Resolution Cruiser Class

[Icedragon (OP)]

After having encounterd some friendly neighbours next door which welcomed the Exploration Ship Agincourt with a few missile salvos the Aliens fleet is (or at this point was) mainly armed with long range missiles and was soon defeated in a decisive battle near the Jumppoint to Sol in their system.   TF Vengance existing out of the hastily built 3 Resolution LDR Class and 9 Resolution Class Cruisers utterly gutted an enemy fleet of roughly 2/3 their tonnage in a point blank knife fight without any losses.   They heavy gauss armament proving very deadly once the distance was closed.   

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Resolution class Cruiser      10,000 tons       197 Crew       1,551.3 BP       TCS 200    TH 960    EM 0
4800 km/s      Armour 7-41       Shields 0-0       HTK 70      Sensors 5/0/0/0      DCR 12      PPV 47.52
Maint Life 2.19 Years     MSP 1,393    AFR 400%    IFR 5.6%    1YR 391    5YR 5,872    Max Repair 240 MSP
Cryogenic Berths 200   
Captain    Control Rating 2   BRG   CIC   
Intended Deployment Time: 24 months    Morale Check Required   

Magneto-plasma Drive  EP480.00 (2)    Power 960    Fuel Use 34.64%    Signature 480    Explosion 10%
Fuel Capacity 1,596,000 Litres    Range 82.9 billion km (199 days at full power)

Particle Beam-3 (2)    Range 240,000km     TS: 6,250 km/s     Power 7-4    ROF 10       
Quad Gauss Cannon R300-17.00 Turret (6x12)    Range 30,000km     TS: 30000 km/s     Power 0-0     RM 30,000 km    ROF 5       
Beam Fire Control R256-TS7500 (1)     Max Range: 256,000 km   TS: 7,500 km/s     96 92 88 84 80 77 73 69 65 61
Beam Fire Control R32-TS20000 (1)     Max Range: 32,000 km   TS: 20,000 km/s     69 38 6 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Stellarator Fusion Reactor R8 (1)     Total Power Output 8.4    Exp 5%

Active Search Sensor AS6-R1 (1)     GPS 21     Range 6.3m km    MCR 570k km    Resolution 1
Thermal Sensor TH1.0-5.0 (1)     Sensitivity 5     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  17.7m km

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes


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Resolution LDR class Cruiser      15,000 tons       339 Crew       2,299.8 BP       TCS 300    TH 1,440    EM 0
4800 km/s    JR 4-50      Armour 7-54       Shields 0-0       HTK 87      Sensors 0/0/0/0      DCR 13      PPV 35.68
Maint Life 2.37 Years     MSP 3,087    AFR 600%    IFR 8.3%    1YR 750    5YR 11,255    Max Repair 240 MSP
Cryogenic Berths 200   
Commodore    Control Rating 3   BRG   CIC   FLG   
Intended Deployment Time: 24 months    Morale Check Required   

J15000(4-50) Military Jump Drive     Max Ship Size 15000 tons    Distance 50k km     Squadron Size 4

Magneto-plasma Drive  EP480.00 (3)    Power 1440    Fuel Use 34.64%    Signature 480    Explosion 10%
Fuel Capacity 2,069,000 Litres    Range 71.7 billion km (172 days at full power)

Particle Beam-3 (2)    Range 240,000km     TS: 6,250 km/s     Power 7-4    ROF 10       
Quad Gauss Cannon R300-17.00 Turret (4x12)    Range 30,000km     TS: 30000 km/s     Power 0-0     RM 30,000 km    ROF 5       
Beam Fire Control R256-TS7500 (1)     Max Range: 256,000 km   TS: 7,500 km/s     96 92 88 84 80 77 73 69 65 61
Beam Fire Control R32-TS20000 (1)     Max Range: 32,000 km   TS: 20,000 km/s     69 38 6 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Stellarator Fusion Reactor R8 (1)     Total Power Output 8.4    Exp 5%

Active Search Sensor AS6-R1 (1)     GPS 21     Range 6.3m km    MCR 570k km    Resolution 1
Active Search Sensor AS41-R100 (1)     GPS 5000     Range 41.4m km    Resolution 100

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes

Unfortunately the combined PD of the fleet was unable to overcome the planetary defences and 1 LDR was lost too heavy AMM fire.   With the Aliens blockaded on their Planet a new Shipe generation is in the works.   I am trying to keep to a common basis with my Ships and make them decently flexible while reusing as many components as possible.   With a focus on good PD (maybe i am still traumatized from my first Battleship being blown to bitz) and good short range fire power.   The Resolution MK2 Cruisers are supossed to operate in 4 Ships squadrons with one LDR Cruiser in there.   Later they can be reused as Escorts for Carriers or one of them be replaced with a dedicated Missile Cruiser.   Until then the only target is to overcome the seemingly endless AMM spam out of the Alien Planet and get the Troopships in close to unload. 

