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Posted by: Vandermeer
« on: April 02, 2015, 09:21:35 PM »

Quote from: TT on April 02, 2015, 09:15:53 AM
I completely left that out of my discussion and that is correct.  Large ships benefit from two basic efficiency advantages that I can see.  They gain an exponential benefit from shields and their engines are more fuel efficient (up to 50 hull spaces) than smaller engines.  The engine advantage isn't very exclusive (I use a size 40 hs engine in my 6000 ton frigates), but the shield advantage is real and fairly substancial.
Another two I can add is overall better total armor due to dimensional math, and reduced building time of total fleet mass.(..if the shipyard is already present)
Maybe also that it makes it easy to get your best sensors out, and well protected I might add. :)

Quote
My comparison is fair and very much to the point.  My smaller frigates are able to use box launchers because they are small and hangar supportable. Their size gives them this advantage.  In addition to this advantage, their smaller size makes them necessarily more stealthy.  As for my comparison being not really fair, It's fair but it certainly isn't scientific.  Their are so many components to fighting that no single setup could really do a good job of shedding light on which approach, ie large vs small, is the best.  Their are inherent advantages in being large, and inherent advantages in being small. Taking advantage of those differences is what makes this game fun. Without people fighting other people, a real evaluation of which is best isn't really possible.
Ah, ok, well I didn't see this at first, because a 24kt missile 'cruiser' is also still a somewhat hangar supportable craft to me. It is true that anyone's largest ships will never fit into mobile hangars, and therefore not be able to get the salvo density of box launchers.

But it is to no surprise that a number of smaller ships have higher offensive power than an equal large one, since that is the way everywhere.(after all there are the common and apparently effective anti-capital purpose frigates and in real life)
I currently participate in another game where they understood this mechanic very well too, and ships receive increasingly reduced gains from becoming bigger, so that the small ones are in theory better budget spending. Example:
Fighters have 2 Power, and cost 5 credits (best cost ratio in the game)
Destroyers 8 Power, costing 40 (1/2 the cost ratio of fighters)
Frigates are 12 Power for 80, but can carry 4 fighter squadrons through space, which altogether leads to the same cost ratio as Destroyers when filled.
Then cruisers with 24 Power for 200 (around 1/3rd as effective with the 4 squadrons they can carry)
Heavy cruisers with double the strength and hangar of a cruiser, but for 500.
etc. etc.

So normally the smallest unit would be the most effective, but there is of course another mechanic that rebalances, and kind of like in Aurora: It is shields. :P Large units get continuously better shielded, which at some point enables them to become nearly immune against certain smaller ones. For example the heavy cruiser finally has enough shielding to pretty much ignore any fighters coming at him, and can only be effectively taken out with anything between bomber and cruiser. Other example is the Dreadnought that overcomes everything up to frigates, but can be cost efficiently taken down by ships between cruiser and battleship.
This is quite interesting, as it beats the strange phenomenon of some sci-fi games who haven't understood the degrading cost effectiveness concept, where usually bigger units are stronger, and you end up seeing massive stacks of battleships or even death stars later on, with no other ships being used anymore.(really bothersome to me)
This mechanic here however makes it so that every type of unit stays viable and effective against certain other ones, so you continue to see every type of unit up until the endgame. Fighting is more about making efficient counters on time in comparison to just having the biggest guns.
I applaud them for figuring out something like this as a bare numerical mechanic too. Some games did it so that ships just receive arbitrary percentage bonuses against other classes to make mixture a thing, but here it is just pure shared stats. If your shields are stronger than the power of the small ship, you are effective, and if not, then the smaller ones will eventually take you down in masses.
Posted by: Rich.h
« on: April 02, 2015, 10:08:33 AM »

Just to chime in on the multplayer point. That is easily replicated with a kind of pbm setup, all you need are three people running the same version number. One designated as a GM who uses SM to create two playable empires, then each player is told what tech level to SM themselves, from there they design the ships and send the designs to the GM. The GM creates the ships etc and sets up a playing board ready for a confrontation. If you used a chat system you could then even have a live shoot out, with each player telling the GM what they want each ship to do during the battle. The GM just needs to decide how often orders are allowed to be given and decide what time increments get used.

