Aurora 4x
VB6 Aurora => Bureau of Ship Design => Topic started by: Mormota on November 28, 2011, 01:55:35 PM
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Baden class Escort 5 100 tons 412 Crew 1282.5 BP TCS 102 TH 500 EM 0
4901 km/s Armour 3-26 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 2 PPV 10
Maint Life 3.43 Years MSP 1314 AFR 104% IFR 1.4% 1YR 170 5YR 2557 Max Repair 280 MSP
Magazine 550
Magnetic Confinement Fusion Drive E4 (4) Power 125 Fuel Use 40% Signature 125 Armour 0 Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 100 000 Litres Range 88.2 billion km (208 days at full power)
Abwehr-2 Launcher (5) Missile Size 2 Rate of Fire 10
Abwehr-2 Fire Control (1) Range 92.4m km Resolution 1
Abwehr-2.5 (275) Speed: 62 500 km/s End: 4.8m Range: 18m km WH: 1 Size: 2 TH: 833 / 500 / 250
Abwehr-2 Active Sensor (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
Bremse class Fighter 415 tons 15 Crew 122.8 BP TCS 8.3 TH 75 EM 0
9036 km/s Armour 1-4 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 0 PPV 4
Maint Life 0 Years MSP 0 AFR 83% IFR 1.2% 1YR 16 5YR 244 Max Repair 56 MSP
FTR Magnetic Confinement Fusion Drive E400 (1) Power 75 Fuel Use 4000% Signature 75 Armour 0 Exp 25%
Fuel Capacity 15 000 Litres Range 1.6 billion km (50 hours at full power)
Fighter Laser Cannon (1) Range 120 000km TS: 9036 km/s Power 4-4 RM 3 ROF 5 4 4 4 3 2 2 1 1 1 1
Fighter Laser Fire Control (1) Max Range: 120 000 km TS: 25000 km/s 92 83 75 67 58 50 42 33 25 17
Bremse reactor (1) Total Power Output 5 Armour 0 Exp 5%
This design is classed as a Fighter for production, combat and maintenance purposes
Emden class Carrier 13 250 tons 947 Crew 2196 BP TCS 265 TH 750 EM 0
2830 km/s Armour 5-49 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 6 PPV 65.76
Maint Life 3.87 Years MSP 5621 AFR 234% IFR 3.3% 1YR 594 5YR 8912 Max Repair 480 MSP
Hangar Deck Capacity 4250 tons
Magnetic Confinement Fusion Drive E4 (6) Power 125 Fuel Use 40% Signature 125 Armour 0 Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 300 000 Litres Range 101.9 billion km (416 days at full power)
Triple Meson 320 Bereich-Abwehr Turret (2x3) Range 320 000km TS: 20000 km/s Power 48-15 RM 32 ROF 20 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
Meson 320 Fire Control (1) Max Range: 320 000 km TS: 20000 km/s 97 94 91 88 84 81 78 75 72 69
Magnetic Confinement Fusion Reactor Technology PB-1 (1) Total Power Output 40 Armour 0 Exp 5%
Strike Group
10x Bremse Fighter Speed: 9036 km/s Size: 8.3
This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
Graf Spee class Command Ship 2 500 tons 197 Crew 688.6 BP TCS 50 TH 250 EM 240
5000 km/s Armour 5-16 Shields 8-400 Sensors 30/55/0/0 Damage Control Rating 2 PPV 0
Maint Life 12.28 Years MSP 1344 AFR 25% IFR 0.3% 1YR 16 5YR 247 Max Repair 150 MSP
Flag Bridge
Magnetic Confinement Fusion Drive E4 (2) Power 125 Fuel Use 40% Signature 125 Armour 0 Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 100 000 Litres Range 180.0 billion km (416 days at full power)
Theta R400/16 Shields (2) Total Fuel Cost 32 Litres per day
Active Command Sensor-1 (1) GPS 14000 Range 154.0m km Resolution 100
Thermal Command Sensor-1 (1) Sensitivity 30 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 30m km
EM Command Sensor-1 (1) Sensitivity 55 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 55m km
This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
Prinz Eugen class Cruiser 5 750 tons 421 Crew 1244.5 BP TCS 115 TH 500 EM 0
4347 km/s Armour 10-28 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 2 PPV 15
Maint Life 4.41 Years MSP 2271 AFR 132% IFR 1.8% 1YR 189 5YR 2830 Max Repair 280 MSP
Magazine 555
Magnetic Confinement Fusion Drive E4 (4) Power 125 Fuel Use 40% Signature 125 Armour 0 Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 100 000 Litres Range 78.2 billion km (208 days at full power)
Krieg-2 Launcher (5) Missile Size 3 Rate of Fire 15
Krieg-2 Fire Control (1) Range 83.2m km Resolution 100
Krieg-2.5 (185) Speed: 20 800 km/s End: 60m Range: 74.9m km WH: 9 Size: 3 TH: 145 / 87 / 43
Krieg-2 Active Sensor (1) GPS 28000 Range 308.0m km Resolution 100
ECCM-1 (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
So that is my first real fleet, but I have no idea how effective it will be. I am now aware that beam fighters are not really possible, so don't point that out. ;)
I often see that people recommend size 4 ASMs, but I really don't see why. I value my 15 second reaload time which I can use to overwhelm the enemy PD over a slightly increased destructive potential. I mean, I'm currently researching warhead strength per MSP 8, that would require 3.125 MSP for a strength 25 warhead, and I really don't think my warhead should be any weaker if I'm making a larger missile.
What I am trying to say is this: I don't understand why I would make a stronger warhead when it would probably be slower and as such less likely to overcome point defenses. Any other help is welcome on overall fleet composition/ship design.