The MK2 updated technology, heavier and more beam weapons, 5ktons more and a AMM system (decent Missiles are still in development)

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Resolution MK2 class Cruiser      15,000 tons       370 Crew       3,042.4 BP       TCS 300    TH 1,800    EM 0
6000 km/s      Armour 7-54       Shields 0-0       HTK 119      Sensors 14/0/0/0      DCR 17      PPV 73.68
Maint Life 2.82 Years     MSP 1,767    AFR 257%    IFR 3.6%    1YR 325    5YR 4,868    Max Repair 300 MSP
Magazine 120    Cryogenic Berths 200   
Commodore    Control Rating 4   BRG   AUX   ENG   CIC   
Intended Deployment Time: 24 months    Morale Check Required   

Internal Fusion Drive  EP600.00 (3)    Power 1800    Fuel Use 28.87%    Signature 600    Explosion 10%
Fuel Capacity 2,100,000 Litres    Range 87.3 billion km (168 days at full power)

Particle Beam-6 (4)    Range 240,000km     TS: 6,250 km/s     Power 15-6    ROF 15       
Quad Gauss Cannon R400-17.00 Turret (6x16)    Range 40,000km     TS: 25000 km/s     Power 0-0     RM 40,000 km    ROF 5       
Beam Fire Control R40-TS25000 (1)     Max Range: 40,000 km   TS: 25,000 km/s     75 50 25 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Beam Fire Control R320-TS6250 (1)     Max Range: 320,000 km   TS: 6,250 km/s     97 94 91 88 84 81 78 75 72 69
Stellarator Fusion Reactor R8 (3)     Total Power Output 25.2    Exp 5%

Size 1 Missile Launcher (10)     Missile Size: 1    Rate of Fire 10
Missile Fire Control FC27-R1 (1)     Range 27.4m km    Resolution 1
Kalevala AMM (120)    Speed: 37,200 km/s    End: 1.2m     Range: 2.6m km    WH: 1    Size: 1    TH: 285/171/85

Active Search Sensor AS24-R1 (1)     GPS 140     Range 25m km    MCR 2.2m km    Resolution 1
Thermal Sensor TH1.0-14.0 (1)     Sensitivity 14     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  29.6m km

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

The LDR variant repaces the AMM system, 2 Beam Weapons and 2 Gauss turrets with a Jumpdrive carries a heavier higher resolution Active Sensor and replaces the CIC with a Flag Bridge. 

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Resolution LDR MK2  class Cruiser      15,000 tons       367 Crew       2,842.7 BP       TCS 300    TH 1,800    EM 0
6000 km/s    JR 4-50      Armour 7-54       Shields 0-0       HTK 99      Sensors 14/0/0/0      DCR 17      PPV 37.12
Maint Life 2.75 Years     MSP 2,029    AFR 257%    IFR 3.6%    1YR 386    5YR 5,783    Max Repair 300 MSP
Cryogenic Berths 200   
Commodore    Control Rating 4   BRG   AUX   ENG   FLG   
Intended Deployment Time: 24 months    Morale Check Required   

J15000(4-50) Military Jump Drive     Max Ship Size 15000 tons    Distance 50k km     Squadron Size 4

Internal Fusion Drive  EP600.00 (3)    Power 1800    Fuel Use 28.87%    Signature 600    Explosion 10%
Fuel Capacity 2,123,000 Litres    Range 88.3 billion km (170 days at full power)

Particle Beam-6 (2)    Range 240,000km     TS: 6,250 km/s     Power 15-6    ROF 15       
Quad Gauss Cannon R400-17.00 Turret (4x16)    Range 40,000km     TS: 25000 km/s     Power 0-0     RM 40,000 km    ROF 5       
Beam Fire Control R40-TS25000 (1)     Max Range: 40,000 km   TS: 25,000 km/s     75 50 25 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Beam Fire Control R320-TS6250 (1)     Max Range: 320,000 km   TS: 6,250 km/s     97 94 91 88 84 81 78 75 72 69
Stellarator Fusion Reactor R8 (2)     Total Power Output 16.8    Exp 5%

Active Search Sensor AS134-R120 (1)     GPS 20160     Range 135m km    Resolution 120
Thermal Sensor TH1.0-14.0 (1)     Sensitivity 14     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  29.6m km

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes

Should the need for an CG variant arise it would probably look something like this.   Maximizing alpha strike potential especially with the protection of the other cruisers it should be possible to bring the CGs in close (in terms of missile range) unload everything and then either run the enemy down or retreat after hopefully having done some decent damage (or dying while trying to get in range).  The Short range might also allow the other ships to contribute with some AMM to bite a bit of PD away from the ASMs.

