- I tend to avoid warships before Ion Tech on the whole, but I have certainly dabbled in, built and even fielded warships before that.
- This post has additional fluff and the technological requirements for the designs below:
http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=10971.0 - Posted EDITED for accuracy.
Project Starshield:Project Starshield class Gunboat 3,000 tons 82 Crew 237.6 BP TCS 60 TH 150 EM 0
2500 km/s Armour 3-18 Shields 0-0 HTK 19 Sensors 1/1/0/0 DCR 1 PPV 7
Maint Life 5.10 Years MSP 246 AFR 41% IFR 0.6% 1YR 16 5YR 237 Max Repair 75 MSP
Commander Control Rating 1 BRG
Intended Deployment Time: 2 months Morale Check Required
Aliiance Drives NCET-150/1250 (1) Power 150 Fuel Use 79.81% Signature 150 Explosion 12%
Fuel Capacity 175,000 Litres Range 13.2 billion km (60 days at full power)
PSS-E1/Laser (120mm) (1) Range 40,000km TS: 2,500 km/s Power 4-2 RM 10,000 km ROF 10
PSS-E1/Railgun (100mm) (1x4) Range 20,000km TS: 2,500 km/s Power 3-3 Accuracy Modifier 100% RM 20,000 km ROF 5
PSS-E1/FCS (PRIMARY) (1) Max Range: 40,000 km TS: 2,500 km/s 47 31 16 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
PSS-E1/FCS (PD/AUX) (1) Max Range: 20,000 km TS: 2,500 km/s 31 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
PSS-E1/PW Reactor System (1) Total Power Output 5 Exp 5%
Mk. I Experimental GravScope (Active Detection Module) (1) GPS 1 Range 1.3m km MCR 137.4k km Resolution 1
Mk. I Experimental GravScope (TH Calibration Module) (1) Sensitivity 1 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 7.9m km
Mk. I Experimental GravScope (EM Calibration Module) (1) Sensitivity 1 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 7.9m km
This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
- The most comparable one to yours, uses railguns as well. This one has Capacitor 3, with one 12cm Railgun and two 10cm Railguns. This ship is 1,000 Tons lighter than your
Diana-Class, has 25% less armor, roughly 15% less speed and half the endurance, but more than three times the firepower, the ability to fire on two targets at once, and the ability to conduct Point Defense fire with the 10cm Railguns while simultaneously firing back at enemies with the 12cm. Not the most useful feature, but a backup FCS can be a prudent addition overall. The
Starshield is also powered by Nuclear Thermal engines, if those were replaced with equivalent size Nuclear Pulse engines, I'd reckon it would be much faster than the
Diana-Class too.
- EDIT: The
Diana-Class has four railguns, not one, I misread it. Likewise the
Starshield-Class has one 12cm
LASER and
ONE 10cm Railgun, not one 12cm Railgun and two 10cm Railguns. Thus the
Starshield-Class has roughly half the firepower, not 300% as previously stated.
Project Starlance:Project Starlance class Gunboat 3,000 tons 80 Crew 241.4 BP TCS 60 TH 150 EM 0
2500 km/s Armour 3-18 Shields 0-0 HTK 19 Sensors 1/1/0/0 DCR 2 PPV 8
Maint Life 5.54 Years MSP 260 AFR 36% IFR 0.5% 1YR 14 5YR 214 Max Repair 75 MSP
Commander Control Rating 1 BRG
Intended Deployment Time: 2 months Morale Check Required
Aliiance Drives NCET-150/1250 (1) Power 150 Fuel Use 79.81% Signature 150 Explosion 12%
Fuel Capacity 175,000 Litres Range 13.2 billion km (60 days at full power)
PSS-E1/Laser (120mm) (1) Range 40,000km TS: 2,500 km/s Power 4-2 RM 10,000 km ROF 10
PSL-E1/HPM (120mm) (1) Range 40,000km TS: 2,500 km/s Power 4-2 RM 40,000 km ROF 10
Guardian Fire Control System (PRIMARY) (1) Max Range: 40,000 km TS: 2,500 km/s 47 31 16 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
PSL-E1/PW Reactor System (1) Total Power Output 4 Exp 5%
Mk. II Experimental GravScope (Active Detection Module) (1) GPS 1 Range 1.3m km MCR 137.4k km Resolution 1
Mk. II Experimental GravScope (TH Calibration Module) (1) Sensitivity 1 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 7.9m km
Mk. II Experimental GravScope (EM Calibration Module) (1) Sensitivity 1 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 7.9m km
This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
- Same deal here for the most part, although the HPM could knock out a
Diana-Class' sensors, while the laser fires 30% faster and both weapons would seriously outrange it. A good ship killer with Electronic Hardening to help it resist HPMs, both this and the
Starshield-Class also have more than double the Maintenance life of a
Diana-Class while costing almost 100 BP less. Likewise both of these dedicate more mass than a
Diana-Class to their respective reactors, while producing almost the same output as one.
