Aurora 4x
VB6 Aurora => Bureau of Ship Design => Topic started by: Demosthenes on August 12, 2013, 11:59:46 PM
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Well, managed to take out a swarm of 77 FACs with mensons with my frigates, but they were more or less designed to out manuver and out range them. Curious how my fleet would stand up against any real forces.
We'll start with my main backbone forces.
The Thanatos Light Carrier. I have about 8 of these babies fleeted together sitting back with my colliers. Able to hold 5 Kestrels each (below)
Thanatos MKII class Light Carrier 15,000 tons 278 Crew 2812.5 BP TCS 300 TH 1500 EM 0
5000 km/s Armour 11-54 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 12 PPV 32.64
Maint Life 2.37 Years MSP 1406 AFR 150% IFR 2.1% 1YR 342 5YR 5134 Max Repair 750 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 12 months Flight Crew Berths 12
Hangar Deck Capacity 5000 tons Magazine 404
Carrier Class I-CFD MKI (1) Power 1500 Fuel Use 55.11% Signature 1500 Exp 15%
Fuel Capacity 1,000,000 Litres Range 21.8 billion km (50 days at full power)
Quad Fly Swatter MK1 RoF:4 S:3 Turret (2x16) Range 10,000km TS: 32000 km/s Power 0-0 RM 1 ROF 5 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Final Fire BFC MKII (1) Max Range: 120,000 km TS: 32000 km/s 92 83 75 67 58 50 42 33 25 17
Scourge Heavy Missile ASM MKI (100) Speed: 60,000 km/s End: 8.3m Range: 29.8m km WH: 10 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 Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
The Thanatos' FACs, used for softening up the enemy while my frigates and destroyers do the close in work. 20 missiles each, 5 for each carrier. 8 Carriers in my fleet. 800 WH10 Salvo, not bad, right?
Kestrel MKI class Fighter-bomber 1,000 tons 4 Crew 271 BP TCS 20 TH 360 EM 0
18000 km/s Armour 1-8 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 0 PPV 12
Maint Life 0 Years MSP 0 AFR 200% IFR 2.8% 1YR 77 5YR 1156 Max Repair 180 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 0.1 months Spare Berths 6
Magazine 80
FAC Class I-CFD MKI (1) Power 360 Fuel Use 586.13% Signature 360 Exp 30%
Fuel Capacity 15,000 Litres Range 0.5 billion km (7 hours at full power)
Stinger Missle Rack S:4 (20) Missile Size 4 Hangar Reload 30 minutes MF Reload 5 hours
Kestrel MFC MKI (1) Range 52.6m km Resolution 20
Scourge Heavy Missile ASM MKI (20) Speed: 60,000 km/s End: 8.3m Range: 29.8m km WH: 10 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 Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
The Collier, pretty standard. Matches speed with the Thanatos and sits in the back.
Hoarder MKI class Collier 15,000 tons 227 Crew 2220 BP TCS 300 TH 1500 EM 0
5000 km/s Armour 4-54 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 10 PPV 0
Maint Life 2.31 Years MSP 925 AFR 180% IFR 2.5% 1YR 235 5YR 3528 Max Repair 750 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 12 months Spare Berths 0
Magazine 3568
Carrier Class I-CFD MKI (1) Power 1500 Fuel Use 55.11% Signature 1500 Exp 15%
Fuel Capacity 1,000,000 Litres Range 21.8 billion km (50 days at full power)
Scourge Heavy Missile ASM MKI (600) Speed: 60,000 km/s End: 8.3m Range: 29.8m km WH: 10 Size: 4 TH: 360/216/108
Hornet AMM MKI (1168) Speed: 72,000 km/s End: 0.7m Range: 3m km WH: 1 Size: 1 TH: 720/432/216
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
The Rifter Frigate, these were designed to take out a swarm of 77x 10000km/s mesons armed FACs, so kind of specialized. Due for an update or upsize to destroyer.
