Opinion on my first real warship

[Napalm (OP)]

Just started playing a few weeks ago and I'm hooked on this game.  I haven't really had much combat experience except for spoilers.  This is my first warship meant to fight a npr set for 400% difficulty.  I was wondering if there are any tips people could give me on it. 

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Cornwallis class Command Ship    35,000 tons     918 Crew     7047.84 BP      TCS 700  TH 3600  EM 0
5142 km/s     Armour 8-95     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 24     PPV 152.2
Maint Life 2.04 Years     MSP 3020    AFR 408%    IFR 5.7%    1YR 964    5YR 14467    Max Repair 644 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 12 months    Spare Berths 1   
Magazine 320   

720 EP Ion Drive (5)    Power 720    Fuel Use 47.32%    Signature 720    Exp 12%
Fuel Capacity 3,250,000 Litres    Range 35.3 billion km   (79 days at full power)

38cm C4 Soft X-ray Laser (1)    Range 256,000km     TS: 5142 km/s     Power 38-4     RM 6    ROF 50        38 38 38 38 38 38 32 28 25 22
Quad 10cm C4 Far Ultraviolet Laser Turret (4x4)    Range 150,000km     TS: 30000 km/s     Power 12-16     RM 5    ROF 5        3 3 3 3 3 2 2 1 1 1
Fire Control S02 16-20000 (4)    Max Range: 32,000 km   TS: 20000 km/s     69 37 6 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Fire Control S06 128-7500 (1)    Max Range: 256,000 km   TS: 7500 km/s     96 92 88 84 80 77 73 69 65 61
Gas-Cooled Fast Reactor Technology PB-1 (6)     Total Power Output 108    Armour 0    Exp 5%

Size 5 Missile Launcher (10)    Missile Size 5    Rate of Fire 50
MFC FC457-R50 (1)     Range 457.4m km    Resolution 50

ASS MR500-R50 (1)     GPS 32200     Range 500.9m km    Resolution 50
ASS MR52-R1 MIssile (1)     GPS 476     Range 52.4m km    MCR 5.7m km    Resolution 1

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes

It is meant to always be in a fleet providing some offence and defense with the active sensors.  There will be tankers and colliers to feed it.

[Erik L]

I can tell you right now, the missile launcher won't shoot a thing. You've got empty mags.

Assuming the 16-20k FC is matched with the turrets, you've got an extra 10k of tracking speed you could probably whittle out for a bit of extra elsewhere. You also won't be able to see anything without giving away your location with the actives. A thermal or EM is useful.

I am a proponent of not mixing weapon types. The tonnage you spent on beams and reactors can add missile launchers and mags.

It's almost as if you are not sure what you want the ship to do. Is it an escort? Is it a wall ship? Is it part of a fleet or meant to operate solo?

[alex_brunius]

I can tell you right now, the missile launcher won't shoot a thing. You've got empty mags.

Isn't there 1 missile in the tubes pre-loaded?
That's how fighters normally are built since they rearm.

Edit: Sorry no, your right there is room but it's not loaded.

[Erik L]

Isn't there 1 missile in the tubes pre-loaded?

That's how fighters normally are built since they rearm.

He hasn't assigned a missile type to the ship. And the launcher "mag" space is included in the total magazine space listed.

[Nathan_]

There is no listed ordnance, which means that he'll have to do that part by hand. fuel is kinda excessive if you are going to bring tankers. How much of that 35B are you going to need?

[Erik L]

There is no listed ordnance, which means that he'll have to do that part by hand. fuel is kinda excessive if you are going to bring tankers. How much of that 35B are you going to need?

Did you see the range on it? That thing guzzles fuel like a pre-1970's Detroit beast.

[Napalm (OP)]

I can tell you right now, the missile launcher won't shoot a thing.   You've got empty mags. 

Assuming the 16-20k FC is matched with the turrets, you've got an extra 10k of tracking speed you could probably whittle out for a bit of extra elsewhere.   You also won't be able to see anything without giving away your location with the actives.   A thermal or EM is useful. 

I am a proponent of not mixing weapon types.   The tonnage you spent on beams and reactors can add missile launchers and mags.   

