Aurora 4x
C# Aurora => C# Bureau of Design => Topic started by: liveware on June 15, 2020, 01:34:16 PM
-
I am looking for feedback on possible improvement areas for my carrier and fighter wing strike group. Below is my current carrier design and the typical space-combat fighter craft it carries. Each carrier typically carries 6x each of the gauss, laser, and missile fighters as well as 6x boarding craft, 4x microwave fighters, 1x scout, and 1x jump scout. For planetary invasions, I replace the boarding craft and gauss fighters with drop ships. The carrier is not equipped with a jump drive and relies instead on a separate jump ship (not shown) for transport.
I've been using these carriers and fighters for quite a while now and have had reasonable success against precursor ships and planets but have not yet encountered a true NPR opponent.
Carrier:
Cetan B class Escort Carrier 70,000 tons 1,460 Crew 12,370.1 BP TCS 1,400 TH 12,000 EM 0
8571 km/s Armour 10-151 Shields 0-0 HTK 384 Sensors 0/0/0/0 DCR 80 PPV 68.14
Maint Life 3.20 Years MSP 19,731 AFR 560% IFR 7.8% 1YR 2,904 5YR 43,557 Max Repair 2000 MSP
Hangar Deck Capacity 15,000 tons Magazine 703 Cryogenic Berths 1,800
Captain Control Rating 4 BRG AUX ENG FLG
Intended Deployment Time: 12 months Flight Crew Berths 300 Morale Check Required
Chaimberlin-Sherman Internal Fusion Drive EP4000.00 (3) Power 12000 Fuel Use 107.33% Signature 4000 Explosion 20%
Fuel Capacity 13,616,000 Litres Range 32.6 billion km (44 days at full power)
Single Chaimberlin-Sherman Gauss Cannon R300-100 Turret (1x4) Range 30,000km TS: 16000 km/s Power 0-0 RM 30,000 km ROF 5
Quad Chaimberlin-Sherman Gauss Cannon R300-85.00 Turret (2x16) Range 30,000km TS: 16000 km/s Power 0-0 RM 30,000 km ROF 5
Chaimberlin-Sherman CIWS-160 (8x8) Range 1000 km TS: 16,000 km/s ROF 5
Chaimberlin-Sherman Beam Fire Control R32-TS16000 (50%) (3) Max Range: 32,000 km TS: 16,000 km/s 69 38 6 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Chaimberlin-Sherman Size 1 Anti-Ship Missile (192) Speed: 50,000 km/s End: 0.1m Range: 0.4m km WH: 1 Size: 1 TH: 216/130/65
Chaimberlin-Sherman Size 6 Anti-Ship Missile (80) Speed: 50,000 km/s End: 0.9m Range: 2.6m km WH: 16 Size: 6 TH: 400/240/120
Chaimberlin-Sherman Size 6 Sensor Satellite (4) Speed: 0 km/s End: 0m Range: 0m km WH: 0 Size: 6 TH: 0/0/0
Chaimberlin-Sherman Size 1 Sensor Satellite (7) Speed: 0 km/s End: 0m Range: 0m km WH: 0 Size: 1 TH: 0/0/0
Chaimberlin-Sherman Active Search Sensor AS39-R100 (50%) (1) GPS 2100 Range 39.8m km Resolution 100
Chaimberlin-Sherman Active Search Sensor AS68-R500 (50%) (1) GPS 10500 Range 68.1m km Resolution 500
Chaimberlin-Sherman Active Search Sensor AS8-R1 (50%) (1) GPS 21 Range 8.6m km MCR 771.7k km Resolution 1
ECCM-1 (3) ECM 10
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
Gauss Fighter:
Barracuda II-G class Fighter 500 tons 20 Crew 312.3 BP TCS 10 TH 47 EM 0
19516 km/s Armour 3-5 Shields 0-0 HTK 4 Sensors 0/0/0/0 DCR 0 PPV 3
Maint Life 11.75 Years MSP 297 AFR 8% IFR 0.1% 1YR 4 5YR 59 Max Repair 195 MSP
Lieutenant Control Rating 1
Intended Deployment Time: 1 days Morale Check Required
Chaimberlin-Sherman Magnetic Fusion Drive EP195.00 (1) Power 195 Fuel Use 1222.86% Signature 46.80 Explosion 30%
Fuel Capacity 66,000 Litres Range 1.9 billion km (27 hours at full power)
Chaimberlin-Sherman Gauss Cannon R400-50.0 (1x5) Range 40,000km TS: 19,516 km/s Accuracy Modifier 50.0% RM 40,000 km ROF 5
Chaimberlin-Sherman Beam Fire Control R40-TS20000 (20%) (1) Max Range: 40,000 km TS: 20,000 km/s 75 50 25 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
This design is classed as a Fighter for production, combat and planetary interaction
Laser Fighter:
Barracuda II-L class Fighter 499 tons 21 Crew 354.8 BP TCS 10 TH 47 EM 0
19543 km/s Armour 5-5 Shields 0-0 HTK 4 Sensors 0/0/0/0 DCR 0 PPV 2
Maint Life 9.73 Years MSP 211 AFR 8% IFR 0.1% 1YR 4 5YR 60 Max Repair 195 MSP
Lieutenant Control Rating 1
Intended Deployment Time: 1 days Morale Check Required
Chaimberlin-Sherman Magnetic Fusion Drive EP195.00 (1) Power 195 Fuel Use 1222.86% Signature 46.80 Explosion 30%
Fuel Capacity 68,000 Litres Range 2 billion km (28 hours at full power)
Chaimberlin-Sherman 15.0cm C0.3 Soft X-ray Laser (1) Range 40,000km TS: 19,543 km/s Power 6-0.3 RM 60,000 km ROF 100
Chaimberlin-Sherman Beam Fire Control R40-TS20000 (20%) (1) Max Range: 40,000 km TS: 20,000 km/s 75 50 25 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Chaimberlin-Sherman Magnetic Confinement Fusion Reactor R6-PB100 (1) Total Power Output 6 Exp 50%
This design is classed as a Fighter for production, combat and planetary interaction
Missile Bomber:
Barracuda II-MB class Fighter 500 tons 10 Crew 257.2 BP TCS 10 TH 47 EM 0
19529 km/s Armour 4-5 Shields 0-0 HTK 2 Sensors 0/0/0/0 DCR 0 PPV 3.2
Maint Life 13.61 Years MSP 320 AFR 8% IFR 0.1% 1YR 3 5YR 48 Max Repair 195 MSP
Magazine 32
Lieutenant Control Rating 1
Intended Deployment Time: 1 days Morale Check Required
Chaimberlin-Sherman Magnetic Fusion Drive EP195.00 (1) Power 195 Fuel Use 1222.86% Signature 46.80 Explosion 30%
Fuel Capacity 68,000 Litres Range 2 billion km (28 hours at full power)
Chaimberlin-Sherman Size 6.00 Box Launcher (4) Missile Size: 6 Hangar Reload 122 minutes MF Reload 20 hours
Chaimberlin-Sherman Size 1 Box Launcher (8) Missile Size: 1 Hangar Reload 50 minutes MF Reload 8 hours
Chaimberlin-Sherman Missile Fire Control FC7-R1 (20%) (4) Range 7.1m km Resolution 1
Chaimberlin-Sherman Size 6 Anti-Ship Missile (4) Speed: 50,000 km/s End: 0.9m Range: 2.6m km WH: 16 Size: 6 TH: 400/240/120
Chaimberlin-Sherman Size 1 Anti-Ship Missile (8) Speed: 50,000 km/s End: 0.1m Range: 0.4m km WH: 1 Size: 1 TH: 216/130/65
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 Fighter for production, combat and planetary interaction
Microwave Fighter:
Barracuda II-MW class Fighter 500 tons 24 Crew 398.3 BP TCS 10 TH 47 EM 0
19524 km/s Armour 2-5 Shields 0-0 HTK 4 Sensors 0/0/0/0 DCR 0 PPV 3
Maint Life 9.93 Years MSP 284 AFR 8% IFR 0.1% 1YR 5 5YR 78 Max Repair 195 MSP
Lieutenant Control Rating 1
Intended Deployment Time: 1 days Morale Check Required
Chaimberlin-Sherman Magnetic Fusion Drive EP195.00 (1) Power 195 Fuel Use 1222.86% Signature 46.80 Explosion 30%
Fuel Capacity 67,000 Litres Range 2 billion km (28 hours at full power)
Chaimberlin-Sherman R75/C6 High Power Microwave (1) Range 40,000km TS: 19,524 km/s Power 3-6 ROF 5
Chaimberlin-Sherman Beam Fire Control R40-TS20000 (20%) (1) Max Range: 40,000 km TS: 20,000 km/s 75 50 25 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Chaimberlin-Sherman Magnetic Confinement Fusion Reactor R6-PB100 (1) Total Power Output 6 Exp 50%
This design is classed as a Fighter for production, combat and planetary interaction
Scout:
Barracuda II-S class Fighter 500 tons 16 Crew 282.8 BP TCS 10 TH 24 EM 0
10006 km/s Armour 1-5 Shields 0-0 HTK 6 Sensors 14/14/0/0 DCR 0 PPV 0
Maint Life 7.91 Years MSP 108 AFR 8% IFR 0.1% 1YR 3 5YR 46 Max Repair 100 MSP
Lieutenant Control Rating 1
Intended Deployment Time: 15 days Morale Check Required
Chaimberlin-Sherman Magnetic Fusion Drive EP100.00 (1) Power 100 Fuel Use 123.53% Signature 24.00 Explosion 12%
Fuel Capacity 41,000 Litres Range 12 billion km (13 days at full power)
Chaimberlin-Sherman Active Search Sensor AS51-R100 (20%) (1) GPS 2800 Range 51.8m km Resolution 100
Chaimberlin-Sherman Active Search Sensor AS11-R1 (20%) (1) GPS 28 Range 11.2m km MCR 1m km Resolution 1
Chaimberlin-Sherman Active Search Sensor AS88-R500 (20%) (1) GPS 14000 Range 88.7m km Resolution 500
Chaimberlin-Sherman Thermal Sensor TH1.0-14.0 (20%) (1) Sensitivity 14 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 29.6m km
Chaimberlin-Sherman EM Sensor EM1.0-14.0 (20%) (1) Sensitivity 14 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 29.6m km
This design is classed as a Fighter for production, combat and planetary interaction
Jump Scout:
Barracuda II-SJ class Fighter 500 tons 16 Crew 256.8 BP TCS 10 TH 15 EM 0
6253 km/s JR 1-50 Armour 1-5 Shields 0-0 HTK 7 Sensors 14/14/0/0 DCR 0 PPV 0
Maint Life 10.50 Years MSP 100 AFR 8% IFR 0.1% 1YR 2 5YR 25 Max Repair 62.5 MSP
Lieutenant Control Rating 1
Intended Deployment Time: 1 months Morale Check Required
Chaimberlin-Sherman J500(1-50) Military Jump Drive Max Ship Size 500 tons Distance 50k km Squadron Size 1
Chaimberlin-Sherman Magnetic Fusion Drive EP62.50 (1) Power 62.5 Fuel Use 156.25% Signature 15.000 Explosion 12%
Fuel Capacity 46,000 Litres Range 10.6 billion km (19 days at full power)
Chaimberlin-Sherman Active Search Sensor AS51-R100 (20%) (1) GPS 2800 Range 51.8m km Resolution 100
Chaimberlin-Sherman Active Search Sensor AS11-R1 (20%) (1) GPS 28 Range 11.2m km MCR 1m km Resolution 1
Chaimberlin-Sherman Active Search Sensor AS88-R500 (20%) (1) GPS 14000 Range 88.7m km Resolution 500
Chaimberlin-Sherman Thermal Sensor TH1.0-14.0 (20%) (1) Sensitivity 14 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 29.6m km
Chaimberlin-Sherman EM Sensor EM1.0-14.0 (20%) (1) Sensitivity 14 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 29.6m km
This design is classed as a Fighter for production, combat and planetary interaction
Boarding Transport:
Barracuda II-TB class Fighter 499 tons 18 Crew 341.1 BP TCS 10 TH 72 EM 0
30066 km/s Armour 5-5 Shields 0-0 HTK 3 Sensors 0/0/0/0 DCR 0 PPV 0
Maint Life 8.55 Years MSP 306 AFR 8% IFR 0.1% 1YR 7 5YR 112 Max Repair 300 MSP
Troop Capacity 100 tons Boarding Capable
Lieutenant Control Rating 1
Intended Deployment Time: 0.6 days Morale Check Required
Chaimberlin-Sherman Magnetic Fusion Drive EP300.00 (1) Power 300 Fuel Use 985.90% Signature 72.00 Explosion 30%
Fuel Capacity 54,000 Litres Range 2 billion km (18 hours at full power)
This design is classed as a Fighter for production, combat and planetary interaction
Dropship:
Barracuda II-TL class Fighter 499 tons 7 Crew 68.9 BP TCS 10 TH 5 EM 0
1879 km/s Armour 5-5 Shields 0-0 HTK 3 Sensors 0/0/0/0 DCR 0 PPV 0
Maint Life 6.62 Years MSP 21 AFR 8% IFR 0.1% 1YR 1 5YR 12 Max Repair 18.75 MSP
Troop Capacity 250 tons Drop Capable
Lieutenant Control Rating 1
Intended Deployment Time: 2 months Morale Check Required