Thank you in advance!
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The advantage of strong warheads is armor penetration, particularly against light/marginal armor levels. A strong warhead or beam weapon can knock out lighter craft in a single hit; weaker warheads tend to have to sandpaper away armor, resulting in higher time-to-kills for the same total damage. That's not always a problem, but hey missiles can get expensive. It's impossible to judge which approach is better against a particular enemy until you actually fight them; NPR point defence strength varies wildly.
Size 4 is popular because it's a pretty good balance between quantity of missiles (small) and individual strength of the missiles. Particularly at lower tech levels than you are designing your navy at. You can't really fit an effective warhead below that. Or well you can, but at that point you might as well resort to spamming AMMs. A lot more volume and the same amount of sandpapering.
Overwhelming the enemy through volume of fire is certainly a viable strategy. The other way you could do it is by mounting enormous numbers of minaturized or box launchers to devastate the enemy with a single salvo. The salvo method is vulnerable to strong AMM coverage, whereas standard launchers tend to be vulnerable to beam point defence. It's really a matter of preference. Though AMMs are still pretty good against standard launchers, heh.
Beam fighters are doable, they just arn't as good as missile fighters. If you want a beam fighter, you should reduce the fuel stowage (to minimum) and cut down the size of the fire control. 400 tons is just too heavy. You don't need as much range or tracking speed as you have, in particular. Also, that looks like a 12cm laser - just use a 10cm. Speed is all that will keep you alive and you can reduce the reactor too.
The real problem for small beam ships is the fire control... I find pure beam platforms ineffective unless they're also able to conduct missile defence, and to multirole you need a size 8 or 12 fire control, which just doesn't fit on anything below 4000 tons effectively. And that pretty much goes for fighters too, though they have the advantage of the fighter tracking speed bonus.
You are light on sensor capability for your tech level. You should devote a lot more tonnage to it, either by upsizing the Graf Spee or your carrier. Fighter strategies definitely need very strong active and passive sensor coverage. You will also want your carrier to be a lot faster. It makes them expensive, but carriers are the ultimate long range combatants - if they're fast enough they always have the option to withdraw. If they arn't fast enough, well.... they can get splattered pretty easily.
Also you don't seem to have any jump capability.
EDIT - I hadn't noticed the massive search sensor on your cruiser. That helps, but it's paranoically huge for that ship. I would downsize the search sensor to 100km or so at most, to go with the missiles. If you want area search you should put it on a dedicated ship, the carrier, or a jumpship. Use the saved space for missile magazines. You seriously can never have enough missiles on your combat ships.
If you want ideas try opening the "Space Race" game. The "Daring" is an example of a strong missile defence ship and the "Oracle" is an example of a paranoically capable scoutship. The "Redoubtable" is a decent covers-all-the-bases sensor platform. You should try to decide if you want to be sneaky at all or go in with sensors hot at all times. Passives are nice but strong actives can render them pointless in a military squadron... if you don't care who can see you.
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Escort needs more anti-missile missiles, in my opinion.
Fighters should be a little bit smaller if possible.
Carrier needs more fuel and engineering spaces and doesn't need mesons. You might also want to make it as fast as the cruiser.
The command ship will probably want better sensors. And that little shield won't do anything. Get rid of it.
The cruiser looks fine to me.
The reason you are recommended to use size 4 missiles, is that at low tech, missiles smaller than that are ineffective, and you want to keep good backwards compatibility. But you are at medium tech, so your missiles can be smaller. Of course, if you make your missiles bigger, they can have a higher to hit, which is good against fast enemies. Overwhelming the PD is useless if you can't hit them anyways.
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Fleet:
- One thing that struck me first was the greatly varying speeds of your designs, especially the carrier will render about half your fleet's engines useless. I'd suggest equalising your max speeds - This isn't necessary, but as long as you operate in the fleet all surplus engines are 'wasted' tonnage, since you can't fly faster than the slowest ship. Round speed and tonnage values help for this, but aren't mandatory.
- Your fleet is not jump capable. You might want to design an additional tender to guide the fleet through jump points, but with combat fleets I'd rather suggest putting a jump drive on the largest military ship (usually the carrier) and having sufficient numbers of these to jump the majority of your fleet in a squadron transit.
- You have weak ECCM and no ECM. Both of these can help greatly, especially in a missile based fleet that relies on range, but I take it that your tech just isn't that far advanced into the electronic warfare branch.
- Judging from the amount of MSP, you've added maintenace storages on top of a couple engineering spaces. Maintenance storages don't reduce the failure rate but merely keep more replacement parts stockpiled. They also take a lot of space - if you replace the storages tonnage with engineering spaces, you'll probably gain a longer deployment time by simply preventing the failure the storage would have fixed. (Sole exception being the carrier, that should carry some supplies for the entirely supply-less fighters)
Escort:
- Sufficient magazines to fire 110 volleys, but with a very low tube count. Unless you intend to field many escorts, I'd suggest upping the number of tubes (and perhaps the magazine). For five tubes, I think the magazine is large enough.
- Fire control is severly oversized for the missile range. You might want to consider saving space on the design with a smaller fire control.
Cruiser:
- A very strong sensor for a main combat ship. Sensors are both expensive, space consuming and a huge impact on the failure rates of a ship, so exchanging it for a backup or at least smaller sensor should save space and costs.
