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C# Aurora => C# Bureau of Design => Topic started by: Hobojoe694 on September 18, 2021, 08:43:13 PM

Title: Ship building suggestions
Post by: Hobojoe694 on September 18, 2021, 08:43:13 PM

Hello all, I am new to posting here and want some feedback and suggestions for designing a fleet in a design bureau kind of setting.

Starting from a conventional start and I would like to keep this going until the game ends, generally when I play I am very passive and I want to break that this time meaning I will have to focus much more on military ships than what I usually do, after all it isn't that hard to make a missile boat with 100 tubes and multiply that until the enemy is dead.

as of 6:15PM PST I am just starting a new game and I think I have a general plan for the layouts but frankly I'm not sure.

May also cross post this to fiction, depending on my playtime and work/ family, I have a 1 Y/O thats walking so yea its difficult sometimes.

the plan goes as this:
ship size for combat classes starts 10kt, with each class jump doubling the previous with some exceptions. Also yes I know this is big but frankly I see 10kt as the start of being able to have ships that can kind of do everything you want them to without hyper specializing which I want to stay away from as I just see that as something that just wouldn't happen unless absolutely necessary. example chart would go like this:

Frigate - 10KT
Frigate leader/ Destroyer Escort (or something along those lines - 15KT
Destroyer - 20KT
Destroyer leader - 25KT
Light Cruiser - 30KT
Cruiser - 40KT
Heavy Cruiser - 50KT
etc.

for weapons would like to focus on beams and the mainstay of each ship is a spinal mounted laser (because we cant do the same for rails or particle beams)
After that I would prefer turrets but again because only lasers and Gauss can be turreted so whatever, because of this Im thinking something along the lines of (because I don't have any designs yet)
1 Spinal laser depending on size of ship will get an appropriate size spinal
4+ railguns/lasers or particle beams
and 1-2 Gauss turrets
obviously as size increases so does the weapons loadout

Last thing I can think of is range (and being able to jump)
prefered range is 30bkm (orbital Diameter of Minerva)
and I would like to hear the arguments for and against every ship being jump capable vs having a jump tender.

Shields would be nice but not needed

Thats all I can think of, anything Im missing?

I will post some of my own designs soon, so feel free to roast those plenty
Maintenance is on and all spoilers except invaders are on, ill probably turn those on later.
No starting NPR's chance to find is 15% for both me and any NPR, should this be higher?

I get quite in depth with ground forces and when I get to that point I will post those. . . they get big, I get down to company level.

Looking forward to any replies!

P. S. How do I export a ship design to post here?

Title: Re: Ship building suggestions
Post by: nuclearslurpee on September 18, 2021, 09:43:47 PM

Generally any fleet plan with thought behind it is reasonable, in large part because the NPRs are quite easy to beat on even footing but also because Aurora is fairly flexible by design.

One advice I would give is to not be afraid of hyper-specialized ships especially when filling a fleet role which is necessary but does not demand allocating a lot of tonnage across many ships. For example a 3,000-ton corvette can often be a useful scouting ship mounting large sensors which are not needed on your main line combatant ships.

One important consideration you must keep in mind is research costs. If you do missiles + lasers + particle beams + railguns + Gauss... the cost of research will add up very quickly and it will take too long to get anything done until you are facing down a very angry NPR fleet with peanuts. Start by focusing on 1-2 primary weapon types, make sure you are comfortable with them and have a decent core fleet, then start adding in new technology over time and fleet generations...gen1 might be just a missile + laser fleet, nothing fancy. Gen2 add Gauss for better PD, gen3 add shield technology, gen4 introduces particle lances, and so on. Personally I find this approach makes for a more engaging game in the long term since not everything is static all the time and just incrementally improving.

For point defense, 10cm railguns are more than serviceable and will require a minimal research investment after which they will be ample for a long time until you eventually develop expensive Gauss turrets if you feel so inclined. Laser turrets are while okay, rather wasteful in a point defense role, and I would probably stick to spinal lasers + a broadside of large-caliber lasers as a primary beam armament. Later you can supplement this with particle lances for a very strong alpha strike capability.

For ships I would generally suggest having a mix of dedicated "escorts", i.e., point defense-only ships which can be built fairly cheaply to provide ample PD for any fleet, and larger offensive or capital ships which mount your spinal + battery lasers. If and when you add missiles, offensive (ASM) and defensive (AMM) ships should also be built as separate classes. Any large ship should mount its own basic PD weapons regardless, there is rarely any such thing as too much point defense and it ensures your fleet is not too vulnerable to losing several smaller escorts over the course of a battle or campaign. In addition to capital ships + escorts you can then mix in smaller specialist ships as you feel they are merited. One word of advice, don't just make each successive class of ships "the same, but bigger", this is really not purposeful (why not just build the largest ship class in this case?) and frankly not as flavorful. Every ship class should have a purpose in mind when you design it beyond just being "the same, but bigger".

