Aurora 4x
VB6 Aurora => Advanced Tactical Command Academy => Topic started by: Starmantle on September 19, 2013, 05:16:21 PM
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I'm a huge fan of anti-missiles, but I'm been experimenting and comparing approaches to final-fire gauss defenses for fleets - and I'm wondering what approach you all think would be most effective.
The big flack cruisers with fast-tracking turrets:
Moblin class Flak Cruiser 14,400 tons 1113 Crew 2969 BP TCS 288 TH 1440 EM 0
5000 km/s Armour 6-52 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 18 PPV 130. 56
Maint Life 5. 5 Years MSP 2320 AFR 92% IFR 1. 3% 1YR 129 5YR 1931 Max Repair 270 MSP
Magneto-plasma Drive E5 (18) Power 80 Fuel Use 50% Signature 80 Armour 0 Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 240,000 Litres Range 60. 0 billion km (138 days at full power)
Quad Gauss Cannon R4-100 Turret (4x16) Range 40,000km TS: 25000 km/s Power 0-0 RM 4 ROF 5 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0
Fire Control S06 72-25000 (2) Max Range: 144,000 km TS: 25000 km/s 93 86 79 72 65 58 51 44 37 31
Missile Sensor MR19-R1 (1) GPS 108 Range 19. 4m km Resolution 1
ECM 30
This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
Or the slightly smaller escort carrier packed with gauss fighters:
Praetorian-B class Escort Carrier 11,200 tons 678 Crew 1711 BP TCS 224 TH 1120 EM 0
5000 km/s Armour 6-44 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 11 PPV 0
Maint Life 7. 47 Years MSP 1050 AFR 91% IFR 1. 3% 1YR 33 5YR 496 Max Repair 108 MSP
Hangar Deck Capacity 5250 tons
Magneto-plasma Drive E5 (14) Power 80 Fuel Use 50% Signature 80 Armour 0 Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 220,000 Litres Range 70. 7 billion km (163 days at full power)
Missile Sensor MR19-R1 (1) GPS 108 Range 19. 4m km Resolution 1
ECM 30
Strike Group
26x Starfury Fighter-Interceptor Speed: 14500 km/s Size: 4
This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
Starfury class Fighter-Interceptor 200 tons 5 Crew 56. 5 BP TCS 4 TH 58 EM 0
14500 km/s Armour 1-3 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 0 PPV 2
Maint Life 0 Years MSP 0 AFR 40% IFR 0. 6% 1YR 3 5YR 48 Max Repair 22 MSP
FTR Magneto-plasma Drive E700 (1) Power 57. 6 Fuel Use 7000% Signature 57. 6 Armour 0 Exp 80%
Fuel Capacity 10,000 Litres Range 1. 3 billion km (24 hours at full power)
Gauss Cannon R4-17 (2x4) Range 40,000km TS: 14500 km/s Accuracy Modifier 17% RM 4 ROF 5 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0
Fire Control S00. 5 24-6250 (FTR) (1) Max Range: 48,000 km TS: 25000 km/s 79 58 38 17 0 0 0 0 0 0
This design is classed as a Fighter for production, combat and maintenance purposes
For these specific designs, the carrier with fighter wing is slightly more expensive, but doesn't need as large of a shipyard. And it's a more strategically flexible approach because it could be converted to a strike or utility carrier in a pinch.
My gut tells me that the escort carrier approach would be far more effective against larger masses of less advanced missiles, but that the flack cruiser miiiight come out on top if faced with a limited number of very advanced missiles.
But overall, it feels like the carrier approach is better.
What do others think? Either about these specific designs or the broad approaches?
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Hrm. After a little math, I'm second guessing some of my original thoughts.
Carrier: 26 fighters x 8 shots per round x . 17 accuracy modifier x. 79 hit chance = 27. 93
Flack Cruiser: 64 shots per round x . 93 hit chance = 59. 52
And that doesn't take into account the tracking speed difference in favor of the flack cruiser, which is substantial.
Meh. But there's still a lot of the math that I'm unsure of. I don't know what variables I might be missing.
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The only thing i can think of is that the cruiser has only 2 fire controls, but your fighters have 20, so they could target more smaller salvos, it seems per 5 seconds your cruiser could take out 58ish missiles, but only if there was 2 salvos of 29 missiles, however your fighters could take out 1 missile each in 20 different salvos.
The fighters would be very useful for mopping up stray missiles that survive the cruiser, also for targeting fighters, and sandpapering smaller targets.
Also in a Cruiser VS carrier scenario the cruiser could shred the fighters to bits, but once again can only target 2 per round, and might find itself seriously crippled before finishing them all off.
Might be an interesting test to run.
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Perhaps a middle ground? You could build some gauss FACs (FDCs?) with quite impressive gauss output, and carry 4-6 of them per carrier.
That said, if shipyard size is your significant restriction, just split the escort cruiser into two escort destroyers?