- Ten rows of armour. While I understand that the large sensor will probably guide enemy fire onto the cruiser first and it is supposed to be the main combat ship, I can't fathom the large difference between the other ship's armour and your cruiser. Your command ship or your carrier are both very viable targets (large sensors and largest tonnage), so allocating your armour more equally among your ships might help in the long run (as the AI *will* spread its fire across your fleet, although it prefers closer, larger, hotter and sensor ships first)
- Sufficient magazine space for 27 volleys. I'd rather increase the number of tubes (and the magazine) than field many of these cruisers, especially as they feature above mentioned large sensor suite and armour.
Command Ship:
- The sensors of your command ship are ill-suited for its purpose. You have one resolution 100 sensor that doesn't reach as far as your cruiser, no long range AMM sensor and no way to detect smallcraft (resolution ~20). That it's the only ship with passive sensors is the only reason for this design to even exist in your fleet.
- The maintenance supplies seem oversized for this ship, as it shows a four times longer deployment time possibility as the rest of your ship, unless it's supposed to double as a supply ship for the fleet?
- For a command ship I'd say the armour is a little low, although I've elaborated on this part in the cruiser section already. I'd put the large sensor into this ship and up it's armour quite some.
- The shields are quite weak. 8 points of shield strength might absorb two missile hits, or (which is more likely) less. They also take 400 seconds to recharge, and only seldomly does a battle in space last long enough for that to recharge your shields. I'd suggest either upping the shield strength significiantly (20-100 strength), or leaving it out entirely, depending on your shield tech.
Carrier:
- Your carrier carries very little fuel. Even if it wouldn't consume any fuel itself, it could refuel its 10-fighter squadron only twice before there's nothing left. Now, your fighters won't always use up their whole fuel reserve, but neither do you go in with 100% full fuel storages after flying to the battlefield. As your fighters are beam fighters, they'll stay out in space longer, though, and take more fuel than missile fighters.
- You have no reactors on the carrier to power your meson turrets. I'd suggest putting meson turrets either on a beam escort or your main escort design, if you wish to combine AMM and turret functions. Regardless, the turrets are entirely useless on this design as they have no power to fire.
Fighter:
- Your fighters are heavy, but this can hardly be changed with beam armed fighters. I'd suggest using missile fighters instead, but for beam fighters you could still downsize the laser and fire control, if you either use reduced size lasers, 10cm focals, or adjust the firecontrol some.
- As beam fighters tend to stay in space for quite a while, I'd add a fighter sized engineering space to them. It at least prevents any spontanous failures right after launch and allows them to actually stay in space comfortably.
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The firecontrol on the fighter will only work at the slowest of turn speed / firecontrol, so you can drop the x4 modifier to x2 (12500m/s) which might save a little weight.
I'm about to build a beam fighter as I recently to deal with a problem recently encountered that drained me of all my missiles in a rather tense few minutes. If I can outrange the foe and outspeed it I should be able to steadily pick them off as they head towards my retreating fleet. My design will be similar to yours techwise but with a reduced size laser x0.75. It is a design for a specific target though and will be largely ineffective against anyone with AMMs.
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I think the problem with the reduced size 10cm lasers is that you're giving up the principal advantages of a beam combatant. It does give you some much needed tonnage savings but at that point you might as well be using rockets.
Although I was thinking about a halfsize 15cm fighter earlier. Or even 20cm. DPS goes right out the window but the armor penetration is brutal. Sorta meson-like.
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I'm thinking of scratching laser fighters and using microwave fighters instead. Is that a viable strategy? I must also say that I appreciate all the input given, thank you very much!
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There's no real difference in design terms, since microwaves are still 3 HS- same as 10cm lasers. But if the fighters live any length of time you can be pretty sure of mission-killing the entire enemy fleet. Which is always hilarious.
Another alternative is meson fighters. Still 3 HS. Similar, slower mission kills but can actually kill enemy ships.
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Another alternative is meson fighters. Still 3 HS. Similar, slower mission kills but can actually kill enemy ships.
I intend to assign fighters more of a support role, that's why I gave them lasers: To make lots of small-ish holes in the enemy's armour, and thus my missiles would likely hit those holes. Microwaves would disable enemy sensors and fire control, but mesons are an actual ship-killing role. I don't want my fleet to depend on fighters to do the killing, because I don't expect a lot of them to survive a mission.
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Maybe look into standardising your fleet a little: equalise the speed across the fleet, if you have for example 1 engine per 1000 tons then an 8 engine ship at 8000 tons will travel at the same max speed as a 15 engine ship at 15,000 tons. Missile sizes as well possibly as the logistics of production and supply if there is a number of different missile types where one size will do will grate in the long run.
Also, as has been said before I would be a little more ruthless in your ship design, for example your carrier is a carrier, all it needs is stuff that will help deliver its payload (your fighters) so thats hanger space, munitions storage (if your fighters are using missiles), fuel and maintenance storage, once thats taken care of think about its defence up to the cut off point - the cut off point will be the jump tenders maximum jump size.
I've never used anything other than missiles on fighters, but you are using fighters differently than I do (which is as the main combatant of my navies) so i cant really comment on laser or meson designed fighters, i would be interested to hear about how you get on with them.
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As a random note that could increase your effectiveness in missile combat with larger missiles, take a look at these.
