Ok... here is my first "coastal" ship for colony protection in Sol system.
Wolf Mk1 class Corvette 2,350 tons 43 Crew 159.5 BP TCS 47 TH 60 EM 0
1276 km/s Armour 2-15 Shields 0-0 Sensors 3/5/0/0 Damage Control Rating 0 PPV 15
Maint Life 0 Years MSP 0 AFR 470% IFR 6.5% 1YR 25 5YR 368 Max Repair 10 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 0.5 months Spare Berths 1
SDN-A04/01 Nuclear Thermal Stardrive (3) Power 20 Fuel Use 96% Signature 20 Exp 10%
Fuel Capacity 20,000 Litres Range 1.6 billion km (14 days at full power)
LS-10-01 10cm Infrared Laser (5) Range 30,000km TS: 1276 km/s Power 3-2 RM 1 ROF 10 3 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
BFC-x30-x1250 Main Laser-array Fire-control (1) Max Range: 60,000 km TS: 1250 km/s 83 67 50 33 17 0 0 0 0 0
PP-02-05 Pressurised Water Reactor (6) Total Power Output 12 Armour 0 Exp 5%
ASS-020/2.2 Graviton Search Sensor (1) GPS 200 Range 2.2m km Resolution 20
TH-x03-05 Thermal Sensor System (1) Sensitivity 3 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 3m km
EM-x05-05 EM Detection System (1) Sensitivity 5 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 5m km
The Wolf class corvette does have its flaws and strengths. It can operate completely individually and can function as a patrol or reconnaissance ship within about 500-750m km from its base. Though, it does not have any maintenance facilities on-board so it is prone to system failures if operated more than a couple of days from its base (5+ days). This could be remedied by adding an engineering section to the ship but I chose not to in this case. I would, however, add a smaller one once that was researched but a normal one is overkill and the chance for failure is sort of acceptable for the ships purposes.
It has a decent PPV for its cost at 160BP and 15PPV. A few of these can provide security for colonies with about 500m people.
The ship obviously have no defence what so ever against missiles, but at this stage missiles in space was not even considered plausible since ships move so fast they are practically impossible to hit. This is obviously an error and later corvettes will sport dual purpose turreted laser guns.
Usually at tech level 4-5 I have technology enough to advance my corvettes into more self sufficient platforms. They will usually be much bigger, perhaps around 4000t and be missile based with at least one turreted multi-purpose laser for defence and a small 250t boat bay with a pinnace for remote sensing and reconnaissance. They are not meant to actually engage large enemy groups but more act as small scouting platforms with some offensive power. The main difference between my corvettes and frigates are their range an deployment times, frigates will be slightly larger and are long range patrol and reconnaissance ships. Able to operate with battle-groups and in systems other than which they are stationed in and might even operate with tenders for even more extended missions.
Some other tips you "might" not know about...
- One thing that I saw in your video I would like to give you a tip about is that you should tick the "Conscript" box for commercial ships or any ships without weapons for that matter. You don't really want to put combat trained personel on non combat ships, yo are just wasting trained crew from your academies for nothing.
- Another tip is that you should check out the "Production Overview" screen. That is the eighth button from the right on the main screen. This screen give you a very good overview of all your colonies and project you have going. As long as you only have Earth to worry about it's easy to keep everything in your head, but later on this screen is very helpful.
- Troops on a planets do not give you PPV value, they will police the planet and increase morale if you become overcrowded and the PPV value of your naval forces is too low in the system. If you are anything like me then your colonies will grow faster than you anticipate and start demanding protection before you actually provided them with any.
- Don't build missiles to early. Missiles need quite alot of research to be close to effective in the early game. I rarely go for missiles until I reach an average of tech level 3 and I start with offensive missiles first and AMM missiles at the next level. I mostly rely on defensive strategies until then. Doing any sort of offensive operation before tech level 3-4 will generally be futile.
- Look into developing tractor beams and Tugs so you can build large harvesters and asteroid mining stations. These stations are quite resource efficient in the long run.
- Be careful of using reduced thermal engines in the beginning of the game. Your ships will usually have very small thermal signatures since they are both slow and small. I usually reserve this technology to either very large military ships or fast pure recon/scout ships. Reduced thermal engines will make your engines very expensive and hard to refit later on because of it.
In regard to civilian ships you might want to show the "Wealth tab" of the "Economy" screen and the "Shipping Line" screen. Explain that civilian ships will automatically go around and satisfy supply and demand of produced civilian goods. Also note that your civilian population actually produce infrastructure and as colonies demand infrastructure civilian ships will automatically send surplus from one colony to the demand of growing colonies. In many cases you will not have to provide the infrastructure yourself and it will save you some precious Duranium and production capacity.
I also don't think that you showed the Wealth tab so far at all and how wealth also is an important resource in the game, I might be mistaken there though...
Thank you for the design. When look at it and I think about my first ships I have something similar in mind except for giving it the capacity to work for a longer time. I would probably give it one more engine, enough maintenance and try to make it a bit stronger when it comes to sensors/offensive capability so it could work as a patrol ship in-between the colonies. Which is, if I understand it correctly, pretty much what your frigate size is. Correct?
As I intend for this to be a role-play and realistic play through my designs will most likely not be perfectly optimized for offence/defence but sort of multi-purpose. I already heard many times that it’s not the ideal way to go but... that’s how I roll in this one (I always try to avoid exploiting the game).
For the defence of colonies I thought I would go for PDC’s as a first thing though you made it clear missiles are really hard to maintain in the beginning. Any example of a good, starting missile and the technologies needed to give me a bit more outlook? I mean a worthwhile one, not something I will build and it will fail horribly. I am pretty sure the PDC’s will be the only thing that can stop any advancing ship as the military ships will not be able to do anything at all at the start (except take some hits and die). But for that I would need either defensive missiles or going crazy on the turret speeds and targeting control (or so I think).
The advice you provide is great!
* The conscript button I know about however I... well... I consider all my ships („Commercial“ or „Naval“) part of the army. The only difference is classification but they are not civilian ships. That is why I wasn’t using it. I am not even sure where it is located but I saw a discussion about it on the forums or mentioned it in the wiki and I decided not to use it. However great thing to mention in the notes on the video – it conscripts the crew and a captain from outside of the navy pool, correct?
* I am not really familiar with that screen, will do check it out and show it in the video !
* Ah, now I see your point! BTW is there any way how to retrain the troops I have to new units? Or do I have to disband them and train new ones? And is there any need to disband them at all? Can’t I keep them as morale patrol? (haven’t noticed any upkeep other than fuel I think).
* I already talked about missiles above
* Yup, in the long run I agree. I did a mistake though last time when I went for it really fast in the beginning and the costs /output made me cry. It is really a long term project for me but man do they take time to pay off. Any example of such mining station? How many modules you put on it? The size of that thing is shocking though not as much when you think of the size of a regular mine. And creating mining ships unless they have a tonnage of over 100 thousand tons seemed like a bad idea (shipping the mines and mass drivers seemed like a better idea).
* The only time I will use those is for military/scout ships as you mentioned. Normal ships can always kill their engines and hide somewhere. They can’t run or evade anyway so it’s a best bet. I will also do a general refit where all of my ships (survey/mining/cargo) will get a sensor array that can warn them if something happens somewhere nearby in the future too. Might be expensive but I think it can pay off in the saved lives/resources.
Again thanks for all the positive advice. I hope I am not coming off as a jerk when I say: „yeah I know this and that“, it’s not meant to be snarky or something. Just trying to eliminate what I already know from what I need more advice in!
