Aurora 4x
New Players => The Academy => Topic started by: Catman115 on February 11, 2016, 03:36:48 PM
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Ok so after doing a LOT of research into techs and such im finally building a bunch of military things. Here is my first design for a PDC:
Kuznetsov class Planetary Defence Centre 82 500 tons 1371 Crew 15785. 5 BP TCS 1650 TH 0 EM 0
Armour 24-168 Sensors 48/1080 Damage Control Rating 60 PPV 274. 02
Intended Deployment Time: 3 months Flight Crew Berths 1
Hangar Deck Capacity 5000 tons Troop Capacity: 10 Battalions Magazine 8610
Fuel Capacity 1 000 000 Litres Range N/A
State Engineering Commune R84/C12 Twin Meson Cannon Turret (3x2) Range 200 000km TS: 10000 km/s Power 48-24 RM 84 ROF 10 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
State Engineering Commune R84/C12 Meson Cannon (2) Range 200 000km TS: 5000 km/s Power 24-12 RM 84 ROF 10 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
State Engineering Commune Beam Fire Control (2) Max Range: 200 000 km TS: 5000 km/s 95 90 85 80 75 70 65 60 55 50
State Engineering Commune Solid-core Anti-matter Power Plant Technology (PDC) (2) Total Power Output 640 Armour 0 Exp 5%
State Engineering Commune PDC Size 10 Missile Launcher (15) Missile Size 10 Rate of Fire 25
State Engineering Commune Missile Fire Control FC756-R100 (30%) (2) Range 756. 0m km Resolution 100
Size 10 Anti-ship Missile (PDC only) (861) Speed: 72 000 km/s End: 53. 3m Range: 230. 4m km WH: 40 Size: 10 TH: 552/331/165
State Engineering Commune Missile Sensor Suite (Size 5) (1) GPS 180 Range 25. 2m km MCR 2. 7m km Resolution 1
State Engineering Commune PDC Sensor Suite (Size 30) (1) GPS 108000 Range 1 512. 0m km Resolution 100
State Engineering Commune Thermal Sensor Suite (Size 2) (1) Sensitivity 48 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 48m km
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 Planetary Defense Center and can be pre-fabricated in 33 sections
Now im having a problem with the Bolded bits. My current cost in RP for the next level of Beam Fire Controls is 5,000,000. My next level of Increased range in Mesons (From what ive been led to believe is the shortest range EW in the game) is a mere 1,200,000. Ive been led to believe that having guns that can outstrip the range of the fire controls for them is a VERY BAD thing. But how do i stop the inevitable bloat of Weapon Range increases vs Beam Fire Control Increases?
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Do you mean you are trying to make sure that the weapons you design do not shoot further than you can target with a FC? If that is the case then simply just play around with things like the focusing tech, or velocity etc. I believe that all beam weapons have a tech part that effects their range, in the case of mesons both parts do this as they have no damage tech. So in that situation there is likely never any need for a 50cm meson gun if your FC only shoot out to 200k.
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Well i was told that having weapons that shoot farther than than fire controls could see for them was a bad thing. What i want to know, is there a point where researching more Weapon range tech is a bad thing?
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If your fc range is higher then your weapons then you are more likely to hit at the weapons max range. If you weapon range is longer then the fc's then you do more damage at max range (assuming you use a weapon were damage decreases by range). All in all, slightly suboptimal but nothing to lose sleep over and, at least in the case of lasers, unavoidable.
And just to check, you do know that you can increase the range of your fc by upping its size right?
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If your fc range is higher then your weapons then you are more likely to hit at the weapons max range. If you weapon range is longer then the fc's then you do more damage at max range (assuming you use a weapon were damage decreases by range). All in all, slightly suboptimal but nothing to lose sleep over and, at least in the case of lasers, unavoidable.
And just to check, you do know that you can increase the range of your fc by upping its size right?
No i did not know about that. Thank you. But what would be a decent size for a FC that does slow the ship down too much. . . . hmmm.
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No i did not know about that. Thank you. But what would be a decent size for a FC that does slow the ship down too much. . . . hmmm.
Fire controls do not take up much space in regards to ships or a PDC of the sort of size you have shown in your example. You can up the range by 4x for a 4x increase in size, when you are playing around with 80k tons craft you may as well just use the 4x FC.
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A couple of other things. First, you can do the same to tracking speed and a tracking speed of 5k is inadequate for anything at your techlevel. Tracking speed is the highest target speed that it can shoot at wo penalty, and it will use the lowest of your fc and your weapon. This means that your turrets tracking speed is wasted if you do not have a fc capable of the same speed. Now if we take you missile as an example, it has a speed of 72k. If you try to shoot at it with your weapons it means that at point blank range you will have a penalty of a lot (I cant find the formula right now, but lets just say a big lot............). You want tracking speed to be around the target you want to hit. If you don't really have a good benchmark, use your own fleet's speed and aim for that.
Secondly, your weapons draw around 100 energy each round. You supply 600+. You could remove a reactor and/or making the other one smaller.
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A couple of other things. First, you can do the same to tracking speed and a tracking speed of 5k is inadequate for anything at your techlevel. Tracking speed is the highest target speed that it can shoot at wo penalty, and it will use the lowest of your fc and your weapon. This means that your turrets tracking speed is wasted if you do not have a fc capable of the same speed. Now if we take you missile as an example, it has a speed of 72k. If you try to shoot at it with your weapons it means that at point blank range you will have a penalty of a lot (I cant find the formula right now, but lets just say a big lot. . . . . . . . . . . . ). You want tracking speed to be around the target you want to hit. If you don't really have a good benchmark, use your own fleet's speed and aim for that.
Thanks for this. I am incredibly new to this game and am still trying to figure out how to git-gud/etc. Im still trying to figure out what tech levels i should be actually building ships at and/or just researching my way past. Also i had no idea that my TS was THAT godsawful comparatively. I mean i know im probably not helping myself by turning off all of the external threats in my current game but i cant even design a defensible bucket of bolts, as is clearly seen here. Much less fight an interstellar war. Any pointers would be wonderful.
Secondly, your weapons draw around 100 energy each round. You supply 600+. You could remove a reactor and/or making the other one smaller.
So having a backup reactor just incase one explodes/gets disrupted is actually a bad idea in this game? ???
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Thanks for this. I am incredibly new to this game and am still trying to figure out how to git-gud/etc. Im still trying to figure out what tech levels i should be actually building ships at and/or just researching my way past. Also i had no idea that my TS was THAT godsawful comparatively. I mean i know im probably not helping myself by turning off all of the external threats in my current game but i cant even design a defensible bucket of bolts, as is clearly seen here. Much less fight an interstellar war. Any pointers would be wonderful.
So having a backup reactor just incase one explodes/gets disrupted is actually a bad idea in this game? ???
You'd figure that a lot of that power-tonnage could've been used for more armor, more weapons. Having a bit of extra redundancy is good for not dying to mesons, but you're emphasizing redundancy on the most explody part of your PDC. And by the look of your tech level, it seems like the entire thing is going to get LIT when one of those power cores go off. If you really want redundancy, try seeing if Damage Control tech is available for PDCs, if so, then just stack a bunch on it as tonnage isn't a concern for PDCs ussually. Less likely to make your PDC go up in a catastrophic gamma flare if it's power is knocked, as less hullspace to explody bits is less DAC chance to get hit, and less explodings when you do get hit anyway.
Also, while not necessarily the most useful thing against AI, i personally stick some sort of PDC barracks on every PDC of importance to me, as the resistance to boarding is enough role play value to keep in.
That and it also accommodates a decent amount of DAC on it's own as well.
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So having a backup reactor just incase one explodes/gets disrupted is actually a bad idea in this game? ???
No, redundancy is good. It is just that you need a battery and you have a nuclear power plant enough for a city. In other words, you generate 6 times the energy you need. Personally I design my reactors to be of size one and then just put enough in to cower the energy cost, maybe slightly more if I am worried about taking damage. Like 10% more, not 6 times more.
As for learning, I recommend quill18 (https://www.youtube.com/user/quill18/videos) or serbeardian (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCoAVdKITZ8x8rLVCG6SOaLA). Quill is more entertaining, beard knows more, and goes over a lot of stuff a lot quicker then quill...........
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No, redundancy is good. It is just that you need a battery and you have a nuclear power plant enough for a city. In other words, you generate 6 times the energy you need. Personally I design my reactors to be of size one and then just put enough in to cower the energy cost, maybe slightly more if I am worried about taking damage. Like 10% more, not 6 times more.
Well yes i guess i didn't read the description thing the whole way through. My bad. :-[
As for learning, I recommend quill18 (https://www. youtube. com/user/quill18/videos) or serbeardian (https://www. youtube. com/channel/UCoAVdKITZ8x8rLVCG6SOaLA). Quill is more entertaining, beard knows more, and goes over a lot of stuff a lot quicker then quill. . . . . . . . . . .
I first tried to play this game like 2 years ago or so but i couldn't get it to download right, so i gave up after a while. Seeing quill do his series actually brought me back here to try again, and Lo and Behold someone made an installer for idiots like myself. Ive literally watched quill's vid on Missile design like 15 times at this point and read 3 to 5 different thread about the subject before i even got that far. Im still trying to parse out how ship design works. Will try beards vids though. Thanks a bunch.
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You'd figure that a lot of that power-tonnage could've been used for more armor, more weapons. Having a bit of extra redundancy is good for not dying to mesons, but you're emphasizing redundancy on the most explody part of your PDC. And by the look of your tech level, it seems like the entire thing is going to get LIT when one of those power cores go off. If you really want redundancy, try seeing if Damage Control tech is available for PDCs, if so, then just stack a bunch on it as tonnage isn't a concern for PDCs ussually. Less likely to make your PDC go up in a catastrophic gamma flare if it's power is knocked, as less hullspace to explody bits is less DAC chance to get hit, and less explodings when you do get hit anyway.
Well that makes sense. . . dammit. What i want is a PDC that i can stash my Garrison Battalions into on my colonies to keep them safe from enemy Bombardment and that can act as a Ship repellent against enemies that jump into Sol itself (after my inevitable failed conquests happen ofc). I mean having like 10 Missile Bases all around the Sol System SOUNDS good enough, but since i have literally 0 idea of how combat works in this game i have no idea if it is anywhere near enough.
Also, while not necessarily the most useful thing against AI, i personally stick some sort of PDC barracks on every PDC of importance to me, as the resistance to boarding is enough role play value to keep in.
That and it also accommodates a decent amount of DAC on it's own as well.
I keep at least two full PDC barracks on all of my PDCs just to make sure of this exact problem, as well as make my planets harder to take from me.
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Another point...your beam turrets are there for point defence right? So looking at your missile...it moves 360,000 km in 5s that means it jumps past your maximum range and hits you. This means you only need 10,000 km range on the weapons. If you want to defend your orbit I'd suggest 30K or maybe 60K but no more. So you could easily produce many more higher targeting speed lower tech (hence cheaper) weapon systems to protect yourself from missiles then you have now.
The 200K range is only useful for shooting at ships. If you want point defence you are going to be using "final fire" which engages at 10K anyway. So 15K, 30K, 45K or 60K are reasonable ranges to have on the turrets...200K is a waste of your time if point defence is your goal. You need more range than the missile can move in 5s for the range to matter.
Also ROF 5 is much better for missile intercept. Your missile launcher cycle in 25s. At this tech level most smaller missile launcher will be on extremely short cycle times.
Last you have hanger space but no flight crew space. Click "keep extra Q" and add whatever your planned for strike group needs...or a few hundred to cover eventualities.
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Another point...your beam turrets are there for point defence right? So looking at your missile...it moves 360,000 km in 5s that means it jumps past your maximum range and hits you. This means you only need 10,000 km range on the weapons. If you want to defend your orbit I'd suggest 30K or maybe 60K but no more. So you could easily produce many more higher targeting speed lower tech (hence cheaper) weapon systems to protect yourself from missiles then you have now.
The 200K range is only useful for shooting at ships. If you want point defence you are going to be using "final fire" which engages at 10K anyway. So 15K, 30K, 45K or 60K are reasonable ranges to have on the turrets...200K is a waste of your time if point defence is your goal. You need more range than the missile can move in 5s for the range to matter.
Also ROF 5 is much better for missile intercept. Your missile launcher cycle in 25s. At this tech level most smaller missile launcher will be on extremely short cycle times.
Last you have hanger space but no flight crew space. Click "keep extra Q" and add whatever your planned for strike group needs...or a few hundred to cover eventualities.
That said, it doesn't hurt to get some area-defense beam systems set up so that you can more or less protect your population against planetary bombardment from whatever leaks past your anti missile defenses. But it's probably a could idea to just use minimum-size beams specifically for final fire, and the long range beams for area defense, to save on resources and make sure that one system isn't overloaded trying to do the other's job.
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That said, it doesn't hurt to get some area-defense beam systems set up so that you can more or less protect your population against planetary bombardment from whatever leaks past your anti missile defenses. But it's probably a could idea to just use minimum-size beams specifically for final fire, and the long range beams for area defense, to save on resources and make sure that one system isn't overloaded trying to do the other's job.
"final fire" will protect the planet as it is within 10K km of the PDC, unless I am mistaken. There are 2 meson cannon's that aren't in turret mode that could be used for "area defence" fire while the turrets could be redesigned to be more effective as they need a higher rotation speed. The trouble with "area defence" mode is that the missile has to stop within it. So if you are lucky due to launch range and the missile stops somewhere between 15K and 200K from the planet then you can use "area defence" mode otherwise it does not fire.
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"final fire" will protect the planet as it is within 10K km of the PDC, unless I am mistaken. There are 2 meson cannon's that aren't in turret mode that could be used for "area defence" fire while the turrets could be redesigned to be more effective as they need a higher rotation speed. The trouble with "area defence" mode is that the missile has to stop within it. So if you are lucky due to launch range and the missile stops somewhere between 15K and 200K from the planet then you can use "area defence" mode otherwise it does not fire.
At 200k range, the point at which you lose all opportunity is against missiles going at 40,000 km/s. You can take as many as two shots on a missile at this range if they're going reasonably below 20,000 km/s.....
Setting up some beam-intercepting orbitals out a small distance out (approximately their weapon range) might probably be a good idea to help solidify defense a bit.
But yeah, probably a good idea to devote your longer range mesons to killing ships, and just make a series of "just enough capacitor to fire rate of once per 5 second increment" mesons at minimum range for the final-fire capabilities. It's worth noting that unless you're really finicky with prefabbed PDCs, actual tonnage on a particular PDC is actually not extremely important to it's ability to function, which means your primary concern, just the raw cost. And short range lowish capacitor mesons are much cheaper to manufacture. That and easier to sort from your long range mesons for setting fire control easily.
The Final Fire protecting populations concern, however, is actually something that needs testing. I have received mixed reports on whether it works or not. I might get around to doing it tomorrow night if nobody else wants to test it.
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At 200k range, the point at which you lose all opportunity is against missiles going at 40,000 km/s. You can take as many as two shots on a missile at this range if they're going reasonably below 20,000 km/s.....
Setting up some beam-intercepting orbitals out a small distance out (approximately their weapon range) might probably be a good idea to help solidify defense a bit.
But yeah, probably a good idea to devote your longer range mesons to killing ships, and just make a series of "just enough capacitor to fire rate of once per 5 second increment" mesons at minimum range for the final-fire capabilities. It's worth noting that unless you're really finicky with prefabbed PDCs, actual tonnage on a particular PDC is actually not extremely important to it's ability to function, which means your primary concern, just the raw cost. And short range lowish capacitor mesons are much cheaper to manufacture. That and easier to sort from your long range mesons for setting fire control easily.
The Final Fire protecting populations concern, however, is actually something that needs testing. I have received mixed reports on whether it works or not. I might get around to doing it tomorrow night if nobody else wants to test it.