Rifter MKII class Frigate 5,000 tons 174 Crew 1744.5 BP TCS 100 TH 1050 EM 0
10500 km/s Armour 5-26 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 3 PPV 24
Maint Life 2.3 Years MSP 654 AFR 66% IFR 0.9% 1YR 167 5YR 2510 Max Repair 525 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 12 months Spare Berths 0
Frigate Class I-CFD MKI (1) Power 1050 Fuel Use 113.44% Signature 1050 Exp 17%
Fuel Capacity 515,000 Litres Range 16.3 billion km (18 days at full power)
Medium Pulse Laster 25cm MKII (3) Range 320,000km TS: 10500 km/s Power 16-8 RM 5 ROF 10 16 16 16 16 16 13 11 10 8 8
Fire Control S08 160-10000 (1) Max Range: 320,000 km TS: 10000 km/s 97 94 91 88 84 81 78 75 72 69
Fusion Buddy 1HS (3) Total Power Output 24 Armour 0 Exp 5%
500ton Sweeper MKI (1) GPS 1120 Range 49.6m km Resolution 10
This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
The Thrasher AMM Platform, new ground to me not sure if I'm doing things properly. Also, how do you get them to fire at missile volleys? These go up with the frigates/destroyers and knifefight with the enemy.
Thrasher MKI class AMM Platform 7,500 tons 222 Crew 1632.5 BP TCS 150 TH 1575 EM 0
10500 km/s Armour 5-34 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 6 PPV 30
Maint Life 2.23 Years MSP 816 AFR 75% IFR 1% 1YR 220 5YR 3307 Max Repair 787.5 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 12 months Spare Berths 0
Magazine 434
Destroyer Class I-CFD MKI (1) Power 1575 Fuel Use 89.13% Signature 1575 Exp 17%
Fuel Capacity 1,000,000 Litres Range 26.9 billion km (29 days at full power)
Size 1 Missile Launcher (30) Missile Size 1 Rate of Fire 10
Thrasher 5mKM AMM MKI (1) Range 47.0m km Resolution 1
Hornet AMM MKI (434) Speed: 72,000 km/s End: 0.7m Range: 3m km WH: 1 Size: 1 TH: 720/432/216
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
And now for completely untouched ground, Gauss Cannon PD used as final defence. No idea how to use these, to be honest. These should go up with the frigs and protect them on the journey.
Hellcat MKI class Point Defence Ship 7,500 tons 187 Crew 1894 BP TCS 150 TH 1575 EM 0
10500 km/s Armour 7-34 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 6 PPV 48.96
Maint Life 2.29 Years MSP 947 AFR 75% IFR 1% 1YR 244 5YR 3666 Max Repair 787.5 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 12 months Spare Berths 0
Destroyer Class I-CFD MKI (1) Power 1575 Fuel Use 89.13% Signature 1575 Exp 17%
Fuel Capacity 1,000,000 Litres Range 26.9 billion km (29 days at full power)
Quad Fly Swatter MK1 RoF:4 S:3 Turret (3x16) Range 10,000km TS: 32000 km/s Power 0-0 RM 1 ROF 5 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Final Fire BFC MKII (1) Max Range: 120,000 km TS: 32000 km/s 92 83 75 67 58 50 42 33 25 17
This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
I know, I know. Nothing has sensors! I have dedicated sensor ships, as well as a few backups on the frigs/destroyers.
General fleet doctrine is to provide covering fire for the frigs/destroyers while they move up and shred.
Comments, suggestions? First time I've ever even got to the combat portion of this game, usually focus on the industry/exploration aspect but ran into a bunch of baddies on the way.
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Haven´t looked much on the other ships, but the Hellcat really should have three fire cons, one per quad turret, or it will be overwhealmed if an enemy uses many small salvos (a carrier with a bunch of fighters comes to mind).
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On the other ships you could use more Firecons, a single one has no redundancy, same goes for engines, if I see correctly there is just one on each design, for small ships that is okay, but your larger ones you don't want them to be a immovable target by one lucky hit destroying the single engine. Also an engine maintenance failure almost eats up your entire repair capacity.
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On missile defense ships (Thrasher or Hellcat) I generally provide a small resolution 1 active sensor with 10 seconds range against my own missiles. Thus I would need 600,000 to 720,000 km range against a size 6 or smaller missile (~6.6 million KM against 1 Hull space)to ensure that I detect and can engage enemy volleys. This sensor has a very small signature (less than the thermal on the engines) and can be left on without giving away the fleet position. I also use a dedicated scout for my main sensor, but often leave it off while I maneuver, depending on passives to give me time to engage. Leaving the anti-missile active sensors on, means that I do not get blindsided by an approaching volley. As each anti-missile ship has a sensor it gives redundancy to the missile defense and does not shut down the defense based on a lucky hit on a high visibility target.
