Aurora 4x
C# Aurora => C# Mechanics => Topic started by: Borealis4x on May 23, 2020, 02:35:22 AM
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What are the advantages of carriers when compared to missile ships?
Why should I dedicated a bunch of space to hangar bays in addition to the large active sensors, magazines, and PD I'd need anyways when I could just add more missile silos?
Hell, I'd probably need a bigger AS so my carriers can act as the spotter for my bombers since according to my design experiments you really don't want to waste space on your small fighters to give them all one.
Also, what pointers do you have for designing carriers and carrier craft? How big should the bomber missiles be, for instance, and how fast and far should carrier craft generally go?
I thought I did pretty well with a 200 ton fighter with 0.7 billion KM range and 5 size 3 box launchers. It was pretty slow tho, Went only a bit about 25,000 ks.
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"It was pretty slow, only went about 25,000 km/s"
It was pretty slow
If that's slow, what the hell do you call fast!? :D
For a bomber at Internal Confinement that's pretty damn fast, and at any engine tech below that it's blistering. Five Size 3 Missiles is... okay-ish. Size 3-9 is a decent ASM, while 10-24 is hard hitting, but definitely big. I like Size 5s and Size 10s, but 3s are adequate and you can cram more in per ton. You only need one or two AS elements per formation, so take your bombers, strip out the launchers and MFCS and add Actives... I'm about 70% sure that they can leech off of that AS contact.
Designing carriers:
- Build out your carrier with fuel and deployment enough for itself.
- Now build it out with ammo, MSP, and fuel for a number of sorties before it needs to reload.
- Voila, you have built a functional Carrier.
That's the bare bones of design for a Carrier, and a good starting point.
Designing Fighters:
- Decide on the mission of your fighters.
- Decide how much tonnage you want to dedicated to Engines.
- Decide what your payload will be and how you will allocate sensors.
- Decide on a range and build out fuel, deployment and Engineering / MSP accordingly.
- (Optional) Add some defense like Shields, ECM/ECCM and/or armor.
That's the general gist of fighter design, doubtless others will have plenty to add to it.
Missile ships are generally more cost-effective, but less flexible. Your missile fighter carrier can carry Railgun or Gauss PD fighters and your beam fighter carrier can launch a pre-loaded flight of missile fighters. Your Missile ships are only ever missile ships and are always limited by the range of their AS/MFCS and Missiles, while missile fighters can close in to AS/MFCS range and extend the range of missiles, freeing up weight in the missile itself for things like bigger warheads, ECM/ECCM or in the case of bigger sizes even AS of their own.
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"It was pretty slow, only went about 25,000 km/s"
It was pretty slow
If that's slow, what the hell do you call fast!? :D
For a bomber at Internal Confinement that's pretty damn fast, and at any engine tech below that it's blistering. Five Size 3 Missiles is... okay-ish. Size 3-9 is a decent ASM, while 10-24 is hard hitting, but definitely big. I like Size 5s and Size 10s, but 3s are adequate and you can cram more in per ton. You only need one or two AS elements per formation, so take your bombers, strip out the launchers and MFCS and add Actives... I'm about 70% sure that they can leech off of that AS contact.
Designing carriers:
- Build out your carrier with fuel and deployment enough for itself.
- Now build it out with ammo, MSP, and fuel for a number of sorties before it needs to reload.
- Voila, you have built a functional Carrier.
That's the bare bones of design for a Carrier, and a good starting point.
Designing Fighters:
- Decide on the mission of your fighters.
- Decide how much tonnage you want to dedicated to Engines.
- Decide what your payload will be and how you will allocate sensors.
- Decide on a range and build out fuel, deployment and Engineering / MSP accordingly.
- (Optional) Add some defense like Shields, ECM/ECCM and/or armor.
That's the general gist of fighter design, doubtless others will have plenty to add to it.
Missile ships are generally more cost-effective, but less flexible. Your missile fighter carrier can carry Railgun or Gauss PD fighters and your beam fighter carrier can launch a pre-loaded flight of missile fighters. Your Missile ships are only ever missile ships and are always limited by the range of their AS/MFCS and Missiles, while missile fighters can close in to AS/MFCS range and extend the range of missiles, freeing up weight in the missile itself for things like bigger warheads, ECM/ECCM or in the case of bigger sizes even AS of their own.
What of PD's for the Carrier? I suppose the fighters armed with Gauss canons can act as PD's but I want to make my Carriers large and robustly defended with both Gauss PD and AMMs.
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Well, those are just some rough guidelines after all... you can always add PD, weapons, shields and such to taste, but those three design elements are the core of a good carrier as opposed to say, any other old warship. The question, however, was Carriers vs Missiles:
To wit:
- Missile Ships are stuck the way they are designed / built / can be re-fitted to.
- Carriers have Hangar Space which can be used flexibly.
--- Your Carrier can and probably should have it's own PD, but my idea was that even your Carriers for Missile Based fighters can simply load up some Railgun or Gauss fighters if the fleet is facing a more powerful missile enemy and needs a little extra PD. Conversely, even if you have a Carrier configured w/o Magazines to support missile fighters, you can still shove a bunch into it with preloaded launchers to get a little more oomph if the enemies PD is too tough.
--- That might not sound like much, but if you've got three Carriers that have have even just a single Hangar Deck, then you could fit five of those 200 Ton Bombers in to help overwhelm the enemy. That's five extra salvos of five size 3 ASMs, nothing to sneeze at for just a measely 1,000 tons worth of Hangar Space in a piddly would-be escort carrier. Basically you just stuffed 25 Size 3 Box Launchers that add 0.35 Billion km of range (assuming it's not a one way trip...) to any missile fired out of them into what was just a lowly escort ship.