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I think your best bet would be to revise the cruiser. The fighters will not have sufficient tracking speed to be able to match the cruiser, which could be a big problem. Also, if the carrier is going to be multi-purpose, then it really needs magazines, which will eat into the design. I'd go for 8 twin turrets instead of 4 quads (which is cheaper to research and lets you use the turrets on other ships more easily.) Then go for either 4 or 8 FCs. I normally make my gauss FCs with x.25 range, x4 tracking speed (so they're cheap and easy to research), and have them either one per turret or one per two turrets. This gives you much greater flexibility in terms of salvo size you can handle. If you go to 4 size 3 FCs, you'll lose 7% in accuracy, but be able to deal with 4 salvoes. I would say this is still not enough, and go for the twin turrets, with maybe 6 size 2 firecons. Now you're down 14% in accuracy, but with a lot more flexibility.
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You do realize that neither the flak escort or the fighters will actually be able to see the missiles you want them to shoot at?
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You do realize that neither the flak escort or the fighters will actually be able to see the missiles you want them to shoot at?
Well, in both cases the primary ships carry a missile sensor as a backup to a larger fleet sensor. But actually, yes, I'd assumed that a res 1 sensor with a maximum range of 19. 4 million KM would be able to detect missiles at a more than reasonable range for gauss final fire. Is that not correct? If so, what should their sensor look like?
Because it's just a straight fleet missile defense role, the fighters wouldn't have any need to roam far from the carrier.
Byron - good call on the need for magazines if the carrier is going to be mufti-purpose. I'll take a look at more, smaller turrets and more fire controls.
Of course the other role that both of these designs would automatically get assigned to is jump point defense. Though I don't think that radically changes the analysis here.
Thanks everyone for the input.
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My bad, I'd overlooked the sensor in the ship specs.
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Of course the other role that both of these designs would automatically get assigned to is jump point defense. Though I don't think that radically changes the analysis here.
This could backfire big-time with the cruiser (any warship, the carrier´s fighters can´t close with will probably tear you apart anyway).
While with the basic jump tech (jump radius 50.000 km), chances are good an enemy would land inside the range of your gauss guns, even with only the first additional level researched (250k radius), chances will be darn high, the enemy will appear outside your range.
Asuming equal tech, they could stay out of your range until their jump blindness is gone and then rip your ships to shreds with impunity.
Now, I don´t think the AI uses this technology, but personally, I try not to "play" the AI
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This could backfire big-time with the cruiser (any warship, the carrier´s fighters can´t close with will probably tear you apart anyway).
While with the basic jump tech (jump radius 50.000 km), chances are good an enemy would land inside the range of your gauss guns, even with only the first additional level researched (250k radius), chances will be darn high, the enemy will appear outside your range.
Asuming equal tech, they could stay out of your range until their jump blindness is gone and then rip your ships to shreds with impunity.
Now, I don´t think the AI uses this technology, but personally, I try not to "play" the AI
*Nods*
Agreed all-around.
To clarify, though, I'm not suggesting either get assigned to jump point defense alone. I'm really big on missile ships and have a much smaller number of 250-300 mm railgun artillery cruisers around too. But if you're really putting resources into blocking a jump point, I'm just saying that having your point defense elements around there is nice too.
It's practically the only other role I can think of for these ships, so it's worth noting.
Well, except maybe interception of unarmed commercial vessels. And there the little fighter wing has an advantage.
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Well the fighters do have the mobility advantage.
They give you the ability/flexibility to move the PD around 3 times as fast if you need to give cover to for example your FACs or Smaller ships giving chase to a faster enemy.
And as already said fighters provide much more redundancy and are harder to actually knock out (especially by the bigger ASMs I'm guessing they are designed to counter). For the Cruiser one unlucky hit to FC and your out of business.
But if it comes down to pure PD firepower the Cruiser will probably crush them, and it's easy to give it more FCs.
In my fleet design I also prefer smaller Destroyer/Corvette sized craft for PD duty (500-4000 ton).
The Cruiser I use well protected AEGIS style ones loaded with AMMs with decent range to keep the fleet safe of missiles and fighters.
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Byron - good call on the need for magazines if the carrier is going to be mufti-purpose. I'll take a look at more, smaller turrets and more fire controls.
You're welcome. I'm in the habit of building big, complex fleets, which leads to lots of work on specialized vessels.
