Aurora 4x

VB6 Aurora => Bureau of Ship Design => Topic started by: HaliRyan on October 14, 2011, 09:55:26 AM

Title: Largest Ships You've Used
Post by: HaliRyan on October 14, 2011, 09:55:26 AM
So I'm currently in the process of building the largest military ship I've ever used in Aurora so far and it got me wondering what monster ships other people have used? I don't mean designed but never put into production, I mean actually constructed. Civilian or military.
Title: Re: Largest Ships You've Used
Post by: Girlinhat on October 14, 2011, 10:29:51 AM
I almost produced a "colony pusher" that could carry 100 auto mines in one go.  I generally leave one civilian and one military shipyard on constant expansion with one slipway, and tweak other shipyards as needed.  That can produce some massive ships.

I also made 10x terraformers on one ship, that one got pretty big, and no engine left it to be towed.  I produced 2 of those to handle Mars and Luna over the course of about 20 years each.
Title: Re: Largest Ships You've Used
Post by: Brian Neumann on October 14, 2011, 11:41:08 AM
I played a game based on the idea of battlestar galactica.  The primary combat ship was a 1,000,000 ton monster and I eventually was able to find a new home planet and after much combat/conquest have the population to build some 500,000 ton combat ships.  Those guys were true monsters.  They were built with very high initial tech (1million research point level) and I was never able to upgrade the tech I started with significantly.  I only had about 50 million population on board the ships so getting much beyond survival from them was difficult.  It was a fun game however, and they were definately the biggest ship I ever used.

Brian
Title: Re: Largest Ships You've Used
Post by: Girlinhat on October 14, 2011, 12:40:29 PM
Sounds like you SM'd those ships in though...
Title: Re: Largest Ships You've Used
Post by: Charlie Beeler on October 14, 2011, 01:10:22 PM
Sounds like you SM'd those ships in though...

Lookup "Battlestar Challenge" from last Spring.  functionally anyone who played the scenario used the fast order of battle and abandoned the homeworld in search of a new one.
Title: Re: Largest Ships You've Used
Post by: HaliRyan on October 14, 2011, 04:59:33 PM
Yeah, I think I remember reading a thread about that scenario. It sounded really interesting.

But I'm actually wondering about design size usage/limitations in a standard game, so using the FOB with SM sort of defeats the purpose for me.
Title: Re: Largest Ships You've Used
Post by: Brian Neumann on October 15, 2011, 04:59:50 AM
I did sm in the ships that I started with.  By the end of the game I was building them from scratch.  About the only way to build them quickly was using prefab methods.  I was building the weapons, fire controls, sensors, engines and around 3 years to build.  Given the size of the ships that was fine however.  I also had to build up the shipyard from what it was to start with when I captured it to one capable of building those monsters.  I never got more than two shipyards with a total of 5 slips able to build the biggest ships but it was fun playing once they were built.

Brian
Title: Re: Largest Ships You've Used
Post by: Vynadan on October 15, 2011, 03:39:26 PM
Two 300kt ships: a superdreadnought and a "fighter base", only ever built one of each and they both have two 100kt special escorts.

They're both the flagship of their own little armada, but not all that strong by themselves. They both carry jump engines which take up a good 10% of their size to jump with up to six other ships simultanously, dedicated another 20% to engines for a whooping 7002 km/s and they have shields comparable with a star swarm queen plus 30 (carrier) and 50 (dreadnought) layers of armour. Their offensive capabilities aren't as good as when I first thought them up, but they proved to be excellent meat shields (and therefor got their two escorts, one support and one missile platform) and 'normal' fleet ships.
Title: Re: Largest Ships You've Used
Post by: DFDelta on October 17, 2011, 05:27:57 PM
My biggest one was a massive 540.  000t base that I designed after I forgot to disable constant expansion on a remote shipyard for 30 years or so.   If I have a 550kt military shipyard, then I have to use it for something, right?
I pulled it to Terra as its final defensive line. 
I also constructed a PDC with hangar bays enourmous enough to load this monster, but I never built it, so it does not count. 

Biggest civillian ship would be one of the Superfreighters I usually construct for quick transport of several constructions at once, 200kt usually. 

Biggest actual military ship would be a 150kt ship that acted as combined carrier/flag ship/sensor array. 
Title: Re: Largest Ships You've Used
Post by: UnLimiTeD on October 18, 2011, 06:35:50 PM
Someone call waresky....   ::)
I never got above around a 100 k, and that was with a high tech start as I planned a combat simulation, but turned out differently.
Not sure about civs.
Title: Re: Largest Ships You've Used
Post by: Din182 on October 18, 2011, 07:15:57 PM
I suddenly fell like I'm not that good at this game. Largest ship I ever built was a commercial freighter at 96k tons. Largest military vessel was a 30k ton space station for anti-missile beams.
Title: Re: Largest Ships You've Used
Post by: Panopticon on October 18, 2011, 07:54:22 PM
I wouldn't say having small ships makes you not good, what takes less skill, winning a fight with a handful of 10k or less ships? Or winning it with some over-engineered monstrosity created via SM?