It's almost as if you are not sure what you want the ship to do.   Is it an escort? Is it a wall ship? Is it part of a fleet or meant to operate solo?

I plan on upgrading the fc to 30k once i get the tech.   I forgot to add the missiles to the list.   Most of the lasers are PD and the one large one is for JP either me chasing or running.   I was planning on having this ship provide the active sensors of the fleet. 

Edit: Missile: ASM 5W (64)  Speed: 19,200 km/s   End: 261. 1m    Range: 300. 8m km   WH: 9    Size: 5    TH: 64/38/19

[Nathan_]

Did you see the range on it? That thing guzzles fuel like a pre-1970's Detroit beast.

If he is going to stars 10-20B away from his nearest port tankers are more worthwhile I think.

[Theodidactus]

as they have been saying, it is hard to evaluate the ship because we can't see its primary weapon. You've got decent-sized launchers, but the ship will stand or fall by what it's shooting.

erik points out that you mix weapon types. I do this myself as well, but generally for Role-playing purposes. Take a look at what you're losing by putting lasers on this bad boy. your ship has to carry
- the lasers
- the power system for the lasers
- not 1, but 2 fire controls to guide those lasers

you can replace the tonnage lost here with more missile tubes. now, here's where I have to get philosophical on you:
- if you are going for what FEELS more powerful, lasers and missiles all the way
- if you are going for what IS TRULY more powerful, it's all about just cramming missiles on this beast. going from 10 to 15 missiles in a single salvo doesn't FEEL like that much of an improvement, but that's the difference between 2 missiles getting through and 3 missiles getting through...or between 18 points of damage and 27 points of damage...or between simply denting the armor of a ship and killing it.

realistically, if you've got lots of missiles, and those missiles have in excess of 50 million KM range, it's highly unlikely you're going to get in range to use those lasers unless you've catastrophically screwed something up.

Usually, players will divide roles up among many ships: IE, you have one ship mount the supersensor that will guide the fleet to battle, another small group of ships that will shoot the missiles, and another that will defend ships from incoming missile fire.







Also, in general, I would say that you should use CIWS or mass drivers for missile defense, rather than lasers, if you're new. coordinating laser antimissile defense is a more sophisticated art in my opinion and it can be a bit overwhelming.

[Napalm (OP)]

as they have been saying, it is hard to evaluate the ship because we can't see its primary weapon.  You've got decent-sized launchers, but the ship will stand or fall by what it's shooting. 

erik points out that you mix weapon types.  I do this myself as well, but generally for Role-playing purposes.  Take a look at what you're losing by putting lasers on this bad boy.  your ship has to carry
- the lasers
- the power system for the lasers
- not 1, but 2 fire controls to guide those lasers

you can replace the tonnage lost here with more missile tubes.  now, here's where I have to get philosophical on you:
- if you are going for what FEELS more powerful, lasers and missiles all the way
- if you are going for what IS TRULY more powerful, it's all about just cramming missiles on this beast.  going from 10 to 15 missiles in a single salvo doesn't FEEL like that much of an improvement, but that's the difference between 2 missiles getting through and 3 missiles getting through. . . or between 18 points of damage and 27 points of damage. . . or between simply denting the armor of a ship and killing it. 

realistically, if you've got lots of missiles, and those missiles have in excess of 50 million KM range, it's highly unlikely you're going to get in range to use those lasers unless you've catastrophically screwed something up. 

Usually, players will divide roles up among many ships: IE, you have one ship mount the supersensor that will guide the fleet to battle, another small group of ships that will shoot the missiles, and another that will defend ships from incoming missile fire. 







Also, in general, I would say that you should use CIWS or mass drivers for missile defense, rather than lasers, if you're new.  coordinating laser antimissile defense is a more sophisticated art in my opinion and it can be a bit overwhelming. 

I played with missile ships against spoilers and i felt it was a bit weird.  Either you overwhelm the PD and win or fail to and lose.  So I was toying with the idea of having a laser on the larger ships.

I think you are right about the lasers as PD.  I was thinking of many ships with over lapping fire arcs but I think I got ahead of myself.