--- So to answer your question, I was referring to what you can and cannot do with a Missile Ship versus a Carrier. Missile Ships are cheaper, but Carriers are way more flexible and can be far more readily tailored to the battles at hand and the battles of tomorrow. Edit: Forgot to mention that with three such tiny carriers you'd get 25 Box Launchers per carrier so more like 75 extra missiles for what I was assuming to be little more than a space-worthy Hangar Deck. Obviously a Hangar Deck with engines is among the smallest kind of ship you can make and call it a carrier, nice fleet carriers could be made to be even more useful than that.
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Imho a carrier should not act as a spotter for the fighters. I like to use dedicated sensor fighters which accompany every bomber squadron and give them AS coverage. That way the carrier and it's support vessels can stay hidden.
So along with the incresead flexibility of hangars the main point I see in carriers is the much larger strike distance they allow for. I personally like to use larger bombers (400-500t) with a range of 1 to 3 billion km. But even 0.7m is longer than most missile ranges in C# will be.
Smaller PD-Ships provide PD-Coverage for the carrier force and dedicated (ideally passive) scouts should be placed in front of the task force to locate the enemy and act as early warning crafts.
With the sensor changes in C# many smaller sensor can provide a better coverage than one large sensor. Now (signal strenght)^3 is only detected at 2x the range.
Using PD escorts also provides flexibility to the needed strenght of the own PD while it keeps the carriers smaller and cheaper.
The goal is to stay far out of the range of enemy missiles and ideally not to reveal the (exact) location of your carriers to the enemy. If they can't shoot you, it's the best defence you can have.
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Carriers start to make a lot more sense if you view fighters as a reusable and retargetable first stage for a missile. You can design a missile with short range and high lethality, and fighters can get it into firing range without being in danger themselves. Being smaller, it is much harder for standard MFC and active sensors to see them. Being faster means you have a better chance of outrunning any pursuing missiles/craft, and it lets you take the fight to an enemy who is faster than your standard ships, but slower than your fighters (This is NOT to be underestimated from a strategic POV. Fighters can let you better dictate when/where you do battle.)
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First of all I don't think that carriers neccesarily replace ASM missiles on ships but can be a complement of a different doctrine. Sure... there are perhaps no real point to invest in long range ASM anymore when you have carriers as the fighters on the carriers now act as your long range striking force.
The main point of carriers is to be a space domination force. If you want to deal with planets or jump point defences then carriers are probably not the most efficient ship you might consider.
As any game are very complex there are rarely only ONE way to deal with any particular problem and carriers will provide one solution to a few certain problems.
The main advantage to carriers is their huge range at which they can strike and enemy target. The whole point with carriers is that you can keep them way off in the background while you locate the opponent with your scout. Then you assemble a strike force and hit them hard. The whole point with a carrier task force is to strike an enemy while they can't strike you back. This obviously does not mean you don't need defences in your carrier strike force. How much concern you have around defences that is up to you.
A fighter is a very stealthy craft and will easily be able to strike an unsuspected target if you play your cards right.
The idea with carriers is to invest a great deal into scouting forces, from small fighter scouts to dedicated small scouting corvettes or frigates. In general I NEVER put the dedicated sensors into the actual strike group... maybe as a backup solution but rarely do I actually use that, that role will go to a dispersed net of sensor scouts and or recon ships.
The type of missile you use is entirely depending on the capabilities of the enemy. If the enemy knows you use fighters and keep a decent anti-fighter defence system you will not get very far with small missiles as you will not get enough range on them before the enemy can comfortably shoot down your fighters first. Instead I find size 5-6 works best for fighters in such an environment, that might also makes it possible to fit the missile with an ECM module to.
In most if my campaigns size 3-4 that is anti-small craft missiles with a 4-6 strength warhead. This is a very fast and agile missile with limited range. It will usually have enough range to engage enemy fighters though. You can easily fit such systems even into small corvette class scout ships... size 3 missiles is pretty fast shooting system and can mow down unescorted fighters very quickly for a very cheap price.
In terms of missile ships these are good for different reasons... they are a more secure platform but simply less stealthy and you will have to expect to be able to both attack and defend at the same time.
When I get to the stage that I need to deploy carriers I still use missiles on capital ships... I just don't see them as the main weapon of choice for space domination combat in general. They become more of a self defence medium range weapons. Something my escorts use for medium and short range combat. Sometimes escort ships will be acting on their own for recon in force missions and they actually can have some offensive capabilities that way, but they are not suppose to fight large battles that way.
I see this as a layered defence system... first you have beam weapons for knife fights, then you have "torpedoes" which is very close range missiles. You then have medium range missiles which are the type of missiles used on escort such as destroyers and/or cruisers. I then have the apex of long range strike warfare the carriers.
Every type have their place in a dynamic setting.
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What of PD's for the Carrier? I suppose the fighters armed with Gauss canons can act as PD's but I want to make my Carriers large and robustly defended with both Gauss PD and AMMs.
I think you lose out on a lot of design concept options due to tending to think that a ship the size of the moon that does a little of everything is about right...
The thing about a carrier is every ton you spend on onboard weapons or sensors is a ton not spent on hangars which could add strength to your main offensive and defensive arms...and a carrier's best defense is always to stay out of enemy engagement range entirely.
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Carriers start to make a lot more sense if you view fighters as a reusable and retargetable first stage for a missile. You can design a missile with short range and high lethality, and fighters can get it into firing range without being in danger themselves. Being smaller, it is much harder for standard MFC and active sensors to see them. Being faster means you have a better chance of outrunning any pursuing missiles/craft, and it lets you take the fight to an enemy who is faster than your standard ships, but slower than your fighters (This is NOT to be underestimated from a strategic POV. Fighters can let you better dictate when/where you do battle.)