I'm not really arguing against the concept but at this tech level when he has missiles that can do a 360K km hop in 5 seconds it is seems utterly pointless to have defences to stop missiles that are moving at speeds I'm more familiar with. Or put another way it should be effective against its own weapons at a minimum. A wolver super salvo of Magics would go through the defences of this base like a hot knife through butter.
I think personally the base needs more faster rotating meson turrets with more dedicated high tracking speed fire controls as right now he can engage only a single inbound salvo. I would for this base have 15 or so turrets with shorter range and a 5 second recharge time...which as we both point out could be easily done for the same cost as the ones he has currently. Leave the 2 fix mount mesons for either area fire or just anti-shipping work. But even there the fire controls need to be at least 20K km/s as ships with anti-matter engines must move at that speed or faster.
I would also add in at least 15 size one missile launchers for counter missiles.
Let us know about the final fire but when I asked this question I was told it would work.
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at this tech level
Like i said it is probably NOT helping that i am cheating to try and learn where i am supposed to be at with this game but i literally know nothing about what i am doing here.
Also i have redesigned my PDC into two different PDC concepts One for sensors and one for Missiles/Mesons. If anyone could tell me where i have gone wrong at i would be most appreciative.
Sensor Base:
Lookout class Planetary Surveillance Base 24 700 tons 425 Crew 14388 BP TCS 494 TH 0 EM 0
Armour 14-75 Sensors 1200/2400 Damage Control Rating 0 PPV 0
Intended Deployment Time: 3 months Spare Berths 1
Troop Capacity: 5 Battalions
State Engineering Commune Heavy Search Sensor Suite (1) GPS 96000 Range 2 125. 1m km Resolution 40
State Engineering Commune Heavy Missile Sensor Suite (1) GPS 2400 Range 336. 0m km MCR 36. 6m km Resolution 1
State Engineering Commune Heavy Thermal Sensor Suite (1) Sensitivity 1200 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 1200m km
State Engineering Commune Heavy EM Detection Sensor Suite (1) Sensitivity 700 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 700m km
This design is classed as a Planetary Defence Centre and can be pre-fabricated in 10 sections
Missile/Meson Base
Stronghold class Planetary Defence Centre 78 300 tons 1333 Crew 10555 BP TCS 1566 TH 0 EM 0
Armour 24-163 Sensors 1/0 Damage Control Rating 60 PPV 243. 3
Intended Deployment Time: 3 months Spare Berths 1
Troop Capacity: 10 Battalions Magazine 10950
Fuel Capacity 250 000 Litres Range N/A
Twin State Engineering Commune Point Defense Meson Cannon Turret (5x2) Range 15 000km TS: 10000 km/s Power 6-16 RM 1. 5 ROF 5 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Quad State Engineering Commune Point Defense Meson Cannon Turret (5x4) Range 15 000km TS: 10000 km/s Power 12-32 RM 1. 5 ROF 5 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
State Engineering Communes PDC Beam Fire Control (1) Max Range: 45 000 km TS: 100000 km/s 78 56 33 11 0 0 0 0 0 0
State Engineering Commune PDC Power Plant (2) Total Power Output 256 Armour 0 Exp 5%
State Engineering Commune PDC Size 12 Missile Launcher (10) Missile Size 12 Rate of Fire 40
State Engineering Commune Size 6 Missile Launcher (5) Missile Size 6 Rate of Fire 40
State Engineering Commune PDC Missile Fire Control (1) Range 1 411. 2m km Resolution 100
Size 12 PDC Torpedo (500) Speed: 6 700 km/s End: 1. 5d Range: 887. 7m km WH: 48 Size: 12 TH: 44/26/13
Size 6 Anti-ship Missile (825) Speed: 13 300 km/s End: 3. 1d Range: 3524. 4m km WH: 16 Size: 6 TH: 142/85/42
ECCM-2 (5) 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 Planetary Defence Centre and can be pre-fabricated in 32 sections
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Fundamental my advice is to go read either AARs or else the design section and more importantly just start a normal game and play 10 years. At that point you will begin to see the inter-relationships between components better. Also it will give you a sense of scale and that is important. Right now you are over designing and at the same time under designing.
Turret rotation speed and their beam fire controls have to be designed to work together. So if your fire control speed is 20,000 km/s then the turrets should have at least that much. As the lowest of the pair is used.
You have a fire control that is 100K km/s tracking speed BUT only one. You need multiples as you have 2 different weapon systems and you want to engage multiple salvos. Plus your turrets must have a rotation speed of 100K km/s. I'm all but flabergasted such is possible but tech dramatically improves at the upper end of the chart it seems.
The range of your sensors on the lookout are probably excessive for the standard search sensor. But that is more a matter of taste. However your PDC lacks a sensor system...to me that is bad practice. If your Lookout base is destroyed the weapons on the PDC become useless. To me any military asset must be able to perform its primary mission alone.
The missiles are for this tech level simply too slow. They have too much space devoted to fuel and not enough to engines. Also you have a single fire control system. Multiple redudent systems for fire control are very good. More targets can be engaged and equally importantly you are safe against loosing one to a lucky hit.
Also you don't need fuel a the PDC since you have nothing to refuel...unless it is an emergency reserve of some sort.
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I would personaly recomend (if you are going for missiles) that you focus your research on power and propulsion, more specifically in engine power modificators, since missiles benefit double from those, and fuel eficiency, since it gives them a little bit more range, which is always good.
And instead of reducing reactor size, you could have put 6 times more mesons, or at least thats what I would do.
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I disagree with this.
As a statement: With missiles, you always have access to twice your maximum power multiplier for engines, going from 1.0 to 1.25 is the same as going from 2.0 to 2.5.
As advice: Fuel efficiency and power multiplier tend to have underwhelming rewards compared to engine tech, worth picking up when they're dirt cheap compared to other techs but they can lag behind a little.
If you achieve 25% more power by a higher multiplier, specific fuel consumption increases by ~75%
If you achieve 25% more power by a higher engine tech, you have the same specific fuel comsumption.
If you research fuel efficiency 0.4 (from 0..5), you save 20% fuel.
If you research the next engine tech and it's 25% faster, you can scale back to 0.8 your former power multiplier and save ~43% fuel. If the new one is below 1.0, the engine becomes cheaper to build (and maintain in case of ships) too.
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it costs 64,000 rp to go from TL4 Magneto-plasma to TL5 Inertial Confinement drives; it costs 60,000 rp to research every single faster engine multiplier tech put together from 1.25x to 3x.
in terms of RP efficiency, multiplier tech is basically always better for the sole purpose of improving missiles.
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in terms of RP efficiency, multiplier tech is basically always better for the sole purpose of improving missiles.
Exactly. You don't put high multiplier engines on ships (maybe fighters), you put them on missiles
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You don't put high multiplier engines on ships
That is not necessarily true. For short range patrol ships (colony garrisons), it would be better to have really high powered engines compared to the rest of the fleet. Also, for the lighter ships in the main fleet itself would benefit from higher powered engines because at normal fleet operations (traveling) they would stay slow to keep with the fleet, and during combat they can blast off at a high speed to get every edge it can.
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That is not necessarily true. For short range patrol ships (colony garrisons), it would be better to have really high powered engines compared to the rest of the fleet. Also, for the lighter ships in the main fleet itself would benefit from higher powered engines because at normal fleet operations (traveling) they would stay slow to keep with the fleet, and during combat they can blast off at a high speed to get every edge it can.
Though, in the latter case, it's worth noting that the ship slowing itself down doesn't increase engine efficiency at all. It's got the same effective range and fuel consumption-per-range as before, just burns through it slower.
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On the topic of engine multipliers >1 on ships. It is fair to say a good rule of thumb is: "don't do this." Of course everyone knows: "rules exist to be broken." There are reasons you can choose to do so but they are situation specific.
I am seeing now the point of enhancing reactor output, for attack craft in particular, but the case for engines is very complex. If it is sensible to do it comes down to balancing your fuel situation, increased chance of explosion and the mission parameters you want to fulfil. The "fuel situation" is not just how much fuel but the total cost of getting it plus the logistics overhead of feeding the "fuel hungry beasts."
It may even be worth doing if it isn't "sensible" ... fundamentally it is a strategic choice that the player has to make based on the existing conditions.
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In combat there's only two speeds: Faster than the enemy, and slower than the enemy. Logistical sacrifice is usually worth it to field ships faster than the enemy. The problem is you will rarely know ahead of time what the dividing line will be. When fighting NPRs you face the unknown, and when gaming multiple empires you will usually take RP measures to hide your true capabilities (i.e. never traveling at your ships max speed outside direct combat.)
Bear in mind that the real killer on fuel is task force training and commercial operations, not combat operations.
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Speed isn't wasted when it affects accuracy in both directions... but yes, the ability to control the range is what you'd make major concessions for.
I'm very happy with 0.3 or 0.9 power engines taking up most of my warships. If I need more speed I try to go noticably above 1.0, which I avoid on principle.
The occasional high-performance craft can sometimes win battles without taking damage, and also simplify shipyard operations: In my current game, a shipyard tooled to a 2300BP destroyer (mostly long.ranged lasers, 10000km/s at internal fusion) can also build a 450BP escort (3333km/s, low-tech railguns). Both ships are the same size.
When you have reactor boost tech, you may as well use it... but considering how reactors don't typically make up a huge part of a ship's mass, most alternative techs save more weight per RP even when they're much more expensive.
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Fundamental my advice is to go read either AARs or else the design section and more importantly just start a normal game and play 10 years. At that point you will begin to see the inter-relationships between components better. Also it will give you a sense of scale and that is important. Right now you are over designing and at the same time under designing.
Alright so i have taken this advice and am now running a game to where im at Ion drives all over the place after lots of research. However i have another question (Really trying to keep all of my noob related questions to one thread sorry), how do i get fuel harvesters to deposit fuel on a colony? I know that they will drop it off on the closest colony but i can never get the fuel harvester around this Super Jovian in Proxima Centauri to actually drop off its fuel for the ships to refuel from. What am i doing wrong?
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My comment was more directed to the point that going to specific disagreements with general statements leads to muddy waters more than clear discussions.
My feeling on speed is that it is either sufficient or it isn't. Either it allows me to fullfil my mission or it doesn't. That is both what is said by The Shoe and Iranon and not exactly what they said. There are also constraints from the entire logisitics chain which is everything from mining of sorium, refining of fuel, harvesting of fuel, location and transport of fuel, basing, mission area, support ships etc. It is non-trivial unless you are operating at close range to your bases. Look at one of Steve's Rigillian AARs for a clear indication how much fuel effects combat operations. The amount you burn in combat operations may be a drop in the bucket but supporting ships at the end of the logistics chain is not a trivial detail. Loosing millions of litres of fuel when a ship blows up is also a kick in the groin...
In starfire my navy is usually the best supported by a fleet train, and I put a lot of thought into what I need, the SCN is prepping a "Squid Support Task Group" and now that the combat ships exist the support element is getting thickened...colliers, freighters with maintenance supplies, a transport or two. In Aurora each Battlegroup is matched by a Support Group which can double their operational radius and has at least one resupply of missiles onboard. But those ships have to be built, upgraded, maintained and fueled. If you want to make ships go fast then you have to have a good logistics network in place to support them or else more likely then not they won't do you much good, in my view anyway. I just had my first flight of Armed Pinnaces run out of fuel on the way home from a short training cruise...no big deal but clearly training excersizes will be more interesting then normal.
As for the depositing fuel make sure the check box "is a tanker" is checked in the ship design view then the harvester can unload up to 90% of its fuel. I don't bother with automating the process but just every few months do some micromanagement to get it all done the way I want. Gives me something to do.
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it costs 64,000 rp to go from TL4 Magneto-plasma to TL5 Inertial Confinement drives; it costs 60,000 rp to research every single faster engine multiplier tech put together from 1.25x to 3x.
in terms of RP efficiency, multiplier tech is basically always better for the sole purpose of improving missiles.
Extreme case (ignoring the cheap levels - even bad lines can give decent for the investment initially) and unrealistic assumption (we only care about missiles). How useful multiplier tech is depends on our range requirements, going from 1.25x to 3x also increases your specific fuel consumption by a factor of 9.
4x power is usually sufficient for decent long-range missiles. Even if 5x would be ideal and definitely helps short-range missiles, it starts to represent a significant tech investment with little application elsewhere.
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Alright so from what i have managed to gather from the thread chatter and such, do not neglect your supply train. Ok gotcha then. Now here is another PDC design. I scrapped the whole split the main defensive bases idea because it seemed like a waste of time
Stronghold class Planetary Defence Centre 150 000 tons 2300 Crew 41205.25 BP TCS 3000 TH 0 EM 0
Armour 54-251 Sensors 1/1050 Damage Control Rating 150 PPV 370
Intended Deployment Time: 3 months Flight Crew Berths 15
Hangar Deck Capacity 5000 tons Troop Capacity: 10 Battalions Magazine 11170
Single State Engineering Commune 30cm C4 Soft X-ray Laser Turret (10x1) Range 96 000km TS: 10000 km/s Power 24-4 RM 6 ROF 30 24 24 24 24 24 24 20 18 16 0
State Engineering Commune Gauss Cannon R5-100 (20x5) Range 50 000km TS: 6250 km/s Accuracy Modifier 100% RM 5 ROF 5 1 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0
State Engineering Commune CIWS-160 (5x2) Range 1000 km TS: 16000 km/s ROF 5 Base 50% To Hit
State Engineering Commune PDC Beam Fire Control (5) Max Range: 96 000 km TS: 6250 km/s 90 79 69 58 48 38 27 17 6 0
State Engineering Commune PDC Heavy Power Plant (1) Total Power Output 180 Armour 0 Exp 5%
State Engineering Commune PDC Size 6 Missile Launcher (20) Missile Size 6 Rate of Fire 15
State Engineering Commune PDC Size 1 Missile Launcher (10) Missile Size 1 Rate of Fire 5
State Engineering Commune PDC PD Missile Fire Control (3) Range 567.0m km Resolution 1
State Engineering Commune PDC Missile Fire Control (3) Range 3 586.0m km Resolution 40
Size 6 Anti-ship Missile (1528) Speed: 4 000 km/s End: 9.3d Range: 3208.9m km WH: 16 Size: 6 TH: 24/14/7
Size 1 Anti-missile Missile (2000) Speed: 4 200 km/s End: 6.1m Range: 1.5m km WH: 1 Size: 1 TH: 110/66/33
State Engineering Commune PDC Active Sensor Suite (1) GPS 42000 Range 1 195.3m km Resolution 40
State Engineering Commune PDC Missile Sensor Suite (1) GPS 1050 Range 189.0m km MCR 20.6m km Resolution 1
Strike Group
15x Raptor Fighter Speed: 3312 km/s Size: 6.34
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 Planetary Defence Centre and can be pre-fabricated in 60 sections
And the Raptor class fighter to go with them.
Raptor class Fighter 317 tons 4 Crew 185.9 BP TCS 6.34 TH 0.21 EM 0
3312 km/s Armour 1-4 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 0 PPV 4
Maint Life 6.29 Years MSP 37 AFR 8% IFR 0.1% 1YR 2 5YR 24 Max Repair 68 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 0.1 months Spare Berths 0
State Engineering Commune Fighter Drive (1) Power 21 Fuel Use 280.76% Signature 0.21 Exp 17%
Fuel Capacity 5 000 Litres Range 1.0 billion km (3 days at full power)
State Engineering Commune Fighter Laser (2) Range 64 000km TS: 6250 km/s Power 3-1 RM 6 ROF 15 3 3 3 3 3 3 0 0 0 0
State Engineering Commune Fighter Beam Control (1) Max Range: 64 000 km TS: 25000 km/s 84 69 53 37 22 6 0 0 0 0
State Engineering Commune Fighter Power Plant (3) Total Power Output 1.8 Armour 0 Exp 5%
This design is classed as a Fighter for production, combat and maintenance purposes
I know i must seem annoying to the board but what have i done wrong with this style of designs? ???