I will go back and stick with missile boats in till I beat this NPR.  Thanks everyone for the tips 

[MarcAFK]

Honestly I like the lasers you have on that, but i wanted to point out that if you have 150k range turret you're wasting capabilities by only having 32k range fire controls. Re: the fuel consumption, once again I support gas guzzling ships at that tech level, but you have to live with the fact that you can't spend too much time giving them task force training without wasting fuel, and if you really want to conserve fuel you gotta give them very low range and use tankers to give them any range, otherwise you're wasting fuel carting your fuel around.
Personally I would put the missile launchers onto smaller low speed support ships with extreme cruising range and missile range.
But this ship is a high speed well armoured killing machine and shouldn't waste it's valuable space on missiles or sensors.

[DTF]

Honestly I like the lasers you have on that, but i wanted to point out that if you have 150k range turret you're wasting capabilities by only having 32k range fire controls.

The 32k FC is for final fire PD. I'm building my ships the same way; one slow long range FC against ships and one fast short range FC against missiles.
Until you become quite advanced (or the enemy has horrible missiles), beam area defence against missiles is hard to achieve at best. A 16HS FC to take full effect of your turrets is often times just not worthit - usually you won't have the time to shoot at the inbound missiles twice anyway. For his turrets the missile would have to be slower than 30000km/s to stay in firing range for two 5 sec intervalls. And at max range hit chances will be awful.
Though one question remains for me: Why 4 PD FC?! You will target salvos, not individual missiles. 1 FC is enough, 2 if you want some redundancy in case the first one goes down. But 4 for ONE turret?

Re: the fuel consumption, once again I support gas guzzling ships at that tech level, but you have to live with the fact that you can't spend too much time giving them task force training without wasting fuel,

My solution to this was building a space station in orbit, with hangar space etc. and I just imagined it having a very sophisticated training simulations center. No engines on the station means, it's not going anywhere even while in TF training - just add the trainees to the station's TG and off they go simulating and training without wasting a single bit of fuel.
Alternatively, you can add the commander with the highest crew training rating for the time the ship is in training - with that range, I reckon it would have to refuel at most once before it is at 100% training.

This ship is a nice hybrid between pretty much every role - the result is, of course, a ship that isn't spectacular in any discipline. As a ship with GPS 32200 it will be the prime target for the enemy, so its focus should be in defense. Neither the turrets nor the backup laser are overkill and fit right in (what's that, 6HS laser + 6HS FC? That's 600 tons of a 35000 ton ship. Keep it.).
Only having magazine space for 64 missiles is a bit weak, but what can you do? As long as you have some heavy-duty missile destroyers behind you doing most of the pounding, that should be okay.

Armor is good, range is excellent, a wee-bit too much MSP, great speed for Ion tech, meager offensive missile capability, massive sensors. This is a very solid design and with support from a fleet should provide for what you want it to: be the center of your fleet. Add a flag bridge, maybe? For bling bling?

The one thing that worries me is your missile design though. It won't hit anything unless you go all MEGA-ALPHA-STRIKE with 200 box lauchers on it. TH: 64/38/19 with <20000 speed? Imagine your Cornwall fighting another Cornwall. 38% of your ten missiles will intercept the target, that's 4 misiles. 3 of those 4 will be shot down by your PD. You might as well mass-driver all those minerals used to make 10 missiles directly into the sun.

[Napalm (OP)]

The 32k FC is for final fire PD.  I'm building my ships the same way; one slow long range FC against ships and one fast short range FC against missiles. 
Until you become quite advanced (or the enemy has horrible missiles), beam area defence against missiles is hard to achieve at best.  A 16HS FC to take full effect of your turrets is often times just not worthit - usually you won't have the time to shoot at the inbound missiles twice anyway.  For his turrets the missile would have to be slower than 30000km/s to stay in firing range for two 5 sec intervalls.  And at max range hit chances will be awful. 
Though one question remains for me: Why 4 PD FC?! You will target salvos, not individual missiles.  1 FC is enough, 2 if you want some redundancy in case the first one goes down.  But 4 for ONE turret?

My solution to this was building a space station in orbit, with hangar space etc.  and I just imagined it having a very sophisticated training simulations center.  No engines on the station means, it's not going anywhere even while in TF training - just add the trainees to the station's TG and off they go simulating and training without wasting a single bit of fuel. 
Alternatively, you can add the commander with the highest crew training rating for the time the ship is in training - with that range, I reckon it would have to refuel at most once before it is at 100% training.