Fighters also work wonders when a faster enemy is trying to kite your fleet. If you pull it off right then they never even see the fighters that killed them.
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What of PD's for the Carrier? I suppose the fighters armed with Gauss canons can act as PD's but I want to make my Carriers large and robustly defended with both Gauss PD and AMMs.
I think you lose out on a lot of design concept options due to tending to think that a ship the size of the moon that does a little of everything is about right...
The thing about a carrier is every ton you spend on onboard weapons or sensors is a ton not spent on hangars which could add strength to your main offensive and defensive arms...and a carrier's best defense is always to stay out of enemy engagement range entirely.
I don't think you EVER would deploy a carrier without defences or an escort so using some space for self defence does not really detract from it's offensive capacity at all as you just need less escort and the task-force become less reliable on one ship class for it's defence. Spreading the defensive capabilities on more ships will make the force generally less susceptible to catastrophic failure if the wrong ship-class get targeted. A dynamic opponent that know your ship-classes will obviously make use of any such knowledge to your disadvantage.
I would agree that putting weapons intended for offensive operations make little sense on a pure carrier design.
In fact there are benefit from a operational and logistics perspective to give your ships more of a multi-purpose design. For example you can't just expect all combat to be conducted in deep space. You might need to deploy a carrier for defending a JP or planet... it then is very beneficial for these ships to carry beam weapons and good armour and shields. It is also good if your carrier are discovered and the enemy might be able to close with them.. .or if they have to run the gauntlet through a JP and escape.
With that said building a pure Carrier can also be a sound doctrine as well... it is all relative.
As long as you understand that whatever you do there is a downside and vulnerability.
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For PD fighters, what sort of beam weapon would you use?
I'd say railguns since they shoot multiple times, but they need a power-plant.
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Either small-caliber railguns or gauss guns. The railgun is probably better if you've got capacitor 3 to give it 5 second reload and have room to fit it in your design. Small Gauss guns have the advantage that they can fit in very small spaces if they have to. But even if you have Gauss ROF 6 the railgun+reactor may give you more shots/ton than the full size Gauss.
I don't think you EVER would deploy a carrier without defences or and escort so using some space for self defence does not really detract from it's offensive capacity at all as you just need less escort and the task-force become less reliable on one ship class for it's defence. Spreading the defensive capabilities on more ships will make the force generally less susceptible to catastrophic failure if the wrong ship-class get targeted. A dynamic opponent that know your ship-classes will obviously make use of any such knowledge to your disadvantage.
Interceptors can provide antimissile gunnery. And while AMMs are probably better not used from fighters, interceptors and beam strike fighters can provide stand-off attacks on incoming salvos.
Mostly my view is that the tactical philosophy of a carrier is that if the enemy is getting a chance to shoot at you with anything except maybe a long-range fighter or heavy missile attack, that means you already lost the battle and shouldn't be surprised if you also lose the carrier.
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Interceptors can provide antimissile gunnery. And while AMMs are probably better not used from fighters, interceptors and beam strike fighters can provide stand-off attacks on incoming salvos.
Mostly my view is that the tactical philosophy of a carrier is that if the enemy is getting a chance to shoot at you with anything except maybe a long-range fighter or heavy missile attack, that means you already lost the battle and shouldn't be surprised if you also lose the carrier.
While it is technically true you can do that fighters still are rather inefficient at that job. It is one thing to use them in that capacity as a secondary role but not a primary one.
I would use my Gauss or Rail-gun fighters for mainly escorting bombers not to protect the carrier itself. A few Gauss turrets or dedicated AMM systems are way more efficient for that.
I would never dare to expect my fighters to be present when the carrier is attacked. If I for some reason always keep some PD fighters with the carrier for that duty then I probably failed in my design. But as I said, to bolster the defences in certain occasions seems perfectly legit to me.
So... it is a design flaw in my opinion to rely on PD fighters for your main defence, that means they can never leave the carrier anyway. But having both PD fighters AND a dedicated defence is a good doctrine as that will give you options and good defences.
This obviously is a personal preference... but I NEVER allow fate nor chance to dictate engagements if I can avoid it. That means that if I have PD fighters only I would have to always leave some behind... if I take them all out on missions and the enemy happen to attack I might be completely defenceless. If my bombers can't perform their missions with the escort I provided I probably should not attempt the mission in the first place anyway. But this is my personal philosophy and not some law to be followed by others
PD fighters were allot more powerful in VB6 though, now you have to pay the full price for the beam fire-control on each fighter A dedicated ship system can have allot more turrets per fire-control. You also have to pay for expensive engines to speed up the fighters where a ship only need to turret the guns for the same effect.
AMM fighters are even worse as a dedicated defence system in comparison to a few AMM launchers and a fire-control or two. The carrier have the magazine anyway so that does not even count.
It is quite apparent that I think the glass cannon is a "stupid" concept for a fleet doctrine (You can never know for certain your carriers have not been detected)... it leaves too many things up to chance, one I'm not willing to take... I certainly would never in real life anyway... ;)
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For PD fighters, what sort of beam weapon would you use?
I'd say railguns since they shoot multiple times, but they need a power-plant.
Railguns are the best fighter-scale anti-missile weapon until you hit Gauss ROF 8. Gauss turrets are the best option for protecting capital ships.
Interceptors can provide antimissile gunnery. And while AMMs are probably better not used from fighters, interceptors and beam strike fighters can provide stand-off attacks on incoming salvos.
