My First Fleet Design magneto-plasma

[replicant2699 (OP)]

After about 30 years without any real military ship due to neutral or good relations with NPRs, I decided to design and make some. We can say this is my first serious playthrough in Aurora C# and I didn't have much experience in Aurora VB6. I decided to design these ships based on observed capabilities of my neighbours, especially their maximum speed. I wanted to have faster ships to dictate engagement range and conditions, but I have not entered any combat yet, so we will see what happens. When I have a sizeable fleet and enough intelligence about their capacity, I am thinking about bringing some democracy to the starting NPR, who actually have found me first in Sol and refuses to send a diplomacy ship, so we are at 0 rating for quite some time.

According to my intelligence, enemy has military ships ranging from 10kt to 20kt, and their fastest class has a maximum speed around 5km/s. Since I underestimated the effort to build and setup all those shipyards, I decided to go for various 5kt destroyers. While they have enough range to roam systems inside my empire without any issues (I have enough refuelling/resupply colonies), I am thinking about bringing some tankers when they go offensive.

Anhur class ASM destroyers, Horus class AFM destroyers (I have not encountered any fighter size ships yet, but who knows) and Bastet class AMM destroyers can all be produced in the same shipyard.

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Anhur class Missile Destroyer      5,000 tons       93 Crew       822.8 BP       TCS 100    TH 624    EM 0
6241 km/s      Armour 6-26       Shields 0-0       HTK 34      Sensors 0/0/0/0      DCR 2      PPV 18
Maint Life 4.06 Years     MSP 537    AFR 80%    IFR 1.1%    1YR 52    5YR 780    Max Repair 156 MSP
Magazine 420   
Commander    Control Rating 2   BRG   AUX   
Intended Deployment Time: 12 months    Morale Check Required   

Löwith-Gartner Magni II 312-HPM Engine (2)    Power 624    Fuel Use 78.67%    Signature 312    Explosion 13%
Fuel Capacity 453,000 Litres    Range 20.7 billion km (38 days at full power)

Girard-Martineau Weapon Systems ML-S6/R4-X100 (10)     Missile Size: 6    Rate of Fire 1840
Patterson Electronics MFC25-R100 Missile Fire Control (2)     Range 25.2m km    Resolution 100
Battista Armaments Tiger ASM Mark 1 (70)    Speed: 47,033 km/s    End: 6.1m     Range: 17.3m km    WH: 9    Size: 6    TH: 172/103/51

Patterson Electronics AS17-R100 Active Sensor (1)     GPS 420     Range 17.8m km    Resolution 100

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


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Horus class Missile Destroyer      5,000 tons       93 Crew       822.8 BP       TCS 100    TH 624    EM 0
6241 km/s      Armour 6-26       Shields 0-0       HTK 24      Sensors 0/0/0/0      DCR 2      PPV 18
Maint Life 4.10 Years     MSP 537    AFR 80%    IFR 1.1%    1YR 51    5YR 766    Max Repair 156 MSP
Magazine 420   
Commander    Control Rating 2   BRG   AUX   
Intended Deployment Time: 12 months    Morale Check Required   

Löwith-Gartner Magni II 312-HPM Engine (2)    Power 624    Fuel Use 78.67%    Signature 312    Explosion 13%
Fuel Capacity 453,000 Litres    Range 20.7 billion km (38 days at full power)

Girard-Martineau Weapon Systems ML-S3/R4-X100 (20)     Missile Size: 3    Rate of Fire 1300
Patterson Electronics MFC11-R10 Missile Fire Control (2)     Range 11.7m km    Resolution 10
Battista Armaments Leopard AFM Mark 1 (140)    Speed: 46,400 km/s    End: 2.9m     Range: 8.1m km    WH: 4    Size: 3    TH: 247/148/74

Patterson Electronics AS8-R10 Active Sensor (1)     GPS 42     Range 8.3m km    Resolution 10

