Aurora 4x
New Players => The Academy => Topic started by: jseah on December 12, 2010, 08:40:05 AM
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I'm 8 years into my current campaign and am beginning to design my first defense fleet.
A few questions have cropped up:
I can't find the place you design missiles in. . . =/
Ship sizes will have to be 20 ktons or less since anything higher makes Jump Drives infeasible. (21kton jumpdrive is already 14k RP, I have a 65%/60 lab PP researcher though)
This points me towards ships in specialized roles.
Is it feasible to put giant sensors + heavy armour on one ship and no sensors on the others? (it can be my jumpdrive ship as well) I read that you need active sensors to lock onto targets, does it have to be on the same ship as the firecontrol?
How big a sensor is too big? I've looked up sensor range formulae and designed 4 active sensors at 1kton each across various ship sizes. Is that overkill or do I need bigger?
- The minimum detection range for the bands already outranges my laser at least 10 times. But the size of the circle makes me feel blind.
My laser weapons seem to have annoying short ranges, 400kkm is ridiculously short.
I have ultraviolet lasers already and researching more will take too long. And my firecontrols never seem to be good enough. Laser already outranges the firecontrol. =( Longer ranged firecontrol is also likewise infeasible.
EDIT: Also, do I have to research everything or is weapon specialization feasible? I would prefer to have say, Gauss Cannons for point defense, Lasers for killing and missiles for everything else. Rather than have to have an unmanageable mix of everything.
Regarding warp blindness. Since you can't see directly after you jump, you can't shoot.
So I have a question, do you get to know what's on an enemy ship? If not, I could jump in a decoy ship that is simply a jumpdrive with ridiculous armour + tons of shields, then following up with my main fleet once they have wasted their shots. (Tug boats for in-system movement)
Can military engines go through a commercial jumpdrive? Or will my tugboat have to be military as well?
Can a jumpdrive transit a tractorbeamed ship? Does the tractorbeamed ship count to the tug's size or are they considered individually?
If indivudally considered, what's preventing me from dividing my fleet into tugboats (engines) and the actual business end of the ship? Apart from the fact that warp point assaults with that design philosophy will be a massive pain.
Also, I could do this for my support fleet at least. Maintenance modules, coillers, tankers and even carriers (see last question) could feasibly be using this.
I've noticed that engines get less efficient the more of them you put on a ship. What is a good engine to weight ratio? Is sacrificing efficiency for a better ratio worth it? I seem to have tons of fuel anyway.
Finally, I have a bug. . . I think?
Commercial tug boats attached to commercial ships that have zero engines don't seem to use fuel when moving (they use fuel if the ship they are towing has engines as well). Hence my obssesion with tug boats.
Need to test to see if it will work on military ships. . . EDIT: Nope, commercial only.
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I'm 8 years into my current campaign and am beginning to design my first defense fleet.
A few questions have cropped up:
I can't find the place you design missiles in. . . =/
Ship sizes will have to be 20 ktons or less since anything higher makes Jump Drives infeasible. (21kton jumpdrive is already 14k RP, I have a 65%/60 lab PP researcher though)
This points me towards ships in specialized roles.
This is tech dependant, I have 24K battleships with a Jump variant in my game. I will soon be investing in a 30K design :) Missile design is accessed from the F2 screen via the missiles button.
Is it feasible to put giant sensors + heavy armour on one ship and no sensors on the others? (it can be my jumpdrive ship as well) I read that you need active sensors to lock onto targets, does it have to be on the same ship as the firecontrol?
How big a sensor is too big? I've looked up sensor range formulae and designed 4 active sensors at 1kton each across various ship sizes. Is that overkill or do I need bigger?
- The minimum detection range for the bands already outranges my laser at least 10 times. But the size of the circle makes me feel blind.