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PDC: Too much armor. You're paying out the nose for something that might end up worthless if the enemy has mesons, and long before the armor is breached you'll be rendered ineffective by shock damage.
Secondly, are you planning on using this on planets with atmosphere? A lot of these beam weapons are gonna be ineffective.
Also, you have 15 flight crew berths for your 60 fighter crew.
Raptor: Not sure what the purpose is here. Detachable beam mount for the PDC? Anyway:
use a 0.5x tracking multiplier on the fighters beam control
cut from 2 lasers to 1 (and reduce powerplant apropos)
cut the engineering space
use the space for moar+better engines
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Alright so from what i have managed to gather from the thread chatter and such, do not neglect your supply train. Ok gotcha then. Now here is another PDC design. I scrapped the whole split the main defensive bases idea because it seemed like a waste of time
Stronghold class Planetary Defence Centre 150 000 tons 2300 Crew 41205.25 BP TCS 3000 TH 0 EM 0
Armour 54-251 Sensors 1/1050 Damage Control Rating 150 PPV 370
Intended Deployment Time: 3 months Flight Crew Berths 15
Hangar Deck Capacity 5000 tons Troop Capacity: 10 Battalions Magazine 11170
Single State Engineering Commune 30cm C4 Soft X-ray Laser Turret (10x1) Range 96 000km TS: 10000 km/s Power 24-4 RM 6 ROF 30 24 24 24 24 24 24 20 18 16 0
State Engineering Commune Gauss Cannon R5-100 (20x5) Range 50 000km TS: 6250 km/s Accuracy Modifier 100% RM 5 ROF 5 1 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0
State Engineering Commune CIWS-160 (5x2) Range 1000 km TS: 16000 km/s ROF 5 Base 50% To Hit
State Engineering Commune PDC Beam Fire Control (5) Max Range: 96 000 km TS: 6250 km/s 90 79 69 58 48 38 27 17 6 0
State Engineering Commune PDC Heavy Power Plant (1) Total Power Output 180 Armour 0 Exp 5%
State Engineering Commune PDC Size 6 Missile Launcher (20) Missile Size 6 Rate of Fire 15
State Engineering Commune PDC Size 1 Missile Launcher (10) Missile Size 1 Rate of Fire 5
State Engineering Commune PDC PD Missile Fire Control (3) Range 567.0m km Resolution 1
State Engineering Commune PDC Missile Fire Control (3) Range 3 586.0m km Resolution 40
Size 6 Anti-ship Missile (1528) Speed: 4 000 km/s End: 9.3d Range: 3208.9m km WH: 16 Size: 6 TH: 24/14/7
Size 1 Anti-missile Missile (2000) Speed: 4 200 km/s End: 6.1m Range: 1.5m km WH: 1 Size: 1 TH: 110/66/33
State Engineering Commune PDC Active Sensor Suite (1) GPS 42000 Range 1 195.3m km Resolution 40
State Engineering Commune PDC Missile Sensor Suite (1) GPS 1050 Range 189.0m km MCR 20.6m km Resolution 1
Strike Group
15x Raptor Fighter Speed: 3312 km/s Size: 6.34
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 Planetary Defence Centre and can be pre-fabricated in 60 sections
And the Raptor class fighter to go with them.
Raptor class Fighter 317 tons 4 Crew 185.9 BP TCS 6.34 TH 0.21 EM 0
3312 km/s Armour 1-4 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 0 PPV 4
Maint Life 6.29 Years MSP 37 AFR 8% IFR 0.1% 1YR 2 5YR 24 Max Repair 68 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 0.1 months Spare Berths 0
State Engineering Commune Fighter Drive (1) Power 21 Fuel Use 280.76% Signature 0.21 Exp 17%
Fuel Capacity 5 000 Litres Range 1.0 billion km (3 days at full power)
State Engineering Commune Fighter Laser (2) Range 64 000km TS: 6250 km/s Power 3-1 RM 6 ROF 15 3 3 3 3 3 3 0 0 0 0
State Engineering Commune Fighter Beam Control (1) Max Range: 64 000 km TS: 25000 km/s 84 69 53 37 22 6 0 0 0 0
State Engineering Commune Fighter Power Plant (3) Total Power Output 1.8 Armour 0 Exp 5%
This design is classed as a Fighter for production, combat and maintenance purposes
I know i must seem annoying to the board but what have i done wrong with this style of designs? ???
A couple of things:
A large quantity of your weapons are non-functional in atmospheric conditions. Specifically, all of the beam weapons that aren't Mesons or CIWS. Atmosphere hits beam weapons of types besides those two with a percent reduction to damage dealt, up to 100% damage reduction in earth-like pressures or higher. With that in consideration, there is very little, if any incentive to not turret weapons on a PDC, as size limitation isn't quite as important as cost to effectiveness on the smaller scale.
The PDC is EXTREMELY expensive. Expect it to take the better part of a century to build even if you devote most of your construction to it, though it depends on how much you've developed your empire by then. Still leaves a big problem of mineral shortages, or the fact that the planet in question is going to be undefended while waiting for it to be built. Probably more viable to just build it in smaller segments to allow modularity, and to make building the darn thing worth considering.
There aren't enough spare crew berths for your hangar space. Probably a good idea to add extra crew quarters until you got 100 berths, give or take.
Size 6 Anti-ship Missile (1528) Speed: 4 000 km/s End: 9.3d Range: 3208.9m km WH: 16 Size: 6 TH: 24/14/7
Size 1 Anti-missile Missile (2000) Speed: 4 200 km/s End: 6.1m Range: 1.5m km WH: 1 Size: 1 TH: 110/66/33Your missiles are extremely slow. Don't expect it to hit anything that matches your tech level, ever. In fact, they probably will consistently fail to hit earlygame vessels as well.
Your fighters are extremely slow. You know that extremely high tracking speed you put on them? Unusable, specifically, the game uses the lesser of the turret tracking speed (which is the highest of either the vessel speed or your racial gear tech speed), and the sensor speed. Considering your fighters are going a comfy 3000 km/s and have a racial turret speed of 6000 km/s or so, they can only accurately hit stuff going the same speed or slower than the latter.
Your turret and beam tracking speeds on the main PDC don't match, which isn't a huge concern, but it does mean wasted stats, as the game only uses the lesser of the two, as previously mentioned.
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Tons of constructive criticism.
Thanks although i have one question about it. Where do i see the required flight crew space? I cant find it. ??? Also i was kind of intending for the Raptors to be a Fighter i could stick on a carrier design i have kicking around as well as the PDC.
Tons of constructive criticism
Thanks a whole bunch. I didnt know that Atmosphere made beam weapons smeg, so yeah... back to the drawing board, ie Mesons, again.
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For the fighters: You have almost 200 tons of "wiggle room" before it hits the limit. I'd consider cramming in another engine or two, or develop a bigger, more powerful version if you want to stick with single engine. A fighters only defense is high speed and I'm sorry to say, this one will probably be outrun by enemy destroyers early-on (depening on what sorta enemies you meet first)
For the flight crew: You see how many crew your fighter needs in it's design (4, in this case), so for a strike group of 15 fighters, you need AT LEAST 60 spare crew room on your carrier/hangar. To do that, you check the "Keep excess Q" in the upper right corner of the ship design screen (for your hangar) and add crew quarters until you have the desired amount of flight crew berths.
Could you post your missile designs and also the missile engine designs? I'd like to see the configuration, because they really are slow. We could try and find the flaw and help correct it.
As for the armament itself, scrap everything but Mesons, none of it will work on anything but bodies without atmosphere and then what's the point of defending those rocks? Develop a nice, small focal (10-12cm) Meson turret and slap those on there for point defense needs, everything else will be taken care of by missiles and/or ships.
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I have a feeling the problem with the missiles is low engine multipliers. You really want to be using the highest multiplier available to you, and if you really want to get the most bang for your buck I suggest going all the way to that max 6x engine power multiplier.
That's also a very impressive 3bkm range on the size 6 missile, but your PDC doesn't have the active sensor reach to make best use of it. It's probably a good idea to redistribute some/most of that weight currently being used for fuel to get a larger engine for your missile, which along with higher multipliers should hopefully get you a decent speed.
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Ok so after encountering what i can only assume to be the star swarm and getting annihilated by it, i had to restart. :-X Im frakking sick of apparently having non functioning buckets of bolts for ships so imma just go over this literally one step at a time. Can anyone tell me if this is a good pair of engine designs for Ion tech level?
Fighter Drive:
Engine Power: 36 Fuel Use Per Hour: 277.79 Litres
Fuel Consumption per Engine Power Hour: 7.716 Litres
Engine Size: 50 Tons Engine HTK: 1
Thermal Signature: 36 Exp Chance: 30
Cost: 18 Crew: 3
Materials Required: 18x Gallicite
Military Engine
Stats used in the designer:
Ion Drive Tech
Engine power: x3.00/Fuel consumption per EPH 15.59
Fuel Consumption: 0.5 liters per EPH
Thermal Signature: Signature 100% normal
Engine Size: 1HS/Fuel Consumption -1%
Frigate/Destroyer Drive:
Engine Power: 360 Fuel Use Per Hour: 2525.33 Litres
Fuel Consumption per Engine Power Hour: 7.015 Litres
Engine Size: 500 Tons Engine HTK: 5
Thermal Signature: 360 Exp Chance: 30
Cost: 180 Crew: 30
Materials Required: 180x Gallicite
Military Engine
Stats used in the designer:
Ion Drive Tech
Engine power: x3.00/Fuel consumption per EPH 15.59
Fuel Consumption: 0.5 liters per EPH
Thermal Signature: Signature 100% normal
Engine Size: 10HS/Fuel Consumption -10%
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Personally, I don't use high engine power multiples on my warships, only my fighters. But having said that, I've seen several good designs here that do. Even so, I would drop your frigate engine back to 1.5 if you really want a high multiple. If you plan to have a lot of these things flying around, expect to suck gas giants dry with your fuel demands.
As to your loss, you have to think like dwarf fortress. Losing is Fun. You will lose every game you play, even the ones you win. Because eventually the game will grind your computer to a halt with 5 day turns that take a week. You don't beat this game, you live it.
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For ships 7000-9000 tons or below, it can be worth it to custom research an engine depending on the needs of the ship. A large single engine is often a maintenance hog, but the fuel savings are great.
It's hard to judge whether a component is 'good' or not by itself because what really matters is the design as a whole.
I agree that that frigate engine is a huge fuel hog. Generally, max-multiplier engines are only for parasite warships - their fuel consumption is just too high to even cross a single system.
Between 0.8x and 1.2x is a good safe region for warship drives.
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One of the biggest common design blunders is excessive engine multipliers which needs to be compensated for by excessive fuel.
If you're using more than 40% (32% for freely scaleable engine size) of your engine tonnage for fuel, you would actually gain performance by reducing engine multiplier.
Because you're probably willing to give up a tiny bit of performance for considerable fuel savings, more than 15-20% of engine mass in fuel is questionable on a ship.
Even in missiles I often don't hit the theoretical ideal fuel-to-engine ratio - the performance increase may simply not be worth the RP.
Which brings me to the next point: Researching 3x engine multiplier before Magento-Plasma drive as in Catman's example is another blunder.
Stellarator Reactor + Magneto Plasma Drive costs you 32000RP and increases your speed by 1/3 for no drawback.
Engine Power x3 costs you 30000RP and increases your speed by 1/5 while increasing specific fuel consumption by 58%.
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Alright so then, frigate drive is a gas hog and i over-researched my engine modifiers, ok then. I dropped the Frigate engine back to x1.2 (i need it to be fast) to solve the problem. Now then onto the next little bit of thing. Im trying to design a simple jump capable frigate to traverse the systems surrounding Sol and act as armed scout and the like. I want the ships to operate in pairs or maybe groups of three. So imma post this design for a pair of lasers and an accompanying Beam Fire Control. Plz tell me what i did wrong.
Twin State Engineering Commune 30cm C8 Soft X-ray Laser Turret (1x2) Range 96 000km TS: 10000 km/s Power 48-16 RM 6 ROF 15 24 24 24 24 24 24 20 18 16 0
State Engineering Commune 30cm C8 Soft X-ray Laser (1) Range 96 000km TS: 10000 km/s Power 24-8 RM 6 ROF 15 24 24 24 24 24 24 20 18 16 0
State Engineering Commune Basic Beam Fire Control (1) Max Range: 96 000 km TS: 10000 km/s 90 79 69 58 48 38 27 17 6 0
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your laser has only a fraction of its potential range, Increase the Range multiplier for the FC to 4x. Generally, a heavy antiship beam weapon should usually be using an FC with a 4x range multiplier.
also generally, dont bother with turrets unless you need to increase the weapons tracking speed.
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Many thanks for the advice but
also generally, dont bother with turrets unless you need to increase the weapons tracking speed.
Why is this a thing? Do turrets do worse vs ships or something?
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Turrets pay a mass premium, but weapons tracking speed can be increased past its normal limits by using turrets. So when you make a turret that is the same speed as your basic tracking technology (10,000 kms), you're paying extra tonnage for no benefit at all.
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Turrets pay a mass premium, but weapons tracking speed can be increased past its normal limits by using turrets. So when you make a turret that is the same speed as your basic tracking technology (10,000 kms), you're paying extra tonnage for no benefit at all.
Well, there is a minor benefit in that using armored turrets to protect your beam weapons, but the tonnage premium is still very significant to not use them for increased speeds.
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I believe you can set the turret tracking speed to 0km/s, so then you wont incur any mass premium for tracking gears while your ship/base tech level speed is used instead. Any increase in mass compared to a non-turreted design would then be from armouring (if applicable).
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So turrets add tons of weight to allow for better small craft/Missile killing tracking gotcha.
So after designing the engines and weapons and Beam Firing Control, i have added on these components to the design and i hesitantly call this finished.
Okhotsk class Scout Frigate 4 450 tons 136 Crew 1655.5 BP TCS 89 TH 144 EM 0
1617 km/s JR 3-50 Armour 9-24 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 3 PPV 18
Maint Life 4.7 Years MSP 698 AFR 52% IFR 0.7% 1YR 52 5YR 776 Max Repair 576 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 15 months Spare Berths 1
State Engineering Commune 4500 Tons Military Jump Drive Max Ship Size 4500 tons Distance 50k km Squadron Size 3
State Engineering Commune Light Vessel Ion Drive (1) Power 144 Fuel Use 42.59% Signature 144 Exp 12%
Fuel Capacity 250 000 Litres Range 23.7 billion km (169 days at full power)
State Engineering Commune 30cm C8 Soft X-ray Laser (2) Range 384 000km TS: 10000 km/s Power 24-8 RM 6 ROF 15 24 24 24 24 24 24 20 18 16 14
State Engineering Commune CIWS-200 (2x8) Range 1000 km TS: 20000 km/s ROF 5 Base 50% To Hit
State Engineering Commune Beam Fire Control (1) Max Range: 384 000 km TS: 10000 km/s 97 95 92 90 87 84 82 79 77 74
State Engineering Commune Light Vessel Stellarator Fusion Reactor (1) Total Power Output 24 Armour 0 Exp 5%
This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
The purpose of this class is to be an armed jump capable scout as well as provide PPV early on. I want them to operate in groups of two or three.
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So turrets add tons of weight to allow for better small craft/Missile killing tracking gotcha.
So after designing the engines and weapons and Beam Firing Control, i have added on these components to the design and i hesitantly call this finished.
