Print Page - BFGs and Boarding for Shock and Awe: Battlefleet Sol and Ground Forces.

C# Aurora => C# Bureau of Design => Topic started by: Abridal on November 18, 2021, 08:26:17 PM

Title: BFGs and Boarding for Shock and Awe: Battlefleet Sol and Ground Forces.
Post by: Abridal on November 18, 2021, 08:26:17 PM

At the end there is a listing of regular forces too in addition to the boarding specialists. From the same game as:

hxxp: aurora2. pentarch. org/index. php?topic=12818. 0

I'm not a spambot let me post links plz. Regardless of this minor inconvenience;

Battlefleet Sol proposed formation: CC Vexillus, CA Vindico m3, CVS Aphobia m2, CVE Praetor, 2x CL Carnifex, 1 RS Auxilia*

*May be replaced with another Carnifex vs other beam fleets or Praetor vs missile fleets.

First of all, I have three main questions:

1) Is it worth to research CIC and add a CIC to all 15,000 ton warship designs? Combat Information Centre is already partly researched(just a bit) from salvage operations of wrecked alien warships. I'm unsure about the real usefulness of it. Is it worthwhile or is the bonus of a Tactical Officer too little given how much tonnage it needs?

2) Considering the following FAC has BFCs that are only 2% more accurate compared to 3 escort fighters that also fit in one hangar bay, is it better to build a shipyard for it or to have the fighters which don't need shipyards because the difference between 86 and 88% for final defensive fire is not worth building another naval shipyard just for a 1000 ton piece of glass with no armor whatsoever? Here are the two designs for comparison, intended as a more flexible alternative to fielding gauss PD turrets with the disadvantage of worse tracking speed (15k instead 20k) and a slight loss in BFC range reducing accuracy a bit.

3) Similar question to the one on the usefulness of CIC, what about Primary Flight Control and the Commander - Air Group bonuses? Are they worth sacrificing something to open room for PFC in the carrier designs considering they are mostly fitted with PD fighters and boarding shuttles?

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Astarte class Escort (P)      1,000 tons       55 Crew       368.2 BP       TCS 20    TH 302    EM 0
15085 km/s      Armour 1-8       Shields 0-0       HTK 6      Sensors 0/0/0/0      DCR 0      PPV 9
Maint Life 2.35 Years     MSP 158    AFR 80%    IFR 1.1%    1YR 39    5YR 586    Max Repair 150.8 MSP
Commander    Control Rating 1   
Intended Deployment Time: 0.3 days    Morale Check Required    

Itaipu Trinuclear MagPlasma 301 (1)    Power 301.6    Fuel Use 532.92%    Signature 301.6    Explosion 29%
Fuel Capacity 11,000 Litres    Range 0.37 billion km (6 hours at full power)

ALLE T10 Railgun (3x4)    Range 50,000km     TS: 15,085 km/s     Power 3-3     RM 50,000 km    ROF 5       
Marques Eletro CTU 84Mm-15k (3)     Max Range: 84,000 km   TS: 15,000 km/s     88 76 64 52 40 29 17 5 0 0
Alfaro Aeromarine Stellarator R9 (1)     Total Power Output 9.3    Exp 7%

Camara Sistemas Nanosensor m1 (1)     GPS 3     Range 2.7m km    MCR 244k km    Resolution 1

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

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Polibolos class Fighter      333 tons       18 Crew       118.1 BP       TCS 7    TH 101    EM 0
15143 km/s      Armour 1-4       Shields 0-0       HTK 2      Sensors 0/0/0/0      DCR 0      PPV 3
Maint Life 0 Years     MSP 0    AFR 66%    IFR 0.9%    1YR 18    5YR 266    Max Repair 50.4 MSP
Commander    Control Rating 1   
Intended Deployment Time: 0.3 days    Morale Check Required    

Itaipu Trinuclear MagPlasma-100 (1)    Power 100.8    Fuel Use 1020.50%    Signature 100.8    Explosion 30%
Fuel Capacity 5,000 Litres    Range 0.26 billion km (4 hours at full power)

ALLE T10 Railgun (1x4)    Range 50,000km     TS: 15,143 km/s     Power 3-3     RM 50,000 km    ROF 5       
Marques Eletro CTU 72Mm-15k (1)     Max Range: 72,000 km   TS: 15,000 km/s     86 72 58 44 31 17 3 0 0 0
Alfaro Aeromarine Stellarator R3 (1)     Total Power Output 3    Exp 7%

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

I'm partial to the fighters simply because they don't need shipyards. Besides, with 1 armor and no shields in both designs, it definitively seems better this way. Now onto the rest, including the mothership for these two possible alternatives.

Measly 3kt frigates defended the rights of the Imperium over a barren system, little more than a fuel depot, in a conflict caused by arrogant xenos claiming every system around Sol who then decided to reply to an ultimatum to get out of Epsilon Leonis Minoris with war. It was a great cleansing, over 500,000 tons of alien wreckage, at first they had nothing but Gauss cannons with range beneath 20,000 km and lots of irresponsibly placed unarmed vessels near Sol to be purged.

This has dragged longer than it should due to the lack of many key developments and shipyards to launch a planetary invasion against them, and with time they brought the first serious threat in the form of heavy particle beam armed vessels that could put down, with some luck, any of the frigates with a single hit. That was the sign the days of the little ones great glories during the beginning of the war were ending. Nonetheless, only 3 frigates were lost over many years of war and over 7000 xenos are imprisoned in Sol from how many losses they suffered, a mercy they don't deserve yet, for pragmatic reasons, are given for now. So many precious wrecks to be salvaged that will deliver more duranium than many mining operations.

Magneto-Plasma was taken from the aliens through ELINT by a vessel with reduced thermal signature engines hiding in an asteroid very, very close to its star, thus their minor propulsion technological advantage will soon be gone, and in preparation for the new classes of warships, enough Space Marines were trained that making up poorly-constructed pseudo-Latin names (and a Portuguese one as exception) for all their squadrons is getting harder: 100 ton each, perhaps a bit too big for a squad, specifically that because it is the tonnage the smallest type of troop transport can load. Here their composition and their names:

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Space Marine Squad - R9
Transport Size: 100 tons
Build Cost: 10 BP
14x Space Marine - Plasma Bolter (PWL)
4x Space Marine - Plasma MG (CAP)
2x Space Marine - Fireteam Leader (PW)

Note: Guns TL is relatively high, giving 21 Damage and AP PWs and 10 Damage and AP PWL. Heavy Power Armor provides 24 armor for each of them.

Off-Topic: Squad Names • show

Strongly favoring close range combat this force, named Battlefleet Sol, uses a combination of plasma carronades, small caliber railguns and gauss turrets, from which only the former and the latter will see additional R&D in the foreseeable future. Railguns are just way too effective for <=500 ton designs and keeping research no further than 10cm railguns is relatively inexpensive in RP points, while railgun base range improvements are much less expensive to research than Gauss.

The core and perhaps most important element is the Vexillus Class Command Cruiser, the flagship of Battlefleet Sol, featuring a flag bridge, of course. While very lacking in direct firepower for its tonnage, with only one 30cm plasma light cannon, one 10cm railgun and a single Gauss PD turret, it is meant to primarily support the others as a command, sensor array and combat jump ship which should improve the combat effectiveness of all six vessels that will squadron jump together under its command. In addition to such capabilities it also has 20 space marines as its "preemptive anti-boarding" defense, which is not only defensive, for the Vexillus can send her few but mighty space marines against hostile ships, or more likely to reinforce already ongoing boarding operations given that, propaganda aside, 20 space marines probably won't suffice to capture any sizable vessel on their own.

The first prototype still used Ion propulsion and was somewhat more limited, for the leap didn't lead into increased operational speed simply because the beam fire controls speed rating is as important to research for a beam weapons-centered fleet to have for faster speeds and so far there was no perceived necessity of reaching faster velocities than the ~6800 km/s of these new ships, all of the observed alien ship classes are slower than that, their fastest going around ~5800 km/s. Thus it was chosen to make more efficient, smaller and redundant engines to achieve similar speeds to Ion-era designs that were more speed-focused for their tech level. This design is still "unlocked" and not set in stone, whether a CIC should be added to it or not at the expense of weapons or some other capability remains under consideration.

While some criticize how its armor is as thick as the armor of the now sort of venerable 3000 ton frigates, it has formidable shields which unlike armor can regenerate in field instead of requiring extensive repairs. As long as a force that has nothing but shield-bypassing mesons isn't found, they will be far more tough compared to the frigates regardless of such "puny" armor for their tonnage, specially against shock damage from the particle beams the aliens have chosen as their primary offensive weapon.