Chaimberlin-Sherman Magnetic Fusion Drive EP18.75 (1) Power 18.8 Fuel Use 285.27% Signature 4.5000 Explosion 12%
Fuel Capacity 53,000 Litres Range 6.7 billion km (41 days at full power)
This design is classed as a Fighter for production, combat and planetary interaction
The carrier is the most out-dated design and is due for re-design along with most of my commercial vessels. I hope to increase the carrier to 100k tons and hangar space to 25k tons during the next refit cycle. The remaining fighter craft are mostly acceptable as-is based on my combat experiences thus far, however I am considering replacing the laser fighters with a lower DPS, higher alpha-strike variant as the existing laser fighters do not do enough damage to penetrate enemy armor, which reduces the efficiency of boarding operations. However, even with the existing setup, I have completed several successful boarding operations with the loss of only a couple of the microwave fighter variants.
One major concern I have for the next carrier design is that my existing gauss turrets to not seem to engage hostile missiles. I believe I have been properly assigning the fire control orders and such, and I worry that I have missed something at the design stage.
-
TS 16000km/s is far too low for turreted gauss battery
it is something from early magneto plasma era
lots of ciws ( unless carrier operates alone which I doubt ) gauss turret have better value added asa they cover whole TF
-
TS 16000km/s is far too low for turreted gauss battery
it is something from early magneto plasma era
lots of ciws ( unless carrier operates alone which I doubt ) gauss turret have better value added asa they cover whole TF
Gauss cannons on the carrier are old and need to be updated, I agree. By my understanding of how gauss is supposed to work, the CIWS on the carrier should be unnecessary, however it is the CIWS that has saved my carriers on countless occasions rather than the gauss. The carrier gauss turrets have never fired on any enemy missiles from what I have observed, so something is not quite right with them.
-
I think the Cetan might actually tend to operate without a battlegroup, from other threads.
However, I don't see the sense in combining CIWS and full-service Gauss turrets instead of just adding more turrets...
Agree that the tracking speed is terrible. My first-gen magnetoplasma ships brought 20000. And against the spoiler missiles those guns are expected to face, that's definitely a desirable improvement...
-
TS 16000km/s is far too low for turreted gauss battery
it is something from early magneto plasma era
lots of ciws ( unless carrier operates alone which I doubt ) gauss turret have better value added asa they cover whole TF
Gauss cannons on the carrier are old and need to be updated, I agree. By my understanding of how gauss is supposed to work, the CIWS on the carrier should be unnecessary, however it is the CIWS that has saved my carriers on countless occasions rather than the gauss. The carrier gauss turrets have never fired on any enemy missiles from what I have observed, so something is not quite right with them.
Yeah, that's very messed up and it's something you should resolve...
Have you not been assigning the guns to the fire control?
Or maybe not sticking to 5 second intervals only? Your missile detection sensor range is awful - missiles would go from out of detection range to impact in under 15 seconds.
-
Sorry for the bit of critique I'm going to write ;D
You need better tracking speed on those gauss turrets/ciws, they're far too behind on that, they'll struggle to work with that.
And that Res1 sensor is abysmal. And I mean, not even worth looking at. At that tech level, you should have an MCR of at least 3-4 millions km imo. At the very minimum. You can surely spare some more tons in order to actually see the missiles coming.
Also the beam fire control, you want something better. Surely you can spare a bit of tonnage to give you better chance to hit, which you want with all those gauss turrets.
There's no point in mixing gauss and ciws. If you already have the radar and fire control for gauss turrets, just use gauss turrets, because in case you run even just two carriers together, they are SO much better. CIWS are only for when you 10000000% sure that ship will always go solo, and/or when design space is so limited that you don't want to deal with having sensors.
As ulzgoroth said, you were either running time increments too big, or you made some mistake in firing assignments. Gauss turrets do work if properly assigned :)
-
The carriers tend to operate independently except for planetary invasions, in which case 2 carriers has been sufficient thus far.
I am missing something with the gauss and CIWS. I have had several encounters where I assigned gauss to my BFCs, designated targets for each, and set the BFCs to open fire, bit still only get reports that CIWS fired and destroyed incoming missiles.
I am assuming that whatever is necessary for targeting my gauss turrets on the carrier is essentially the same as for my laser fighters and missile bombers, as I am able to properly target and achieve hits with the fighters and bombers.
As for sensor size, I don't see much point in a res 1 sensor that outranges my gauss and AMM. I can see hostile ships from much farther than my res 1 sensor range and can close the sensor gap with my scouts and sensor buoys deployed from the missile bombers.
Also I always use 5 second increments when I am engaging enemy ships.
Perhaps I will omit CIWS entirely in the next carrier design in order to assure that I am setting targets properly with my gauss turrets.
-
I am missing something with the gauss and CIWS. I have had several encounters where I assigned gauss to my BFCs, designated targets for each, and set the BFCs to open fire, bit still only get reports that CIWS fired and destroyed incoming missiles.
I am assuming that whatever is necessary for targeting my gauss turrets on the carrier is essentially the same as for my laser fighters and missile bombers, as I am able to properly target and achieve hits with the fighters and bombers.
Well, you're missing a lot and assuming wrong, but I'm not sure it explains anything about your problem.
Final defensive fire doesn't need or want you to set targets. Setting open fire is also unnecessary.
Oh, and if you're not set for final defensive fire, that would explain your problem - area defense fire with Gauss is just not going to work at all.
Did CIWS destroy all the missiles? Or destroy some and leak some?
As for sensor size, I don't see much point in a res 1 sensor that outranges my gauss and AMM. I can see hostile ships from much farther than my res 1 sensor range and can close the sensor gap with my scouts and sensor buoys deployed from the missile bombers.
...There's two really obvious ones.
Trivial is that you can't shoot what you can't see, and you don't get a detection check in the middle of the step when the missiles cross your sensor radius. If you managed to build a sensor garbage enough to only detect missiles at your defensive weapon range of 30 km, it would basically never detect any missiles at all.
Furthermore, you get a tracking bonus for tracking incoming missiles for more ticks before shooting them. Thus longer detection range translates directly to better defensive accuracy.
-
Zincat
There's no point in mixing gauss and ciws. If you already have the radar and fire control for gauss turrets, just use gauss turrets, because in case you run even just two carriers together, they are SO much better. CIWS are only for when you 10000000% sure that ship will always go solo, and/or when design space is so limited that you don't want to deal with having sensors.
sneer
lots of ciws ( unless carrier operates alone which I doubt ) gauss turret have better value added asa they cover whole TF
CIWS has a sensor built in. 2x CIWS on a ship is a bit tonnage consuming, but also very useful. I use anywhere from 1-8 CIWS depending on what I'm designing and what doctrine I'm beholden to, although I don't always use them. :)
In VB6, that advice held true, but in C# CIWS is much more powerful overall.
Salvo Changes:
http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg115853#msg115853
Point Defense Changes:
http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg107268#msg107268
Now having even one CIWS on just some of your ships will make the PD of every ship in the group more effective, due to them being resolved first. In VB6 you needed more B-FCS to engage more salvos, so to defend two ships against two salvos with CIWS you needed two CIWS per ship, but with two B-FCS and two Gauss Turrets on one ship you could defend a whole fleet from two salvos for roughly the same mass on account of the mutual fire. That's no longer true under the new model, now one B-FCS and two Gauss Turrets can defend a fleet from two salvos, but with two CIWS any ship can defend itself from two salvos for roughly 50% less mass because it saves weight on Fire Control. So in C# CIWS is now more cost-effective for defending a ship from missiles than Gauss Turrets are. They're also more accurate than Gauss per ton overall.
Ulzgoroth and Zincat do have a point though, your Gauss should be firing on things... maybe not hitting anything, but they certainly should be firing at things. Remember that in Aurora an 8% accuracy doesn't mean 8 out of 100 shots might hit, but rather 92 out of 100 shots will miss. Aurora doesn't have any RNG in any of it's important calculations, AFAIK. System Generation stuffs and a few other things notwithstanding, there are definitely some things governed by RNG, but none of them are combat related. I don't know about that sensor thing though. Pretty sure this: http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg117825#msg117825 was implemented to stop things from not firing on missiles, if you had a Res 1 sensor of any sort you'd still get Point Blank fire with the Gauss.
-
I am missing something with the gauss and CIWS. I have had several encounters where I assigned gauss to my BFCs, designated targets for each, and set the BFCs to open fire, bit still only get reports that CIWS fired and destroyed incoming missiles.
