Learning design by copying sci fi: UNSC Infinity Supercarrier, Halo

[Iestwyn (OP)]

This got amazingly out-of-control due to the ridiculous stats of the actual Infinity (https://www.halopedia.org/UNSC_Infinity). The thing has 830 point-defense guns, as well as 10 frigates in its hangars. The entire thing is supposed to weigh 907 million tons. So I obviously couldn't keep all of that, but I tried to stay true to the essence of "this ship is utterly massive and tries to do too many things at once." I started with the tech level of the inertial confinement fusion engine (giving me everything at or below 150,000 RP), since that's how Halo's reactors are described.

As usual, y'all should know I'm still learning; this is just to help me discover how ship design works in Aurora. Please let me know everything I could've done better.

First, there are three types of fighters in the Infinity's hangars. I tried to diversify their roles a bit to keep things from being too redundant.

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F-41E Broadsword class Escort Fighter      500 tons       17 Crew       482.3 BP       TCS 10    TH 211    EM 0
21154 km/s      Armour 2-5       Shields 0-0       HTK 4      Sensors 0/0/0/0      DCR 0      PPV 3.25
Maint Life 0.71 Years     MSP 40    AFR 100%    IFR 1.4%    1YR 56    5YR 844    Max Repair 225.0 MSP
Magazine 15   
Lieutenant Commander    Control Rating 1   
Intended Deployment Time: 1 months    Morale Check Required   

Compact Fusion Drive EP105.60 (2)    Power 211.2    Fuel Use 1175.02%    Signature 105.60    Explosion 30%
Fuel Capacity 25,000 Litres    Range 0.77 billion km (10 hours at full power)

M9109 ASW/AC MLA Cannon R600-8.00 (2x6)    Range 60,000km     TS: 21,154 km/s     Accuracy Modifier 8.00%     RM 60,000 km    ROF 5       
Rotary Cannon Fire Control Suite R150-TS30000 (1)     Max Range: 150,000 km   TS: 30,000 km/s     93 87 80 73 67 60 53 47 40 33

M6088 ST/MMP Missile Delivery System (15)     Missile Size: 1    Hangar Reload 50 minutes    MF Reload 8 hours
Strikecraft AMM Fire Control FC60-R1 (50%) (1)     Range 60.6m km    Resolution 1
M96 Howler AMM (10)    Speed: 56,000 km/s    End: 14.9m     Range: 50.1m km    WH: 1    Size: 1    TH: 1306/784/392

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 Fighter for production, combat and planetary interaction
The Broadsword became a mini-point-defense drone that the Infinity can disgorge to get more AMMs out at a time.

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GA-TL1 Longsword class Strikefighter      500 tons       12 Crew       361.5 BP       TCS 10    TH 211    EM 0
21154 km/s      Armour 2-5       Shields 0-0       HTK 4      Sensors 0/0/0/0      DCR 0      PPV 3.6
Maint Life 0.58 Years     MSP 20    AFR 100%    IFR 1.4%    1YR 34    5YR 513    Max Repair 112.5 MSP
Magazine 24   
Lieutenant Commander    Control Rating 1   
Intended Deployment Time: 1 months    Morale Check Required   

Compact Fusion Drive EP105.60 (2)    Power 211.2    Fuel Use 1175.02%    Signature 105.60    Explosion 30%
Fuel Capacity 15,000 Litres    Range 0.46 billion km (6 hours at full power)

ASGM-10 Missile Launcher (4)     Missile Size: 6.00    Hangar Reload 122 minutes    MF Reload 20 hours
Strikecraft ASM Fire Control FC281-R100 (50%) (2)     Range 281.1m km    Resolution 100
M42 Archer High-Yield ASM (4)    Speed: 48,667 km/s    End: 34.4m     Range: 100.6m km    WH: 16    Size: 6    TH: 957/574/287

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 Fighter for production, combat and planetary interaction
The Longsword turned into an ASM delivery boy.

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D79-TC Pelican class Troop Transport      500 tons       16 Crew       365.9 BP       TCS 10    TH 211    EM 0
21132 km/s      Armour 2-5       Shields 0-0       HTK 3      Sensors 0/0/0/0      DCR 0      PPV 1
Maint Life 0.95 Years     MSP 40    AFR 100%    IFR 1.4%    1YR 42    5YR 630    Max Repair 225.0 MSP
Troop Capacity 200 tons     
Lieutenant Commander    Control Rating 1   
Intended Deployment Time: 1 months    Morale Check Required   

Compact Fusion Drive EP105.60 (2)    Power 211.2    Fuel Use 1175.02%    Signature 105.60    Explosion 30%
Fuel Capacity 13,000 Litres    Range 0.4 billion km (5 hours at full power)

M9109 ASW/AC MLA Cannon R600-8.00 (2x6)    Range 60,000km     TS: 21,132 km/s     Accuracy Modifier 8.00%     RM 60,000 km    ROF 5       
Rotary Cannon Fire Control Suite R150-TS30000 (1)     Max Range: 150,000 km   TS: 30,000 km/s     93 87 80 73 67 60 53 47 40 33

This design is classed as a Fighter for production, combat and planetary interaction
Lastly, the Pelican essentially stayed as a dropship.

So far as I know, these fighters aren't bad, but I feel like if I wasn't basing them off of existing craft, I might've been able to make something better. If I've made any obvious mistakes, let me know.