This ship is a nice hybrid between pretty much every role - the result is, of course, a ship that isn't spectacular in any discipline.  As a ship with GPS 32200 it will be the prime target for the enemy, so its focus should be in defense.  Neither the turrets nor the backup laser are overkill and fit right in (what's that, 6HS laser + 6HS FC? That's 600 tons of a 35000 ton ship.  Keep it. ). 
Only having magazine space for 64 missiles is a bit weak, but what can you do? As long as you have some heavy-duty missile destroyers behind you doing most of the pounding, that should be okay. 

Armor is good, range is excellent, a wee-bit too much MSP, great speed for Ion tech, meager offensive missile capability, massive sensors.  This is a very solid design and with support from a fleet should provide for what you want it to: be the center of your fleet.  Add a flag bridge, maybe? For bling bling?

The one thing that worries me is your missile design though.  It won't hit anything unless you go all MEGA-ALPHA-STRIKE with 200 box lauchers on it.  TH: 64/38/19 with <20000 speed? Imagine your Cornwall fighting another Cornwall.  38% of your ten missiles will intercept the target, that's 4 misiles.  3 of those 4 will be shot down by your PD.  You might as well mass-driver all those minerals used to make 10 missiles directly into the sun.

I had 4 pd fc for 4 quad laser turrets so 1 per turret, but good point.

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Cornwallis MK2 class Command Ship    35,000 tons     989 Crew     7506.04 BP      TCS 700  TH 3600  EM 0
5142 km/s     Armour 7-95     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 24     PPV 143.64
Maint Life 2.06 Years     MSP 3217    AFR 408%    IFR 5.7%    1YR 1015    5YR 15224    Max Repair 644 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 12 months    Spare Berths 0   
Flag Bridge    Magazine 310   

720 EP Ion Drive (5)    Power 720    Fuel Use 47.32%    Signature 720    Exp 12%
Fuel Capacity 2,830,000 Litres    Range 30.8 billion km   (69 days at full power)

38cm C4 Soft X-ray Laser (1)    Range 256,000km     TS: 5142 km/s     Power 38-4     RM 6    ROF 50        38 38 38 38 38 38 32 28 25 22
Quad 12cm C4 Soft X-ray Laser Turret (4x4)    Range 240,000km     TS: 30000 km/s     Power 16-16     RM 6    ROF 5        4 4 4 4 4 4 3 3 2 2
Fire Control S06 128-7500 (1)    Max Range: 256,000 km   TS: 7500 km/s     96 92 88 84 80 77 73 69 65 61
Fire Control S16 128-20000 (2)    Max Range: 256,000 km   TS: 20000 km/s     96 92 88 84 80 77 73 69 65 61
Gas-Cooled Fast Reactor Technology PB-1 (4)     Total Power Output 72    Armour 0    Exp 5%

Size 5 Missile Launcher (8)    Missile Size 5    Rate of Fire 50
MFC FC457-R50 (1)     Range 457.4m km    Resolution 50
ASM S5 MK2 (62)  Speed: 28,800 km/s   End: 153.1m    Range: 264.6m km   WH: 4    Size: 5    TH: 115/69/34

ASS MR500-R50 (1)     GPS 32200     Range 500.9m km    Resolution 50
ASS MR52-R1 MIssile (1)     GPS 476     Range 52.4m km    MCR 5.7m km    Resolution 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
I drop the FC down to 2 and upgraded the range so that I can do Area Defence.  In doing that I had to drop the armor by 1 point and lower the missiles to 8.  I also added the Flag bridge for bling 

[Charlie Beeler]

This is a critique of your original posted design, but it is relevant to the revised design as well.

Intended mission looks to be long-range missile combatant and command ship. 

Reverse engineering shows that 45% of the ship is dedicated to engines (36%) and fuel (9%), 13% to passive defenses (armor), 12% to active defenses (PD turrets and BFC), and 14% to offensive weapons (3% in spinal laser/BFC and 11% in missile launchers/magazine/MFC), the remainder in active sensors and required bridge/crew quarters (as noted later there is no flag bridge).  This is a weak approach in my opinion.