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Vexillus class Command Cruiser      15,000 tons       422 Crew       3,079.3 BP       TCS 300    TH 2,042    EM 6,870
6805 km/s    JR 7-50      Armour 8-54       Shields 229-536       HTK 76      Sensors 1/121/0/0      DCR 9      PPV 20.4
Maint Life 2.12 Years     MSP 1,159    AFR 200%    IFR 2.8%    1YR 344    5YR 5,157    Max Repair 357 MSP
Hangar Deck Capacity 150 tons     Troop Capacity 100 tons     Boarding Capable    Cryogenic Berths 200    
Lord-Captain    Control Rating 4   BRG   AUX   ENG   FLG   
Intended Deployment Time: 9 months    Flight Crew Berths 3    Morale Check Required    

Evento Horizonte S15000-7 m1     Max Ship Size 15000 tons    Distance 50k km     Squadron Size 7

Itaipu Trinuclear MagPlasma-510 (4)    Power 2041.6    Fuel Use 51.21%    Signature 510.4    Explosion 14%
Fuel Capacity 1,025,000 Litres    Range 24 billion km (40 days at full power)
Gellar Manufactorum Theta Scutum 229 (1)     Recharge Time 536 seconds (0.4 per second)

TriOptimum PAX-30 Light Plasma Cannon (1)    Range 240,000km     TS: 6,805 km/s     Power 24-6     RM 10,000 km    ROF 20       
ALLE T10 Railgun (1x4)    Range 50,000km     TS: 6,805 km/s     Power 3-3     RM 50,000 km    ROF 5       
Taurus CEMB-5 Turret (1x5)    Range 50,000km     TS: 20000 km/s     Power 0-0     RM 50,000 km    ROF 5       
Marques Eletro CT 240Mm-6750 (1)     Max Range: 240,000 km   TS: 6,750 km/s     96 92 88 83 79 75 71 67 62 58
Marques Eletro CTU 240Mm-20k (1)     Max Range: 240,000 km   TS: 20,000 km/s     96 92 88 83 79 75 71 67 62 58
Alfaro Aeromarine Stellarator R6 (1)     Total Power Output 6    Exp 7%
Alfaro Aeromarine Stellarator R3 (1)     Total Power Output 3    Exp 7%

Camara Sistemas Sensor AM 42 (1)     GPS 42     Range 12.1m km    MCR 1.1m km    Resolution 1
Camara Sistemas Sensor EM-121 (1)     Sensitivity 121     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  87m km
Carneiro ST Nano m1 (1)     Sensitivity 1.1     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  8.3m km

Strike Group
1x Iris Recon Fighter   Speed: 16800 km/s    Size: 2
2x Augur Recon Satellite   Speed: 1 km/s    Size: 0.37

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

Its tiny hangar capabilities are used to extend sensor range through two means. First within the same system, with its single recon fighter with a passive thermal sensor.

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Iris class Recon Fighter      100 tons       4 Crew       30.6 BP       TCS 2    TH 34    EM 0
16800 km/s      Armour 1-1       Shields 0-0       HTK 2      Sensors 11/0/0/0      DCR 0      PPV 0
Maint Life 0 Years     MSP 0    AFR 19%    IFR 0.3%    1YR 1    5YR 22    Max Repair 16.8 MSP
Commander    Control Rating 1   
Intended Deployment Time: 1 days    Morale Check Required    

Itaipu Trinuclear MagPlasma-33 (1)    Power 33.6    Fuel Use 1767.56%    Signature 33.6    Explosion 30%
Fuel Capacity 5,000 Litres    Range 0.51 billion km (8 hours at full power)

Carneiro ST Básico m1 (1)     Sensitivity 11     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  26.2m 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

And finally by jumping a tiny probe through any jump point, no enemy will ever have the element of surprise in their favor and very important informed decisions such as refusing to initiate a jump point assault when massively outnumbered and outgunned on the other side can be made. Furthermore unarmed ships may panic, unbelievably scared because a 19 tons probe showed up, and stupidly jump and go in blind, ripe for boarding (Note to self: don't jump probes on unknown jump points loaded inside unarmed survey carriers. )

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Augur class Recon Satellite      19 tons       0 Crew       4.7 BP       TCS 0    TH 0    EM 0
1 km/s      No Armour       Shields 0-0     HTK 0      Sensors 1/1/0/0      DCR 0      PPV 0
MSP 0    AFR 3%    IFR 0.1%    Max Repair 2.1 MSP
Commander    Control Rating 1   
Intended Deployment Time: 3 months    


Camara Sistemas Nanosensor m1 (1)     GPS 3     Range 2.7m km    MCR 244k km    Resolution 1
Camara Sistemas Nanosensor EM m1 (1)     Sensitivity 1.1     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  8.3m km
Carneiro ST Nano m1 (1)     Sensitivity 1.1     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  8.3m km

This design is classed as a Commercial Vessel for maintenance purposes
This design is classed as a Space Station for construction purposes
This design is classed as a Space Station for auto-assignment purposes

The brawler among the 7, the Vindico m3 Heavy Cruiser also was an Ion design. Its transition to Magneto-Plasma drastically expanded its firepower from tonnage savings, while other choices centered on questioning the utility of multiple Gauss cannons in a single turret also helped. Currently one shipyard is tooled for the m2 version, of which one was already constructed, which was different from the original as the first practical boarding systems were researched when it was proposed, and the original, predating boarding combat advances, had no space marines inside it. Retooling for the m3 version so the older one can be refitted is underway.

3 Heavy Plasma Macro Cannons are its highlight: despite very slow firing, requiring one minute and twenty seconds to recharge their capacitors, each salvo deals enormous damage at point-blank (<=10,000km), likely enough to cause severe shock damage even to the biggest capital ships. 4 10cm railguns and a single Gauss turret will help with putting shields down and finishing the job in addition to some anti-missile PD capability. While boarding operations are not its focus, like the Vexillus it also has a complement of 20 space marines as "preemptive defense". CIC is being considered too but adding one will involve a trade-off.

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Vindico m3 class Heavy Cruiser      15,000 tons       426 Crew       3,035.6 BP       TCS 300    TH 2,042    EM 6,870
6805 km/s      Armour 8-54       Shields 229-536       HTK 93      Sensors 16/16/0/0      DCR 8      PPV 77.4
Maint Life 2.28 Years     MSP 1,177    AFR 209%    IFR 2.9%    1YR 305    5YR 4,582    Max Repair 357 MSP
Troop Capacity 100 tons     Boarding Capable    
Lord-Captain    Control Rating 3   BRG   AUX   ENG   
Intended Deployment Time: 9 months    Morale Check Required    

Itaipu Trinuclear MagPlasma-510 (4)    Power 2041.6    Fuel Use 51.21%    Signature 510.4    Explosion 14%
Fuel Capacity 1,025,000 Litres    Range 24 billion km (40 days at full power)
Gellar Manufactorum Theta Scutum 229 (1)     Recharge Time 536 seconds (0.4 per second)

TriOptimum PAX-60 Heavy Macro Cannon (3)    Range 480,000km     TS: 6,805 km/s     Power 96-6     RM 10,000 km    ROF 80       
Taurus CEMB-5 Turret (1x5)    Range 50,000km     TS: 20000 km/s     Power 0-0     RM 50,000 km    ROF 5       
ALLE T10 Railgun (4x4)    Range 50,000km     TS: 6,805 km/s     Power 3-3     RM 50,000 km    ROF 5       
Marques Eletro CT 480Mm-6750 (1)     Max Range: 480,000 km   TS: 6,750 km/s     98 96 94 92 90 88 85 83 81 79
Marques Eletro CTU 240Mm-20k (1)     Max Range: 240,000 km   TS: 20,000 km/s     96 92 88 83 79 75 71 67 62 58
Marques Eletro CT 240Mm-6750 (1)     Max Range: 240,000 km   TS: 6,750 km/s     96 92 88 83 79 75 71 67 62 58
Alfaro Aeromarine Stellarator R30 (1)     Total Power Output 30.4    Exp 7%

Camara Sistemas Microsensor m1 (1)     GPS 11     Range 6.1m km    MCR 545.7k km    Resolution 1
Camara Sistemas Sensor EM-16 (1)     Sensitivity 16.5     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  32.1m km
Carneiro ST 1.5x m1 (1)     Sensitivity 16.5     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  32.1m km

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

Off-Topic: Previous Version - 1 currently built • show

The Aphobia m2 Strike Carrier is where the bulk of space marines boarding squadrons are, and it is a frightening thing to any ship crew unfortunate enough to be on a stranded vessel next to it. In addition to its own boarding capability, mostly intended against slow ships or ships with heavily damaged propulsion, its spacious hangar opens other possibilities. Normally occupied mostly not with fighters, but with assault shuttles where whether the space marines inside them or their crew are the most courageous is a hotly contested debate. Despite its somewhat larger hangar it still has a big 60cm heavy macro cannon so while most of its capabilities come from parasite craft, it is far from defenseless or harmless without them. Currently an older, Ion based Aphobia is already operational, which, upon retooling of existing shipyards shall be upgraded to this new model.

Another minor debate revolves on the argument it should be classified as a Strike Cruiser instead, too inane to be worth more than an one-liner mentioning it.

