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Posted by: Michael Sandy
« on: October 05, 2017, 03:41:40 AM »

One trick to deal with the huge cost of military jump ships is simply have your main battleline ships use commercial engines.  Any pursuit/kite beam ships you just use carriers for strategic shuttling.  So far, the only military jump engines I have designed have been for scout pinnaces.

However, that decision was also made when I didn't have unlimited fuel supplies.  Civilian fuel harvesters sort of threw that issue out the airlock, and building a response force with very boosted engines is suddenly practical for me.

At current engine boost technology, it is practical for carriers to launch at the jump point and withdraw.  I have large, heavily armored commercial maintenance tankers that keep up with my main battleline.  They have more armor, in fact, than my missile ships, and are intended to draw fire.  The plan is for the fleet to draw down fuel from the tankers as they approach.  The main missile defense for the fleet comes from turreted gauss fighters that are somewhat faster than the fleet, and only have the range because of the tankers.  I have a couple of max boosted fighters for scouting and plinking enemy scouts.

As engine boost technology increases, the operational range of max boosted beam fighters is going to decrease.  Which means the carriers have to get closer to launch, which means more defenses for the carriers.  Not a transition I am looking forward to, as my bulk carriers are literally empty boxes.  My missile ships all have a hangar deck.  I suppose the early transition will simply be to have more armored commercial engined tankers with the fleet.
Posted by: 83athom
« on: September 25, 2017, 08:07:40 AM »

I while ago I started a thread discussing ships sizes and there was some interesting debate about whether larger ships are more efficient. Some say that larger ships are more efficient in terms of defense, build times, and crew requirements while others said that its smaller ships are better because they build faster, require smaller maintenance facilities and smaller jump tenders.
Bigger ships are more efficient, while smaller ships are more effective. It really depends on the playstyle, the expected game duration, and personal preference to find what is "better".

Now my play style is a rather slow one and I never expand into a system for anything other than exploration without a gate, so jump-engine size isn't really an issue for me. I also start the game with 7 billion population on Earth. With that in mind I decided on the sizes below.

My thinking is that the next class up should be at least three times bigger than the one below it.
3,000 ton corvette
10,000 ton frigates (rounding up)
30,000 ton destroyers
100,000 ton cruisers (decided to round up)
300,000 ton dreadnoughts
1,000,000 ton super dreadnoughts (again, rounding up)

Its large, I know, but I usually give my ships a lot of extra utilities like tractor beams, emergency cryo, and Gauss and missile point defense. I also have a rule of having an ECCM for every fire control and 1 fire control for every six weapons. I'm even thinking about giving cruisers and up hangars large enough for a small (relative to its size) wing of missile bombers once I figure out carrier mechanics a bit better. In addition, all ships destroyer and up get a marine contingent of some sort with a combat drop module that gets bigger as the class goes up.
Even building that large, I even run out of allotted room for everything I set out to do for a given class. One of the little tricks I learned to save a bit of room is using reduced size launchers. At certain points of reduced size the smaller class of missile launchers require no crew (Class 1-3 at 0.33 require no crew and all the sizes at 0.33 require less crew than at 0.25).

I might also have sub classes in between, like a battlecruisers at 150,000 tons or something. These large jumps give me some flexibility.
For me, those sub-classes can get weird. When I'm not specifically designing a separate class to fit a certain "sub-class", said class of ship is usually a modified version of another class. A Battlecruiser is usually a copy of my current/previous generation Battleship class with a reduced armor, and more engines + fuel. A light cruiser is a copy of a current cruiser with some of the heavier weapons removed in favor of more smaller weapons, heavy cruiser being similar but with swaping guns for heavier weapons and adding another layer of armor or two.
Posted by: Barkhorn
« on: September 24, 2017, 10:27:42 PM »

There are two main hurdles to building gigantic military ships.  First, is your shipyard.  Your shipyard needs to be at least as big as the ship it's meant to build.  It can take decades to get a military shipyard, even with only one slipway, large enough to build your superdreadnaught or w/e.  Further, you could've built many smaller shipyards in the same time and at the same cost.

Second, is you need the capability to get this monstrosity through jump points.  If this is meant to be a purely defensive ship, you can get by with using jump gates, though then you have to spend time and resources building the construction ships.  If this ship is ever going on the offensive, it needs jump engines.  Large military jump engines take an eternity to research and cost a fortune to build.  Large commercial jump engines are cheaper to research and build, but you can only use commercial engines then, crippling your speed.  You also miss out on squadron transits.