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


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Bastet class Destroyer Escort      5,000 tons       120 Crew       844.3 BP       TCS 100    TH 624    EM 0
6240 km/s      Armour 6-26       Shields 0-0       HTK 40      Sensors 0/0/0/0      DCR 2      PPV 15
Maint Life 3.19 Years     MSP 451    AFR 100%    IFR 1.4%    1YR 67    5YR 1,000    Max Repair 156 MSP
Magazine 375   
Commander    Control Rating 2   BRG   AUX   
Intended Deployment Time: 12 months    Morale Check Required   

Löwith-Gartner Magni II 312-HPM Engine (2)    Power 624    Fuel Use 78.67%    Signature 312    Explosion 13%
Fuel Capacity 451,000 Litres    Range 20.6 billion km (38 days at full power)

Girard-Martineau Weapon Systems ML-S1/R3-X1 (15)     Missile Size: 1    Rate of Fire 10
Patterson Electronics MFC13-R1 Missile Fire Control (1)     Range 13.3m km    Resolution 1
Battista Armaments Cheetah AMM Mark 1 (375)    Speed: 40,800 km/s    End: 0.4m     Range: 1.1m km    WH: 1    Size: 1    TH: 380/228/114

Patterson Electronics AS12-R1 Active Sensor (1)     GPS 48     Range 12.9m km    MCR 1.2m 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


Again, Sekhmet class PD destroyers, Osiris class flagship destroyers and Nemty class jump tenders can all be produced in the same shipyard.

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Sekhmet class Destroyer Escort      5,000 tons       117 Crew       935.3 BP       TCS 100    TH 624    EM 0
6241 km/s      Armour 6-26       Shields 0-0       HTK 47      Sensors 11/11/0/0      DCR 2      PPV 32.16
Maint Life 3.86 Years     MSP 633    AFR 100%    IFR 1.4%    1YR 67    5YR 1,007    Max Repair 156 MSP
Commander    Control Rating 2   BRG   AUX   
Intended Deployment Time: 12 months    Morale Check Required   

Löwith-Gartner Magni II 312-HPM Engine (2)    Power 624    Fuel Use 78.67%    Signature 312    Explosion 13%
Fuel Capacity 450,000 Litres    Range 20.6 billion km (38 days at full power)

Girard-Martineau Weapon Systems Triple Guardian Gauss Cannon Turret (8x12)    Range 20,000km     TS: 16000 km/s     Power 0-0     RM 20,000 km    ROF 5       
Patterson Electronics BFC96-TS16 Beam Fire Control (1)     Max Range: 96,000 km   TS: 16,000 km/s     90 79 69 58 48 38 27 17 6 0

Patterson Electronics AS5-R1 Active Sensor (1)     GPS 9     Range 5.4m km    MCR 488.1k km    Resolution 1
Patterson Electronics EM11-C Passive Sensor (1)     Sensitivity 11     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  26.2m km
Patterson Electronics TH11-C Passive Sensor (1)     Sensitivity 11     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  26.2m km

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes


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Osiris class Destroyer Leader      5,000 tons       134 Crew       1,037.8 BP       TCS 100    TH 624    EM 0
6241 km/s      Armour 7-26       Shields 0-0       HTK 44      Sensors 11/11/0/0      DCR 2      PPV 24.12
Maint Life 3.87 Years     MSP 611    AFR 89%    IFR 1.2%    1YR 64    5YR 965    Max Repair 156 MSP
Captain    Control Rating 3   BRG   AUX   FLG   
Intended Deployment Time: 12 months    Morale Check Required   

Löwith-Gartner Magni II 312-HPM Engine (2)    Power 624    Fuel Use 78.67%    Signature 312    Explosion 13%
Fuel Capacity 451,000 Litres    Range 20.6 billion km (38 days at full power)

Girard-Martineau Weapon Systems Triple Guardian Gauss Cannon Turret (6x12)    Range 20,000km     TS: 16000 km/s     Power 0-0     RM 20,000 km    ROF 5       
Patterson Electronics BFC96-TS16 Beam Fire Control (1)     Max Range: 96,000 km   TS: 16,000 km/s     90 79 69 58 48 38 27 17 6 0