Roanoke class Missile Destroyer 14,400 tons 1441 Crew 2516.35 BP TCS 288 TH 1440 EM 600
5000 km/s Armour 6-52 Shields 20-300 Sensors 8/14/0/0 Damage Control Rating 7 PPV 66
Maint Life 3.76 Years MSP 765 AFR 236% IFR 3.3% 1YR 85 5YR 1269 Max Repair 56 MSP
Magazine 792
Pratt & Whitney RR80 Magnetoplasma Drive (18) Power 80 Fuel Use 70% Signature 80 Armour 0 Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 580,000 Litres Range 103.6 billion km (239 days at full power)
Gamma R300/14 Shields (10) Total Fuel Cost 140 Litres per day
Arbalest Mk. 160 CIWS (1x6) Range 1000 km TS: 16000 km/s ROF 5 Base 50% To Hit
Mk 6 Guided Missile Launcher (11) Missile Size 6 Rate of Fire 60
IN/SPG-01A Missile Fire Control (11) Range 144.0m km Resolution 150
RGM-120B Thunderbolt II Anti-Shipping Missile (132) Speed: 31,600 km/s End: 38.5m Range: 73m km WH: 8 Size: 6 TH: 158 / 94 / 47
IN/SPS-02A GAEDAR Suite (1) GPS 8400 Range 96.0m km Resolution 150
IN/SPD-04A Missile Detection Sensor (1) GPS 56 Range 7.8m km Resolution 1
IN/SQR-06A Thermal Sensor (1) Sensitivity 8 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 8m km
IN/SDR-05A Electromagnetic Sensor (1) Sensitivity 14 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 14m km
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
La Fayette class Missile Frigate 8,000 tons 706 Crew 1381.8 BP TCS 160 TH 800 EM 600
5000 km/s Armour 4-35 Shields 20-300 Sensors 1/14/0/0 Damage Control Rating 4 PPV 24
Maint Life 3.76 Years MSP 432 AFR 128% IFR 1.8% 1YR 48 5YR 718 Max Repair 56 MSP
Magazine 684
Pratt & Whitney RR80 Magnetoplasma Drive (10) Power 80 Fuel Use 70% Signature 80 Armour 0 Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 350,000 Litres Range 112.5 billion km (260 days at full power)
Gamma R300/14 Shields (10) Total Fuel Cost 140 Litres per day
Mk 6 Guided Missile Launcher (4) Missile Size 6 Rate of Fire 60
IN/SPG-01A Missile Fire Control (4) Range 144.0m km Resolution 150
RGM-120B Thunderbolt II Anti-Shipping Missile (114) Speed: 31,600 km/s End: 38.5m Range: 73m km WH: 8 Size: 6 TH: 158 / 94 / 47
IN/SPS-02A GAEDAR Suite (1) GPS 8400 Range 96.0m km Resolution 150
IN/SPD-04A Missile Detection Sensor (1) GPS 56 Range 7.8m km Resolution 1
IN/SDR-05A Electromagnetic Sensor (1) Sensitivity 14 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 14m km
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
What I discovered through testing a while back was that if you assign a single launcher to a single fire control and repeat that over and over, you get greater hit potentials with fewer missiles. Point defense can only go after a single salvo at a time, so it allows a single destroyer to overwhelm an enemy fleet. My destroyer task forces currently have two of the Roanokes per and I've yet to see anything last more than 2 or 3 salvos because they're just not killing any of my missiles. The La Fayettes had an almost more successful career than the Roanokes have so far, simply because they're cheap as all get out and effective. Sure, they only have 4 tubes, but if you have 3 pumping out missiles there's little the enemy can do to stop them.
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You don't actually need one fire control for each tube, actually. You can stagger your fire, launching one missile per firecon every five seconds. Assign one tube to the firecon, fire, run five seconds, assign another tube, run five seconds, etc. Don't take the reloading tubes off, that way once you're out of tubes, you can just leave it and they'll all fire as they reload. With the 60 second reload on your Roanokes, you could launch 12 individual missiles per reload cycle with just one fire control.
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You don't actually need one fire control for each tube, actually. You can stagger your fire, launching one missile per firecon every five seconds. Assign one tube to the firecon, fire, run five seconds, assign another tube, run five seconds, etc. Don't take the reloading tubes off, that way once you're out of tubes, you can just leave it and they'll all fire as they reload. With the 60 second reload on your Roanokes, you could launch 12 individual missiles per reload cycle with just one fire control.
I am guessing that spreading out your salvos over that much time will eliminate all of the benefit from minimizing how many missiles your enemies destroy per salvo. For example if your enemy has a single quad turret with really good accuracy then launching 12 missiles in one salvo will lead to 4 of them getting destroyed. Launching 12 missiles in 12 salvos at the same time will lead to 1 of them getting destroyed. Launching 12 missiles one at a time will lead to all of them getting destroyed.
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On the other hand, if the opponent is using 3 vs 1 (or more) AMM PD, firing single-missile salvos will run him out of AMMs much faster.
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Ripple firing would give similar enough results, but take a lot more finicking on my end and I believe make it easier for staggered PD to handle them. Besides, it's already annoying enough having to manually bind each FC to a tube since it won't do that for me automatically, and I don't want to have to do that every time I get into a fight.
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I am guessing that spreading out your salvos over that much time will eliminate all of the benefit from minimizing how many missiles your enemies destroy per salvo. For example if your enemy has a single quad turret with really good accuracy then launching 12 missiles in one salvo will lead to 4 of them getting destroyed. Launching 12 missiles in 12 salvos at the same time will lead to 1 of them getting destroyed. Launching 12 missiles one at a time will lead to all of them getting destroyed.
That's against beam PD, though, and countermissiles are generally a much bigger concern. You do need to have more than just one ship ripple-firing to get past any CIWS, but that's not hard.
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Besides, it's already annoying enough having to manually bind each FC to a tube since it won't do that for me automatically, and I don't want to have to do that every time I get into a fight.
Have you used the copy assignments buttons?
PS - Automated Fire will automate weapons assignments too, though its a lot more useful for beam platforms than missile ships.
On the other hand, if the opponent is using 3 vs 1 (or more) AMM PD, firing single-missile salvos will run him out of AMMs much faster.
Howso? It's a per missile setting, not per salvo.