Proof of concept and stuff like Battlestar challenge aside of course.
Title: Re: Largest Ships You've Used
Post by: Anarade Relle on October 18, 2011, 08:19:28 PM
I can't claim any great leviathans. I built a 55,000 ton battlestar (okay, like a demi-battlestar... corvette... compared to that million tonner) in a game once. Worked pretty well. It soaked up a ton of Precursor missiles once quite nicely.
Title: Re: Largest Ships You've Used
Post by: Peter Rhodan on October 18, 2011, 09:07:30 PM
I'd back my fleet of 6kt Corvettes and 12kT Frigates against most forces I have seen detailed here. I do have 6 30kT Battleships that are pretty tough and a new class of 30kT Battleships that have the same armour and shields but half the offense as they carry 5 1kt Gunboats. I found I had a need for a very fast pursuit ships against one alien who has ships that do 14k+ - my gunboats do 16k - the 5 ship squadron has 2 missile defence boats - 2 offense boats with Size 5 launchers and a sensor boat.

With my current tech base a 6 ship division of each of my 2 12kT Frigate designs can take down a 60kT swarm Mothership in 2 salvos.......

I will admit that as soon as my 48k jump Military Jump engine design nears finishing research I will start building a force of 48kT Battleships - my warships don't have internal jump engines -  I have dedicated jump ships that also carry big sensors suites...
Title: Re: Largest Ships You've Used
Post by: Brian Neumann on October 18, 2011, 09:22:04 PM
That million ton monster was horrendous to build a companion for.  As it was it had a lot of space that was not directly combat related.  The jump drive was 10% of the total space, it had 2 20 hull space passive sensors and 2 of active sensors (res 16 and 100) and one 50 hull space res 1 active sensor.  It also had stealth tech that took up 10% of the ship.  The maintenance bays were another 10%, engines 4%.  If I remember correctly the non weapons/armor/firecontrols were about 50% of the ship.  It had 30 points of armor and 300 point shields along with lots of 15cm laser turrets for point defense and 50cm lasers for offensive use.  There was also 20 size 1 launchers for point defense and it carried around 2000 missiles.  I tried not using the missiles exept in emergencies as I only had 5 missile factories in the fleet so I couldn't effectivly build new missiles without stopping for several years.  I only did that when I had to and when I finally found a habitable planet (no terraforming required).

The ship did well in combat except against the Invaders who did a lot of damage to it in the late stages of the game.  Against what I ran into to start with it was fine, but only survived because of its shields.  By the time I found a home its armor was almost entirely gone, I even had some patches with no armor left (this was before armor could be repaired by damage control).

Brian
Title: Re: Largest Ships You've Used
Post by: Girlinhat on October 18, 2011, 10:09:00 PM
How do you have missile production in the fleet?  You mean cargo ships that were carrying installations, and you'd stop and build and then start moving again?
Title: Re: Largest Ships You've Used
Post by: dgibso29 on October 18, 2011, 11:10:20 PM
It also had stealth tech that took up 10% of the ship. 

Brian

How in the world did you stealth that beast?
Title: Re: Largest Ships You've Used
Post by: LoSboccacc on October 19, 2011, 04:21:44 AM
you paint it black!  ;D
Title: Re: Largest Ships You've Used
Post by: ardem on October 19, 2011, 05:22:46 AM
It was a good challenge that one, I never found a home and ran out of fuel, all those gas giants not one with sorium so unlucky. I did have a 200,000 ton combat vessel it was my fleet carrier.

On second thoughts actually, the guy you made that challenge was stupid.  ;D

Title: Re: Largest Ships You've Used
Post by: Vynadan on October 19, 2011, 05:43:15 AM
I wonder how you cloak a thing like that, too. Ships like that are usually always-sensors-on designs for me that don't even bother hiding.
I tend to put all engines for such huge ships on overcharge to get as much speed as possible. Sometimes I pondered about overcharged commercial drives for the fuel efficiency (because even my 300kt ship ended up with ~150+ engines), but abandoned the idea because of their size. Do you actually go down on the power output to dim the thermal exhaust?