The better then range of at least one sensor in the fleet the better, I normally have at least one design with a 50 HS sensor in it. You don't need to have an active sensor on the firiing ship. Sensors should be seen as complementary, your fleet will need a mix of long range optimised for warship detection and shorter range optimised for missile detection. There will also be some general purpose designs to fill the gaps in between.
My laser weapons seem to have annoying short ranges, 400kkm is ridiculously short.
I have ultraviolet lasers already and researching more will take too long. And my firecontrols never seem to be good enough. Laser already outranges the firecontrol. =( Longer ranged firecontrol is also likewise infeasible.
If you are going to rely upon lasers you will need good armour and some kind of anti-missile design to stop/ soak up all the mssiles that are going to come your way.
Regarding warp blindness. Since you can't see directly after you jump, you can't shoot.
So I have a question, do you get to know what's on an enemy ship? If not, I could jump in a decoy ship that is simply a jumpdrive with ridiculous armour + tons of shields, then following up with my main fleet once they have wasted their shots. (Tug boats for in-system movement)
No you don't know what's on an enemy ship unless you have captured one previously. Dependant upon the enemy weapons system, they may never run out; however, the concept of absorbing shots is sound.
Can military engines go through a commercial jumpdrive? Or will my tugboat have to be military as well?
No military engined ships cannot use a commercial Jump Drive to transit a Joint Point.
I've noticed that engines get less efficient the more of them you put on a ship. What is a good engine to weight ratio? Is sacrificing efficiency for a better ratio worth it? I seem to have tons of fuel anyway.
Depends on your design philosophy; however, faster is normally better in Aurora, so as many engines as you can is normally then answer.
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Disclaimer: I could be wrong. Add salt to taste.
Ship sizes will have to be 20 ktons or less since anything higher makes Jump Drives infeasible. (21kton jumpdrive is already 14k RP, I have a 65%/60 lab PP researcher though)
This points me towards ships in specialized roles.
Unless all your ships will be 20-21 ktons, you should either let the large ships ferry the smaller ones or research more than one jump drive. The research cost may be high in the short run, but you'll save on ships in the long run.
Is it feasible to put giant sensors + heavy armour on one ship and no sensors on the others? (it can be my jumpdrive ship as well) I read that you need active sensors to lock onto targets, does it have to be on the same ship as the firecontrol?
How big a sensor is too big? I've looked up sensor range formulae and designed 4 active sensors at 1kton each across various ship sizes. Is that overkill or do I need bigger?
- The minimum detection range for the bands already outranges my laser at least 10 times. But the size of the circle makes me feel blind.
IMO all combat ships (except perhaps fighters/FACs) should have a small active sensor. It should ideally match or just exceed weapon range. Note that no beam weapon, regardless of its nominal range, can fire beyond 1400k km (largest possible beam fire control range).
Your sensor ship should probably have at least two sensor resolutions: 15-25 or so for FACs, 100+ for other ships (smallest NPR ships I've seen were about 6000 tons). A resolution 1 sensor for missile detection wouldn't hurt, but your other ships should have that covered.
As for size, it depends. They should outrange your missiles, but beyond that is up to you. Size 50 sensors are beastly in both range and cost. The bigger your sensors, the fewer ships will have them because of the expense. Also be aware that a strength N nebula will reduce sensor range by a factor of N, so you might want a little extra range if you plan on operating in one.
My laser weapons seem to have annoying short ranges, 400kkm is ridiculously short.
I have ultraviolet lasers already and researching more will take too long. And my firecontrols never seem to be good enough. Laser already outranges the firecontrol. =( Longer ranged firecontrol is also likewise infeasible.
EDIT: Also, do I have to research everything or is weapon specialization feasible? I would prefer to have say, Gauss Cannons for point defense, Lasers for killing and missiles for everything else. Rather than have to have an unmanageable mix of everything.
As I said, beam fire control range caps at 1400k km (at x4 size and max tech). Damage drops off linearly with range, so a 14000k km laser would deal 90% damage at max (1400k km) range. So range beyond your fire control will increase damage, but it won't increase your range. If you want actual long range weapons, use missiles.