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Resolution CG MK2 class Cruiser (P)      14,970 tons       208 Crew       2,342.3 BP       TCS 299    TH 1,800    EM 0
6012 km/s      Armour 7-54       Shields 0-0       HTK 70      Sensors 14/0/0/0      DCR 17      PPV 97.62
Maint Life 2.88 Years     MSP 1,564    AFR 256%    IFR 3.6%    1YR 277    5YR 4,149    Max Repair 300 MSP
Magazine 510    Cryogenic Berths 200   
Commodore    Control Rating 4   BRG   AUX   ENG   CIC   
Intended Deployment Time: 24 months    Morale Check Required   

Internal Fusion Drive  EP600.00 (3)    Power 1800    Fuel Use 28.87%    Signature 600    Explosion 10%
Fuel Capacity 2,100,000 Litres    Range 87.5 billion km (168 days at full power)

Quad Gauss Cannon R400-17.00 Turret (4x16)    Range 40,000km     TS: 25000 km/s     Power 0-0     RM 40,000 km    ROF 5       
Beam Fire Control R40-TS25000 (1)     Max Range: 40,000 km   TS: 25,000 km/s     75 50 25 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Size 6.00 Box Launcher (85)     Missile Size: 6.00    Hangar Reload 122 minutes    MF Reload 20 hours
Missile Fire Control FC27-R1 (2)     Range 27.4m km    Resolution 1

Thermal Sensor TH1.0-14.0 (1)     Sensitivity 14     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  29.6m km

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes


Any one got any suggestions? Because those are just the second generation of Combat ships i have created sofar.   And I am sure i have forgotten something. 

[Iceranger]

These ships are properly designed without obvious errors that I can see. Below are the flaws I see from my perspective:

As beam ships, these (MK2) ships are too slow for your tech. It's roughly at the speed I would use for Ion engine tech. Speed is really important for beam ships as being the faster one in the engagement you can dedicate the range or choose to not engage. Staying at range is also an advantage for particle beams. Meanwhile, the fuel range is somewhat excessively long for military ships.

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Kalevala AMM (120)    Speed: 37,200 km/s    End: 1.2m     Range: 2.6m km    WH: 1    Size: 1    TH: 285/171/85
The AMM is poorly designed. It has a 85% hit chance against 10kkm/s, i.e. 100% hit against 8.5kkm/s. So comparing to your PD turret with 25kkm/s tracking speed, these are about 1/3 as accurate. Internal fusion is the tech where AMM accuracy starts to become better than equivalent PD BFC tracking. If the missile tech you have is on par with your engine tech, then you can definitely improve the design. With the current design, they probably cost too much for what they can achieve.

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Quad Gauss Cannon R400-17.00 Turret (4x16)    Range 40,000km     TS: 25000 km/s     Power 0-0     RM 40,000 km    ROF 5       
Beam Fire Control R40-TS25000 (1)     Max Range: 40,000 km   TS: 25,000 km/s     75 50 25 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
The final defensive fire happens at 10kkm range, so gauss range above 10kkm isn't necessary at all for final PD. Unless you plan to shoot the enemy ships at any range beyond point blank with these guns, using 10kkm or 20kkm range can make these turrets cheaper.
Another major issue with your PD system is that your BFC is severely short-ranged. As shown in the accuracy band, it only has 75% accuracy at 10kkm range. Thus, your expected intercept capacity with these guns is 4x16x0.17x0.75 = 8.16 missiles at 25kkm/s. Given your main gun BFC has a 320kkm range, I assume you have the 80kkm max range tech, so a 1x range 4x speed BFC can have an accuracy of 87.5% at 10kkm range, bumping up the intercept capacity to 9.52 missiles at 25kkm/s at the cost of 1HS.

Since you already plan for 5 of such ships operating together, you can better specialize them to pack more guns into the same tonnage. For example, you won't need 5 BFCs on 5 ships each controlling 4 gauss turrets, you can have all 20 (or more) gauss turrets on one ship with 1 (better) BFC to manage them all.