I am assuming that whatever is necessary for targeting my gauss turrets on the carrier is essentially the same as for my laser fighters and missile bombers, as I am able to properly target and achieve hits with the fighters and bombers.
Well, you're missing a lot and assuming wrong, but I'm not sure it explains anything about your problem.
Final defensive fire doesn't need or want you to set targets. Setting open fire is also unnecessary.
Oh, and if you're not set for final defensive fire, that would explain your problem - area defense fire with Gauss is just not going to work at all.
Did CIWS destroy all the missiles? Or destroy some and leak some?
As for sensor size, I don't see much point in a res 1 sensor that outranges my gauss and AMM. I can see hostile ships from much farther than my res 1 sensor range and can close the sensor gap with my scouts and sensor buoys deployed from the missile bombers.
...There's two really obvious ones.
Trivial is that you can't shoot what you can't see, and you don't get a detection check in the middle of the step when the missiles cross your sensor radius. If you managed to build a sensor garbage enough to only detect missiles at your defensive weapon range of 30 km, it would basically never detect any missiles at all.
Furthermore, you get a tracking bonus for tracking incoming missiles for more ticks before shooting them. Thus longer detection range translates directly to better defensive accuracy.
Gauss are always set to FDF. For the time being, I am at a loss to explain my poor gauss performance.
CIWS destroy 100% of inbound missiles I have thus far encountered.
My sensor buoys/other sensors consistently detect missiles at ranges in considerable excess of my carrier's res 1 sensor range, so I do not believe that is the fundamental problem.
-
Gauss are always set to FDF. For the time being, I am at a loss to explain my poor gauss performance.
CIWS destroy 100% of inbound missiles I have thus far encountered.
...So then there is no problem at all with your Gauss performance.
They're not shooting down any missiles because every missile is dead before they get a chance. 0 for 0 may not be impressive or informative but it's as perfect a score as circumstances allow.
-
Gauss are always set to FDF. For the time being, I am at a loss to explain my poor gauss performance.
CIWS destroy 100% of inbound missiles I have thus far encountered.
...So then there is no problem at all with your Gauss performance.
They're not shooting down any missiles because every missile is dead before they get a chance. 0 for 0 may not be impressive or informative but it's as perfect a score as circumstances allow.
My expectation is that gauss in FDF will engage missiles at 10k km range. If my CIWS is destroying missiles at 1k km range, then my gauss has failed it's performance specifications.
-
Gauss are always set to FDF. For the time being, I am at a loss to explain my poor gauss performance.
CIWS destroy 100% of inbound missiles I have thus far encountered.
...So then there is no problem at all with your Gauss performance.
They're not shooting down any missiles because every missile is dead before they get a chance. 0 for 0 may not be impressive or informative but it's as perfect a score as circumstances allow.
My expectation is that gauss in FDF will engage missiles at 10k km range. If my CIWS is destroying missiles at 1k km range, then my gauss has failed it's performance specifications.
Your Gauss guns aren't at fault for your incorrect expectations about firing sequence. Look at xenoscepter's second link.
-
Why have ASM on the Carrier if you can deploy Bomber Strike Groups?
Aren't you losing tonnage that could go to more Bombers?
The same thing applies for the Gauss. You have PD fighters that could replace the tonnage.
I also built Carriers with weapons in the past, but I've been replacing that tonnage either for Hangar space or nothing. In the first case I get more Strike Group tonnage, in the second case I get a lower tonnage carrier and can deploy more carriers faster.
I'm assuming those carriers don't go alone, so your task group would be specialized, having Missile Destroyers/Cruisers and Escort Destroyers/Cruisers, this is another motive to lose the Gauss and the ASM on the Carriers. I believe that 1 function per ship works better than a multi-role ship, reducing tonnage or getting more tonnage for the job description.
-
@Cobaia
Livewire already said these ships would usually operate alone. He has ASMs on the carrier, but no launchers, which means that they are there to re-arm his bombers. PD Fighters are good to have, but they really can't replace the Gauss. Well, they can, but that would be really expensive and not exactly smart since "de-planing" the carrier would leave it defenseless. And since it's not supposed to have an escort, there wouldn't be anything else to shoot at incoming missiles.
Specialized versus Generalization isn't that cut and dry either. You can't make one ship do everything (well you can, but goddamn is that mind blowingly expensive), but you can make it do two or three things well enough and cheap enough to make the difference. Hell, having a few lasers on a Missile Ship has saved my bacon wayyyy more times than can count and packing a few Cans of Bug Spray on a beam ship doesn't hurt either...
-
Gauss are always set to FDF. For the time being, I am at a loss to explain my poor gauss performance.
CIWS destroy 100% of inbound missiles I have thus far encountered.
...So then there is no problem at all with your Gauss performance.
They're not shooting down any missiles because every missile is dead before they get a chance. 0 for 0 may not be impressive or informative but it's as perfect a score as circumstances allow.
My expectation is that gauss in FDF will engage missiles at 10k km range. If my CIWS is destroying missiles at 1k km range, then my gauss has failed it's performance specifications.
Your Gauss guns aren't at fault for your incorrect expectations about firing sequence. Look at xenoscepter's second link.
Hah, you are quite right. CIWS works differently than I expected.
-
Why have ASM on the Carrier if you can deploy Bomber Strike Groups?
Aren't you losing tonnage that could go to more Bombers?
The same thing applies for the Gauss. You have PD fighters that could replace the tonnage.
I also built Carriers with weapons in the past, but I've been replacing that tonnage either for Hangar space or nothing. In the first case I get more Strike Group tonnage, in the second case I get a lower tonnage carrier and can deploy more carriers faster.
I'm assuming those carriers don't go alone, so your task group would be specialized, having Missile Destroyers/Cruisers and Escort Destroyers/Cruisers, this is another motive to lose the Gauss and the ASM on the Carriers. I believe that 1 function per ship works better than a multi-role ship, reducing tonnage or getting more tonnage for the job description.
Carrier magazines are for reloading bombers.
My use case for the AMM defenses on the carrier is to save the carrier from missiles in the event of a tactical error on my part or an ambush when fighters are away from the carrier. My original designs had no turrets or CIWS bit I decided I could afford the 2-3k tons of hiul space that would have otherwise been dedicated to hangars.
At least one of the carrier Gauss turrets has a 100% accuracy gun. This was intended to kill any missiles that leak through the rest of missile defences. For example, my PD gauss fighters use I think 8% accuracy guns, so even with 6 of them firing there is a chance a missile will get through.
Against a force with large missile barrages, I would likely equip the carrier with additional gauss fighters than the standard compliment of 6.
I should probably reclassify the carrier to something other an 'escort carrier' as that seems to throw off people's expectations. I designated them as such as they are intended to escort my commercial jump ships. Classifying them as light carriers or scout carriers is probably more truthful to their actual usage.
-
People seem to dislike my sensor compliment. What do you all typically use for sensors in your fleets? I usually deploy a network of sensor buoys before any significant battle which tends to reduce the sensor requirements for my battle fleets. Hence the the abundance of short range res 1 sensors on my ships.
The res 500 sensor on my carrier is outdated but the res 500 on my scout fighter is relatively up to date. This sensor configuration has been adequate thus far at detecting the relatively large hostile ships I have been encountering from outside of hostile missile range.
The carrier is fairly fast and is capable of running away from anything it can't fight straight up... at least from what I have come across so far. I am hoping to get the next design iteration above 10k km/s max speed as speed is definitely useful for the tactics I tend to use with this carrier design.
-
I use a 200-ton resolution 1 sensor for (non-fighter) ships that need antimissile capability - and I might develop a bigger one later if hull sizes and sensor tech make it look desirable. It currently detects missiles at at least 1.7 mkm, though my existing battleships have an older model. On those ships it's the only active sensor, since they're beam battleships that have no need for a lock on any targets outside the 15-19 mkm maximum range.
Other than that I've got 5 ton fighter microsensors in R1 intercept (with frankly inadequate range against missiles) and R60 anti-ship (also with inadequate range), and a 50 ton R100 sensor mainly used on my scout fighters that boasts the longest range of anything I've deployed. Plus I've got a new 50-ton R1 sensor in the catelogue, though I'm not sure what platforms might wind up with that.
I don't have any active sensor buoys, or buoys designed for tactical use, though I've got passive picket buoys intended to monitor jump points. For really long-range spotting I'm hoping to rely on my passives and my scout fighters (which carry passives), but none of that has really been tested against mobile opposition and it might go horribly wrong.
Back in VB Aurora I think I'd build some really big anti-ship active sensors to track over system-spanning ranges, but the C# rules make that prohibitive.
-
People seem to dislike my sensor compliment. What do you all typically use for sensors in your fleets? I usually deploy a network of sensor buoys before any significant battle which tends to reduce the sensor requirements for my battle fleets. Hence the the abundance of short range res 1 sensors on my ships.
The res 500 sensor on my carrier is outdated but the res 500 on my scout fighter is relatively up to date. This sensor configuration has been adequate thus far at detecting the relatively large hostile ships I have been encountering from outside of hostile missile range.
The carrier is fairly fast and is capable of running away from anything it can't fight straight up... at least from what I have come across so far. I am hoping to get the next design iteration above 10k km/s max speed as speed is definitely useful for the tactics I tend to use with this carrier design.
