Aurora 4x
C# Aurora => C# Bureau of Design => Topic started by: Stormtrooper on January 29, 2021, 01:31:31 PM
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Honestly this baffles me so much. I constantly see designs around 4k, 6k, 10k, a 20 k is already a "capital ship" in many cases. How do players manage to do that? Last time I tried hard, and the result is these 3 plasma-armed ships for wormhole defence:
Anarchy class Interceptor 4,657 tons 144 Crew 1,237.5 BP TCS 93 TH 1,125 EM 1,200
12079 km/s JR 1-50 Armour 4-24 Shields 40-300 HTK 27 Sensors 0/0/0/0 DCR 1 PPV 12
Maint Life 2.57 Years MSP 966 AFR 173% IFR 2.4% 1YR 205 5YR 3,070 Max Repair 562.5 MSP
Captain Control Rating 2 BRG CIC
Intended Deployment Time: 12 months Morale Check Required
J6000(1-50) Military Jump Drive Max Ship Size 6000 tons Distance 50k km Squadron Size 1
Magnetic Fusion Drive EP1125.00 (1) Power 1125 Fuel Use 381.84% Signature 1125 Explosion 30%
Fuel Capacity 1,000,000 Litres Range 10.1 billion km (9 days at full power)
Theta S40 / R300 Shields (1) Recharge Time 300 seconds (0.1 per second)
15 cm C6 Plasma Carronade (3) Range 60,000km TS: 12,079 km/s Power 6-6 RM 10,000 km ROF 5
Beam Fire Control R262-TS12000 (1) Max Range: 262,500 km TS: 12,000 km/s 96 92 89 85 81 77 73 70 66 62
Magnetic Confinement Fusion Reactor R18 (1) Total Power Output 18.4 Exp 5%
Active Search Sensor AS3-R1 (50%) (1) GPS 5 Range 3.5m km MCR 314.7k km Resolution 1
ECCM-3 (1) This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
Devastator class Interceptor 9,292 tons 286 Crew 3,224.9 BP TCS 186 TH 2,250 EM 1,200
12108 km/s JR 3-50 Armour 9-39 Shields 40-300 HTK 51 Sensors 0/0/0/0 DCR 1 PPV 30
Maint Life 0.73 Years MSP 1,016 AFR 691% IFR 9.6% 1YR 1,393 5YR 20,895 Max Repair 636.9 MSP
Captain Control Rating 2 BRG CIC
Intended Deployment Time: 12 months Morale Check Required
J12000(3-50) Military Jump Drive Max Ship Size 12000 tons Distance 50k km Squadron Size 3
Magnetic Fusion Drive EP1125.00 (2) Power 2250 Fuel Use 381.84% Signature 1125 Explosion 30%
Fuel Capacity 2,000,000 Litres Range 10.1 billion km (9 days at full power)
Theta S40 / R300 Shields (1) Recharge Time 300 seconds (0.1 per second)
40 cm C8 Plasma Carronade (1) Range 400,000km TS: 12,108 km/s Power 40-8 RM 10,000 km ROF 25
Particle Lance-18-2 (1) Range 320,000km TS: 12,108 km/s Power 55-8 ROF 35
Beam Fire Control R450-TS12000 (2) Max Range: 450,000 km TS: 12,000 km/s 98 96 93 91 89 87 84 82 80 78
Magnetic Confinement Fusion Reactor R18 (1) Total Power Output 18.4 Exp 5%
Active Search Sensor AS3-R1 (50%) (1) GPS 5 Range 3.5m km MCR 314.7k km Resolution 1
ECCM-3 (2) This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
Dragonbreath class Interceptor 9,289 tons 262 Crew 2,395.3 BP TCS 186 TH 2,250 EM 1,200
12111 km/s JR 3-50 Armour 9-39 Shields 40-300 HTK 50 Sensors 0/0/0/0 DCR 1 PPV 36
Maint Life 1.01 Years MSP 961 AFR 690% IFR 9.6% 1YR 938 5YR 14,067 Max Repair 562.5 MSP
Captain Control Rating 2 BRG CIC
Intended Deployment Time: 12 months Morale Check Required
J12000(3-50) Military Jump Drive Max Ship Size 12000 tons Distance 50k km Squadron Size 3
Magnetic Fusion Drive EP1125.00 (2) Power 2250 Fuel Use 381.84% Signature 1125 Explosion 30%
Fuel Capacity 2,000,000 Litres Range 10.1 billion km (9 days at full power)
Theta S40 / R300 Shields (1) Recharge Time 300 seconds (0.1 per second)
40 cm C8 Plasma Carronade (3) Range 400,000km TS: 12,111 km/s Power 40-8 RM 10,000 km ROF 25
Beam Fire Control R450-TS12000 (1) Max Range: 450,000 km TS: 12,000 km/s 98 96 93 91 89 87 84 82 80 78
Magnetic Confinement Fusion Reactor R24 (1) Total Power Output 24.1 Exp 5%
Active Search Sensor AS3-R1 (50%) (1) GPS 5 Range 3.5m km MCR 314.7k km Resolution 1
ECCM-3 (1) This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
They had their first battle and first defeat. In comparsion, these are my pure anti-missile things:
Phalanx class Missile Destroyer 16,855 tons 375 Crew 4,134.7 BP TCS 337 TH 630 EM 1,680
5339 km/s JR 3-250 Armour 9-58 Shields 56-280 HTK 104 Sensors 0/0/0/0 DCR 2 PPV 67.78
Maint Life 0.95 Years MSP 4,706 AFR 1136% IFR 15.8% 1YR 4,954 5YR 74,314 Max Repair 1575 MSP
Captain Control Rating 3 BRG ENG CIC
Intended Deployment Time: 6 months Morale Check Required
J17400(3-250) Military Jump Drive Max Ship Size 17400 tons Distance 250k km Squadron Size 3
Internal Fusion Drive EP1800.00 (1) Power 1800 Fuel Use 33.75% Signature 630.00 Explosion 15%
Fuel Capacity 2,000,000 Litres Range 63.3 billion km (137 days at full power)
Beta S28 / R280 Shields (2) Recharge Time 280 seconds (0.2 per second)
Quad Gauss Cannon R500-100 Turret (1x20) Range 50,000km TS: 25000 km/s Power 0-0 RM 50,000 km ROF 5
Gauss Cannon R500-100 (4x5) Range 50,000km TS: 8,000 km/s Power 0-0 RM 50,000 km ROF 5
Beam Fire Control R51-TS25000 (50%) (5) Max Range: 51,200 km TS: 25,000 km/s 80 61 41 22 2 0 0 0 0 0
Active Search Sensor AS23-R1 (50%) (1) GPS 280 Range 23.1m km MCR 2.1m km Resolution 1
ECM 20
This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
Vanguard class Missile Destroyer 24,378 tons 634 Crew 7,483.5 BP TCS 488 TH 1,260 EM 840
7383 km/s Armour 5-74 Shields 28-280 HTK 114 Sensors 0/0/0/0 DCR 5 PPV 168
Maint Life 1.06 Years MSP 4,959 AFR 951% IFR 13.2% 1YR 4,417 5YR 66,259 Max Repair 1575 MSP
Captain Control Rating 3 BRG ENG CIC
Intended Deployment Time: 6 months Morale Check Required
Internal Fusion Drive EP1800.00 (2) Power 3600 Fuel Use 33.75% Signature 630.00 Explosion 15%
Fuel Capacity 3,000,000 Litres Range 65.6 billion km (102 days at full power)
Beta S28 / R280 Shields (1) Recharge Time 280 seconds (0.1 per second)
Single Gauss Cannon R500-100 Turret (20x5) Range 50,000km TS: 25000 km/s Power 0-0 RM 50,000 km ROF 5
Beam Fire Control R51-TS25000 (50%) (20) Max Range: 51,200 km TS: 25,000 km/s 80 61 41 22 2 0 0 0 0 0
Active Search Sensor AS23-R1 (50%) (1) GPS 280 Range 23.1m km MCR 2.1m km Resolution 1
This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
Ships I consider "lightweight, small assault ships" are within 15-16k tons each (and I'm happy with them, they're battle-hardened, well established designs and perform well in combat), meanwhile my missile cruisers are around 40k, also performing well, overhwelming enemy with decoy missiles so that my hard-hitting 12 MSP ones can score devastating damage.