The longer my games take, the larger my civilian ships get. After a while I usually add another five cargo holds for freighters. My longest game came to a standard size of freighters, colony ships and that alike of 200kt, built in several 200kt yards with 10 slipways each. I actually often build terraformers or freighters in small numbers ranging in a million tons. I really hate waiting for a terraforming project to complete xD
Title: Re: Largest Ships You've Used
Post by: Brian Neumann on October 19, 2011, 06:00:25 AM
How in the world did you stealth that beast?
Max out the stealth.  It was still qiute large after that, but not so huge that anybody would spot it from across the system.  I just double checked some old notes and that version of the ship didn't have stealth.  Can't stealth anything over 60,000 tons.  I have done that and it comes out looking like a 3000 ton scout.  Sorry my bad about the monster being stealthed.

Brian
Title: Re: Largest Ships You've Used
Post by: Brian Neumann on October 19, 2011, 06:09:21 AM
How do you have missile production in the fleet?  You mean cargo ships that were carrying installations, and you'd stop and build and then start moving again?
Correct, I also had 12 engineer Brigades and about 20 auto mines.  Enough ships with maintenance modules so the only ship in the fleet with problems was the battlestar.  I also carried about 50 million colonists in cryo freeze.  It was a huge fleet.  The commercial ships were also huge monsters of about 1 million tons.  They had 20 points of armor and 10 ciws moved at 6200km/s and carried 1 million colonists.  I think the only reason I survived was that the civilian ships were all this size and normall missile attacks spread out to much between them.  They had enough ciws to stop a lot of missiles (16 shots at 50% each) so very few missiles would get through, and they rarely landed in overlapping spots (890 columns of armor).

Brian
Title: Re: Largest Ships You've Used
Post by: Girlinhat on October 19, 2011, 01:43:18 PM
Those are some big ships...  I've often debated having a population ship, with 5 cryo tanks to every 1 habitat module, though this would get big pretty quickly it would allow you to very effectively move a population into a new colony instantly.  Add some cargo for carrying mines/ordinance production/etc and a tractor for carrying a shipyard, and you've got some economic push that will move on command!

I've debated using this idea to create a nomad empire, that sets temporary (10-15 year) colonies on rich worlds before moving on.  Namely just stopping long enough to perform some research, refitting, resource collection, and repairs.  This would, of course, require some massive civilian ships...  But putting an orbital habitat on a ship should make it produced via industry, right?  That can cut down a bit on the massive shipyard costs and provide some living space.
Title: Re: Largest Ships You've Used
Post by: ardem on October 19, 2011, 05:44:45 PM
orbital habitats are a substitute for planet based infrastructure that is about it.
Title: Re: Largest Ships You've Used
Post by: Girlinhat on October 19, 2011, 08:21:43 PM
Right, but if you've got a nomadic empire then you can't always rely upon the cost 2 colonies that sometimes show up.  Sometimes you gotta work with the cost 20 and habitats would help!
Title: Re: Largest Ships You've Used
Post by: blue emu on October 19, 2011, 11:04:48 PM
orbital habitats are a substitute for planet based infrastructure that is about it.

Orbital Habitat modules have one very useful feature... ANY design that includes one or more OHM can be built in your factories instead of in a shipyard... even a military design... so it doesn't require a slipway. Try to build a million-ton Death Star without including an Orbital Habitat Module in the design... it will probably take you a hundred years to expand a military shipyard that big. Include an Orbital Habitat Module in the design and it takes four years to build one... in your factories.
Title: Re: Largest Ships You've Used
Post by: Vynadan on October 20, 2011, 01:05:47 AM
A design can be commercial and an orbital habitat, but never military and a habitat.
Military components remove/overwrite the habitat designation.
Title: Re: Largest Ships You've Used
Post by: blue emu on October 20, 2011, 02:20:34 AM
It can still be built in a Factory instead of a slipway, "Military" or no.

Have you tested this?

(http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a155/blueemu/DeathStar.jpg)

Quote
Death Star class Battlestar 443,350 tons 18267 Crew 30473 BP TCS 8867 TH 4600 EM 7200
518 km/s Armour 15-517 Shields 240-300 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 210 PPV 1273.98
Maint Life 1.73 Years MSP 117021 AFR 7488% IFR 104% 1YR 47403 5YR 711043 Max Repair 800 MSP
Magazine 10000 Habitation Capacity 50,000

Magneto-plasma Drive E9.1 1947 (50) Power 92 Fuel Use 91% Signature 92 Armour 0 Exp 12%
Fuel Capacity 3,550,000 Litres Range 15.8 billion km (353 days at full power)
Epsilon R300/21 Shields (80) Total Fuel Cost 1,680 Litres per day