You should really consider if your empire would be better served by having many smaller warships instead of one gigantic one.  They're easier to design and build, easier to navigate, and can be spread out.  One 60,000 ton dreadnaught can protect one system.  Ten 6,000 destroyers can protect 10 systems.
Posted by: swarm_sadist
« on: September 24, 2017, 06:54:13 PM »

Old engineering saying: A perfect machine has the fewest parts to do it's job. Or, build ships big enough to hold it's mission components, and no larger.

When I build a cargo ship at the start of the game, I usually put 1 standard cargo component (the mission critical device), enough engines for about 450 km/s (good enough for the inner system), 1 cargo system (because 10 days to 2 days is a massive drop), and enough fuel for ~4-10 billion km (mostly so I don't have to micro the cargo ships). The entire design revolves around the cargo component, and is 'almost' the most cost effective design you can make for short distance transport.

If I want to move to a further destination, then a faster ship is preferred with bigger/more engines, even larger cargo holds and less emphasis is put on cargo transfer rate.

Military ships are similar, although the mission critical components are the weapons. EG: Missile ships need enough missiles to bypass the enemies' PD and do damage, enough fire control range to target the enemy with multiple salvos, enough defenses to repel the counter-fire, etc, etc.
Posted by: boggo2300
« on: September 24, 2017, 04:33:05 PM »

to the original question;
No

at least not in my opinion

Biggest (military) ship I've ever made was a 55,000 ton carrier.

usually I have
Sloop/Corvette           <1,000 ton
Frigate/Destroyer       1,000-2,500 ton
Cruisers                     2,500-10,000 ton
Battleships                 9,000-40,000 ton
Carriers                    10,000-55,000 ton

with the vast majority of classes being at the low end of the range.  My favourite game had no ship larger than 10,000 tons  though it was a quite odd ball game with 3 fledgling moon colonies in orbit around the same gas giant trying to er "unify" and everyone was dead within 10 years in game time
Posted by: I_Sicarius_I
« on: September 22, 2017, 04:43:50 AM »

I don't usually use carriers alot. Typically i only use escort carriers at most. Maybe one per fleet at around 30kts. What i tend to do is have PDC airbases or starbases strategically placed on planets and/or near jump points so that my fighters can deploy while my navy is en route.
In my current game my fleets are

1 dreadnought (flagship) - s15 torpedoes and 3 800mm triple laser turrets the dreads are the bristling fortress of guns and torpedoes Designed to take out enemy capitals after their escorts are gone.

No battleships atm

2 Heavy cruisers - s15 torpedoes 3 600mm triple laser turrets the big girls i use for damage dealers and damage soaks fielding 15 shields I think and 30 layers of armor

4 cruisers - s15 torpedoes 3 600mm twin laser turrets and a good deal of PD these serve as a support role for the smaller ships and assist with PD

2 escort cruisers - s10 LRAMs with thermal sensors and a good portion of PD and anti fighter turrets and missiles serve as backup PD and anti fighter support

4 destroyers - s8 SRHS missiles great sensors and some PD basically my main missile ships

4 frigates - these have a large amount of AMM launchers and serve as the main missile defense ships

4 corvettes - my corvettes serve as picket ships with the best thermal and em sensors able to spot the enemy before they spot us primarily used to chase down fleeing FACs and other crippled ships my large ships cant catch i also use them for patrols but they are short ranged.

Also 4 Hunters - they are stealth ships at cruiser weight. I use them to sneak around battles patrols also use them for world burners fielding the size 25 Catacylsm class missiles my dreads use.

Edit - this isnt my philosophy for every class of a hull. Just whats used in my current fleet as there is only one class of each hull in my fleets at the moment.
Posted by: Silvarelion
« on: September 21, 2017, 09:15:05 AM »

I'm currently playing around with large, engine-less carriers (current is 60kt, working up to 120kt) being pulled around by commercial tugs. Depending on the speed and endurance needed, I use a 20kt, 60kt, or 120kt (possibly 240kt, if needed) tug. That gives me decent speed, a year of endurance, and keeps maintainence half decent. It also gives me more than enough room for pocket battleships, or large swarms of FACs or fighters.
Posted by: I_Sicarius_I
« on: September 21, 2017, 05:09:57 AM »