As for weapon specialization, they all have their uses. However, I've never bothered with particle beams (photon torpedos in earlier versions), plasma carronades, or microwaves. I use gauss for PD (also fighters), meson for PDC (only beam weapon unaffected by atmosphere), lasers (penetration) or railguns (damage) but not both, and sometimes missiles (can be expensive, so they don't exactly form the backbone of my offense). But your mileage may vary.
Regarding warp blindness. Since you can't see directly after you jump, you can't shoot.
So I have a question, do you get to know what's on an enemy ship? If not, I could jump in a decoy ship that is simply a jumpdrive with ridiculous armour + tons of shields, then following up with my main fleet once they have wasted their shots. (Tug boats for in-system movement)
I can think of three ways to handle jump point assaults: send a massive tank to draw fire (NPRs often target the largest ship they see), send some small high-speed (so they're hard to hit) fighters to draw fire and lure the defenders away from the JP, or send the whole fleet if you're confident their armor and shields will hold out long enough (blindness lasts, what, 60 seconds tops?). In the first two cases, provided the initial ships survive, AFAIK their sensors should allow the rest of the fleet to fire as soon as they jump. Don't quote me on that. Also, squadron transit can help alleviate your worries, as it can buy you some extra time for the blindness to wear off.
As welchbloke said, the enemy may not run out of ammo since there's a good chance they'll have some beam weapons. Your decoy can draw fire (and maybe waste enemy missiles) and/or lure them away from the JP. A heavy decoy is better for taking hits in lieu of the rest of the fleet, even after they make the jump. A light decoy squadron is better for luring them away from the JP while they dodge enemy fire.
Can military engines go through a commercial jumpdrive? Or will my tugboat have to be military as well?
Commercial jump drives only work for commercial engines. Military jump drives only work for military engines. If you build a jump tender with both types of jump drives, it can ferry ships with either type of engine, but AFAIK it won't allow them to jump as a single fleet. The ships with commercial engines will have to jump as a separate fleet from those with military engines.
Can a jumpdrive transit a tractorbeamed ship? Does the tractorbeamed ship count to the tug's size or are they considered individually?
If indivudally considered, what's preventing me from dividing my fleet into tugboats (engines) and the actual business end of the ship? Apart from the fact that warp point assaults with that design philosophy will be a massive pain.
Also, I could do this for my support fleet at least. Maintenance modules, coillers, tankers and even carriers (see last question) could feasibly be using this.
None of that should be a problem if you're willing to put up with the micromanagement. I'm pretty sure every ship, including tractored ones, will count against the squadron transit limit. So your combat ships (assuming your tugs are not also combat ships) will be jumping in smaller groups.
I've noticed that engines get less efficient the more of them you put on a ship. What is a good engine to weight ratio? Is sacrificing efficiency for a better ratio worth it? I seem to have tons of fuel anyway.
Two engines burn twice as much fuel as one. They also require twice as much hull space as one, which increases weight both directly and indirectly (since armor weight increases with ship size). As you add engines, you should asymptotically approach a maximum speed. Find that max speed (try designing a ship with literally nothing but thousands of engines) and you should get a feel for how much is too much.
For reasonable speed, you might try having some percentage (e.g. 20%) of your ships be engine. Fuel-wise, I like to pick a fuel storage size (e.g. standard, tiny, armored) and have one for each engine. So a 5000 tonner might have 4 military engines plus 4 fuel storage units of whatever size. A few consequences of this approach include: a size X ship is exactly as fast and requires half as much fuel as a size 2X ship, and a task group made entirely of same-tech-level ships has no wasted engines (i.e. they're all going at max speed since none are faster than the rest).
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Thanks for the replies. The advice has been helpful. Very much more so since my scouts just ran across a warp point with a gate on it!
I've found the turrets and missile designs. Thanks.
Another question. Now that I realize it, I really need sensors on warp points just to tell me when stuff gets through.