Triple 10cm C4 Visible Light Laser Turret (6x3) Range 60,000km TS: 20000 km/s Power 9-12 RM 2 ROF 5 3 3 2 1 1 1 0 0 0 0
Fire Control S08 64-20000 (3) Max Range: 128,000 km TS: 20000 km/s 92 84 77 69 61 53 45 37 30 22

Size 100 Missile Launcher (12) Missile Size 100 Rate of Fire 600
Missile DS Fire Control FC105-R100 (3) Range 105.8m km Resolution 100
Size 100 Anti-ship Missile (100) Speed: 27,500 km/s End: 60.8m Range: 100.4m km WH: 100 Size: 100 TH: 165 / 99 / 49

Active DS Search Sensor MR107-R100 (1) GPS 7700 Range 107.8m km Resolution 100
Active PD Search Sensor MR30-R1 1953 (1) GPS 280 Range 30.8m km Resolution 1

Missile to hit chances are vs targets moving at 3000 km/s, 5000 km/s and 10,000 km/s

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes


Including a Habitat module allows it to be built without a slipway, "military" or not. Possibly a bug, but that's how it seems to work.
Title: Re: Largest Ships You've Used
Post by: Vynadan on October 20, 2011, 04:05:52 AM
No, I've never tried that.
I just saw the Orbital Habitat designation vanish from the design screen and assmued it would work that way ... xD
Title: Re: Largest Ships You've Used
Post by: Girlinhat on October 20, 2011, 09:52:06 PM
I think it's allowed so that you can have self-defending pieces.  Instead of relying upon nearby support, you could make a colony starbase with orbital habitats and weapons, a single massive piece of engineering that handled its own needs.  The equivalent of a Babylon 5, if you will.
Title: Re: Largest Ships You've Used
Post by: blue emu on October 20, 2011, 10:53:59 PM
The big problem is the maintenance clock. Any idea how many Maintenance Facilities it takes to keep one of these million-ton puppies running?

Hint: Each Maintenance Facility can service 200 tons of warship.

Does 5,000 facilities sound about right? Hmmm... what's that in minerals and population?
Title: Re: Largest Ships You've Used
Post by: Girlinhat on October 20, 2011, 11:29:36 PM
Hmm, you could build the megastation with its own maintenance modules!  This sounds totally reasonable to me =D
Title: Re: Largest Ships You've Used
Post by: blue emu on October 20, 2011, 11:30:38 PM
Try a trial design. I suspect it would need to be MOSTLY maintenance modules.
Title: Re: Largest Ships You've Used
Post by: Girlinhat on October 20, 2011, 11:31:56 PM
Can't be arsed to change my display resolution and wade neck-deep through error messages to find the module, how big is a maintenance module and how much does it support?
Title: Re: Largest Ships You've Used
Post by: blue emu on October 20, 2011, 11:35:39 PM
Each module is 5000 tons, and supports 200 tons of ship. So no... it isn't possible for a ship to provide its own maintenance, even if it were composed of 100% maintenance modules.
Title: Re: Largest Ships You've Used
Post by: Girlinhat on October 21, 2011, 01:03:41 AM
And a maintenance facility is the same 200?  This can't be improved by tech either, right?
Title: Re: Largest Ships You've Used
Post by: blue emu on October 21, 2011, 09:27:20 AM
Correct, AFAIK.
Title: Re: Largest Ships You've Used
Post by: Brian Neumann on October 21, 2011, 10:56:06 AM
200 tons per maintenance facility/module is correct.  While it can not be increased by tech, it also is not affected by the tech of the ships it is maintaining.  A high tech ship does not require any more facilities to keep time off of the maintenance clock than a very low tech design.  In this way you do get a benifit from higher tech ships.  They tend to cost more per hull space after all.

Brian
Title: Re: Largest Ships You've Used
Post by: Girlinhat on October 21, 2011, 01:12:17 PM
It also seems that when people get higher tech they dump it into bigger ships.  Never -quite- understood that myself, I've always been a fan of small high tech ships.  I suppose it's mostly people trying to keep a certain speed, so as their engines get better they pack more hull and maintain that speed.  I guess I'm more likely to just include less engines and more equipment.
Title: Re: Largest Ships You've Used
Post by: blue emu on October 21, 2011, 02:04:47 PM
There's a lot you can do with additional displacement, though.

I'm currently looking into a rather crack-pot design... a 20,000-ton Carrier with 7,000 tons of Hangar space, whose "strike group" consists of a single 7,000-ton ship, stuffed inside the Hangar.

 Why? Because Box Launchers can only be reloaded in a Hangar (or on the ground)... so this arrangement allows me to use... and reload, and re-use... a 7,000-ton, 85x Box Launcher equipped warship, in a general fleet action.