- EDIT: The
Diana-Class' reactors are very sufficient for four 10cm Railguns, again, I mis-read the design.
EDIT: Old info, some incorrect and some outdated. Left for posterity. --- So, now to suggest improvements. First off, your reactor only needs to put out 1 point of power, your quite literally producing more than 400% of the power you need. You could free up some mass by using a smaller reactor. Your 10cm Railgun is mated to an 80,000 km Beam FCS, while having a 10,000 km range. On the one hand that's gonna be one hell of an accurate gun, on the other hand... most of that accuracy is wasted. Replacing that 10cm Railgun with a 12cm Railgun with 20,000 km range and Capacitor 2 would give you 50% faster Rate of Fire, 400% more range and could still be run on a reactor that has half the output of them one you currently have mounted. Alternatively, a dropping some armor and adding three more of the 10cm Railguns you already have would allow you to keep that reactor by making use of the other 3 points of output and give you a pretty meaty salvo to boot. I'd recommend upgrading to the 20,000 km Railgun range anyway, though, simply because of Aurora's mechanics... it doesn't like 10,000 km for anything except Final Fire PD.
--- The good parts of the
Diana-Class though. This ship is pretty quick, not
that quick, but it's certainly not slow. 15 billion km range is nothing to sniff at and four layers of armor is quite good for such a small warship. She'll take 12cm Railgun / laser fire and Strength 3 Warheads without venting atmo... and that's pretty damn good for her speed and range. That Beam FCS is overbuilt to hell and back, but that also means you could refit these ships quite well as newer, more long range guns come online. You could put a 60,000 km, Strength 2 Particle Beam on there with a smaller reactor and have a pretty good defensive ship. Four months of deployment is also pretty damn good, and while the MSP is quite low, the IFR is 0.9%, which is
damn good.
--- I'd consider perhaps removing some Engineering spaces, replacing one or two with MSP storage. Use either a smaller FCS or bigger guns. Use either a smaller reactor or mount more guns to use that excess power. And maybe lose a layer of armor, or just drop some deployment time. You have 120 days of deployment, but only 58 days of fuel. You could save some weight there too, to mount more guns etc. It's a solid start, but it needs some tweaking unfortunately.
Still, I wouldn't worry too much about building the "best" ship or even a "very good" ship. Build the ships you want to build... just don't complain if they get blown to hell, ok?
--- EDIT: Although I mis-read the class at first, and my own for that matter, my thoughts remain largely the same. Reduced deployment, more MSP and/or less Engineering Spaces, potentially one less layer of armor, potentially smaller Beam FCS. You can get away with about 40,000~60,000 km FCS range and do just fine. The FCS as given is
very accurate though and not really a problem, so much as something you could get away with slimming down if you so chose. More fuel would be a good thing to have, maybe doubling it to match your deployment time, that way you go further before needing a re-fuel. As is, to go 4 months out, you'll either need a tanker or to stop at a re-fueling point along the way. Re-fueling takes time in C#, so this could be a problem if time is of the essence... and when it comes to defense, it so very often is. If you're going to use a tanker though, the 4 months is advantageous. Again, not a problem
per se, but rather something you could either beef up to improve the ship, or slim down to free up mass for something that would.