How do you do them, those 4k designs and keep them from dying instantly?
P.S this is my battle-tested beam assault squadron design I've mentioned:
Blade class Assault Ship 15,675 tons 465 Crew 5,179.6 BP TCS 313 TH 1,260 EM 6,240
11483 km/s JR 3-250 Armour 10-55 Shields 208-520 HTK 67 Sensors 0/0/0/0 DCR 5 PPV 20
Maint Life 0.63 Years MSP 1,832 AFR 393% IFR 5.5% 1YR 2,904 5YR 43,562 Max Repair 1575 MSP
Captain Control Rating 2 BRG CIC
Intended Deployment Time: 6 months Morale Check Required
J17400(3-250) Military Jump Drive Max Ship Size 17400 tons Distance 250k km Squadron Size 3
Internal Fusion Drive EP1800.00 (2) Power 3600 Fuel Use 33.75% Signature 630.00 Explosion 15%
Fuel Capacity 1,000,000 Litres Range 34 billion km (34 days at full power)
Theta S208 / R520 Shields (1) Recharge Time 520 seconds (0.4 per second)
R120/C4 Meson Cannon (5) Range 120,000km TS: 11,483 km/s Power 6-4 RM 120,000 km ROF 10
CIWS-320 (2x10) Range 1000 km TS: 32,000 km/s ROF 5
Beam Fire Control R120-TS32000 (50%) (1) Max Range: 120,000 km TS: 32,000 km/s 92 83 75 67 58 50 42 33 25 17
Tokamak Fusion Reactor R23 (1) Total Power Output 22.6 Exp 5%
Active Search Sensor AS3-R1 (50%) (4) GPS 5 Range 3.5m km MCR 314.7k km Resolution 1
ECCM-1 (1) ECM 30
This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
Pike class Assault Ship 16,370 tons 512 Crew 6,528 BP TCS 327 TH 1,260 EM 6,240
10996 km/s Armour 10-57 Shields 208-520 HTK 84 Sensors 0/0/0/0 DCR 5 PPV 72
Maint Life 0.64 Years MSP 2,046 AFR 429% IFR 6.0% 1YR 3,204 5YR 48,054 Max Repair 1575 MSP
Captain Control Rating 2 BRG CIC
Intended Deployment Time: 6 months Morale Check Required
Internal Fusion Drive EP1800.00 (2) Power 3600 Fuel Use 33.75% Signature 630.00 Explosion 15%
Fuel Capacity 1,000,000 Litres Range 32.6 billion km (34 days at full power)
Theta S208 / R520 Shields (1) Recharge Time 520 seconds (0.4 per second)
Particle Lance-18 (2) Range 320,000km TS: 10,996 km/s Power 55-4 ROF 70
Particle Beam-9 (4) Range 320,000km TS: 10,996 km/s Power 22-4 ROF 30
CIWS-320 (1x10) Range 1000 km TS: 32,000 km/s ROF 5
Beam Fire Control R450-TS16000 (50%) (2) Max Range: 450,000 km TS: 16,000 km/s 98 96 93 91 89 87 84 82 80 78
Tokamak Fusion Reactor R23 (1) Total Power Output 22.6 Exp 5%
Tokamak Fusion Reactor R5 (1) Total Power Output 5.2 Exp 5%
Active Search Sensor AS3-R1 (50%) (4) GPS 5 Range 3.5m km MCR 314.7k km Resolution 1
This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
Striker class Assault Ship 15,279 tons 441 Crew 5,620.9 BP TCS 306 TH 1,260 EM 6,240
11781 km/s Armour 10-54 Shields 208-520 HTK 74 Sensors 0/0/0/0 DCR 5 PPV 50
Maint Life 0.68 Years MSP 1,949 AFR 373% IFR 5.2% 1YR 2,868 5YR 43,024 Max Repair 1575 MSP
Captain Control Rating 2 BRG CIC
Intended Deployment Time: 6 months Morale Check Required
Internal Fusion Drive EP1800.00 (2) Power 3600 Fuel Use 33.75% Signature 630.00 Explosion 15%
Fuel Capacity 1,000,000 Litres Range 34.9 billion km (34 days at full power)
Theta S208 / R520 Shields (1) Recharge Time 520 seconds (0.4 per second)
31.250cm C4 Soft X-ray Laser (5) Range 450,000km TS: 11,781 km/s Power 26-4 RM 60,000 km ROF 35
CIWS-320 (2x10) Range 1000 km TS: 32,000 km/s ROF 5
Beam Fire Control R450-TS16000 (50%) (1) Max Range: 450,000 km TS: 16,000 km/s 98 96 93 91 89 87 84 82 80 78
Tokamak Fusion Reactor R23 (1) Total Power Output 22.6 Exp 5%
Active Search Sensor AS3-R1 (50%) (4) GPS 5 Range 3.5m km MCR 314.7k km Resolution 1
This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
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Well, for starters, don't use plasma carronades. :P
As a general rule, larger ships do tend to outperform smaller ships just due to the fact that they are more efficient - things like armor-per-ton, fraction of tonnage used for ancillary modules, utilization of top commanders, and so on all favor larger ships. However, smaller ships are quicker and cheaper to build, both directly and in terms of shipyard space, and players most often tend to post their designs from the start of their games when shipyard sizes are fairly small - we see a lot more NPE and Ion ships posted than even MP let alone antimatter drive ships. So there's a bias there to be aware of.
That said, smaller ships often have roles in a fleet even as ships grow larger over time, but to perform these roles they must be quite specialized. For example, looking at your 5k ton Anarchy class, you've massively overloaded it with armor, shields, and an oversized jump drive, leaving it with a grand total of three base-caliber plasma carronades (again, a very poor primary weapon). I notice you are also using 3.0x EP modifiers which will drive your fuel consumption through the roof - your 93 HS interceptor must dedicate a full 20 HS to fuel! Very inefficient! I do think that at MCF tech 12,000 km/s is excessive for a non-fighter/FAC ship, anywhere from 8,000 to 10,000 km/s is more reasonable depending on your fleet doctrine and opposition. Your larger ships are a similar story, you have a <10k ton class with only two weapons which is cripplingly poor. These ships also look exactly the same aside from the weapons, you've basically built three ships that fill the same role i.e. a primary beam combatant. This is acceptable for a small raiding squadron but not for a fully-equipped battle fleet.
Generally the smaller the ship, the more efficient and specialized the design must be or the ship will simply not be worth having. At 5k tons I would consider this a size for a dedicated PD escort or fully-kitted sensor frigate (like, 30 HS of sensors kind of fully-kitted, EM+TH+3xActives). 10k tons would be perhaps suitable for a destroyer or light attack cruiser intended to operate with escorts which mounts a full battery of primary armament whether heavy beam weapons or ASM. Only beyond 12k or 15k tons would I start considering things like secondary armament, hangar space for small scouts, and so on.
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Personally; It's hard make small ships durable for several reasons like shock damage; if you want small you are better off with fast ships with greater range than the enemy. Second; plasma is really not a very good weapon along with mesons and to a lesser extent particle beams
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Personally; It's hard make small ships durable for several reasons like shock damage; if you want small you are better off with fast ships with greater range than the enemy. Second; plasma is really not a very good weapon along with mesons and to a lesser extent particle beams
Particle beams are pretty strong?
Especially Particle lances so idk why that is in the list of "weak" weapons
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Well, for starters, don't use plasma carronades.