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Aphobia m2 class Strike Carrier      15,000 tons       329 Crew       2,802.9 BP       TCS 300    TH 2,042    EM 6,870
6805 km/s      Armour 8-54       Shields 229-536       HTK 79      Sensors 16/1/0/0      DCR 8      PPV 27.4
Maint Life 2.11 Years     MSP 1,036    AFR 206%    IFR 2.9%    1YR 310    5YR 4,651    Max Repair 357 MSP
Hangar Deck Capacity 2,250 tons     Troop Capacity 500 tons     Boarding Capable    
Lord-Captain    Control Rating 3   BRG   AUX   ENG   
Intended Deployment Time: 9 months    Flight Crew Berths 45    Morale Check Required    

Itaipu Trinuclear MagPlasma-510 (4)    Power 2041.6    Fuel Use 51.21%    Signature 510.4    Explosion 14%
Fuel Capacity 1,125,000 Litres    Range 26.4 billion km (44 days at full power)
Gellar Manufactorum Theta Scutum 229 (1)     Recharge Time 536 seconds (0.4 per second)

TriOptimum PAX-60 Heavy Macro Cannon (1)    Range 480,000km     TS: 6,805 km/s     Power 96-6     RM 10,000 km    ROF 80       
Taurus CEMB-5 Turret (1x5)    Range 50,000km     TS: 20000 km/s     Power 0-0     RM 50,000 km    ROF 5       
Marques Eletro CTU 480Mm-6750 (1)     Max Range: 480,000 km   TS: 6,750 km/s     98 96 94 92 90 88 85 83 81 79
Marques Eletro CTU 240Mm-20k (1)     Max Range: 240,000 km   TS: 20,000 km/s     96 92 88 83 79 75 71 67 62 58
Alfaro Aeromarine Stellarator R6 (1)     Total Power Output 6    Exp 7%

Camara Sistemas Microsensor m1 (1)     GPS 11     Range 6.1m km    MCR 545.7k km    Resolution 1
Carneiro ST 1.5x m1 (1)     Sensitivity 16.5     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  32.1m km
Camara Sistemas Nanosensor EM m1 (1)     Sensitivity 1.1     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  8.3m km

Strike Group
5x Memento Mori Assault Shuttle   Speed: 23065 km/s    Size: 4.99
2x Tempestas Heavy Fighter   Speed: 11522 km/s    Size: 10

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

Off-Topic: Previous Version - 1 currently built • show

23065 km/s should be enough to risk boarding even an intact vessel, but analysis indicates there would be heavy casualties and likely, even if the space marines managed to initiate boarding action, the assault shuttles, despite their amazing speed, would not get out of the hostile beam weapons range before being shot at, although there is a theorized window of opportunity for the current foes with their low range Gauss and slow firing particle beams where, once a bigger ship soaks the particle beams, the assault shuttles could in less than 20 seconds launch the boarding space marines, get out faster than their Gauss weaponry could get a lock on them, then go far away enough to be beyond, but such maneuver would be very, very risky.

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Memento Mori class Assault Shuttle      250 tons       12 Crew       66.6 BP       TCS 5    TH 115    EM 0
23065 km/s      Armour 1-3       Shields 0-0       HTK 2      Sensors 0/0/0/0      DCR 0      PPV 0
Maint Life 0 Years     MSP 0    AFR 49%    IFR 0.7%    1YR 6    5YR 94    Max Repair 28.8 MSP
Troop Capacity 100 tons     Boarding Capable    
Commander    Control Rating 1   
Intended Deployment Time: 1 days    Morale Check Required    

Itaipu Trinuclear MagPlasma-57 (2)    Power 115.2    Fuel Use 1350.0%    Signature 57.6    Explosion 30%
Fuel Capacity 1,000 Litres    Range 0.05 billion km (0 hours at full power)

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

Fittingly named after an ancient Roman tradition where the victor of a major military campaign would be starkly reminded no one lives forever, only those truly without fear are fit to crew it or get inside the boarding pods. Hypothetically they could also leisurely get close to a depleted missile-only ship once the fleet PD depletes its ordnance, should any xenos be stupid enough to build ships armed exclusively with missile launchers that will eventually run out of ammo and thus become sitting ducks for boarding.

Finally, replacing some questionable multi-barreled Gauss turret options, an extra, tentative foray in beam fighters with two mutually exclusive approaches. The All-shields approach which really goes out of the way to fit a powerful enough shield to make a difference in such a small vessel:

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Tempestas class Heavy Fighter      500 tons       22 Crew       139.3 BP       TCS 10    TH 115    EM 210
11522 km/s      Armour 1-5       Shields 7-175       HTK 4      Sensors 0/0/0/0      DCR 0      PPV 3
Maint Life 0 Years     MSP 0    AFR 99%    IFR 1.4%    1YR 19    5YR 289    Max Repair 28.8 MSP
Commander    Control Rating 1   
Intended Deployment Time: 0.3 days    Morale Check Required    

Itaipu Trinuclear MagPlasma-57 (2)    Power 115.2    Fuel Use 1350.0%    Signature 57.6    Explosion 30%
Fuel Capacity 5,000 Litres    Range 0.13 billion km (3 hours at full power)
Gellar Manufactorum Theta Scutum 7 (1)     Recharge Time 175 seconds (0 per second)

ALLE T10 Railgun (1x4)    Range 50,000km     TS: 11,522 km/s     Power 3-3     RM 50,000 km    ROF 5       
Marques Eletro CTU 72Mm-11500 (1)     Max Range: 72,000 km   TS: 11,500 km/s     86 72 58 44 31 17 3 0 0 0
Alfaro Aeromarine Stellarator R3 (1)     Total Power Output 3    Exp 7%

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

And a proposed alternative from those who claim cramming a 150 tons shield generator into a fighter sized spaceship is foolish and having similar tonnage in armor is a vastly superior option, while freeing room for engineering spaces of questionable utility for maintenance failures aren't expected to happen during the 5 hours at most it will operate before returning to the hangar, and for a bit more of fuel and thus range.

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Tempestas - Ferrata class Heavy Fighter      500 tons       20 Crew       155.2 BP       TCS 10    TH 115    EM 0
11529 km/s      Armour 7-5       Shields 0-0       HTK 3      Sensors 0/0/0/0      DCR 0      PPV 3
Maint Life 4.27 Years     MSP 34    AFR 20%    IFR 0.3%    1YR 3    5YR 45    Max Repair 28.8 MSP
Commander    Control Rating 1   
Intended Deployment Time: 0.3 days    Morale Check Required    

Itaipu Trinuclear MagPlasma-57 (2)    Power 115.2    Fuel Use 1350.0%    Signature 57.6    Explosion 30%
Fuel Capacity 8,000 Litres    Range 0.21 billion km (5 hours at full power)

ALLE T10 Railgun (1x4)    Range 50,000km     TS: 11,529 km/s     Power 3-3     RM 50,000 km    ROF 5       
Marques Eletro CTU 72Mm-11500 (1)     Max Range: 72,000 km   TS: 11,500 km/s     86 72 58 44 31 17 3 0 0 0
Alfaro Aeromarine Stellarator R3 (1)     Total Power Output 3    Exp 7%

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

Which of these two heavy fighter designs will truly have better odds of survival is an interesting question. As a tangential note, both were originated from a planetary defense fighter prototype which was upgraded multiple times over its existence, with much more fuel so it can cover most inner star systems, that has a shield of very questionable usefulness in addition to a little armor.

Off-Topic: Vallum • show

The previous carrier is not the only one among the seven. Originally a 7,500 tons escort cruiser that never left the drawing board would fulfill the same role, but gains upon going bigger, in contrast to improvements in miniaturization, new concepts in beam fire controls with existing technologies and the observation of how mass inefficient turreted Gauss cannons are replaced the first draft with the current iteration, a 15,000 tons escort carrier with only a railgun as its own weapon, just because Imperial doctrine dictates no warship should be completely unarmed.

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Praetor class Escort Carrier      15,000 tons       296 Crew       2,731.6 BP       TCS 300    TH 2,042    EM 6,870
6805 km/s      Armour 8-54       Shields 229-536       HTK 72      Sensors 0/0/0/0      DCR 10      PPV 3
Maint Life 2.32 Years     MSP 1,143    AFR 180%    IFR 2.5%    1YR 289    5YR 4,331    Max Repair 357 MSP
Hangar Deck Capacity 4,000 tons     Troop Capacity 100 tons     
Lord-Captain    Control Rating 3   BRG   AUX   ENG   
Intended Deployment Time: 9 months    Flight Crew Berths 80    Morale Check Required    

Itaipu Trinuclear MagPlasma-510 (4)    Power 2041.6    Fuel Use 51.21%    Signature 510.4    Explosion 14%
Fuel Capacity 1,071,000 Litres    Range 25.1 billion km (42 days at full power)
Gellar Manufactorum Theta Scutum 229 (1)     Recharge Time 536 seconds (0.4 per second)

ALLE T10 Railgun (1x4)    Range 50,000km     TS: 6,805 km/s     Power 3-3     RM 50,000 km    ROF 5       
Marques Eletro CTU 480Mm-6750 (1)     Max Range: 480,000 km   TS: 6,750 km/s     98 96 94 92 90 88 85 83 81 79
Alfaro Aeromarine Stellarator R6 (1)     Total Power Output 6    Exp 7%

Camara Sistemas Microsensor m1 (1)     GPS 11     Range 6.1m km    MCR 545.7k km    Resolution 1

Strike Group
12x Polibolos Fighter   Speed: 15143 km/s    Size: 6.66

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

There is controversy in this concept. Some are skeptical on parasite craft based point defense being superior to Gauss turrets. The primary argument in favor of more traditional turreted PD solutions is that Gauss turrets have a 20,000 km/s tracking speed, so even if the total number of turrets would be smaller due to the need of individual fire controls for every one of them to equate the granularity of the Escort Carrier PD squadrons of fighters or FACs(in yet another point of divergence) and avoid overkill against a single salvo. It is argued that more guns don't equate better intercept chances because less PD with more tracking speed is always better. The Gauss PD alternative design would have only 6 turrets, each with separate fire controls. The carrier design has twice the volume of PD for the same mass, and it could be directed against 12 different missile salvos simultaneously. The final note is that the Polibolos is a "flying piece of glass", and thus deemed useless for anything other than PD outside of desperation, hiding them in the hangar would be wise if the escort carrier is in range of hostile beam weapons, where turrets could be used to slowly chip through hostile shields and armor in addition to PD. On that, it is said the escort carrier is only one out of 6 vessels in the planned jump squadron, and by having twice the volume of PD it reduces the necessity of more PD focused vessels, giving room for one more ship focused on the offense.