Okhotsk class Scout Frigate 4 450 tons 136 Crew 1655.5 BP TCS 89 TH 144 EM 0
1617 km/s JR 3-50 Armour 9-24 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 3 PPV 18
Maint Life 4.7 Years MSP 698 AFR 52% IFR 0.7% 1YR 52 5YR 776 Max Repair 576 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 15 months Spare Berths 1
State Engineering Commune 4500 Tons Military Jump Drive Max Ship Size 4500 tons Distance 50k km Squadron Size 3
State Engineering Commune Light Vessel Ion Drive (1) Power 144 Fuel Use 42.59% Signature 144 Exp 12%
Fuel Capacity 250 000 Litres Range 23.7 billion km (169 days at full power)
State Engineering Commune 30cm C8 Soft X-ray Laser (2) Range 384 000km TS: 10000 km/s Power 24-8 RM 6 ROF 15 24 24 24 24 24 24 20 18 16 14
State Engineering Commune CIWS-200 (2x8) Range 1000 km TS: 20000 km/s ROF 5 Base 50% To Hit
State Engineering Commune Beam Fire Control (1) Max Range: 384 000 km TS: 10000 km/s 97 95 92 90 87 84 82 79 77 74
State Engineering Commune Light Vessel Stellarator Fusion Reactor (1) Total Power Output 24 Armour 0 Exp 5%
This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
The purpose of this class is to be an armed jump capable scout as well as provide PPV early on. I want them to operate in groups of two or three.
provide PPV early on
Seems like this point is moot, mainly because you're using late-end game technology. Unless you are planning to start the game with late-end game technology, which I can't understand why you would.
On the ship overall, this seems to be rather specifically usable for blockading a gate with significant firepower, as the low speed means that you can't force engagements with it in any other situation, most military-speed task groups will outpace it and be able to chose whether they want to fight it or not.
Could also be useful for orbital defenses.
I'm still wondering why you have soft x-ray lasers at ion tech. Lopsided research, perhaps?
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low speed
...frakk. So how i improve the speed?
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...frakk. So how i improve the speed?
I'm still wondering why you have soft x-ray lasers at ion [engine level] tech. Lopsided research, perhaps?
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Ok then since im at late game tech (still dont have a clear understanding of what that is and where early game ends and mid game begins, What are the general tech benchmarks i should be doing things like fleet building and conquesting at vs exploring and exploiting?
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Ok then since im at late game tech (still dont have a clear understanding of what that is and where early game ends and mid game begins, What are the general tech benchmarks i should be doing things like fleet building and conquesting at vs exploring and exploiting?
Think about it this way, the engine tech you're using? That's the default technology for a starting Trans-Newtonian race. That is starting tech, essentially. It hasn't been advanced at all. Ion tech, that is.
The best way to find out what technologies are appropriate for your tech level is to start from the beginning, and do the ingame research distributed to advance your technologies while also making sure you take the time to advance engine tech.
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Think about it this way, the engine tech you're using? That's the default technology for a starting Trans-Newtonian race. That is starting tech, essentially. It hasn't been advanced at all. Ion tech, that is.
Ions are starting tech huh, well i guess that's what i get for playing conventional start only.
Look i will be perfectly blunt i have little to no real experience with the 4x genre outside of MAYBE a few hours civ 4. I do get the tech levels are a thing throughout strategy games no matter if its RTS, Grand Strategy, 4x, or whatever other iterations exist out there. In this game can i assume that the Engine tech level is when you start upgrading to other things or what?
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Ions are starting tech huh, well i guess that's what i get for playing conventional start only.
Look i will be perfectly blunt i have little to no real experience with the 4x genre outside of MAYBE a few hours civ 4. I do get the tech levels are a thing throughout strategy games no matter if its RTS, Grand Strategy, 4x, or whatever other iterations exist out there. In this game can i assume that the Engine tech level is when you start upgrading to other things or what?
Engine tech level is basically the type of technology you are using for your engines, which significantly increases the base engine-power per HS of the engine designed without loss of efficiency. It is researched under Power and Propulsion, and requires a certain level of reactor technology to be researched at each level before the engine technology is accessible by research.
http://aurorawiki.pentarch.org/index.php?title=Engine
Ion tech is only the fourth level tech, and what trans Newtonian empires usually start with.
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add more engines to increase the speed.
It's possible you can fit more engines by reducing the armor significantly, although i dont know what armor tech you have. 9 isnt much for Soft-Xray tech level armor, but its a huge amount of tonnage if its Composite. Honestly, a ship like this shouldn't rely on taking hits.
Similarly, you should dump the CIWS; IMO it's not worth the tonnage. It's likely that anything you encounter with missiles will be able to overwhelm the CIWS anyway.
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What deadly shoe is saying is this: Does this ship's mission prioritize surviving hits? If it doesn't, you can increase speed by dropping some armor and all the CIWS. That's tonnage spent outside the primary mission. Consider a WWII destroyer. They had paper thin armor because their mission didn't prioritize taking hits without sinking.
Typically, light constants don't prioritize self defense. Heavy constants do. In Ion tech, you need to hit at least 4,000kmh. Preferably, 5000-6000 since you've got a high multiplier engine. Strip out armor and CIWS and replace them with engines until you get that speed.
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Well then if that is the case would this be a better design?
Okhotsk class Scout Frigate 4 400 tons 160 Crew 1688 BP TCS 88 TH 432 EM 0
4909 km/s JR 3-50 Armour 1-23 Shields 0-0 Sensors 14/14/0/0 Damage Control Rating 3 PPV 18
Maint Life 4.71 Years MSP 719 AFR 51% IFR 0.7% 1YR 53 5YR 797 Max Repair 576 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 15 months Spare Berths 2
State Engineering Commune 4500 Tons Military Jump Drive Max Ship Size 4500 tons Distance 50k km Squadron Size 3
State Engineering Commune Light Vessel Ion Drive (3) Power 144 Fuel Use 42.59% Signature 144 Exp 12%
Fuel Capacity 250 000 Litres Range 24.0 billion km (56 days at full power)
State Engineering Commune 30cm C8 Soft X-ray Laser (2) Range 384 000km TS: 10000 km/s Power 24-8 RM 6 ROF 15 24 24 24 24 24 24 20 18 16 14
State Engineering Commune Beam Fire Control (1) Max Range: 384 000 km TS: 10000 km/s 97 95 92 90 87 84 82 79 77 74
State Engineering Commune Light Vessel Stellarator Fusion Reactor (1) Total Power Output 24 Armour 0 Exp 5%
State Engineering Commune Basic Ship Sensor Suite (1) GPS 3600 Range 50.4m km Resolution 100
State Engineering Commune Thermal Sensor Suite (1) Sensitivity 14 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 14m km
State Engineering Commune EM Detection Sensor Suite (1) Sensitivity 14 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 14m km
ECCM-5 (1) This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
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Well then if that is the case would this be a better design?
Okhotsk class Scout Frigate 4 400 tons 160 Crew 1688 BP TCS 88 TH 432 EM 0
4909 km/s JR 3-50 Armour 1-23 Shields 0-0 Sensors 14/14/0/0 Damage Control Rating 3 PPV 18
Maint Life 4.71 Years MSP 719 AFR 51% IFR 0.7% 1YR 53 5YR 797 Max Repair 576 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 15 months Spare Berths 2
State Engineering Commune 4500 Tons Military Jump Drive Max Ship Size 4500 tons Distance 50k km Squadron Size 3
State Engineering Commune Light Vessel Ion Drive (3) Power 144 Fuel Use 42.59% Signature 144 Exp 12%
Fuel Capacity 250 000 Litres Range 24.0 billion km (56 days at full power)
State Engineering Commune 30cm C8 Soft X-ray Laser (2) Range 384 000km TS: 10000 km/s Power 24-8 RM 6 ROF 15 24 24 24 24 24 24 20 18 16 14
State Engineering Commune Beam Fire Control (1) Max Range: 384 000 km TS: 10000 km/s 97 95 92 90 87 84 82 79 77 74
State Engineering Commune Light Vessel Stellarator Fusion Reactor (1) Total Power Output 24 Armour 0 Exp 5%
State Engineering Commune Basic Ship Sensor Suite (1) GPS 3600 Range 50.4m km Resolution 100
State Engineering Commune Thermal Sensor Suite (1) Sensitivity 14 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 14m km
State Engineering Commune EM Detection Sensor Suite (1) Sensitivity 14 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 14m km
ECCM-5 (1) This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
I would use something like this, yes. I'm sure others will propose tweaks, but you've got it in the ballpark of an efficient light combatant.
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I would use something like this, yes. I'm sure others will propose tweaks, but you've got it in the ballpark of an efficient light combatant.
Ok then task one complete. However i have had to restart once again due to encountering the Progenitors in the first system off of Sol and the game proceeding to lag me right out of it. (ie i had a 0% chance to hit the Progenitor ship that was in my path but after it blew up my entire survey fleet it proceeded to park itself off of my Battlegroup and not attack them. So i was stuck in a loop of, you can hit this but we are going to slow time down due to a potential fleet interception to 20 sec, for an ingame month before i said screw it and restarted)
Will take the lessons i learned onto the next game however.
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Ok then task one complete. However i have had to restart once again due to encountering the Progenitors in the first system off of Sol and the game proceeding to lag me right out of it. (ie i had a 0% chance to hit the Progenitor ship that was in my path but after it blew up my entire survey fleet it proceeded to park itself off of my Battlegroup and not attack them. So i was stuck in a loop of, you can hit this but we are going to slow time down due to a potential fleet interception to 20 sec, for an ingame month before i said screw it and restarted)
Will take the lessons i learned onto the next game however.
If you were really desperate, you could have very well detonated your ships and came back with longer range missile-using vessels. Self Destruct or Abandon Ship for each.
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or just sm'd your ships back to the capital
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or just sm'd your ships back to the capital
Yeah im not that familiar with all of the SM commands yet.
Anywho now im going to attempt to move on to my first real Capital ship, a Light Carrier. First thing is first though, I need a space superiority fighter. I so far have this design:
Raptor class Fighter 452 tons 3 Crew 156.3 BP TCS 9.04 TH 4.8 EM 0
6637 km/s Armour 1-5 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 0 PPV 3
Maint Life 0 Years MSP 0 AFR 90% IFR 1.3% 1YR 14 5YR 213 Max Repair 30 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 0.1 months Spare Berths 1
State Engineering Commune Fighter Ion Drive (4) Power 15 Fuel Use 51.88% Signature 1.2 Exp 12%
Fuel Capacity 5 000 Litres Range 3.8 billion km (6 days at full power)
State Engineering Commune Fighter Ultraviolet Laser (1) Range 64 000km TS: 6637 km/s Power 3-3 RM 4 ROF 5 3 3 3 3 2 2 0 0 0 0
State Engineering Commune Fighter Beam Fire Control (1) Max Range: 64 000 km TS: 20000 km/s 84 69 53 37 22 6 0 0 0 0
State Engineering Commune Fighter Gas-Cooled Fast Reactor (1) Total Power Output 4.5 Armour 0 Exp 5%
State Engineering Commune Fighter Sensor Suite (1) GPS 48 Range 370k km Resolution 40
This design is classed as a Fighter for production, combat and maintenance purposes
And im trying to figure out if i wanna put Box Launchers on it or lasers. And if i made it super slow again. (Imma get this right dammit)
EDIT: Changed the fighter design to its (hopeful) final form.
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I'd split sensors into separate variants (your current passive ones do nothing and almost nothing). I'd also not bother with an engineering bay for something that only stays yout for days, remember that the stated failure rates apply to a ship with a year on its clock, which fighters with 3 days deployment time won't reach.
Missiles vs. Lasers is a huge difference in doctrine and design. Box launcher fighters are viable at 150-300t, while laser fighters generally push the limit of the fighter classification.
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Missiles vs. Lasers is a huge difference in doctrine and design. Box launcher fighters are viable at 150-300t, while laser fighters generally push the limit of the fighter classification.
Well then i do believe my question revolves back to which one is better for Space superiority? And what i mean by this is that the fighter can win battles consistently against other Light Craft (ie other Fighters and maybe FAC if the game rules work that way.)
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Against NPR opponents, a single beam fighter can massacre any number of fighters as long as it has a speed advantage and they're out of range of any high-resolution offboard sensors. Missile fighters are better against FACs that carry their own sensors.
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As you define it, probably the box launcher variant: I you hav smallish fighters with missile fire controls optimised for other fighter , you can probably pick off small fry without being targeted yourself. Laser fighters generally don't like coming under missile attack, and offensively-used AMMs are often a concern.
What drejr described is a best-case scenario, but still worth considering: After all, you don't need numbers and breaking the laser fighters out when it can achieve flawless victories is both cheaper and doesn't run the risk of running out of ammo.
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The speed is fine, but your fire control tracking speed is too high. That's not bad, per say, but faster tracking suited costs minerals and weight. You could drop it to 10,000 and there would be zero difference in performance. If you could drop it to 7,000 there would still be no change. Try to get as close to your ship speed without going under.
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Taken into consideration my thanks. Now then the Carrier itself.
Sinop class Light Carrier 10 150 tons 243 Crew 1417.3 BP TCS 203 TH 264 EM 0
1300 km/s JR 3-50 Armour 5-41 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 40 PPV 0
Maint Life 4.99 Years MSP 873 AFR 82% IFR 1.1% 1YR 58 5YR 876 Max Repair 143 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 10 months Flight Crew Berths 35
Hangar Deck Capacity 4375 tons
State Engineering Commune Sinop Class Jump Drive Max Ship Size 10200 tons Distance 50k km Squadron Size 3
State Engineering Commune Light Vessel Ion Drive (2) Power 132 Fuel Use 34.27% Signature 132 Exp 11%
Fuel Capacity 250 000 Litres Range 12.9 billion km (115 days at full power)
State Engineering Commune CIWS-200 (1x4) Range 1000 km TS: 20000 km/s ROF 5 Base 50% To Hit
State Engineering Commune Heavy Ship Sensor Suite (1) GPS 14400 Range 58.8m km Resolution 150
Strike Group
10x Raptor Fighter Speed: 6864 km/s Size: 8.74
This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
I use the term Light Carrier as a delination, <10000 tons is a Light Capital/Cruiser class vessel. >10000 tons is Main fleet Carrier/Battleship. Stupid i know but still. Now then what have i done wrong with this design.
EDIT: Changed around the internals somewhat and shaved 32 tons off of the Raptor class fighter via Tracking speed size on the BFC and added a jump drive. Sadly this mean i may have to just make this a Full fleet carrier or update my line in the sand a bit. Hmmm.
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A few critiques of this, but that's mostly because fighters are a little easier to build. Less space means fewer choices and so you don't get hung up as easily.
1) You'll want to bring along a tanker with your carrier. I think you will find yourself with fuel problems. But that's not bad. Smaller fuel tanks on your combat vessel means more combat load. Just be aware when you build this fleet that you need a tanker to go with each task force.
2) I would put more more MSP on your carrier, but then again you can make Fleet Supply Replenishment ships which carry more MSP.
3) You will need an escort to shoot down missiles. Your CIWS will only stop "leakers", not a proper barrage. The way I go there is turreted Gauss cannons
4) I see no sensors. I think you need at least basic sensors on every warship. If this warship is ever alone (rest of the fleet destroyed), it has no hope of escape because it can't see the enemy to evade them. It can't direct it's fighters against a target without another ship painting them.
5) You can find space for these things by cutting your flight crew berths to 33 (3 Crew per raptor that you posted x 11 raptors) or drop armor to 4.
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Well.
1. Maintenance: Only 873 maintenance supplies is not a lot. Remember, the carrier needs them for not only itself, but for the entire strikegroup attached to it.
2. Fuel: Looks like a single tank and not a big one at that. You take a hit, the tank gets destroyed, you don't have a backup, you're screwed. Also, the amount of fuel is somewhat low (again, remember the strikegroup). As it is now, this ship would need a supply ship and a fuel tanker in constant attendance, or operate within easy reach of a colony with maintenance and fuel capabilities and then what's the point of a carrier in the first place?