For jump ships I am wholly of the opinion that dedicated jump ships are superior, they are simply the more efficient use of ship tonnage by far. The problem with putting a jump drive on every ship is that it is a huge handicap, especially at early tech levels when 20% of your precious tonnage is "lost" to a jump drive. Dedicated jump ships can also mount larger jump drives augmented with squadron jump techs which are important for jump point assaults. Outside of JP assaults a fleet only ever needs a single ship with a jump drive large enough for every ship in the fleet and it can travel anywhere that is not contested by an enemy. The entire fleet can execute a standard (not squadron) transit with a single jump drive of the correct type.

Also don't neglect the auxiliary command modules like auxiliary bridge, CIC, etc. as these allow you to gain the most benefits from your lower-ranked commanders especially if you are a big-ship proponent like I am.

Finally, with regards to ground forces, I strongly encourage not to go down to the company level. You will very quickly find yourself running out of commanders for your formations after only a handful of brigades or divisions have been constructed - 1 division HQ + 3 regiment HQs + 9 battalion HQs + 27 companies = 40 commanders needed per division equivalent, for example, and this is not even the most detailed OOB you could construct for a division-size formation. You will also likely find the 3:1 rank ratio for ground commanders to be restrictive. Most players with some experience will use at least battalions (5,000 tons) as their smallest formation, personally I would recommend using regiments (10,000 to 20,000 tons, minimum) as your base type as it will make sure you can get the most benefit from limited leadership. Keep in mind, to assault an alien home world typically requires multi-million tons of ground units and ideally the commanders to handle such a large force... the bigger your base formation size, the further your command structure will stretch for you.

Title: Re: Ship building suggestions
Post by: ArcWolf on September 18, 2021, 10:19:58 PM

I too try to keep to the 5K increments, but as Nuclearslurpee said, specialization is key. Both my Frigates and Destroyers or 10KT, however Frigates are "attack" vessles while Destroyers are "defensive" vessels.

Example my "Aegis Fate" class Frigate

Code: [Select]

Aegis Fate class Heavy Frigate      9,944 tons       293 Crew       2,003.2 BP       TCS 199    TH 1,632    EM 750
8206 km/s      Armour 5-41       Shields 25-375       HTK 64      Sensors 0/0/0/0      DCR 4      PPV 38.88
Maint Life 2.42 Years     MSP 1,503    AFR 198%    IFR 2.7%    1YR 352    5YR 5,274    Max Repair 408 MSP
Cryogenic Berths 200    
Commander    Control Rating 3   BRG   AUX   CIC   
Intended Deployment Time: 12 months    Morale Check Required    

M34-E816 MPD (2)    Power 1632    Fuel Use 89.67%    Signature 816    Explosion 15%
Fuel Capacity 1,000,000 Litres    Range 20.2 billion km (28 days at full power)
Class 10-D Shield Array (1)     Recharge Time 375 seconds (0.1 per second)

Series 1 MAC A16M1 (1)    Range 256,000km     TS: 8,206 km/s     Power 16-4     RM 40,000 km    ROF 20       
Twin 4.7" Naval Coilgun Turret (2x2)    Range 160,000km     TS: 12000 km/s     Power 8-8     RM 40,000 km    ROF 5       
Quad Gauss A4-17M1 Turret (2x16)    Range 10,000km     TS: 16000 km/s     Power 0-0     RM 10,000 km    ROF 5       
MAC FC R256-TS8.4k (1)     Max Range: 256,000 km   TS: 8,400 km/s     96 92 88 84 80 77 73 69 65 61
Coilgun BFC 256-12k (1)     Max Range: 256,000 km   TS: 12,000 km/s     96 92 88 84 80 77 73 69 65 61
PD BFC R64-TS16k (1)     Max Range: 64,000 km   TS: 16,000 km/s     84 69 53 38 22 6 0 0 0 0
SFR-10 (2)     Total Power Output 20.1    Exp 5%

AS1-R1 (1)     GPS 2     Range 1.7m km    MCR 157.3k km    Resolution 1

ECM 10

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
This design is classed as a c for auto-assignment purposes

and my "Gatling" class Destroyer

Code: [Select]