Patterson Electronics AS5-R1 Active Sensor (1)     GPS 9     Range 5.4m km    MCR 488.1k km    Resolution 1
Patterson Electronics EM11-C Passive Sensor (1)     Sensitivity 11     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  26.2m km
Patterson Electronics TH11-C Passive Sensor (1)     Sensitivity 11     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  26.2m km

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes


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Nemty class Jump Tender      5,000 tons       123 Crew       851.9 BP       TCS 100    TH 624    EM 0
6241 km/s    JR 5-250      Armour 7-26       Shields 0-0       HTK 35      Sensors 0/0/0/0      DCR 2      PPV 16.08
Maint Life 3.78 Years     MSP 559    AFR 89%    IFR 1.2%    1YR 61    5YR 919    Max Repair 156 MSP
Commander    Control Rating 1   BRG   
Intended Deployment Time: 12 months    Morale Check Required   

Campbell-Miles JM5000/5-250 Jump Drive     Max Ship Size 5000 tons    Distance 250k km     Squadron Size 5

Löwith-Gartner Magni II 312-HPM Engine (2)    Power 624    Fuel Use 78.67%    Signature 312    Explosion 13%
Fuel Capacity 453,000 Litres    Range 20.7 billion km (38 days at full power)

Girard-Martineau Weapon Systems Triple Guardian Gauss Cannon Turret (4x12)    Range 20,000km     TS: 16000 km/s     Power 0-0     RM 20,000 km    ROF 5       
Patterson Electronics BFC96-TS16 Beam Fire Control (1)     Max Range: 96,000 km   TS: 16,000 km/s     90 79 69 58 48 38 27 17 6 0

Patterson Electronics AS5-R1 Active Sensor (1)     GPS 9     Range 5.4m km    MCR 488.1k km    Resolution 1

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes

Aker class fleet scout with better speed and range. I am thinking about bringing 3 of them, one stays with the fleet for better sensor range and the other two can scout the rest of the system. I am also thinking about making another scout with JD and probably cloak that can operate alone.

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Aker class Fleet Scout      3,500 tons       91 Crew       745.3 BP       TCS 70    TH 624    EM 0
8915 km/s      Armour 1-20       Shields 0-0       HTK 23      Sensors 88/22/0/0      DCR 1      PPV 0
Maint Life 2.91 Years     MSP 533    AFR 98%    IFR 1.4%    1YR 93    5YR 1,392    Max Repair 156 MSP
Lieutenant Commander    Control Rating 1   BRG   
Intended Deployment Time: 12 months    Morale Check Required   

Löwith-Gartner Magni II 312-HPM Engine (2)    Power 624    Fuel Use 78.67%    Signature 312    Explosion 13%
Fuel Capacity 554,000 Litres    Range 36.2 billion km (47 days at full power)

Patterson Electronics AS45-R10 Active Sensor (1)     GPS 1260     Range 45.3m km    Resolution 10
Patterson Electronics AS79-R100 Active Sensor (1)     GPS 8400     Range 79.6m km    Resolution 100
Patterson Electronics TH88 Passive Sensor (1)     Sensitivity 88     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  74.2m km
Patterson Electronics EM22 Passive Sensor (1)     Sensitivity 22     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  37.1m km

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes


And finally, Ra class beam destroyers.

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Ra class Destroyer      5,000 tons       154 Crew       1,015 BP       TCS 100    TH 624    EM 0
6241 km/s      Armour 8-26       Shields 0-0       HTK 34      Sensors 0/0/0/0      DCR 1      PPV 28
Maint Life 2.47 Years     MSP 558    AFR 160%    IFR 2.2%    1YR 127    5YR 1,900    Max Repair 156 MSP
Commander    Control Rating 1   BRG   
Intended Deployment Time: 12 months    Morale Check Required   

Löwith-Gartner Magni II 312-HPM Engine (2)    Power 624    Fuel Use 78.67%    Signature 312    Explosion 13%
Fuel Capacity 451,000 Litres    Range 20.6 billion km (38 days at full power)

Wertmüller Precision Arms PB4-200 Particle Beam (4)    Range 200,000km     TS: 6,241 km/s     Power 10-4    ROF 15       
Chiang-Shi R320-TS64 Beam Fire Control (1)     Max Range: 320,000 km   TS: 6,400 km/s     97 94 91 88 84 81 78 75 72 69
Löwith-Gartner R16 Stellarator Fusion Reactor (1)     Total Power Output 16.1    Exp 5%

Patterson Electronics AS8-R10 Active Sensor (1)     GPS 42     Range 8.3m km    Resolution 10

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
I would appreciate your constructive criticism.