Mostly my view is that the tactical philosophy of a carrier is that if the enemy is getting a chance to shoot at you with anything except maybe a long-range fighter or heavy missile attack, that means you already lost the battle and shouldn't be surprised if you also lose the carrier.
While it is technically true you can do that fighters still are rather inefficient at that job. It is one thing to use them in that capacity as a secondary role but not a primary one.
I would use my Gauss or Rail-gun fighters for mainly escorting bombers not to protect the carrier itself. A few Gauss turrets or dedicated AMM systems are way more efficient for that.
I would never dare to expect my fighters to be present when the carrier is attacked. If I for some reason always keep some PD fighters with the carrier for that duty then I probably failed in my design. But as I said, to bolster the defences in certain occasions seems perfectly legit to me.
So... it is a design flaw in my opinion to rely on PD fighters for your main defence, that means they can never leave the carrier anyway. But having both PD fighters AND a dedicated defence is a good doctrine as that will give you options and good defences.
This obviously is a personal preference... but I NEVER allow fate nor chance to dictate engagements if I can avoid it. That means that if I have PD fighters only I would have to always leave some behind... if I take them all out on missions and the enemy happen to attack I might be completely defenceless. If my bombers can't perform their missions with the escort I provided I probably should not attempt the mission in the first place anyway. But this is my personal philosophy and not some law to be followed by others
PD fighters were allot more powerful in VB6 though, now you have to pay the full price for the beam fire-control on each fighter A dedicated ship system can have allot more turrets per fire-control. You also have to pay for expensive engines to speed up the fighters where a ship only need to turret the guns for the same effect.
AMM fighters are even worse as a dedicated defence system in comparison to a few AMM launchers and a fire-control or two. The carrier have the magazine anyway so that does not even count.
It is quite apparent that I think the glass cannon is a "stupid" concept for a fleet doctrine (You can never know for certain your carriers have not been detected)... it leaves too many things up to chance, one I'm not willing to take... I certainly would never in real life anyway... ;)
Having carriers fall back or bug out if the enemy gets close isn't a bad strategy. Their teeth are their fighters. Let the battleships and cruisers hold the line.
I've used regular beam fighters to supplement fleet missile and beam PD before. While it doesn't work very well, every hit they score is one less ASM for the capital ships to deal with and that can make a difference when the enemy has more ASMs than you were prepared for. Mass Driver fighters are also a good way to protect bombers and FACs operating outside the fleet's AMM envelope.
I miss VB fighter beam controls too. Beam fighters just aren't viable in the early game anymore, which means AMM is the only option before gauss turrets can be researched. :(
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Should 'spotter' fighters use active or passive sensors?
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Should 'spotter' fighters use active or passive sensors?
Depends what you're looking to do with them. If they're spotting targets for someone to shoot obviously they need to use active sensors (unless you only want to shoot with missiles that have sensors of their own?). If they're hoping to locate the enemy while being undetected themselves they almost certainly need passive sensors.
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Having carriers fall back or bug out if the enemy gets close isn't a bad strategy. Their teeth are their fighters. Let the battleships and cruisers hold the line.
I've used regular beam fighters to supplement fleet missile and beam PD before. While it doesn't work very well, every hit they score is one less ASM for the capital ships to deal with and that can make a difference when the enemy has more ASMs than you were prepared for. Mass Driver fighters are also a good way to protect bombers and FACs operating outside the fleet's AMM envelope.
I miss VB fighter beam controls too. Beam fighters just aren't viable in the early game anymore, which means AMM is the only option before gauss turrets can be researched. :(
And I agree that using beam fighters for PD as secondary role is perfectly OK and I do that too.
When I talk about glass cannon ideologies it means that you don't defend the carriers and use all force to attack. The problem is that you can't guarantee that the enemy strike force show up right after your carrier wing left and destroy the carrier with no means to defend themselves at all. That is what I meant.
There is nothing wrong with having dedicated carriers in any way but leaving them without any escort is a serious gamble no matter how sure you are you can retreat them before an enemy can strike them.
If you are 99.9% sure because your technology is several levels higher than the enemy and you generally have superior numbers, then sure... you probably can get away with it at a very high probability.
My main point was that there is nothing wrong in adding main defences to your carriers or fit them with beam weapons as a self defence weapons. This means they can be useful outside their primary role too. Versatility can be worth allot too.
Extreme specialisation can be a huge liability if the enemy know which ships do what as they can just focus in whatever capacity they want to neutralise. You can imagine a fleet of 10 ships... you have 2 beam ships, 4 PD ships and 4 missile ships. You then have a fleet that intergrate all of those functions in one ship type... they might have slightly less beam, PD and missile launchers but they can in turn just focus their attacks on one element of the enemy and knock it out. In a missile fight you take out the PD ships first... the rest can be picked out very easily, the same go for a beam fight... you take out the beam ships first.
I'm not saying that this kind of specialisation is bad all the time... just that it is not effective the larger ship you build, that is all. Small ships can't do many things very well most of the time.
A big carrier on the other hand can do many things well even if it does have a primary function. If I want a dedicated pure carrier that would probably be a smaller lighter carrier in that case. But that is just me and my personal opinion.
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Having carriers fall back or bug out if the enemy gets close isn't a bad strategy. Their teeth are their fighters. Let the battleships and cruisers hold the line.
I've used regular beam fighters to supplement fleet missile and beam PD before. While it doesn't work very well, every hit they score is one less ASM for the capital ships to deal with and that can make a difference when the enemy has more ASMs than you were prepared for. Mass Driver fighters are also a good way to protect bombers and FACs operating outside the fleet's AMM envelope.