Naturally the Escort Carrier also includes a complement of 20 space marines, only this time it is exclusively defensive, for there was no room for boarding capabilities to be fitted into this design, which make the space marines protecting it both relieved and sad they won't join their battle brothers in glorious ship-to-ship boarding combat unless some xenos were to dare to invade the ship.

While some question the wisdom of having smaller than 15,000 tons vessels in this formation, the space force planners wished for a 7,500 tons Light Cruiser to be included in Battlefleet Sol, with weaponry more focused on rate of fire than shock damage and more endurance than the old frigate designs. The result was the Carnifex. In damage potential per second nothing beats it within the existing designs. Some are considering a separate fleet of light cruisers only with a smaller 7,500 tons jump cruiser of their own, but with the amount of shipyards at disposal building both 7 15,000 tons and 7 7,500 tons warships would take too long. Ultimately the choice of not having all 7 warships at 15,000 tons is mostly justified by reducing maintenance hurdles, retooling and expansion delays, and by an inane insistence anything with more than 8,000 tons isn't a light cruiser and there must be light cruisers.

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Carnifex class Light Cruiser      7,500 tons       191 Crew       1,579.7 BP       TCS 150    TH 1,021    EM 2,910
6805 km/s      Armour 8-34       Shields 97-404       HTK 42      Sensors 0/0/0/0      DCR 3      PPV 32.4
Maint Life 3.09 Years     MSP 985    AFR 129%    IFR 1.8%    1YR 155    5YR 2,330    Max Repair 255.2 MSP
Troop Capacity 100 tons     Boarding Capable    
Captain    Control Rating 1   BRG   
Intended Deployment Time: 9 months    Morale Check Required    

Itaipu Trinuclear MagPlasma-510 (2)    Power 1020.8    Fuel Use 51.21%    Signature 510.4    Explosion 14%
Fuel Capacity 512,000 Litres    Range 24 billion km (40 days at full power)
Gellar Manufactorum Theta Scutum 97 (1)     Recharge Time 404 seconds (0.2 per second)

TriOptimum PAX-15 Plasma Autocannon (6)    Range 60,000km     TS: 6,805 km/s     Power 6-6     RM 10,000 km    ROF 5       
Taurus CEMB-5 Turret (1x5)    Range 50,000km     TS: 20000 km/s     Power 0-0     RM 50,000 km    ROF 5       
Marques Eletro CT 240Mm-6750 (1)     Max Range: 240,000 km   TS: 6,750 km/s     96 92 88 83 79 75 71 67 62 58
Marques Eletro CTU 240Mm-20k (1)     Max Range: 240,000 km   TS: 20,000 km/s     96 92 88 83 79 75 71 67 62 58
Alfaro Aeromarine Stellarator R36 (1)     Total Power Output 36.6    Exp 7%

Camara Sistemas Microsensor m1 (1)     GPS 11     Range 6.1m km    MCR 545.7k km    Resolution 1

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

And of course a complement of boarding capable space marines for the butcher's work is inside it too.

And finally but no less important, while its usefulness is being contested by some, several experiences with limited planetary bombardment against STOs beyond their weapons ranges by the previous frigates have led to the conclusion a ship with lots of spare MSP and cargo shuttles that can follow the fleet wherever it goes no matter the danger to replenish them has its uses. Thus, the Auxilia increases the amount of time the entire fleet can keep firing before having to return to resupply and/or overhaul. As technically it is a warship, it has just a little bit of PD capability too. And to drive home how boarding-happy the new fleet paradigm is, this resupply ship can conduct boarding actions or more likely reinforce ongoing ones with its 20 space marines. Yup, the new fleet doctrine went as far as to give an armored maintenance resupply vessel space marines and boarding capability. Some jokingly suggested putting space marines with boarding capability in salvage ships, colony ships, everywhere, but there is such a thing as too over-the-top.

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Auxilia class Replenishment Ship      7,500 tons       168 Crew       1,417.4 BP       TCS 150    TH 1,021    EM 2,910
6805 km/s      Armour 8-34       Shields 97-404       HTK 36      Sensors 0/0/0/0      DCR 8      PPV 8.4
Maint Life 16.02 Years     MSP 9,095    AFR 56%    IFR 0.8%    1YR 67    5YR 1,001    Max Repair 255.2 MSP
Troop Capacity 100 tons     Boarding Capable    Cargo Shuttle Multiplier 2    
Captain    Control Rating 1   BRG   
Intended Deployment Time: 9 months    Morale Check Required    

Itaipu Trinuclear MagPlasma-510 (2)    Power 1020.8    Fuel Use 51.21%    Signature 510.4    Explosion 14%
Fuel Capacity 512,000 Litres    Range 24 billion km (40 days at full power)
Gellar Manufactorum Theta Scutum 97 (1)     Recharge Time 404 seconds (0.2 per second)

Taurus CEMB-5 Turret (1x5)    Range 50,000km     TS: 20000 km/s     Power 0-0     RM 50,000 km    ROF 5       
Marques Eletro CTU 240Mm-20k (1)     Max Range: 240,000 km   TS: 20,000 km/s     96 92 88 83 79 75 71 67 62 58

Camara Sistemas Nanosensor m1 (1)     GPS 3     Range 2.7m km    MCR 244k km    Resolution 1

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

Depending on mission profile of a given operation, the Auxilia might be swapped for one of the other designs instead, but for striking into the homeworld of the alien, it will be very important.

However, no matter the victories that may or not happen by this future fleet once its construction is completed(meanwhile the frigates will have to hold the line), while "free" TN minerals from wrecks are convenient eventually the aliens will have to be defeated permanently. For this purpose two dropships, including one truly massive, were designed:

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Atlas class Dropship      275,000 tons       1,864 Crew       13,723.7 BP       TCS 5,500    TH 17,600    EM 0
3200 km/s      Armour 10-376       Shields 0-0       HTK 575      Sensors 0/0/0/0      DCR 1      PPV 0
MSP 231    Max Repair 200 MSP
Troop Capacity 120,000 tons     Drop Capable    Cargo Shuttle Multiplier 2    
Commander    Control Rating 1   BRG   
Intended Deployment Time: 3 months    

Itaipu Trinuclear MagPlasma-C800 (22)    Power 17600    Fuel Use 1.68%    Signature 800    Explosion 5%
Fuel Capacity 897,000 Litres    Range 35 billion km (126 days at full power)

Taurus PDW-200 (3x10)    Range 1000 km     TS: 20,000 km/s     ROF 5       
This design is classed as a Commercial Vessel for maintenance purposes
This design is classed as a Troop Transport for auto-assignment purposes

The Atlas can combat drop an entire Legion(equivalent to 20th Century army divisions) into a planet, like a Duranium Rain, it has enough armor and CIWS to endure any final surprises the enemy might have managed to hide during the final stages of a planetary invasion. Shock and Awe.

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Amon Amarth class Dropship      50,000 tons       356 Crew       2,822.5 BP       TCS 1,000    TH 3,200    EM 0
3200 km/s      Armour 8-120       Shields 0-0       HTK 107      Sensors 0/0/0/0      DCR 1      PPV 0
MSP 205    Max Repair 200 MSP
Troop Capacity 20,000 tons     Drop Capable    Cargo Shuttle Multiplier 2    
Commander    Control Rating 1   BRG   
Intended Deployment Time: 3 months    

Itaipu Trinuclear MagPlasma-C800 (4)    Power 3200    Fuel Use 1.68%    Signature 800    Explosion 5%
Fuel Capacity 107,000 Litres    Range 23 billion km (83 days at full power)

Taurus PDW-200 (2x10)    Range 1000 km     TS: 20,000 km/s     ROF 5       
This design is classed as a Commercial Vessel for maintenance purposes
This design is classed as a Troop Transport for auto-assignment purposes

Amon Amarth on the other hand is capable of bringing down an entire regiment to fight for honor, glory and death in fire.

The Ironclad Legion:

Commanding all of it is the Legion HQ, in a medium armored vehicle and with a backup one because at this scale, the extra stuff that tonnage could be used for instead won't change the tide of a battle.

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ARM Legio I Ferrata (Rear Echelon) - HQ120 - FD10 - LG125  R6
Transport Size: 19,940 tons
Build Cost: 1,208.8 BP
2x Legion HQ (HQ + FFD)
42x Aquila m1 Motorized AA (MAA)
250x Logistics (LOG)
8x Space Support Director (FFD)
8x Granato m2 ADARTS (MBL + HAA)

ADARTS means Air Defense Artillery System, a crazier take on the real ADATS armored vehicle, for a little artillery support to subordinate formations. FD because it seems logical for such a thing to exist. I know it is mostly useless as of 1. 13. Regiments have their own supply trucks too. Their presence at the top level is more of a just in case bonus.