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Have you used the copy assignments buttons?
PS - Automated Fire will automate weapons assignments too, though its a lot more useful for beam platforms than missile ships.
Howso? It's a per missile setting, not per salvo.
I do use copy assignments once I have the flagship done. The problem is, to set up the ripple fire like he was describing, I'd have to go in and manually clear the fire controls and reset them every time I was in a fight because if they're all reloaded at the same time and I fire them all off the same FC, then I just get one salvo which defeats the entire purpose.
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I'm designing the new generation, most ships are done, but there is one thing I don't know. Can a, let's say, 10k ton ship with a jump drive capable of 25k tons carry 25k ton ships with it on a jump? If not, is there a simple way of increasing the jump ship's size?
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It can't. Jump ships can guide only smaller or equally large ships through a jump point, regardless of jump engine size and capabilities. It's best to put your jump engine on the largest ship, either by design from the start, or by adding more weapons, armour, magazines, maintenance, fuel, ... whatever you fleet might need more of, until you reach the desired size.
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So I have the new navy designed. I assume that if the TS is lower than the target's speed, accuracy is reduced to TS/target speed. The navy will have a fuel, maintenance and collier ship with a jump engine.
Baden-II class Escort 6 000 tons 494 Crew 1502 BP TCS 120 TH 640 EM 0
5333 km/s Armour 5-29 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 15 PPV 10
Maint Life 9.61 Years MSP 2782 AFR 57% IFR 0.8% 1YR 54 5YR 816 Max Repair 336 MSP
Magazine 550
Inertial Confinement Fusion Drive E3 (4) Power 160 Fuel Use 30% Signature 160 Armour 0 Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 150 000 Litres Range 150.0 billion km (325 days at full power)
Abwehr-3 Launcher (10) Missile Size 1 Rate of Fire 5
Abwehr-3 Fire Control (2) Range 47.0m km Resolution 1
Abwehr-3 (550) Speed: 82 700 km/s End: 1m Range: 4.8m km WH: 1 Size: 1 TH: 1240 / 744 / 372
Abwehr-3 Active Sensor (1) GPS 336 Range 47.0m km Resolution 1
ECCM-3 (2) 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
Hamburg-II class Corvette 3 950 tons 431 Crew 1620.5 BP TCS 79 TH 640 EM 0
8101 km/s Armour 1-22 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 3 PPV 18
Maint Life 7 Years MSP 2769 AFR 41% IFR 0.6% 1YR 99 5YR 1482 Max Repair 720 MSP
Inertial Confinement Fusion Drive E3 (4) Power 160 Fuel Use 30% Signature 160 Armour 0 Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 100 000 Litres Range 151.9 billion km (217 days at full power)
300 mm Point Defense Railgun (2x4) Range 350 000km TS: 8101 km/s Power 21-8 RM 5 ROF 15 7 7 7 7 7 5 5 4 3 3
300 mm Railgun Fire Control (1) Max Range: 384 000 km TS: 25000 km/s 97 95 92 90 87 84 82 79 77 74
300 mm Railgun Reactor (2) Total Power Output 24 Armour 0 Exp 5%
This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
Emden-II class Carrier 21 600 tons 1249 Crew 4314 BP TCS 432 TH 2400 EM 0
5555 km/s Armour 6-69 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 35 PPV 0
Maint Life 6.83 Years MSP 7121 AFR 149% IFR 2.1% 1YR 266 5YR 3988 Max Repair 560 MSP
Hangar Deck Capacity 3500 tons Magazine 2704
Inertial Confinement Fusion Drive E3 (15) Power 160 Fuel Use 30% Signature 160 Armour 0 Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 400 000 Litres Range 111.1 billion km (231 days at full power)
Bremse-1 ASM (676) Speed: 60 000 km/s End: 8.3m Range: 30m km WH: 16 Size: 4 TH: 360 / 216 / 108
Abwehr-3 Active Sensor (1) GPS 336 Range 47.0m km Resolution 1
Emden-II Force Projection Sensor (1) GPS 56000 Range 784.0m km Resolution 100
Strike Group
15x Bremse-II Fighter Speed: 24090 km/s Size: 4.4
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
Bremse-II class Fighter 220 tons 4 Crew 77.1 BP TCS 4.4 TH 25.44 EM 0
24090 km/s Armour 1-3 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 0 PPV 2.4
Maint Life 11.86 Years MSP 22 AFR 3% IFR 0.1% 1YR 0 5YR 4 Max Repair 35 MSP
Magazine 16
FTR Inertial Confinement Fusion Drive E360 (1) Power 105.6 Fuel Use 3600% Signature 25.344 Armour 0 Exp 50%
Fuel Capacity 10 000 Litres Range 2.3 billion km (26 hours at full power)
Bremse Launcher (4) Missile Size 4 Hangar Reload 30 minutes MF Reload 5 hours
Bremse Fire Control (1) Range 35.3m km Resolution 100
Bremse-1 ASM (4) Speed: 60 000 km/s End: 8.3m Range: 30m km WH: 16 Size: 4 TH: 360 / 216 / 108
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 Fighter for production, combat and maintenance purposes
Berlin class Battlestar 24 350 tons 1767 Crew 6096 BP TCS 487 TH 2560 EM 1800
5256 km/s Armour 20-74 Shields 60-300 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 22 PPV 60
Maint Life 5.27 Years MSP 5878 AFR 395% IFR 5.5% 1YR 354 5YR 5306 Max Repair 420 MSP
Magazine 2088
Inertial Confinement Fusion Drive E3 (16) Power 160 Fuel Use 30% Signature 160 Armour 0 Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 700 000 Litres Range 172.5 billion km (379 days at full power)
Battlestar shields (15) Total Fuel Cost 180 Litres per day
Krieg-3 Launcher (15) Missile Size 4 Rate of Fire 20
Krieg-2 Fire Control (3) Range 124.4m km Resolution 7
Krieg-3 ASM (522) Speed: 24 000 km/s End: 83.3m Range: 120m km WH: 16 Size: 4 TH: 200 / 120 / 60
Active Search Sensor MR184-R16 (1) GPS 6720 Range 184.8m km Resolution 16
Active Search Sensor MR462-R100 (1) GPS 42000 Range 462.0m km Resolution 100