But plasma goes brrrrrrr! I mean, that sounded like an only reasonable choice for wormhole defence stuff... Anything else would inevitably make them heavier and I wanted a cheap "swarm of stuff".
you've massively overloaded it with armor, shields
doubt - it's meant to fight off invaders. Some of their ships have nasty lasers. And its armor is already weak.
your 93 HS interceptor must dedicate a full 20 HS to fuel! Very inefficient
actually that one I can explain, I didn't care about fuel since it'll be sitting at one place all the time, I just wanted more speed at less weight - it'll basically arrive at jp and sit there for the rest of eternity since distances travelled in CQB beam firefight are rather irrelevant for fuel consumption, meaning in practice it's a "one-time purchase" in terms of fuel for a rather long time. If I wanted this to be more versatile I'd approach it differently.
12,000 km/s is excessive
Invaders have over 11k ships, one class can even go 13, so that's why I set 12 as a must have. Again, a specialised task for a very concrete enemy force.
you've basically built three ships that fill the same role i.e. a primary beam combatant
Is it really that bad? I wanted to have the best plasma I could have, a swarm of stuff firing every 5 secs (hence Anarchy class) to keep firing without a break and eventually a support with particle lance to gain some range. So is it bad to have a squadron of 3 ships with one role, but slightly different "subroles"?
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What he said. For small ships they need to specialize to be good at something.
Big ships are great and definitely better. But early game harder as the yards aren't big enough and they're expensive.
Plus the advantage of smaller ships is that you can afford to lose them and it doesn't cripple you. 8 5000 ton ships are usually quicker to replace than 1 40000 ton ship.
But as was already said your designs are truly bad. And I'm not trying to be offensive. Just that you may be getting a worse appreciation for how effective they can still be.
I usually start with 5-10k ships with few 30k ships as leads and capitals. But as time goes on the smallest ships are 10k and I regularly field 30-50k as my main force with a few 100k ships.
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getting a worse appreciation for how effective they can still be.
soooo... how effective they can still be?
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You are trying to have your ships do way too many things. Jump drives, sensors, not-optimized components.
If you are doing it for RP reasons, that's one thing. But you are jamming way too many components on a ship instead of making them more specialized.
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Particle beam and plasma weapons are a decent combination for beam weapons at the higher end if you can afford the research for it and have Gauss or missile for PD.
But to reflect on the size thing... you should not underestimate the importance of production speed of smaller ships as one important metric. Though... it is mainly important if you are on the defensive (or loose allot of ships) not on the offensive if you are generally stronger or at least equal in strength with the opponent.
The main benefit of larger ships is as has been said efficiency, but that comes with a hefty price in research costs and lower production efficiency. This means it takes allot more time for larger ships to show their true colours or be there at all.
The main benefit with small ships is that they can be in many places at the same time, this is particularly important in scouting... you don't want to split up your main battle fleet as it is rather expensive to loose a 30kt cruisers rather than 5kt frigate in a scouting mission. The smaller the ship the more specialised it need to be... generally at 6kt or smaller it should only really be good at one thing.
Ship size should be something that grow over time as you get bigger and bigger shipyards and you can afford to develop larger and larger main drive engines, jump engines, shields etc.. Your goal should always to build you ships as large as you can afford them if the intent is to be as combat efficient as possible.
Small ships are particularly important for scouting, raiding and system patrol/defence, it can also be good to have some small PD escort ships that are generally smaller than main active and missile control resolutions... generally 3-4000t or so. Anything below 10kt is good as a long range scout... although if the ship are larger than 4000kt you generally want some hangars in them to add some sensor scouts to them.
I generally play very slow games (tech progression at 10-20%) so I often start my main combat ship at around 8kt in size as I rarely can afford military jump drives bigger than that. Then I often have carriers at 16-24kt with commercial engines. I get slow (and cheap) but otherwise efficient carriers that also can jump without a stabilised jump point.
From there my main combat "capital" ships generally just grow dynamically in size depending on how large a jump drive I can afford to research. I usually still retain my smaller ships but often re-brand them into scouts, escorts or picket ships.
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You are trying to have your ships do way too many things. Jump drives, sensors, not-optimized components.
If you are doing it for RP reasons, that's one thing. But you are jamming way too many components on a ship instead of making them more specialized.
How would you suggest to split it then? I don't feel as this is too much - weapon, sensors because they need to target something + FTL drive for independent and quick deployment. Don't see how this is "too many".
Although yeah, if not for RP I'd just produce more Blades, Pikes and Strikers and use those instead. Or even better, design mk2 of those since they're pretty old by now and give them better ECCM and speed to match invaders. And a particle lance, same damage but twice as fast recharging than what current Pikes have, new lance is already mounted on Devastators.
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How would you suggest to split it then? I don't feel as this is too much - weapon, sensors because they need to target something + FTL drive for independent and quick deployment. Don't see how this is "too many".
Small ships are not for independent use. So instead of a small ship that has a jump drive and sensors and nearly no weapons, create multiple small ships:
- pure offensive weapon ship
- pure PD/beam weapon ship
- ship that replaces some or all of the weapons with sensors
- ship that has PD, passives, and the jump drive that can wait at the jump point while the scout, attack and pd versions take care of business.
for any particular mission you can tailor the offensive-defensive ratio. these also work well to add to a fleet of larger ships to increase the number of targets and add additional capabilities.
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How would you suggest to split it then? I don't feel as this is too much - weapon, sensors because they need to target something + FTL drive for independent and quick deployment. Don't see how this is "too many".
Although yeah, if not for RP I'd just produce more Blades, Pikes and Strikers and use those instead. Or even better, design mk2 of those since they're pretty old by now and give them better ECCM and speed to match invaders. And a particle lance, same damage but twice as fast recharging than what current Pikes have, new lance is already mounted on Devastators.
Well if you don't feel it is too much ...
The most efficient designs, which it seems like you are asking for here, focus on one thing. Davidb86 lays it out pretty well. If you want independent operations, then you need bigger ships, ethey simply don't have enough space to do a lot of things well. Drop the sensors and the jump drive and put them on one ship and you'll free up a lot of space. Slow down your engines (there are good calculators out there to optimize engine size) and you'll save space on fuel. That is my general impression of how people make viable smaller ships, that's how I do it.
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Yes... small ships are really bad at close range beam combat due to needing too much space for thick armour and their armour belt also is allot smaller too.
You need bigger ships to make use of good close range beam confrontation.
If you have small ships you need to make sure your speed is equal or better and using particle beams to stay far away is optimal for them at that point. Giving them some shield also means you can potentially rotate them in and out to regenerate shield when hit. So weak armour and decent shields could work in that case.
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How would you suggest to split it then? I don't feel as this is too much - weapon, sensors because they need to target something + FTL drive for independent and quick deployment. Don't see how this is "too many".
Although yeah, if not for RP I'd just produce more Blades, Pikes and Strikers and use those instead. Or even better, design mk2 of those since they're pretty old by now and give them better ECCM and speed to match invaders. And a particle lance, same damage but twice as fast recharging than what current Pikes have, new lance is already mounted on Devastators.
Well if you don't feel it is too much ...
The most efficient designs, which it seems like you are asking for here, focus on one thing. Davidb86 lays it out pretty well. If you want independent operations, then you need bigger ships, ethey simply don't have enough space to do a lot of things well. Drop the sensors and the jump drive and put them on one ship and you'll free up a lot of space. Slow down your engines (there are good calculators out there to optimize engine size) and you'll save space on fuel. That is my general impression of how people make viable smaller ships, that's how I do it.
Small ships are good for independent scouting missions, but not for combat missions... important to point out though.
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you've massively overloaded it with armor, shields
doubt - it's meant to fight off invaders. Some of their ships have nasty lasers. And its armor is already weak.
For wormhole defense, you're not relying on armor, you're relying on jump shock and putting out as much DPS as you can in the few increments you get before the enemy sensors come online. More to the point, you're certainly not relying on a jump drive to help you in any way (and even if this were a JP assault class, squadron jumps are a better approach).
Additionally, if the armor is already too weak, it's a serious question as to why bother with it anyways? What are you protecting your ship from? If anything it would make sense to have very light armor and put more HS into shield generators. In any case, trying to have both heavy armor and heavy shields on such a small class is more than it can reasonably manage.
