Posted by: Iranon
« on: April 04, 2014, 07:59:46 AM »Two mains points of criticism. First: I'm not sure you're getting your money's worth out of your weapons research.
Railsguns are
1) great point defence, especially at low tech levels: compact, excellent volume of fire from the start, no need for fancy fire control.
2) good medium artillery at high tech levels: more compact than equivalent lasers, but needing more research and throttled harder by capacitors.
1) means your research on Gauss tech doesn't bring much to the table. 2) needs very advanced capacitor tech to apply, so I rarely bother and definitely not at your tech level. Small lasers at a higher rate of fire can give you the same firepower at lower research investment and less hull space.
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Second: The ships look like you try too hard to make them well-rounded, and duplicate effort building ships of different sizes that fulfil a similar role. I think you can make bigger design concessions to do a job well, as an example heavy on railguns:
A staple of my fleets is a hommage to admiral Jackie Fisher, typically designated Small Large Light Cruisers and bearing the names Curious, Outrageous and Spurious.
They carry a big (spinal if available) laser and 10cm railguns, but armament is fairly light for their size because a lot of space is given to highly stressed engines: speed is armour AND firepower. Their speed and the most efficient point defence for speedy vessels make them difficult targets for missiles and adequate in close-range fights. Their speed combined with the longest-ranged beam weapon lets them prey on some targets without retaliation or missile expenditure. If fast enough, the spoiler you mentioned comes to mind.
If they don't possess an unfair advantage against a current enemy, they are still adequate and flexible (if expensive to run) escorts. They can also be turned into well-rounded craft by attaching big weapon pods that reduce them to general fleet speed... which is fairly low as missile- or turret-armed ships don't need speed to do their job.
Railsguns are
1) great point defence, especially at low tech levels: compact, excellent volume of fire from the start, no need for fancy fire control.
2) good medium artillery at high tech levels: more compact than equivalent lasers, but needing more research and throttled harder by capacitors.
1) means your research on Gauss tech doesn't bring much to the table. 2) needs very advanced capacitor tech to apply, so I rarely bother and definitely not at your tech level. Small lasers at a higher rate of fire can give you the same firepower at lower research investment and less hull space.
*
Second: The ships look like you try too hard to make them well-rounded, and duplicate effort building ships of different sizes that fulfil a similar role. I think you can make bigger design concessions to do a job well, as an example heavy on railguns:
A staple of my fleets is a hommage to admiral Jackie Fisher, typically designated Small Large Light Cruisers and bearing the names Curious, Outrageous and Spurious.
They carry a big (spinal if available) laser and 10cm railguns, but armament is fairly light for their size because a lot of space is given to highly stressed engines: speed is armour AND firepower. Their speed and the most efficient point defence for speedy vessels make them difficult targets for missiles and adequate in close-range fights. Their speed combined with the longest-ranged beam weapon lets them prey on some targets without retaliation or missile expenditure. If fast enough, the spoiler you mentioned comes to mind.
If they don't possess an unfair advantage against a current enemy, they are still adequate and flexible (if expensive to run) escorts. They can also be turned into well-rounded craft by attaching big weapon pods that reduce them to general fleet speed... which is fairly low as missile- or turret-armed ships don't need speed to do their job.