I use specialized sensor ships in big and small fleets:
4x of them travel with my Strike Fleet
Zenit G9 class Surveillance Cruiser 9 999 tons 271 Crew 12 173.8 BP TCS 4 TH 160 EM 0
20003 km/s Armour 20-41 Shields 0-0 HTK 63 Sensors 250/250/0/0 DCR 76 PPV 0
Maint Life 6.23 Years MSP 12 176 AFR 50% IFR 0.7% 1YR 538 5YR 8 069 Max Repair 3250 MSP
Hangar Deck Capacity 1 000 tons Cryogenic Berths 400
Commander Control Rating 2 BRG AUX
Intended Deployment Time: 12 months Flight Crew Berths 20 Morale Check Required
Plasma Core AM Drive 125% EP2000.00 (2) Power 4000 Fuel Use 13.81% Signature 80.00 Explosion 12%
Fuel Capacity 1 000 000 Litres Range 130.4 billion km (75 days at full power)
Active Search Sensor AS89-R1 (5%) (1) GPS 500 Range 89.2m km MCR 8m km Resolution 1
Active Search Sensor AS414-R100 (5%) (1) GPS 50000 Range 414.1m km Resolution 100
Active Search Sensor AS242-R20 (5%) (1) GPS 10000 Range 242.1m km Resolution 20
Thermal Sensor TH5-250 (5%) (1) Sensitivity 250 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 125m km
EM Sensor EM5-250 (5%) (1) Sensitivity 250 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 125m km
Cloaking Device: Class cross-section reduced to 2.00% of normal
ECM 70
Strike Group
2x Tu-142 G9 Recon Fighter Speed: 57675 km/s Size: 9.99
This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
This one travels with FAC "Fire Brigade" : 48 FACs divided in 4 groups with 2 of them in each group:
Udaloy-AS G9 class Fast Scout Craft 975 tons 43 Crew 2 857.8 BP TCS 19 TH 46 EM 0
59101 km/s Armour 1-8 Shields 0-0 HTK 11 Sensors 50/50/0/0 DCR 1 PPV 0
Maint Life 15.34 Years MSP 3 115 AFR 4% IFR 0.1% 1YR 25 5YR 372 Max Repair 1872 MSP
Lieutenant Commander Control Rating 1
Intended Deployment Time: 6 days Morale Check Required
Plasma Core AM Drive 300% EP1152.00 (1) Power 1152 Fuel Use 251.56% Signature 46.08 Explosion 30%
Fuel Capacity 250 000 Litres Range 18.4 billion km (3 days at full power)
Active Search Sensor AS108-R20 (5%) (1) GPS 2000 Range 108.3m km Resolution 20
Active Search Sensor AS185-R100 (5%) (1) GPS 10000 Range 185.2m km Resolution 100
Active Search Sensor AS39-R1 (5%) (1) GPS 100 Range 39.9m km MCR 3.6m km Resolution 1
EM Sensor EM1.0-50.0 (5%) (1) Sensitivity 50 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 55.9m km
Thermal Sensor TH1.0-50.0 (5%) (1) Sensitivity 50 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 55.9m km
ECM 60
This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
Each fighter-bomber wing in carriers and fighter bases have 1 of them (wing: 4x FBs + 1 Recon Fighter):
Tu-142 G9 class Recon Fighter 500 tons 21 Crew 1 420.6 BP TCS 10 TH 23 EM 0
57675 km/s Armour 1-5 Shields 0-0 HTK 9 Sensors 0/0/0/0 DCR 1 PPV 0
Maint Life 27.58 Years MSP 1 955 AFR 2% IFR 0.0% 1YR 5 5YR 74 Max Repair 936 MSP
Lieutenant Commander Control Rating 1
Intended Deployment Time: 3 days Morale Check Required
Plasma Core AM Drive 300% EP576.00 (1) Power 576 Fuel Use 355.76% Signature 23.04 Explosion 30%
Fuel Capacity 150 000 Litres Range 15.2 billion km (3 days at full power)
Active Search Sensor AS185-R100 (5%) (1) GPS 10000 Range 185.2m km Resolution 100
Active Search Sensor AS108-R20 (5%) (1) GPS 2000 Range 108.3m km Resolution 20
ECM 30
This design is classed as a Fighter for production, combat and planetary interaction
hovewer all other ships always (FACs are only exception) have sensors necessary for theyr role: AMM Destroyers res1 sensors, Missle Cruisers res100 + res20 sensors, Beam / PD cruisers : res1 + res20 sensors.
-
I use a 200-ton resolution 1 sensor for (non-fighter) ships that need antimissile capability - and I might develop a bigger one later if hull sizes and sensor tech make it look desirable. It currently detects missiles at at least 1.7 mkm, though my existing battleships have an older model. On those ships it's the only active sensor, since they're beam battleships that have no need for a lock on any targets outside the 15-19 mkm maximum range.
Other than that I've got 5 ton fighter microsensors in R1 intercept (with frankly inadequate range against missiles) and R60 anti-ship (also with inadequate range), and a 50 ton R100 sensor mainly used on my scout fighters that boasts the longest range of anything I've deployed. Plus I've got a new 50-ton R1 sensor in the catelogue, though I'm not sure what platforms might wind up with that.
I don't have any active sensor buoys, or buoys designed for tactical use, though I've got passive picket buoys intended to monitor jump points. For really long-range spotting I'm hoping to rely on my passives and my scout fighters (which carry passives), but none of that has really been tested against mobile opposition and it might go horribly wrong.
Back in VB Aurora I think I'd build some really big anti-ship active sensors to track over system-spanning ranges, but the C# rules make that prohibitive.
I highly recommend active buoys. I use them extensively and they can provide extremely good sensor coverage (if you're willing to put in some micro effort to set them up).
-
That Zenit G9 cruiser concept is appealing. I'd like to try and get sensor ranges similar to that on my next carrier design iteration. Being able to see stuff from far off is definitely useful. Even if you can't spot missiles at 200m km it still helps to know if there is an enemy fleet out there.
I should note that I am intentionally limiting myself to fighter/carrier fleets at the moment in order to save on shipyard retooling costs and micromanagement. I can get quite a lot of millage out of a carrier and can usually get through a few iterations out of fighter craft before I need to upgrade carrier designs.
-
That Zenit G9 cruiser concept is appealing. I'd like to try and get sensor ranges similar to that on my next carrier design iteration. Being able to see stuff from far off is definitely useful. Even if you can't spot missiles at 200m km it still helps to know if there is an enemy fleet out there.
I should note that I am intentionally limiting myself to fighter/carrier fleets at the moment in order to save on shipyard retooling costs and micromanagement. I can get quite a lot of millage out of a carrier and can usually get through a few iterations out of fighter craft before I need to upgrade carrier designs.
I build many ships, but they are small (and i have a lot of shipyards and slipways):
2500 tons - frigate
5000 - destroyer / missle destroyer
10000 - light cruiser
15000 - cruiser
20000 - missle cruiser / heavy cruiser
25000 - light carrier / aux carrier / battlecruiser
30000 - carrier / battleship
35000 - assault carrier
i have 2 shipyards capable of building 35kt ships (20 slipways in total), but my max design is 25kt
-
That Zenit G9 cruiser concept is appealing. I'd like to try and get sensor ranges similar to that on my next carrier design iteration. Being able to see stuff from far off is definitely useful. Even if you can't spot missiles at 200m km it still helps to know if there is an enemy fleet out there.
I should note that I am intentionally limiting myself to fighter/carrier fleets at the moment in order to save on shipyard retooling costs and micromanagement. I can get quite a lot of millage out of a carrier and can usually get through a few iterations out of fighter craft before I need to upgrade carrier designs.
I build many ships, but they are small (and i have a lot of shipyards and slipways):
2500 tons - frigate
5000 - destroyer / missle destroyer
10000 - light cruiser
15000 - cruiser
20000 - missle cruiser / heavy cruiser
25000 - light carrier / aux carrier / battlecruiser
30000 - carrier / battleship
35000 - assault carrier
i have 2 shipyards capable of building 35kt ships (20 slipways in total), but my max design is 25kt
Well seeing as one of my scout carriers is equivalent to two of your assault carriers on a tonnage basis, we seem to have somewhat different design philosophies.
I split my my shipyards by tonnage. Small shipyards have several slipways and produce ships up to to approximately 20k tons. Large shipyards produce my capital ships and typically only have one or two slipways, optimizing instead for larger capacity.
I tend to use the capital shipyards much more frequently than the others and fill the capital ships with fighters.
-
Zincat
There's no point in mixing gauss and ciws. If you already have the radar and fire control for gauss turrets, just use gauss turrets, because in case you run even just two carriers together, they are SO much better. CIWS are only for when you 10000000% sure that ship will always go solo, and/or when design space is so limited that you don't want to deal with having sensors.
sneer
lots of ciws ( unless carrier operates alone which I doubt ) gauss turret have better value added asa they cover whole TF
CIWS has a sensor built in. 2x CIWS on a ship is a bit tonnage consuming, but also very useful. I use anywhere from 1-8 CIWS depending on what I'm designing and what doctrine I'm beholden to, although I don't always use them. :)
In VB6, that advice held true, but in C# CIWS is much more powerful overall.
Salvo Changes:
http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg115853#msg115853
Point Defense Changes:
http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg107268#msg107268
Now having even one CIWS on just some of your ships will make the PD of every ship in the group more effective, due to them being resolved first. In VB6 you needed more B-FCS to engage more salvos, so to defend two ships against two salvos with CIWS you needed two CIWS per ship, but with two B-FCS and two Gauss Turrets on one ship you could defend a whole fleet from two salvos for roughly the same mass on account of the mutual fire. That's no longer true under the new model, now one B-FCS and two Gauss Turrets can defend a fleet from two salvos, but with two CIWS any ship can defend itself from two salvos for roughly 50% less mass because it saves weight on Fire Control. So in C# CIWS is now more cost-effective for defending a ship from missiles than Gauss Turrets are. They're also more accurate than Gauss per ton overall.
Sorry, I disagree for any kind of fleet situation.
The enemy will still tend to target all your ships at the same time. So most of the ciws of the fleet will be doing absolutely nothing. As such, the salvo changes don't even matter in this specific case.
Say you have 10 ships. And you allocate 1200 tons for PD on every ship, just to simplify. I don't have the game open now, so I'll just make a very rough example. And you have incoming missiles.
If you put with 600 tons in ciws and 500 tons in gauss cannons+ 100 tons in BFC on each, the targeted ship will only be defended by 600 tons of CIWS and 5000 tons of gauss.
If you had done 100 tons in BFC and 1100 tons in gauss cannons on each ship instead, the targeted ship will be defended by 11000 tons of gauss. No matter what your targeted ship, I'd rather have 11000 tons of gauss defending it. And the bigger the fleet, the more this is true, because more and more CIWS end up being unused and you could have put gauss cannons instead.
You might say: but I had some space, so I snuck in a CIWS. I'll counter: but you might have reduced the fuel storage by 100 tons (for the BFC) and used the gauss cannon instead. The cost effectiveness (assuming you mean construction cost) is also.. dubious. If you build a fleet, it's not that very small cost difference that will actually matter.
I am talking about normal situations. If you have in mind a human player who changes the salvos to play around the mechanics, that's a different matter. I doubt it would matter all that much though, and honestly I don't even care since I don't play like that anyway ;D
And I do use CIWS on important ships. But that's for RP, since I'm an RP guy to the heart. ;D
-
CIWS get some discounts, though they also get some unhelpful redundancy of parts. If the integrated beam fire control and active sensor add up to less than the savings for the guns being smaller than spec, stacking CIWS could give a single ship more protection than stacking general-purpose turrets would.
That only holds up so long as the CIWS-equipped ships never operate together, and it means the ship offers no FDF support to any escorts it might have. Still, it's something.
...Doesn't help with the case for combining them, though, since the fewer Gauss turrets, the less value you're getting for the overhead of your main BFC and anti-missile sensor.
If you're expecting to take significant internal damage, the way CIWS don't depend on separable electronic components might help survivability by ensuring you can't have your fire control capability wiped out entirely by a nasty run of hit location rolls.
-
CIWS get some discounts, though they also get some unhelpful redundancy of parts. If the integrated beam fire control and active sensor add up to less than the savings for the guns being smaller than spec, stacking CIWS could give a single ship more protection than stacking general-purpose turrets would.