Can you say "massive salvo"? I knew you could...
Title: Re: Largest Ships You've Used
Post by: Girlinhat on October 21, 2011, 02:17:57 PM
I've often dreamed up such massive salvos.  Abusing box launchers and supermassive hangar ships can allow for some positively monstrous salvos.  The idea of a "floating box" that's all hangar and one engine tacked on as an afterthought, has often intrigued me...
Title: Re: Largest Ships You've Used
Post by: Charlie Beeler on October 21, 2011, 03:10:58 PM
Sorry, I prefer fighters for carrier operations.  Better tactical flexability and standoff capability. 
Title: Re: Largest Ships You've Used
Post by: Girlinhat on October 21, 2011, 03:28:00 PM
That is, ultimately, the question.  Do you want 1 ship with 100 box launchers, or 100 ships with just 1?
Title: Re: Largest Ships You've Used
Post by: HaliRyan on October 21, 2011, 05:18:16 PM
a 7,000-ton, 85x Box Launcher equipped warship, in a general fleet action.

I'm curious, what size missiles are you using? Doing a rough build with a standard size 4 launcher and 1 engine per 1k tons, I can pack on 150 box launchers. Your missiles must be huge!

I think though that as others have said you'd be better off with fighters. The extra speed and flexibility compared to toting around a single larger ship in your hold could be decisive, even if their range wouldn't be nearly as large as your single warship.

Carrier-based 1k ton FACs could also be an interesting option... *runs off to play with the class design screen*
Title: Re: Largest Ships You've Used
Post by: jseah on October 21, 2011, 06:30:02 PM
I think though that as others have said you'd be better off with fighters. The extra speed and flexibility compared to toting around a single larger ship in your hold could be decisive, even if their range wouldn't be nearly as large as your single warship.
You mean their salvo size won't be as large. 

But yes, I have considered that but I think the reload time trade off is not worth it.  In fact, I don't generally use 25% size launchers because they take too long (although I ought to look at using size 3 missiles to cut that some more)
Title: Re: Largest Ships You've Used
Post by: HaliRyan on October 21, 2011, 06:57:33 PM
You mean their salvo size won't be as large. 

But yes, I have considered that but I think the reload time trade off is not worth it.  In fact, I don't generally use 25% size launchers because they take too long (although I ought to look at using size 3 missiles to cut that some more)

No, I meant their range. Fighters will have a much shorter deployment range from their carrier than a 7000 ton ship using normal military engines will. The salvo size will be smaller as well of course, but the total ordinance launched should be roughly the same which is what really matters.

Also I'm not sure what you're talking about with 25% size launchers? Perhaps I missed something, but most people use box launchers for any ship which will be carrier-based instead of 25% reduction launchers.
Title: Re: Largest Ships You've Used
Post by: blue emu on October 21, 2011, 11:17:51 PM
I'm curious, what size missiles are you using?

Size-6... they are the largest size of missile that still shows a minimal radar signature (same as size-1).

Another thought was to use big Carriers to place and recover Meson-armed Jump Point Defense Stations (all Mesons, Engineering, Armor and Shield, no Engines). They could drop them off at the jump point, and carry the older ones back for overhaul.

I'm sure this "huge Carrier carrying one big ship" idea can be used for something...

Quote
Also I'm not sure what you're talking about with 25% size launchers? Perhaps I missed something, but most people use box launchers for any ship which will be carrier-based instead of 25% reduction launchers.

I use Box Launchers, yes. 25% Launchers are somewhat more compact, but also much slower to reload.
Title: Re: Largest Ships You've Used
Post by: jseah on October 22, 2011, 05:08:24 AM
My conception of the "missile platform in carrier" idea was this:

A 6kton ship with many hangar bays, engines, whatever. 
A second 'ship' inside the first 6kton ship's hangars (made to fit exactly) would have no engines or fuel, minimal maintenance, no armour or shields. 
This 2nd 'ship' is really just a box launcher missile platform.  All box launchers, a few missile firecons, crew quarters for the fire cons and that's it. 

This is meant to use the lowered space requirements of box launchers. (0.15x size + 0.05 for hangar inefficiency = 0.20x which is smaller than 0.25x reduction)
And obviously generates an incredibly huge salvo size. 

The trade off is more complex logistics (two types of shipyards and two ships to train) and increased reload times when using smaller missiles/higher tech.  Hangar reload doesn't improve with technology and with small missiles (eg. size 3), you can eventually get 25% launchers that reload as fast as hangars in which case you may as well build 6kton ships with 25% launchers. 
Title: Re: Largest Ships You've Used
Post by: HaliRyan on October 22, 2011, 05:16:52 AM
I use Box Launchers, yes. 25% Launchers are somewhat more compact, but also much slower to reload.

