Orbital Defenses built as fighters

[Felius (OP)]

So, I was considering the feasibility of a defensive satellite network, but all considered, it's not worth it if you aren't deploying big bases, as it takes far to long for them to built in the shipyards.

What I'd like to suggest is that the fighter factories be able to build designs with no engines as well designs with a fighter engine. So, if I wanted to make a network of satellites it wouldn't be too hard to do so.

[Thiosk]

Hm, interesting concept.  

I went and tried, sure enough, can't seem to build an engineless design with fighter factories.  THAT BEING SAID... why bother with engineless?  Engines use material yes, but they also use only ~10 tons and make the craft manuverable: Consider the following design:

Here is a beam targeting system for fighters, note the excellent tracking speed and short range for PD.

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PD Sattelite class Fighter    385 tons     8 Crew     83.5 BP      TCS 7.7  TH 28.7  EM 0
10649 km/s     Armour 1-4     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 0     PPV 6
Annual Failure Rate: 77%    IFR: 1.1%    Maint Capacity 0 MSP    Max Repair 36 MSP    Est Time: 0 Years

Supercharged FTR engine (1)    Power 82.5    Fuel Use 6000%    Signature 28.875    Armour 0    Exp 50%

Gauss PD Gun 1 (1x3)    Range 30,000km     TS: 10649 km/s     Accuracy Modifier 100%     RM 4    ROF 5        1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
PD Defense Sattelite Fire Control (1)    Max Range: 30,000 km   TS: 25000 km/s     67 33 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

This design is classed as a Fighter for production, combat and maintenance purposes
These just used a stock gun.  It would probably be trivial to come up with a basic turret or similar design.  So its got the fast trackign speed from fighter-only beam PD control, sits inside planetary active sensor range, and has an actual speed of zero but base speed of 10k, it should be able to turn and shoot at missiles within point blank range with little problem.

Do fighters outside a carrier but in orbit of a planet use planetary maitenence facilties?  If yes, heres your final PD net.

Transfer to other planets by carrier.  Let me know if it works.  My fighter manufactories are shut down at present.

[Felius (OP)]

I could certainly use fighter engines, but then I could very well add a little fuel and actually make them fighters. :p

Plus for roleplay reasons I'd prefer it to actually be stationary and incapable of dodging attacks.

[Thiosk]

well, since the coding redo would make you start your game over again, you could do a conventional engine

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Fighter Conventional Engine

[b]Power Output: 0.6[/b]     Explosion Chance: 25     Efficiency: 50    Thermal Signature: 0.6
Engine Size: 50 Tons    Engine HTK: 0     Internal Armour: 0
Cost: 5    Crew: 5
Materials Required: 1.25x Duranium  0x Neutronium  3.75x Gallicite

Development Cost for Project: 50RP

Consider that the mag confinement fighter engine has a power output of 60, this one won't go anywhere fast, thats for sure!  haha!  you can call it "positioning jets" rather than "engine"


NOTE:  Correct me if i'm wrong, but heres how i understand it:
for tracking, a ship uses base speed-- it can turn at that rate.  for hit %, it uses current speed.  So a stationary sattelite will be unable to dodge attacks but will be able to track incoming attacks as a function of its base speed.   Perhaps someone can comment on this?

[Brian Neumann]

Do fighters outside a carrier but in orbit of a planet use planetary maitenence facilties?  If yes, heres your final PD net.

Transfer to other planets by carrier.  Let me know if it works.  My fighter manufactories are shut down at present.

Fighters can only be maintained inside a hanger bay.  The maintenance facilities will do nothing to keep these guys from falling apart.  That being said it would be a really cheap design ship or pdc that is not much more than hanger bays and crew quarters.  I would go with pdc's just because they are fast to build for something this small.  On the other hand the ship version could be towed to a planet to provide local defense.  You could also base standard fighters or gunboats from them as well.

Brian