That only holds up so long as the CIWS-equipped ships never operate together, and it means the ship offers no FDF support to any escorts it might have. Still, it's something.
...Doesn't help with the case for combining them, though, since the fewer Gauss turrets, the less value you're getting for the overhead of your main BFC and anti-missile sensor.
If you're expecting to take significant internal damage, the way CIWS don't depend on separable electronic components might help survivability by ensuring you can't have your fire control capability wiped out entirely by a nasty run of hit location rolls.
Is CIWS vulnerable to electronic damage - if not then there is an argument against microwave heavy opponents. I know that NPRs will stick to certain weapon types, one of my enemies really like particle lances for example.
-
CIWS is generally meant for Commercial designs and not military ships.
The only reason you add CIWS on a ship is when you most often act with them alone or you are guaranteed to get targeted just about every time the NPR attack a fleet with that ship in it and it is the only one of its kind. If you have expensive explorer ships going about adding a couple of CIWS systems actually might save them in a pinch.
So there can be a reason why you want to use CIWS even on military ships...
But... the problem is that even CIWS is inefficient as we discovered a while back... you want really small Gauss guns so you can engage many salvos as effectively as possible.
-
CIWS get some discounts, though they also get some unhelpful redundancy of parts. If the integrated beam fire control and active sensor add up to less than the savings for the guns being smaller than spec, stacking CIWS could give a single ship more protection than stacking general-purpose turrets would.
That only holds up so long as the CIWS-equipped ships never operate together, and it means the ship offers no FDF support to any escorts it might have. Still, it's something.
...Doesn't help with the case for combining them, though, since the fewer Gauss turrets, the less value you're getting for the overhead of your main BFC and anti-missile sensor.
If you're expecting to take significant internal damage, the way CIWS don't depend on separable electronic components might help survivability by ensuring you can't have your fire control capability wiped out entirely by a nasty run of hit location rolls.
One objective I had in mind with my last carrier design (Cetan B) was to test whether gauss or CIWS was more effective. Unfortunately I shot myself in foot by misunderstanding the firing sequencing between the two systems, and as previously discussed my gauss turrets have never fired a shot. I think next time around I will be going with a full complement of gauss turrets and zero CIWS as I can tailor the gauss turrets far more precisely than I can CIWS.
-
CIWS is generally meant for Commercial designs and not military ships.
The only reason you add CIWS on a ship is when you most often act with them alone or you are guaranteed to get targeted just about every time the NPR attack a fleet with that ship in it and it is the only one of its kind. If you have expensive explorer ships going about adding a couple of CIWS systems actually might save them in a pinch.
So there can be a reason why you want to use CIWS even on military ships...
But... the problem is that even CIWS is inefficient as we discovered a while back... you want really small Gauss guns so you can engage many salvos as effectively as possible.
I stock my carriers with gauss fighters. I posted my heavy fighter design at the beginning of this thread, but I also have a much smaller 125ish ton gauss fighter design that I could use instead. I haven't yet determined whether it is better to keep my existing complement of 500 ton heavy gauss fighters or replace them with the smaller 125 ton versions. I could bring more guns to the fight with the smaller ships but the bigger ships have better range and accuracy.
-
People seem to dislike my sensor compliment. What do you all typically use for sensors in your fleets? I usually deploy a network of sensor buoys before any significant battle which tends to reduce the sensor requirements for my battle fleets. Hence the the abundance of short range res 1 sensors on my ships.
The res 500 sensor on my carrier is outdated but the res 500 on my scout fighter is relatively up to date. This sensor configuration has been adequate thus far at detecting the relatively large hostile ships I have been encountering from outside of hostile missile range.
The carrier is fairly fast and is capable of running away from anything it can't fight straight up... at least from what I have come across so far. I am hoping to get the next design iteration above 10k km/s max speed as speed is definitely useful for the tactics I tend to use with this carrier design.
I tend to only use low resolution sensors on my carrier and even most escorts such as destroyers. I rely on buoys and sensor scouts for locating enemies.
One interesting design is a 3-500t primary EM scout... I then add some box launchers of size 1 stuffed with different active or passive sensors... it really don't take much space. These ships usually have a deployment of around 1-3 months and a pretty decent range.
I also find that 125-175t with high resolution active sensors is very effective as they can have a decently large range and sensors tend to never be below res 5 and res 1 to detect them need to be VERY big and with even a small sensor tech advantage it can be impossible to find them with res 1 sensors.
This is why all my capital ships have some hangar space to hold scouts and different utility crafts for different mission types.
I only add a small high resolution sensor to any ship with offensive missiles but rarely that which cover the whole range for the longest range missiles they carry. One of the problem of the game is detection range of high resolution active sensors as you can't activate sensors individually. A patrol ship might want to activate their res 1 and 5 to try and find some small crafts in the vicinity without necessarily reveal themselves to some enemy capital ship far away which you most often can using res 5 or below.
In my opinion if I can gather all the Intel on the enemy before engaging I hold all the cards of when and how that will occur. I will not want to reveal my ships until the last moment or if possible not at all.
Here are some rules I live by for EM versus Active, given all have the same tech level...
A ship need an EM of about 50t to detect a resolution 100 sensor at the same distance from which the sensor will see you if you are 5000t or bigger.
A ship need an EM of about 100t to detect a resolution 20 sensor at the same distance it will see you if you are 1000t or bigger.
A ship need an EM of about 150t to detect a resolution 5 sensor at the same distance it will see you if you are 250t or bigger.
A ship need an EM of about 250t to detect a resolution 1 sensor at the same distance it will see you if you are 50t or bigger.
So... for example as resolution 5 is pretty normal as a small craft sensor a small EM scout will need about 150t to know if it has been spotted by active sensor... a 375t EM scout can usually have at least 150t EM sensor on it.
The important thing is to spot the sensor before any ship see you with their active sensor so you can evade... that is also why reduced thermal is key on all scout vessels... use it always!!
Buoys are also good but they can't really move and a permanently used up so still have a limited use... having a stealthy ship that can shadow an enemy for a long time can gather some Intel on them about their sensors if active.
Well.. long winded reply that perhaps make some sense... ;)
-
People seem to dislike my sensor compliment. What do you all typically use for sensors in your fleets? I usually deploy a network of sensor buoys before any significant battle which tends to reduce the sensor requirements for my battle fleets. Hence the the abundance of short range res 1 sensors on my ships.
The res 500 sensor on my carrier is outdated but the res 500 on my scout fighter is relatively up to date. This sensor configuration has been adequate thus far at detecting the relatively large hostile ships I have been encountering from outside of hostile missile range.
The carrier is fairly fast and is capable of running away from anything it can't fight straight up... at least from what I have come across so far. I am hoping to get the next design iteration above 10k km/s max speed as speed is definitely useful for the tactics I tend to use with this carrier design.
I tend to only use low resolution sensors on my carrier and even most escorts such as destroyers. I rely on buoys and sensor scouts for locating enemies.
One interesting design is a 3-500t primary EM scout... I then add some box launchers of size 1 stuffed with different active or passive sensors... it really don't take much space. These ships usually have a deployment of around 1-3 months and a pretty decent range.
I also find that 125-175t with high resolution active sensors is very effective as they can have a decently large range and sensors tend to never be below res 5 and res 1 to detect them need to be VERY big and with even a small sensor tech advantage it can be impossible to find them with res 1 sensors.
This is why all my capital ships have some hangar space to hold scouts and different utility crafts for different mission types.
I only add a small high resolution sensor to any ship with offensive missiles but rarely that which cover the whole range for the longest range missiles they carry. One of the problem of the game is detection range of high resolution active sensors as you can't activate sensors individually. A patrol ship might want to activate their res 1 and 5 to try and find some small crafts in the vicinity without necessarily reveal themselves to some enemy capital ship far away which you most often can using res 5 or below.
In my opinion if I can gather all the Intel on the enemy before engaging I hold all the cards of when and how that will occur. I will not want to reveal my ships until the last moment or if possible not at all.
Here are some rules I live by for EM versus Active, given all have the same tech level...
A ship need an EM of about 50t to detect a resolution 100 sensor at the same distance from which the sensor will see you if you are 5000t or bigger.
A ship need an EM of about 100t to detect a resolution 20 sensor at the same distance it will see you if you are 1000t or bigger.
A ship need an EM of about 150t to detect a resolution 5 sensor at the same distance it will see you if you are 250t or bigger.
A ship need an EM of about 250t to detect a resolution 1 sensor at the same distance it will see you if you are 50t or bigger.
So... for example as resolution 5 is pretty normal as a small craft sensor a small EM scout will need about 150t to know if it has been spotted by active sensor... a 375t EM scout can usually have at least 150t EM sensor on it.
The important thing is to spot the sensor before any ship see you with their active sensor so you can evade... that is also why reduced thermal is key on all scout vessels... use it always!!
Buoys are also good but they can't really move and a permanently used up so still have a limited use... having a stealthy ship that can shadow an enemy for a long time can gather some Intel on them about their sensors if active.
Well.. long winded reply that perhaps make some sense... ;)
That's a fairly interesting discussion. I have definitely neglected both EM and thermal sensors in most of my scout designs, mostly due to my ignorance of their detailed mechanics and my lack of practical experience engaging enemies with fleets larger than my own. In most of my games I tend to stumble on an unexpected enemy fleet with a survey ship and then dispatch a buoy scout to drop a bunch of active buoys nearby. Once I've stared at the enemy fleet for a while and get a good feel for their responses to my own ship movement, I send a carrier strike force in to eliminate them. So I haven't used EM or thermals too much since I am usually able to drop active buoys in a location which provides good sensor coverage during battle.
As my stealth tech improves I am considering designing a stealthy passive sensor scout which would probably benefit more from EM and thermal sensors than my existing designs.
Attached is a pretty typical example of one of my active buoy sensor nets. As the hostile planet orbits through the net, I get pretty good intel on enemy fleets.
-
Here is an excell to play around with Sensor tech and ranges... https://www.dropbox.com/s/3wq4hn1smxj9tsi/SensorCalculator.xlsx?dl=0
And here is bonus scout what is the size of a MSP 8 missile... very efficient to use these with high resolution actives... not for passive detection in any way. It is roughly at Ion tech level...
Raven class Stealth Scout 20 tons 1 Crew 9.6 BP TCS 0 TH 1 EM 0
6200 km/s Armour 1-0 Shields 0-0 HTK 1 Sensors 0/0/0/0 DCR 0 PPV 0
Maint Life 0 Years MSP 0 AFR 3% IFR 0.1% 1YR 0 5YR 1 Max Repair 10 MSP
Lieutenant Commander Control Rating 1
Intended Deployment Time: 15 days Morale Check Required
Ion Drive EP2.38 (1) Power 2.4 Fuel Use 2985.62% Signature 0.5712 Explosion 19%
Fuel Capacity 4,000 Litres Range 1.3 billion km (56 hours at full power)
Active Search Sensor AS16-R160 (1) GPS 448 Range 17m km Resolution 160
-
Here is an excell to play around with Sensor tech and ranges... https://www.dropbox.com/s/3wq4hn1smxj9tsi/SensorCalculator.xlsx?dl=0
And here is bonus scout what is the size of a MSP 8 missile... very efficient to use these with high resolution actives... not for passive detection in any way. It is roughly at Ion tech level...