I also provide one fire control for each turret, or each 5 AMM launchers, to deal with small volleys and to give redundancy in case of damage. For the Kestrals I would consider multiple MFC's perhaps three MFC's and 15 -18 launchers for volleys of 5-6.
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Alrighty, redid a few of my ships as per the advice. Are they looking a bit better now?
The Thrasher went through a small update, the Defender Class AMM platform now has a RoF of 5 instead of 10. Dropped the launchers from 30 to 27, just didn't have the room without sacrificing other things. Put a res 1 sensor on it as well, should detect size 6 missiles at about 1million KM, which should give me some wiggle room in the event I come across very fast enemy missiles. Fleet runs with 10 Thrashers.
Thrasher MKII class AMM Platform 7,500 tons 218 Crew 1967 BP TCS 150 TH 1584 EM 0
10560 km/s Armour 5-34 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 3 PPV 27
Maint Life 1.49 Years MSP 492 AFR 150% IFR 2.1% 1YR 249 5YR 3730 Max Repair 396 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 12 months Spare Berths 0
Magazine 431
Destroyer Class I-CFD 22HS (2) Power 792 Fuel Use 135.62% Signature 792 Exp 18%
Fuel Capacity 880,000 Litres Range 15.6 billion km (17 days at full power)
Defender Launcher MKI (27) Missile Size 1 Rate of Fire 5
Thrasher 5mKM AMM MKI (3) Range 47.0m km Resolution 1
Hornet AMM MKI (434) Speed: 72,000 km/s End: 0.7m Range: 3m km WH: 1 Size: 1 TH: 720/432/216
Thrasher Backup Sensor MKI (1) GPS 56 Range 7.8m 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
Hellcat went through a small redesign as well. One Fire Control per turret now, and halved the size of the engines for the 7,500 ton ships. Fleet runs with 10 Hellcats.
Hellcat MKII class Point Defence Ship 7,500 tons 188 Crew 2481.5 BP TCS 150 TH 1584 EM 0
10560 km/s Armour 7-34 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 3 PPV 48.96
Maint Life 1.43 Years MSP 620 AFR 150% IFR 2.1% 1YR 332 5YR 4982 Max Repair 396 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 12 months Spare Berths 2
Destroyer Class I-CFD 22HS (2) Power 792 Fuel Use 135.62% Signature 792 Exp 18%
Fuel Capacity 820,000 Litres Range 14.5 billion km (15 days at full power)
Quad Fly Swatter MK1 RoF:4 S:3 Turret (3x16) Range 10,000km TS: 32000 km/s Power 0-0 RM 1 ROF 5 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Final Fire BFC MKII (3) Max Range: 120,000 km TS: 32000 km/s 92 83 75 67 58 50 42 33 25 17
This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
Forgot to post my sensor ship design. The Heron MKII. The Fleet runs with 3 of these. I know, we have no passive sensors, I plan on making a capital ship sized carrier that will mount the beastly 5000ton sensors I've designed (i've found that any less is kind of pointless)
Heron MKII class Sensor Ship 7,500 tons 203 Crew 2720 BP TCS 150 TH 1584 EM 0
10560 km/s Armour 11-34 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 6 PPV 0
Maint Life 2.65 Years MSP 1360 AFR 75% IFR 1% 1YR 275 5YR 4118 Max Repair 700 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 12 months Spare Berths 0
Destroyer Class I-CFD 22HS (2) Power 792 Fuel Use 135.62% Signature 792 Exp 18%
Fuel Capacity 950,000 Litres Range 16.8 billion km (18 days at full power)
Flyswatter Search Sensor Mk1 (1) GPS 560 Range 78.4m km Resolution 1
System Sweeper MKI (1) GPS 28000 Range 619.8m km Resolution 40
This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
Along with new technology comes a newer ship. Behold, the Harbinger Battlecruiser. I'll probably have -maybe- 3-6 of these supported by the Hellcats, Thrashers, and a Destroyer I have yet to design. 9x 30cm lasers, standard 10500km/h speed, 10 layers of armor (it's getting heavy now), 2 CIWS, backup sensors and 1 fire control for 3 guns. No turret, the Harbinger is rather fast as it stands. Havn't seen too many variations of aliens yet, but all I've come across so far have been slower than me (their fighters topped out at 10km/s, their carrier was a laugh worthy 1km/s).