The overall structure is optimized to give career opportunities to most ground officer ranks without going too detailed. Space Marines are an exception, thus they are incredibly small formations compared to conventional forces. This formation commands 4 Regiments, each of them is exactly the same in this case, they are respectively the II, III, IV, V and VI Ironclad regiments:

There is a reason for the specific transport size of the Regimental HQ, from this level and beneath light vehicles are used for the HQs. Each also has some small artillery support capability.

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ARM Regimentum II Ferrata (Rear Echelon) - HQ20 FD2 LG50 R7

Transport Size: 7,084 tons
Build Cost: 317.6 BP
2x Regimental HQ
5x Aquila m1 Motorized AA
2x Space Support Director
100x Logistics
2x Granato m2 ADARTS

At the base of the hierarchy, each Regimental HQ commands a Cohort, in this case and Armored one, and a Mechanized Support Battalion, and all of them combined have around 20,000 tons

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Armored Cohort (Front Line Attack) - HQ10 R8
Transport Size: 10,000 tons
Build Cost: 505.6 BP
2x Cohort HQ
160x Eldorado APC (CAP)
84x Leves m2 Light Tank (MAV)
30x Rus m1 MBT (HAV + CAP)

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Mechanized Support Battalion (Support) - HQ5 R9
Transport Size: 2,906 tons
Build Cost: 235.5 BP
2x Battalion HQ
24x Lupus m2 Mech Rocket Artillery (2x MBL)

With not even one INF among their ranks, but instead an all-vehicular force, including mechanized infantry(1 LAV + CAP can be perceived as 1 unarmed APC carrying 6 PW INF), Legions of the Ferrata type are meant to be conquerors, not defenders, and normally they won't waste time with defensive tactics. Future legions with a greater emphasis on holding ground may be established beyond an already existing Light Infantry Regiment that will remain on Earth as a defense force. All of these are one tech level behind the space marines in armaments, being older and due to their size, they take much longer to recruit compared to 20 space marines for a 100 tons boarding pod. It is believed this minor technological obsolescence will do little to impair their effectiveness. The largest ground force identified so far, in the Psi Indi system, has around 70,000 tons (visible). Some estimate at least two legions will be necessary to drive the first decisive blow on the reptoids in Psi Indi A1, even three.

And finally, here is the "cheap" PDF - a Light Infantry Cohort formation. Except they aren't as cheap as Imperial Guards armed with flashlights and protected by T-shirts but instead fully clad in heavy power armor. Besides this formation replacing the armored cohort, the rest of the regiment is identical to armored ones because I decided to not bother with static artillery. Might keep using PWL instead of PW, depending on the TL of armor used by hostile NPR ground units, but I still wonder if going all-armor for the attack and using INF only for planetary defense is OK after all. On another note I ignored heavy and super-heavy vehicles for now.

Should I mix some L-INF in the planetary invasion force too or use a smaller number of regular PW equipped infantry regiments with roughly the same proportion of CAP, etc or is it alright to not deploy infantry to an invasion force, only light and medium vehicles with an emphasis on CAP?

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Light INF Cohort (Front Line Defense) - HQ10 R8
Transport Size: 9,964 tons
Build Cost: 410.6 BP
2x Cohort HQ
1200x Plasma Carabineer (PWL)
300x Plasma MG Team (CAP)
36x Plasma Flak Team (LAA)
120x BFG Team (LAV)

Title: Re: BFGs and Boarding for Shock and Awe: Battlefleet Sol and Ground Forces.
Post by: TheTalkingMeowth on November 18, 2021, 09:16:39 PM

There was a rule change from VB6 to C# that means one fire control can engage arbitrary numbers of missile salvos. This may change your preference between railgun fighters and gauss turret PD :).

http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg117825#msg117825

Title: Re: BFGs and Boarding for Shock and Awe: Battlefleet Sol and Ground Forces.
Post by: nuclearslurpee on November 19, 2021, 11:12:07 AM

What is it with people and posting their entire fleet in this subforum lately? Y'all writing AAR intro posts might as well write a whole AAR while you're at it.

Anyways...

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Battlefleet Sol proposed formation: CC Vexillus, CA Vindico m3, CVS Aphobia m2, CVE Praetor, 2x CL Carnifex, 1 RS Auxilia

So off the bat a couple of general problems here. First of all, if we add up the tonnages of all the ships involved here (most are 15k, the CLs are half that) your proposed battlefleet displaces a whopping total of 75,000 tons of combat vessels, more if you are switching out the RS but at most 90k tons as proposed. This is frankly not enough for a single battlefleet in most cases, NPR fleets typically displace in the 200k to 300k ton range, and can be even larger if the AI accidentally manages to combine multiple fleets for a single battle.

The second thing is that you are running a carrier-heavy fleet with beam fighters. Now, beam fighters are not... completely useless, however they tend to struggle very much in practice due to AMM spam tactics used by most NPRs (although fast 10cm railgun fighters can counter this adequately) and also just generally being an inefficient way to deliver firepower to an enemy fleet - note that fighters not only have to consider their own tonnage but also the tonnage of the carrier used to deliver them into combat, so tonnage efficiency is very low. Missile fighter/bombers are far more common and useful, but they are not useful because they are a tonnage-efficient way to deliver ordnance, rather they are useful because their small size allows them to get close to an enemy fleet and launch missiles while the carriers remain well out of range. Beam fighters do not have this advantage.

(As a side note: while beam-only fleets are perfectly feasible, at least for play against NPRs, since you are clearly using WH40K as a basis for your own campaign I would suggest that you consider using missiles, as this fits in just fine with the flavor - large Imperium ships use torpedo launchers, and small craft like the Starhawk bomber also use missile weapons.)

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1) Is it worth to research CIC and add a CIC to all 15,000 ton warship designs?

Partially. One of the major issues with a CIC or really all of the sub-command modules is that you can easily run out of qualified officers if you use too many of them and build a large navy. Learning how to balance ship numbers, sub-command modules, and officer required ranks (including the "Senior CO" checkbox in the class design window) is an essential Aurora skill.

I would probably say that a CIC makes the most sense on a medium-size PD escort class, which will have a large number of weapons (small railguns, Gauss turrets, AMM launchers, etc.) so get the greatest force-multiplier bonus from a tactical officer - especially because this bonus is most critical for missile defense where every spare percentage point can make a big difference. On a smaller ship, or an offensive-armed ship with fewer, larger weapons, a tactical officer is arguably not as useful as another weapon in the same tonnage. A CIC is also more useful on an offensive missile ship than a beam brawler, oddly enough, because beam ships can often close to a range where they have very high accuracy anyways, while missile accuracy is always limited by relative speed and agility score. The exception is if you are pursuing a beam sniper strategy with long-range lasers/particle beams as a primary weapon, in which case the extra hit chance is good to help with winning long-range gunnery duels.

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2) Considering the following FAC has BFCs that are only 2% more accurate compared to 3 escort fighters that also fit in one hangar bay, is it better to build a shipyard for it or to have the fighters which don't need shipyards because the difference between 86 and 88% for final defensive fire is not worth building another naval shipyard just for a 1000 ton piece of glass with no armor whatsoever?

As listed, both designs are probably nearly the same in performance and I would probably choose the fighters for logistical reasons in most cases (i.e., to use planetary factories instead of a shipyard). However, check if you are using a single-weapon BFC for the fighter as this is a great way to save space or get a much more performant BFC onto a small frame.

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3) Similar question to the one on the usefulness of CIC, what about Primary Flight Control and the Commander - Air Group bonuses?

You would need a much, much larger carrier to get real value from this module, and the real value in any case is going to be the faster reload speed for box launcher fighters so they can get back into space and launch another missile volley as quickly as possible. For beam fighters the only benefit is faster refueling which isn't that important since beam fighters can simply remain on target until they or the target are dead (probably them).

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Space Marine Squad - R9
Transport Size: 100 tons
Build Cost: 10 BP
14x Space Marine - Plasma Bolter (PWL)
4x Space Marine - Plasma MG (CAP)
2x Space Marine - Fireteam Leader (PW)

In terms of optimization, I would get rid of the 2x PW as this is a strictly inferior weapon for boarding combat. PWL and CAP are the best weapons, especially if you are using plasma tech to overpower your attack stats relative to armor tech. You will also probably find that losses among the CAP units will be impractically high - I would probably suggest running a balance closer to 21x PWL + 3x CAP (99 tons).

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Vexillus class Command Cruiser

Do not bother putting a CIC on this design.

It looks okay for the most part. My one big problem with it is the active AM sensor, it should be much larger unless you plan to use sensor fighters to expand your AM sensor envelope. The missile tracking bonus is a very powerful component of effective point defense and you should be using as much sensor range as you can get to maximize it (up to your current tech level of course).

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Vindico m3 class Heavy Cruiser

If you do put a CIC on this design (it is borderline IMO), I would remove the ENG module, mainly because in practice it is hard to find enough qualified officers to staff a fleet with a lot of ENG modules.