Ultimately, for smaller ships you must give up something to specialize. This can and does even mean giving up armor to mount enough weapons to be effective.
your 93 HS interceptor must dedicate a full 20 HS to fuel! Very inefficient
actually that one I can explain, I didn't care about fuel since it'll be sitting at one place all the time, I just wanted more speed at less weight - it'll basically arrive at jp and sit there for the rest of eternity since distances travelled in CQB beam firefight are rather irrelevant for fuel consumption, meaning in practice it's a "one-time purchase" in terms of fuel for a rather long time. If I wanted this to be more versatile I'd approach it differently.
What you've done here is strictly suboptimal unless somehow the engine you've got here saves resources. The optimal point for propulsion design is a 3:1 engine to fuel mass ratio, although many players will design larger engines to conserve fuel. In fact, using this and running through a calculator after guesstimating your tech levels, you could achieve/exceed the same speed and range with a size 22 engine at 2.10x boost with only 6.7 HS of fuel, which conserves a large amount of space compared to your design (15 HS engine + 20 HS fuel).
you've basically built three ships that fill the same role i.e. a primary beam combatant
Is it really that bad? I wanted to have the best plasma I could have, a swarm of stuff firing every 5 secs (hence Anarchy class) to keep firing without a break and eventually a support with particle lance to gain some range. So is it bad to have a squadron of 3 ships with one role, but slightly different "subroles"?
I suppose in this specific case it makes some sense, though I wouldn't want to devote 2-3 shipyards (depending on if the latter two ships can be cross-built) just to a specialized JP squadron when I could just build one ship to do the job (and probably supplement with my main fleet to fill ancillary roles).
In any case, the major issue is that the ships need to be specialized much more efficiently than they are. Given the techs I can see here I would say to optimize the propulsion, nix the jump drives (use a tender class if you need the jump capability to get somewhere, one tender can transit an entire fleet if you're not doing squadron jumps), cut the armor to maybe 2-3 layers and use bigger shield generators instead as these will be more effective against lasers, most of all focus on getting as many guns as you can into the fight as ships with only 2-3 guns are not going to get the job done. As you have capacitor recharge 8 I would suggest using 25 cm carronades with 16-8 power and recharge, these will have ROF 10 but have much better DPS and penetration than 15 cm with 6-6. These will be 8 HS apiece which I think you can fit at least four onto a 100-HS ship (same size as 8x of the 15 cm but these are much stronger weapons) in addition to 28-30 HS of propulsion and however much for armor, shields, and basic sensors. For the 200-HS (10k ton) ships at least double that should be feasible, possibly plus an extra due to tonnage efficiency.
I would personally probably not use such a small class, and use a class closer to the 15,000 ton range at least for JP defense. This would be a good balance between having enough hull size to mount a good weapons battery with adequate protection, and small enough to produce at a reasonable clip out of my shipyards by this stage of the game. Of course if I were truly desperate I'd be building something cheap and spamable like unarmored plasma FACs, but I assume you're not under quite so much pressure here.
If you only make one change from the feedback in this thread, the #1 #2 and #3 change to make is to axe the jump drives and use a separate tender if you need jump capability. Unless you require a jump drive on every ship for RP reasons in which case - good luck, you'll need it!
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I don't understand how your particle lances have less range than your plasma carronades. Your teching is very weird.
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I don't understand how your particle lances have less range than your plasma carronades. Your teching is very weird.
Plasma tech is extremely cheap, that is how.
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I don't understand how your particle lances have less range than your plasma carronades. Your teching is very weird.
Also keep in mind that while the plasma technically has more range, practically speaking the particle beams will do a lot more damage near their max range due to not having damage fall-off.
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I agree with almost everything people are saying here with the exception of dropping active sensors. There is almost zero reason not to include sub 1hs active sensor of some sort on every ship with a gun.
That being said, looking specifically at your Anarchy class. You say your stated goal for this vessel is to operate as a swarm of beam combatants as defenders at jump points and move little if at all outside of that role. Given that role description, I can say the following.
1. Your fuel tanks are massively overturned for your role. Deploy a micro fuel tanker design to escort them to their destination and save yourself 500-800 tons on your swarm ships.
2. These are close range beam combatants intended to engage spoilers at point blank range. If they come under fire their shields will NOT have the opportunity to recharge. Therefore shields on this design/role are little more than vastly overweight armor. Instead give yourself more actual armor and save some tonnage in the trade.
3. As their role is defensive, they will not be breaking into squadrons and doing offensive jumps. Therefore a jump drive is only required to arrive at their destination. This can be accomplished via a dedicated jump tender design, or incorporated into other existing support vessels.
4. You have 3 guns, a massively overturned fire control range....and a CIC. Instead of a CIC you could mount an entire additional weapon. Unless your tactical officer on every single one of these designs is godlike, and you regularly encounter situations where your overtuned range and crew grade don’t approach a 100% hit chance, this class will always be better with another gun instead of the CIC.
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2. These are close range beam combatants intended to engage spoilers at point blank range. If they come under fire their shields will NOT have the opportunity to recharge. Therefore shields on this design/role are little more than vastly overweight armor. Instead give yourself more actual armor and save some tonnage in the trade.
Shields are actually an ideal module to mount here instead of armor, because they blunt the penetration ability of lasers and in fact any other weapons that would overmatch armor. Of course the most firepower is gained from mounting no shields and 1 layer of armor, but if some protection is desired shields work quite well in the specific case OP is dealing with.
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Shields are actually an ideal module to mount here instead of armor, because they blunt the penetration ability of lasers and in fact any other weapons that would overmatch armor. Of course the most firepower is gained from mounting no shields and 1 layer of armor, but if some protection is desired shields work quite well in the specific case OP is dealing with.
You’re probably not wrong here. I’m so used to either deploying with particle beams where incoming laser damage is attenuated to next to nothing, or I’m crashing the party with thick enough armor that a 40 point laser blast won’t pen. I forgot how much better shields are at dealing with point blank lasers if you’re not dedicating enough tonnage for armor thick enough to resist.
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A good way to get more bang for your buck with small ships is make them carrier based. A 30k ton carrier can carry several 3-5k ton ships. You can mount some pretty effective weapons on 3-5k ton ships and still get good speed and reasonable armor/shields if you can live with shorter range parasites (I've had good luck with parasites capable of about 1b km).
Carrier-based ships can also get away with reduced engineering spaces as they can't suffer maintenance failures when docked at their mothership. More space for guns and engines 😎
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you've massively overloaded it with armor, shields
doubt - it's meant to fight off invaders. Some of their ships have nasty lasers. And its armor is already weak.
For wormhole defense, you're not relying on armor, you're relying on jump shock and putting out as much DPS as you can in the few increments you get before the enemy sensors come online. More to the point, you're certainly not relying on a jump drive to help you in any way (and even if this were a JP assault class, squadron jumps are a better approach).
Additionally, if the armor is already too weak, it's a serious question as to why bother with it anyways? What are you protecting your ship from? If anything it would make sense to have very light armor and put more HS into shield generators. In any case, trying to have both heavy armor and heavy shields on such a small class is more than it can reasonably manage.
Ultimately, for smaller ships you must give up something to specialize. This can and does even mean giving up armor to mount enough weapons to be effective.
your 93 HS interceptor must dedicate a full 20 HS to fuel! Very inefficient
actually that one I can explain, I didn't care about fuel since it'll be sitting at one place all the time, I just wanted more speed at less weight - it'll basically arrive at jp and sit there for the rest of eternity since distances travelled in CQB beam firefight are rather irrelevant for fuel consumption, meaning in practice it's a "one-time purchase" in terms of fuel for a rather long time. If I wanted this to be more versatile I'd approach it differently.
