles, usually just 3 big cruisers or so, and then smaller corvettes-- five or 6, that shoot smaller missiles.  And a sensor boat.

Those turrets for PD or close range fighting?

With regards to missiles and beam weapons, missiles are totally awesome massive-ranged purveyors of death and will work fantastically right up until your magazines go dry and your once-mighty warship is now nothing more than a target. Getting missile reloads to a battlefront means significant logistical overhead, and I have more than once used the vast majority of my homeworld's missile stockpile on a protracted campaign. The gist is that they're the absolute stars of the show tactically and a pain-in-the-ass strategically.

Ahhh, I see!

Beam weapons, by comparison, require knife-fight ranges and will keep on ticking as long as they (and their reactors) aren't exploded. Having beam-elements in the fleet is great for picking off wounded or already-weak enemies, and can be a life saver if the enemy's own beam ships manage to close. I don't have a ton of experience and haven't exactly run any numbers, but my impression is that beams will generally deal out more damage faster than a missile ship with similar tonnage devoted to weaponry, which is useful in some situations.

So I could have a couple of missile cruisers and then a few smaller beam ships for closer defense?

Generally speaking, a fleet should have both - beams are a great way to save ammo and can help you cut your way out of a pinch.

Guess i should start looking into it.

I take a balanced approach to beam vs missile in every game.  I love lasers, I'm now enamoured with gauss PD (no reactors!), but to use them you have to fly through a hailstorm of death and destruction until you close to range, which means heavy armor, lots of engines, preferably shields, and PD escorts. 

All quite doable, but for that first fleet, I forgo them entirely and pursue them only after the gen1 fleet is complete.

Think i used Gauss on my first fighters for that very reason. Ok, I'll think of something for fleet Mark II.

The number of warships depends a lot on the size of ships you are constructing... which depends a lot on your game setup, your level of industry and technology, mineral inputs, etc.

Big warships are generally better, but theres all sorts of potential inefficiences and problems. You need big, expensive yards with big, expensive retooling costs.  Jumpdrive research costs explode after like drive size 35-45, especially for the early game... so its hard to develop those large drives. And when you do build those jump vessels, I end up with the problem of them being too rare and valuable to commit to jumppoint assaults. 

I like to target a size I can build a decent quantity of, decently fast. 6000 tons is what I used in my latest Conventional game for my first and second generation warships.   Having at least several squadrons (2-4 ships each) of a ship class gives a great deal of flexibility in terms of training and deployments.  If you have only a couple squadrons of larger vessels, you can end up with a situation where you can't refit or overhaul one squadron because it's needed for defense while the other squadron is probing or attacking.

I'll keep that in mind at see how it goes  .

Thanks so much for the responses, seems there is so much I still need to learn but thanks a lot .

[Owen Quillion]

Happy to help.

To answer your question, my personal doctrine is to have a few beam-armed ships in every fleet group once I've got access - they're more often for cleanup than making actual kills, but if for whatever reason something closes (one spoiler race is particularly prone to this if I'm not careful) they're worth their weight in gold.

Of course, as everybody else says, early on I stick with missile boats, primarily because they're so effective and in your first engagements, you've likely got some plenty of missiles stocked back home. Once you can afford beams they're worth the cost (particularly if you're pursuing a type that can be used for point defense as well - lasers and railguns being the likely options. Gauss cannons can tear apart wounded ships but their extreme short range makes them difficult to use purely offensively).

[Thiosk]

After getting a bloody nose by an alien fleet, I ran to the jump point and sat there waiting for missile reloads and reinforcements.  

They did a standard transit through the wormhole.

My 15kton quad gauss turreted point defense cruisers (4 quad turrets each) were able to open up and CHEWWW them.  To death.  A couple missiles went off but it was a gloriously brutal, destructive time for the aliens. Sweet sweet revenge.  

Kill count was 55 kills to 3 losses-- they took out two missile corvettes (4000 tons each) and a backup sensor array platform.  I learned a valuable lesson: early game I tend not to put sensors even on my pd.  This is a mistake.  Your pd should be able to fire even if your main force goes down.



All done by point defense.  Thats only half the dang list   How embarrassing would it be to get destroyed by an enemy's point defense?  I know when I rush headlong into a HAILSTORM of AMM I get that special sinking feeling.

[Arwyn]

Random Semi-related question.

How many warships do you guys actually construct? Do you have one Fleet active with around 20 or so ships or lots of smaller groups? I'm not exactly new to the game but I've never really gotten past building my first Missile Cruiser/Sensorship/PD Cruiser and I've never had to use PD yet. I've also never really designed any other tech apart from missiles due to range constraints, is it worth my time looking into beam ships? If so what kind of role are they actually used for seeing as missiles seem to be the best weapon.

Sorry if this is the wrong place to ask but you guys were on about military so I figured I'd ask here :3.

Like Thiosk, early in game, my biggest ships are missile destroyers until I get my shipyards up in size. Once I have large enough shipyards, cruisers soon follow.

I try to build at least one offensive fleet per jump point out of Sol, that way I almost always have a response force to anything occurring down that arm. Most inhabited systems get a squadron or two of FAC's.

My fleets are a mix of cruisers and smaller. My current fleet setup is one command cruisers, 2 missile cruisers, 1 beam cruiser, 2 Gauss PD escorts, 2 missile destroyers, 2 beam frigates, 1 dedicated collier for missile reloads, and 1 tanker for fuel and spare parts. I have learned the hard way to ALWAYS have some beam ships in every fleet, even if your primarily a missile fleet.

I keep the smaller ships for a couple of reasons. 1st is that I dont like to get rid of trained and experienced warships, they are too valuable. 2nd, the are good for supplementary firepower and PD roles. 3rd, they are great for detachment and independent roles like recon and running down cripples.

[kyle902]

My first contact with an NPR was botched and they opened fire on my survey ships destroying both.  They then start building a jumpgate to my home system.  In retaliation I send in my strongest fleet, blow up the gateship, and split my fleet into two groups.  My main fleet and my bombardment cruisers and escorts.  After the bombardment I plan on sending in my troops to capture the system