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Tempestas class Heavy Fighter

I would probably use the armored version. The shielded versions have a grand total of 12 armor points from armor + shields, so they will probably just die if shot at no matter what. The armored versions may be able to survive a first volley if the enemy splits their fire between enough targets, and will probably also do better against AMM spam.

----

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The Ironclad Legion:

As an aside, I'm not sure what the purpose is for two dropship designs. Usually the point of having multiple transport designs is to have an assault (dropship) design and a standard design with no drop capability which is efficient for ferrying garrison or specialist formations between non-active areas of operations. In this case, there's not a lot of point in building the 50k ton class when you could have a 275k ton ship that does the same job as six of the smaller ships for a smaller total build cost. Maybe shipyard limitations are playing a role here?

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ARM Legio I Ferrata (Rear Echelon) - HQ120 - FD10 - LG125 R6
Transport Size: 19,940 tons
Build Cost: 1,208.8 BP
2x Legion HQ (HQ + FFD)
42x Aquila m1 Motorized AA (MAA)
250x Logistics (LOG)
8x Space Support Director (FFD)
8x Granato m2 ADARTS (MBL + HAA)

Note that FFD is mostly useful for front-line formations due to how the targeting works for ground support fighters. It isn't completely useless on a rear-echelon formation, but your fighters will be basically limited to counter-battery operations rather than front-line support which is arguably more useful.

Note that while the automatic resupply ability of LVH+LOG is convenient, at 2.48 build points per 500 GSP these are a very inefficient way to build supplies into your formations compared to infantry-based logistics units (0.2 BP per 100 GSP or 1.0 BP per 500 GSP for LOG-S and LOG, respectively). It is far more cost-effective to build large formations of INF+LOG-S and use the replacements feature to resupply your formations.

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ARM Regimentum II Ferrata
Armored Cohort
Mechanized Support Battalion

You are going to very quickly find that you run out of enough ground officers to command these formations, compared to how large of an army you need to conquer a NPR home world. Assuming that each top HQ commands five regiments (it has this capability, and the text is unclear), for every 120,000 tons you plan to deploy you need 16 commanders (1 for top HQ + 3 per regiment * 5 regiments). To invade a typical NPR home world you will need multi-million tons of ground forces, and since your current force structure implies 160 leaders per 1.2 million tons you are looking at a requirement of several hundred, if not over a thousand, commanders not even counting those dispersed throughout your empire for garrison duty, special operations, etc.

It is one of the least-well-known facts about Aurora ground combat that you really need to use base formation sizes in the 20k ton range to effectively leverage your commanders for an invasion at the necessary scale. A base 20,000-ton formation size (i.e., regiment or brigade, usually) implies "only" 50 commanders per million tons which is a lot more manageable.

I also generally recommend trying to stick to a 3:1 ratio between units at each rank/command level - a division has 3 regiments, a corps commands 3 divisions, and so on. This is not necessary, per se, but diverging from this means that designing a formation hierarchy to effectively use all of your commanders becomes a bit trickier unless you have turned off auto-promotions.

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And finally, here is the "cheap" PDF - a Light Infantry Cohort formation. Except they aren't as cheap as Imperial Guards armed with flashlights and protected by T-shirts but instead fully clad in heavy power armor.

Why? Planetary garrisons have two job requirements: be as cheap as possible to build, and have guns to point at people when they start talking about rebelling against your kind and generous rule. Power armor accomplishes neither of these things, and while I understand the desire to have effective defenses in place - 10,000 tons of infantry will not dissuade a million-ton enemy army, and build points for ground units are such a premium resource that such things are a luxury at best.

For offensive formations power armor makes more sense, although given the cost I think its utility is questionable - numbers are more important than individual unit power unless you are cheesing the game with a fleet of UHVs.

Title: Re: BFGs and Boarding for Shock and Awe: Battlefleet Sol and Ground Forces.
Post by: El Pip on November 20, 2021, 02:53:14 AM

Quote from: nuclearslurpee on November 19, 2021, 11:12:07 AM

What is it with people and posting their entire fleet in this subforum lately? Y'all writing AAR intro posts might as well write a whole AAR while you're at it.

I agree with this sentiment, just re-worded with the correct amount of vowels. (https://i.imgur.com/Z3wSg01.gif)

The actual game comments have all been done, so I will just say I admire the commitment to a doctrine being carried through to it's illogical conclusion regardless of how 'efficient' it is in the actual game. Excellent work which really should be turned into an AAR.

Title: Re: BFGs and Boarding for Shock and Awe: Battlefleet Sol and Ground Forces.
Post by: Abridal on November 20, 2021, 03:08:11 AM

Quote from: TheTalkingMeowth on November 18, 2021, 09:16:39 PM

There was a rule change from VB6 to C# that means one fire control can engage arbitrary numbers of missile salvos. This may change your preference between railgun fighters and gauss turret PD :).

http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg117825#msg117825

Then I suppose unless R&D in turret tracking speed and Gauss cannons is intentionally avoided during a game, where PD railgun fighters serve as less than optimal substitute for Gauss PD turrets in addition to the third rate PD from railguns mounted on bigger ships, there is very little merit to them besides being better than laser turrets with their single shot per 5 sec at most, maybe.

The following is a much better alternative for escort with superior accuracy BFC, only 2 less guns available compared to the carrier and, with RoF 5, slightly better in DPS for sandpapering shields and armor when there are no missiles left to shoot down. Capacity expansions and retoolings of the shipyards to build up 15kt ships are almost done, so installing a CIC will have to wait. Besides, with the amount of wrecks from which the salvage ships get intact CIC sometimes for reverse engineering, rushing research into such component will become a waste of RP. Therefore, until it is "researched" from whichever brings the knowledge to build them first between salvaging or ELINT, it won't be adopted.

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Praetor class Escort Cruiser      15,000 tons       377 Crew       3,398 BP       TCS 300    TH 2,042    EM 6,870
6805 km/s      Armour 8-54       Shields 229-536       HTK 74      Sensors 0/0/0/0      DCR 8      PPV 84
Maint Life 2.20 Years     MSP 1,203    AFR 212%    IFR 2.9%    1YR 336    5YR 5,033    Max Repair 357 MSP
Troop Capacity 100 tons     
Lord-Captain    Control Rating 3   BRG   AUX   ENG   
Intended Deployment Time: 9 months    Morale Check Required    

Itaipu Trinuclear MagPlasma-510 (4)    Power 2041.6    Fuel Use 51.21%    Signature 510.4    Explosion 14%
Fuel Capacity 1,009,000 Litres    Range 23.6 billion km (40 days at full power)
Gellar Manufactorum Theta Scutum 229 (1)     Recharge Time 536 seconds (0.4 per second)

Taurus CEMB-5 Turret (10x5)    Range 50,000km     TS: 20000 km/s     Power 0-0     RM 50,000 km    ROF 5       
Marques Eletro CT 240Mm-20k (2)     Max Range: 240,000 km   TS: 20,000 km/s     96 92 88 83 79 75 71 67 62 58

Camara Sistemas Microsensor m1 (1)     GPS 11     Range 6.1m km    MCR 545.7k km    Resolution 1

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

Quote from: nuclearslurpee on November 19, 2021, 11:12:07 AM

What is it with people and posting their entire fleet in this subforum lately? Y'all writing AAR intro posts might as well write a whole AAR while you're at it.

Having the first discovered extra-solar system in 2129 in a 2025 start date conventional game does not make for a riveting AAR. Stubbornly waiting until a scientist specialized in Construction showed up to research the base TN technology tech was a big mistake, not that it costed much and so far the general TL of the only NPR found is more or less at parity, which means it wasn't a complete mess-up, just a slow start. The most dangerous among the spoilers are disabled but all the others are enabled.

That is because I usually play in a slow, turtling pace unless one of the homeworld apocalyptic disasters is enabled. Often I will not start designing and building ships until Ion engines with fuel efficiency at least at 0.4 are researched. In the absence of pressing matters like spoilers at the jump gates to Sol, the more TLs are skipped between everything that requires researching prototypes, the more efficient technological advance will be and I take that strategy of skipping whole TLs a bit too far sometimes.

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This is frankly not enough for a single battlefleet in most cases

I should have been more clear: Battlefleet Sol will be composed by x Jump Squadrons, each one due to the capacities of existing jump engines made by 7 ships with tonnage up to 15,0000, where x is the amount of such jump squadrons which will suffice to win battles. Like with the starting frigates maybe 5 of such squadrons should be more than enough, perhaps even overkill, 3x7 instead should be enough for a first offensive, just retreat otherwise. Right now there are 5 military shipyards:

15kt capacity and 2 slipways - about to be retooled for the Vindico m3 class and will get more slipways if this retool allows for enough different classes too
~5k capacity and 2 slipways undergoing expansion to 15k - retooled to the Command Cruiser final iteration, hopefully may be used to build a few others without retooling
~5k capacity and 2 slipways undergoing expansion to 7.5k, will get another expansion to 15k if the previous shipyards' retools are exclusive for their classes
3k capacity and 4 slipways
3k capacity - to expand to 7.5k if 3rd one goes to 15

Building enough forces to defy the average NPR fleets will take some time then.

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As a side note: while beam-only fleets are perfectly feasible, at least for play against NPRs, since you are clearly using WH40K as a basis for your own campaign I would suggest that you consider using missiles, as this fits in just fine with the flavor - large Imperium ships use torpedo launchers, and small craft like the Starhawk bomber also use missile weapons.