I thought I'd share my latest equivalent to your gauss cruiser:
Farragut class Destroyer 16,000 tons 453 Crew 7214.08 BP TCS 320 TH 2112 EM 300
6600 km/s JR 3-50 Armour 3-56 Shields 10-300 Sensors 80/80/0/0 Damage Control Rating 8 PPV 159.6
Maint Life 2.31 Years MSP 2254 AFR 256% IFR 3.6% 1YR 575 5YR 8632 Max Repair 750 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 6 months Spare Berths 1
Magazine 80 Cryogenic Berths 200
Radiant Dynamics K336-50 Max Ship Size 16800 tons Distance 50k km Squadron Size 3
Rocketdyne AMS-1056 (2) Power 1056 Fuel Use 19.29% Signature 1056 Exp 11%
Fuel Capacity 765,000 Litres Range 44.6 billion km (78 days at full power)
DefTech Protector-5 (2) Total Fuel Cost 20 Litres per hour (480 per day)
Turret, Twin, Gauss Cannon, Mk1 Mod0 (10x10) Range 50,000km TS: 50000 km/s Power 0-0 RM 5 ROF 5 1 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0
GE CIWS Mk1 Mod0 (1x10) Range 1000 km TS: 50000 km/s ROF 5 Base 50% To Hit
Sperry OWG-3 (8) Max Range: 50,000 km TS: 50000 km/s 80 60 40 20 0 0 0 0 0 0
Ford OWG-14 (2) Max Range: 200,000 km TS: 50000 km/s 95 90 85 80 75 70 65 60 55 50
GMLS Mk1 Mod0 (4) Missile Size 1 Rate of Fire 5
Sperry OPG-1 (1) Range 115.2m km Resolution 1
SVM-1 Striker (24) Speed: 144,000 km/s End: 3.6m Range: 31.1m km WH: 4 Size: 1 TH: 480/288/144
SIM-2 Phalanx (96) Speed: 144,000 km/s End: 3.6m Range: 31.1m km WH: 1 Size: 1 TH: 2592/1555/777
Lockheed Martin OPS-2 (1) GPS 280 Range 112.0m km Resolution 1
Lockheed Martin OPS-1 (1) GPS 5600 Range 500.9m km Resolution 20
TI OAR-2 (1) Sensitivity 80 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 80m km
TI OPR-2 (1) Sensitivity 80 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 80m km
Compact ECCM-4 (2) ECM 50
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
This is a very high-tech game, and 16,000 tons is a standard destroyer, so duplicating this is probably a bad idea. One thing I would point out is the choice of FCs on this. 8 are my standard Size 1 .25 range 4 speed units, while the other two are Size 4 1 range 4 speed. I did this to improve its antiship capabilities, because with only the standard FCs, it's mostly useless at extreme gauss range, while with these, it's frighteningly lethal (75 hits/turn).
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Wow. High technology is one thing, but that's a bit beyond the pale. You have size 1 anti-ship missiles with 4 points of warhead that travel at half the speed of light. That is just magic.
And as far as I can tell you have more missiles than magazine space too. :/
With that much technology, how much engine space does it take to hit 6,600km/s? 10%?
Really, these tech levels border on the unbelievable, so it's hard to have much of an analysis, but if it was me, I'd knock off the CIWS and peel back the sensors - unless this is a destroyer-leader meant to provide defense, sensors, and jump capability to a squadron of long range anti-ship missile destroyers who lack all of those things. I'd also consider upping the standard fleet speed.
But I do love your gauss fire control setup overall. It's tricky because even light fire controls can cost a lot of resources when you have a lot of them, but this totally works.
Edit: Er. Unless there's a lot I don't know about the more recent versions of the game that allow for things like more powerful missiles. I suppose that's pretty possible.
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Wow. High technology is one thing, but that's a bit beyond the pale. You have size 1 anti-ship missiles with 4 points of warhead that travel at half the speed of light. That is just magic.
It's great fun. Try it some time. Set up a population of ~10 billion, and go crazy.
And as far as I can tell you have more missiles than magazine space too. :/
Actually, you're right. I had revised the design, cut magazine space and added the long-range fire controls, and forgotten to take the extra missiles out.
With that much technology, how much engine space does it take to hit 6,600km/s? 10%?
15%, actually. It's a bit low, but it gives me a lot of room to play. I do have ships that go much faster.
Really, these tech levels border on the unbelievable, so it's hard to have much of an analysis, but if it was me, I'd knock off the CIWS and peel back the sensors - unless this is a destroyer-leader meant to provide defense, sensors, and jump capability to a squadron of long range anti-ship missile destroyers who lack all of those things. I'd also consider upping the standard fleet speed.
I tend to equip all ships to a much higher standard than most people would. This includes CIWS, decent sensors (this thing only has half the senors of my standard destroyers), jump drive, multiple engines, and so on. Fleet speed is something I'm sill a bit torn about, but it seems to be working well so far, and upping it across the board would be more trouble than it's worth.
But I do love your gauss fire control setup overall. It's tricky because even light fire controls can cost a lot of resources when you have a lot of them, but this totally works.
Yes, but one advantage of the far future is that you have a lot of resources.
Edit: Er. Unless there's a lot I don't know about the more recent versions of the game that allow for things like more powerful missiles. I suppose that's pretty possible.
Yes, there are significant changes to the way engines work in more recent versions of the game, which is how I got such fast missiles. They're .6 engine, IIRC.