I miss VB fighter beam controls too. Beam fighters just aren't viable in the early game anymore, which means AMM is the only option before gauss turrets can be researched. :(
And I agree that using beam fighters for PD as secondary role is perfectly OK and I do that too.
When I talk about glass cannon ideologies it means that you don't defend the carriers and use all force to attack. The problem is that you can't guarantee that the enemy strike force show up right after your carrier wing left and destroy the carrier with no means to defend themselves at all. That is what I meant.
There is nothing wrong with having dedicated carriers in any way but leaving them without any escort is a serious gamble no matter how sure you are you can retreat them before an enemy can strike them.
If you are 99.9% sure because your technology is several levels higher than the enemy and you generally have superior numbers, then sure... you probably can get away with it at a very high probability.
My main point was that there is nothing wrong in adding main defences to your carriers or fit them with beam weapons as a self defence weapons. This means they can be useful outside their primary role too. Versatility can be worth allot too.
Extreme specialisation can be a huge liability if the enemy know which ships do what as they can just focus in whatever capacity they want to neutralise. You can imagine a fleet of 10 ships... you have 2 beam ships, 4 PD ships and 4 missile ships. You then have a fleet that intergrate all of those functions in one ship type... they might have slightly less beam, PD and missile launchers but they can in turn just focus their attacks on one element of the enemy and knock it out. In a missile fight you take out the PD ships first... the rest can be picked out very easily, the same go for a beam fight... you take out the beam ships first.
I'm not saying that this kind of specialisation is bad all the time... just that it is not effective the larger ship you build, that is all. Small ships can't do many things very well most of the time.
A big carrier on the other hand can do many things well even if it does have a primary function. If I want a dedicated pure carrier that would probably be a smaller lighter carrier in that case. But that is just me and my personal opinion.
It seems that I misunderstood, so I apologize. Glass cannon doctrine at the fleet level is indeed foolish. I was trying to say that glass cannon ships are fine if they have proper escorts.
I find that integrating roles too much tends to lead to jack-of-all-trades syndrome. If enemy missile ships would reliably target PD ships first then that would be an argument in favour of specializing them out to draw fire away from the rest, since one or two dedicated PD ships are easier to up-armour than an entire battle group. Offensive beam ships need to be much faster than anything except fighters, and that gets expensive per tonne. Specialization makes them much more cost effective. AWACS grade sensors are too expensive to put on multiple ships, and carriers tend to have very little part or doctrine commonality with anything else.
In VB I used to spread beam PD across every ship in the battle group, including carriers and AWACS, but that is less attractive with the new BFC PD rules. I am currently experimenting with combined beam/missile PD ships, but I'm still getting used to the new mechanics so it is a work in progress.
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One big advantage carriers have over ASM ships is that a carrier strike group can strike its target from a different bearing than the carrier. If ASM ships manage to remain undetected, it doesn't really matter. The missiles will still fly straight towards the target. Your enemy can easily follow that bearing right back to your missile ships. But a carrier strike group can launch its missiles from the flank. Imagine you've hidden your carrier north of the target. The strike group flies off to a side and strikes the target from the east. The enemy head east, planning on counter-attacking your missile ships. But they find nothing, because you were actually to the north all along.
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And I agree that using beam fighters for PD as secondary role is perfectly OK and I do that too.
Carrier beam fighters get exceptionally interesting in a PD role against enemies with obsolete engine tech / missiles slow enough that your fighters can outrun them. Supported by a good enough missile sensor they can kill a disturbing number of missiles just following them along and picking of salvo after salvo.
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One big advantage carriers have over ASM ships is that a carrier strike group can strike its target from a different bearing than the carrier. If ASM ships manage to remain undetected, it doesn't really matter. The missiles will still fly straight towards the target. Your enemy can easily follow that bearing right back to your missile ships. But a carrier strike group can launch its missiles from the flank. Imagine you've hidden your carrier north of the target. The strike group flies off to a side and strikes the target from the east. The enemy head east, planning on counter-attacking your missile ships. But they find nothing, because you were actually to the north all along.
This is no different from an ASM group firing a barrage and then moving to a new location, beyond the fighters having stealth and speed advantages. While the AI isn't smart enough to do it, it should be an effective way to draw defenders away from a high value target.
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One big advantage carriers have over ASM ships is that a carrier strike group can strike its target from a different bearing than the carrier. If ASM ships manage to remain undetected, it doesn't really matter. The missiles will still fly straight towards the target. Your enemy can easily follow that bearing right back to your missile ships. But a carrier strike group can launch its missiles from the flank. Imagine you've hidden your carrier north of the target. The strike group flies off to a side and strikes the target from the east. The enemy head east, planning on counter-attacking your missile ships. But they find nothing, because you were actually to the north all along.
~Barkhorn
This is no different from an ASM group firing a barrage and then moving to a new location, beyond the fighters having stealth and speed advantages. While the AI isn't smart enough to do it, it should be an effective way to draw defenders away from a high value target.
~SpikeTheHobbitMage
What Barkhorn is driving at is that a carrier can be in one place and attack from another. If your ASM ships fire, then the fire comes from them, if they move away they inexorably move from the point of firing. The carrier has no such trouble, and even against NPRs this can make a difference as even the NPRs will tend to attack the ships that are actually shooting at them rather than the carrier. "De-planing" the carrier may require you to produce more fighters, but replacing fighters is way cheaper than dedicated ASM ships. FACs notwithstanding of course, they're a different matter entirely.