Raven class Stealth Scout 20 tons 1 Crew 9.6 BP TCS 0 TH 1 EM 0
6200 km/s Armour 1-0 Shields 0-0 HTK 1 Sensors 0/0/0/0 DCR 0 PPV 0
Maint Life 0 Years MSP 0 AFR 3% IFR 0.1% 1YR 0 5YR 1 Max Repair 10 MSP
Lieutenant Commander Control Rating 1
Intended Deployment Time: 15 days Morale Check Required
Ion Drive EP2.38 (1) Power 2.4 Fuel Use 2985.62% Signature 0.5712 Explosion 19%
Fuel Capacity 4,000 Litres Range 1.3 billion km (56 hours at full power)
Active Search Sensor AS16-R160 (1) GPS 448 Range 17m km Resolution 160
That is a very interesting scout design. I must investigate the tiny ship concept more deeply.
-
You can give them ridiculously long deployment times but I don't tend to do that for RP reasons. This ship could potentially get several years deployment and will not risk much in terms of failure either. So I stick with 5-30 days for ships this small.
-
Here is an excell to play around with Sensor tech and ranges... https://www.dropbox.com/s/3wq4hn1smxj9tsi/SensorCalculator.xlsx?dl=0
And here is bonus scout what is the size of a MSP 8 missile... very efficient to use these with high resolution actives... not for passive detection in any way. It is roughly at Ion tech level...
Raven class Stealth Scout 20 tons 1 Crew 9.6 BP TCS 0 TH 1 EM 0
6200 km/s Armour 1-0 Shields 0-0 HTK 1 Sensors 0/0/0/0 DCR 0 PPV 0
Maint Life 0 Years MSP 0 AFR 3% IFR 0.1% 1YR 0 5YR 1 Max Repair 10 MSP
Lieutenant Commander Control Rating 1
Intended Deployment Time: 15 days Morale Check Required
Ion Drive EP2.38 (1) Power 2.4 Fuel Use 2985.62% Signature 0.5712 Explosion 19%
Fuel Capacity 4,000 Litres Range 1.3 billion km (56 hours at full power)
Active Search Sensor AS16-R160 (1) GPS 448 Range 17m km Resolution 160
That is a very interesting scout design. I must investigate the tiny ship concept more deeply.
The above scout can't even be seen by the most powerful size 50 res 1 sensor, even if the opponent have several sensor techs advantage on you...
But as yo put lower resolution sensors on the less efficient they become, down to about resolution 50 you can go then a size 50 res 1 sensor can spot you at the same distance.
But obviously you are becoming dangerously close and will risk fast interceptors on your tail... ;)
-
Have you ever succeeded at sticking a gun on something that small? I can't remember off the top of my head but I'm pretty sure gauss cannons can get down to something like 8 tons at the low end.
-
This is the smallest from my test game where I did some Star Wars themed ship variants and look a like Aurora designs...
TIE/ln class Space Superiority Fighter 84 tons 4 Crew 30.2 BP TCS 2 TH 15 EM 0
8981 km/s Armour 1-1 Shields 0-0 HTK 1 Sensors 0/0/0/0 DCR 0 PPV 0.5
Maint Life 0 Years MSP 0 AFR 16% IFR 0.2% 1YR 1 5YR 14 Max Repair 16 MSP
Lieutenant Commander Control Rating 1
Intended Deployment Time: 3 days Morale Check Required
Sienar Fleer Systems STD-P54 Twin Ion Drives (1) Power 15 Fuel Use 4676.54% Signature 15 Explosion 30%
Fuel Capacity 3,000 Litres Range 0.1 billion km (4 hours at full power)
Cydyne Corporation Twin Blaster Cannons (1x4) Range 40,000km TS: 8,981 km/s Accuracy Modifier 8.00% RM 40,000 km ROF 5
Sienar Fleet Systems BL5-YN Targeting Computer System (1) Max Range: 40,000 km TS: 8,000 km/s 75 50 25 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
You need a pretty big fire-control as well as the gun itself so smaller than this is probably really difficult. It is using the same tehch level as that othet ship.
-
This was the best 'small' fighter I could come up with back when I was designing the original Cetan B carrier:
Piranha-G class Fighter 108 tons 6 Crew 41.8 BP TCS 2 TH 35 EM 0
16296 km/s Armour 1-2 Shields 0-0 HTK 1 Sensors 0/0/0/0 DCR 0 PPV 0.5
Maint Life 29.83 Years MSP 24 AFR 1% IFR 0.0% 1YR 0 5YR 1 Max Repair 17.5 MSP
Lieutenant Control Rating 1
Intended Deployment Time: 0.3 days Morale Check Required
Chaimberlin-Sherman Internal Fusion Drive EP35.00 (1) Power 35 Fuel Use 2241.05% Signature 35 Explosion 25%
Fuel Capacity 7,000 Litres Range 0.5 billion km (8 hours at full power)
Chaimberlin-Sherman Gauss Cannon R300-8.00 (1x4) Range 16,000km TS: 16,296 km/s Accuracy Modifier 8.00% RM 30,000 km ROF 5
Chaimberlin-Sherman Beam Fire Control R16-TS16000 (50%) (1) Max Range: 16,000 km TS: 16,000 km/s 38 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
This design is classed as a Fighter for production, combat and planetary interaction
Somewhat larger than your TIE fighter but also faster and longer ranged.
-
Missiles might be the way to go on the tiny fighter concept. As I recall, MFC can be designed down to 5 ton size and I'm pretty sure you can get a couple million km range out of those.
-
Missiles might be the way to go on the tiny fighter concept. As I recall, MFC can be designed down to 5 ton size and I'm pretty sure you can get a couple million km range out of those.
Easily, yes. My fighters use a 10-ton MFC for >30mkm range, and that's at fairly low tech (although also medium resolution).
-
I came up with this by reving my old Piranha design:
Piranha III-MF class Fighter 23 tons 1 Crew 13 BP TCS 0 TH 1 EM 0
10919 km/s Armour 1-0 Shields 0-0 HTK 1 Sensors 0/0/0/0 DCR 0 PPV 0.1
Maint Life 20.17 Years MSP 20 AFR 5% IFR 0.1% 1YR 0 5YR 1 Max Repair 15 MSP
Magazine 1
Lieutenant Control Rating 1
Intended Deployment Time: 0.3 days Morale Check Required
Guild Magnetic Fusion Drive EP5.00 (1) Power 5.0 Fuel Use 2262.74% Signature 0.8000 Explosion 20%
Fuel Capacity 1,000 Litres Range 0.3 billion km (8 hours at full power)
Guild Size 1 Box Launcher (1) Missile Size: 1 Hangar Reload 50 minutes MF Reload 8 hours
Guild Missile Fire Control FC9-R1 (20%) (1) Range 9.1m km Resolution 1
Guild Size 1 Missile (1) Speed: 75,000 km/s End: 0m Range: 0.2m km WH: 1 Size: 1 TH: 350/210/105
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 Fighter for production, combat and planetary interaction
Tiny, with limited range and only a single missile. But I could fit 652 of them into a Cetan B so that makes for an impressive fighter swarm.
I will see if I can come up with a similar missile bomber for my size 6 missile design.
-
These small scouts are not an ultimate solution, but they are a very cheap, flexible and fast one to both produce and research. So they take very little resources for how efficient they are.
The biggest problem with engaging a tiny scout is the ability to actually see it which is very hard for other small crafts. Most likely every scout would also be paired wit a 20t res 1 scout to detect any incoming crafts and missiles so they can turn of their sensors and vanish. So you would need your own tiny scout with a res 1 to chase after them and then you can fire missiles on them, the FC should not be a big problem here.
Another solution is a small corvette with the mission to hunt small crafts and fighters that have a 500t res 1 sensors, say a ship at around 2500t or so. It is small enough to be stealth against most high and medium sensors and long range enough on the res 1 to detect the small scouts before being detected itself, you can then just launch anti-craft missiles from the corvette directly.
Then you could counter that and they counter that and around you go... ;)
-
The missile bomber with the size 6 launcher is not working out so well as a size 6 launcher is larger than the previously posted Piranha-III. So I think a
stealth fast scout instead will be the next design challenge.
Cloaking device tech is currently limited to minimum cloak size of 500 tons which eliminates the cloaked tiny fighter concept.
-
I came up with this scout craft after some design revisionism:
Piranha III-S class Fighter 23 tons 1 Crew 14.7 BP TCS 0 TH 1 EM 0
10919 km/s Armour 1-0 Shields 0-0 HTK 1 Sensors 1/0/0/0 DCR 0 PPV 0
Maint Life 18.87 Years MSP 20 AFR 5% IFR 0.1% 1YR 0 5YR 2 Max Repair 15 MSP
Lieutenant Control Rating 1
Intended Deployment Time: 0.3 days Morale Check Required
Guild Magnetic Fusion Drive EP5.00 (1) Power 5.0 Fuel Use 2262.74% Signature 0.8000 Explosion 20%
Fuel Capacity 1,000 Litres Range 0.3 billion km (8 hours at full power)
Guild Active Search Sensor AS4-R1 (20%) (1) GPS 4 Range 4.5m km MCR 408.7k km Resolution 1
Guild Thermal Sensor TH0.1-1.4 (20%) (1) Sensitivity 1.4 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 9.4m km
This design is classed as a Fighter for production, combat and planetary interaction
I am not sure if the current sensor configuration is optimal. With this setup I could cruise around with actives engaged until I find a contact, then drop actives and run away to the edge of thermal range and hide and wait and see what I can see, possibly with support from my missile fighters. Alternatively I could replace the thermal sensor with an EM sensor, or drop the active sensor altogether and run with passive EM and thermals only.
-
You need something with actives to provide a target lock for those missile microfighters.
-
Well then I suppose the actives remain. So then would it be better to mount thermals or EM sensors?
My intuition is that thermals are superior as everything has a thermal signature. However I can see an argument for EM sensors against large military ships which presumably have large active sensor arrays.
-
Well then I suppose the actives remain. So then would it be better to mount thermals or EM sensors?
My intuition is that thermals are superior as everything has a thermal signature. However I can see an argument for EM sensors against large military ships which presumably have large active sensor arrays.
EM sensors also pick up raised shields - the advantage of EM sensors is that ships that have EM signatures often have massive ones whereas ships with thermal signatures often can have relatively small signatures. My ships tend to have both passives (equal size) and almost always when a ship is detected its thermal is unknown - this is because of the aforementioned reason so the EM sensor will generally detect ships from further away.
