ship design

[Beersatron]

With your 2nd generation Quad Gauss cannon:

Say there are 2 missile salvos, #001 is 3 missiles and #002 is 6 missiles.

Your Quad Gauss fires at #001 and destroys all 3 missiles using 8 shots, does it then switch to #002 during that turn and fires the final 4 shots or will it not be able to?<snip>

Unlike missiles, beam fire control won't switch targets that way.  Next increment it will switch if there is a valid salvo.

That would be annoying for your ships crew if the PD went for a single missile salvo instead of say a 10missile salvo, wasting all 12 shots on one missile!  

[Beersatron]

This is my patrol destroyer

Code: [Select]

Dulduring  class Destroyer    6000 tons     560 Crew     970 BP      TCS 120  TH 600  EM 180
5000 km/s     Armour 6-29     Shields 6-400     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 13     PPV 17
Annual Failure Rate: 96%    IFR: 1.3%    Maintenance Capacity 303 MSP    Max Repair 173 MSP

Ion Engine E9 (10)    Power 60    Efficiency 0.90    Signature 60    Armour 0    Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 150,000 Litres    Range 50.0 billion km   (115 days at full power)
Gamma R400/18 Shields (3)   Total Fuel Cost  54 Litres per day

Triple 12cm Laser NU-A Turret (1x3)    Range 120,000km     TS: 12000 km/s     Power 12-12     RM 3    ROF 5        4 4 4 3 2 2 1 1 1 1
BFC 96-12A (1)    Max Range: 192,000 km   TS: 12000 km/s     95 90 84 79 74 69 64 58 53 48
Reactor 6A (2)     Total Power Output 12    Armour 0    Exp 5%

AMSS 0.32 A (1)     GPS 32     Range 320k km    Resolution 1

I have maintenance turned off, so I haven't put as many spares in as otherwise would be needed for what this type of ship would be doing.

I just noticed on the turret that it has 'RM3', if that is Range Modifier does that mean I can hit out to 360k km? And does it mean I should create a new BFC to cater for that range?

It obviously has no long range detection, so would I was thinking of doing is creating Destroyer divisions of 3 ships each. 1 Leader that has long range active sensors and a Jump Drive and then two of these boyos (I can increase the size of  division as I get larger jump squadron tech). The plan would be to run from anything too large and chase anything that is same size or smaller. They are cheap tin cans in other words, used to picket areas and act as tripwires more than anything.

[Charlie Beeler]

RM3 is reflecting the laser frequency that you chose, that's what is providing your laser 120k/km range.  From my pointof view you have a decent multipurpose DD.  It 's got a good fire control match to the PD role (ie tracking speed and range complement the turret well).  Your reactor selection is a good support, power wise, for the turret as well. Sensors are a bit myopic for an independent patroller.  Heavy armor supports it's role as a beam slugger.  

Nothing really leaps out as being bad or miss matched.  There are some design concepts that differ from mine, but that is to be expected.  Look forward to hearing how it fairs against hostiles.

[Brian Neumann]

A little trick Iearned a while ago.  When you build your turrets, see how far above the current tracking speed you can get the turret tracking speed without upping the size of the turret.  Especially for the larger turrets I have often found that I can put in a tracking speed half way to what the next upgrade on tracking speed would do.  This then makes for a quick refit that can take some effect without being a problem to put into action.  It is of course not as good as a complete refit, but those are often to expensive to actually do.  This way lets the older ships stay in service for a while as a second line ship.  I will often put those ships out on patrol duties or garrison on conquered planets while keeping the more modern ships conentrated.

Brian

[waresky]

Sorry guys..but this design r useless for me:(.
Without SPARE and maintenance the live r too easy in space:)

With Spare and maintenance all become real and hard to manage.but more and more exciting.

my 2 cents

[Beersatron]

I repaired the armor damage to my cruisers (1st Terran Strike Fleet) from the first encounter and resupplied them with missiles then tagged the 3 destroyers (1st Terran Patrol Fleet) as an escort group 100k km ahead of them.

Not at home to copy in the ship stats, but this is what I had.

1st Terran Strike Fleet:
1 SCL - sensors and Jump Drive
3 CA - 10 size 5 missile launchers loaded with 50 strength 6, 50m km range 14k km/s attack missiles (previously used strength 2, 80m km, 17k km/s missiles) - 2 FCs
3 CE - 10 size 1 missile launchers loaded with 610 strength 1, 1.1m km range 26k km/s defense missiles (same as first battle) - 2 FCs

1st Terran Patrol Fleet:
3 DD - as mention above, 120k km range triple turret at 12k km/s tracking.

The NPRs had actually placed a picket on the otherside of the JP that I had used to enter their system, so they had an advanced picket of 3 missile ships at an estimated 17k tons.