ECCM-3 (3) ECM 30
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
Prinz Eugen-II class Cruiser 8 500 tons 723 Crew 1924.5 BP TCS 170 TH 960 EM 0
5647 km/s Armour 12-37 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 16 PPV 32
Maint Life 9.49 Years MSP 2849 AFR 96% IFR 1.3% 1YR 57 5YR 856 Max Repair 112 MSP
Magazine 708
Inertial Confinement Fusion Drive E3 (6) Power 160 Fuel Use 30% Signature 160 Armour 0 Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 200 000 Litres Range 141.2 billion km (289 days at full power)
Krieg-3 Launcher (8) Missile Size 4 Rate of Fire 20
Krieg-2 Fire Control (1) Range 124.4m km Resolution 7
Krieg-3 ASM (177) Speed: 24 000 km/s End: 83.3m Range: 120m km WH: 16 Size: 4 TH: 200 / 120 / 60
Krieg-3 Active Sensor (1) GPS 9100 Range 127.4m km Resolution 100
ECCM-3 (1) ECM 30
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
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Looks pretty good (in my opinion). I don't see anything that'd critically hinder you after deployment.
The slowest ship is the Berlin class, but except for the corvette they are all in just about the same range. Since the corvette appears to be your beam PD ship, it'll stay rather close to the main body of the fleet - perhaps you could take an engine off, unless you intend to use the railguns as 'melee' weapons every now and then. If you do want to bring the corvette into the occasional beam fight, you might want to consider a layer of armour or two.
Your carrier might want an ECM unit, as it's the second largest ship in your fleet and also in possesion of a long range sensor.
The fighter seems to have a long maintenance life, although I currently don't have the effect of a single engineering space in my head. You should give him a maximum of one fighter sized engineering space, that's sufficient for his entire lifetime and might reduce the weight (and thus increase speed) a bit.
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Personally, I'd up the armour on the corvettes to 2 or 3, just so you have a little wiggle room should it come under fire.
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The fighter has nothing else than a single fighter-sized engineering module. The corvette is indeed faster, but its intended role is to say in front of the fleet to give it more time to engage incoming missiles, and the increased speed should give a better chance to hit. It's a small target and I hope the enemy won't fire at it. I don't intend to use railguns against ships, except during jump point assaults. There, I will use this baby:
Bismarck class Jump Assault Cruiser 23 450 tons 2940 Crew 9895.5 BP TCS 469 TH 160 EM 0
341 km/s Armour 20-72 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 25 PPV 225
Maint Life 2.07 Years MSP 6319 AFR 879% IFR 12.2% 1YR 1973 5YR 29591 Max Repair 720 MSP
Inertial Confinement Fusion Drive E3 (1) Power 160 Fuel Use 30% Signature 160 Armour 0 Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 5 000 Litres Range 1.3 billion km (43 days at full power)
300 mm Point Defense Railgun (25x4) Range 350 000km TS: 6250 km/s Power 21-8 RM 5 ROF 15 7 7 7 7 7 5 5 4 3 3
300 mm Railgun Fire Control (3) Max Range: 384 000 km TS: 25000 km/s 97 95 92 90 87 84 82 79 77 74
300 mm Railgun Reactor (23) Total Power Output 276 Armour 0 Exp 5%
Abwehr-3 Active Sensor (1) GPS 336 Range 47.0m km Resolution 1
ECCM-3 (3) This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
It shall be towed to the Jump point, then transit and, after its sensors come back online, lay waste to any possible defenses. Of course, several of these will be employed, and I tried to make as many redundant systems as possible.
Fakeedit: Atlantia posted while I was typing, and while I could add a bit of armour, it would increase the tonnage and the ship would be targeted even more. It can't survive enemy fire with 2 layers of armour anyway, so why waste tonnage and speed on that? Unless you believe that it would actually help.
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I didn't consider that your corvette relied on its speed for the tracking, my bad. Depending on the enemy's sensors you might find them dying anyway if you put them ahead of your fleet, but keeping them unarmoured, smaller and cheaper might be the better solution here. My taste is a different one, but it's a solid tactic.
Your assault cruiser might have redundant ECMs and lots of other systems, but only one sensor that, if hit by luck, will render the whole ship without firepower. Might not be that much of an issue if they operate in packs.
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Your assault cruiser might have redundant ECMs and lots of other systems, but only one sensor that, if hit by luck, will render the whole ship without firepower. Might not be that much of an issue if they operate in packs.
Yes, I noticed that not long after posting and it now has 2 active sensors. 4 of them will be deployed in an assault, which should prove more than enough, especially if we consider that I have yet to find an enemy.
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Your corvette appears to be planning to use the railguns in an antimissile mode. For that you would probably be better with smaller 10cm railguns as you could mount more of them and have them fire every 5 seconds and killing a missile does not take much damage. Howver for antishipping work the 30cm railguns are probably better
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I'm using 30cm railguns for their range. If you do the maths, they can fire as many times as a smaller railgun, but an enemy missile could be so fast that a smaller one wouldn't have time to fire.