Gatling class Destroyer      9,807 tons       261 Crew       1,906.8 BP       TCS 196    TH 1,632    EM 750
8320 km/s      Armour 5-40       Shields 25-375       HTK 69      Sensors 0/0/0/0      DCR 4      PPV 39.68
Maint Life 2.48 Years     MSP 1,486    AFR 192%    IFR 2.7%    1YR 334    5YR 5,015    Max Repair 408 MSP
Cryogenic Berths 200    
Commander    Control Rating 3   BRG   AUX   CIC   
Intended Deployment Time: 12 months    Morale Check Required    

M34-E816 MPD (2)    Power 1632    Fuel Use 89.67%    Signature 816    Explosion 15%
Fuel Capacity 1,000,000 Litres    Range 20.5 billion km (28 days at full power)
Class 10-D Shield Array (1)     Recharge Time 375 seconds (0.1 per second)

Series 1 MAC A16M1 (1)    Range 256,000km     TS: 8,320 km/s     Power 16-4     RM 40,000 km    ROF 20       
Quad Gauss A4-17M1 Turret (6x16)    Range 10,000km     TS: 16000 km/s     Power 0-0     RM 10,000 km    ROF 5       
PD BFC R64-TS16k (2)     Max Range: 64,000 km   TS: 16,000 km/s     84 69 53 38 22 6 0 0 0 0
MAC FC R256-TS8.4k (1)     Max Range: 256,000 km   TS: 8,400 km/s     96 92 88 84 80 77 73 69 65 61
SFR-5 (1)     Total Power Output 5    Exp 5%

AS1-R1 (1)     GPS 2     Range 1.7m km    MCR 157.3k km    Resolution 1
AS51-R100 (1)     GPS 6400     Range 51.3m km    Resolution 100

ECM 10

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
This design is classed as a c for auto-assignment purposes

Note that both have Gauss PD turrets and an Anti-Ship spinal laser. Next campaign i'll be changing my design philosophy a little and have frigates be 10-15% faster then Destroyers and Cruisers.

I would also recommend a dedicated Scout/Recon destroyer for your fleets.

My 'Raven' class Scout Destroyer

Code: [Select]

Raven class Scout Destroyer      9,987 tons       259 Crew       1,926.2 BP       TCS 200    TH 1,632    EM 750
8171 km/s      Armour 5-41       Shields 25-375       HTK 62      Sensors 0/0/0/0      DCR 4      PPV 29.12
Maint Life 2.41 Years     MSP 1,482    AFR 199%    IFR 2.8%    1YR 350    5YR 5,244    Max Repair 408 MSP
Hangar Deck Capacity 500 tons     
Commander    Control Rating 3   BRG   AUX   CIC   
Intended Deployment Time: 12 months    Flight Crew Berths 10    Morale Check Required    

M34-E816 MPD (2)    Power 1632    Fuel Use 89.67%    Signature 816    Explosion 15%
Fuel Capacity 1,000,000 Litres    Range 20.1 billion km (28 days at full power)
Class 10-D Shield Array (1)     Recharge Time 375 seconds (0.1 per second)

Series 1 MAC A16M1 (1)    Range 256,000km     TS: 8,171 km/s     Power 16-4     RM 40,000 km    ROF 20       
Quad Gauss A4-17M1 Turret (4x16)    Range 10,000km     TS: 16000 km/s     Power 0-0     RM 10,000 km    ROF 5       
PD BFC R64-TS16k (1)     Max Range: 64,000 km   TS: 16,000 km/s     84 69 53 38 22 6 0 0 0 0
MAC FC R256-TS8.4k (1)     Max Range: 256,000 km   TS: 8,400 km/s     96 92 88 84 80 77 73 69 65 61
SFR-5 (1)     Total Power Output 5    Exp 5%

AS1-R1 (1)     GPS 2     Range 1.7m km    MCR 157.3k km    Resolution 1
LongR AS81-R100 (1)     GPS 16000     Range 81.1m km    Resolution 100

ECM 10

Strike Group
1x Cat's Eye Recon Fighter   Speed: 12038 km/s    Size: 9.83

Recon fighter:

Code: [Select]

Cat's Eye class Recon Fighter      492 tons       18 Crew       168.9 BP       TCS 10    TH 59    EM 0
12038 km/s      Armour 1-5       Shields 0-0       HTK 3      Sensors 0/6/0/0      DCR 0      PPV 0
Maint Life 1.64 Years     MSP 21    AFR 19%    IFR 0.3%    1YR 9    5YR 138    Max Repair 88.8 MSP
Lieutenant    Control Rating 1   
Intended Deployment Time: 3 days    Morale Check Required    

R3.7-E118 MPD (1)    Power 118.4    Fuel Use 557.99%    Signature 59.20    Explosion 20%
Fuel Capacity 14,000 Litres    Range 0.92 billion km (21 hours at full power)

AS51-R100 (1)     GPS 6400     Range 51.3m km    Resolution 100
EM1-6 (1)     Sensitivity 6     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  19.4m km

This design is classed as a Fighter for production, combat and planetary interaction
This design is classed as a a for auto-assignment purposes

IF you are going to go with Frigate & Destroyer leader class vessels you might consider making those your jump ships for the squadron. I would advise against combining your jump ship with your scout ship/ship with large actives, since that would be a primary target.