3. Sensors: Your fighters don't have any, your carrier is somewhat low on the range, considering the rather massive range on your fighters. Either cut down on fuel for the fighters to bring them more in line with the 60m km range of the carrier sensor, or scale up the sensor to see further. As it is, you're crippling your fighters and you don't give yourself a whole lot of reaction time if something DOES pup onto the sensor.
4. Point Defense: I think you're overestimating the CIWS. It can be quite useful, but on an actual warship, which by design is gonna get targeted by missiles regularly, it's shockingly ineffective. It may manage to thin an incoming salvo by 1 or 2 missiles, but that's about it. This thing either needs some space allocated for proper point defense, or it needs to be more or less permanently fused to one or two dedicated escorts and the carrier is dead if those escorts die.
I see no conceivable way, really, to correct some flaws in this design while staying <10k tons, sorry.
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Actually now that i think about it maybe i need to define my weight and classification doctrines. So can i make a few assumptions with these?
NOTE all of these vessels are base weights and whether or not the ships is defensive or offensive determines the need for Jump Drives on board ships that increase the weight dramatically while not changing their role very much.
A) Light Craft Classifications:
1. Box Launcher Fighter: 200T-350T
Role: This is simply a fighter with box launchers. Can be used for local space superiority engagements.
2. Laser Fighter: 400T-500T
Role: This is simply a fighter with lasers. Can be used for local space superiority engagements.
3. FAC: 500T-1000T
Role: Bombers (Maybe armed with Mesons to inflict maximum internal damage for minimal weight usage.)
B) Escort Vessel Classifications:
1. Skirmisher Vessel: 2500T-5000T
Role: Skirmishing in the early stages of the battle, taking missile hit for more important ships, and hunting down fleeing enemies.
2. Anti-Missile Vessel: 3000T-5500T
Role: Protecting the fleet from missiles and or bombers (Armed with anything from AMM Launchers to lasers to Mesons.)
3. Light Missile Vessel: 3000T- 5500T
Role: Light missile boat, it shoots mid or long ranged missiles at the enemy as a first line of missile boats.
C) Destroyer Vessel Classifications:
1. Basic Destroyer: 5000T-8000T
Role: A customize-able, multipurpose vessel capable of being a larger fleet escort, a missile boat, an AMM boat, a laser boat, Jump Tender, or even a sensor boat depending upon loadout.
D) Sub Capital Classifications:
1. Cruiser: 7500T-10000T
Role: Close in knife fighting vessel design to tank hits and deal out large amount of punishment. (Max 5 per fleet due to costs)
2. Missile Cruiser: 7000T-9000T
Role: Lightly armored, fast vessel design to fire ALL THE MISSILES, MILLIONS OF MISSILES, SO MANY frakkING MISSILE YOUR EYES CANNOT COUNT THEM ALL!! MISSILES!!!!!! (Max 5 per fleet due to costs)
3. Light Carrier: 9500T-12000T
Role: Fleet Support Carrier that carries about 10-15 Fighters and/or 10 FAC bombers. Can be the command ship for smaller fleets/defensive fleets and/or a sensor vessel/AMM vessel. (Max 2 per fleet due to costs. If in command of a fleet max 1 per fleet due to defensive nature)
4. Fleet Jump Tender: 7000T-10000T
Role: Jumping offensive fleets into systems without Jump gates. (Max 2 per fleet due to speed concerns and costs)
E) Capital Classifications:
1. Battleship: 10000T-17500T
Role: System superiority vessel designed to have multiple kinds if weapon systems enough CIWS to shoot down most incoming missiles (it is a HUGE target after all), at least 20 layers of armor, a small number of light craft bays and Huge sensor reach. Commonly a command vessel. This ship is a rock to base the rest of the fleet upon. (Max 2 per fleet due to extreme costs)
2. Main Fleet Carrier: 12000T-20000T
Role: System superiority vessel with at least 50 fighters and/or bombers on board to facilitate the oblivion of other Light Craft/FACs and most smaller vessels in system. Also carries all forms of heavy sensor and major AMM capabilities. Can act as a command vessel. (Max 2 per fleet due to costs)
F) Super Capital Classifications:
1. Dreadnought: 25000T-???T
Role: Sector superiority vessel, armed to the teeth, full of Light Craft, covered in CIWS and AMM capabilities with multiple sensor suites and at least 100 layers of armor. The pride of the empire and a crown jewel upon the Armadas crest. Incredibly expensive, painfully slow to construct, requires massive time and resource investment, this ship causes utter terror among its foes when they get word that it has just passed out of the Capital system, on its way to combat. Almost a fleet in and of itself. (Max 1-2 per empire due to overwhelming costs and strain upon the budget) NOTE: The loss of such a vessel is considered a huge blow to both armada prestige and imperial budgets alike, use with EXTREME care.
Anything i might need to amend and or add would be wonderful. Thanks in advance.
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Well.
1. Maintenance: Only 873 maintenance supplies is not a lot. Remember, the carrier needs them for not only itself, but for the entire strikegroup attached to it.
2. Fuel: Looks like a single tank and not a big one at that. You take a hit, the tank gets destroyed, you don't have a backup, you're screwed. Also, the amount of fuel is somewhat low (again, remember the strikegroup). As it is now, this ship would need a supply ship and a fuel tanker in constant attendance, or operate within easy reach of a colony with maintenance and fuel capabilities and then what's the point of a carrier in the first place?
3. Sensors: Your fighters don't have any, your carrier is somewhat low on the range, considering the rather massive range on your fighters. Either cut down on fuel for the fighters to bring them more in line with the 60m km range of the carrier sensor, or scale up the sensor to see further. As it is, you're crippling your fighters and you don't give yourself a whole lot of reaction time if something DOES pup onto the sensor.
4. Point Defense: I think you're overestimating the CIWS. It can be quite useful, but on an actual warship, which by design is gonna get targeted by missiles regularly, it's shockingly ineffective. It may manage to thin an incoming salvo by 1 or 2 missiles, but that's about it. This thing either needs some space allocated for proper point defense, or it needs to be more or less permanently fused to one or two dedicated escorts and the carrier is dead if those escorts die.
Many thanks for the advice.
EDIT: My fighters are currently using this sensor suite
State Engineering Commune Fighter Sensor Suite (1) GPS 144 Range 1.1m km Resolution 40
Will this do for their doctrine?
I see no conceivable way, really, to correct some flaws in this design while staying <10k tons, sorry.
See my post before this one, i have amended my lines in the sand.
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You will notice, if you try to set these up, they could be a bit...light.
Especially your considered Dreadnought. If you want it armed to the teeth, with parasites, CIWS and THAT much armor (bit on the "much" side for the armor, by the way) it will be nigh impossible to get it even close to 25k tons...unless you want it going for 2 million kilometers at 50km/s and break down twice in that distance. ;D
With the sizes you considered, you'll always tend to end up on the light side in some regards, mostly in armament tho.
Little example of my own:
Ticonderoga class Missile Cruiser 15 000 tons 527 Crew 6816.35 BP TCS 300 TH 180 EM 840
7500 km/s Armour 9-54 Shields 28-240 Sensors 72/72/0/0 Damage Control Rating 48 PPV 90
Maint Life 9.06 Years MSP 5112 AFR 100% IFR 1.4% 1YR 112 5YR 1680 Max Repair 400 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 12 months Spare Berths 5
Magazine 1258
General Electric LM-250 (9) Power 250 Fuel Use 15.2% Signature 20 Exp 10%
Fuel Capacity 300 000 Litres Range 23.7 billion km (36 days at full power)
Theta R240/153.6 Shields (7) Total Fuel Cost 45 Litres per hour (1 075 per day)
CIWS-600 (1x16) Range 1000 km TS: 60000 km/s ROF 5 Base 50% To Hit
Lockheed Martin Mk 48 Mod 0 SLS (20) Missile Size 6 Rate of Fire 40
AN/SPG-65 Missile Fire Control (2) Range 360.6m km Resolution 20
Perseus ASM (158) Speed: 90 000 km/s End: 31.4m Range: 169.6m km WH: 36 Size: 6 TH: 1050/630/315
Kingfisher ASM (20) Speed: 171 500 km/s End: 32.2m Range: 331.2m km WH: 25 Size: 6 TH: 571/343/171
Sidearm ASM (30) Speed: 90 000 km/s End: 19.6m Range: 105.8m km WH: 25 Size: 6 TH: 300/180/90
AN/SPY-1A/B Active Search Sensor (1) GPS 6400 Range 343.5m km Resolution 20
Thales Mk 1 Thermal Sensor (1) Sensitivity 72 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 72m km
Thales Mk 1 EM Sensor (1) Sensitivity 72 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 72m km
ECCM-5 (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
Obviously it's somewhat higher-tech than what you currently have available, but the principle doesn't change. I always keep my cruisers at around 14-16 ktons. On lower tech levels, they'll simply be slower and deal less damage. You just have more room to put stuff in, if you scale everything up a bit.
My carriers typically weigh in at around 40k tons, with a strikeforce at around 30 fighters, depending on fighter size. But I don't start making fighters until at least Magneto-Plasma drive, mostly even higher, because I find below that, I don't quite get the combination of speed and armament I would like out of a fighter.
My escorts tend to end up at around 10-12 ktons, because I like ships that carry point defense weapons in sufficient amount (at least 2 quad Gauss turrets, more if I can get it) AND anti-missiles in the same hull. I just don't like devoting two different classes (and therefor) shipyards to what is, in effect, roughly the same role.
As with everything in Aurora, it's a matter of personal preference and what works for you. But for me personally, your ship sizes would be awfully small and I'd have to compensate by using (and losing) LOTS of them, which in turn complicates things like resupply and more importantly: squadron transits.
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Well, your fighters having active sensors helps them if they leave the envelope of the carrier. However, how do you know where to send them in the first place?
Your fighters can fly over 3 billion kilometers, according to the design you posted, yet your carrier can't even "see" a hundred million kilometers. So what do you wanna do with all that range on the fighters? Send them out blindly, hoping they find something with their limited sensors?
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Quote.
Now you see this is something im having a large problem with. Im looking over the wiki and while i see example ship that are like your is am also seeing things like the active Sensors article that give me an entirely different weight scheme closer to the one i posted. And yes i know its all about personal preference in the end but at the exact same time im still trying to envision what my ships are supposed to be doing and at the same time figuring out what weight is too much and what weight is too little and how that affects speeds, fuel consumption and needed engines and weapons. Im also trying not to let my weight spiral out of control like it did on some of my first designs.
Well, your fighters having active sensors helps them if they leave the envelope of the carrier. However, how do you know where to send them in the first place?
Your fighters can fly over 3 billion kilometers, according to the design you posted, yet your carrier can't even "see" a hundred million kilometers. So what do you wanna do with all that range on the fighters? Send them out blindly, hoping they find something with their limited sensors?
I have no idea how to counter this.
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You could put a larger sensor on the carrier, that's one option. You could also attach a dedicated sensor platform to the fleet..basically some engines and fuel built around a massive sensor. That needs protection tho, as it's basically a homing beacon for the enemy. You probably won't be able to match sensor range to fighter range and you don't have to. You have to consider return trips and loiter time as well. But your current ratio is somewhat off. As a completely different option, you could scratch some fuel from the fighters, that gives you either smaller fighters which you can carry more of, or you use the saved space for another gun, leaving it at the same size.
And as for the ship sizes: I'm just giving my opinion, it's by no means taken to be definitive. I'm just a big fan of a smaller fleet of heavier ships, instead of having the same tonnage in a lot more individual ships. Aside from the initial setup (shipyards and facilities) I find the larger ships take a load off the support structure. If I have a strikegroup of 7 ships that is battle worthy for what I need, I need a jump tender that can take 8 ships (indlucing itself) on a squadron transit in one go. If I have smaller ships but need, say, 13 of them to be battle worthy, I'm gonna need a jump tender able to ferry 14 ships (which is vastly expensive tech) or I need multiple tenders and split up the fleet, or I need to use one tender and move it back and forth, which leads to delayed arrival. Also, a bigger missile ship can take more ordnance, potentially even enough to last an entire engagement without needing a collier close at hand..and still have a usefully large salvo size.
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Duly Noted. Now then to the next topic, the Sensor vessel.
Okean class Surveillance Cruiser 9 950 tons 304 Crew 2091.2 BP TCS 199 TH 264 EM 0
1326 km/s JR 3-50 Armour 5-41 Shields 0-0 Sensors 6/5/0/0 Damage Control Rating 11 PPV 0
Maint Life 3.39 Years MSP 1445 AFR 71% IFR 1% 1YR 191 5YR 2864 Max Repair 1050 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 10 months Spare Berths 0
State Engineering Commune Sub-Capital Military Jump Drive Max Ship Size 11100 tons Distance 50k km Squadron Size 3
State Engineering Commune Light Vessel Ion Drive (2) Power 132 Fuel Use 34.27% Signature 132 Exp 11%
Fuel Capacity 250 000 Litres Range 13.2 billion km (115 days at full power)
State Engineering Commune CIWS-200 (8x4) Range 1000 km TS: 20000 km/s ROF 5 Base 50% To Hit
State Engineering Commune Sensor Vessel Sensor (1) GPS 84000 Range 420.0m km Resolution 100
State Engineering Commune Thermal Sensor Suite (1) Sensitivity 6 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 6m km
State Engineering Commune EM Detection Sensor Suite (1) Sensitivity 5 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 5m km
This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
Is this ok for a boat with bigass eyes or no?
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That's not looking half-bad.
I assume you're going for jump drives on every vessel? It's an option, but you have to remember that you'll be unable to use squadron transit, crippling your ships longer after a jump, not important for regular operation, but the moment you run into an enemy picketing a jump point, every second counts.
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Should work, but I'd use larger, less stressed engines. Size may as well match the rating of your jump drive and it'll be less thirsty.
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Should work, but I'd use larger, less stressed engines. Size may as well match the rating of your jump drive and it'll be less thirsty.
Less stressed engines? Im pretty sure these are already size 10.
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Which gives you a propulsion percentage of around 10%. This is rather low for my tastes, especially when you need to compensate with a power boost and high fuel load.
You could actually get longer range with size 11 engines without power boost and 150000l fuel (samge speed and tonnage) and save on running cost. If shipyards allow, I'd increase tonnage up to the 11k your jump drive is capable of.
Power boost is imo not something for general use, I'd need a reason (only days of deployment time, I care about compactness because of hangar space or sensor footprint, I'm pushing the limits of my tech to meet the speed requirement - e.g. to be able to play tag with the spoiler races).
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One more thing which may be completely besides the point:
The designation says Surveillance Cruiser. This design looks more suited for fleet use than an independent survey ship. It's not that long-legged without modifications to the propulsion system, deployment time a tad on the low side, CIWS my not save a lone ship of that speed.
As the eyes of a fleet, it looks much better, armour and plentiful CIWs will come in useful as it's probably going to be the first thing to be shot at (big noisy sensor).
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Which gives you a propulsion percentage of around 10%. This is rather low for my tastes, especially when you need to compensate with a power boost and high fuel load.
You could actually get longer range with size 11 engines without power boost and 150000l fuel (samge speed and tonnage) and save on running cost. If shipyards allow, I'd increase tonnage up to the 11k your jump drive is capable of.
Power boost is imo not something for general use, I'd need a reason (only days of deployment time, I care about compactness because of hangar space or sensor footprint, I'm pushing the limits of my tech to meet the speed requirement - e.g. to be able to play tag with the spoiler races).
I will be perfectly honest here, the goal of the design of the jump engine is merely to allow for that size range of ships (Escort, Destroyer, Sub-Capital, Capital, Super-Capital) to have a jump drive that i dont have to redesign the wheel for every time i make a new variety of vessel. I dont much care for adding on junk weight as it seems rather pointless and only costs me more resources and build time in the end. I will give you that i should probably make a standard engine range as well, for the same categories.