Now for the behemoth, the Infinity herself:

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Infinity class Supercarrier      149,999 tons       3,545 Crew       42,436.4 BP       TCS 3,000    TH 29,952    EM 5,100
9984 km/s    JR 6-100      Armour 10-251       Shields 170-425       HTK 694      Sensors 160/160/0/0      DCR 119      PPV 424.4
Maint Life 1.29 Years     MSP 72,757    AFR 2022%    IFR 28.1%    1YR 46,144    5YR 692,157    Max Repair 6067.8 MSP
Hangar Deck Capacity 10,000 tons     Troop Capacity 20,000 tons     Drop Capable    Magazine 756   
Captain    Control Rating 4   BRG   CIC   FLG   PFC   
Intended Deployment Time: 12 months    Flight Crew Berths 200    Morale Check Required   

MX Macedon Slipspace Drive J150000(6-100)      Max Ship Size 150000 tons    Distance 100k km     Squadron Size 6

XR2 Boglin Fields Repulsor Engine EP9984 (3)    Power 29952.0    Fuel Use 4.48%    Signature 9984.00    Explosion 10%
Fuel Capacity 1,848,000 Litres    Range 49.5 billion km (57 days at full power)
Misriah Armory Heavy Dispersal Field Generator S170 / R425 (1)     Recharge Time 425 seconds (0.4 per second)

Series-8 MAC C10 (4)    Range 225,000km     TS: 10,000 km/s     Power 94-10     RM 80,000 km    ROF 50       
Onager MAC C2.5 (10)    Range 225,000km     TS: 10,000 km/s     Power 42-2.5     RM 80,000 km    ROF 85       
M965 Fortress R600-100 Point Defense Turret (20x6)    Range 60,000km     TS: 40000 km/s     Power 0-0     RM 60,000 km    ROF 5       
MAC Fire Control R225-TS10000 (50%) (4)     Max Range: 225,000 km   TS: 10,000 km/s     96 91 87 82 78 73 69 64 60 56
Fortress PD Suite Fire Control R150-TS40000 (50%) (2)     Max Range: 150,000 km   TS: 40,000 km/s     93 87 80 73 67 60 53 47 40 33
Deuterium Fusion Reactor R34 (2)     Total Power Output 67    Exp 5%

ASM Launcher (10)     Missile Size: 6.00    Rate of Fire 10
AMM Launcher (30)     Missile Size: 1    Rate of Fire 5
ASM Fire Control FC362-R100 (50%) (4)     Range 362.9m km    Resolution 100
AMM Fire Control FC78-R1 (50%) (2)     Range 78.2m km    Resolution 1
M42 Archer High-Yield ASM (50)    Speed: 48,667 km/s    End: 34.4m     Range: 100.6m km    WH: 16    Size: 6    TH: 957/574/287
M75 Rapier Long-Range ASM (50)    Speed: 45,600 km/s    End: 91.8m     Range: 251.3m km    WH: 9    Size: 6    TH: 1033/620/310
M96 Howler AMM (150)    Speed: 56,000 km/s    End: 14.9m     Range: 50.1m km    WH: 1    Size: 1    TH: 1306/784/392

Ship Sensor AS181-R100 (1)     GPS 15000     Range 181.4m km    Resolution 100
Missile Sensor AS39-R1 (1)     GPS 150     Range 39.1m km    MCR 3.5m km    Resolution 1
High-Powered EM Sensor EM5-160 (50%) (1)     Sensitivity 160     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  100m km
High-Powered Thermal Sensor TH5-160 (50%) (1)     Sensitivity 160     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  100m km

ECCM-6 (1)         ECM 60

Strike Group
10x F-41E Broadsword Escort Fighter   Speed: 21154 km/s    Size: 9.98
5x D79-TC Pelican Troop Transport   Speed: 21132 km/s    Size: 9.99
5x GA-TL1 Longsword Strikefighter   Speed: 21154 km/s    Size: 9.98

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
Maybe it's just because I haven't gotten far enough in the game before, but even when I was playing years ago I never made anything this big. It's truly, deeply insane to me. (Oh, and you may notice I turned the MACs (magnetic accelerator cannons) into lasers; they're the Aurora weapons that best fit the behavior of MACs in Halo in my opinion.)

One of the biggest complaints I have with the design as it stands is that it's trying to do too many things at once. The hangar space, troop capacity, and weapons are all fighting with each other for room, so everything suffers. It can't carry as many fighters or troops as a dedicated carrier or transport could, and it probably can't deal out that much damage either. I could've made it even bigger, but a 150 kiloton warship seemed crazy enough to me as it was.

Comments or criticisms welcome!

[nuclearslurpee]

It's me again.

Generally, one thing you might consider would be designing the fighters for air-to-ground operations. I mostly mention this in case you aren't aware of the Fighter Pod mechanic that enables this, and because it looks like it fits the lore better. However, the lore also describes a ship that carries around a fleet of 10,000 ton frigates inside of it, so some concessions to the game mechanics are necessary.

The fighters look good for the most part. The only thing that sticks out to me is the mixed weapons on the Broadsword, which is usually not optimal for a fighter. I would probably use strictly the cannons for AM fighters, because the problem with using AMMs in box launchers is that once you fire them, the fighter has to go reload very slowly while ten more waves of ASMs fly at your ships. With guns the fighter can stay active for the whole battle until the enemy ASMs run out.

For the Pelican you may want to use the drop-capable transport module instead of the normal one, if it is a dropship.

