Post by: quintin522 on February 02, 2010, 10:55:37 PM
2. I keep hearing about anti-ship missiles. How do I build them, and how do I use them?
3. CIWS? What are they exactly?
4. Do shipyards really only build one kind of ship? Heard something somewhere about it being able to build any ship of a class, is that true?
5. Do I have to make a new class for each ship I design, or can I make ones that are of an existing class? How?
6. Whats the exact process of building PDC's, OWP's ? Of moving them where you want them and putting them together?
7. Sensors. Active, thermal, em. What do I need to know about their sizes? Have seen talk about needing different sizes, as some can only detect large ships far away and some small ships up close.
8. How useful are tractor beams?
9. What exactly is a jump-tender?
10. Lasers, Mesons, Carrodes, Torpedoes, what does each one do?
Post by: Hawkeye on February 03, 2010, 10:26:18 AM
Quote from: "quintin522"
1. What are magazines for?
Storage room for your missiles. You realy don´t want to run out of ammo in the middle of a battle
Quote from: "quintin522"
2. I keep hearing about anti-ship missiles. How do I build them, and how do I use them?
F2 screen, hit "Missiles". After designing, research them, then built them (F2, Industry)
Design a launcher for the missiles (preferably same size)
Put launcher and magazins and missile targeting system and active sensor on ship or PDC --> blast your enemy
Quote from: "quintin522"
3. CIWS? What are they exactly?
Close In Weapon System. Defends ship mounting it against enemy missiles. Uses Gauss Cannon Launch Velocity, Gauss Cannon Rate of Fire, Beam Fire Control Range and Fire Control Speed Rating. Does not need any Sensors/Targeting Systems/Power Plants
Quote from: "quintin522"
4. Do shipyards really only build one kind of ship? Heard something somewhere about it being able to build any ship of a class, is that true?
Yes, but you can retool a shipyard for another class (F2, Manage Shipyards, Retool for selected Class)
Quote from: "quintin522"
5. Do I have to make a new class for each ship I design, or can I make ones that are of an existing class? How?
Yes, hit the "New" button on the class design screen (F5)
Quote from: "quintin522"
6. Whats the exact process of building PDC's, OWP's ? Of moving them where you want them and putting them together?
Just design them, like any other ship. (For PDCs, select PDC instead of Ship) OWPs are simply ships without engines.
PDCs are build by your industry, OWPs in your shipyards.
PDCs are not moveable, once build. You can build prefabed PDCs (F2, Industry) which can be shiped out and assemled where needed. Once assembled, they too ar no longer moveable.
Quote from: "quintin522"
7. Sensors. Active, thermal, em. What do I need to know about their sizes? Have seen talk about needing different sizes, as some can only detect large ships far away and some small ships up close.
Well, the bigger the better, but also the more resources and space required.
Thermal and EM are passives, Actives are, well, active (think radar)
Actives have a sensor strength (depends on your techlevel and size) and a resolution.
Resolution means, what size a sensor is optimized to detect. A sensor optimized to see 30.000t battleships (resolution 600) will have a very _very_ hard time seeing a tiny missile (size 1)
An active can see a target the size of its resolution or larger out to its maximum range, but smaller ones only at significantly shorter ranges. The formula goes something like this:
(Target size / resolution) ^2 x max range, so a res 100 sensor, optimized for 5.000t ships with a range of 100 million km, can see a 1.000t FAC (size 20) only at ((20 / 100) ^2) x 100 mkm = (0.2 ^2) x 100 mkm = 4 mkm
Quote from: "quintin522"
8. How useful are tractor beams?
Used to move
a) OWPs around
b) wrecks/cripples/Terraformer Platforms/Fuel Harvesting Platforms around
Quote from: "quintin522"
9. What exactly is a jump-tender?
Jumpships can carry additional ships through a jumppoint. Put a few in a fleet and the fleet has jump capability. Of course, loos those jump-tender and your fleet is suddenly stranded out in no-mans-land
Main travelrouts can also have a jumpship parked on the jumppoints, acting as a sort of "poor mans jumpgate"
Quote from: "quintin522"
10. Lasers, Mesons, Carrodes, Torpedoes, what does each one do?
Shoot at the enemy
Look here: viewtopic.php?f=101&t=1962#p18706 (http://aurora.pentarch.org/viewtopic.php?f=101&t=1962#p18706)
PS: You realy should work through the tutorials viewforum.php?f=101 (http://aurora.pentarch.org/viewforum.php?f=101)
Post by: Father Tim on February 03, 2010, 11:28:39 AM
7. The power of an individual sensor is a result of antenna size (ie hull space devoted to the antenna) and sensor strength (a technology) - and, in the case of active sensors, chosen resolution (ie the size of target the sensor is
8. In combat? No use whatsoever. For moving around slow, damaged, or engineless units? Quite useful. Of course, you can repair damaged units in situ, and not build slow or 'immobile (actually 1 km/s) units, which puts tractor beams back to 'not really'. Your choice.
9. Whatever you want it to be; again, jump tender is just a name. For most people, it's a ship whose primary purpose is to provide jump point transit to other units, and store extra fuel, munitions, and/or maintenance for other ships. May also mount powerful, long-range sensors to act as the 'eyes & ears' of other ships.
Post by: quintin522 on February 03, 2010, 01:07:44 PM
Just to clarify, can a PDC be built out in space, away from a planet? I was hoping to be able to use one as a kind of refueling/maintenance base
Is there a way to turn off civilian ship names?
The one other thing is what is an anti-missile missile? Not so much what it is, but how to build and use one
Post by: Erik L on February 03, 2010, 01:49:12 PM
Post by: Father Tim on February 03, 2010, 04:38:48 PM
Quote from: "quintin522"
Just to clarify, can a PDC be built out in space, away from a planet?
No, only on a system body (including tiny asteroids).
Quote from: "quintin522"
I was hoping to be able to use one as a kind of refueling/maintenance base.
You can build ships with no engines (they end up with a speed of 1km/s due to 'station-keeping thrusters') and tow them (with a ship-mounted tractor beam) to wherever you like, but they will not be maintenance-free.
Quote from: "quintin522"
Is there a way to turn off civilian ship names?
Not that I know of. (Assuming you are referring to the "<civilian line name> <class name> <ordinal number>" automatically generated name.)
Quote from: "quintin522"
The one other thing is what is an anti-missile missile? Not so much what it is, but how to build and use one
One MSP, consisting of 1-point warhead, 0.01 to 0.05 fuel (depending on range of anti-missile sensors), and the rest engines & agility (tweak to give highest 'to hit' chance against expected enemy missile speed).