And i thought i used large ships lmao.
Corvettes are under 10k
Frigates are under 20k
Destroyers under 30k
Cruisers under 50k( most versatile class )
Battleships under 75k
Dreadnoughts over 75k
And anyhing over 100k and built for war is a super dreadnought but ive yet to build one that large

My largest ship is an 80kt dreadnought. I only use commercial engines size 25 or 50. Specialized classes may get something different to accompany their needs. I also produce many parts with industry so only have two engine designs speeds things up nicely. I try to put aside around 30% for engines but im not OCD about fleet speeds. In my current game my dread moves around 15k/kms with photonic drive most everything else not specialized for speed moves in between 15-16k/kms. All ships carry 1mil litres of fuel except corvettes. They carry 500k. Dont have my computer atm but my shortest ranged ships still have around a year of travel range. Anything i cant reach in a year at 15k/kms i probably dont need to go there. I try to streamline logistics lol being thats my actual job.
Posted by: JOKER
« on: April 03, 2017, 01:21:36 AM »

My suggestion there would be if your largest warship is 40kt, all your warships would be 40kt. But other than that, agreed; a 400kt warship will probably be able to defeat 10x 40kt warships with ease, but there's lots of extra costs (shipyard, jump engines, maintenance facilities, etc) in building a single ship that big that makes it not worth it.
My big ships are RP tools. Basically, the difference between my 20kt cruiser and 30kt battleship is several dozens of anti-ship missile box launcher, one flagship bridge and a bit more armor.

Also, my main fleet rely on jump gate for transit, only specially designed assault ship have jump engine. AI is not good at ambush.
Posted by: MarcAFK
« on: April 03, 2017, 12:36:14 AM »

That's genious, I'll probably be doing that from now on because I'm always OCD about trying to get fleet speeds to match exactly.
Posted by: TheBawkHawk
« on: April 02, 2017, 11:31:35 PM »

I really like standardization, so I use standard engine sizes and ship sizes.

2000 ton Corvettes/Escorts
4000 ton Frigates
8000 ton Destroyers
16000 ton Cruisers/Light Carriers
32000 ton Battleships/Carriers

I use size 12/24/48 engines, which is a bit odd, but it lets me standardize my fleet more.  2000 ton gets 1 size 12 engine, 4000 ton gets 2 size 12, 8000 ton gets 2 size 24, 16000 ton gets 2 size 48, and 32000 ton gets 4 size 48.  I use these sizes because then all my ships have 30% tonnage devoted to engines, so they all have a standard speed.  All military ships except carriers and fighters are given enough fuel for 45 billion km range, which is usually enough for any operations.

I can also then easily create classes in between the others, like a light cruiser at 12000 tons or a battlecruiser at 24000 tons.

Posted by: Michael Sandy
« on: April 02, 2017, 10:47:59 PM »

Size 50 HS engines use half the fuel that size 1 HS use.  Also, some people build warships with commercial engines for added fuel efficiency and reduced cost.  It result in the size of the warships ballooning a bit, but for about the same cost for the weapon payload.  So you can have commercial jump ships for your large ships, giving you strategic mobility even if they suck at jump assault.  But you can build dedicated Jump Assault ships for that rare purpose.

If you are moving your fleet the length of your empire, you may really want that fuel efficiency.  Similarly, some people build what I call 'pocket battleships', which have boosted size 50 engines, low mission duration ships, designed to sit in hangars or orbit of a base until needed, with extremely high performance (and cost).  And when you have a large ship with a boosted engine, every little bit of fuel efficiency makes a big difference for its operational range.  This permits faster ships with more space for weapons.
Posted by: Borealis4x
« on: April 02, 2017, 10:16:05 PM »

Speaking of bigger = better, is it true that bigger engines are more efficient? Should I make all engines military and commercial max size?
Posted by: AL
« on: April 02, 2017, 08:48:51 PM »

If you add an orbital habitat component to your ship design, you should be able to build it using construction factories instead of in a shipyard. You'll just be restricted to some quite large sizes if you want to have a decent proportion of military tonnage compared to the bulk from the habitat module.
Posted by: Detros
« on: April 02, 2017, 06:31:22 PM »

The reason I don't use very large warships is that you can hardly build such a shipyard. Build a 40kt one from scratch may take 10 years.
Plenty of time for that, just start conventionally.
I have managed to get to 100k t military shipyard before I noticed I am out of duranium and went on investigation to find the cause.

But I use just 5k frigates and 10k destroyers so far as front line ships. That's big enough for destroyer-sized carriers to have 5k hangars.