As for the big daddy here: I can see why you're using lasers, but in a "real game" the optimal move would be to use the cannons just to stick with one weapon type (plus missiles) to conserve RPs (plus, physically speaking a MAC is a kind of Gauss cannon i.e. coilgun anyways, of course here you need the range of lasers). Otherwise the weapon loadout looks good, though again I might question the utility of AMMs when you could put more cannons on instead but here it isn't a big deal. If you are going to use AMMs, you need a lot more of them in your loadout, as you have just five salvos (5x30) which won't be nearly enough to defend against the kind of ASM waves you can expect from an NPR.

Finally, please put an extra fighter-size fuel storage so that your tonnage is a nice, even number. We like nice, even numbers around here.

[db48x]

Fun

Three points. First, 200t of drop capacity is pretty small. You want to be dropping 100kt divisions into somebody's capital city. On the other hand, 200t of boarding capacity would make more sense.

Second, there is no beam fire control with 40kkm/s tracking speed for your turrets. You need one with shorter range but higher tracking speed. Easy mistake to make.

Third, you seem to have forgotten to give it Main Engineering and Damage Control modules.

Finally, I think you should make it 10× larger and show the universe who's boss.

[xenoscepter]

 - Honestly, I was trying to figure how the hairy hecc you managed to squeeze all of that hangar space, troop space and firepower into a mere 150 kiltons. Then I looked at your AFR, some 2022%, your MSP which is only enough for about 10 failures... five from battle damage and thought, "Aww yep, that'll do 'er" In such monstrous machines, Engineering and Maintenance Storage are pretty severe bugbears. It's why I really haven't built much beyond 300,000 tons, you just... can't really. I mean, you can, but it'll blow up pretty quickly.

 - Those ASM Tubes aren't a big threat on their own, but they can contribute to a task group pretty well. Your AMMs are pretty stacked though, and I'd recommend an Anti-Fighter Missile, or just Size 3 ASMs with double the launchers. A ten missile salvo is by no means anemic, but you really are gonna want fire support ships as it isn't enough on it's own. Even two salvos of ten aren't a whole terribly lot, but if you had ten more launchers, you could do four salvos of five and that's not too shabby...

 - Your ranges on the Missiles and their respective FCS are a little mismatched. I'd be tempted to use 0.75x reduction on the launchers, or hell even 0.5x reduction. Your chunking Size 6 ASMs at a rate of 1 every other increment... and that is far from anything to sneeze at. However, with your magazines that's really only 5 salvos... and that's not great. On top of that, your fuel is... well awful to be perfectly honest.

 - You have enough missiles to sortie your strikefighters five times, six if you pre-load them... but you don't even have enough fuel to go 2 months much less a whole year. That's only one sixth of your deployment, never mind sortieing your strikecraft. On the subject of your fighters, they have a full month of deployment but only six hours of fuel... you could save a lot of weight there. And you'd need to since your Engineering is unable to get you down to a 0.0% IFR and your onboard MSP is unable to fix even one breakage.

 - Your Beam FCS is pretty overbuilt on the fighters... they can't make use of the 30,000 km/s tracking speed. The Beam FCS on the supercarrier on the other hand is well done. The armor on those fighters is helpful against Gauss and Railgun combatants, but you might consider removing it for some extra tonnage to spend on fuel, Engineering, etc. The armor and shielding on the carrier is great however, and the PD looks sensible AND competent. Especially the AMM suite.

 - Of note: You can create "Can o' Missile" by creating an empty missile stage and filling it missiles... so long as you set the separation range to the range of the missiles it contains. For example your M75 Rapier Long-Range ASM has a range of 251.3m km, so to create a "Can o' Rapier" you'd design an empty missile stage (no fuel, warhead, engines, etc.) then add two or more of the Rapier ASMs to the second stage, set the separation range to 251.3m km... or 251.4m km if you want to play it safe, and viola! Can o' Missile. You can use this to pack smaller Anti-Fighter missiles, say Size 2 or 3, into a Size 6 launcher without wasting space; on account of launchers having a limit of one missile at a time.

 - Here is an example from one of my current games:

Intrepid class Battlecruiser:

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Intrepid class Battlecruiser      150,000 tons       3,911 Crew       22,943.3 BP       TCS 3,000    TH 12,000    EM 5,400
4000 km/s      Armour 6-251       Shields 180-300       HTK 1361      Sensors 11/165/0/0      DCR 300      PPV 536.8
Maint Life 7.28 Years     MSP 88,739    AFR 600%    IFR 8.3%    1YR 2,935    5YR 44,023    Max Repair 1181.2 MSP
Hangar Deck Capacity 4,500 tons     Magazine 2,520    Cryogenic Berths 4,000   
Captain    Control Rating 4   BRG   AUX   ENG   CIC   
Intended Deployment Time: 8 months    Flight Crew Berths 180    Morale Check Required   

Zingarelli Naval T12500-100T Magneto-plasma Drive, Class 3000/0-75M (4)    Power 12000    Fuel Use 4.87%    Signature 3000    Explosion 7%
Fuel Capacity 3,750,000 Litres    Range 92.4 billion km (267 days at full power)
Zingarelli Naval SR30-30/T500 Passive Defense Field Generator, Epsilon Class (6)     Recharge Time 300 seconds (0.6 per second)