At your tech level, ECM and ECCM start to matter. ECCM is especially important for beam PD against ECM-equipped missiles.

As there is no information on your S6 ASMs in the post, I cannot say how efficient your CG version is. But since your MFC range is 27mkm-ish, it is possible design some pretty sweet short-ranged ASMs.

[Jorgen_CAB]

The final defensive fire happens at 10kkm range, so gauss range above 10kkm isn't necessary at all for final PD. Unless you plan to shoot the enemy ships at any range beyond point blank with these guns, using 10kkm or 20kkm range can make these turrets cheaper.

As far as I know the range of Gauss does not impact cost or any other parameter except range. So you should always use the best range you have researched for Gauss weapons.

Since you already plan for 5 of such ships operating together, you can better specialize them to pack more guns into the same tonnage. For example, you won't need 5 BFCs on 5 ships each controlling 4 gauss turrets, you can have all 20 (or more) gauss turrets on one ship with 1 (better) BFC to manage them all.

This is probably something I don't entirely agree on... putting all your eggs in one basket can be very dangerous... if those PD ships ar targeted and knocked out your PD capability can be severely impacted, especially if the BFC used are knocked out from shock damage for example. There certainly are strategic reasons for spreading out your assets to reduce your vulnerability. You also get a ship that is almost useless in beam combat and can effectively be ignored by the enemy, that is armour and hull that could take a beating while dealing damage in return.

Now.. NPR will probably not attack weak links intentionally but I have seen some such tactics employed in my multi-faction games to good effect.

There are also some industrial benefits to spread out resources on ships as it can be beneficial from an upgrade perspective and will require less shipyards if enough components are the same among different version of the same ships and sizes.


In terms of speed I would agree that 4800km/s for Magneto Plasma beam ships "might" be on the slow side... but... speed should always be considered depending on what enemy you face and the speed they use for their ships. If you can use lower speed and fit more weapons and defences while still maintain superior speed that is not a terrible idea... or perhaps you need to fit 50% of the hull with overcharged engines just to keep parity, then you have to do that.


When it comes to deployment time, maintenance, fuel consumption and range I suppose that it all comes down to doctrine. I rarely see much need for deployment time on regular capital ships to need more than 9-12 months, even 6 months are not unheard of for me. Maintenance on the other hand I usually like it to be at least 50-100% more than the ships deployment times. You don't want to risk a ship running out of supplies during long deployments and sometimes a ship will be stationed at a place with population but no maintenance facilities or perhaps not enough of them, it then is good to have plenty of maintenance on your ships. I usually cover about the ships intended deployment with engineering sections and any excess with maintenance storage, this saves space but will still give a decent AFR for ships.
If a ship ever uses up its full deployment time you should always send it in for an overhaul as well as resting the crew, unless there is some particular reasons not to.

I usually aim for fuel consumption of somewhere between 40-60%, depending on ship type and size... but it is often good to increase the power of an engine for burning more fuel to either get more speed or more space for weapons and armour on the ship... whatever you need.

The actual range of my ships tend to be about 20-30bkm for most capital ships, I rather bring tankers if I need more strategical range and there should be enough places to refuel within my own empire for ships to move around longer distances when I don't use fleet tugs to transport them.

[xenoscepter]

My 2 cents:

 - Up the range of your PD Fire Control. The farther they go the better your accuracy and for PD in particular this is tremendous. For offensive weapons you can kinda get away with smaller B-FCS, since if you can somewhat compensate with speed, although you will need to maneuver more to achieve it. General rule of thumb I'd say is not to skimp on any FCS unless you have a very, very good reason not to. A damn good PD can be the difference between a dead ship and living one... and as time goes on and technology improves this is magnified.

 - Fighting with older ships is certainly not something you should strive to do, but if the enemy catches you with your britches down... or worse, is just that much better than you, having some barely adequate ships to throw at them could be the difference between your empire's continued existence or it's untimely demise. If you skimped on PD Fire Control, you might find that what would have been a barely adequate ship is in fact so woefully over matched that the enemy roflstomps it... and by extension, you.

[Icedragon (OP)]

First of thanks for all the replies and suggestions. 

As beam ships, these (MK2) ships are too slow for your tech.   It's roughly at the speed I would use for Ion engine tech.   Speed is really important for beam ships as being the faster one in the engagement you can dedicate the range or choose to not engage.   Staying at range is also an advantage for particle beams.   Meanwhile, the fuel range is somewhat excessively long for military ships. 