One more thing which may be completely besides the point:
The designation says Surveillance Cruiser. This design looks more suited for fleet use than an independent survey ship. It's not that long-legged without modifications to the propulsion system, deployment time a tad on the low side, CIWS my not save a lone ship of that speed.
As the eyes of a fleet, it looks much better, armour and plentiful CIWs will come in useful as it's probably going to be the first thing to be shot at (big noisy sensor).
For the size i didnt see any other descriptor that really fit the Vessels purpose. I wish the wiki had a full list of those thing, as pointless as they are in most ways.
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When I get the time, I'll walk through a sample fleet creation from doctrine to construction. It will help if you actually write out a doctrine, derive your individual ship class requirements from the doctrine, and then design the ships to the requirements you've written, especially in the beginning. Some things to consider in your fleet doctrine include:
Smallest deployable element: ex. The fleet shall operate in squadrons of 4-6 combat vessels plus their Replenishment vessels. Squadrons shall have sufficient jump capacity to transit the combat element in its entirety.
Operational range (with and without Replenishment vessels): Squadrons shall have the fuel and maintenance capacity (without Replenishment vessels) to operate within a singlesolar system for a period not less than 12 months when not in combat. Ships shall carry a combat load of not less than 10 salvos of their main anti ship battery plus not less than 30 salvos of their main anti missile batteries. With Replenishment vessels, the range shall be doubled and the amp capacity shall be tripled.
Primary weapon type with usage guidelines: The primary fleet weapon is long ranged anti ship missiles. AMM defenses are to be defeated through the use of synchronous fire from multiple weapons platforms.
Secondary weapon type with usage guidelines
AMM plan: Enemy ASMs will be defeated through a multi layer approach using AMMs, beam weapons, and CIWS.
Use of parasites: The Terran Federation does not regard parasites as offensive platforms. As such, their primary purpose shall be maintaining separation from the enemy fleet and extending the fleets missile engagement envelope.
These are just examples. But from this, several design requirements fall out that might be missed otherwise. For example, my jump drives need to have a fleet size of 6. My parasites should mount AMMs, but there won't be many of them because tonnage spent on hanger bays is tonnage not spent on offensive weapons platforms. My deployment time should be set to 15-18 months (to avoid morale degradation due to unfortunate timing). I should consider multiple ASM for controls to let me synchronize more salvos in order to defeat their AMM defenses.
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Alright so i have tried to design a series of ship engines (Officially Designed by the State Engineering Commune) to attempt to standardize production for the different general varieties of vessel run by the Soviet High Command. Here goes nothing:
Commercial Engine:
Engine Tech: Ion Drive Technology
Power/Efficiency Modifiers: Engine Power x0.50/Fuel Consumption per EPH x0.18
Fuel Consumption: 0.6 Fuel Efficiency
Thermal Reduction: 100% Normal
Engine Size: 25 HS, Fuel Consumption -25%
Fighter Drive:
Engine Tech: Ion Drive Technology
Power/Efficiency Modifiers: Engine Power x2.00 /Fuel Consumption per EPH x5.66
Fuel Consumption: 0.6 Fuel Efficiency
Thermal Reduction: 100% Normal
Engine Size: 1 HS, Fuel Consumption -1%
Escort Drive:
Engine Tech: Ion Drive Technology
Power/Efficiency Modifiers: Engine Power x1.10 /Fuel Consumption per EPH x1.27
Fuel Consumption: 0.6 Fuel Efficiency
Thermal Reduction: 100% Normal
Engine Size: 15 HS, Fuel Consumption -15%
Destroyer Drive:
Engine Tech: Ion Drive Technology
Power/Efficiency Modifiers: Engine Power x1.00 /Fuel Consumption per EPH x1.00
Fuel Consumption: 0.6 Fuel Efficiency
Thermal Reduction: 100% Normal
Engine Size: 15 HS, -15% Fuel Consumption
Sub-Capital Drive:
Engine Tech: Ion Drive Technology
Power/Efficiency Modifiers: Engine Power x0.80 /Fuel Consumption per EPH x0.57
Fuel Consumption: 0.6 Fuel Efficiency
Thermal Reduction: 100% Normal
Engine Size: 15 HS, -15% Fuel Consumption
Capital Drive:
Engine Tech: Ion Drive Technology
Power/Efficiency Modifiers: Engine Power x0.80 /Fuel Consumption per EPH x0.57
Fuel Consumption: 0.6 Fuel Efficiency
Thermal Reduction: 100% Normal
Engine Size: 20HS, -20% Fuel Consumption
Super-Capital Drive:
Engine Tech: Ion Drive Technology
Power/Efficiency Modifiers: Engine Power x1.00 /Fuel Consumption per EPH x1.00
Fuel Consumption: 0.6 Fuel Efficiency
Thermal Reduction: 100% Normal
Engine Size: 20 HS, -20% Fuel Consumption
And Missile engines since i can in fact lump them into this post.
Size 6 Missile Drive:
Engine Tech: Ion Drive Technology
Power/Efficiency Modifiers: Engine Power x /Fuel Consumption per EPH x
Fuel Consumption: 0.6 Fuel Efficiency
Missile Engine Size:
AMM Drive:
Engine Tech: Ion Drive Technology
Power/Efficiency Modifiers: Engine Power x4.00 /Fuel Consumption per EPH x32.00
Fuel Consumption: 0.6 Fuel Efficiency
Missile Engine Size: 0.1 MSP, Fuel Consumption 14.47
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i'd probably collapse the escort, destroyer, and maybe sub-capital drive into one drive.
i'd also collapse the super-capital and capital drives into one drive, and make it Size 50.
I'd also make the Commercial drive have the lowest available drive multiplier; it's a huge fuel saver, which is an enormous concern for commercial designs.
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I'm not sure you can usefully design missile engines without designing the whole missile. First you have to decide on a warhead strength, then see how much space is left over for fuel+engines+agility. Fuel efficiency and desired range will give you a guess to use for the amount of fuel, and that just leaves the split between engines and agility. At my tech level in my game I seem to get the best results with slightly more engine than agility, so in my AMM I'm using a 0.45-sized engine with 0.415 agility and my ASM (which is size 6) is using a 2.25-sized engine and 1.5 agility. At earlier tech levels my missiles had larger engines and much less agility, and in fact each time I've redesigned my missiles I've used completely different engine sizes.
On the other hand, in this game I've been quite cautious and haven't actually had to use either of these. I've no idea if they'll be sufficient, but the numbers for each generation have been an improvement over the last.
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@ db48x:
That's too much agility. Highest accuracy for a given engine/agility budget is achieved when
(Agility MSP) = (Engine MSP) - 10*(Total Size) / (Agility per MSP)
In practice, you'd use less for bigger engines: larger engines save a little fuel, speed has other advantages.
@ catman115:
Agree with the others mostly, I'd standardise more and use size 50 drives when practical.
I also rather like 0.3 power multiplier for my commercial ships. Lower for freighters if it's worth researching a separate drive (probably not at Ion tech, better to focus on new engine concept).
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Alright it is time for me to begin trying to parse how to missiles.
SO imma begin with probably the most important device i will ever construct (hopefully correctly) in the game, the AMM.
Size 1 AMM:
Warhead Strength: 0.2 MSP, 1 Value
Fuel Capacity: 0.1 MSP, 250 Value
Agility: 0.6 MSP, 38.4 Value
Engine Size: 0.1 MSP
Engine Make:
Engine Tech: Ion Drive Technology
Power/Efficiency Modifiers: Engine Power x4.00 /Fuel Consumption per EPH x32.00
Fuel Consumption: 0.6 Fuel Efficiency
Missile Engine Size: 0.1 MSP, Fuel Consumption 14.47
Engine Stats:
Number of Engines: 1
Engine Total Size: 0.1 MSP
Engine Total Power: 0.24
Engine Total Cost: 0.06
Resulting Descriptor:
Missile Size: 1 MSP (0.05 HS) Warhead: 1 Armour: 0 Manoeuvre Rating: 48
Speed: 4800 km/s Engine Endurance: 45 minutes Range: 13.0m km
Cost Per Missile: 1.078
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 230.4% 3k km/s 48% 5k km/s 46.1% 10k km/s 23%
Materials Required: 0.25x Tritanium 0.828x Gallicite Fuel x250
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Try this:
0.2 warhead
0.5 engine (preferably a single one)
0.211 agility
0.089 fuel
This should get you a viable AMM with enough range to use it offensively, without giving up much for that capability.
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Worth noting that if your missiles don't outspeed your target, you can potentially fail to hit them at all due to them trying to chase it and not being able to catch up.
A good point of advice for AMMs of any sort, try to at least hit 10,000 km/s.
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Alright it is time for me to begin trying to parse how to make missiles.
Primary takeaway from all the advice you are about to get: AMMs should be almost all engines and agility is only to fill in the gaps left between the smallest possible MSP that gives you the desired warhead size and the smallest possible MSP for fuel that gives you the range you want.
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Quote
Ok so took this advice and redid the missile engine. Got a size one missile that moves at 24000 km/s. So yay i guess?
A good point of advice for AMMs of any sort, try to at least hit 10,000 km/s.
Yay! Mission accomplished! :D
Primary takeaway from all the advice you are about to get: AMMs should be almost all engines and agility is only to fill in the gaps left between the smallest possible MSP that gives you the desired warhead size and the smallest possible MSP for fuel that gives you the range you want.
Many thanks for the sage advice, i do see this now.
Now the as for Anti Ship Missiles and larger Torpedoes, what should i be looking for in terms of size and speed? Lets say size 6 for ASM and size 10+ for torpedoes.
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Simple rule of thumb is "It should hit your own ships 100% of the time."
So if your ships go 5000kmh, your missiles should have engines and agility such that they hit targets going 5000kmh 100% of the time. After that, balance between fuel and warhead. Aim for a warhead of 9, but don't feel too worried if you can't get there yet. As for range, that depends on your missiles fire control range, which depends on your sensor range. Others will have more concrete suggestions for that. I'm afraid I can't help too much.
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One more thing, 24,000kmh for AMMs is great. The faster, the better (generally speaking).
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For a general purpose missile, a good baseline is 40% engine, 30% warhead, 20% agility, 10% fuel, then account for break points due to rounding.
If you want sensors or to boost speed/damage/range, some agility can be sacrificed without problem
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@ db48x:
That's too much agility. Highest accuracy for a given engine/agility budget is achieved when
(Agility MSP) = (Engine MSP) - 10*(Total Size) / (Agility per MSP)
In practice, you'd use less for bigger engines: larger engines save a little fuel, speed has other advantages.
You're right! The AMM had too much agility; I must have flubbed the arithmetic.
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For a general purpose missile, a good baseline is 40% engine, 30% warhead, 20% agility, 10% fuel, then account for break points due to rounding.
If you want sensors or to boost speed/damage/range, some agility can be sacrificed without problem
Right so i followed this advice and unfortunately i got this result.
Missile Size: 6 MSP (0.3 HS) Warhead: 9 Armour: 0 Manoeuvre Rating: 23
Speed: 4800 km/s Engine Endurance: 210.3 hours Range: 3 634.4m km
Cost Per Missile: 4.146
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 110.4% 3k km/s 23% 5k km/s 22.1% 10k km/s 11%
Materials Required: 2.25x Tritanium 1.896x Gallicite Fuel x1500
Now the chance to hit slow moving stuff IS pretty decent, ECM aside, but that really isnt what i intended this missile to do. The Torpedo i designed is even worse. So what did i do wrong here? ???
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Range is waaay too high.
Cut the fuel, give the engine as much power boost as your current tech allows and possibly make it bigger, that should change things up.
You could also try using this little handy spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1mQ3PJGxqgK4fvWSdjWkSPt3QebO2jLlcngxNFTiIdys/edit#gid=917907050%EF%BB%BF
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Aight then so i THINK this is better.
Missile Size: 6 MSP (0.3 HS) Warhead: 9 Armour: 0 Manoeuvre Rating: 16
Speed: 24000 km/s Engine Endurance: 77 minutes Range: 110.2m km
Cost Per Missile: 4.818
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 384% 3k km/s 128% 5k km/s 76.8% 10k km/s 38.4%
Materials Required: 2.25x Tritanium 2.568x Gallicite Fuel x1250
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Yep, that looks a lot more reasonable.
And with that design, whenever you reach a new level in the relevant tech (engine tech, engine power modifier, fuel consumption, missile agility and warhead) you can just take this design, leave the values as they are and research the new missile. You'll have a missile of the same size, which is simply a bit better, depending on what tech you get, if you don't want to fiddle with an entirely new design, that is.
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Aight then so i THINK this is better.
Missile Size: 6 MSP (0.3 HS) Warhead: 9 Armour: 0 Manoeuvre Rating: 16
Speed: 24000 km/s Engine Endurance: 77 minutes Range: 110.2m km
Cost Per Missile: 4.818
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 384% 3k km/s 128% 5k km/s 76.8% 10k km/s 38.4%
Materials Required: 2.25x Tritanium 2.568x Gallicite Fuel x1250
That's pretty much exactly what my missiles look like.
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Right then so let see if this Missile boat i have made makes any kind of sense at all.
Baku class Frigate 4 850 tons 147 Crew 1001 BP TCS 97 TH 396 EM 0
4082 km/s JR 3-50 Armour 1-25 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 1 PPV 12
Maint Life 0.78 Years MSP 129 AFR 188% IFR 2.6% 1YR 166 5YR 2486 Max Repair 315 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 15 months Spare Berths 1
Magazine 102
State Engineering Commune Escort Class Military Jump Drive Max Ship Size 5100 tons Distance 50k km Squadron Size 3
State Engineering Commune Escort Class Ion Drive (2) Power 198 Fuel Use 64.72% Signature 198 Exp 11%
Fuel Capacity 250 000 Litres Range 14.3 billion km (40 days at full power)
State Engineering Commune Size 6 Missile Launcher (2) Missile Size 6 Rate of Fire 45
State Engineering Commune Ship Missile Fire Control (1) Range 693.0m km Resolution 100
Standard Missile Mk1 (33) Speed: 24 000 km/s End: 76.5m Range: 110.2m km WH: 9 Size: 6 TH: 128/76/38
State Engineering Commune Basic Ship Sensor Suite (1) GPS 7560 Range 107.4m km Resolution 60
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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I don't see it having much success, to be honest. Just two launchers, the salvos are gonna be just too small to get past any kind of point defense or anti-missile net. Even when using vastly inferior anti-missile, which I don't see happening from NPRs or spoilers, a salvo of 3 anti-missiles per missile is gonna knock your two missiles out of space, no problem.
You could also tone down the range on the Fire Control, it's got 6 times the range of the actual missile, that's just wasted space.
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I don't see it having much success, to be honest. Just two launchers, the salvos are gonna be just too small to get past any kind of point defense or anti-missile net. Even when using vastly inferior anti-missile, which I don't see happening from NPRs or spoilers, a salvo of 3 anti-missiles per missile is gonna knock your two missiles out of space, no problem.
You could also tone down the range on the Fire Control, it's got 6 times the range of the actual missile, that's just wasted space.
Is 5 or so better? What is the optimal missile saturation?
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Is 5 or so better? What is the optimal missile saturation?
Hard to say just like that, always depends what the enemy fields in terms of anti-missile systems.
Myself, I go for salvos of 10 per Fire Control, usually two "broadsides" per ship, so 20 launchers total. However, my ships are bigger. Five is better than two, at the very least, but you're gonna have to make up with more ships firing simultaneously, one of them alone has no chance against any meaningful point defense.
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Hard to say just like that, always depends what the enemy fields in terms of anti-missile systems.
Myself, I go for salvos of 10 per Fire Control, usually two "broadsides" per ship, so 20 launchers total. However, my ships are bigger. Five is better than two, at the very least, but you're gonna have to make up with more ships firing simultaneously, one of them alone has no chance against any meaningful point defense.