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One big advantage carriers have over ASM ships is that a carrier strike group can strike its target from a different bearing than the carrier. If ASM ships manage to remain undetected, it doesn't really matter. The missiles will still fly straight towards the target. Your enemy can easily follow that bearing right back to your missile ships. But a carrier strike group can launch its missiles from the flank. Imagine you've hidden your carrier north of the target. The strike group flies off to a side and strikes the target from the east. The enemy head east, planning on counter-attacking your missile ships. But they find nothing, because you were actually to the north all along.
~Barkhorn
This is no different from an ASM group firing a barrage and then moving to a new location, beyond the fighters having stealth and speed advantages. While the AI isn't smart enough to do it, it should be an effective way to draw defenders away from a high value target.
~SpikeTheHobbitMage
What Barkhorn is driving at is that a carrier can be in one place and attack from another. If your ASM ships fire, then the fire comes from them, if they move away they inexorably move from the point of firing. The carrier has no such trouble, and even against NPRs this can make a difference as even the NPRs will tend to attack the ships that are actually shooting at them rather than the carrier. "De-planing" the carrier may require you to produce more fighters, but replacing fighters is way cheaper than dedicated ASM ships. FACs notwithstanding of course, they're a different matter entirely.
Point. I had not considered strategic suicide missions.
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Lol, well it's only suicide if they catch you. :P
Fighters are smol and fast, they tend to evade real good... especially against ASMs not built to hit 'em.
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I've never used Boat Bays before and am wondering if they'd be a good addition to my command ships to house sensor fighters to be the commander's eyes and ears. Might be a good replacement or supplement to the massive sensors I put on command variants. Only thing I'm worried about is if it will make the design too different to the point it can't share a shipyard with its standard variant.
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@BasileusMaximos
- The refit issue depends on the ship in question. The "'X' in a Box" school of Fighter design has been around since VB6. You could have boat bays, hangar decks or more dedicated to expanded magazines (useful for when you want to pack some nukes into your missile cruiser, but only for a particular mission profile), fuel tanks (moar range = moar goob), modular sensors and Flag Bridges... and so on and so forth. So you could definitely do it.
- I pack scouts on all kinds of ships... even my Fortune Class Frigate, which in addition to being an in-system security vessel, is also a tug, which means a lot of things were omitted to get a high speed. That small boat bay allows the Knife Class to be housed inside of it and deployed to check out suspicious passive contacts.
Fortune Class:
http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=11551.msg135214#new
Knife Class & Friends:
http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=11548.msg135202#new
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I've never used Boat Bays before and am wondering if they'd be a good addition to my command ships to house sensor fighters to be the commander's eyes and ears. Might be a good replacement or supplement to the massive sensors I put on command variants. Only thing I'm worried about is if it will make the design too different to the point it can't share a shipyard with its standard variant.
I often use Boat Bays to fit rescue fighters on my high value capital ships on the grounds that if my flagship didn't make it then the rest of the fleet didn't either.
As long as the tonnage is within 20% and the new parts aren't more than 20% of the total cost then you should be fine. If you have a ship tooled for the existing design then it will list all eligible designs including unlocked ones.
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I've never used Boat Bays before and am wondering if they'd be a good addition to my command ships to house sensor fighters to be the commander's eyes and ears. Might be a good replacement or supplement to the massive sensors I put on command variants. Only thing I'm worried about is if it will make the design too different to the point it can't share a shipyard with its standard variant.
I often use Boat Bays to fit rescue fighters on my high value capital ships on the grounds that if my flagship didn't make it then the rest of the fleet didn't either.
As long as the tonnage is within 20% and the new parts aren't more than 20% of the total cost then you should be fine. If you have a ship tooled for the existing design then it will list all eligible designs including unlocked ones.
What do those rescue fighters look like? Do you need emergency cryo on the mothership as well?
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And I agree that using beam fighters for PD as secondary role is perfectly OK and I do that too.
Carrier beam fighters get exceptionally interesting in a PD role against enemies with obsolete engine tech / missiles slow enough that your fighters can outrun them. Supported by a good enough missile sensor they can kill a disturbing number of missiles just following them along and picking of salvo after salvo.
That is true... but at that point you will not need that many of them to do the job well either, so whatever PD fighters you do have will work just fine. You certainly don't need dedicated PD fighters for that specific job.
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Large carriers can be nice if you make large parasite beam warships. But small ships have advantages in avoiding detection. Although a lot of the time, the carrier is launching from the other side of a jump point. If your fighters have a decent range, (depending on sensor tech level), the carrier should be always able to launch from beyond detection range.
The exception is where multiple nations are operating in the same system, and maintaining passive tracking on ships, and hostilities can break out at any time. In a player v player scenario, you have to deal with the threat of an enemy deliberately holding back forces, engines down, waiting for an opportunity to strike a soft target. That isn't something the AI is good at. Players are much better at hunting down a suspected carrier than the AI is.
Missile ships, the missiles have no choice but to move straight towards the enemy, so they reveal a possible cone where they could have come from. Fighters, on the other hand, have the option of loitering while their carrier scoots back out of the system.
Another thing that carriers can do, that missiles ships can't, in VB6 anyway, is deploy box launcher pods from the other side of a jump box, and launch homing missiles on transit. Pretty sure that isn't an option in c# anymore? So carriers can make a close in defense of a jump point very hazardous.
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That is true... but at that point you will not need that many of them to do the job well either, so whatever PD fighters you do have will work just fine. You certainly don't need dedicated PD fighters for that specific job.
Depends what you define as a "dedicated PD fighter". If we define it as a fighter that is faster than the enemy missiles instead of a design that focus on maybe firepower or beam range, then we actually do need a dedicated design to be able to pull it of don't we ;)
Although your right that speed is normally a very high priority in all beam fighters so all purpose beam fighters could conceivably do this as well at certain points.