And also Jorgens comment. 

What would a decent speed be for beam ships ? I could probably install hungrier engines seeing as there is to much fuel anyway. 

[The AMM is poorly designed.   It has a 85% hit chance against 10kkm/s, i.  e.   100% hit against 8.  5kkm/s.   So comparing to your PD turret with 25kkm/s tracking speed, these are about 1/3 as accurate.   Internal fusion is the tech where AMM accuracy starts to become better than equivalent PD BFC tracking.   If the missile tech you have is on par with your engine tech, then you can definitely improve the design.   With the current design, they probably cost too much for what they can achieve. 

My Missiletech was still heavily underdeveloped while planing to build the ships, my upcoming AMM looks a bit better.  (i assume)

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Missile Size: 1.00 MSP  (2.500 Tons)     Warhead: 1    Radiation Damage: 1    Manoeuvre Rating: 22
Speed: 93,000 km/s     Fuel: 150     Flight Time: 48.9 seconds     Range: 4,547,700 km
Cost Per Missile: 2.815     Development Cost: 282
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 2046%   3k km/s 682%   5k km/s 409.2%   10k km/s 204.6%
I assume that should be decent enough AMMs for now, keeping in mind that I am trying to get trough a 10 sec interval AMM spam. 

Another major issue with your PD system is that your BFC is severely short-ranged.   As shown in the accuracy band, it only has 75% accuracy at 10kkm range.   Thus, your expected intercept capacity with these guns is 4x16x0.  17x0.  75 = 8.  16 missiles at 25kkm/s.   Given your main gun BFC has a 320kkm range, I assume you have the 80kkm max range tech, so a 1x range 4x speed BFC can have an accuracy of 87.  5% at 10kkm range, bumping up the intercept capacity to 9.  52 missiles at 25kkm/s at the cost of 1HS. 

Oh, so that's how this works.   So the weapons have no innate accuracy besides the percentage multiplier that Gauss- and i assume Railweapons have? And the BFC alone decides over the accuracy so it would also make sense to maybe oversize the FC for the Plasma Beams to get better accuracy. 

Since you already plan for 5 of such ships operating together, you can better specialize them to pack more guns into the same tonnage.   For example, you won't need 5 BFCs on 5 ships each controlling 4 gauss turrets, you can have all 20 (or more) gauss turrets on one ship with 1 (better) BFC to manage them all. 

I would like to not overdo it to much and keep the ships somewhat balanced and usefull in more than one thing.   This also allows my to build all three variants on the same shipyard without retooling and makes the whole group more able to absorb casualties without losing important capabilities.   

At your tech level, ECM and ECCM start to matter.   ECCM is especially important for beam PD against ECM-equipped missiles. 

I will have to look into that no idea how ECM works sofar. 

As there is no information on your S6 ASMs in the post, I cannot say how efficient your CG version is.   But since your MFC range is 27mkm-ish, it is possible design some pretty sweet short-ranged ASMs. 

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Missile Size: 6.00 MSP  (15.000 Tons)     Warhead: 21    Radiation Damage: 21    Manoeuvre Rating: 12
Speed: 54,500 km/s     Fuel: 500     Flight Time: 86.9 seconds     Range: 4,736,050 km
Cost Per Missile: 13.622     Development Cost: 1,362
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 654.0%   3k km/s 218.0%   5k km/s 130.8%   10k km/s 65.4%
Thats the one I am currently thinking about producing.   Heavy punch in close and probably also usable for Planetary Bombardment.  (I could probably reduce the range of the MFC thinking about it)

[TheTalkingMeowth]

Regarding the missile doctrine you seem to be proposing:

1. Using AMMs to counter AMM spam is a bad idea. You need more than 1 AMM to kill an incoming AMM, so you'd need an enormous number of launchers to be able to actually stop the incoming fire. And producing the thousands of AMMs you would need becomes a huge strain on your resources.

Look at it this way: if your AMMs are roughly equivalent in cost and capability to enemy AMMs, you'll be spending more money than they are just to stop the incoming fire. Since for every AMM they spend, you need to spend 2 (or, likely 4-5).

2. Putting maneuverability on attack missiles is usually inefficient. The way hit chance for a missile works is:
(10%+maneuverability efficiency*maneuverability tonnage/missile tonnage)*missile speed/target speed

So bigger missiles need to spend a lot of extra tonnage on maneuverability to increase their hit chance. The exact break even point on adding maneuverability vs a bigger engine for more speed depends on tech and missile size, but it's usually quite small.