[TheTalkingMeowth]

Overall, these ships are pretty solid. Personally, I might go in for a little more fire control redundancy on the PD and AMM ships.

I'd probably go for fewer, higher fire rate launchers on the Horus. Fighters are likely to be softer targets in terms of point defense than a full scale fleet would, so saturation is less of an issue. Higher rate of fire will let you get more missiles onto them over time, which is probably more useful. Additionally, 10 missiles is possibly way overkill for a single fighter. You need to be able to switch targets, so larger numbers of smaller salvos will waste fewer missiles.

Your AMMs are slower than your attack missiles. I would revisit the design of your AMMs. You also probably want more, though I'm not sure what you can sacrifice. A good rule of thumb for AMMs is that it takes 4 to kill a single enemy missile, and it looks like you'd have a 23% chance to hit a 50kkm/s target. By that count, you can only stop about 90 missiles per ship (and 7 or 8 per enemy salvo). You only have 25 launches, which means you get to shoot at about a dozen enemy salvos before running out (2 launches per salvo if the salvo is closing at 50kkm/s). Your PD destroyers are excellent (something like 30 50kkm/s missiles each, every salvo). I might not bother with AMMs at all.

I would definitely put multiple small reactors on the beam ship, as well as backup fire controls. As it is, one unlucky penetration and the ship is useless.

Finally, I really like putting at least size 1 TH and EM on every warship. It just really sucks to be blind. Your scout is great...but what happens if a lucky missile puts out its eyes?

[Black]

Yeah for anti-fighter duty, you want fast reloads and several groups of launchers, each with its own fire control, so you can target several fighters at once and prevent too much overkill.

I would try to go for same speed for your offensive missiles. I know that Leopard AFM Mark 1 is mainly anti-fighter weapon, but if there is situation where you have both Anhurs and Horuses attacking same target same speed of both missiles will be to your advantage.

If you are not sure about missiles, you can always check Iceranger's missile optimizer: http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=10999.0

I usually also put size 1 passives on all my ships, but your ships are quite small so I am not sure if I would do it. I think that having them on your DD leader is good enough. You can maybe put them on the tender, if you intent to keep them with rest of the ships during battle.

I agree with TheTalkingMeowth that you want more reactors and fire controls on your beam ship.

[replicant2699 (OP)]

I guess I went straight for smaller launchers in Horus without thinking much. I'll put less launchers with higher RoF in my next generation of anti-fighter ships, and definitely more fire controls. Also I never thought about a scenario where I am using both ASMs and AFMs against the same target but I believe designing them with the same speed makes sense for versatility, so I'll keep that in mind.

I actually used Iceranger's missile optimizer to design these missiles (kudos to him/her, it's been very helpful). I went for maximize accuracy option for my AMMs and maximize speed for ASMs and AFMs since apart from accuracy more speed means they have better chance to get past enemy PD. For AMMs I thought having a relatively slower missile with higher MR is okay.

I prefer PD ships over AMM ships, but wanted to have some Bastets just to thin out incoming salvos so that my PDs are not overwhelmed in case enemy missile barrage is heavier than I expected.

I'll be putting multiple smaller reactors and more fire controls in my next beam ship.

About passive sensors, I really did not want to sacrifice 100 tons for those in every ship since these are all small ships and I already didn't have much space to work with. I have them in my DL and jump tenders, just to have some passives in the fleet. I am thinking about bringing at least 3 scouts with me, so I am hoping I won't be blind during a fight.

Thank you for all the feedback and advice.