Zingarelli Naval K320 Naval Particle Beam, Class 6 (4)    Range 320,000km     TS: 5,000 km/s     Power 15-5    ROF 15       
Zingarelli Naval K320 Naval Particle Lance, Class 4 (2)    Range 320,000km     TS: 5,000 km/s     Power 12-6    ROF 10       
Zingarelli Naval Intrepid Area Defense Grid (4x8)    Range 160,000km     TS: 20000 km/s     Power 32-12     RM 40,000 km    ROF 15       
Zingarelli Naval K80 Naval Railgun, 12cm (4x4)    Range 80,000km     TS: 5,000 km/s     Power 6-6     RM 40,000 km    ROF 5       
Zingarelli Naval K40 Naval Railgun, 10cm (4x4)    Range 40,000km     TS: 5,000 km/s     Power 3-3     RM 40,000 km    ROF 5       
Zingarelli Naval Intrepid Point Defense Grid (4x64)    Range 40,000km     TS: 20000 km/s     Power 0-0     RM 40,000 km    ROF 5       
Zingarelli Naval Angel CIWS (20x8)    Range 1000 km     TS: 20,000 km/s     ROF 5       
Zingarelli Naval T100/R80-TS20K Beam FCS, Standard Grade (2)     Max Range: 80,000 km   TS: 20,000 km/s     88 75 62 50 38 25 12 0 0 0
Zingarelli Naval T100/R320-TS5K Beam FCS, Standard Grade (2)     Max Range: 320,000 km   TS: 5,000 km/s     97 94 91 88 84 81 78 75 72 69
Zingarelli Naval T200/R160-TS20K Beam FCS, Standard Grade (2)     Max Range: 160,000 km   TS: 20,000 km/s     94 88 81 75 69 62 56 50 44 38
Zingarelli Naval T25/R80-TS5K Beam FCS, Standard Grade (2)     Max Range: 80,000 km   TS: 5,000 km/s     88 75 62 50 38 25 12 0 0 0
Zingarelli Naval T300/131-7B40 Fusion Reactor, Stellarator-Type (1)     Total Power Output 131.7    Exp 20%

Zingarelli Naval R0-6/6 Missile Launcher, Class 3 (40)     Missile Size: 3    Rate of Fire 45
Zingarelli Naval T5/21-11R1 Missile FCS, Standard Grade (8)     Range 5.4m km    Resolution 1
Class 3 GP-SLASM (810)    Speed: 40,000 km/s    End: 2.2m     Range: 5.4m km    WH: 9    Size: 3    TH: 266/160/80

T20/21-11R1 Active Sensor Suite, Naval Grade (2)     GPS 9     Range 5.4m km    MCR 488.1k km    Resolution 1
T2250/21-11R1 Active Sensor Suite, Naval Grade (1)     GPS 945     Range 57.5m km    MCR 5.2m km    Resolution 1
T30/21-11R5 Active Sensor Suite, Naval Grade (1)     GPS 63     Range 11.4m km    Resolution 5
Sensor Calibrator [TH] (1)     Sensitivity 1     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  7.9m km
Sensor Calibrator [EM] (1)     Sensitivity 1     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  7.9m km
T750/165EM Passive Sensor Suite, Naval Grade (1)     Sensitivity 165     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  101.6m km
T750/165TH Passive Sensor Suite, Naval Grade (1)     Sensitivity 11     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  26.2m km
ELINT Module (2)     Sensitivity 22     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  37.1m km

ECCM-2 (16)         ECM 20

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes

 - This one uses Laminate-Composite Armor and Magneto-Plasma Drives. I only have ECCM / ECM tech 2. The Point Defense Grid is composed of 100 Ton (2 HS) Gauss Cannons while the Area Defense Grid is composed of 0.75x Reduced Size 12cm Lasers. The Cryogenic Berths will help to reduce life support failures from Crew Berth damage, while the CIWS is there on account of this ship usually operating in a pair with another Intrepid class and a Bishop -CV.

 - These ones below are the designs for the Bishop -CV and the escort frigate squadron... I am currently transferring this game into a new file to make a bit of lore to go with it, so these names and nomenclatures will be different from the prior design.

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Bishop -CV class Carrier      150,000 tons       3,380 Crew       21,908.1 BP       TCS 3,000    TH 6,480    EM 0
2160 km/s    JR 3-50      Armour 5-251       Shields 0-0       HTK 827      Sensors 11/11/0/0      DCR 300      PPV 0
Maint Life 5.67 Years     MSP 107,933    AFR 598%    IFR 8.3%    1YR 5,675    5YR 85,131    Max Repair 7190.5 MSP
Hangar Deck Capacity 42,000 tons     Magazine 3,120    Cryogenic Berths 4,000   
Captain    Control Rating 3   BRG   ENG   PFC   
Intended Deployment Time: 8.3 months    Flight Crew Berths 840    Morale Check Required   

J150K/3-50M Jump Drive     Max Ship Size 150000 tons    Distance 50k km     Squadron Size 3

T9000/2160M Magneto-plasma Drive (3)    Power 6480    Fuel Use 5.74%    Signature 2160    Explosion 7%
Fuel Capacity 12,000,000 Litres    Range 250.8 billion km (1344 days at full power)

Angel CIWS (4x8)    Range 1000 km     TS: 20,000 km/s     ROF 5       
Class 3 GP-SLASM (1040)    Speed: 40,000 km/s    End: 2.2m     Range: 5.4m km    WH: 9    Size: 3    TH: 266/160/80

T20/21-11R1 Active Sensor Suite (1)     GPS 9     Range 5.4m km    MCR 488.1k km    Resolution 1
T30/21-11R5 Active Sensor Suite (1)     GPS 63     Range 11.4m km    Resolution 5
Sensor Calibrator [EM] (1)     Sensitivity 1     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  7.9m km
Sensor Calibrator [TH] (1)     Sensitivity 1     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  7.9m km
T50/11TH Passive Sensor Suite (1)     Sensitivity 11     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  26.2m km
T50/11EM Passive Sensor Suite (1)     Sensitivity 11     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  26.2m km

Strike Group
80x Crusader Fighter-bomber   Speed: 10821 km/s    Size: 9.98
4x Marathon Jump Scout   Speed: 4007 km/s    Size: 9.98

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 CV and Jump Ship of the main group.