Now granted in reality this is one hell of a lot of micromanaging being done for what is essentially just small fire fights. But then who of us plays Aurora for it's simplicity and quick to use control systems?
Posted by: TT
« on: April 02, 2015, 09:15:53 AM »

Quote
There is some offset coming from the shields still, because in a broadside of 1 10*sized ship vs. 10 1*sized ships, the smaller only regenerate at 1/10th of the large one despite having potentially the same maximum shield "hp" altogether. (if they even bothered to have shields that is) I don't think this offset is enough, but definitely rebalances.

I completely left that out of my discussion and that is correct.  Large ships benefit from two basic efficiency advantages that I can see.  They gain an exponential benefit from shields and their engines are more fuel efficient (up to 50 hull spaces) than smaller engines.  The engine advantage isn't very exclusive (I use a size 40 hs engine in my 6000 ton frigates), but the shield advantage is real and fairly substancial.

Quote
Your comparison with the missile cruiser and frigates+colliers is not really fair though. For a real comparison both units should use the same weapon type, otherwise you just prove that amms(+box launchers) do more damage per stored ammunition than real missiles (with normal launchers on top), and that is no surprise. Amm ships are whole type of unit because this is widely recognized to be superior when you can dictate the engagement range. (..and the reason why missiles are still used too, is of course because you can't always chose the range in which case long ranged weapons become important)

My comparison is fair and very much to the point.  My smaller frigates are able to use box launchers because they are small and hangar supportable. Their size gives them this advantage.  In addition to this advantage, their smaller size makes them necessarily more stealthy.  As for my comparison being not really fair, It's fair but it certainly isn't scientific.  Their are so many components to fighting that no single setup could really do a good job of shedding light on which approach, ie large vs small, is the best.  Their are inherent advantages in being large, and inherent advantages in being small. Taking advantage of those differences is what makes this game fun. Without people fighting other people, a real evaluation of which is best isn't really possible.
Posted by: Vandermeer
« on: April 01, 2015, 07:41:09 PM »

Quote from: TT on April 01, 2015, 11:00:25 AM
I get Vandermeer point that large ships have certain economic and efficiency advantages but the little ships also give other advantages that make them competitive.  I guess we will have to await for multi player aurora to discover who is right in the big vs little question. Until then it is a question of play style.
I have actually no doubt that small ships will be better in matters of raw fire power. That is basically the thing everywhere (and the reason why we build carriers after all). Large ships sacrifice mass designation for longevity in fuel, msp, and other components to support other ships. They save some mass on the armor (unless you increase that ofc.), but that is not enough to bail them out.
There is some offset coming from the shields still, because in a broadside of 1 10*sized ship vs. 10 1*sized ships, the smaller only regenerate at 1/10th of the large one despite having potentially the same maximum shield "hp" altogether. (if they even bothered to have shields that is) I don't think this offset is enough, but definitely rebalances.

Your comparison with the missile cruiser and frigates+colliers is not really fair though. For a real comparison both units should use the same weapon type, otherwise you just prove that amms(+box launchers) do more damage per stored ammunition than real missiles (with normal launchers on top), and that is no surprise. Amm ships are whole type of unit because this is widely recognized to be superior when you can dictate the engagement range. (..and the reason why missiles are still used too, is of course because you can't always chose the range in which case long ranged weapons become important)


Quote from: DFDelta on April 01, 2015, 02:52:33 PM
10 ships of 15000 tons can just cover much more ground then a single 150000 ton ship.
That would be a point normally, but every really large ships has (at least for me) space for hangars and can control a large area around it with the highest reaction speed that your empire can muster.
It is true if you are talking about capturing points and parking there maybe, but that doesn't happen so often. In my case it becomes obsolete later too, because once the mid-large ship phase is passed (100-300kts), and you get your first megaton ships, then those can have big enough hangars to store escort destroyers.
For example I planned a 1.1mt heavy cruiser in my current game, which will hold 2 20kt destroyers together with its 20 fighters and 20 bombers. Other than for big NPR and Invader wars, that should be enough to cover any space you'd want (often enough even in those cases).