So, taking advantage of the fact that even commercial ships without sensors have an EM/Thermal detection range, I've designed a ship with nothing on it. Will this 100ton satellite detect enemy ships if I put them right on top of warp points? (Tug boats move it there of course)
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IIRC size 0.1 passive sensors, at least at the lowest tech level, have no cost. They're tiny, free, and far superior to no sensors at all. Be aware that you may need size 0.2 for the thermal sensors. The component design screen may claim they'll have strength 0.5 (or whatever, depending on tech level), but in reality they seem to round down to the nearest integer unlike EM sensors.
Regardless, cheap tiny sensors is where it's at. All my commercial ships have a pair.
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Aren't passive sensors military designs? You can't have a commercial ship with one of those on them. . .
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Sensors (active and passive) with size > 1 are military. Sensors with size <= 1 are commercial.
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My laser weapons seem to have annoying short ranges, 400kkm is ridiculously short.
Think of the size of the Pacific Ocean. Now think of the range of an 18-inch gun on a battleship, or of a Phalanx point-defense system. Now think of the range of a Tomahawk missile. These correspond to system size, offensive beam-weapon range, and point-defense beam-weapon range in Aurora. It's a general point of agreement that the Aurora game mechanics have ended up very similar to a modern naval warfare game like Harpoon. Part of this is because modern naval warfare (itself, not the games) is a good model for Steve to cheat off of, but another part is Steve's drive for a "first-principles" game, where the characteristics of systems are driven by a set of consistent rules. An example of this is missile ranges - they were originally MUCH shorter than they are now, just a few times beam weapon ranges. At some point Steve was bothered by the fact that a missile is just a really really small automated ship, and so missile design should obey the same rules for e.g. engine thrust/weight ratios and fuel consumption as ships. This in turn led him to realize that missiles should be able to go a LOT further on a tank of gas, which in turn led to a strengthening of the analogy with modern naval warfare, i.e. Tomahawk missiles. There's a post on this somewhere, probably in the old mechanics threads (~4 or more years back?).
EDIT: Also, do I have to research everything or is weapon specialization feasible? I would prefer to have say, Gauss Cannons for point defense, Lasers for killing and missiles for everything else. Rather than have to have an unmanageable mix of everything.
People generally limit themselves to a few systems, such as the mix you described. Researching everything would get pretty expensive :-)
John
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Most people will limit which systems they reasearch to a plan. Some weapon for short range point defense, a long range beam weapon, and missile tech. There are a couple of ways you can go with the missile tech. One is to pour your reasearch into the missiles and make them the primary shipkiller weapon. The problem with this is that they are expensive. While a great system for encounters with precursors, star swarms and small npr's you will quickly find out that keeping your fleets in ammunition is almost prohibitavly expensive. The second way is to use missiles as a counter missile to thin out the incomming missile attacks so your other point defense can handle it. For this you mostly need a moderate tech for the warhead, good agility and missile engine tech along with a reload speed of 3. This will give you a 10 second cycle time for size 1 missiles which should be enough to thin out missile attacks. For point defense the best weapon is the gauss cannon, while both mesons and lasers make a good multipurpose system. Mesons are also a devestating short range weapon as they ignore armour and shields. You will want at least some meson tech as they are the only beam weapon that can be sued through an atmosphere without being affected. Lasers are good at all ranges depending on caliber, while particle beams are excellent for smaller ships to get good range and damage. Railguns are devestating in close due to their high rate of fire, and early on make a decent point defense system as well. The microwave system is harder to use but has the potential to knock out a ships fire control very quickly, The main drawback is it does need to get through the shields before having any effect.
Hope this helps
Brian
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Thanks again for the more replies. XD
sloanjh: nice explanation. If he's basing the design off naval warfare, I should do the same too.
That means less beam ships and more point defense escorting a carrier with missile-armed fighters/gunships. Too bad I already wasted ~20k RP on lasers.