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Typically antimissile beam ships should be optimized for final defensive fire. The range of the weapon is irrelevant to that, and as long as theyre in final defensive fire mode and the missiles are spotted on active scan they will fire regardless.
You can dualrole ships as antimissile and antishipping but you should be aware of the sacrifices you are making in that respect.
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Typically antimissile beam ships should be optimized for final defensive fire. The range of the weapon is irrelevant to that, and as long as theyre in final defensive fire mode and the missiles are spotted on active scan they will fire regardless.
You can dualrole ships as antimissile and antishipping but you should be aware of the sacrifices you are making in that respect.
Firing beams at missiles at range is sometimes worthwhile, usually with dual-role beams that can get multiple shots off, but for a dedicated PD ship, lots of small beams on final defensive fire is the way to go. The thing about firing at range is your accuracy is pretty low at extended range, so you don't gain as much from multiple volleys as you might expect.
Also, the beam fire control on that corvette is seriously oversized. You want it to have at least 8100 kps tracking speed, but anything above that is a waste. You could cut it down to 37.5% of its current size with no loss of capability, I think.
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You're right that long range shots can be worth it, but you need a 5s refire time to pull it off effectively IMO. So you can shoot it again in Final Defensive Fire.
Personally, I find lasers to make the best multirole beam weapons. Railguns have the problem of not really having enough range on the small ones. 10cm and 12cm lasers can get pretty good range while still being small enough to fit large numbers. The problem is you need a size 8-12 firecontrol.
I hadn't noticed that monster fire control! Yikes! Being able to get away with low tracking speeds is one of the big pluses of railguns... heh. Plus, 1600 BP is a lot to put in a paper thin ship and with only 2x railguns it's pd capability is limited. Tho its antishipping capability is actually pretty good if it can survive.
Let me draw a comparison with a railgun escort I made recently -
Hermes class Destroyer 4,500 tons 490 Crew 663 BP TCS 90 TH 300 EM 0
3333 km/s Armour 4-24 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 3 PPV 31.2
Maint Life 7.69 Years MSP 322 AFR 46% IFR 0.6% 1YR 10 5YR 144 Max Repair 58 MSP
Magazine 48
Atlas Thruster (5) Power 60 Fuel Use 80% Signature 60 Armour 0 Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 90,000 Litres Range 45.0 billion km (156 days at full power)
GAU-131 (4x4) Range 30,000km TS: 4000 km/s Power 3-3 RM 3 ROF 5 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
GAU-333 (2x4) Range 90,000km TS: 4000 km/s Power 9-3 RM 3 ROF 15 3 3 3 2 1 1 1 1 1 0
Boresight 96/4 (1) Max Range: 192,000 km TS: 4000 km/s 95 90 84 79 74 69 64 58 53 48
GCF Series 52 (8) Total Power Output 18 Armour 0 Exp 5%
OLYMPUS Torpedo Rack (3) Missile Size 16 Hangar Reload 120 minutes MF Reload 20 hours
Goliath-15 (1) Range 15.4m km Resolution 100
HT-18 Whale (3) Speed: 25,000 km/s End: 4.7m Range: 7m km WH: 18 Size: 16 TH: 116 / 70 / 35
Small Scan System G1 (1) GPS 32 Range 2.6m km Resolution 1
ECM 10
This railgun design is low tech and only about 670 BP. A lot slower, but it actually has more anti-missile capability than the Hamburg - 24x shots at 4k tracking speed compared to 8x shots at 8k tracking speed. And its weapons actually recharge faster. I did put on the pair of 15cm railguns because I couldn't bear having only the short range of the 10cms. You could try leaving one of the 300mm railguns and fitting the rest with PD. You might even fit in some armor.
So I have the new navy designed. I assume that if the TS is lower than the target's speed, accuracy is reduced to TS/target speed. The navy will have a fuel, maintenance and collier ship with a jump engine.
Yes, it's fractional of the target speed, but it uses the lower of the fire control compared to the weapon tracking speed. (The weapon tracking speed is either the base fire control tech speed, or the ships speed, whichever is higher.) Given that you can make a 25 km/s tracking speed fire control, you must have pretty good FC tech. You probably arn't getting a lot of extra tracking speed from all the speed you've piled on the Hamburg. Incidentally, if you plan on having a collier integral with the fleet, you could probably fit some more fighters on the carrier in exchange for magazine space. Though then it cant supply as much to your missile warships.
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A 10 cm Railgun would have a range of 50 000 kms. The Beam fire Control base range is 48 000 kms. How large should I make it, 4x size to get the best accuracy, or smaller and use weight of fire, considering the lower TS is already giving my railguns a lower accuracy?
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In terms of Final Defensive Fire, you start getting diminishing returns pretty quick. The 96km control on my destroyer has 95% accuracy at 10k km, and your 192km control has 97. IMO in practice once you hit 90% at 10km you're doing fine and that takes basically nothing.
Basically though you need to decide whether you want to be a dedicated antimissile platform or not. You could get away with a 2x or even 1x range firecontrol if all you want to use it for is 10cm railguns. Personally I like to squeeze in some multirole capability on my ships. But at that point you're also looking at armor and a compromise of capability.
What really kills you on fire controls is stacking multipliers - 4x range is 4 size. 4x tracking is 4 size. But when you do both its 16. So the difference between 2x range and 4x range is minimal unless you are REALLY squeezed for space (like on a fighter or FAC.) This is why your high tracking speed is eating up your tonnage so badly. I'm not sure you quite understand tracking speed though - it doesn't matter if your computer can track targets if your railguns cant. You are bottlenecked by the railguns - every point of tracking speed above the railguns listed tracking speed is wasted. If you cut it down to 4x range 2x tracking (mixed armament) it will halve the size of your fire control without affecting your tracking ability. If you go with pure 10cm railguns you can cut it down to 1x range 2x tracking and your FC is 1/8 the size it is now.