Quote
I can split them up into smaller task forces, I can simply leave damaged ships behind for repairs instead of taking the whole squadron down for repairs, a single lucky hit will cost me much less time to repair/replace.
Hmm, that is all true when you really receive a hit. Thing is, your capital ships tend to not get damaged because the shields soak everything up. I have never played different than this large ship style, but MarcAFK above managed to surprise me with his report of critical hitting mid caliber weapons. Why is that? ..Because, despite all the NPR wars and uncountable other little space threats I have been through, I never got damaged by one of those weapons, in all that time.
The only things that can deliver enough "damage per second" to pierce through capital shields are usually AI "pdcs"(/their space base equivalent) with their intensive Amm spam. I had multiple cases where AMMs managed to get the shields down, but yet not a single incident where the AI managed to do this with other means (mostly, because I could react to fire though, whereas it is usually too late when disastrous Amm salvos get spotted). The only other two times I ever received damage on a capital ship was against mesons.

..But it is true that if you receive damage, it takes out virtually "your whole fleet" as a large ship for repairs. Small hits I sometimes chose to ignore though. 'Battle Scars' are cool on capitals.
And on a player vs. player basis, this would likely become much much more problematic, because they will know how to damage large ships (outside of mesons). This could become the main counter argument in that case actually. Without some "hull-repair ship" that can patch some thing underway, the only other thing to kind of counter a little is to turtle like the Galactica.

Against the current AI though, you end up needing way less repairs, even in real wars. In the "Astral Republic Showcase" thread, there was recently an NPR war, where I pretty much conquered all with just a single 300kt cruiser against an militarily equally sized, and -as it turned out after looting- even equally teched opponent. ...Shields were drained to around a third sometimes, but in the end: The cruiser didn't even get a scratch. It is an AI problem here because exactly that ability to "spread out and cover more ground" let me take apart their forces one by one, where a concentrated fleet would have defeated me for sure.
Against AI, large ships are superior combatants for this.

Quote
Also I can keep more officers in circulation.
I started a new topic for this, because this has bothered me for a while and I had more to mention, which would lead abroad here.
Posted by: DFDelta
« on: April 01, 2015, 02:52:33 PM »

My usual sizes and the names for them:

Military ships:
Fighters: 1 - 500 tons
"Vessel": 501 - 2000 tons (Scout Vessel, Survey Vessel and so on. No combat ships usually have this size)
Corvette: 2001 - 4000 tons (build with fuel efficient civilian engines as in-system patrol ships)
Frigate: 2001 - 4000 tons ("proper" military ship)
Light Cruiser: 4001 - 7000 tons (build with fuel efficient civilian engines as in-system patrol ships)
Heavy Cruiser: 4001 - 7000 tons ("proper" military ship)
Battlecruiser: 7001 - 10000 tons
Battleship: 10001 - infinity

Orbital Stations:
Satellite: 0 - 500 tons (military)
Plattform: 501 - 4000 tons (military)
Fortress: 4001 - 8000 tons (military)
Container: 15000 - 30000 tons (armored civilian cargo boxes, to be transported with tugs)
Station/Habitat: "a lot of" tons (massive single-purpose terraform stations or habitats)

Deep space structures: (build from various parts to form stupidly large superstructures)
Light Module: 501 - 4000 tons (military part, often point defense or sensors)
Heavy Module: 4001 - 8000 tons (military part, mostly anti-ship firepower or hangar space)
Core Module: 50000 tons - 100000 (civilian support part)


I prefer to use vast numbers of smaller ships. My biggest battleships usually top out at 15000t, sometimes I go up as far as 20000 tons but never larger.
10 ships of 15000 tons can just cover much more ground then a single 150000 ton ship.
I can split them up into smaller task forces, I can simply leave damaged ships behind for repairs instead of taking the whole squadron down for repairs, a single lucky hit will cost me much less time to repair/replace.
Also I can keep more officers in circulation.
Posted by: linkxsc
« on: April 01, 2015, 12:16:40 PM »

Minor bit of humor.
In my current game, i decided to use a "huge" ship (100kt) as the pirate raider (instead of the usual 10k ships), to go about the culling of the civilian shipping lines fleets (they were getting upwards of 200 ships, most of them smalls, and really grinding the game down).
So I tabbed over to the pirate faction, designed a 100kt monstrosity armed with 50cm railguns at max tech, and a few max tech firecontrols, and necessary active sensor, engines, reactors, all that (sensor engine and reactor are all ion tech ~)..... didn't put any armor on it though.