They spammed missiles like they were going out of fashion, and these ones were strength 6 this time (last battle they were strength 3). 3 salvos every 40 seconds I think, 2 of 14 missiles and one of 9 (the missile ships were two separate classes) at 9k km/s. During the whole engagement they only hit one of the destroyers 3 times and that was because I did some time increments too long. My PD missiles performed at about 75% interception overall, they were set to 1vs1. The destroyers didn't get much of a test in the PD role because I was heading into the fire at a combined speed of 13k km/s and the PD missiles were taking out most attack missiles before they got within my inner envelope. If I was the one being chased then I would have had the DDs go their full 5k km/s and directly away from the missiles, possibly giving me 3 shots before they got to attack range. The triple lasers were getting about 33% success rates I think.

I fired a total of 1700 PD missiles, at a 1v1 PD setting and 75% success rate that means the NPR ships must have had BIG magazines, especially since their missiles were size 5.

I fired a total of only 75 attack missiles myself, just so I could get the intelligence reports when they hit and to see if I could knock a couple of launchers out. The reason I was attacking was so I could test my DDs out and I didn't want to waste ammo.

They finally ran out of ammo so I detached the DDs and they sped after the NPRs. I had them set to follow at 100k km but that wasn't working well with the time increments so I just went with plain old 'follow' and had the lasers set to open fire. They did one point per hit at 120k km, max range. They did 4 points per hit at 60k km and less.

Didn't take long to chase the NPRs down and whack them!

I had to head home after the battle though, down to just 61 PD missiles and 75 attack missiles so if I tried to force the JP I would have been stuck with just the 3DDs for combat power.

I have another 3DDs cooking and am near ready to finalize the design on my Destroyer Leader which will have a 4ship Jump Engine. I am also going to design and build a collier for attack missiles and in the future give my missile attack ships more than just 50 missiles!!  

[jfelten]

This is kind of an old thread I'm replying to but I'm catching up after taking an Aurora break for several months to give Steve time to work on 4.x before I started a new game.  Thanks Steve for your efforts and sharing.  

Starting a new 4.26 game after a long break from a single game of 3.x, some of what I learned from 3.x is dusty, outdated, and memories are faded.  I was looking on this BBS for a refresher or primer on sensors.  Topics such as, if I intend to escort missile-only ships with scouts (that have long range active sensors), is there any need for any sensor on the missile ships aside from missile fire control sensors?  Accepting that if the scouts are destroyed the squadron will have no active sensors.  Do the missile ships need active search sensors in order to fire their missiles, or are the missile fire control sensors sufficient assuming some other unit has spotted the enemy?  I usually start a new ship design with one of each sensor type but in the end there is never enough space for everything desired and decisions have to be made about what to cut.  

Thanks.

[Brian Neumann]

This is kind of an old thread I'm replying to but I'm catching up after taking an Aurora break for several months to give Steve time to work on 4.x before I started a new game.  Thanks Steve for your efforts and sharing.  

Starting a new 4.26 game after a long break from a single game of 3.x, some of what I learned from 3.x is dusty, outdated, and memories are faded.  I was looking on this BBS for a refresher or primer on sensors.  Topics such as, if I intend to escort missile-only ships with scouts (that have long range active sensors), is there any need for any sensor on the missile ships aside from missile fire control sensors?  Accepting that if the scouts are destroyed the squadron will have no active sensors.  Do the missile ships need active search sensors in order to fire their missiles, or are the missile fire control sensors sufficient assuming some other unit has spotted the enemy?  I usually start a new ship design with one of each sensor type but in the end there is never enough space for everything desired and decisions have to be made about what to cut.  

Thanks.

As long as any ship has the targets on their active sensors, your missile ships will be able to use their fire control to lock them up and fire on them.  That being said however, it is a good idea to put a small active sensor on your ships anyway that is set for detecting a large ship.  When you set the resolution to 150 or higher you will find that you can detect large ships at a good distance off.  With a grav sensor strenght of 12 resolution of 150 and antenna size of .5 I still had a 9m km range.  Step the resolution to 200hs and the range was up to 12m km.  A 1hs sensor would give you 24m km then and that is probably at least close to what your missiles will get to.  

If you are using larger missiles you can also put in a seeker head on the missile.  In that case the missile will head to the waypoint you designate, and if their are any targets within range will home in on them randomely.  Em sensors are actually really good for this as most ships in combat are going to be radiating quite strongly.

Brian

[jfelten]

Thanks.  I hadn't really thought of cranking the resolution as high (low?) as 150 to get an active sensor down to 50 tons.  Resolution 150 is 7,500 tons right?  

I did design a search sensor drone IIRC but I don't think the sensor part has enough range to be really useful as a backup for a scout.  

What about putting a small thermal sensor on a missile ship?  Any real value in that?