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I'm using 30cm railguns for their range. If you do the maths, they can fire as many times as a smaller railgun, but an enemy missile could be so fast that a smaller one wouldn't have time to fire.
Missiles are so fast you only get one shot normally certainly with the 15 second reload time. I find this means the area defense setting is worthless so all my antimissile weapons fire in final defense mode which automatically takes place at 10,000km this makes the extra range you are talking about of no value so more faster firing guns are the best for point defense.
If you play the game you discover this to be true , It works better than faulty maths :)
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Bismarck class Jump Assault Cruiser 23 450 tons 2940 Crew 9895.5 BP TCS 469 TH 160 EM 0
341 km/s Armour 20-72 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 25 PPV 225
Maint Life 2.07 Years MSP 6319 AFR 879% IFR 12.2% 1YR 1973 5YR 29591 Max Repair 720 MSP
Inertial Confinement Fusion Drive E3 (1) Power 160 Fuel Use 30% Signature 160 Armour 0 Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 5 000 Litres Range 1.3 billion km (43 days at full power)
300 mm Point Defense Railgun (25x4) Range 350 000km TS: 6250 km/s Power 21-8 RM 5 ROF 15 7 7 7 7 7 5 5 4 3 3
300 mm Railgun Fire Control (3) Max Range: 384 000 km TS: 25000 km/s 97 95 92 90 87 84 82 79 77 74
300 mm Railgun Reactor (23) Total Power Output 276 Armour 0 Exp 5%
Abwehr-3 Active Sensor (1) GPS 336 Range 47.0m km Resolution 1
ECCM-3 (3) This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
A couple things about this.
1. You have a lot of extra power there, it looks like your guns only need 200 power, while you have 276 power generated. At your reactor level (looks like at least Inertial Confinement) that's probably a pretty trivial tonnage concern though.
2. The big problem is your Fire Control on this ship, I saw several people commenting on your Corvette Fire Control, but none about this one. The formula of your "Weapon Tracking Speed" is as follows Math.Min(Math.Max(BaseFireControl, Math.Max(ShipSpeed, TurretSpeed)), FireControlSpeed).
The main takeaway point in English: Your Fire Control Speed and your Weapon Tracking Speed need to be the same, anything else is wasted. Your weapon tracking speed is either Ship Speed or the Turret Speed, or the Base Fire Control Speed, whatever is higher. So in this case it looks like you Base Fire Control Speed is 6250 km/s, so even though your ship goes way slower than that the TS of your Railgun is still 6250 km/s. You have then created a 4x size, 4x speed FC, but all of that extra tonnage is wasted.
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A couple things about this.
1. You have a lot of extra power there, it looks like your guns only need 200 power, while you have 276 power generated. At your reactor level (looks like at least Inertial Confinement) that's probably a pretty trivial tonnage concern though.
2. The big problem is your Fire Control on this ship, I saw several people commenting on your Corvette Fire Control, but none about this one. The formula of your "Weapon Tracking Speed" is as follows Math.Min(Math.Max(BaseFireControl, Math.Max(ShipSpeed, TurretSpeed)), FireControlSpeed).
The main takeaway point in English: Your Fire Control Speed and your Weapon Tracking Speed need to be the same, anything else is wasted. Your weapon tracking speed is either Ship Speed or the Turret Speed, or the Base Fire Control Speed, whatever is higher. So in this case it looks like you Base Fire Control Speed is 6250 km/s, so even though your ship goes way slower than that the TS of your Railgun is still 6250 km/s. You have then created a 4x size, 4x speed FC, but all of that extra tonnage is wasted.
Oh, good call. And with the extra space, you could add two extra fire controls - with that many guns, you could really use them, especially if you're planning to shoot down missiles with those suckers as well.
I'd seriously consider a little more speed. This is a good design for forcing ships away from the immediate vicinity of the jump point (unless there are meson ships on guard), but with some more speed and endurance, it'd also make a good jump point defense ship.
Also, where's the jump drive? And the ECM?
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I take it a ship needs to have engines to be able to jump. Is that true, or can I just park it on the Jump Point then transit with the jump ship?
Also, should I be using passive sensors for long range area coverage, or are those active sensors enough?
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No engines needed to jump. This is also the way, you move battlestations/war-sats/starbases (which basicly _are_ engineless ships) from one system to another
This very much depends on your active sensors (and your sensor tech) and your enemy.
If you have very long-ranged active sensors, you are very likely to spot the enemy while far outside engagement range.
That being said, your actives also anounce your presence over a much longer range than your sensor coverage (if the enemy has anything aproaching decent passive sensors) and I don´t consider it wise to run around with your actives on all the time.
An exception are my large colonies or my homeworld. With the huge thermal/EM signature of those, I consider the emisions of my actives negligible, so I put the largest set of actives there permanently to ON.
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Also, should I be using passive sensors for long range area coverage, or are those active sensors enough?
Pretty standard doctrine around here seems to be having purpose-built sensor ship with all sizable fleets, as having large passive sensor coverage is really useful, but you can't do it on general purpose ships without really sacrificing their capabilities elsewhere.
What I do is put anti-missile Active Sensors on all of my escort classes, as those are super small anyways. I also keep one of those on at all times, as they are so small they are unlikely to give your position away to anything that hasn't seen your thermal signature already, and that defends you from being surprised by very small ships or mines. Then in non-combat situations I rely totally on the missile AS and the passive sensors of my watchship.