What you've done here is strictly suboptimal unless somehow the engine you've got here saves resources. The optimal point for propulsion design is a 3:1 engine to fuel mass ratio, although many players will design larger engines to conserve fuel. In fact, using this and running through a calculator after guesstimating your tech levels, you could achieve/exceed the same speed and range with a size 22 engine at 2.10x boost with only 6.7 HS of fuel, which conserves a large amount of space compared to your design (15 HS engine + 20 HS fuel).
you've basically built three ships that fill the same role i.e. a primary beam combatant
Is it really that bad? I wanted to have the best plasma I could have, a swarm of stuff firing every 5 secs (hence Anarchy class) to keep firing without a break and eventually a support with particle lance to gain some range. So is it bad to have a squadron of 3 ships with one role, but slightly different "subroles"?
I suppose in this specific case it makes some sense, though I wouldn't want to devote 2-3 shipyards (depending on if the latter two ships can be cross-built) just to a specialized JP squadron when I could just build one ship to do the job (and probably supplement with my main fleet to fill ancillary roles).
In any case, the major issue is that the ships need to be specialized much more efficiently than they are. Given the techs I can see here I would say to optimize the propulsion, nix the jump drives (use a tender class if you need the jump capability to get somewhere, one tender can transit an entire fleet if you're not doing squadron jumps), cut the armor to maybe 2-3 layers and use bigger shield generators instead as these will be more effective against lasers, most of all focus on getting as many guns as you can into the fight as ships with only 2-3 guns are not going to get the job done. As you have capacitor recharge 8 I would suggest using 25 cm carronades with 16-8 power and recharge, these will have ROF 10 but have much better DPS and penetration than 15 cm with 6-6. These will be 8 HS apiece which I think you can fit at least four onto a 100-HS ship (same size as 8x of the 15 cm but these are much stronger weapons) in addition to 28-30 HS of propulsion and however much for armor, shields, and basic sensors. For the 200-HS (10k ton) ships at least double that should be feasible, possibly plus an extra due to tonnage efficiency.
I would personally probably not use such a small class, and use a class closer to the 15,000 ton range at least for JP defense. This would be a good balance between having enough hull size to mount a good weapons battery with adequate protection, and small enough to produce at a reasonable clip out of my shipyards by this stage of the game. Of course if I were truly desperate I'd be building something cheap and spamable like unarmored plasma FACs, but I assume you're not under quite so much pressure here.
If you only make one change from the feedback in this thread, the #1 #2 and #3 change to make is to axe the jump drives and use a separate tender if you need jump capability. Unless you require a jump drive on every ship for RP reasons in which case - good luck, you'll need it!
Well, thanks... Fair enough, guess for mk2 I'll scrap FTL drives (although yeah, RP was the main reason), though I'll insist on keeping sensors on and maybe I'll scrap armor in favour of getting better shield generators or something. And you've mentioned 25 plasma, how ironic given I designed it initially together with 15 and 40, only to remind myself of its existence long after many of those things left my shipyards. Also how ironic you've mentioned 15k tons range, because, well, my Pike+Blade+Striker dream team is at that, just wanted to try out plasma because I fell in love with missile dps without having to have missiles (and yeah, RP, all sacrifices for my AAR...)
Last thing, engines. I have a hate-hate relationship with them. I don't rely on external calculations (so what if I lose efficiency, it's a game, not a job, I'm not computing stuff ;)), instead I just try to get some intuition as to how things work and after several battles already got to the level of having a grasp of what my ships can and can't reliably do and how to use them and what to improve and so on. But engines, oh damn, despite all that time I still feel blind and clueless as to how should I do it "intuitively" to be good enough.
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A good way to get more bang for your buck with small ships is make them carrier based. A 30k ton carrier can carry several 3-5k ton ships. You can mount some pretty effective weapons on 3-5k ton ships and still get good speed and reasonable armor/shields if you can live with shorter range parasites (I've had good luck with parasites capable of about 1b km).
Carrier-based ships can also get away with reduced engineering spaces as they can't suffer maintenance failures when docked at their mothership. More space for guns and engines 😎
That I want to avoid because that's yet another ship design and production to bother with... And I wanted to start spitting them out quickly out of my growing colonies.
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1. Your fuel tanks are massively overturned for your role. Deploy a micro fuel tanker design to escort them to their destination and save yourself 500-800 tons on your swarm ships.
4. You have 3 guns, a massively overturned fire control range....and a CIC. Instead of a CIC you could mount an entire additional weapon. Unless your tactical officer on every single one of these designs is godlike, and you regularly encounter situations where your overtuned range and crew grade don’t approach a 100% hit chance, this class will always be better with another gun instead of the CIC.
Well, as for 1, I technically could but I fear too much micro with positioning them will be involved.
As for 4, "overturned" fire control range is there for accuracy...
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Also a side question: what do you think of my "PikeBladeStriker" combo? Guess it could be made better and stuff, but it served me well during numerus battles so far... Strikers are the best, Pikes unfortunately turned out to be a bit slower than Invaders (designed them before first contact as a part of general-purpose assault fleet and back then that over 10 000km/s sounded decent enough), Blades have a niche role because mesons, but once they do get in range and fire those guns ignoring armor... ;) Also they make for a good cannon fodder as they suffer the highest casaulties as Invaders always target these for whatever reason (and Pikes because they're the slowest, but their speed also means they see less combat than Blades and Strikers), allowing Strikers to survive unharmed and keep on firing.
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As for 4, "overturned" fire control range is there for accuracy...
Yup, and nothing wrong with that. The point being made was that with such short range guns and an overtuned BFC, your hit chances are already VERY high inside that range bracket. That being the case, you had very limited opportunity (if any, good crew could easily put you over 100% anyhow) for a tactical officer to improve your hit chances at all, and even if he could it would be a small amount. Given that fact it would give you more damage on target to mount an additional gun instead of a CIC.
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Shields are actually an ideal module to mount here instead of armor, because they blunt the penetration ability of lasers and in fact any other weapons that would overmatch armor. Of course the most firepower is gained from mounting no shields and 1 layer of armor, but if some protection is desired shields work quite well in the specific case OP is dealing with.
You’re probably not wrong here. I’m so used to either deploying with particle beams where incoming laser damage is attenuated to next to nothing, or I’m crashing the party with thick enough armor that a 40 point laser blast won’t pen. I forgot how much better shields are at dealing with point blank lasers if you’re not dedicating enough tonnage for armor thick enough to resist.
But shields are even BETTER if you can maintain range, especially if you use particle beams and have fast ships and can dictate the engagement.
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Last thing, engines. I have a hate-hate relationship with them. I don't rely on external calculations (so what if I lose efficiency, it's a game, not a job, I'm not computing stuff ;)), instead I just try to get some intuition as to how things work and after several battles already got to the level of having a grasp of what my ships can and can't reliably do and how to use them and what to improve and so on. But engines, oh damn, despite all that time I still feel blind and clueless as to how should I do it "intuitively" to be good enough.
You can get 95% of the way there on engines if you remember that 3:1 ratio of (total) engine to fuel mass gives optimal performance on a per-ton basis - and that a higher ratio is more fuel-efficient. If you find yourself erring on the side of a smaller ratio, like 2:1 engine to fuel, you're probably building a bad design because there's rarely any need to build such a small engine that drinks so much fuel (even on fighters this is pretty rare).
If you try to stick close to this ratio, or err on the heavier side for fuel efficiency, it's a good starting point to develop an intuition. Of course everyone does things differently, notably I believe Steve sticks to a 1.0x modifier pretty religiously and just builds engines big enough to get the speed he desires as he doesn't care for messing about with calculators and such. I do things differently in each campaign depending on my RP approach.
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here's some of my current campaign Frigates and other small ships all sub 5k.
I'm personally love small ships and throw packets and pickets any where and everywhere. escorting destroy groups, carrier task groups, orbital landing groups or cruiser squadrons. Small Warships gives a tactical flexibility you don't get with the large ones. i can upgrade these and build them constantly, i can attach them to whatever capital group is ready for deployment or prepositioned as rapid force squadrons to reinforce system defense FAC groups.