Harbinger MKI class Battlecruiser 15,000 tons 502 Crew 6116.5 BP TCS 300 TH 3150 EM 0
10500 km/s Armour 10-54 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 6 PPV 81
Maint Life 1.15 Years MSP 1529 AFR 300% IFR 4.2% 1YR 1178 5YR 17670 Max Repair 787.5 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 12 months Spare Berths 0
Destroyer Class I-CFD MKI (2) Power 1575 Fuel Use 89.13% Signature 1575 Exp 17%
Fuel Capacity 1,050,000 Litres Range 14.1 billion km (15 days at full power)
30cm Afocal Maser MKI (9) Range 480,000km TS: 10500 km/s Power 24-8 RM 6 ROF 15 24 24 24 24 24 24 20 18 16 14
Phil the Ripper CIWS MKI (2x8) Range 1000 km TS: 32000 km/s ROF 5 Base 50% To Hit
Hard Point Firecontrol MKIII (3) Max Range: 480,000 km TS: 10000 km/s 98 96 94 92 90 88 85 83 81 79
Fusion Buddy 1HS (9) Total Power Output 72 Armour 0 Exp 5%
Thrasher Backup Sensor MKI (1) GPS 56 Range 7.8m km Resolution 1
This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
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One thing I see is, that you have only enough spare parts in each ship to repair one of those engines once.
If you have a supply ship accompanying the fleet, that is not a problem (just remember to top the spare parts up when one of your ships suffers such a failur).
If you haven´t and you are very unlucky, you might have two engine failurs in a row, which means, you can´t repair the 2nd damaged engine in the field (IIRC, you need twice the amount of spares to repair it, if it can´t be repaired when the failur happens). This, in turn means: Speed to 1/2 and repair only posible in a shipyard.
The Thrasher still has a lot of launch tubes for only 3 firecons (my personal rule of thumb is to have one FC per 4 to 5 tubes). I would probably go for 24 tubes and 4 FCs or 20 tubes and 5 FCs. Especially, as you will have 10 of those ships in your fleet, so you will still be launching 200 AMMs per 5 second tic - and that should be enough to deal with anything, the AI can throw at you.
Note: If you play several races against each other yourself, all bets are off, of course.
Oh, something else.
I just noticed, that you FC outranges the range of your AMMs. This is not a bad thing per se, but you have to be careful with the settings for your PD, especially vs. slow enemy missiles (as the AI is using in 6.2), or you will launch AMMs that will run out of fuel before reaching the enemy ASMs.
Hellcat looks fine as does the Heron and the Harbringer, well, it is designed to slug it out at short range (compared to missiles) and that it will do _very_ well. I like it.
Just looing over your designs again and I noticed, that, while range (in terms of fuel) seems ok-ish with 15+ billion km, due to the high speed of your ships (I have never gotten that far in the tech-tree), the actual time your ships have fuel to burn is extremely short (less than three weeks) while having a deployment time of a year.
Not sure you´d get a lot of space by halfing the deployment time, but if you need a few tons to squeeze another goody in, you might consider that.
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I do have supply ships, as well as fuel tankers I bring along. I have about 100 Rockafellers. . Fuel Harvesters chewing away at the wolf system. . which is nothing but gas giants. Fuel really isn't an issue, 15bil range is enough to get through a few systems, fuel up before heading into hostile territory, and be able to move around the system without many restrictions. As for the Thrashers, Perhaps I did overdo the amount of missile tubes, never actually had to counter missiles before and therefore don't really know what is too much, or too little.
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I generally prefer a shield tank on a Rifter. Makes it go faster and anyway there's no stasis webifiers or warp scramblers in Aurora so you have those mid-power slots free for it...
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Warp scramblers would be an interesting idea for a future addition.