First of, those kind of questions belong in the academy forum.
Point taken. I got carried away reading through ship specs. and thinking of questions based on what I saw in the ship specs. I will utilize the appropriate forum for the nature of many of these questions in the future.
I don't mind your posting them here. Normally what Hawkeye said above would be true, but your questions were raised because of the ship designs I posted, and in part I posted them to stimulate just such questions, so feel free to post them here. Also, I just like to know that people are reading what I post <G>.
Hawkeye already capably answered a couple of your rules questions, so I won't re-hash those. As for the rest:
Is it just me, or does the Nimitz class lack an AMM FC for its defenses?
To illustrate my answer, see the design reposted below:
Nimitz Flt II class Bombardment Cruiser 15000 tons 1812 Crew 2704.7 BP TCS 300 TH 1500 EM 600
5000 km/s Armour 6-54 Shields 20-300 Sensors 44/44/0/0 Damage Control Rating 13 PPV 100
Annual Failure Rate: 138% IFR: 1.9% Maintenance Capacity 1465 MSP Max Repair 180 MSP
Imperial Atomics MC Fusion Drive (12) Power 125 Fuel Use 50% Signature 125 Armour 0 Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 500,000 Litres Range 120.0 billion km (277 days at full power)
Gamma R300/14 Shields (10) Total Fuel Cost 140 Litres per day
120mm Meson Cannon (25) Range 60,000km TS: 6250 km/s Power 4-4 RM 6 ROF 5 1 1 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 0
CIWS Mk 1 (2x6) Range 1000 km TS: 25000 km/s ROF 5 Base 50% To Hit
Bombardment Fire Control (5) Max Range: 80,000 km TS: 6250 km/s 88 75 62 50 38 25 12 0 0 0
Cyberdyne MCt Fusion Reactor (10) Total Power Output 100 Armour 0 Exp 5%
Shrike AMM (200) Speed: 24,000 km/s End: 2.5m Range: 3.6m km WH: 1 Size: 1 TH: 280 / 168 / 84
Standard Missile (113) Speed: 20,400 km/s End: 42m Range: 51.4m km WH: 6 Size: 4 TH: 136 / 81 / 40
Cyberdyne Standard AM Search Sensor (1) GPS 180 Range 1.8m km Resolution 1
ID Basic Active Search Sensor (1) GPS 6000 Range 60.0m km Resolution 100
Cyberdyne Standard Thermal Sensor (1) Sensitivity 44 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 44m km
ID Standard EM Detection Sensor (1) Sensitivity 44 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 44m km
ECCM-2 (5) ECM 20
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 Nimitz class was created to address the Navy’s inability to deal with ground-based targets due to the traditional prohibition against engaging targets on inhabited worlds with nuclear weapons. The meson weapons mounted on this class can engage multiple targets and have a very good rate of fire, however, the ship must be within 60,000 kilometers of the planet for its weapons to be effective.
You would be right about needed the AMM fire control for the ship's anti-missile defenses, except that it doesn't have any. The missiles listed above as being carried by the ship were a carry over from the original design, the Essex CL that I copied to provide a starting point for the Nimitz class. I never removed the missiles in spite of removing the magazines, so they show up on the ship listing in spite of the fact that the actual units don't carry any missiles. My mistake, and its been corrected. Thanks for catching it.
On this subject, the Nimitz class might do okay against a missile wave using its meson cannons, in spite of the fact that they aren't optimized for anti-missile work. Twenty five cannons might be able to take out a few incoming missiles, though.
I wonder how much you role-play your game. For example, you could use the couriers to transport personnel. Alternatively, you could also only have fleets in distant solar systems react to alien incursions when a courier or chain of couriers arrives in these distant solar systems with news of the alien incursions.
Well, I role play them quite a bit, which for me is the whole point of creating a universe and playing in it. In all of my campaigns I assume no instantaneous communications between systems, whether they have jump gates or not. If a message is going to be transmitted between systems, a courier or relay boat needs to carry it.
Why do your survey ships only use EM and thermal sensors with a resolution of 1,000? I can see the logic in only looking for planets. However, if you are running silent with your active sensor turned off, you might stumble into a fighter of some form and potentially lose your survey ships despite their defenses.
Is this instead handled by deployment doctrine? Are survey ships only deployed to solar systems that have been nominally cleared of hostile contacts by your main fleet?
The survey ships are trying to be stealthy <G>. Active sensors radiate, and can make ships visible far beyond the range at which they would be picked up otherwise. The survey ships are also equipped with low-profile engines with reduced thermal emissions, which means that the ship is harder to detect thermally as well.
It is the Empire's policy, after certain early misadventures, to only send survey ships into systems that have already been thoroughly probed by fleet units. This policy has reduced Survey Corps casualties to nothing since its inception.
Why do some of your missile based designs, like light cruisers, also mount a few non-MD lasers? Is it a token nod to the fact that hostile contacts may be capable of closing to laser range despite the formidable missile broadsides supported by your fleet design principles?
The original design strategy envisioned the laser batteries acting as a backup if the magazines were exhausted, or if the enemy possesses defenses capable of stopping Imperial missile salvoes. The desire to increase the missile broadsides of the larger ships has precluded the installation of beam weapons on the BB's and SD's, something that not all captains and admirals are comfortable with. The CL's are still viewed as the fleet's last resort if an enemy manages to penetrate to beam range.
Please continue posting any and all questions, here or in the academy forum. One of the nice things about the fiction is that it can help newer players with more complex strategies, economic issues, and ship design stuff.
Kurt