Missiles will have to wait until research catches up to the same TL of the 60cm plasma carronades on missile warhead strength. Without an urgency to develop missiles there is no need to waste fuel and other finite resources on super outdated 2x MSP warhead missiles launched by super slow launchers at the lowest TL. Agility, magazine explosion chance, launcher velocity can stay backwards compared to such TL so their implementation in the game won't take too long.

IMO something intended as a simulacrum of a "torpedo launcher" in Aurora should use passive sensors and only launch its missiles at waypoints, never target a specific vessel directly through MFC and active detection, using missiles with their own tiny active sensors to track target. For this type of armament a 3,000 ton stealth destroyer with a cloaking device might be better than a fighter, in addition to not depending upon a carrier. Maybe no carrier will never leave the drawing board this time.

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I would probably suggest running a balance closer to 21x PWL + 3x CAP (99 tons).

18x PWL + 2x PW + 3x CAP. 2 PW instead of 3 PWL isn't a huge loss in efficiency and it results in an exact 100 tons. They are supposed to be the leaders of individual units within the formation, their larger size in tons getting them targeted more often makes sense in such context.

Quote from: nuclearslurpee on November 19, 2021, 11:12:07 AM

It looks okay for the most part. My one big problem with it is the active AM sensor, it should be much larger unless you plan to use sensor fighters to expand your AM sensor envelope. The missile tracking bonus is a very powerful component of effective point defense and you should be using as much sensor range as you can get to maximize it (up to your current tech level of course).

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Iris class Recon Fighter (P)      100 tons       4 Crew       40.6 BP       TCS 2    TH 34    EM 0
16800 km/s      Armour 1-1       Shields 0-0       HTK 2      Sensors 0/0/0/0      DCR 0      PPV 0
Maint Life 0 Years     MSP 0    AFR 19%    IFR 0.3%    1YR 2    5YR 29    Max Repair 21.0 MSP
Commander    Control Rating 1   
Intended Deployment Time: 1 days    Morale Check Required    

Itaipu Trinuclear MagPlasma-33 (1)    Power 33.6    Fuel Use 1767.56%    Signature 33.6    Explosion 30%
Fuel Capacity 5,000 Litres    Range 0.51 billion km (8 hours at full power)

Camara Sistemas Sensor AM 21 (1)     GPS 21     Range 8.6m km    MCR 771.7k km    Resolution 1

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

Switching the sensor in its single recon fighter to an active one should work.

Positioning it about 1.8m km away from the fleet and closer to where the hostile missile fleet and its salvos are coming from should be enough early detection to boost max tracking bonus as the ranges of both the fighter and CC AS overlap slightly. And currently the bonus is only up to 30s.

If that is not good enough, replacing the 3 small boat bays in the command cruiser with one boat bay for 250 ton maximum room, removing the railgun for that bigger hangar space to fit in, will allow for one more recon fighter positioned at about 2.5m km, extending detection range to about 3.2m km in tandem with the other sensors.

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I would probably use the armored version. The shielded versions have a grand total of 12 armor points from armor + shields, so they will probably just die if shot at no matter what. The armored versions may be able to survive a first volley if the enemy splits their fire between enough targets, and will probably also do better against AMM spam.

Good to know. I guess even at maxtech putting a shield on a fighter is pointless. Something like it will be serviceable as a planetary defense fighter to ensure future colonies with no shipyards, only maintenance facilities and fighter factories can have a minimum of self-sufficiency constructing their own defense forces and not force larger ships to stay away from the systems at the front line for their defense against a probably new threat from another direction within uncharted JP routes. Hundreds of STO could do that cheaper than hundreds of railgun and missile fighters(once missile tech is properly developed), but STO can't chase away a retreating invasion force or close in when out-ranged.

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I'm not sure what the purpose is for two dropship designs.

Retooling a 275k commercial shipyard takes a long time. Continual Capacity of a new shipyard to take tonnage isn't fast either. The other design is an upgrade over a regular troop transport without drop capability, then I realized it would be a lot more useful as a pure strategic transport with only token armor and one more engine so they can ferry troops to the closest staging ground(ideally a moon orbiting the NPR homeworld) somewhat faster:

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Expeditionis m2 class Strategic Troop Transport      50,000 tons       350 Crew       2,126.7 BP       TCS 1,000    TH 4,000    EM 0
4000 km/s      Armour 5-120       Shields 0-0       HTK 108      Sensors 0/0/0/0      DCR 1      PPV 0
MSP 276    Max Repair 200 MSP
Troop Capacity 20,000 tons     Cargo Shuttle Multiplier 6    
Commander    Control Rating 1   BRG   
Intended Deployment Time: 3 months    

Itaipu Trinuclear MagPlasma-C800 (5)    Power 4000    Fuel Use 1.68%    Signature 800    Explosion 5%
Fuel Capacity 351,000 Litres    Range 75.3 billion km (218 days at full power)

This design is classed as a Commercial Vessel for maintenance purposes
This design is classed as a Troop Transport for auto-assignment purposes

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Note that FFD is mostly useful for front-line formations due to how the targeting works for ground support fighters. It isn't completely useless on a rear-echelon formation, but your fighters will be basically limited to counter-battery operations rather than front-line support which is arguably more useful.

Noted. Changed all formations, adding more Art to HQ formations(keeping only the 2 FFD from the Legion HQ medium vehicles to not waste time researching a new HQ unit), and moving the FFD to the front line ones.

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Note that while the automatic resupply ability of LVH+LOG is convenient, at 2.48 build points per 500 GSP these are a very inefficient way to build supplies into your formations compared to infantry-based logistics units (0.2 BP per 100 GSP or 1.0 BP per 500 GSP for LOG-S and LOG, respectively). It is far more cost-effective to build large formations of INF+LOG-S and use the replacements feature to resupply your formations.

The thing about space warfare with a modicum of plausibility is that there is no real need to optimize ground forces whatsoever. There is technically no need even for ground forces to exist if the primary objective is to simply eliminate a threat forever. All that is needed is something like a size 99 very slow moving and short ranged "cyclonic torpedo". Even if an invasion fails precisely because 240% more expensive logistics units reduced the amount of ground units available when it happened and otherwise it would have been a victory in ground combat, it doesn't really matter. The big red button is there awaiting to be pushed. Just as an example:

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Low Tech Cyclonic Torpedo Knockoff

Missile Size: 99.00 MSP  (247.500 Tons)     Warhead: 196    Radiation Damage: 196    Manoeuvre Rating: 10
Speed: 40 km/s     Fuel: 25     Flight Time: 938 hours     Range: 136.4m km
Cost Per Missile: 49.02     Development Cost: 4,902
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 0.4%   3k km/s 0.1%   5k km/s 0.1%   10k km/s 0.0%

Materials Required
Tritanium  49
Gallicite  0.02
Fuel:  25

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You are going to very quickly find that you run out of enough ground officers to command these formations, compared to how large of an army you need to conquer a NPR home world. Assuming that each top HQ commands five regiments (it has this capability, and the text is unclear), for every 120,000 tons you plan to deploy you need 16 commanders (1 for top HQ + 3 per regiment * 5 regiments). To invade a typical NPR home world you will need multi-million tons of ground forces, and since your current force structure implies 160 leaders per 1.2 million tons you are looking at a requirement of several hundred, if not over a thousand, commanders not even counting those dispersed throughout your empire for garrison duty, special operations, etc.

R9 commanders will have to prove their worth only in boarding action then, because merging the ART support battalions to the Regimental HQ formation, converting it from Rear Echelon to Support and keeping only the Front line Cohorts as they are should fix this. 5 academies definitively aren't good enough to keep up with such detail. Maybe not even 10 would be for so many units.

In addition to that, moving Logistics, Artillery and AA from the Regimental HQ to the Legion HQ level and logically switching it from RE to Support reduces even further the need for officers by reducing the size of the regiments and allowing mergers. 2 Cohorts were disbanded too. The Regiments were converted from RE to Front Line Defense and now have some front line units directly under their command from the disbanded Cohorts. This gives a 3:2 FA to Front Line Defense default ratio but the Regiments will obviously be changed to FA when convenient.

This way, the structure is streamlined to only 3 regiments per legion and 1 cohort per regiment which at this point is little more than a way to give R8 commanders something to command. All support and logistics ground units are directly commanded by the Legion HQ except for FFD placed in the Regimental level.

With this change, each Legion will require only 7 commanders: 1 R6 leader, 3 R7 leaders and 3 R8 leaders. Hopefully this is enough of a reduction to not run out of commanders.

Finally, these changes opened enough spare tonnage for 9 artillery vehicles transferred from the L-INF regiment(which isn't expected to ever see battle anyway), which in turn received 2 APCs so every regiment will have exactly 106 APCs under direct command.

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Why? Planetary garrisons have two job requirements: be as cheap as possible to build, and have guns to point at people when they start talking about rebelling against your kind and generous rule. Power armor accomplishes neither of these things, and while I understand the desire to have effective defenses in place - 10,000 tons of infantry will not dissuade a million-ton enemy army, and build points for ground units are such a premium resource that such things are a luxury at best.