Gauss Cannon, Meson Cannon + Anti-missile for missile defense. Speed to stay out of range (magnetic confinement drives + 20% power boost) and just missile everything to death.
I think I can handle the higher cost of missile based offense. Spent a long few years micromanaging my colonies and I have roughly double the wealth I started with. Just need to ship some ordnance factories around.
Question about missile warfare. How good is the AI at countering missiles? Is decoy missiles worth an investment? (1MSP missiles with engines and fuel only. Shot to the back of the enemy fleet to maximise flight time)
What's the formulae for hitting missiles? Does agility increase their dodge rate or is it just speed?
Also, do missiles with no warheads deal damage?
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Missiles only deal damage with a Warhead. Agility only increases hitrate, speed is keeping you alive.
For a decoy missile, a good idea might be a Mirv.
That way, you can have a size 2 missile spit out a size 1.5 missile that releases a size 1 missile, giving you three missiles of different speeds for just 2 MSP.
For your missile warheads, keep it squares. 1, 4, 9, 16... works better versus Armor.
If you ever hit Invaders (An advanced race), Lasers might actually be a good choice for Point defense.
The AI can counter Missiles pretty decently, like a human player; Theres really not much to it.
Decoys might work, but the best choice in my book is to swarm them.
Get reduced size launchers, say, 50%, and get big alphastrikes in to swamp their Firecontrols in contacs they can't possibly all beat, and rip them up with numbers. Keep in mind some enemies might have higher tech levels though, an enemy dishing out 3 missiles a second is not an uncommon sight.
Also, you can use beam weapons, if you got really good point defense, just wait until they expend their missiles, then hunt them down.
Cloaking technology is also a valid possibility.
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I have made a MIRV which is Size 10, which is the same as my ship killers which are single size 10, the mirv spit out 8x Size 1 missiles, closer to the target. The reason i have Size one and not smaller is I want the warhead to do atleast 1 point of damage, the few that get though instead of just colouring the hull, wear the armour down.
I use no agility and minimal power of the main tube, but a good deal of fuel, you mix these in with my ship killers size 10 missiles, the multiple size one overwhelm the missile and point systems and dependent on luck your Size 10 might slip through and blast a nice whole in the vessel.
one things to please note when engaged in missile war, they take a long time to play out, I had 3-3 hour session on one battle.
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Thanks for the missile advice. I. . . think I'll reconsider though given how much more research I'd have to do. I'll just pick my battles and only fight when outnumbering the enemy.
Was useful in designing anti-missiles though.
I've been plotting out the sensor strength to detection radius on Autograph, using the values given by the Active Sensor design page to reverse engineer the range equation.
Detection Range = Sensor Range at rated size / ( (Target object size / rated size)^2 )
- I assume I cannot detect things beyond the sensor range at rated size, as that would mean smaller res sensors win vs bigger sensors all the time.
It strikes me that I have a massive gap in my detection ranges due to my arrangements of active sensors.
~280 - 100 hull sizes are only detected at 192m km
~70 - 20 hull sizes are only detected at 85. 9m km
And the nature of the equation means that no matter what I do, there is always a gap unless I add a ridiculous amount of sensors. =(
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Two comments on missile warfare:
1) The Achilles' heel of missiles is the industrial base needed to sustain missile stocks during a sustained war. In other words, developing a missile-armed fleet might seem a no-brainer from a tactical point of view, but once you factor logistics in it becomes much less obvious.
2) Given the above, there are players who swear by a "beam-armed tank" strategy, where opposing missile-armed fleets shoot themselves dry against your armor. Of course this strategy might not work so well against a meson-armed foe :-)
John
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Anti missile i learnt the had way.
You need an Active Sensor that is R1 to see the missiles incoming as well as an R1 fire control.
I thought I only needed one but it would not fire cause I could not see the missiles.
but you can have that R1 Active Sensor on one ship and they all will work, but lose that ship you lose missile defense.