TBH this ship and the other one im designing are the smallest class im probably gonna build, escorts/skirmishers. Im gonna design a purely AMM Frigate next then probably a Missile Destroyer.
EDIT here is the current Laser Frigate im playing around with.
Okhotsk class Scout Frigate 4 800 tons 137 Crew 868 BP TCS 96 TH 396 EM 0
4125 km/s JR 3-50 Armour 5-25 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 3 PPV 9
Maint Life 3.4 Years MSP 339 AFR 61% IFR 0.9% 1YR 45 5YR 668 Max Repair 189 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 15 months Spare Berths 0
State Engineering Commune Escort Class Military Jump Drive Max Ship Size 5100 tons Distance 50k km Squadron Size 3
State Engineering Commune Escort Class Ion Drive (2) Power 198 Fuel Use 64.72% Signature 198 Exp 11%
Fuel Capacity 250 000 Litres Range 14.5 billion km (40 days at full power)
State Engineering Commune Ultraviolet Laser Spinal Mount (1) Range 64 000km TS: 4125 km/s Power 24-4 RM 4 ROF 30 24 24 24 24 19 16 0 0 0 0
State Engineering Commune Ship Beam Fire Control (1) Max Range: 64 000 km TS: 4000 km/s 84 69 53 37 22 6 0 0 0 0
State Engineering Commune Escort Class Power Plant (1) Total Power Output 22.5 Armour 0 Exp 5%
State Engineering Commune Basic Ship Sensor Suite (1) GPS 7560 Range 107.4m km Resolution 60
This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
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TBH this ship and the other one im designing are the smallest class im probably gonna build, escorts/skirmishers. Im gonna design a purely AMM Frigate next then probably a Missile Destroyer.
EDIT here is the current Laser Frigate im playing around with.
Okhotsk class Scout Frigate 4 800 tons 137 Crew 868 BP TCS 96 TH 396 EM 0
4125 km/s JR 3-50 Armour 5-25 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 3 PPV 9
Maint Life 3.4 Years MSP 339 AFR 61% IFR 0.9% 1YR 45 5YR 668 Max Repair 189 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 15 months Spare Berths 0
State Engineering Commune Escort Class Military Jump Drive Max Ship Size 5100 tons Distance 50k km Squadron Size 3
State Engineering Commune Escort Class Ion Drive (2) Power 198 Fuel Use 64.72% Signature 198 Exp 11%
Fuel Capacity 250 000 Litres Range 14.5 billion km (40 days at full power)
State Engineering Commune Ultraviolet Laser Spinal Mount (1) Range 64 000km TS: 4125 km/s Power 24-4 RM 4 ROF 30 24 24 24 24 19 16 0 0 0 0
State Engineering Commune Ship Beam Fire Control (1) Max Range: 64 000 km TS: 4000 km/s 84 69 53 37 22 6 0 0 0 0
State Engineering Commune Escort Class Power Plant (1) Total Power Output 22.5 Armour 0 Exp 5%
State Engineering Commune Basic Ship Sensor Suite (1) GPS 7560 Range 107.4m km Resolution 60
This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
Well, it significantly mess up any ship that it hits, if it manages to get a hit off that is. If you aren't already, it's probably a good idea to turn the range multiplier to the highest value available, unless that's already the case.
A big weirdness about beam to beam engagements in aurora, is that there are two big players to victories, speed and range. If your target has you solidly beat on both, then you simply won't be able to engage them while they shoot away at you.
So the big importance on whether this design will do well or not depends on how fast your hostiles move and how far they shoot. Luckily, refitting with better BFC should be rather cheap, meaning you can build a bunch of ships like this and retool their yard for identical designs with only the BFC upgraded as your tech does.
ECM can, in some cases, help with engagements against higher tech level beam ships, as it forces their range down a bit (and thus, their accuracy at range as well), meaning you can still potentially engage a ship that is otherwise just barely kiting you.
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Well then i will amend the design. But first here is the Anti Missile Frigate i am currently monkeying around with.
Tomsk class Frigate 4 850 tons 165 Crew 1232 BP TCS 97 TH 198 EM 0
2041 km/s JR 3-50 Armour 1-25 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 1 PPV 10
Maint Life 0.81 Years MSP 159 AFR 188% IFR 2.6% 1YR 196 5YR 2942 Max Repair 315 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 15 months Spare Berths 1
Magazine 100
State Engineering Commune Escort Class Military Jump Drive Max Ship Size 5100 tons Distance 50k km Squadron Size 3
State Engineering Commune Escort Class Ion Drive (1) Power 198 Fuel Use 64.72% Signature 198 Exp 11%
Fuel Capacity 250 000 Litres Range 14.3 billion km (81 days at full power)
State Engineering Commune Anti-Missile Missile Launcher (10) Missile Size 1 Rate of Fire 10
State Engineering Commune Ship Missile Fire Control (2) Range 693.0m km Resolution 100
State Engineering Commune Basic Ship Sensor Suite (1) GPS 7560 Range 107.4m km Resolution 60
ECCM-1 (2) This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
What did i screw up here?
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The resolution of the sensor and fire controls should be 1. The magazine is quite small as well. You don't need ECCM, much less two.
I'm not sure 1200+ BP on a 4850 ton ship with 1 point of armor is a wise investment. For the same BPs my ion era AMM ships are twice the size, twice as fast, have 16 tubes and three times the magazine plus a quadruple gauss turret with 6 points of armor.
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The resolution of the sensor and fire controls should be 1. The magazine is quite small as well. You don't need ECCM, much less two.
I'm not sure 1200+ BP on a 4850 ton ship with 1 point of armor is a wise investment. For the same BPs my ion era AMM ships are twice the size, twice as fast, have 16 tubes and three times the magazine plus a quadruple gauss turret with 6 points of armor.
So small AMM ships and small missile ships are a waste of time in general then? Well then where should my AMM batteries and Gauss/Meson batteries be situated at on the size scale?
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So small AMM ships and small missile ships are a waste of time in general then? Well then where should my AMM batteries and Gauss/Meson batteries be situated at on the size scale?
The main problem is that your ship has no personal level of defense. There is no armor, meaning that warhead of 4 or larger hitting it at any point is going to fry the heck out of internal systems, and significantly larger means the entire ship can be gutted in one hit. They have no defense in speed, as they are within the targeting band of pretty much any threat you can expect to face. They have almost no defense in redundancy, because they're so darned expensive.
Due to their low deployment time, they make very poor escorts, as well. Probably a good idea to use more engineering spaces, as they're just big enough to be very inconvenient for carrying around in medium-small size carriers.
Now I see why they're so inefficient for their size even in spite of all the prior statements, they use jump drives.
I suggest building an isolated commercial design ship, with the military jump drive on board (military jump drives can be mounted on ships and still be considered commercial ships, yes, and military jump drives jump both commercial and military ships within their size). Make sure the commercial vessel is equal to size in it's jump rating, you can easily do this by filling in all the empty space in the design with fuel storage. Check it off as a tanker, and give it the Hull designation "Jump Tender", and have it accompany any naval task groups you're thinking of taking on invasion journeys, leaving it behind at the jump point for any risky situations.
Now that the jump drive has been removed from your military design, you now have a lot more tonnage space freedom to design your missile ship, at which point you can now add layers of armor, engineering spaces, a somewhat bigger and lower multiplier engine for fuel efficiency, etc. Especially now that you realize that it's probably efficient to make this ship bigger, up to 5,100 tons (if you don't know what else to add: more engineering spaces is usually the best default option to go with.)
Conclusion: Not burdening your military designs with jump drives makes assembling a large army much cheaper, and much more tonnage efficient.
Other than that, The resolution of the sensor and fire controls should be 1. The magazine is quite small as well. You don't need ECCM, much less two.
is very important as well.
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They're not necessarily a waste of time, but if I were to build a ship of this size and capability it would be roughly half the cost. I suspect your sensors are far larger than they should be unless the jump drive is very low tech. As it stands your ship is unable to engage missiles because the sensor resolution is too low, and even if it could it would have a very short life expectancy if it ever came under attack - it could deal with 10 smallish salvos then it would last about 5 seconds thanks to the armor. That's not a good use of so many BPs.
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No ship is a "waste of time" if it useful to you and fits into your fleet structure in a sensible way...or put another way it can fulfill its mission objectives. I can say that fitting lasers and counter missiles on a 4500 tonne ship proved to be problematic so I made two classes of heavy frigate sized "escorts" one with 6 counter missile tubes (Gargoyle class) and one with 2 laser turrets (Lake class). I don't consider them a "waste of time" but they are substantially cheaper than your designs which cost closer to my CLs.
The Gargoyles are in general use all over the place as they are added to any squadron or group that needs area anti-missile support. The Lakes are only used with heavy frigate squadrons at the moment but as the effectiveness of the DPPD array has increased I may start using them more and more. As well, there is both the London class that is armed with anti-ship lasers and is intended for jump point defence, they are also the fastest ships in the NCN and the Virtue class monitors which are also for jump point defence but are basicaly barely mobile forts with a combination of anti-shipping lasers and DPPD arrays.
Designing a ship is more about determining its mission than what systems it has. Once you have its mission clearly defined then what weapons and defences and speed and endurance and sensors etc falls into place. Aurora complicates that by forcing you to build those systems as well, and you can only do a good job of that by essentially trial and error (experience playing the game) or reading what mistakes other people make.
Believe me or not the design view populates itself once you have clear mission goals, a clear "strategic plan" and a good understanding of your constraints. "Strategic Plan" is those decision you as a player have to make from time to time..."my ships will use this weapon and that weapon", "my ships will have an endurance of x months", "my ships will have so much armour", etc These decisions influence strongly the design in a sense by setting up your boundry conditions. Constraints are things like your tech level, your developed technology, your ship yard capacity, your current mineral state or any other consideration that impacts the design in a negative sense based on the current state of your empire.
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Here's a quick example using fairly basic technology - the jump drive is efficiency 8, but a lower tech version could be accommodated for by dropping the speed.
Example class Escort 4 800 tons 127 Crew 728.6 BP TCS 96 TH 384 EM 0
4000 km/s JR 1-50 Armour 3-25 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 2 PPV 10
Maint Life 3.08 Years MSP 237 AFR 73% IFR 1% 1YR 37 5YR 561 Max Repair 105 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 6 months Spare Berths 2
Magazine 170
J4800(1-50) Military Jump Drive Max Ship Size 4800 tons Distance 50k km Squadron Size 1
Farrell & Barlow 192 EP Ion Drive (2) Power 192 Fuel Use 50.4% Signature 192 Exp 10%
Fuel Capacity 250 000 Litres Range 18.6 billion km (53 days at full power)
Traeger Techsystems Size 1 Missile Launcher (10) Missile Size 1 Rate of Fire 10
Joyce Research Missile Fire Control FC13-R1 (2) Range 13.9m km Resolution 1
Joyce Research Active Search Sensor MR11-R1 (1) GPS 105 Range 11.6m km MCR 1.3m km Resolution 1
This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
The magazine is still a little too small (I would drop some launchers for more magazines, actually), and there's no redundancy, but it's a workable design. I really suspect your problem is the sensors/FC.
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Aight redesigned the missile frigate and escort frigate.
Tomsk class Escort 4 700 tons 107 Crew 732.5 BP TCS 94 TH 396 EM 0
4212 km/s Armour 5-24 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 3 PPV 10
Maint Life 3.61 Years MSP 292 AFR 58% IFR 0.8% 1YR 35 5YR 518 Max Repair 99 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 15 months Spare Berths 0
Magazine 280
State Engineering Commune Escort Class Ion Drive (2) Power 198 Fuel Use 64.72% Signature 198 Exp 11%
Fuel Capacity 250 000 Litres Range 14.8 billion km (40 days at full power)
State Engineering Commune CIWS-160 (1x6) Range 1000 km TS: 16000 km/s ROF 5 Base 50% To Hit
State Engineering Commune Anti-Missile Missile Launcher (10) Missile Size 1 Rate of Fire 10
State Engineering Commune PD Missile Fire Control (2) Range 6.9m km Resolution 1
State Engineering Commune Ship PD Sensor Suite (1) GPS 42 Range 4.6m km MCR 503k km Resolution 1
This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
Baku class Missile Frigate 4 700 tons 140 Crew 861 BP TCS 94 TH 396 EM 0
4212 km/s Armour 5-24 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 3 PPV 24
Maint Life 3.68 Years MSP 343 AFR 58% IFR 0.8% 1YR 39 5YR 589 Max Repair 189 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 15 months Spare Berths 1
Magazine 114
State Engineering Commune Escort Class Ion Drive (2) Power 198 Fuel Use 64.72% Signature 198 Exp 11%
Fuel Capacity 250 000 Litres Range 14.8 billion km (40 days at full power)
State Engineering Commune Size 6 Missile Launcher (4) Missile Size 6 Rate of Fire 45
State Engineering Commune Ship Missile Fire Control (1) Range 34.7m km Resolution 100
Standard Missile Mk1 (33) Speed: 24 000 km/s End: 76.5m Range: 110.2m km WH: 9 Size: 6 TH: 128/76/38
State Engineering Commune Basic Ship Sensor Suite (1) GPS 7560 Range 107.4m km Resolution 60
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 did i break by refitting their doctrines to defensive/needing a jump tender?
EDIT: Adjusted some stuff to reduce BP costs.
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The escort is a bit light on maintenance life for what it is and I still think the fire control for the ASMs is vastly oversized for the missiles it's controlling and its sensor range.
Also, altho it is a valid design choice, I can't help but cringe at the paper-thin armor of the frigate, maybe consider scaling down the fire control a wee bit and add as much armor as possible?
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The escort is a bit light on maintenance life for what it is
smeg i forgot extra engineering spaces...alright fix'd.
and I still think the fire control for the ASMs is vastly oversized for the missiles it's controlling and its sensor range.
Right downsized.
Also, altho it is a valid design choice, I can't help but cringe at the paper-thin armor of the frigate, maybe consider scaling down the fire control a wee bit and add as much armor as possible?
Updated in the previous post.
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;D
Now you went a bit too far the other way. The ideal situation would be, if the range of the fire control and the missile range match. Where before, your fire control could steer missiles with 6 times the range of the ones you have, you now have a missile that can fly 3 times further than the fire control can "see".
Try to match them. 34m km for an ASM is mighty short, in my opinion. The way to go is usually to design the missile first, and then follow up with the fire control in order to match the range. What you can do, is make a fire control with a bit more range than the missile (altho not 6 times as much :P ) to account for advances in missile and engine technology without refitting a new fire control later.
So if your current missile is flying 110m klicks, you should either create a fire control with 110m km range, or go for one of about 150-200km for some margin of missile improvements. If your fire control is shorter ranged than the missile it's firing, you're giving away missile potential...and the further you can hold the range open, the better.
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Personally, I think the ships' ranges are too short. I believe that you will have a tanker with them but I usually design my ships so they can operate by themselves, when traveling from system to system, for at least 40b km.
For the AMM launchers, you probably want to hold off on them until you can fire them every 5 seconds. For the ASM, it may be worthwhile to do a reduced size launcher so you can fit more on the ship to get a denier salvo. For the numbers you could add to that size ship however, it wouldn't be a great improvement. But every missile counts as that one extra missile may be the one and only missile that makes it through in a salvo to hit an enemy ship.
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Okay, first off, congrats, you've made it to the ball park, now we just refine. :)
. . .
Snip
. . .
Now, there are still a few things that stand out to me.
Deployment:
Maint life: >3 years
Crew morale time: 15 months
Fuel capacity: 40 days
This is kinda odd to me, as personally I tend to try to keep these within an order of magnitude of each other.
Taking a slightly closer look, I can see that the MSP is about double the max repair, which is quite reasonable. But I would still likely bulk them out to 5k tons with fuel just so that they don't need to be glued to a tanker (I really don't like micro management, so why am I playing this again? >. >).