Diligent class Frigate:

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Diligent class Frigate      6,250 tons       160 Crew       1,003.5 BP       TCS 125    TH 504    EM 0
4032 km/s      Armour 3-30       Shields 0-0       HTK 62      Sensors 1/1/0/0      DCR 6      PPV 20
Maint Life 11.10 Years     MSP 1,512    AFR 48%    IFR 0.7%    1YR 23    5YR 338    Max Repair 100 MSP
Hangar Deck Capacity 375 tons     Magazine 140    Cryogenic Berths 200   
Commander    Control Rating 1   BRG   
Intended Deployment Time: 8 months    Flight Crew Berths 40    Morale Check Required   

T1050/252M Magneto-plasma Drive (2)    Power 504    Fuel Use 16.81%    Signature 252    Explosion 7%
Fuel Capacity 601,000 Litres    Range 103 billion km (295 days at full power)

Class 2 Particle Beam, Standard (2)    Range 320,000km     TS: 5,000 km/s     Power 5-5    ROF 5       
T100/R320-TS5K Beam FCS (1)     Max Range: 320,000 km   TS: 5,000 km/s     97 94 91 88 84 81 78 75 72 69
T43/10B100 Fusion Reactor, Stellarator-Type (1)     Total Power Output 10    Exp 50%

Diligent Missile Launcher, Class 1 (10)     Missile Size: 1    Rate of Fire 5
T25/21-11R1 Missile FCS (2)     Range 12.1m km    Resolution 1
Class 1 SLAMM (130)    Speed: 67,200 km/s    End: 0.3m     Range: 1.2m km    WH: 1    Size: 1    TH: 492/295/147

T100/21-11R1 Active Sensor Suite (1)     GPS 42     Range 12.1m km    MCR 1.1m km    Resolution 1
Sensor Calibrator [EM] (1)     Sensitivity 1     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  7.9m km
Sensor Calibrator [TH] (1)     Sensitivity 1     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  7.9m km

Strike Group
3x Sprinter Fast Scout Craft   Speed: 16118 km/s    Size: 2.48

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
 - An AMM Frigate that carries scouts and a pair of particle beams to finish off wounded ships or enemy targets of opportunity. My early proof of concept design can be found here: http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=11850.msg140168#msg140168

Troubadour class Jump Frigate:

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Troubadour class Jump Frigate      6,250 tons       166 Crew       916.5 BP       TCS 125    TH 504    EM 0
4032 km/s    JR 7-50      Armour 3-30       Shields 0-0       HTK 38      Sensors 165/165/0/0      DCR 6      PPV 0
Maint Life 6.45 Years     MSP 1,075    AFR 48%    IFR 0.7%    1YR 45    5YR 668    Max Repair 206.2 MSP
Cryogenic Berths 200   
Commander    Control Rating 1   BRG   
Intended Deployment Time: 8.2 months    Morale Check Required   

J6-25K/7-50M Jump Drive     Max Ship Size 6250 tons    Distance 50k km     Squadron Size 7

T1050/252M Magneto-plasma Drive (2)    Power 504    Fuel Use 16.81%    Signature 252    Explosion 7%
Fuel Capacity 501,000 Litres    Range 85.8 billion km (246 days at full power)

T750/165TH Passive Sensor Suite (1)     Sensitivity 165     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  101.6m km
T750/165EM Passive Sensor Suite (1)     Sensitivity 165     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  101.6m km

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
 - The sensor and jump ship for the frigate squadron.

Marathon class Jump Scout:

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Marathon class Jump Scout      500 tons       16 Crew       124.5 BP       TCS 10    TH 14    EM 0
4007 km/s    JR 1-1000      Armour 1-5       Shields 0-0       HTK 4      Sensors 22/22/0/0      DCR 0      PPV 0
Maint Life 9.46 Years     MSP 71    AFR 10%    IFR 0.1%    1YR 1    5YR 21    Max Repair 35 MSP
Lieutenant Commander    Control Rating 1   
Intended Deployment Time: 21 days    Morale Check Required   

J500/1-1000M Jump Drive     Max Ship Size 500 tons    Distance 1000k km     Squadron Size 1

T100/40M Magneto-plasma Drive (1)    Power 40    Fuel Use 195.31%    Signature 14.00    Explosion 12%
Fuel Capacity 41,000 Litres    Range 7.6 billion km (21 days at full power)

T40/10-11R1 Active Sensor Suite (1)     GPS 8     Range 5.3m km    MCR 476.3k km    Resolution 1
T100/11TH Passive Sensor Suite (1)     Sensitivity 22     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  37.1m km
T100/11EM Passive Sensor Suite (1)     Sensitivity 22     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  37.1m km

This design is classed as a Fighter for production, combat and planetary interaction
 - The Jump Scout, used for probing jump points. The Active Sensor is there incase I want to go look at the surface of a planet or if I want to be able to see incoming missiles before the scout dies horribly to them...