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I have discovered that tractor beams can chain. . .
A, B and C all have tractor beams.
A1 tractors B1, B1 tractors B2, B2 tractors B3 <. . . >, B* tractors C, C tractors nothing
So. Given this, is a modular fleet possible? XD
How about a battlefleet with no section > 20ktons, but all of which have tractor beams and are purpose built?
Chain your engine section to your jumpdrive section to your point defense section to your missile platform to your laser weapons to your. . . XD
My feasibility analysis:
Disadvantages:
Enemy targeting gets to hit a section they like. Essentially they get to focus on one part of your armour at a time, unlike in one big ship.
Warp point assaults are hell. You can only send as many sections together as your jump drive is rated for.
You lose some engine efficiency. Number of modules = number of 500tons wasted on tractor beam mass.
Advantages:
Maintenance is easier. Number of maintenance facilities you need drops drastically.
Shipbuilding can occur on smaller shipyards using slipways in parallel. A 5 slipway 20kton yard can churn out an effective 100kton ship.
Shipbuilding requires less shipyards. You can retool each module invidually as tech increases, without retooling the whole shipyard for a new ship class.
Your jumpdrive module is commercial. . . And can remain small.
Option of using commercial engines for military ships. . and having them remain commercial.
- And if you do this, you can use a commercial jumpdrive (!!)
When your engines blow up from a hit, damage is contained to the engine module. If you have more than one engine module, the ship just slows down. . .
Anything I missed?
Is it worth it to try?
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I have discovered that tractor beams can chain. . .
A, B and C all have tractor beams.
A1 tractors B1, B1 tractors B2, B2 tractors B3 <. . . >, B* tractors C, C tractors nothing
Which version are you playing with? My recollection is that someone stumbled over this a year or so ago, and Steve removed it as an exploit - probably in late 4.x. IIRC, the intent is that only 2 ships are allowed in a tractor chain, i.e. A tractors B, B tracktors nothing.
John
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John beat me to it;
I tried this a year ago, the results are in this thread - http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php/topic,2459.0.html (http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php/topic,2459.0.html)
Essentially, groups of the tractored ships with more than one component ignored the added weight after the second (and thus did not loose speed), and as a result Steve changed the code to prevent this.
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I just installed last week. v5. 20 I think it's 5. 20 at least.
For reference, ship design looks like this.
King George class Cruiser 19,900 tons 2107 Crew 5194. 6 BP TCS 398 TH 1275 EM 1800
6407 km/s Armour 4-65 Shields 60-300 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 32 PPV 195
Annual Failure Rate: 143% IFR: 2% Maint Capacity 3589 MSP Max Repair 377 MSP Est Time: 3. 15 Years
Magnetic Confinement Fusion Drive E8. 4 (17) Power 150 Fuel Use 84% Signature 75 Armour 0 Exp 16%
Fuel Capacity 250,000 Litres Range 26. 9 billion km (48 days at full power)
Delta R300/15 Shields (24) Total Fuel Cost 360 Litres per day
Quad 20cm C5 Ultraviolet Laser Turret (5x4) Range 256,000km TS: 8000 km/s Power 40-20 RM 4 ROF 10 10 10 10 10 8 6 5 5 4 4
Fire Control S08 128-8000 (1) Max Range: 256,000 km TS: 8000 km/s 96 92 88 84 80 77 73 69 65 61
Magnetic Confinement Fusion Reactor Technology PB-1 AR-0 (20) Total Power Output 100 Armour 0 Exp 5%
ECM 10
This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
Let me confirm that tractor beam chain again. . . . . .
Confirmed. I've chained my tug boats together in orbit.
Pic here:
hxxp: i253. photobucket. com/albums/hh47/jon_seah/AuroraTractortesttaskgroup. jpg
The Agincourt class is a tugboat that is nothing but engines and a tractor beam. From the F6 screen, I selected Agincourt 002, tractor linked it to Agincourt 003. Selected Agincourt 003, tractor linked it to Agincourt 004 and so on.