Title: Re: Ship building suggestions
Post by: Hobojoe694 on September 18, 2021, 10:43:13 PM

Thanks for the replies, both of you. for ship sizes since I do prefer bigger what I was thinking was at first have mainly 10-15KT ships as my fleet and then build bigger as needed or as I expand and want bigger fleets then subjecting the smaller classes into more specialized roles but for the first say decade or so (especially on a conventional start) that a multirole 10KT ship should be fine.

For weapons I think spinal laser, and railguns will be my main weapons with gauss turrets as a token defense for ships even when I have dedicated PD ships.

for sensors how do you all design them for a beam fleet? personally I think every military ship should be able to have basic passives and a light active sensor for both anti ship and anti missile while having a command ship (probably also with the jump drive for the fleet) having a much larger sensor suite reaching out 3-5x longer range.

also for beam fleets what would you all say is a good speed to have per engine tech level? I was under the impression its ~1k for nuclear thermal and increasing by 2k per engine level for a base and if you run into a NPR or spoiler thats faster then obv. try to be going faster at least marginally.

For ground forces, my company size is about 5KT. . . so huh ok here is what I came up with for basic infantry

also how did you post those designs in that box? or do the spoilers one so that I dont make the post super long with designs?

Title: Re: Ship building suggestions
Post by: ArcWolf on September 18, 2021, 11:56:10 PM

All combat ships get a Size .1 (5 Ton) Res 1 active sensor. For beam ships this will be enough for them to see anything they can shoot at. This is supplemented by DD and DD Scouts active which are between 50-100m KM range. I should probably re-design my scout DD to have large passives as well.

As for Engine speed, this was posted a while ago and i use it as a guide line:

Conventional 500 Km/S
NTE 2500 Km/S
INTE 3200 Km/S
NPE 4000 Km/S
INPE 5000 Km/S
ID 6250 Km/S
M-pD 8000 Km/S
Internal Conf. Fusion 10000 Km/S
Mag. Conf. Fusion 12500 Km/S
Inertial Conf. Fusion 16000 Km/S
Solid-Core Anti-Matter 20000 Km/S
Gas-Core Anti-Matter 25000 Km/S
Plasma Anti-Matter 32000 Km/S
Beam Anti-Matter 40000 Km/S
Photonic 50000 Km/S

To get the Code/Spoiler Box you can type [.Code] XXX [./Code] or [.offtopic] XXX [./offtopic] (with out the ".") there is also an option for it in the message settings (where you can make letters bold, etc) called "Insert code" and "off topic'

Lastly, for Ground forces, while i do not have a lot of experiance with them i use 5k base "battalions", 3 per 20k Regiment, 3 Regiments per Brigade, etc. Leaving space at the Brigade and Division level for Support Battalions. Artillery, Supply, STOs for Garrison Units.

My standard infantry battalion:

Off-Topic: show

and standard "Combined Arms" battalion

Off-Topic: show

Edit: I personally don't really use Infantry Light Bombard, i prefer to place static Medium bombard in my "Command" Unit, in my case the 5k ton Regiment unit with a 20k Ton HQ. Since they are left as Support, and medium bombard can shoot from a field position of support. That said i do not know if it is "better" it just makes more sense to me.

might as well include my Regiment unit:

Off-Topic: show

Title: Re: Ship building suggestions
Post by: nuclearslurpee on September 19, 2021, 08:22:37 AM

A reasonable guideline for speed:engine tech is 1/3 to 40% of the ship mass as engines with 1.0x boost, and for beam ships you want to be at the faster and of that range to close in quickly and be able to dictate combat range. So at 40% engine mass you would have speeds of:

Conventional: 400 km/s
NTE: 2000 km/s
INTE: 2,560 km/s
NPE: 3,200 km/s
INPE: 4,000 km/s
Ion: 5,000 km/s
MP: 6,400 km/s
...

And so on.

For sensors I usually place size-1 actives and passives on every ship in a beam fleet and have dedicated large-sensor ships. For missile-based fleets usually each ship will have a different active sensor befitting its role, e.g., anti-ship vs. anti-missile vs. anti-fighter. Larger passives almost always will go on a dedicated scouting class as they're too much tonnage on a combat class.