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I've never used Boat Bays before and am wondering if they'd be a good addition to my command ships to house sensor fighters to be the commander's eyes and ears. Might be a good replacement or supplement to the massive sensors I put on command variants. Only thing I'm worried about is if it will make the design too different to the point it can't share a shipyard with its standard variant.
I often use Boat Bays to fit rescue fighters on my high value capital ships on the grounds that if my flagship didn't make it then the rest of the fleet didn't either.
As long as the tonnage is within 20% and the new parts aren't more than 20% of the total cost then you should be fine. If you have a ship tooled for the existing design then it will list all eligible designs including unlocked ones.
What do those rescue fighters look like? Do you need emergency cryo on the mothership as well?
Nightingale class Rescue Fighter (P) 500 tons 6 Crew 50 BP TCS 10 TH 23 EM 0
3001 km/s Armour 1-5 Shields 0-0 HTK 7 Sensors 0/0/0/0 DCR 0 PPV 0
Maint Life 0 Years MSP 0 AFR 99% IFR 1.4% 1YR 9 5YR 137 Max Repair 18.7500 MSP
Cryogenic Berths 1,000
Drengr Control Rating 1
Intended Deployment Time: 1 days Morale Check Required
4HS 30EP 130.71L 75%TH (1) Power 30.0 Fuel Use 435.71% Signature 22.5000 Explosion 15%
Fuel Capacity 1,000 Litres Range 0.1 billion km (7 hours at full power)
This design is classed as a Fighter for production, combat and planetary interaction
This is an early model. I usually aim for around 1/2 my regular fighter speed. The mother ship doesn't need cryo because there is currently no way to transfer survivors to another ship.
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I've never used Boat Bays before and am wondering if they'd be a good addition to my command ships. . .
Of course! Every armoured cruiser needs a floatplane or two to spot targets for it.
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Boat Bays and even Small Boat Bays are excellent additions indeed.
Stacking three boat bays and one small boat bay is a good way to make a small utility carrier.
In VB6 that particular config would be tonnage inefficient on account of crew needs, but in C# Fighter Crew Berths are allocated per hangar, or per boat bay, or per small boat bay; basically each module adds 20 of 'em. SO that utility carrier would gain in durability what it loses to extra crew needs. And since Life Support failure is a helluva ship killer... that's a pretty nice buff.
That aside, I like a 2x Hangar Deck / 2x Boat Bay configuration... like here:
Archer Class w/ fighter (VB6)
http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=10530.0
While the fighter is not really viable in C# anymore, the carrier probably still is. It remains my favorite carrier for to use for Beam Fighters, hell, it's my favorite carrier to use period.
2,500 Tons of space is enough for 4x 500 Ton Beam Fighters w/ 1x 500 Ton "Spotter" or 10x 250-Ton Beam Fighters and 2x 250-Ton "Spotters"
From my VB6 ships:
*I have yet to attempt to port these to C#
Valkyrie, Spotter Variant:
Valkyrie PVF-3S class Scout 250 tons 4 Crew 194.5 BP TCS 5 TH 24 EM 0
20000 km/s Armour 3-3 Shields 0-0 Sensors 3/4/0/0 Damage Control Rating 0 PPV 0
Maint Life 0 Years MSP 0 AFR 50% IFR 0.7% 1YR 17 5YR 254 Max Repair 100 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 0.125 months Spare Berths 6
100 EP Internal Fusion Drive (1) Power 100 Fuel Use 387.38% Signature 24 Exp 25%
Fuel Capacity 30,000 Litres Range 5.6 billion km (3 days at full power)
Active Search Sensor MR7-R1 (50%) (1) GPS 44 Range 7.8m km MCR 846k km Resolution 1
Thermal Sensor TH0.2-3 (50%) (1) Sensitivity 3 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 3m km
EM Detection Sensor EM0.2-3.6 (50%) (1) Sensitivity 3.6 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 3.6m km
This design is classed as a Fighter for production, combat and maintenance purposes
Valkyrie PD Interceptor:
Valkyrie PVF-3I class Interceptor 250 tons 4 Crew 209.1 BP TCS 5 TH 24 EM 0
20000 km/s Armour 3-3 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 0 PPV 1.2
Maint Life 0 Years MSP 0 AFR 50% IFR 0.7% 1YR 14 5YR 216 Max Repair 100 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 0.125 months Spare Berths 6
100 EP Internal Fusion Drive (1) Power 100 Fuel Use 387.38% Signature 24 Exp 25%
Fuel Capacity 30,000 Litres Range 5.6 billion km (3 days at full power)
Gauss Cannon R4-10 (2x4) Range 40,000km TS: 20000 km/s Accuracy Modifier 10% RM 4 ROF 5 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0
Fire Control S00.2 60-5000 H50 (FTR) (1) Max Range: 120,000 km TS: 20000 km/s 92 83 75 67 58 50 42 33 25 17
Active Search Sensor MR1-R1 (50%) (1) GPS 8 Range 1.3m km MCR 141k km Resolution 1
This design is classed as a Fighter for production, combat and maintenance purposes
Valkyrie Interceptor, Ion Tech Prototype:
PVX Valkyrie Interceptor 250 tons 5 Crew 37.4 BP TCS 5 TH 24 EM 0
4800 km/s Armour 3-3 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 0 PPV 1