So there I go, dropping the thing onto Mars, where the largest complement of merchant ships were (well over 200 of them). Actives on, volley down 20 ships in the first barrage. A minute later, fire off a second barrage taking another 16. A minute later... 8? Its then that I actually look at the events log at what happened. While several of the merchant ships scattered. That smeg was not good enough for the captains of Okamura Container Line however. After seeing hundreds of their fellow merchantmen wiped out in an instant, they instead turned towards the monster, and set throttles to ramming speed.

All in all it was a rather successful culling. Over 100 of the merchant ships were destroyed, and with them, a fair amount of lag... but theres an extra wreck there in space. I honestly don't know what to do with it. I KNOW that at least some max tech railguns and FCs should have stayed intact. And the general theme I was going to go for with this nation after I started branching out heavy, was to scavenge and steal as much as possible (hence, loli pirates). But it would seem a little gimped to go and salvage the wreck because that would be kinda like giving myself a crazy advantage. At the same time, theres probably only a couple of the guns on there, and I could either keep them whole and strap them to a ship, or reverse engineer them.

Moral of the story. 50cm railguns hurt quite a bit. 60kt freighters moving at 2500km/s hurt more. Don't forget to armor your stuff.
Posted by: 83athom
« on: April 01, 2015, 11:33:13 AM »

My ships in my current game go as such;
Fighters/Bombers; 0-500 tons (standard Aurora)
Gunships; 501-1000 (standard Aurora)
Prowlers; 1001-15,000 tons
Frigates; 20,000-40,000 tons
Destroyers; 60,000-80,000 tons
Cruisers; 100,000-250,000 tons
Battlecruisers; 250,000-500,000 tons
Capital; 500,000-1,000,000 tons
Super Capital; 1,000,000+ tons
Posted by: TT
« on: April 01, 2015, 11:00:25 AM »

There are some real advantages to using smaller ships that haven't been discussed yet.  It is my understanding that the AI targets ships that it can see the best.  Therefore, if you have a fleet with a well armored, well defended ship that is 100,000 tons, a 20,000 ton carrier with ECM, a decent magazine and a little armor, and six 3000 ton missle frigates with box launchers and no armor that rearm at the carrier, you can get a lot more box launchers on those frigates because you know your opponents are going to target that 100,000 ton ship at anything other than close range. I don't really consider this a gamey exploit because I think it mirrors what would be expected targeting behaviour by a real opponent.  Also, that opponent is going to be able to see and fire at the largest ship in the fleet much sooner than the frigates. 

What's more, you can use box launchers on smaller ships and then support them with hangared colliers.  This allows a much larger first strike. I just put together a very unscientific comparison of the firepower of box launchers vs large missle cruisers. The finding were not a surprise.  A 24000 ton missle cruiser that uses 75% for its armor, sensors, firecontrol and weapons using an armor value of 6, size 8 50% reduced missle launchers and sensors and fire control designed to target 3000 tons firgates gets 58 missle launchers with a total of 184 size 8 missles.  If you give away a 9000 ton collier to support the frigates with reloading their magazine, you can still get 5 3000 ton frigates to face the missle cruiser.  Using the same 75% for armor, sensors, weapons and fire control, you can get 30 missle launchers on each frigate for a total of 150 missle launchers.

The first wave will be 58 vs 150 in favor of the frigates, but the frigates will not be able to fire for another hour while the cruiser can fire a wave every 5 minutes. 

There are a lot of variables that aren't taken into account.  Obviously neither side has any defense other than armor.  I only have one fire control on the CG and it would probably need three.  Then there is the question of range.  In my little setup, I'm assuming a 200 mk missle fight.  The little ships have the advantage that they should be able to see the larger ship first.

I get Vandermeer point that large ships have certain economic and efficiency advantages but the little ships also give other advantages that make them competitive.  I guess we will have to await for multi player aurora to discover who is right in the big vs little question. Until then it is a question of play style.