Title: Re: Ship building suggestions
Post by: Jorgen_CAB on September 19, 2021, 06:14:10 PM

There really is not one OPTIMAL way to build fleets in Aurora... Even if I play in a campaign with nothing but AI as my opponent I always build my fleet as if I could face an opponent that would tailor their ship design against mine and/or change their designs over time. I often also play multi-faction games and in those I often have to compromise designs so I have a fleet operational at a decent cost for said faction to defend themselves and what colonies they possess.

I would never go super specialised on anything bigger than below 10k in size, in my opinion that is not militarily sound in all but a few instances. Every ship obviously should have a primary role which can be something like Escort, Patrol, Scout, Carrier etc.. What I have learned from most multi-faction campaign that I have run is that having too many very specialised ships make you vulnerable to them being singled out and that quickly lead to a disaster. You are better of having some primary beam weapon on all major combat ship as an example. If you expect to ever be fighting at close range then ships with no beam weapons can just be ignored and that is allot of defensive armour and hull that can do nothing but sit and watch while your only beam ships take all the opposing sides incoming weapon fire. The same is true for any specialist role you build. The AI might not be smart enough (but can do it by misstake) to exploit that but a real opponent would. It is up to you how much you care about that though.

There is no problem having a few specialist purpose ships but a fleet still need to have decent coverage on all their ships so one ability can't just be knocked out in a single blow with minimal effort. If you have an "escort" class destroyer then make them primarily for engaging enemy missiles with some PD and AMM and at least one primary beam weapon for self defence and a basic resolution 1 sensor for medium distance missile defence.

Use lot's of smaller sensor scouts as they are may more efficient for long range scouting than large vulnerable ships. Don't go around broadcasting your main combat ships positions with active sensors, use really small scout craft for doing that and/or small dedicated reconnaissance frigattes (2-4kt size)... in general resolution 80-120 are generally considered main active sensors so anything below 4kt can generally go undetected relatively easy from such sensors at decent distances in the early game.

Don't settle for any specific size of ships and really don't fixate about the naming conventions too much. I generally use the naming as substitute for role and to some extent size, but mainly role. There is not much reason to have two different escort ships of different sized just so you can call one a frigate and the other a destroyer escort if they both are pretty much identical except for size, that does not make any real sense, at least to me.
In general an early Frigate might be 8000t while fifty year later you build the ships of the same role at 16kt, at that point the old Frigate are either completely obsolete or you simple change their role to something different, perhaps a system patrol craft or something.

Generally larger ships are way more efficient than smaller ships but smaller ships are faster to build so there is a fine line between how long can you wait until those really large ships are built and ready for combat versus allot of smaller ships you can have earlier but over time will be weaker. A large ship generally also have more complicated and expensive components from a research perspective which also have to be factored in. But overall, the larger the ship the more effective it is in using mission tonnage... but certainly not in terms of stealth.

In terms of size you could ask yourself, if I always need five 10kt ships to do something I might as well just build a 50kt ship to do the same thing but just do it better. More ships just means you are more versatile on the amount you can operate in more places at the same time, sometimes two 10kt ships is enough then it is a waste to send a 50kt ship. Two 10kt ships also project a much smaller thermal imprint in space so are more stealthy if that is important.

Over time it is cheaper from a maintenance perspective to have really large main combat ships supported by smaller more specialised ships, you just need to find the magic balance of the amount of which you need and there is no good answer for that. But in general, the smaller the ship the more specialised their role generally tend to become. Use as few ships as possible to accomplish your missions, bigger is generally better than more.

In terms of weapons and defensive system I think that most have been said about that, start small and select one or two primary weapons system and expand on it later on as you establish yourself economically. Make sure to keep research focused on expanding your economy but don't neglect pure military technology either. Focus primarily on a defensive fleet and defending your colonies before you contemplate going on the offensive... focusing on a strong economy first will generally just make your fleet grow even stronger over time, but don't neglect your defences and spending.

I might not really have given you any hard fact on what to do but rather how to think about what you do instead and I hope it has been to some help. :)

Title: Re: Ship building suggestions
Post by: Hobojoe694 on September 19, 2021, 07:10:50 PM

Thanks for the reply, in general that was my thought process too.

Off-Topic: show

this is what I came up with, I restarted my game to not be a conventional start, and this is what the beginning research gave me.

Aurora 4x

C# Aurora => C# Bureau of Design => Topic started by: Hobojoe694 on September 18, 2021, 08:43:13 PM