Worse, maneuverability doesn't make a missile any harder to shoot down, while more speed does. Thus, attack missiles probably should not spend much if any tonnage on maneuverability; it's worth sacrificing a tiny amount of hit chance for higher speed to better avoid PD.

There is a missile design spreadsheet floating around the forums somewhere that will compute the exact optimal maneuverability vs speed breakdown for you.

[Migi]

Since you already plan for 5 of such ships operating together, you can better specialize them to pack more guns into the same tonnage. For example, you won't need 5 BFCs on 5 ships each controlling 4 gauss turrets, you can have all 20 (or more) gauss turrets on one ship with 1 (better) BFC to manage them all.

I thought you need multiple BFCs to handle multiple missile salvos? So putting all your PD on a single ship with a single BFC would make you super vulnerable to multiple salvos?

[Iceranger]

What would a decent speed be for beam ships ? I could probably install hungrier engines seeing as there is to much fuel anyway. 

I personally use engine tech EP/HS rating x 500km/s as a reference point for fleet speed at given engine tech. For internal fusion, it is 20x500 = 10kkm/s. Regarding this AMM, probably a bit less engine in exchange for a bit more agility could improve its accuracy a bit more.

I assume that should be decent enough AMMs for now, keeping in mind that I am trying to get trough a 10 sec interval AMM spam.

As others has pointed out, this is a very cost-ineffective way to counter SPAMM. More PD guns or more armor are better ways to go.

So the weapons have no innate accuracy besides the percentage multiplier that Gauss- and i assume Railweapons have? And the BFC alone decides over the accuracy so it would also make sense to maybe oversize the FC for the Plasma Beams to get better accuracy.

There are 2 parts of beam weapon accuracy, i.e., accuracy based on tracking speed, and accuracy based on range. The former is determined on both weapon tracking speed (ship speed for hull mounts and turret tracking speed for turreted weapons) and BFC tracking speed, whichever is smaller. The latter is purely determined by BFC max range, the range accuracy at max range is always 0, and at 100% at 0km (not achievable in game) and linear in between.

This also allows my to build all three variants on the same shipyard without retooling and makes the whole group more able to absorb casualties without losing important capabilities.

 
If you know what you are doing, it is actually not hard to fit multiple ships with similar hulls (total size, engine, fuel) into the same shipyard. My extreme example would be, I have a series of 12kt DDs, with an ASM variant, an AMM variant, an AFM variant, a gauss PD variant, a weaponless sensor platform, a jump capable command ship, and a laser/plasma lance variant. All these designs fits in the same yard.

2. Putting maneuverability on attack missiles is usually inefficient. The way hit chance for a missile works is:
(10%+maneuverability efficiency*maneuverability tonnage/missile tonnage)*missile speed/target speed

So bigger missiles need to spend a lot of extra tonnage on maneuverability to increase their hit chance. The exact break even point on adding maneuverability vs a bigger engine for more speed depends on tech and missile size, but it's usually quite small.

Worse, maneuverability doesn't make a missile any harder to shoot down, while more speed does. Thus, attack missiles probably should not spend much if any tonnage on maneuverability; it's worth sacrificing a tiny amount of hit chance for higher speed to better avoid PD.

There is a missile design spreadsheet floating around the forums somewhere that will compute the exact optimal maneuverability vs speed breakdown for you.

It all depends. There is a balance between agility and speed as you pointed out. That doesn't mean agility is not efficient. Ideally the attack missiles should be able to hit your intended target with high accuracy, while being as fast as possible.
I have my ship and missile optimizer here http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=10999.0 so you can try it out.

Since you already plan for 5 of such ships operating together, you can better specialize them to pack more guns into the same tonnage. For example, you won't need 5 BFCs on 5 ships each controlling 4 gauss turrets, you can have all 20 (or more) gauss turrets on one ship with 1 (better) BFC to manage them all.

I thought you need multiple BFCs to handle multiple missile salvos? So putting all your PD on a single ship with a single BFC would make you super vulnerable to multiple salvos?

It has changed in C# now a single BFC can engage unlimited number of missile salvos. Of course on dedicated PD ships you can add a few more for redundancy.

[Migi]

I have been building my PD all wrong then.....

[Droll]

I have been building my PD all wrong then.....

Yeah, just to clarify - each weapon/turret can only engage one salvo but BFCs in PD mode can engage infinitely many salvos. Useful to know if you are using turreted gauss