Maint Life 0 Years MSP 0 AFR 50% IFR 0.7% 1YR 2 5YR 25 Max Repair 12 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 0.125 months Spare Berths 5
StarTech Systems Project Valkyrie Boosted Ion Drive E24 (1) Power 24 Fuel Use 392.02% Signature 24 Exp 20%
Fuel Capacity 10,000 Litres Range 1.8 billion km (4 days at full power)
Confederate Navalwork Size 13 Gauss Gun (2) Range 20,000km TS: 4800 km/s Power 0-0 RM 2 ROF 5 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Confederate Navalworks Valkyrie TAS Integrated Fire Director (1) Max Range: 40,000 km TS: 5000 km/s 75 50 25 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Confederate Navalworks Valkyrie Target Aquisition Sensor (1) GPS 5 Range 280k km MCR 31k km Resolution 1
This design is classed as a Fighter for production, combat and maintenance purposes
Avenger, Base Variant, PD / Anti-Bomber:
Avenger class Fighter 500 tons 4 Crew 122.325 BP TCS 10 TH 22.05 EM 0
6300 km/s Armour 2-5 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 0 PPV 3.5
Maint Life 6.11 Years MSP 31 AFR 10% IFR 0.1% 1YR 1 5YR 21 Max Repair 55.125 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 0.1 months Spare Berths 6
United Solar Naval Commission USNC "Avenger" Ion Drive (1) Power 63 Fuel Use 275.08% Signature 22.05 Exp 17%
Fuel Capacity 15,000 Litres Range 2.0 billion km (3 days at full power)
United Solar Naval Commission USNC "Avenger" Railgun, Co-Axial 25mm Gauss Cannon (1x2) Range 30,000km TS: 6300 km/s Accuracy Modifier 8% RM 3 ROF 5 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
United Solar Naval Commission USNC "Avenger" Railgun, 100mm Autocannon [Fast-Firing] (1x4) Range 30,000km TS: 6300 km/s Power 3-3 RM 3 ROF 5 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
United Solar Naval Commission USNC "Avenger" Fire Control Unit (1) Max Range: 64,000 km TS: 6000 km/s 84 69 53 37 22 6 0 0 0 0
United Solar Naval Commission USNC "Avenger" Gas-Cooled Fast Reactor, Boosted Mk. 1 (1) Total Power Output 3.1 Armour 0 Exp 12%
United Solar Naval Commission USNC "Avenger" TAS [Low Frequency Module] (1) GPS 32 Range 800k km Resolution 10
United Solar Naval Commission USNC "Avenger" TAS [High Frequemcy Module] (1) GPS 4 Range 250k km MCR 27k km Resolution 1
This design is classed as a Fighter for production, combat and maintenance purposes
Avenger Command Variant, for Squadron Leaders:
Avenger -C class Fighter 500 tons 4 Crew 157.325 BP TCS 10 TH 22.05 EM 0
6300 km/s Armour 2-5 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 0 PPV 3
Maint Life 5.68 Years MSP 39 AFR 10% IFR 0.1% 1YR 2 5YR 31 Max Repair 55.125 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 0.1 months Spare Berths 6
United Solar Naval Commission USNC "Avenger" Ion Drive (1) Power 63 Fuel Use 275.08% Signature 22.05 Exp 17%
Fuel Capacity 15,000 Litres Range 2.0 billion km (3 days at full power)
United Solar Naval Commission USNC HPM Weapon, 100mm Emitter [Continuous] (1) Range 60,000km TS: 6300 km/s Power 3-3 RM 6 ROF 5 1 1 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 0
United Solar Naval Commission USNC "Avenger" Fire Control Unit (1) Max Range: 64,000 km TS: 6000 km/s 84 69 53 37 22 6 0 0 0 0
United Solar Naval Commission USNC "Avenger" Gas-Cooled Fast Reactor, Boosted Mk. 1 (1) Total Power Output 3.1 Armour 0 Exp 12%
United Solar Naval Commission USNC "Avenger -C" TAS [Low Frequency Module] (1) GPS 640 Range 5.1m km Resolution 100
United Solar Naval Commission USNC "Avenger -C" TAS [High Frequency Module] (1) GPS 8 Range 640k km MCR 70k km Resolution 1
This design is classed as a Fighter for production, combat and maintenance purposes
Avenger "Spotter" Variant:
Avenger -S class Scout 500 tons 3 Crew 147.325 BP TCS 10 TH 22.05 EM 0
6300 km/s Armour 2-5 Shields 0-0 Sensors 16/16/0/0 Damage Control Rating 0 PPV 0
Maint Life 5.74 Years MSP 37 AFR 10% IFR 0.1% 1YR 2 5YR 29 Max Repair 55.125 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 0.1 months Spare Berths 7
United Solar Naval Commission USNC "Avenger" Ion Drive (1) Power 63 Fuel Use 275.08% Signature 22.05 Exp 17%
Fuel Capacity 15,000 Litres Range 2.0 billion km (3 days at full power)
United Solar Naval Commission USNC "Avenger -S" Active Surveillance Suite [Low Frequency Module] (1) GPS 1000 Range 7.2m km Resolution 125
United Solar Naval Commission USNC "Avenger -S" Active Surveillance Suite [High Frequency Module] (1) GPS 480 Range 5.0m km Resolution 60
United Solar Naval Comission USNC "Avenger -S" Passive Surveillance Suite [TH Module] (1) Sensitivity 16 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 16m km
United Solar Naval Comission USNC "Avenger -S" Passive Surveillance Suite [EM Module] (1) Sensitivity 16 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 16m km
This design is classed as a Fighter for production, combat and maintenance purposes
Anyways, Boat Bays and Small Boat Bays are very useful. With a pair of Boat Bays on every ship and one of these:
Bridge in a Box:
http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=11553.0
Every ship is a Command Ship! Hooray! ;D