Errr... aren't box launchers more compact than the 25% ones? It's 0.25 per missile size point for 25% and 0.15 for box isn't it?
Title: Re: Largest Ships You've Used
Post by: Girlinhat on October 22, 2011, 08:52:43 AM
25% launchers are "somewhat more compact" than full sized, I believe was the intention there.  25% launchers are, as the name implies, 25% the size of a standard launcher.  Box launchers are 15% size normal.
Title: Re: Largest Ships You've Used
Post by: Brian Neumann on October 22, 2011, 10:12:42 AM
You can get a lot more box launchers into a given volume of your ship.  The drawback is that you can not reload except at a planet with maintenance facilities, or in a hanger.  For larger ships if I am looking for that one shot punch I prefer the 25% size launchers.  Your rate of fire is horrendous, but that is not the point.  You get four times the salvo size of the normal sized launchers (vs 6.66 for box launchers) and you can reload in the field.  I will typically include enough magazine capacity for 1 or 2 reloads which has worked well in the past.  I launch my salvo, observe results while waiting a few hours to reload and then hit them again.  Repeat with periodic stops to reload the magazines from the colliers and continue.  To be fair I also build fleet colliers that are stripped down warships with thier engines, shields, armor and ciws systems left intact.  Pretty much everything else is magazines.  One of these is enough to reload a combat ship about 5 times which is fairly good for a front line resuply ship.

Brian
Title: Re: Largest Ships You've Used
Post by: sloanjh on October 22, 2011, 08:54:25 PM
You can get a lot more box launchers into a given volume of your ship.  The drawback is that you can not reload except at a planet with maintenance facilities, or in a hanger.  For larger ships if I am looking for that one shot punch I prefer the 25% size launchers.  Your rate of fire is horrendous, but that is not the point.  You get four times the salvo size of the normal sized launchers (vs 6.66 for box launchers) and you can reload in the field.  I will typically include enough magazine capacity for 1 or 2 reloads which has worked well in the past.  I launch my salvo, observe results while waiting a few hours to reload and then hit them again.  Repeat with periodic stops to reload the magazines from the colliers and continue.  To be fair I also build fleet colliers that are stripped down warships with thier engines, shields, armor and ciws systems left intact.  Pretty much everything else is magazines.  One of these is enough to reload a combat ship about 5 times which is fairly good for a front line resuply ship.
I do similar things with my FAC - 25% launchers with 1-2 reloads.  The only trouble I have is when the enemy has powerful enough shields to absorb a large fraction of a salvo - the shields then have time to recharge between my salvos and end up costing me many more shots.

John
Title: Re: Largest Ships You've Used
Post by: Brian Neumann on October 23, 2011, 11:41:36 AM
I do similar things with my FAC - 25% launchers with 1-2 reloads.  The only trouble I have is when the enemy has powerful enough shields to absorb a large fraction of a salvo - the shields then have time to recharge between my salvos and end up costing me many more shots.

John
I have found two ways to deal with this.  One is to load my size 1 launchers with a missile where I switch all of the agility for extra fuel and a .01 size passive sensor.  Fire a salvo 5-10 seconds before your main asm fire and then again with the main asm's.  The point defense missile tend to absorb a huge percentage of their point defense which leaves a lot of the heavier missiles to get through.  The second way is to have my escorts be designed with a bunch of reduced size launchers for a small asm.  Fire them 5 seconds before the primary asm swarm to do the same thing.  Either way you tend to get a lot more of your main salvo through which tends to destroy the target fairly well.

Brian
Title: Re: Largest Ships You've Used
Post by: sloanjh on October 28, 2011, 01:18:16 AM
I have found two ways to deal with this.  One is to load my size 1 launchers with a missile where I switch all of the agility for extra fuel and a .01 size passive sensor.  Fire a salvo 5-10 seconds before your main asm fire and then again with the main asm's.  The point defense missile tend to absorb a huge percentage of their point defense which leaves a lot of the heavier missiles to get through.  The second way is to have my escorts be designed with a bunch of reduced size launchers for a small asm.  Fire them 5 seconds before the primary asm swarm to do the same thing.  Either way you tend to get a lot more of your main salvo through which tends to destroy the target fairly well.

My problem was more logistical than PD - I just didn't have the launchers present in-system (in my FAC wing) to be able to blow through the shields and kill the soft chewy (ok, heavily armored, actually) center.