I think having a minimum size thermal even if you aren't using it as your main means of detection is a good peace of mind since you won't have ghosts shooting at you with beam weapons.
Of course as you already said not every ship has an EM signature which is what balances things.
My advice is this - of you are only concerned with finding the enemy then go passive only, this potentially allows you to stealthily observe enemy fleet movements as well, especially if you have a stealth cloak and thermal reduction.
On the other hand, you might want to know more than just emissions and you want to know the size of ships, in which case you want a ship that has a large active sensor. In the case of sensor fighters I recommend you just go active only and use the extra space for a bigger active. Such a craft needs to be at least faster than the fastest enemy because it will be detected.
Edit: You might also want a sensor fighter with a smaller active meant for actually targetting enemy craft as well but it will only fly against targets that have already been detected.
-
I might need to go back to the drawing board for the tiny scouts. I see an argument for a tiny passive scout and a separate argument for a tiny active scout each of which would be used in rather different roles. I don' think my previously posted 'scout' Piranha III would actually be of much use as a scout due to it's extremely short range, so that ship probably needs a re-design. However it would be able to spot for the Piranha III-MFs.
-
Well then I suppose the actives remain. So then would it be better to mount thermals or EM sensors?
My intuition is that thermals are superior as everything has a thermal signature. However I can see an argument for EM sensors against large military ships which presumably have large active sensor arrays.
EM sensors also pick up raised shields - the advantage of EM sensors is that ships that have EM signatures often have massive ones whereas ships with thermal signatures often can have relatively small signatures. My ships tend to have both passives (equal size) and almost always when a ship is detected its thermal is unknown - this is because of the aforementioned reason so the EM sensor will generally detect ships from further away.
I think having a minimum size thermal even if you aren't using it as your main means of detection is a good peace of mind since you won't have ghosts shooting at you with beam weapons.
Of course as you already said not every ship has an EM signature which is what balances things.
My advice is this - of you are only concerned with finding the enemy then go passive only, this potentially allows you to stealthily observe enemy fleet movements as well, especially if you have a stealth cloak and thermal reduction.
On the other hand, you might want to know more than just emissions and you want to know the size of ships, in which case you want a ship that has a large active sensor. In the case of sensor fighters I recommend you just go active only and use the extra space for a bigger active. Such a craft needs to be at least faster than the fastest enemy because it will be detected.
Edit: You might also want a sensor fighter with a smaller active meant for actually targetting enemy craft as well but it will only fly against targets that have already been detected.
To be honest you always never want to use actives to "find" the enemy as they will always find you first no matter what ship or method you use. No fleet should be giving up EM signatures if they don't think they are detected. This is why thermal sensors also is important and should never be neglected. If you run sensor scout them make sure you have some specialised on EM and some on Thermal.
Sure... you cab go active for a few seconds and turn them off and move away. This works really way for any small active sensor scout, even tiny ones. But yo should never do that with sensor on your fleet ships as that will potentially reveal your fleets general position to the enemy and they are more likely to then find you than the reverse.
Whether or not you use passive sensors only or not might also depend on if you want to enemy to know you are there at all or not too. In some instances you know that the enemy know you are there but not exactly where, then using active is just fine. But in some instances you rely entirely in stealth to not be revealed until you strike.
Having a multitude of options is also nice... therefore scouts in different sizes is good to have. Smaller scouts is good because you can cheaply use many different resolutions for different situations. When using small active scout you also should move the ships at least two to three in each area so you can alternate using their actives on and off, it is very effective. Even against human opponents.
-
I sometimes deliberately activate my active sensors on my large ships in order draw out the enemy fleet and destroy it, usually with a missile or fighter ambush.
-
I'm thinking I might develop a corvette sized mini-carrier dedicated to fielding tiny ships with crew size of 1 or 2 each. Then I could limit my exposure to hostiles by sending the mini-carriers into more dangerous regions of space. That's probably a better approach than my current method of just waiting for my long range survey ships to stumble on a hostile fleet.
-
I try to keep one recon fighter on my survey carriers, so that when I send them into worrying systems they have at least a chance of seeing trouble before the carrier or the survey boats fly right into it.
-
Well, it turned into more of a cruiser-sized ship, but here is my finalized scout carrier:
Swordfish class Scout Carrier 10,040 tons 272 Crew 4,089.9 BP TCS 201 TH 312 EM 0
9711 km/s Armour 3-41 Shields 0-0 HTK 60 Sensors 70/90/2/2 DCR 30 PPV 36
Maint Life 2.36 Years MSP 2,546 AFR 81% IFR 1.1% 1YR 622 5YR 9,333 Max Repair 2193.75 MSP
Hangar Deck Capacity 250 tons Magazine 12
Commander Control Rating 1 BRG
Intended Deployment Time: 3 months Flight Crew Berths 20 Morale Check Required
Guild Magnetic Fusion Drive EP1950.00 (1) Power 1950 Fuel Use 31.47% Signature 312.00 Explosion 13%
Fuel Capacity 1,250,000 Litres Range 71.2 billion km (84 days at full power)
Quad Guild Gauss Cannon R500-100 Turret (1x20) Range 48,000km TS: 50000 km/s Power 0-0 RM 50,000 km ROF 5 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
Guild Beam Fire Control R48-TS20000 (20%) (1) Max Range: 48,000 km TS: 20,000 km/s 96 92 88 83 79 75 71 67 62 58
Guild Size 1 Sensor Satellite (6) Speed: 0 km/s End: 0m Range: 0m km WH: 0 Size: 1 TH: 0/0/0
Guild Size 1 Missile (6) Speed: 75,000 km/s End: 0m Range: 0.2m km WH: 1 Size: 1 TH: 350/210/105
Guild Active Search Sensor AS149-R100 (20%) (1) GPS 18000 Range 149.1m km Resolution 100
Guild Thermal Sensor TH5-70 (20%) (1) Sensitivity 70 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 66.1m km
Guild EM Sensor EM5-90 (20%) (1) Sensitivity 90 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 75m km
Improved Gravitational Sensors (1) 2 Survey Points Per Hour
Improved Geological Sensors (1) 2 Survey Points Per Hour
ELINT Module (1) Sensitivity 11 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 26.2m km
ECCM-3 (1) ECM 30
Strike Group
6x Piranha III-S Fighter Speed: 9284 km/s Size: 0.35
6x Piranha III-MF Fighter Speed: 10919 km/s Size: 0.46
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
For completeness's sake, here are the microfighter designs also:
Piranha III-S class Fighter 18 tons 1 Crew 11.9 BP TCS 0 TH 1 EM 0
9284 km/s Armour 1-0 Shields 0-0 HTK 1 Sensors 0/0/0/0 DCR 0 PPV 0
Maint Life 22.04 Years MSP 20 AFR 4% IFR 0.0% 1YR 0 5YR 1 Max Repair 15 MSP
Lieutenant Control Rating 1
Intended Deployment Time: 0.3 days Morale Check Required
Guild Magnetic Fusion Drive EP3.25 (1) Power 3.2 Fuel Use 770.76% Signature 0.5200 Explosion 13%
Fuel Capacity 1,000 Litres Range 1.3 billion km (39 hours at full power)
Guild Active Search Sensor AS4-R1 (20%) (1) GPS 4 Range 4.5m km MCR 408.7k km Resolution 1
This design is classed as a Fighter for production, combat and planetary interaction
Piranha III-MF class Fighter 23 tons 1 Crew 13 BP TCS 0 TH 1 EM 0
10919 km/s Armour 1-0 Shields 0-0 HTK 1 Sensors 0/0/0/0 DCR 0 PPV 0.1
Maint Life 20.17 Years MSP 20 AFR 5% IFR 0.1% 1YR 0 5YR 1 Max Repair 15 MSP
Magazine 1
Lieutenant Control Rating 1
Intended Deployment Time: 0.3 days Morale Check Required
Guild Magnetic Fusion Drive EP5.00 (1) Power 5 Fuel Use 2262.74% Signature 0.80 Explosion 20%
Fuel Capacity 1,000 Litres Range 0.3 billion km (8 hours at full power)
Guild Size 1 Box Launcher (1) Missile Size: 1 Hangar Reload 50 minutes MF Reload 8 hours
Guild Missile Fire Control FC9-R1 (20%) (1) Range 9.1m km Resolution 1
Guild Size 1 Missile (1) Speed: 75,000 km/s End: 0m Range: 0.2m km WH: 1 Size: 1 TH: 350/210/105
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 Fighter for production, combat and planetary interaction
Next I will need to redesign my commercial jump carrier and then most likely my main fleet carrier. As I now have a smaller carrier design for dedicated scouting, the fleet carrier can probably be somewhat slower and have larger hangar capacity.
-
Piranha III-MF class Fighter 23 tons 1 Crew 13 BP TCS 0 TH 1 EM 0
10919 km/s Armour 1-0 Shields 0-0 HTK 1 Sensors 0/0/0/0 DCR 0 PPV 0.1
Maint Life 20.17 Years MSP 20 AFR 5% IFR 0.1% 1YR 0 5YR 1 Max Repair 15 MSP
Magazine 1
Lieutenant Control Rating 1
Intended Deployment Time: 0.3 days Morale Check Required
Guild Magnetic Fusion Drive EP5.00 (1) Power 5 Fuel Use 2262.74% Signature 0.80 Explosion 20%
Fuel Capacity 1,000 Litres Range 0.3 billion km (8 hours at full power)
Guild Size 1 Box Launcher (1) Missile Size: 1 Hangar Reload 50 minutes MF Reload 8 hours
Guild Missile Fire Control FC9-R1 (20%) (1) Range 9.1m km Resolution 1
Guild Size 1 Missile (1) Speed: 75,000 km/s End: 0m Range: 0.2m km WH: 1 Size: 1 TH: 350/210/105
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 Fighter for production, combat and planetary interaction
IMO add two more fighter sized fuel storage to the Piranha III-MF, 300m range gives you a 150m strike range at best. This also makes the missile fighter range closer with that of the sensor variant which has an effective range of 600m (still short imo but respectable). Idk what the consequence of 25t vs 23t is for strike group size but right now your scout carrier has to get within long-range ASM range to deploy the fighters.
-
I considered creating a longer range size 1 missile but dropped the concept after considering that my existing size 6 missile and associated missile bombers are far more capable than anything I could design at size 1. The existing size 1 missiles and their microfighters are mostly for helping shoot down enemy missiles. In all likelihood the scout carrier and microfighters won't be doing any fighting. If they see something dangerous they are going to run home and get their bigger friends to come help them. The fighters are mostly just there to drop sensor buoys.
Increasing the range on the fighters is a probably good idea though.