Future Light Infantry will be cheaper then, but disbanding an already built unit is pointless.

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For offensive formations power armor makes more sense, although given the cost I think its utility is questionable - numbers are more important than individual unit power unless you are cheesing the game with a fleet of UHVs.

I really hope medium and light vehicles aren't useless for front line combat, or almost 100,000 tons of units were wasted. Mass infantry assaults by soldiers with light armor being better than tanks and mechanized infantry unless such armored vehicles have the size of a Landkreuzer P.1000 Ratte, Baneblade or Super Heavy Mech is kind of cheesy.

Anyway, thanks for the info.

Title: Re: BFGs and Boarding for Shock and Awe: Battlefleet Sol and Ground Forces.
Post by: nuclearslurpee on November 20, 2021, 09:32:50 AM

Quote from: Abridal on November 20, 2021, 03:08:11 AM

Having the first discovered extra-solar system in 2129 in a 2025 start date conventional game does not make for a riveting AAR. Stubbornly waiting until a scientist specialized in Construction showed up to research the base TN technology tech was a big mistake, not that it costed much and so far the general TL of the only NPR found is more or less at parity, which means it wasn't a complete mess-up, just a slow start. The most dangerous among the spoilers are disabled but all the others are enabled.

You can always start in the middle, after things have gotten interesting, and provide a recap of the important history. Personally I would find the in-universe explanations of the mistakes made to be interesting material for an AAR but opinions may vary. ;)

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IMO something intended as a simulacrum of a "torpedo launcher" in Aurora should use passive sensors and only launch its missiles at waypoints, never target a specific vessel directly through MFC and active detection, using missiles with their own tiny active sensors to track target. For this type of armament a 3,000 ton stealth destroyer with a cloaking device might be better than a fighter, in addition to not depending upon a carrier. Maybe no carrier will never leave the drawing board this time.

If we are referencing WH40K torpedoes, I think that these actually lack any kind of homing sensor so the basic sensor-less missile design in Aurora would be the closest representation, since the actual homing missiles are unique to some faction (Tau?).

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The thing about space warfare with a modicum of plausibility is that there is no real need to optimize ground forces whatsoever. There is technically no need even for ground forces to exist if the primary objective is to simply eliminate a threat forever. All that is needed is something like a size 99 very slow moving and short ranged "cyclonic torpedo". Even if an invasion fails precisely because 240% more expensive logistics units reduced the amount of ground units available when it happened and otherwise it would have been a victory in ground combat, it doesn't really matter. The big red button is there awaiting to be pushed. Just as an example:

I think it depends a lot on how one defines "plausibility" in warfare. In my mind, one fights wars to accomplish a specific goal or outcome. Sometimes this might be simply to eliminate a threat, but I think more often a realistic goal involves trying to acquire useful resources (minerals, population, infrastructure, etc.) from the opponent. In this case where orbital bombardment can render the value of a conquest mimimal or even nil due to the collateral damage, use of ground forces becomes a necessity. Presuming the necessity of ground forces, when we turn to logistics the optimization of the logistics structure does become significant as some 10% to 20% of your total force BP will need to be dedicated to supply and resupply of the combat elements - I have shown this analysis elsewhere for the context of planetary invasions; for wiping out a few 10k tons of spoiler garrisons it isn't so important, of course.

Personally as I find wars of pure extermination by far the least interesting kinds of wars, well-developed ground forces are a necessity to me. Fortunately, the system Steve has developed allows nearly any RP formulation for the ground forces to be viable - with a couple of tweaks to the balance of logistics.

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I really hope medium and light vehicles aren't useless for front line combat, or almost 100,000 tons of units were wasted. Mass infantry assaults by soldiers with light armor being better than tanks and mechanized infantry unless such armored vehicles have the size of a Landkreuzer P.1000 Ratte, Baneblade or Super Heavy Mech is kind of cheesy.

Vehicles are entirely fine, although ideally you want to have the right balance with infantry so that the enemy anti-tank weapons are not extremely efficient. This is largely because of the fact that vehicles (and statics) have more than 1 HP so are a good bit more resilient to most enemy weapons. Anti-Vehicle weapons are of course the primary threat to vehicles (surprising, I know), and often the role of infantry is to distract as many AV weapons as possible from firing at the tanks so that the tanks may stay alive and continue murdering things.

It is specifically armored infantry that has questionable value, mainly because even with ARM 2 they are still quite fragile due to only 1 HP (and increasing the HP as well makes them much more expensive units), so you are paying 2x the BP cost per unit or in other words deploying half as many infantry for the price, which means you are deploying half as many shot-absorbing meatshields for your more valuable tanks and other armored vehicles as you could otherwise.

Doubling the armor of an infantry unit in theory quadruples the protection, since penetration and damage both scale quadratically. However in practice the effect is somewhat less than this as your infantry are still overmatched by, e.g., anti-vehicle weapons. On the other hand, since combat efficiency generally scales with the square of the number of units on the field (Lanchester's Law), deploying half as many troops means 1/4 as much combat efficiency which ends up being a more significant effect than the less-than-quadruple protection.

That all being said, the assumption here has been efficiency on a cost basis. On a tonnage basis, however, power armored infantry is obviously strictly stronger, which means that they can have a role in the first wave of drop troops leading an invasion, as the early waves are often limited by the number and size of drop transports you can build rather than how many troops you could build. Once you have a couple of waves in the field, then you can start shuttling the lighter infantry to the surface to act as a cheaper weight-of-numbers meatshield force, while the armored infantry can hopefully hold the initial ground for the first several combat rounds. In this case though we see that the armored infantry are still best as a specialized force, not as the majority of your infantry as this simply becomes cost-prohibitive and not as efficient at scale.

Title: Re: BFGs and Boarding for Shock and Awe: Battlefleet Sol and Ground Forces.
Post by: Garfunkel on November 20, 2021, 07:29:20 PM

Quote from: nuclearslurpee on November 20, 2021, 09:32:50 AM

Quote from: Abridal on November 20, 2021, 03:08:11 AM
Having the first discovered extra-solar system in 2129 in a 2025 start date conventional game does not make for a riveting AAR. Stubbornly waiting until a scientist specialized in Construction showed up to research the base TN technology tech was a big mistake, not that it costed much and so far the general TL of the only NPR found is more or less at parity, which means it wasn't a complete mess-up, just a slow start. The most dangerous among the spoilers are disabled but all the others are enabled.

You can always start in the middle, after things have gotten interesting, and provide a recap of the important history. Personally I would find the in-universe explanations of the mistakes made to be interesting material for an AAR but opinions may vary. ;)

There was a very enjoyable AAR for VB6 that did just that - it started at like 40-50 years into the game and followed multiple characters as they stumbled around the galaxy. Well worth a read as well as emulation but of course I can't find it now.

Title: Re: BFGs and Boarding for Shock and Awe: Battlefleet Sol and Ground Forces.
Post by: Vandermeer on November 21, 2021, 09:03:00 AM

Quote from: nuclearslurpee on November 20, 2021, 09:32:50 AM

If we are referencing WH40K torpedoes, I think that these actually lack any kind of homing sensor so the basic sensor-less missile design in Aurora would be the closest representation, since the actual homing missiles are unique to some faction (Tau?).

I have to correct you on that point, since Battlefleet Gothic lore is close to me. Though the normal imperial torpedoes are indeed unguided, there are alternate versions that you can arm your ships with as detailed in Armada, and then also Rouge Trader books. There are faster short range torpedoes, types for planetary destruction, extremely rare vortextorpedoes that summon the warp, incendiary melter torpedoes, and then also two types of guided ones. The self guided ones are very rare produce since they use forbidden AI kept by Mechanicus, but fire control guided ones are common.
The standard is still unguided though, so one may go with classical optics.

Title: Re: BFGs and Boarding for Shock and Awe: Battlefleet Sol and Ground Forces.
Post by: Bobcloclimar on November 24, 2021, 11:19:41 PM

Quote from: Vandermeer link=topic=12825. msg156902#msg156902 date=1637506980

Though the normal imperial torpedoes are indeed unguided, there are alternate versions that you can arm your ships with as detailed in Armada, and then also Rouge Trader books.

The original BFG book states that the basic torps can detect ships within "a few thousand km" (i. e. escort base size - IIRC the largest capital bases can represent a couple hundred kkm) and will maneuver to intercept within that range, so the suggested tiny active sensor might be a workable model. Just make sure that they're slow enough to get 50% losses from PD fire for the authentic BFG experience. :P

Title: Re: BFGs and Boarding for Shock and Awe: Battlefleet Sol and Ground Forces.
Post by: Vandermeer on November 25, 2021, 03:52:16 PM

Quote from: Bobcloclimar on November 24, 2021, 11:19:41 PM

The original BFG book states that the basic torps can detect ships within "a few thousand km" (i. e. escort base size - IIRC the largest capital bases can represent a couple hundred kkm) and will maneuver to intercept within that range, so the suggested tiny active sensor might be a workable model.

Oh, right, I read it and it does indeed say that. It isn't reflected in the actual game rules, but that must be because the game skirmishes are always at "beam range" distance. It seems over Aurora distances the lore does describe them to be tracking as well. Good catch!

Aurora 4x

C# Aurora => C# Bureau of Design => Topic started by: Abridal on November 18, 2021, 08:26:17 PM