At one point I managed to get a fighter wing in position to coordinate a time-on-target launch (including launch delay and different missile design speeds) of my size-1 asm design so that it hit just in front of the size-4 missiles coming in from the FAC.  The size-1s knocked down the shields, which let the size-4s kill the target, but this was more a raw damage thing than increased PD penetration.

What I was fighting was a monster Invader ship with many hundreds of points of shields and armor.  The cycle time on my FAC launchers was about 20 minutes, while their shield recharge was about 5 minutes.  Half (or more) of the damage from each missile strike was getting absorbed by the shields, resulting a huge logistics drain on my missile stockpiles .

John

Title: Re: Largest Ships You've Used
Post by: Girlinhat on October 28, 2011, 02:26:01 AM
How do invaders react with marines?  At that point would it be feasible to microwave the shields and drop troops onboard?  After all, if you can't crack the armor you just look for another way in, right?  A high powered laser strike could even blast a hole for the marines.

Is it possible to capture an invader ship, or do they have some catch-all defense?
Title: Re: Largest Ships You've Used
Post by: sloanjh on October 28, 2011, 08:59:33 AM
How do invaders react with marines?  At that point would it be feasible to microwave the shields and drop troops onboard?  After all, if you can't crack the armor you just look for another way in, right?  A high powered laser strike could even blast a hole for the marines.

Is it possible to capture an invader ship, or do they have some catch-all defense?

For those of you replying to this, please remember to place spoiler tags appropriately, or discuss in "Spoilers" forum.

John
Title: Re: Largest Ships You've Used
Post by: Vynadan on October 28, 2011, 09:13:48 AM
As far as I know, the Invaders can be captured like any other ship. After all, not even the Swarm is save from that. Though with their high tech you'd need to time very well when to deploy your marines, as the shields regenerate a small amount every 5 second increments. I haven't seen any marine companies put on larger ships (which I usually do for story reasons), so I guess it should be fairly simple once you're on board. I don't know if the absorption quality of their shields somehow influences the drop, though.
Title: Re: Largest Ships You've Used
Post by: Girlinhat on October 28, 2011, 02:12:48 PM
For the record, the existence of invaders and swarm and such cannot be a secret.  It's part of the checklist when you start a game, everyone who's played the game knows they exist.  They just don't know any specifics until they encounter them~

I've seen the spoiler forum posts about captured queens and matriarchs, and they tend to be terrible player ships due to the 120,000% annual failure rate.  I assume invaders suffer the same NPC-cheat style that lets them get away with this.  Still, it'd be pretty boss to manage and capture and refit an invader ship at all.  Even if you had to strip half the gear to equip new maintenance, it'd still just be fun for RP purposes alone.
Title: Re: Largest Ships You've Used
Post by: Vynadan on October 28, 2011, 03:08:57 PM
Well, with Invaders you could get lucky if they open a wormhole in a system you're already established a presence in. Either maintenance capacities are already there or you can move them there so the dismantling or refitting of their ships could happen faster. I'd never refit an NPC ship personally due to the maintenance and fuel circumstances, but rather dismantle it for its technology.
Title: Re: Largest Ships You've Used
Post by: Girlinhat on October 28, 2011, 06:43:37 PM
I'd probably dismantle as well, but I like the idea of catching an enemy vessel as-is, tweaking it to racial tolerances, and then flying it back against the enemy!
Title: Re: Largest Ships You've Used
Post by: scoopdjm on October 28, 2011, 08:34:32 PM
I like the Idea too girlinhat, but when Im not using it in backwater, dead end colonies it makes me feel inadequate considering I'd have like  my entire extra-solar combat fleet right there
Title: Re: Largest Ships You've Used
Post by: OAM47 on October 29, 2011, 12:03:16 AM
(a lurker here *cough cough*)

My ships tend to be pretty small, though I've never stuck with a game for TOO long.

However, I have also tried the "only carry one fighter/FAC" technique.   I don't use it with carriers, though, but with "lone wolf" styled cruisers.   The unit inside is basically just a scout, either for jump points or a second set of eyes.   I actually prefer a full 1000 sizer for this, for longer operating time and better sensor mounts.   Typically my ships are pretty slow, too, so the extra scout offsets that somewhat too (though one could argue the cruiser would be better off just being lighter and a tad faster).
Title: Re: Largest Ships You've Used
Post by: Girlinhat on October 29, 2011, 12:48:55 AM
I've been debating some ship ideas.  I'm a fan of certain "sensor grid" styles that I've mostly read about, where a ship itself doesn't have enough capacity to really survey an area, so it sends out probes to sit somewhere and send back data.  Some fiction uses this for one ship to keep eyes on several planets, other fiction puts close ship combat (laser range) requiring multiple external sensor buoys to help get a proper fix on the target.  These are usually the situations that have one big ship, capable of fielding its own PD and sensors and everything, so it's a bit different from Aurora style.  But, I'm still thinking about putting microships into a hangar, try and get them to fit into a size 5 or size 20 hangar, outfitted only with a small engine, a sensor suite, and some moderate fuel, with the intent of sending them out to act as forward eyes.  With the "sit 5 deg clockwise at X distance" options, this could be even easier.  I've also realized that a drone could be fit with sensors and some fuel, and fired at a waypoint, where it would wait until its fuel ran out, allowing for some ranged recon of a sort.