24000 ton missle cruiser
Code: [Select]
Flower class Cruiser    18,000 tons     435 Crew     2721.2 BP      TCS 360  TH 0  EM 0
1 km/s     Armour 6-61     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 1     PPV 232
Maint Life 0.14 Years     MSP 94    AFR 2592%    IFR 36%    1YR 695    5YR 10421    Max Repair 224 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 3 months    Spare Berths 1   
Magazine 1472   

Fuel Capacity 50,000 Litres    Range N/A

Size 8 Missile Launcher (50% Reduction) (58)    Missile Size 8    Rate of Fire 300
Missile Fire Control FC227-R60 (1)     Range 227.7m km    Resolution 60
Size 8 Anti-ship Missile MkI (184)  Speed: 25,200 km/s   End: 24m    Range: 36.3m km   WH: 9    Size: 8    TH: 100/60/30

Active Search Sensor MR242-R60 (1)     GPS 13440     Range 242.9m km    Resolution 60

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

Frigate
Code: [Select]
Iron Duke class Cruiser    2,250 tons     17 Crew     286.2 BP      TCS 45  TH 0  EM 0
1 km/s     Armour 1-15     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 1     PPV 36
Maint Life 6.37 Years     MSP 80    AFR 40%    IFR 0.6%    1YR 3    5YR 51    Max Repair 70 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 3 months    Spare Berths 0   
Magazine 240   

Fuel Capacity 50,000 Litres    Range N/A

Size 8 Box Launcher (30)    Missile Size 8    Hangar Reload 60 minutes    MF Reload 10 hours
Missile Fire Control FC210-R500 (1)     Range 210.4m km    Resolution 500

Active Search Sensor MR219-R500 (1)     GPS 35000     Range 219.1m km    Resolution 500

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes

Posted by: MarcAFK
« on: April 01, 2015, 12:49:23 AM »

Actually, the mod rate of a shipyard doesn't change unless you have it set to continual, so there is a significant difference compared to singular expansion. Here's an example I whipped up:

All shipyards were created at January 1st in equal pairs, 2 of 1 slipway @ 20k tons, 2 of 1 slipway at 10k tons, and 2 of 2 slipways @ 10k tons.
One of each was set to continuous and one set to add 10k capacity. I then set 24 autoturns and used 5 day increments. The 1 slipway @ 20k tons 10k expansion finished at April 28th, turns finished at May 1st so no production cycles should have been wasted.
You can see that the Continual expansion yard has outpaced the capacity of the other one by 2466 tons, the others we can't be quite sure of without waiting out the rest of the expansion, however it's clear that continual expansion leaves approximately 25% more expansion in any given time period, which obviously compounds.
Edit: After adding additional 10k expansions until reaching the beginning of feburary when the smallest yard will be done leaves us with this:
So, the yard which had a single expansion was outpaced by 42%, the next biggest yard was outpaced by 29%, and the largest yard was outpaced by 33% ... I'm not sure what else I can do with these numbers.
Posted by: linkxsc
« on: April 01, 2015, 12:33:26 AM »

18 years since building this shipyard new, and its already over 200k. Its mod rate is over 8500. to add a slipway to it though would be a 7 year job, and god only knows how long retooling it for a new design would be (its still untouched as far as getting set up for a class)
However It seems to be eating up quite a few of my workforce, which can't support it and regular construction ops. Considering hauling it to the moon to have whatever mammoth ships produced there (cause the moon doesnt make too much. Besides, RP that it can only be built in a lower orbit than earth has to offer or something)
Posted by: Vandermeer
« on: March 31, 2015, 06:13:51 PM »

Oh, right. I normally tend to focus on a large capital and either only colonize selected places sparsely, or even not at all like in my current game. If you do that you usually have so much work force overflow that you can easily run any shipyard you like. (1 billion, aka 50% unemployment in my current game with all these big shipyards above)
I remember having shortage on that in my WH40k game though, where I built the first fortress with 150mt yards in year 130 already. I needed more than 20 billion people on the planet to run all the remaining industry together with the shipyard.
It isn't too limiting if you stick to 100-300kts though. 31 million workers to run that at max. (equivalent of 620 factories), so around 150m population needed.
Also, a 7 slipway 15kt yard is one 100kt 'conjoined fleet' capital shipyard, so as long as you have enough people to have this kind of small ship industry, you could have large ones instead too. In that case it is only question of priority and play style, but no game limit.
Posted by: GreatTuna
« on: March 31, 2015, 05:53:44 PM »

I would probably have a larger ships, were it not for the fact that I don't have the manpower required to expand shipyards (COLONIZE EVERYTHING attitude is not that well when it pulls more people from the capital than capital creates).
So far, the largest military ship the ZemSoy deployed on missions is a "puny" 30kt battlecruiser.
Most of the ships have 5000ton size, and there are few who have 10 or 15kton.