[Brian Neumann]

Thanks.  I hadn't really thought of cranking the resolution as high (low?) as 150 to get an active sensor down to 50 tons.  Resolution 150 is 7,500 tons right?  

I did design a search sensor drone IIRC but I don't think the sensor part has enough range to be really useful as a backup for a scout.  

What about putting a small thermal sensor on a missile ship?  Any real value in that?

Resolution 15 is 7,500tons, for me that is usually a cruiser range combatant.  I have put resolution 250 on as a backup sensor, that will only spot the largest ships you are likely to see at the begining of the game.

The thermal sensor is a good one in theory, the problem is if the oponents are going slow, and/or have some levels of thermal masking built in to thier ships then the small thermal sensor just doesn't have the range to be usefull.  I still tend to put it on my ships as a backup, and because it is great for detecting large ships at long range when they are moving quickly.  The em sensor tends to spot the active sensors when they are on and once shields and fire control are active they do a good job of spotting warships.  If the enemy can use a passive lock from the planet without going active however, you may not know that there are enemy ships nearby.

Brian

[jfelten]

I get some oddball tonnage totals due to armor not being constrained to 25/50 ton units.  I don't recall this in 3.x but maybe I just don't remember.  The problem with it is when designing jump ships.  I want to get the full ability out of my jump engine so I want the ships tonnage to exactly match the jump engine rating.  This is difficult when the armor results in something like 2,955 tons when designing a 3,000 ton jump ship.  I made some little useless power reactors in 5 and 10 ton sizes that I can use the pad the ship up to exactly 3,000 tons, but that seems a bit silly.  Am I missing something?  What do others do for this?

It gets even worse with things like reduced size missile launchers ending up 37.5 tons each.

[Steve Walmsley]

This is kind of an old thread I'm replying to but I'm catching up after taking an Aurora break for several months to give Steve time to work on 4.x before I started a new game.  Thanks Steve for your efforts and sharing.  

Starting a new 4.26 game after a long break from a single game of 3.x, some of what I learned from 3.x is dusty, outdated, and memories are faded.  I was looking on this BBS for a refresher or primer on sensors.  Topics such as, if I intend to escort missile-only ships with scouts (that have long range active sensors), is there any need for any sensor on the missile ships aside from missile fire control sensors?  Accepting that if the scouts are destroyed the squadron will have no active sensors.  Do the missile ships need active search sensors in order to fire their missiles, or are the missile fire control sensors sufficient assuming some other unit has spotted the enemy?  I usually start a new ship design with one of each sensor type but in the end there is never enough space for everything desired and decisions have to be made about what to cut.  

Any ship can provide the active search. The firing ship just needs the fire control system.

Steve

[Steve Walmsley]

I get some oddball tonnage totals due to armor not being constrained to 25/50 ton units.  I don't recall this in 3.x but maybe I just don't remember.  The problem with it is when designing jump ships.  I want to get the full ability out of my jump engine so I want the ships tonnage to exactly match the jump engine rating.  This is difficult when the armor results in something like 2,955 tons when designing a 3,000 ton jump ship.  I made some little useless power reactors in 5 and 10 ton sizes that I can use the pad the ship up to exactly 3,000 tons, but that seems a bit silly.  Am I missing something?  What do others do for this?

It gets even worse with things like reduced size missile launchers ending up 37.5 tons each.

While the 'exact class size' figure on the class summary window can contain fractions, the displayed tonnage and the actual size saved to the database are both rounded up to the nearest 50 tons in all cases except fighters. Please can you post one of the classes where the actual displayed tonnage is not being rounded up so I can try and figure out what is causing the problem.

Steve

[jfelten]

While the 'exact class size' figure on the class summary window can contain fractions, the displayed tonnage and the actual size saved to the database are both rounded up to the nearest 50 tons in all cases except fighters. Please can you post one of the classes where the actual displayed tonnage is not being rounded up so I can try and figure out what is causing the problem.

Steve

Ah ha.  So, even though the exact size of the jump ship shows something like 2,990 tons, it can still jump non-jump-drive ships that are a full (exact) 3,000 tons (assuming the jump ship has a 3,000 ton jump drive)?

But if the exact size is 3,001 tons, it will round up to 3,050 and therefore the strength 3,000 jump drive won't be able to function, right?

[jfelten]

A couple philosophical 4.x ship design questions for players that have ran through a few years of 4.x game time:  

Playing with maintenance off, it looks like commercial engines might be a good idea for Geo and Grav survey ships, simply for the great increase in endurance/range?  They are slower for the same total mass, but being able to keep on surveying for literally years without refueling should make up some of that.  

I assume that jump gate construction ships are normally designed as non-military units due to the huge size of the Jump Gate Construction Module (50,000 tons), so they can be built in the starting commercial shipyard.