Sprinter class Fast Scout Craft:

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Sprinter class Fast Scout Craft      125 tons       4 Crew       48.4 BP       TCS 2    TH 14    EM 0
16118 km/s      Armour 1-2       Shields 0-0       HTK 1      Sensors 3/3/0/0      DCR 0      PPV 0
Maint Life 0 Years     MSP 0    AFR 24%    IFR 0.3%    1YR 2    5YR 28    Max Repair 35 MSP
Lieutenant Commander    Control Rating 1   
Intended Deployment Time: 3 days    Morale Check Required   

T50/40M Magneto-plasma Drive (1)    Power 40    Fuel Use 1562.50%    Signature 14.00    Explosion 25%
Fuel Capacity 31,000 Litres    Range 2.88 billion km (49 hours at full power)

T15/11EM Passive Sensor Suite (1)     Sensitivity 3.3     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  14.4m km
T15/11TH Passive Sensor Suite (1)     Sensitivity 3.3     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  14.4m km

This design is classed as a Fighter for production, combat and planetary interaction

 - Used for short range passive scouting. I chided you for your fighters poor AFR and MSP, but this ship is tiny so concessions were made... although the lack of AFR and MSP remains a failing of it.

Crusader class Fighter-bomber:

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Crusader class Fighter-bomber      500 tons       10 Crew       114.6 BP       TCS 10    TH 54    EM 0
10821 km/s      Armour 1-5       Shields 0-0       HTK 3      Sensors 0/0/0/0      DCR 0      PPV 1.8
Maint Life 7.77 Years     MSP 108    AFR 10%    IFR 0.1%    1YR 3    5YR 47    Max Repair 81 MSP
Magazine 12   
Lieutenant Commander    Control Rating 1   
Intended Deployment Time: 18 days    Morale Check Required   

T270/108M Magneto-plasma Drive (1)    Power 108    Fuel Use 118.86%    Signature 54.0    Explosion 12%
Fuel Capacity 56,000 Litres    Range 17 billion km (18 days at full power)

Class 3 Missile Cell (4)     Missile Size: 3    Hangar Reload 86 minutes    MF Reload 14 hours
T5/21-11R1 Missile FCS (1)     Range 5.4m km    Resolution 1
Class 3 GP-SLASM (4)    Speed: 40,000 km/s    End: 2.2m     Range: 5.4m km    WH: 9    Size: 3    TH: 266/160/80

T20/21-11R1 Active Sensor Suite (1)     GPS 9     Range 5.4m km    MCR 488.1k 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 Fighter for production, combat and planetary interaction

 - Used for giving my Class 3 ASMs some much needed range.

[Iestwyn (OP)]

WOW, a lot of great advice all at once! Let me try to reply point by point:

Generally, one thing you might consider would be designing the fighters for air-to-ground operations. I mostly mention this in case you aren't aware of the Fighter Pod mechanic that enables this, and because it looks like it fits the lore better. However, the lore also describes a ship that carries around a fleet of 10,000 ton frigates inside of it, so some concessions to the game mechanics are necessary.

I'd heard somewhere that air-to-ground fighters were bugged, allowing STOs to target them. The advice I read was to forget about them until it was patched. Was I mistaken?

The fighters look good for the most part. The only thing that sticks out to me is the mixed weapons on the Broadsword, which is usually not optimal for a fighter. I would probably use strictly the cannons for AM fighters, because the problem with using AMMs in box launchers is that once you fire them, the fighter has to go reload very slowly while ten more waves of ASMs fly at your ships. With guns the fighter can stay active for the whole battle until the enemy ASMs run out.

Ah, that's a good point and a much better system. Thanks!

As for the big daddy here: I can see why you're using lasers, but in a "real game" the optimal move would be to use the cannons just to stick with one weapon type (plus missiles) to conserve RPs (plus, physically speaking a MAC is a kind of Gauss cannon i.e. coilgun anyways, of course here you need the range of lasers). Otherwise the weapon loadout looks good, though again I might question the utility of AMMs when you could put more cannons on instead but here it isn't a big deal. If you are going to use AMMs, you need a lot more of them in your loadout, as you have just five salvos (5x30) which won't be nearly enough to defend against the kind of ASM waves you can expect from an NPR.

All excellent advice. I did deliberately choose lasers over Gauss guns because the mechanics of lasers in Aurora more closely mimic those of MACs: a single powerful shot that hits deep and takes a while to recharge. Leaving off the AMMs seems smart; the actual Infinity has three different types of missiles, so I was just struggling to find three separate roles for them.

Finally, please put an extra fighter-size fuel storage so that your tonnage is a nice, even number. We like nice, even numbers around here.

Oh, I so wish I could, but adding that one more fighter fuel storage adds just enough crew requirements that it bumps up to 150,001. Hate 'em both, picked one at random. XD

Three points. First, 200t of drop capacity is pretty small. You want to be dropping 100kt divisions into somebody's capital city. On the other hand, 200t of boarding capacity would make more sense.

Yeah, the Pelican's pretty useless in Aurora. I added it as it was because it's a classic small-scale dropship in the Halo universe; that just doesn't translate well here.

Second, there is no beam fire control with 40kkm/s tracking speed for your turrets. You need one with shorter range but higher tracking speed. Easy mistake to make.

One of us might be missing something; as far as I can tell, the "Fortress PD Fire Control Suite" has a tracking speed of 40,000 km/s. Am I reading it wrong? (Genuinely could be; I had to ask Discord about some of the lines in the ship class summary earlier today.)

Third, you seem to have forgotten to give it Main Engineering and Damage Control modules.