Oh, I did build one 200kton ship in previous game. It was enough.
Posted by: Vandermeer
« on: March 31, 2015, 05:50:35 PM »

Quote from: MarcAFK on March 31, 2015, 10:52:39 AM
I should mention I was just testing the large calibre lasers from the rigellian campaign, power 38 I think? Every dozen or so hits would trigger a good shock impact.
Oha, that I would normally even only consider medium caliber. You say that was critical? ..I need more battle testing.

Quote from: linkxsc on March 31, 2015, 03:14:17 PM
Which leads me to a rather minor annoyance. You can make tankers to work with your military, that are 100% civilian. Same with troop transports. I can understand magazines being flagged as military, so your ammo colliers need to be milspec designs (maint), but additional maintenence storage bays are milspec?
Hmm, I guess it makes sense, because as only military designs really use MSP normally, those should be military grade components mostly. And even if not, you could argue that the mixture of civil and military components would flag them as military, just like one violent scene makes even a movie about butterflies teen rated, and not some content percentage.

Quote
2. Getting the 100-200kt shipyards? Now here what I'm wondering. (cant test this, I'm on my phone and can't play till later today). Given a normal amount of gameplay time, it shouldn't be too difficult getting a couple shipyards in excess of 100k in size. Just keep expanding them.
But would the shipyard expand faster if you check "continual expansion" rather than relying on any incremental upgrade?
Yes!

Only a bit at first though, because of reduced clipping: If you have a 10kt expansion issued, and 9.6kt are already built while you could expand by 800ts per increment, then obviously 400ts would get wasted without continued expansion.
Later you get much more when your shipyard becomes able to improve by more than 10k on 5 days obviously.

I used to do it all without continual expansion for long time though, because I didn't want to go into SM mode to round the numbers at first (..and couldn't live with uneven ones either.. :P). But somewhere down the line, I think in the swarm game with the multiple shipyards, I finally said screw it, because I was doing these massive 10*x mt civil yards for the 3rd time already. So much click work.

Quote
3. Shields. Shields are fairly mediocre on smaller ships at lower techs due to lack of overall power. Especially since enemies like to focus down single ships. So even though your whole fleet might have a lot of shield modules... only 1 ships shields are really dealing with the incoming damage. On a big ship, shields can be stacked tall allowing for much stronger shields.
Yes, that is exactly the thing. Shields are for capitals. They in some sense 'conjoin the shields of a whole fleet' and manage to utilize all the regeneration power, where for example 10 1/10th sized ships would only have, well 1/10th of the regeneration.

Quote
4. Stockpiling modules. I know that some of us, like to manufacture stockpiles of components for ships to speed up the general construction of them. And even with small ships this can be surprisingly effective when trying to turn out a fleet. (your civilian construction factories generally can build a HELL of a lot faster than your navy yards can). This is probably an even bigger deal though when trying to build huge ships. I know with smaller ships like 6kt geosurvey ships, having your factories build a few dozen engines, jump drives, and geosurvey modules, can turn a 9-10 month build time into 1-2
I don't know about that. It certainly helps, and I did it for large civil ships in the past, but usually your main production is way too valuable and occupied with either mine, construction, or PDC building later on. It might help, but ship construction isn't all that slow for large designs to begin with. Strangely sometimes even faster for some reason I have not yet understood. For example I could build 150mt civil ships in just 3 months in a yard. ...Repeatedly with different designs. Don't know what happened there.
Military ships however also never take too long either. Current 300kt cruiser for example takes 11 months. Not really needed to boost that any further most of the time.
Posted by: papent
« on: March 31, 2015, 04:12:17 PM »

i'm on the opposite end of the spectrum, i try to keep my ships as small as possible. my ships may have less armor and firepower then the other guys. I like being able to get in close before being detected and launching the first strike, or the luxury of splitting ships off to guard, garrison and patrol without a lost of too much strength from my main fleets.