-
Piranha III-MF class Fighter 23 tons 1 Crew 13 BP TCS 0 TH 1 EM 0
10919 km/s Armour 1-0 Shields 0-0 HTK 1 Sensors 0/0/0/0 DCR 0 PPV 0.1
Maint Life 20.17 Years MSP 20 AFR 5% IFR 0.1% 1YR 0 5YR 1 Max Repair 15 MSP
Magazine 1
Lieutenant Control Rating 1
Intended Deployment Time: 0.3 days Morale Check Required
Guild Magnetic Fusion Drive EP5.00 (1) Power 5 Fuel Use 2262.74% Signature 0.80 Explosion 20%
Fuel Capacity 1,000 Litres Range 0.3 billion km (8 hours at full power)
Guild Size 1 Box Launcher (1) Missile Size: 1 Hangar Reload 50 minutes MF Reload 8 hours
Guild Missile Fire Control FC9-R1 (20%) (1) Range 9.1m km Resolution 1
Guild Size 1 Missile (1) Speed: 75,000 km/s End: 0m Range: 0.2m km WH: 1 Size: 1 TH: 350/210/105
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 Fighter for production, combat and planetary interaction
This is essentially a tiny beam fighter. However, I think it lacks the speed of a real beam fighter to chase down the enemy. My fleet speed at this tech level is higher than that :P
-
I considered creating a longer range size 1 missile but dropped the concept after considering that my existing size 6 missile and associated missile bombers are far more capable than anything I could design at size 1. The existing size 1 missiles and their microfighters are mostly for helping shoot down enemy missiles. In all likelihood the scout carrier and microfighters won't be doing any fighting. If they see something dangerous they are going to run home and get their bigger friends to come help them. The fighters are mostly just there to drop sensor buoys.
Increasing the range on the fighters is a probably good idea though.
Regardless I think its kind of impressive that you managed to make a bloody 23t fighter work to some capacity. I have designed bigger missiles than those
-
Some minor design revisionism:
Swordfish class Scout Carrier 10,307 tons 282 Crew 4,364.1 BP TCS 206 TH 312 EM 0
9459 km/s Armour 3-42 Shields 0-0 HTK 61 Sensors 70/90/2/2 DCR 30 PPV 36
Maint Life 2.37 Years MSP 2,646 AFR 85% IFR 1.2% 1YR 645 5YR 9,676 Max Repair 2193.75 MSP
Hangar Deck Capacity 250 tons Magazine 12
Commander Control Rating 1 BRG
Intended Deployment Time: 3 months Flight Crew Berths 20 Morale Check Required
Guild Magnetic Fusion Drive EP1950.00 (1) Power 1950 Fuel Use 31.47% Signature 312.00 Explosion 13%
Fuel Capacity 1,250,000 Litres Range 69.4 billion km (84 days at full power)
Quad Guild Gauss Cannon R500-100 Turret (1x20) Range 48,000km TS: 50000 km/s Power 0-0 RM 50,000 km ROF 5 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
Guild Beam Fire Control R48-TS20000 (20%) (1) Max Range: 48,000 km TS: 20,000 km/s 96 92 88 83 79 75 71 67 62 58
Guild Size 1 Sensor Satellite (6) Speed: 0 km/s End: 0m Range: 0m km WH: 0 Size: 1 TH: 0/0/0
Guild Size 1 Missile (6) Speed: 75,000 km/s End: 0m Range: 0.2m km WH: 1 Size: 1 TH: 350/210/105
Guild Active Search Sensor AS149-R100 (20%) (1) GPS 18000 Range 149.1m km Resolution 100
Guild Active Search Sensor AS32-R1 (20%) (1) GPS 180 Range 32.1m km MCR 2.9m km Resolution 1
Guild Thermal Sensor TH5-70 (20%) (1) Sensitivity 70 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 66.1m km
Guild EM Sensor EM5-90 (20%) (1) Sensitivity 90 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 75m km
Improved Gravitational Sensors (1) 2 Survey Points Per Hour
Improved Geological Sensors (1) 2 Survey Points Per Hour
ELINT Module (1) Sensitivity 11 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 26.2m km
ECCM-3 (1) ECM 30
Strike Group
5x Piranha III-S Fighter Speed: 10430 km/s Size: 0.48
5x Piranha III-MF Fighter Speed: 9983 km/s Size: 0.5
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
Piranha III-S class Fighter 24 tons 1 Crew 13.8 BP TCS 0 TH 1 EM 0
10430 km/s Armour 1-0 Shields 0-0 HTK 1 Sensors 0/0/0/0 DCR 0 PPV 0
Maint Life 18.25 Years MSP 20 AFR 5% IFR 0.1% 1YR 0 5YR 2 Max Repair 15 MSP
Lieutenant Control Rating 1
Intended Deployment Time: 3 days Morale Check Required
Guild Magnetic Fusion Drive EP5.00 (1) Power 5 Fuel Use 2262.74% Signature 0.80 Explosion 20%
Fuel Capacity 7,000 Litres Range 2.3 billion km (61 hours at full power)
Guild Active Search Sensor AS4-R1 (20%) (1) GPS 4 Range 4.5m km MCR 408.7k km Resolution 1
This design is classed as a Fighter for production, combat and planetary interaction
Piranha III-MF class Fighter 26 tons 1 Crew 13.4 BP TCS 1 TH 1 EM 0
9983 km/s Armour 1-0 Shields 0-0 HTK 1 Sensors 0/0/0/0 DCR 0 PPV 0.1
Maint Life 19.26 Years MSP 20 AFR 5% IFR 0.1% 1YR 0 5YR 2 Max Repair 15 MSP
Magazine 1
Lieutenant Control Rating 1
Intended Deployment Time: 1 days Morale Check Required
Guild Magnetic Fusion Drive EP5.00 (1) Power 5 Fuel Use 2262.74% Signature 0.80 Explosion 20%
Fuel Capacity 3,000 Litres Range 1 billion km (26 hours at full power)
Guild Size 1 Box Launcher (1) Missile Size: 1 Hangar Reload 50 minutes MF Reload 8 hours
Guild Missile Fire Control FC9-R1 (20%) (1) Range 9.1m km Resolution 1
Guild Size 1 Missile (1) Speed: 75,000 km/s End: 0m Range: 0.2m km WH: 1 Size: 1 TH: 350/210/105
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 Fighter for production, combat and planetary interaction
I think I like these new fighter designs a bit better. I converted both to my 5 ton 5 EP engines and was able to increase the range on both. The 5 EP engine increased the scout variant's speed substantially so it is now slightly faster than the missile fighter. I lose 1 of each fighter but can now maximize my use of the scout carriers' hangar space with no wasted space. The deployment time on the scout is also much better than previous which in my opinion is always useful on a scout craft.
As for speed, I am using 10k km/s as a rough guideline for my minimum combat speed. This is faster than any NPR ship I've observed yet by a few kkm/s. These ships will not be able to outrun missiles however, so the gauss cannon on the carrier is an absolute necessity.
-
Piranha III-MF class Fighter 23 tons 1 Crew 13 BP TCS 0 TH 1 EM 0
10919 km/s Armour 1-0 Shields 0-0 HTK 1 Sensors 0/0/0/0 DCR 0 PPV 0.1
Maint Life 20.17 Years MSP 20 AFR 5% IFR 0.1% 1YR 0 5YR 1 Max Repair 15 MSP
Magazine 1
Lieutenant Control Rating 1
Intended Deployment Time: 0.3 days Morale Check Required
Guild Magnetic Fusion Drive EP5.00 (1) Power 5 Fuel Use 2262.74% Signature 0.80 Explosion 20%
Fuel Capacity 1,000 Litres Range 0.3 billion km (8 hours at full power)
Guild Size 1 Box Launcher (1) Missile Size: 1 Hangar Reload 50 minutes MF Reload 8 hours
Guild Missile Fire Control FC9-R1 (20%) (1) Range 9.1m km Resolution 1
Guild Size 1 Missile (1) Speed: 75,000 km/s End: 0m Range: 0.2m km WH: 1 Size: 1 TH: 350/210/105
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 Fighter for production, combat and planetary interaction
This is essentially a tiny beam fighter. However, I think it lacks the speed of a real beam fighter to chase down the enemy. My fleet speed at this tech level is higher than that :P
I'm really struggling to get any useful range and speed with the micro engines. My 5 ton 5 EP variant used in the preceding post has a 200% power modifier and that's about as high as I can go without sacrificing more range.
I haven't tried making a micro beam fighter yet... maybe that will be next.
-
I don't think the micro beam fighter will work out. The beam fire control alone is the size of one of the preceding fighters.
-
The Terran Mercantile Guild has finalized the design of it's new commercial jump carrier:
Holtzman class Heighliner 504,000 tons 4,193 Crew 35,049.8 BP TCS 10,080 TH 40,000 EM 0
3968 km/s JR 2-25(C) Armour 10-564 Shields 0-0 HTK 616 Sensors 14/18/0/0 DCR 11 PPV 0
MSP 2,043 Max Repair 1250 MSP
Hangar Deck Capacity 150,000 tons Cryogenic Berths 8,000
Admiral Control Rating 4 BRG AUX ENG PFC
Intended Deployment Time: 3 months Flight Crew Berths 3,000
Guild JC504K Commercial Jump Drive Max Ship Size 504000 tons Distance 25k km Squadron Size 2
Guild Commercial Magnetic Fusion Drive EP5000.00 (8) Power 40000 Fuel Use 1.12% Signature 5000 Explosion 5%
Fuel Capacity 8,052,000 Litres Range 257.2 billion km (750 days at full power)
Guild CIWS-200 (8x10) Range 1000 km TS: 20,000 km/s ROF 5
Guild Active Search Sensor AS66-R100 (20%) (1) GPS 3600 Range 66.7m km Resolution 100
Guild Active Search Sensor AS14-R1 (20%) (1) GPS 36 Range 14.4m km MCR 1.3m km Resolution 1
Guild Thermal Sensor TH1.0-14.0 (20%) (1) Sensitivity 14.0 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 29.6m km
Guild EM Sensor EM1.0-18.0 (20%) (1) Sensitivity 18.0 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 33.5m km
This design is classed as a Commercial Vessel for maintenance purposes
The new design is a bit more than twice the size of the previous class, with more than double the hangar capacity, four times the speed, and slightly improved range. Each ship requires about 40k tons of TN elements but are the largest ships produced by the Terran Mercantile Guild and are hugely important for interstellar commerce and military transport. Indeed, the new class will be the largest ever built in Guild space once completed. The keels of the first two ships of the new class, Princess Irulan and Lady Jessica, have just been laid down and construction will take about eight years to complete. At that point the long serving Pegasus and Stallion will be decommissioned and two additional Holtzmans will be constructed. Finally Bronco, the last ship of the Pegasus class, will be decommissioned once the two additional Holtzmans are complete. The previous Pegasus class served the Guild for nearly 400 years and it is hoped that the Holtzmans will last at least twice that long.
"A Heighliner is truly big. Its hold will tuck all our frigates and transports into a little corner - we'll be just a small part of the ship's manifest." - Duke Leto Atreides, Dune