Then I open the F12 taskgroups screen and refresh the TG they were in by selecting it in the dropdown box again and I get this.
SM mode testing coming up.
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I just installed last week. v5. 20 I think it's 5. 20 at least.
For reference, ship design looks like this.
Let me confirm that tractor beam chain again. . . . . .
Confirmed. I've chained my tug boats together in orbit.
Pic here:
hxxp: i253. photobucket. com/albums/hh47/jon_seah/AuroraTractortesttaskgroup. jpg
The Agincourt class is a tugboat that is nothing but engines and a tractor beam. From the F6 screen, I selected Agincourt 002, tractor linked it to Agincourt 003. Selected Agincourt 003, tractor linked it to Agincourt 004 and so on.
Then I open the F12 taskgroups screen and refresh the TG they were in by selecting it in the dropdown box again and I get this.
SM mode testing coming up.
Interesting.
Did the speed drop after you chained more than one module?
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Relink:
http://i253.photobucket.com/albums/hh47/jon_seah/AuroraTractortesttaskgroup.jpg (http://i253.photobucket.com/albums/hh47/jon_seah/AuroraTractortesttaskgroup.jpg)
SM mode testing to create a fleet of tankers with tractor beams. It works.
Pics here:
http://i253.photobucket.com/albums/hh47/jon_seah/AuroraTractortest2taskgroup.jpg (http://i253.photobucket.com/albums/hh47/jon_seah/AuroraTractortest2taskgroup.jpg)
I have discovered that you can drag to set the length of columns. Interesting. Each ship is apparently linked to two others.
Moving the fleet... works. I've moved them from my homeworld to my naval shipyards.
Interesting to see that the effect Elouda mentioned is around. The speed of that fleet is 9191, which is the standard max speed of my tug boats.
Fuel test... Only my tug boats consume fuel. Which is a massive fuel hog of course.
EDIT: The ResolutionTnk class is a tanker class, fuel... and nothing else. The ResolutionMnt class is a maintenance base, 2x maintenance module and nothing else.
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Interesting.
Did the speed drop after you chained more than one module?
It didn't, see my tanker test.
The tug boat test isn't conclusive since all the tugboats in the chain are identical so you wouldn't expect the speed to drop.
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Database backed up.. risky experiments time.
I've tried to build a circle of tractor beams. Unfortunately, ResolutionMnt 004 cannot tractor Agincourt 002. For that matter, the other tractor beamed ships don't even show up in the dropdown list of tractor targets (but my shipyards do)
I removed Agincourt 003 and 004 and 005 from the task group, breaking their links.
Weird behaviour ensued. Task group speed is now 0 (??? I've never seen a 0 speed anything)
http://i253.photobucket.com/albums/hh47/jon_seah/AuroraTractortest3taskgroup-1.jpg (http://i253.photobucket.com/albums/hh47/jon_seah/AuroraTractortest3taskgroup-1.jpg)
F6 window: Selecting Agincourt 002, I cannot find ResolutionTnk 004 in the tractor beam target list. I can find ResolutionMnt 004 though... ??? But Resolution Mnt 004 has 003 tractoring it.
I think I can figure out the rule(s) here.
1. A ship can only have 1 tractor beam target.
2. A ship that is tractor beaming something cannot be the target of a tractor beam.
3. A ship can be tractorbeamed first, and THEN tractorbeam other things.
Aw, no tractorbeam loops. XD
Also, can we please not take that out? ^^ I want to make a modular fleet now.
Why not just consider total engine power of all tractor linked ships and their total mass then get the speed from there?
EDIT: lolz, I could quite easily make capital ships go zoom as fast as fighters go... zoom...
Hey... Can fighters mount a tractor beam? *evil grin*
FACs certainly can. I now have a two stage tractorbeam FAC that can make any number of tankers go at 10 kkm/s =P