corvettes : 2500 kt
mostly used to skirmish, scout, and harass the enemy
typical design's consist of a missile corvette a super fac in a way and with a cloaking system if i have the tech, a beam model for hunting of support ships and jumppoint harassment, and finally a battalion drop pod + meson cannon combo LPA.
Frigates : 4500 kt
the main line and my primary fleet combatants they may not be big and mighty, but expendable and divisible are more useful in my vast wars. my survey vessels are normally at this size as well.
carracks/brigs : 5000-7500 kt
specialty and experimental designs sometimes just a one production run class for a abnormal mission like nebula warfare.
destroyers : 8000 kt
i see destroyers as independent from the main fleet in small hunter killer groups of 3-5 (depending on jump tech) used to raid and fight often in concert with the corvettes or used as heavy independent support for the frigates.
cruisers : 1000 kt >
these are multirole and multipurpose ships leading a fleet and generally well armored and well equipped with sensory and weaponry.

the above are my primary sizes and i'm currently attempting to do a campaign with no armed warships above 5000 kt. My warships can be thought of and i typical utilize them tactically in Napoleonic warfare terms

corvettes = skirmishers / light cavalry (to reduce the enemy ASM and AMM before engaging the fleet, and attempt to spread their ships out for defeat in detail)
frigates = line infantry / light artillery (to control the battle-space and destroy the enemy)
destroyers = heavy cavalry / dragoons (to harass and pursue the enemy, while denying their flanking attempts)
cruisers/brigs = artillery / cavalry (destroy and break up concentrations of the enemy firepower)
Posted by: linkxsc
« on: March 31, 2015, 03:14:17 PM »

Ok well now thinking about it a little more and playing on in my game a bit. 16 systems explored, no NPRs (couple ruins though), so a lot of early resources to work with without danger of combat so I'm looking into this more.

1. On the note of "can only be 1 maint failure per 5 day increment" I honestly didn't know about that. And knowing that now, as long as you keep away from jump drives, and keep sensor arrays at a normal size (10-15, not 50, those still eat resources) you can actually keep the max repair down (look at the cost of the sensors, and compare it to say a size 50 engine, and get the numbers close together) to a manageable level. And with the 200kt ship that I'm drawing up in another file (so I don't waste tons of RP designing modules I won't use) it should very easily have a 2.5 year maint life, with a number of additional maint storage bays.
Which leads me to a rather minor annoyance. You can make tankers to work with your military, that are 100% civilian. Same with troop transports. I can understand magazines being flagged as military, so your ammo colliers need to be milspec designs (maint), but additional maintenence storage bays are milspec?

2. Getting the 100-200kt shipyards? Now here what I'm wondering. (cant test this, I'm on my phone and can't play till later today). Given a normal amount of gameplay time, it shouldn't be too difficult getting a couple shipyards in excess of 100k in size. Just keep expanding them.
But would the shipyard expand faster if you check "continual expansion" rather than relying on any incremental upgrade?
Thought behind this is kinda like compound interest. As you build your shipyard bigger, the mod rate goes up and thus, the shipyard can be made bigger fast. With continual expansion, every 5 day increment, there would be minor expansion, possibly adding slowly to the mod rate. Vs using a 10k expansion, where the whole 10k of expansion happens at the same rate.

3. Shields. Shields are fairly mediocre on smaller ships at lower techs due to lack of overall power. Especially since enemies like to focus down single ships. So even though your whole fleet might have a lot of shield modules... only 1 ships shields are really dealing with the incoming damage. On a big ship, shields can be stacked tall allowing for much stronger shields.

4. Stockpiling modules. I know that some of us, like to manufacture stockpiles of components for ships to speed up the general construction of them. And even with small ships this can be surprisingly effective when trying to turn out a fleet. (your civilian construction factories generally can build a HELL of a lot faster than your navy yards can). This is probably an even bigger deal though when trying to build huge ships. I know with smaller ships like 6kt geosurvey ships, having your factories build a few dozen engines, jump drives, and geosurvey modules, can turn a 9-10 month build time into 1-2