Sensors/Missile FC:
Your sensor resolution doesn't match your FC on the DG and the ranges are all over the place.
One really useful quirk of MFCs is that they have exactly 3x the range of a same size sensor, meaning that you can make them 1/3 the size and get identical ranges. Other useful formula for this:
Range reduction for small sized contacts is the square of the difference in size between sensor and contact. (for res 60 contacts your DG's FC has an effective range
of ~12M km before reductions due to ECM)
My advice for this is to design your FC at the range you want to fight at and then design your standard combat sensors at 3x the size. But I will say that personally I tend to use large thermal sensors for locating targets and only use actives for combat locks.
General:
CIWS - I don't use them at all on AMM ships. Most because the AI prioritises sensor ships and AMM ships have tiny sensor blips.
Magazines - 10. 75 offensive, 28 defensive volleys. Slightly light on the offensive, I think. In larger engagements you might find yourself running out of ammo, so be prepared to have colliers ready if you're going to do a major engagement with these.
Missile Volleys - Because no-one's mentioned this and in-case you haven't found this, the general rule-of-thumb is that the AI tends to use AMMs in multiples of 3 so volleys of 3x+1 are what I tend to aim for. (I don't know if this is still accurate or anything, but it gives something to design around. So, eh. )
And because I don't feel right saying this sorta stuff without opening myself to it, here's something from my all-tech screw-around game:
Doberman class Patrol Cruiser 25,000 tons 523 Crew 22154.15 BP TCS 500 TH 22 EM 18000
4400 km/s JR 3-50 Armour 10-76 Shields 600-300 Sensors 75/75/0/0 Damage Control Rating 36 PPV 69.75
Maint Life 3.97 Years MSP 9277 AFR 298% IFR 4.1% 1YR 939 5YR 14091 Max Repair 4400 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 18 months Spare Berths 1
Magazine 885
J25000(3-50) Military Jump Drive Max Ship Size 25000 tons Distance 50k km Squadron Size 3
2200 EP Photonic Drive (1) Power 2200 Fuel Use 10.15% Signature 22 Exp 11%
Fuel Capacity 5,250,000 Litres Range 372.4 billion km (979 days at full power)
Omega R300/360 Shields (40) Total Fuel Cost 600 Litres per hour (14,400 per day)
Quad R18/C3 Meson Cannon Turret (2x4) Range 180,000km TS: 138900 km/s Power 12-12 RM 18 ROF 5 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
Fire Control S02 175-100000 (2) Max Range: 350,000 km TS: 100000 km/s 97 94 91 89 86 83 80 77 74 71
Vacuum Energy Power Plant Technology PB-1 (6) Total Power Output 24 Armour 0 Exp 5%
Size 1 Missile Launcher (75% Reduction) (5) Missile Size 1 Rate of Fire 5
Size 6 Missile Launcher (5) Missile Size 6 Rate of Fire 15
Missile Fire Control FC162-R1 (5) Range 162.0m km Resolution 1
Missile Fire Control FC1984-R150 (1) Range 1,984.1m km Resolution 150
Aegis I-T (345) Speed: 294,000 km/s End: 0.5m Range: 8.5m km WH: 1 Size: 1 TH: 19306/11583/5791
Locust A-IX (20) Speed: 60,000 km/s End: 293.3m Range: 1105.8m km WH: 0 Size: 6 TH: 200/120/60
Cain CXXI - II (70) Speed: 55,000 km/s End: 45.8m Range: 151.2m km WH: 121 Size: 6 TH: 696/418/209
Active Search Sensor MR135-R1 (10%) (1) GPS 180 Range 135.0m km MCR 14.7m km Resolution 1
Active Search Sensor MR1653-R150 (10%) (1) GPS 27000 Range 1,653.4m km Resolution 150
Thermal Sensor TH1-75 (10%) (1) Sensitivity 75 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 75m km
EM Detection Sensor EM1-75 (10%) (1) Sensitivity 75 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 75m km
Compact ECCM-10 (8) ECM 100
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
Problems I immediately see:
Slow
ECCM on AMM firecontrols
Excessive turret speed
Stupidly expensive
And I'm sure there are others. Lots of others. And I'll stop rambling now.
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Alright sorry for taking so long to get back to this, ive had a frakking smegty couple of days and such. Now then questions.
Okay, first off, congrats, you've made it to the ball park, now we just refine. :)
WHEW LADDIE YEAH!!!! ;D
Deployment:
Maint life: >3 years
Crew morale time: 15 months
Fuel capacity: 40 days
This is kinda odd to me, as personally I tend to try to keep these within an order of magnitude of each other.
Taking a slightly closer look, I can see that the MSP is about double the max repair, which is quite reasonable. But I would still likely bulk them out to 5k tons with fuel just so that they don't need to be glued to a tanker (I really don't like micro management, so why am I playing this again? >. >).
I really cant see how to balance this out without horrifically bloating the design size to some number that might as well make the thing a Battleship, as well as murdering speed, all i really want out on this set of frigate designs are scouts/escorts/skirmishers. I mean i could cut morale time by a bit but then the ship is good for less and less long distance travel. I really don't want to have to rebuild a fleet in EVERY system, i thought that was what PDCs were for? ??? ???
Sensors/Missile FC:
Your sensor resolution doesn't match your FC on the DG and the ranges are all over the place.
Ok first, what does DG stand for?
One really useful quirk of MFCs is that they have exactly 3x the range of a same size sensor, meaning that you can make them 1/3 the size and get identical ranges.
Ok i will admit that IS very useful.
Other useful formula for this:
Range reduction for small sized contacts is the square of the difference in size between sensor and contact. (for res 60 contacts your DG's FC has an effective range
of ~12M km before reductions due to ECM)
Also useful, again my thanks.
My advice for this is to design your FC at the range you want to fight at and then design your standard combat sensors at 3x the size. But I will say that personally I tend to use large thermal sensors for locating targets and only use actives for combat locks.
Ok so what ARE these ranges i want to be fighting at? I mean i assume its max range for whatever weapons i manage to cobble together to prevent losses from the billions of missiles that will eventually be shot at me and such because from all of the chatter ive read about this game missiles are better than any of the laser weapons by a retarded margin and out of the laser weapons, the only good ones are the normal laser (best range and damage for that range) and the meson cannon (because it cheats and ignores armor/atmosphere making it amazing for killing SURPRISE ARMORED MISSILES!!, good for FAC bombers attacking huge ships with tons of armor, and as a PDC Point defense weapon). If this is the case why in the hell would i ever do anything but max range for the ALL THE MISSILES FOREVER combat? After all if i out-range my opponent, i can blow his fleet up and take no losses of my own, preserving fuel, combat experience on my boats, and resources that i DONT have to spend rebuilding those boats yes?
General:
CIWS - I don't use them at all on AMM ships. Most because the AI prioritises sensor ships and AMM ships have tiny sensor blips.
Magazines - 10. 75 offensive, 28 defensive volleys. Slightly light on the offensive, I think. In larger engagements you might find yourself running out of ammo, so be prepared to have colliers ready if you're going to do a major engagement with these.
Missile Volleys - Because no-one's mentioned this and in-case you haven't found this, the general rule-of-thumb is that the AI tends to use AMMs in multiples of 3 so volleys of 3x+1 are what I tend to aim for. (I don't know if this is still accurate or anything, but it gives something to design around. So, eh. )
I will totally give you the CIWS on AMM boats thing, i do now realize that i will have to just COAT my sensor boats in the things OFC. Now how do Volley work in this game, is a volley whenever the FC i have my Missile Launchers slaved to tells them to open fire or what? So if the optimal number of AMM Launchers per Missile FC is 3-5, then how do i make it so that i can optimally slave 6-10 Missile Launchers to my fire controls? Also those Magazine numbers where do i see them at? What is the ingame difference between an offensive volley vs a defensive volley?
And because I don't feel right saying this sorta stuff without opening myself to it, here's something from my all-tech screw-around game:
Horrifying rape beast that would break my sweet asshole in if i were to ever encounter it in my game.
Problems I immediately see:
Slow
ECCM on AMM firecontrols
Excessive turret speed
Stupidly expensive
Now i will assume that the whole slow and stupidly expensive thing go hand in hand so that is why you want to build specialized ships for specific roles, trying to build a ship that does everything makes a boat that is slow, VERY expensive and not amazing at any of the things you build onto it.
But why is ECCM on AMM FCs a bad thing? If the enemy missiles have ECM wont that make your AMM FCs not shoot them?
But no seriously thank you for the pointers and such.
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I really cant see how to balance this out without horrifically bloating the design size to some number that might as well make the thing a Battleship, as well as murdering speed, all i really want out on this set of frigate designs are scouts/escorts/skirmishers. I mean i could cut morale time by a bit but then the ship is good for less and less long distance travel. I really don't want to have to rebuild a fleet in EVERY system, i thought that was what PDCs were for? ??? ???
I don't see an issue with it. More fuel comes at a tonnage price and also increases demand für crew- and engineering spaces. It never ends. I think it's a decent ratio.
Ok first, what does DG stand for?
Probably DDG...guided missile destroyer. :P
Ok so what ARE these ranges i want to be fighting at? I mean i assume its max range for whatever weapons i manage to cobble together to prevent losses from the billions of missiles that will eventually be shot at me and such because from all of the chatter ive read about this game missiles are better than any of the laser weapons by a retarded margin and out of the laser weapons, the only good ones are the normal laser (best range and damage for that range) and the meson cannon (because it cheats and ignores armor/atmosphere making it amazing for killing SURPRISE ARMORED MISSILES!!, good for FAC bombers attacking huge ships with tons of armor, and as a PDC Point defense weapon). If this is the case why in the hell would i ever do anything but max range for the ALL THE MISSILES FOREVER combat? After all if i out-range my opponent, i can blow his fleet up and take no losses of my own, preserving fuel, combat experience on my boats, and resources that i DONT have to spend rebuilding those boats yes?
While yes, missiles are king...other weapons shouldn't be ignored. Energy platforms are useful not just as point defense, but also to kill merchant shipping, crippled enemies and almost more important than anything else: combat in a nebula, where missiles don't work.
As for the ranges: Design your missiles first. You can always scale the fire control via size, but with missiles you can't do that, assuming you want to stay at size 6, the minimum detection size. Once you have a satisfactory missile, design the fire control to go with it, plus some margin for missile range improvements. That will give you the most efficient results.
As for the other thing: you don't know if you WILL outrange your opponent until you actually face him. And if you're unlucky, you meet one of the spoilers. One of those will most assuredly outrange YOU by a fairly significant margin and the other might just completely negate your missile armament until it's much too late. Always keep a nice mix of armament in a fleet. If you realize you won't be able to bring your energy combatants to bear, you can still peel them off. But you can't just "magic" them in if they aren't there and you need them.
I will totally give you the CIWS on AMM boats thing, i do now realize that i will have to just COAT my sensor boats in the things OFC. Now how do Volley work in this game, is a volley whenever the FC i have my Missile Launchers slaved to tells them to open fire or what? So if the optimal number of AMM Launchers per Missile FC is 3-5, then how do i make it so that i can optimally slave 6-10 Missile Launchers to my fire controls? Also those Magazine numbers where do i see them at? What is the ingame difference between an offensive volley vs a defensive volley?
You don't really have to go HAM on the CIWS, one or two is enough. Your sensor boats should, theoretically, never need them. Assuming your actual area point defense holds. And if all the escorts are dead...well....the CIWS can buy you a few seconds until death, but no more than that. They're just for "leakers", really...single misisles, two a most, from a salvo that manage to squeeze through your PD.
Volleys. That simply refers to what you can fire at once, without reloads. It doesn't really matter how many launchers you slave to a FC. The point defense automatism will fire (or not fire) them as needed. The absolute optimum, of course, would be to match it to the enemy salvo size. But that varies dramatically, so it can't really be done, unless you have multiple FCs and lots of tubes so you can connect the launchers back and forth as needed. Lot's of micro and not really necessary, since the point defense will sort it out for you anyway, setting multiple FCs to target the same missile salvo if necessary.
There isn't really a difference between offensive and defensive, except of course, that defensive salvoes will be fired automatically, as much as needed for the detected threat.
The total magazine capacity is displayed in the ship design screen. The magazines themselves are counted, as well as each missile launcher (a size 6 launcher gives 6 points of magazine space, to fit a single size 6 missile, while a size 1 launcher only gives 1..and so on) You want to try and get it s that you have X number of full salvoes and don't end up with decreased loads. So if you have 10 size 1 launchers and a total mag capacity of 100, that's 10 full salvoes, assuming all launchers are fired. But if you have a magazine capacity of 95, that's 9 full salvoes and one weaker one at half strength. Each missile takes it's size in the magazines. So a size 6 missiles takes 6 points off the capacity, keep that in mind when designing magazines for ASM boats. With AMMs it's simpler, since they're size 1, making the storage calculation a lot simpler.
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What range you should aim for isn't set in stone.
If designing in a vacuum, you may want to go for whatever you can build efficiently, which means working out ratios and tech priorities. Your last missiles look fine for that.
Against a known opponent, you may not really care about optimisations to eke out 3m more range while keeping the other metrics identical... you care about hitting a goalpost (well outside their ASM range/AMM range/beam range).
Implementation can still vary in detail. Let's say you decide on "forget defences, I don't plan to get shot at". You could rely on missiles with 500m range and sophisticated sensors/fire controls, possibly supported by electronic warfare. Or you could deliver medium-range missiles with 150t fighters that will hopefully not be detected at their engagement range. Some risk of exposing yourself to AMM fire, but your big ships can keep even farther away.
Either way, you have considerable overhead for standoff range, and have to throw expensive ordnance against minor threats. You may instead decide to focus on beam point defence to weather enemy missiles, then mop up defenceless opponents with faster/longer-ranged beam ships once they have expended their ordnance. Supported by limited short-range missile capability to take out anything you expect to give you trouble at beam range. The important part is to know how you expect to fight... and when to deviate from your initial plan because it doesn't work against the current opposition.
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Well on the topic of extra helpings of missiles here is a good question(at least in my book). Are heavy missiles worth it? I dont mean like armored or whatever. Say i wanted three different sizes of missiles, an AMM, a size 6 ASM, and a missile that was probably larger than size 10 or so that dealt larger amounts of damage.
Would the third missile be a waste of resources or is it a good idea to have a missile like this? ???
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It depends on what you're shooting at.
They can be useful in singles against slow, undefended commercial ships, altho you might as well use energy weapons for those.
Against warships, you'd either have to volley the salvoes perfectly, so that the big ones arrive in time with smaller ones, or just use them against targets with no point or only little PD capability.
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Large missiles and beam weapons had a new change somewhat recently (in the currently released version of aurora, at least), called Shock Damage, which allows you to do damage straight through armor if the blast is big enough, even if it can't penetrate the sheer armor levels well enough.
http://aurorawiki.pentarch.org/index.php?title=Shock_Damage (http://aurorawiki.pentarch.org/index.php?title=Shock_Damage)
Beyond that, warhead considerations are a better approach than just simple, size, specifically, certain values of warhead have differing degree of penetration through armor. Warhead up to 3 will not damage internals through any previously undamaged armor, due to the fact that it's penetration depth is exactly 1. From 4 up to 8, that's a penetration depth of 2, 9 to 15 is 3, etc. I believe that the math is that the penetration depth is the square root of the damage dealt, rounded down. Engineering your missiles to have somewhat more penetration than the armor level of a particular ship can be exceptionally valuable against, say, a very large ship with otherwise moderate armor. If you're doing damage above the penetration, assuming the ship has no shields, it'll mean you do internal damage on every hit, whereas going under penetration means that (excluding shock damage) means that you'll need to hit roughly the same spot twice in a row to start damaging internal stuff.