Adm Farragut Series of Railgun Frigates general purpose light combatants
Admiral Farragut I class Frigate 3,469 tons 113 Crew 1,120.3 BP TCS 69 TH 125 EM 270
3603 km/s Armour 3-20 Shields 9-270 HTK 29 Sensors 14/14/0/0 DCR 2 PPV 14
Maint Life 4.91 Years MSP 803 AFR 48% IFR 0.7% 1YR 55 5YR 827 Max Repair 207.8 MSP
Commander Control Rating 2 BRG AUX
Intended Deployment Time: 6 months Morale Check Required
Military - Patrol Service Ion Drive (1) Power 250 Fuel Use 35.36% Signature 125.0 Explosion 10%
Fuel Capacity 300,000 Litres Range 44 billion km (141 days at full power)
Gen 1 Delta Z05 - S09 / R270 Shields (1) Recharge Time 270 seconds (0 per second)
Gen 1 20cm Railgun V50/C12 (2x4) Range 200,000km TS: 6,250 km/s Power 12-12 RM 50,000 km ROF 5
Gen 1 Beam Fire Control R288-TS06250 (2) Max Range: 288,000 km TS: 6,250 km/s 97 93 90 86 83 79 76 72 69 65
Gen 1 Gas-Cooled Fast Reactor R024 (1) Total Power Output 24.4 Exp 10%
G1 Active Search Sensor AS030-R020 COM (1) GPS 560 Range 30.3m km Resolution 20
G1 Active Search Sensor AS011-R001 COM (1) GPS 28 Range 11.2m km MCR 1m km Resolution 1
G1 COM EM Sensor EM1.0-14.0 (1) Sensitivity 14 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 29.6m km
G1 COM Thermal Sensor TH1.0-14.0 (1) Sensitivity 14 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 29.6m km
This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
Admiral Farragut II class Frigate 3,427 tons 112 Crew 1,170.7 BP TCS 69 TH 160 EM 270
4669 km/s Armour 3-20 Shields 9-270 HTK 29 Sensors 14/14/0/0 DCR 2 PPV 14
Maint Life 4.68 Years MSP 827 AFR 47% IFR 0.7% 1YR 62 5YR 926 Max Repair 240 MSP
Commander Control Rating 2 BRG AUX
Intended Deployment Time: 6 months Morale Check Required
Military - Patrol Magneto-plasma Drive (1) Power 320 Fuel Use 35.36% Signature 160.0 Explosion 10%
Fuel Capacity 300,000 Litres Range 44.6 billion km (110 days at full power)
Gen 1 Delta Z05 - S09 / R270 Shields (1) Recharge Time 270 seconds (0 per second)
Gen 1 20cm Railgun V50/C12 (2x4) Range 200,000km TS: 6,250 km/s Power 12-12 RM 50,000 km ROF 5
Gen 1 Beam Fire Control R288-TS06250 (2) Max Range: 288,000 km TS: 6,250 km/s 97 93 90 86 83 79 76 72 69 65
Gen-7 Tokamak Fusion Reactor R024 (1) Total Power Output 24.2 Exp 10%
G1 Active Search Sensor AS030-R020 COM (1) GPS 560 Range 30.3m km Resolution 20
G1 Active Search Sensor AS011-R001 COM (1) GPS 28 Range 11.2m km MCR 1m km Resolution 1
G1 COM EM Sensor EM1.0-14.0 (1) Sensitivity 14 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 29.6m km
G1 COM Thermal Sensor TH1.0-14.0 (1) Sensitivity 14 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 29.6m km
This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
Admiral Farragut III class Frigate 3,933 tons 130 Crew 1,495.3 BP TCS 79 TH 500 EM 900
6357 km/s Armour 3-22 Shields 30-360 HTK 33 Sensors 14/14/0/0 DCR 2 PPV 17.85
Maint Life 4.05 Years MSP 875 AFR 62% IFR 0.9% 1YR 85 5YR 1,277 Max Repair 250 MSP
Commander Control Rating 2 BRG AUX
Intended Deployment Time: 6 months Morale Check Required
Military - Patrol Magnetic Fusion Drive (1) Power 500 Fuel Use 28.28% Signature 500 Explosion 10%
Fuel Capacity 300,000 Litres Range 48.5 billion km (88 days at full power)
Gen 2 Epsilon Z10 - S30 / R360 Shields (1) Recharge Time 360 seconds (0.1 per second)
Gen 2 20cm Railgun V60/C12 (2x4) Range 240,000km TS: 6,357 km/s Power 12-12 RM 60,000 km ROF 5
Gen 2 20cm Railgun V60/C06 Twin Bore (1x2) Range 240,000km TS: 6,357 km/s Power 6-6 RM 60,000 km ROF 5
Gen 1 Beam Fire Control R288-TS06250 (2) Max Range: 288,000 km TS: 6,250 km/s 97 93 90 86 83 79 76 72 69 65
Gen-8 Magnetic Confinement Fusion Reactor R030 (1) Total Power Output 30 Exp 7%
G1 Active Search Sensor AS011-R001 COM (1) GPS 28 Range 11.2m km MCR 1m km Resolution 1
G1 Active Search Sensor AS042-R020 BAT (1) GPS 1120 Range 42.9m km Resolution 20
G1 COM EM Sensor EM1.0-14.0 (1) Sensitivity 14 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 29.6m km
G1 COM Thermal Sensor TH1.0-14.0 (1) Sensitivity 14 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 29.6m km
This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
Adm Wroth Class of K/Lance Frigates
Admiral Wroth I class Kinetic Frigate 3,145 tons 95 Crew 869.8 BP TCS 63 TH 125 EM 270
3975 km/s Armour 3-19 Shields 9-270 HTK 26 Sensors 14/14/0/0 DCR 2 PPV 10
Maint Life 5.21 Years MSP 745 AFR 40% IFR 0.5% 1YR 46 5YR 686 Max Repair 244.9 MSP
Commander Control Rating 2 BRG AUX
Intended Deployment Time: 6 months Morale Check Required
Military - Patrol Service Ion Drive (1) Power 250 Fuel Use 35.36% Signature 125.0 Explosion 10%
Fuel Capacity 300,000 Litres Range 48.6 billion km (141 days at full power)
Gen 1 Delta Z05 - S09 / R270 Shields (1) Recharge Time 270 seconds (0 per second)
Gen 1 Particle Beam-12 (1) Range 200,000km TS: 6,250 km/s Power 30-10 ROF 15
Gen 1 Beam Fire Control R288-TS06250 (1) Max Range: 288,000 km TS: 6,250 km/s 97 93 90 86 83 79 76 72 69 65
Gen 1 Gas-Cooled Fast Reactor R030 (1) Total Power Output 30.2 Exp 20%
G1 Active Search Sensor AS030-R020 COM (1) GPS 560 Range 30.3m km Resolution 20
G1 Active Search Sensor AS011-R001 COM (1) GPS 28 Range 11.2m km MCR 1m km Resolution 1
G1 COM EM Sensor EM1.0-14.0 (1) Sensitivity 14 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 29.6m km
G1 COM Thermal Sensor TH1.0-14.0 (1) Sensitivity 14 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 29.6m km
This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
Admiral Wroth II class Kinetic Frigate 3,113 tons 94 Crew 922.8 BP TCS 62 TH 160 EM 270
5140 km/s Armour 3-18 Shields 9-270 HTK 26 Sensors 14/14/0/0 DCR 2 PPV 10
Maint Life 4.98 Years MSP 770 AFR 39% IFR 0.5% 1YR 52 5YR 774 Max Repair 244.9 MSP
Commander Control Rating 2 BRG AUX
Intended Deployment Time: 6 months Morale Check Required
Military - Patrol Magneto-plasma Drive (1) Power 320 Fuel Use 35.36% Signature 160.0 Explosion 10%
Fuel Capacity 300,000 Litres Range 49.1 billion km (110 days at full power)
Gen 1 Delta Z05 - S09 / R270 Shields (1) Recharge Time 270 seconds (0 per second)
Gen 1 Particle Beam-12 (1) Range 200,000km TS: 6,250 km/s Power 30-10 ROF 15
Gen 1 Beam Fire Control R288-TS06250 (1) Max Range: 288,000 km TS: 6,250 km/s 97 93 90 86 83 79 76 72 69 65
Gen-7 Tokamak Fusion Reactor R030 (1) Total Power Output 30.5 Exp 15%
G1 Active Search Sensor AS030-R020 COM (1) GPS 560 Range 30.3m km Resolution 20
G1 Active Search Sensor AS011-R001 COM (1) GPS 28 Range 11.2m km MCR 1m km Resolution 1
G1 COM EM Sensor EM1.0-14.0 (1) Sensitivity 14 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 29.6m km
G1 COM Thermal Sensor TH1.0-14.0 (1) Sensitivity 14 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 29.6m km
This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
Admiral Wroth III class Lance Frigate 3,147 tons 99 Crew 1,132.4 BP TCS 63 TH 500 EM 330
7945 km/s Armour 3-19 Shields 11-264 HTK 27 Sensors 14/14/0/0 DCR 2 PPV 12
Maint Life 4.33 Years MSP 849 AFR 40% IFR 0.6% 1YR 73 5YR 1,092 Max Repair 466.5 MSP
Commander Control Rating 2 BRG AUX