Cut the engines back to 35hs and you only use 25% of the ships total.  With fuel cut back to 35hs (from 65hs) you still have very good operational range and especially if the engines are standard instead of boosted.  You did state the intent to use a fleet train with tankers so the extra bunkerage is not needed.  As a long range combatant the extra speed is also not needed. 

I’m assuming that you did not research shields.  Then the 13% of hs in armor is about right, if a little lighter than my standard allocation of 15% for passives.  Passives being armor/shields/ECM.  I split armor/shields about even with armor being as close to 7.5% without going over (after 3hs for ECM).

Lasers are actually a fairly poor point defense system even turreted.  Why?  Shots per hullspace.  For a main combatant beam point defense should concentrate on final fire, area defense is the job of any escorts built.  Assuming your turret tracking tech matches your BFC tracking speed those turrets are 18.48hs each for only 4 shots.  Add in the roughly 3hs powerplant needed for the 12 power that is needed and the 2hs for BFC (X4 speed/X.5 range), that’s 5.875hs per shot at a 27%(32% with 20% missile tracking bonus) chance against a 40k/kps missile. Your 4 laser turrets can expect to intercept only 4 without the tracking bonus and 5 with.

If instead you use railguns you’ve a much better hullspace to intercept ratio.  While you can’t mount RG’s in turrets the 4 shots per weapon is a significant offset.  4 10cm railguns (12hs), the same 3hs powerplant, and 4hs BFC (std speed/X4 range) you have 1.1875hs per shot at a 7% (17% with 20% missile tracking bonus) chance against a 40k/kps missile.  16 railguns can expect to intercept only 4 missiles without the tracking bonus and 10 with.

When gauss canon ROF reaches 5 use them turreted for a superior PD suite. 

Personally I don’t usually place heavy beams on missile ships.  But the single one on your ship is really a small impact on the total ship volume.

The missile suite is a whole different matter.  You’ve concentrated on extreme range at the expense of actually penetrating reasonable active defenses.  The missile component ratio looks to be 30% warhead/30% fuel/40% engine.  Your warhead allocation is a little larger than my 25%, but not that much.  The fuel to engine ratio is way off.  Engines should be at least 60% with a balance of agility for at least 80% hit chance against a targeted speed.  With the your tech I’d use 4,500kps as a target speed (50% greater than the engine combo I listed above) example missile would have: 3.2msp engine (speed 30,720kps), 1.1667msp warhead (7pt), .2969msp agility for a maneuver rating of 12, and .3364msp fuel for a range of 93m/km. 

Yes the range is much shorter, but it has a much better chance of both penetrating active defenses and hitting.

The sensor suite and missile fire control need changes to support these recommendations.  Your current suite looks like this:
Missile defense sensor is 17hs (detection signature 476)
Anti-ship vs 50hs is 23hs (detection signature 32200)
MFC vs 50hs is 7hs

The range versus a 40k/kps missile that you need detection is 55seconds or 2.2m/km.  A 7hs/res 1 has a range of 2.3m/km vs sz6 missiles and smaller.

To engage with missiles vs 50hs ships you need a range of 106.6m/km for a meeting engagement.  A 4.75hs/res 50 active sensor has a range of 103.4m/km and a good MFC match is 1.6hs for a range 104.5m/km.  There is an added benefit that the active sensor signature is reduced to 6650.

Add a 4hs EM sensor to the suite and you can see most active sensors looking for you from well beyond most engagement ranges.

With these changes you save enough space to have 20 missiles launchers with 5hs of magazine per launcher and 1 MFC per 5 launchers for 16 volleys of 4 salvos every 50seconds.  And still have space available for the task force commanders flag bridge. 

[Gabethebaldandbold]

I am personally a fan of bigger missiles, I think you should use at least size 8 missiles but hey that's just me. Also, if you play the right cards your spinal will be useless. I usually do a specialized pd ship and stick all the quad canons i can in it with a couple FCs, and put only CWIS on the other ones, maybe a turret on command cruisers. You might want to use the aurora missile calculator for your missile designs, it's really useful, with that tech you can get 90% hit chances at 6000km/s depending on the range and damage you go .