Huh. That would make sense, wouldn't it? XD

Finally, I think you should make it 10× larger and show the universe who's boss.

Heaven help us all.

- Honestly, I was trying to figure how the hairy hecc you managed to squeeze all of that hangar space, troop space and firepower into a mere 150 kiltons. Then I looked at your AFR, some 2022%, your MSP which is only enough for about 10 failures... five from battle damage and thought, "Aww yep, that'll do 'er" In such monstrous machines, Engineering and Maintenance Storage are pretty severe bugbears. It's why I really haven't built much beyond 300,000 tons, you just... can't really. I mean, you can, but it'll blow up pretty quickly.

Yeah, this is my first time making anything this big; I honestly should've let myself go bigger to get in some more maintenance and engineering. This ship is an extreme glass cannon (if it can even be called a cannon).

- Those ASM Tubes aren't a big threat on their own, but they can contribute to a task group pretty well. Your AMMs are pretty stacked though, and I'd recommend an Anti-Fighter Missile, or just Size 3 ASMs with double the launchers. A ten missile salvo is by no means anemic, but you really are gonna want fire support ships as it isn't enough on it's own. Even two salvos of ten aren't a whole terribly lot, but if you had ten more launchers, you could do four salvos of five and that's not too shabby...

I was wondering about that, too. At this tech level (or really at any tech level), 10/salvo is a bit weak. I was trying to cut back a bit to cut down on space, but maybe going all in would've been better. (Though in a real game I'd just outsource the ASMs to a dedicated missile destroyer.)

- Your ranges on the Missiles and their respective FCS are a little mismatched. I'd be tempted to use 0.75x reduction on the launchers, or hell even 0.5x reduction. Your chunking Size 6 ASMs at a rate of 1 every other increment... and that is far from anything to sneeze at. However, with your magazines that's really only 5 salvos... and that's not great. On top of that, your fuel is... well awful to be perfectly honest.

All excellent points. More missiles would be better, more fuel would be grand (I can't blame that one on the size; I focused on the range and wasn't paying attention to the duration), and the missiles/FCs are a bit wonky. I wasn't 100% sure how best to fix that... are you suggesting that the size reduction on the launchers would help? Why would it?

- You have enough missiles to sortie your strikefighters five times, six if you pre-load them... but you don't even have enough fuel to go 2 months much less a whole year. That's only one sixth of your deployment, never mind sortieing your strikecraft. On the subject of your fighters, they have a full month of deployment but only six hours of fuel... you could save a lot of weight there. And you'd need to since your Engineering is unable to get you down to a 0.0% IFR and your onboard MSP is unable to fix even one breakage.

Another area where I focused on range instead of burn time. Need to start paying attention to that.

- Your Beam FCS is pretty overbuilt on the fighters... they can't make use of the 30,000 km/s tracking speed. The Beam FCS on the supercarrier on the other hand is well done. The armor on those fighters is helpful against Gauss and Railgun combatants, but you might consider removing it for some extra tonnage to spend on fuel, Engineering, etc. The armor and shielding on the carrier is great however, and the PD looks sensible AND competent. Especially the AMM suite.

You know what? I think I misread the tracking speed on the fighters' FCs. Got a little sloppy at the end. I was on the fence about armoring the fighters, so I added a bit to see what you guys thought. Glad you liked the Infinity's defenses!

- Of note: You can create "Can o' Missile" by creating an empty missile stage and filling it missiles... so long as you set the separation range to the range of the missiles it contains. For example your M75 Rapier Long-Range ASM has a range of 251.3m km, so to create a "Can o' Rapier" you'd design an empty missile stage (no fuel, warhead, engines, etc.) then add two or more of the Rapier ASMs to the second stage, set the separation range to 251.3m km... or 251.4m km if you want to play it safe, and viola! Can o' Missile. You can use this to pack smaller Anti-Fighter missiles, say Size 2 or 3, into a Size 6 launcher without wasting space; on account of launchers having a limit of one missile at a time.

Wow, now I remember this from the last time I played Aurora, years ago... that's something I'm going to have to revisit.

- Here is an example from one of my current games:

Thanks for all these! Don't have the time to look at them now, but I look forward to it in the morning.

[xenoscepter]

- Your ranges on the Missiles and their respective FCS are a little mismatched. I'd be tempted to use 0.75x reduction on the launchers, or hell even 0.5x reduction. Your chunking Size 6 ASMs at a rate of 1 every other increment... and that is far from anything to sneeze at. However, with your magazines that's really only 5 salvos... and that's not great. On top of that, your fuel is... well awful to be perfectly honest.

All excellent points. More missiles would be better, more fuel would be grand (I can't blame that one on the size; I focused on the range and wasn't paying attention to the duration), and the missiles/FCs are a bit wonky. I wasn't 100% sure how best to fix that... are you suggesting that the size reduction on the launchers would help? Why would it?

 - Size reduced launchers would give you a bigger salvo. Size 6 launchers with 0.5x reduction would give you twice as many missiles per salvo. This would tank your RoF though. The 0.75x reduction wouldn't kill it as badly, but it would also only give you a 13 missile salvo. A whopping five more missiles just isn't worth the drop in RoF. The thing is though, your Size 6 launchers are firing every 10 seconds... that's nuts. Salvo size is puny, sure, but you putting those puny salvos out every other increment. And you have four Missile FCS units... thatsallottasalvos.