Intended Deployment Time: 6 months Morale Check Required
Military - Patrol Magnetic Fusion Drive (1) Power 500 Fuel Use 28.28% Signature 500 Explosion 10%
Fuel Capacity 300,000 Litres Range 60.7 billion km (88 days at full power)
Gen 2 Epsilon Z05 - S11 / R264 Shields (1) Recharge Time 264 seconds (0 per second)
Gen 1 Particle Lance-06 (1) Range 240,000km TS: 7,945 km/s Power 17-12 ROF 10
Gen 1 Beam Fire Control R288-TS06250 (1) Max Range: 288,000 km TS: 6,250 km/s 97 93 90 86 83 79 76 72 69 65
Gen-8 Magnetic Confinement Fusion Reactor R021 (1) Total Power Output 21.2 Exp 7%
G1 Active Search Sensor AS030-R020 COM (1) GPS 560 Range 30.3m km Resolution 20
G1 Active Search Sensor AS011-R001 COM (1) GPS 28 Range 11.2m km MCR 1m km Resolution 1
G1 COM EM Sensor EM1.0-14.0 (1) Sensitivity 14 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 29.6m km
G1 COM Thermal Sensor TH1.0-14.0 (1) Sensitivity 14 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 29.6m km
This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
COMD Dewey Gunship Series my PD escort class
Commodore Dewey III class Gunship 2,820 tons 69 Crew 707.2 BP TCS 56 TH 200 EM 30
7094 km/s Armour 2-17 Shields 1-150 HTK 23 Sensors 14/14/0/0 DCR 1 PPV 16.32
Maint Life 3.03 Years MSP 556 AFR 64% IFR 0.9% 1YR 91 5YR 1,362 Max Repair 240 MSP
Cryogenic Berths 200
Commander Control Rating 2 BRG AUX
Intended Deployment Time: 6 months Morale Check Required
Military - Vanguard Magnetic Fusion Drive (1) Power 400 Fuel Use 16.19% Signature 200.0 Explosion 8%
Fuel Capacity 200,000 Litres Range 78.9 billion km (128 days at full power)
Gen 1 Gamma Z01 - S01 / R150 Shields (1) Recharge Time 150 seconds (0 per second)
Gen 1 Gauss Cannon R500-100 Twin Turret (1x12) Range 50,000km TS: 25000 km/s Power 0-0 RM 50,000 km ROF 5
Gen 1 Beam Fire Control R096-TS25000 (1) Max Range: 96,000 km TS: 25,000 km/s 90 79 69 58 48 38 27 17 6 0
G1 Active Search Sensor AS011-R001 COM (1) GPS 28 Range 11.2m km MCR 1m km Resolution 1
G1 COM EM Sensor EM1.0-14.0 (1) Sensitivity 14 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 29.6m km
G1 COM Thermal Sensor TH1.0-14.0 (1) Sensitivity 14 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 29.6m km
This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
COMD Porter series of escort Area defense escorts
Commodore Porter III class Escort 3,021 tons 80 Crew 644.2 BP TCS 60 TH 200 EM 30
6622 km/s Armour 2-18 Shields 1-150 HTK 32 Sensors 14/14/0/0 DCR 1 PPV 10
Maint Life 3.42 Years MSP 533 AFR 73% IFR 1.0% 1YR 69 5YR 1,041 Max Repair 240 MSP
Magazine 180
Commander Control Rating 2 BRG AUX
Intended Deployment Time: 5 months Morale Check Required
Military - Vanguard Magnetic Fusion Drive (1) Power 400 Fuel Use 16.19% Signature 200.0 Explosion 8%
Fuel Capacity 200,000 Litres Range 73.6 billion km (128 days at full power)
Gen 1 Gamma Z01 - S01 / R150 Shields (1) Recharge Time 150 seconds (0 per second)
Gen 1 Size 1 Missile Launcher (10) Missile Size: 1 Rate of Fire 5
G1 Missile Fire Control FC022-R001 Standard (3) Range 22.3m km Resolution 1
AMR G1 'Kongo' (180) Speed: 49,600 km/s End: 1.6m Range: 4.7m km WH: 1 Size: 1 TH: 281/168/84
G1 Active Search Sensor AS011-R001 COM (1) GPS 28 Range 11.2m km MCR 1m km Resolution 1
G1 COM EM Sensor EM1.0-14.0 (1) Sensitivity 14 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 29.6m km
G1 COM Thermal Sensor TH1.0-14.0 (1) Sensitivity 14 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 29.6m km
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
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But shields are even BETTER if you can maintain range, especially if you use particle beams and have fast ships and can dictate the engagement.
Better against attenuated beams, yes. However, since particles rule the "I'm faster than you and can hold any range I want beam murder" bracket, I don't need the extra edge of shields to win.
Therefore I spec to deal with the threats I'm not guaranteed to crush as a matter of course, that being endless hordes of AMM's sleeting into me. In that case I really, really want the extra raw damage totals I can absorb with more armor, rather than my shields getting the long range railgun treatment and...you know...exploding.
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But shields are even BETTER if you can maintain range, especially if you use particle beams and have fast ships and can dictate the engagement.
Better against attenuated beams, yes. However, since particles rule the "I'm faster than you and can hold any range I want beam murder" bracket, I don't need the extra edge of shields to win.
Therefore I spec to deal with the threats I'm not guaranteed to crush as a matter of course, that being endless hordes of AMM's sleeting into me. In that case I really, really want the extra raw damage totals I can absorb with more armor, rather than my shields getting the long range railgun treatment and...you know...exploding.
But the shields are still better than getting hit in the armour, right?
You known that you can back off a ship and recharge the shield and then get back in to the fight?
In my multi-faction games during pure beam combat it is quite common to use shields and then withdraw ships to longer range to recharge the shield... make long range combat eat allot of MSP and eventually ending the fight. Even the slower side can do this as the faster side either have to chase after the ship disengaging and facing the other ships at a closer range or keep distance and let the ship recharge it's shields.
I know that it is allot easier against the AI that don't use advanced tactics or formations during beam combat and have all their ship in one big ball.
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But shields are even BETTER if you can maintain range, especially if you use particle beams and have fast ships and can dictate the engagement.
Better against attenuated beams, yes. However, since particles rule the "I'm faster than you and can hold any range I want beam murder" bracket, I don't need the extra edge of shields to win.
Therefore I spec to deal with the threats I'm not guaranteed to crush as a matter of course, that being endless hordes of AMM's sleeting into me. In that case I really, really want the extra raw damage totals I can absorb with more armor, rather than my shields getting the long range railgun treatment and...you know...exploding.
But the shields are still better than getting hit in the armour, right?
You known that you can back off a ship and recharge the shield and then get back in to the fight?
In my multi-faction games during pure beam combat it is quite common to use shields and then withdraw ships to longer range to recharge the shield... make long range combat eat allot of MSP and eventually ending the fight. Even the slower side can do this as the faster side either have to chase after the ship disengaging and facing the other ships at a closer range or keep distance and let the ship recharge it's shields.