This doesn't really apply to the shipyard size argument, but it's an interesting tactic and would need some large vessels to sport it.
Title: Re: Largest Ships You've Used
Post by: Person012345 on November 23, 2011, 05:34:16 PM
I believe the largest I've built are 2 of these:
X-5M class Super-Transporter    2,399,450 tons     18455 Crew     97891.6 BP      TCS 47989  TH 171875  EM 0
3581 km/s     Armour 1-1596     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 5     PPV 0
MSP 127    Max Repair 100 MSP
Colonists 5000000    Habitation Capacity 100,000    Cargo Handling Multiplier 200    Tractor Beam     

Magnetic Confinement Fusion Drive Civ Mil (500)    Power 343.75    Fuel Use 6%    Signature 343.75    Armour 0    Exp 2%
Fuel Capacity 5,000,000 Litres    Range 62.5 billion km   (202 days at full power)

This design is classed as a Commercial Vessel for maintenance purposes
This design is classed as an Orbital Habitat for construction purposes

I intend to build far bigger though. For the hell of it.
Title: Re: Largest Ships You've Used
Post by: GodEmperor on July 06, 2013, 09:21:28 AM
Necro Thread :)

My largest ship :

Code: [Select]
Ark class Generation Ship    2 124 450 tons     3036 Crew     95849 BP      TCS 42489  TH 14000  EM 0
941 km/s     Armour 1-1472     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/1     Damage Control Rating 1     PPV 0
MSP 28    Max Repair 500 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 99999 months    Spare Berths -1   
Cargo 500000    Cryogenic Berths 100000   
Fuel Harvester: 10 modules producing 280000 litres per annum
Terraformer: 10 module(s) producing 0.015 atm per annum
Asteroid Miner: 10 module(s) producing 140 tons per mineral per annum

400 EP Commercial Inertial Fusion Drive (100)    Power 400    Fuel Use 3.98%    Signature 140    Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 1 000 000 000 Litres    Range 2127.9 billion km   (26172 days at full power)

CIWS Falanga (2x6)    Range 1000 km     TS: 16000 km/s     ROF 5       Base 50% To Hit
Geological Survey Sensors (1)   1 Survey Points Per Hour

This design is classed as a Commercial Vessel for maintenance purposes

This ship is developed with the sole purpose of making colony if i ever encounter another star system with beautiful planet laaarge distance from the any JP :) Load up some auto-mines, mass drivers, factories and colonists and in theory one of those ships can make a self-sufficient colony all by himself.
Title: Re: Largest Ships You've Used
Post by: MarcAFK on July 10, 2013, 11:10:01 PM
The largest ship i have actually constructed was only around 200 ktons, I tend to get distracted and bored and restart often.   
But i did create this for a Non standard start :
Code: [Select]
"%Tranquility Base class Orbital Habitat    151,656,450 tons     30510 Crew     191376 BP      TCS 3033129  TH 62500  EM 0
20 km/s     Armour 1-25332     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 1     PPV 0
MSP 1    Max Repair 31. 25 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 120 months    Spare Berths 0  
Habitation Capacity 30,000,000  

125 EP Commercial Nuclear Thermal Engine (500)    Power 125    Fuel Use 8. 84%    Signature 125    Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 2,500,000 Litres    Range 0. 0 billion km   (18 days at full power)

This design is classed as a Commercial Vessel for maintenance purposes
This design is classed as an Orbital Habitat for construction purposes"
I popped this monstrosity around one of the smaller Jovian moons, and spawned a few freighters, fuel harvesters and Asteroid miners, then reduced earth to a Radioactive dust covered hulk with everything set to .   1 accessibility.   
Things weren't as slow as you might think, smaller populations waste far less on environmental (0% for the habitat)and service industry, This supports 200 factories and with a few hundred automines and 2-3 fuel harvesting ships I basically started with not less than 50% of the production level of a standard start.    The downside is not having large enough population to support large shipyards and research, but i was roleplaying an apocalyptic scenario where the survivors were basically just civilians/merchants.