 - Increasing the launchers to 12 would give you four salvos of three Size 6 ASMs every other increment and that really isn't anything to sniff at for a CV. That doesn't take into account your fighters either, which are an additional salvo of four Size 6 ASMs apiece. I mean, you've only got five of them, but still... that can be changed. The reduced size launchers would be much more beneficial if you switched to a Size 3 missile instead. You clearly have the Missile Reload tech to make such fast firing Size 6 launchers, thus you could could make smaller launchers with size reduction and benefit from a large increase in salvo while still keeping a reasonable RoF.

 - Minor oopsie... I just opened C# to find the exact fire rates, and there is no 0.5x reduction. Oops. Well anyway, at 0.75x reduction for a Size 3 Launcher with Missile Reload 8, it's less than half the weight of the Size 6 and fires every 15 seconds. The same launcher at 0.6x fires every 35 seconds, but you could fit three of them into that space for the size of one of your Size 6 launchers. That means with a Size 3 0.6x reduction you're looking at 33 ASMs per salvo every 35 seconds, and with 0.75x Size 3 Launchers your looking at 26 ASMs every 15 seconds.

[Iestwyn (OP)]

Huh... That's really interesting. Thanks for all this!

[SpaceMarine]

Just saying but, I uh designed many ships based off halo lore for my AAR i did specifically in the Halo universe so am not sure if it will help but you can take a look at all of them, i was pretty happy overall with the deisgns

http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=11126.msg129402#msg129402 - Link to the thread

[Iestwyn (OP)]

Sweet! I'll check it out. What did you think about my design?

[TheTalkingMeowth]

The closest thing to MACs in Aurora is probably the particle beam (or even a particle lance), since they have no damage fall-off with range.

Fuel capacity isn't terrible IMO. Ships rarely spend much time actually cruising around; what matters is the range so that they can get from point A to point B without waiting for tankers.

170 shields is kind of sad though. The last shielded warship I build was 25,000 tons and had almost twice that.

Think of it like this: that's less than 1 layer of armor over the entire ship. Alternatively, your shields can't even absorb a hit from two of your main guns.

[Iestwyn (OP)]

All that makes sense. I think I'll redo this much bigger to make room for more fuel, missiles, shields, and engineering/maintenance.

[nuclearslurpee]

I'd heard somewhere that air-to-ground fighters were bugged, allowing STOs to target them. The advice I read was to forget about them until it was patched. Was I mistaken?

You can kill off STOs with orbital ships before landing troops. I'm not sure building air-to-ground fighters is worth it even without any bugs, but building to fit lore always sacrifices efficiency, and it sounds really fun so I say do it. 

All excellent advice. I did deliberately choose lasers over Gauss guns because the mechanics of lasers in Aurora more closely mimic those of MACs: a single powerful shot that hits deep and takes a while to recharge. Leaving off the AMMs seems smart; the actual Infinity has three different types of missiles, so I was just struggling to find three separate roles for them.

I can't find much specific detail on the differences between the missiles, but offhand you can broadly specify three types of missiles: AMM (size 1), small ASM (size 3ish) for use against fighters and FACs sacrificing some damage and range for higher speed and accuracy, and large ASM (size 6) for use against large ships at longer range. May not exactly match the lore but it works for Aurora. Note that AMMs are perfectly fine and in fact can compliment gun-based PD, you just need to have a lot of them because your enemies are gonna have a lot of ASMs.

Very broadly, AMMs are better against large salvos, because you can launch a large number of AMMs at once. Beam/kinetic PD is good against smaller, more frequent salvos because they can fire so much faster and because AMMs tend to "overkill" these salvos and you waste ordnance. Together, AMMs can be used to thin out really big waves of enemy missiles down to a level that the PD guns can clean up, but by not relying on AMMs to kill the salvo entirely you conserve ammunition. Against smaller waves you can just use the beam PD.

Yeah, the Pelican's pretty useless in Aurora. I added it as it was because it's a classic small-scale dropship in the Halo universe; that just doesn't translate well here.

As another commenter said it's probably better to make these boarding-capable instead especially if you don't want to go the air-to-ground route with the other fighters.

The closest thing to MACs in Aurora is probably the particle beam (or even a particle lance), since they have no damage fall-off with range.

I second this because Particle Lances are badass.

All that makes sense. I think I'll redo this much bigger to make room for more fuel, missiles, shields, and engineering/maintenance.

It might be horribly impractical, but I want to see a 900,000,000 ton ship in Aurora.

[Iestwyn (OP)]

Dear heavens above, that would be crazy. You might actually have room for all the stuff the actual Infinity does XD

[db48x]

It might be horribly impractical, but I want to see a 900,000,000 ton ship in Aurora.

Absolutely. I just opened up Iceranger's ship optimizer and choose some likely sounding techs at random (Inertial confinement engines, max engine boost 2.0×, max engine size 400, etc) and put in 907000000t for the mass, 5000 km/s for the speed, and 100 bkm for range. Kinda slow, but it's a start. It'll need 8,398 size-400 engines with a boost of 1.35× and 65.5bl of fuel, but that's only 26.94% of the ship's mass. Not bad!

We could double the speed, but then we need 13,742 size-400 engines with a boost of 1.65× and 111.4bl of fuel, which is 43.59% of the ship's mass. Perhaps somewhere in the middle is better.

[TheTalkingMeowth]

I thought my 4 megatonne Nemesis was ridiculous.

FYI, you won't be able to make the Infinity jump capable. You also may find that you can't actually fill 900 megatonnes; Aurora weapons and whatnot don't actually get all that big, so if you are trying to hit lore #s for various components and crew count, you might end up way under.