I know that it is allot easier against the AI that don't use advanced tactics or formations during beam combat and have all their ship in one big ball.
I think the point was that, since PB+speed alone mean you're gonna win the pure beam combat even without shields, going for more armor and less shields is preferred for the scenario of AMM spam. Sure, it's suboptimal for pure beam combat. But it means they have a better chance in the case where they might otherwise lose.
Basically, shields are "win more" for pure beam combat, when all that matters is "win enough." And so they prefer to make defense decisions that hopefully let them "win enough" in a wider variety of scenarios.
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I think the point was that, since PB+speed alone mean you're gonna win the pure beam combat even without shields, going for more armor and less shields is preferred for the scenario of AMM spam. Sure, it's suboptimal for pure beam combat. But it means they have a better chance in the case where they might otherwise lose.
Basically, shields are "win more" for pure beam combat, when all that matters is "win enough." And so they prefer to make defense decisions that hopefully let them "win enough" in a wider variety of scenarios.
To be fair I never understood the problem with AMM spam against beam ships. I really never find myself in a situation this is a problem. As my fleets usually are designed to fight either box launched or reduced launcher attacks I tend to have enough PD to deal with AMM if I'm force into a close range situation.
Aside from that I always must prioritise AMM ship with ASM first as they are usually key to defend against mass missile attacks. So when it is time for close range attack most of the AMM ships should already have been disabled along with most beam ships.
If you have a beam only fleet than PD to deal with AMM should not really be much of a problem to begin with unless you charge a fleet that is much larger than yours. If you also is faster then them you should still be able to use your shields to tank AMM spam by taking some hits and retreat out of their range... is there much reason to charge them until they just spent all their AMM against your shields.
AMM should in most situation be a none issue.
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To be fair I never understood the problem with AMM spam against beam ships. I really never find myself in a situation this is a problem. As my fleets usually are designed to fight either box launched or reduced launcher attacks I tend to have enough PD to deal with AMM if I'm force into a close range situation.
Aside from that I always must prioritise AMM ship with ASM first as they are usually key to defend against mass missile attacks. So when it is time for close range attack most of the AMM ships should already have been disabled along with most beam ships.
If you have a beam only fleet than PD to deal with AMM should not really be much of a problem to begin with unless you charge a fleet that is much larger than yours. If you also is faster then them you should still be able to use your shields to tank AMM spam by taking some hits and retreat out of their range... is there much reason to charge them until they just spent all their AMM against your shields.
AMM should in most situation be a none issue.
In point of fact my current game, for my faction, is beam only. No missiles to be found. Current fleet consists of 45kt carriers loaded with 400t rail fighters and 12kt “destroyers” that are armed with particle beams. As it’s a 10% research game I don’t have a lot of excess RPs to splash about, and I roleplay a parliamentary system that, amongst other things, severely limits the tonnage of my military assets (although I have a VERY robust commercial side).
The practical effect is that I am almost always fighting a superior sized force tonnage wise, and have virtually no RP to splash on gauss technology. Rail fighters can take out enough incoming ordnance to protect me from ASM’s, but AMMs can get through.
Since I don’t allow myself to respond to the glaringly obvious 5 second forced increment screaming “incoming AMM spam” until I actually see the missiles on scopes, and the AI is rarely stupid enough to launch at maximum range, I can’t bounce in and out of range to recharge shields. Since I have no missiles I can’t take those vessels out at range...I need to weather the storm instead. Hence armor over shields, because I need a win button for multiple potential engagements, not a win more button for beam engagements where I can crush the opfor with or without.
I “could” twiddle about for a couple centuries to get all the myriad techs, but since I have “spoilers” enabled and they couldn’t give a rats behind about tech speed settings...no dallying about.
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To be fair I never understood the problem with AMM spam against beam ships. I really never find myself in a situation this is a problem. As my fleets usually are designed to fight either box launched or reduced launcher attacks I tend to have enough PD to deal with AMM if I'm force into a close range situation.
Aside from that I always must prioritise AMM ship with ASM first as they are usually key to defend against mass missile attacks. So when it is time for close range attack most of the AMM ships should already have been disabled along with most beam ships.
If you have a beam only fleet than PD to deal with AMM should not really be much of a problem to begin with unless you charge a fleet that is much larger than yours. If you also is faster then them you should still be able to use your shields to tank AMM spam by taking some hits and retreat out of their range... is there much reason to charge them until they just spent all their AMM against your shields.
AMM should in most situation be a none issue.
In point of fact my current game, for my faction, is beam only. No missiles to be found. Current fleet consists of 45kt carriers loaded with 400t rail fighters and 12kt “destroyers” that are armed with particle beams. As it’s a 10% research game I don’t have a lot of excess RPs to splash about, and I roleplay a parliamentary system that, amongst other things, severely limits the tonnage of my military assets (although I have a VERY robust commercial side).
The practical effect is that I am almost always fighting a superior sized force tonnage wise, and have virtually no RP to splash on gauss technology. Rail fighters can take out enough incoming ordnance to protect me from ASM’s, but AMMs can get through.
Since I don’t allow myself to respond to the glaringly obvious 5 second forced increment screaming “incoming AMM spam” until I actually see the missiles on scopes, and the AI is rarely stupid enough to launch at maximum range, I can’t bounce in and out of range to recharge shields. Since I have no missiles I can’t take those vessels out at range...I need to weather the storm instead. Hence armor over shields, because I need a win button for multiple potential engagements, not a win more button for beam engagements where I can crush the opfor with or without.
I “could” twiddle about for a couple centuries to get all the myriad techs, but since I have “spoilers” enabled and they couldn’t give a rats behind about tech speed settings...no dallying about.
Why not use small sensor scouts to fly under the resolution 1 radar... You can create a 5t engine and a 5t res 1 sensor to detect their missile quite far out so you don't have to weather them at close range... You could have the Destroyers fall back and recharge their shields as you can see the missile coming a mile away, you also increase the tracking bonus for the PD as well. You also could at least develop a rudimentary missile launcher and use probes to with a resolution 1 sensor as well and still stay in character with not using missiles.
Anyway.. you fight the AI so there are probably many ways to solve the problem without resorting to cheating which I don't like to do... It is odd though the AI don't just target your rail-gun fighters as that would be way smarter than your destroyers to start with, but that is AI for you...
You are just lucky you don't face large fighter or FAC launched swarms of missiles either then, that would force you to bring enough rail-gun fighters to easily deal with AMM. AI mostly use rather inefficient full size missile launchers on their designs which is to easy to defeat with the most rudimentary beam point-defence system.
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Last thing, engines. I have a hate-hate relationship with them. I don't rely on external calculations (so what if I lose efficiency, it's a game, not a job, I'm not computing stuff ;)),
You do you, but that a) isn't how the calculators work (you tell it your tech level and what size/speed you want and it tells you what to build and b) your intuition might be right, but I found that much of mine was not once I started seeing optimized designs.
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I use only missile optimizer since it lets me tinker directly with the parameters I care about, removing the abstraction layer of choosing agility etc etc
But otherwise I'm not fond of switching to external programs constantly, especially that researching engines is expensive, so I'd rather have "a few sizes fit all" rather than trying to come up with new designs for every or at least almost every ship class.
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Yeah I don't like relying on external assistance as well. I only use aurora electrons with any regularity since that makes it easier to keep track of the whole empire
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It is perfectly fine to play the game on intuition... you don't really compete with anyone and most of us use heavy role-play anyway. I have MANY restrictions in my game that is not set by the rules system or the game itself. So I play pretty sub optimal in many regards.
Optimising every system is pretty expensive research wise so not always a good idea, optimising for speed efficiency also come at the expense of fuel consumption so there are different ways to optimise an engine.
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It is perfectly fine to play the game on intuition... you don't really compete with anyone and most of us use heavy role-play anyway. I have MANY restrictions in my game that is not set by the rules system or the game itself. So I play pretty sub optimal in many regards.
This! I personally have never built a warship bigger than 20k, and in my current game 15k is going to be the hard limit for capitals.