Aurora 4x
VB6 Aurora => Bureau of Ship Design => Topic started by: obsidian_green on June 01, 2017, 10:30:51 PM
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Hello fellow players. Aurora's great. I would love feedback on my first warship design from my first game.
Whinny colonists on Mars and Luna kept demanding protection from non-existent threats and kept spamming the notifications of their rebelliousness and the subsequent restoration of order by garrison troops I landed to keep them in line, so I finished up some relevant techs, designed some ship components and threw this together to shut them up:
Troy class Area Defence Cruiser 12 000 tons 372 Crew 2935.6 BP TCS 240 TH 420 EM 240
5000 km/s Armour 5-46 Shields 8-375 Sensors 22/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 20 PPV 69.64
Maint Life 3.15 Years MSP 1529 AFR 115% IFR 1.6% 1YR 232 5YR 3482 Max Repair 525 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 18 months Spare Berths 0
600 EP Internal Fusion Drive (2) Power 600 Fuel Use 21% Signature 210 Exp 10%
Fuel Capacity 1 000 000 Litres Range 71.4 billion km (165 days at full power)
Delta R375/180 Shields (3) Total Fuel Cost 23 Litres per hour (540 per day)
Twin 12cm C4 Ultraviolet Laser Turret (2x2) Range 160 000km TS: 16000 km/s Power 8-8 RM 4 ROF 5 4 4 4 4 3 2 2 2 1 1
Twin R80t/C4 Meson Cannon Turret (2x2) Range 80 000km TS: 16000 km/s Power 8-8 RM 8 ROF 5 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 0 0
Twin Gauss Cannon R3-100 Turret (2x6) Range 30 000km TS: 16000 km/s Power 0-0 RM 3 ROF 5 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Fire Control S08 160-16000 (L12cm) (1) Max Range: 320 000 km TS: 16000 km/s 97 94 91 88 84 81 78 75 72 69
Fire Control S02 R32-TS16000 (1) Max Range: 64 000 km TS: 16000 km/s 84 69 53 37 22 6 0 0 0 0
Fire Control S04 R80k-TS16000 (1) Max Range: 160 000 km TS: 16000 km/s 94 88 81 75 69 62 56 50 44 38
Tokamak Fusion Reactor P8-50t (6) Total Power Output 48 Armour 0 Exp 5%
Active Search (PD) MR2mk-R50 (1) GPS 32 Range 2.6m km MCR 279k km Resolution 1
Thermal Sensor TH2-22 (SR) (1) Sensitivity 22 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 22m km
This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
My intention is to use a pair of these as area defense for one or more offensive ships, the easy option being a missile cruiser with only CIWS besides the missile loadout, but I also like the idea of a mothership for FAC as fast as missiles (have to play around with that idea to judge feasibility). A true carrier seems like a lot of work when I really need to figure out how to efficiently establish my first extrasolar colonies (have to design some tuggable Orbital Habitats and the tugs, faster 250000t cargo ships to get infrastructure and factories elsewhere . . . might even need more shipyards . . . takes forever, lol).
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I can't tell from your design, but your AFR seems pretty high for how many MSP you have. Which says to me that you used maintenance storage bays instead of engineering spaces. I think you should consider cutting some or maybe all of them in exchange for more engineering spaces. Engineering spaces provide MSP as well as lowering your AFR.
Your shields are anemic. They'll do almost no good. The only positive thing they'll do is prevent a single HPM hit from frying your sensors. But the second HPM hit will.
It is advisable to squeeze in one more layer of armor if you can. Because of the way damage templates work, 6 layers of armor is almost twice as hard to penetrate with a laser as 5. A laser that does 12 damage will penetrate 5 layers of armor in one hit, while it takes 21 (!!!) damage to penetrate 6 layers in one hit.
I like how much firepower you have. The lasers especially.
The Gauss turrets fire pretty slowly at R3, you may get a better RoF out of the same tonnage if you used railguns instead. Railguns fire faster than Gauss until your Gauss rate of fire tech is at R4.
I think you should build something else to keep colonists quiet though. Think a few small ships with relatively short deployment times, since they're never gonna be far from a population. Cheap parts too so they're easy to spam.
Oh, btw you don't need a shipyard for an orbital habitat. If it is commercial, has no engines, and has an orbital habitat module, your factories can build it. Look on the industry tab under "Build PDC". I just found this out today.
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Thanks!
10 engineering spaces. This is my first run, so I might be erring on the side of caution with the 18 month intended deployment and all that fuel (which should come in more than one tank now that I think about it). Maybe that's driving up the AFR?
I figured the scant shields would do what the aurora wiki suggested---take the edge off of high damage weapons, but I'll gratefully bow to experience and fiddle to get the armor up to what you suggest; I'll probably need to sacrifice either a weapons system or fuel to get me to my planned, 5000km fleet speed with this drive. I anticipate these Troy-class as TG missile defense and have built them first because scientist specialties pulled me this way. Planning on a missile cruiser to take out any attackers before they close into firing range.
My worry with railguns was the slow tracking speed since I can't turret them. I didn't figure the 4 shots vs. 3 would outweigh the targeting deficit. You're saying it does? Might I opt for a pair of 10cm twin-laser turrets instead, looking for a good 3-layer PD . . . those gauss turrets were heavy anyway.
Thanks about the Orbitals. I'm sure there's tons of important details I'm missing. I'd approach my entire start differently, given how it's played out. Was very slow with factory expansion and should have timed automine production to coincide with my survey of the Solar System. Wasted time building labs before expanding factories too and didn't know to add more academies to get the scientists I was missing . . . and when I got them my first SF and MK guys died pretty quickly on me. :(
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I like that the fire control speed and turret speed match. The fire control outranging the beams is a bit unusual, because it takes a LOT of research.
You have enough range so that versus some enemies, you will completely outrange them, and possibly be faster too. Or at least you can build specialized ships for that.
Among your research priorities should therefore be ECCM, so that your wonderful range advantage is not defeated by ECM.
Your point defense fire controls and tracking are a bit low. Missiles at your tech level are going to be in the 40k range, depending on boost technology. I myself went with fighters for my early PD needs, for the x4 tracking speed on fire control. Coupled with fighter combat officers, I figured a turreted 4x 1/12 sized gauss turret would be effective.
If the fighter bonus and grade bonus apply AFTER the 1/12 size penalty to accuracy, then each size 3.6 turret could be expected to take out 4-5 missiles.
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Thanks. The involved steps I supposed about using fighters scared me away. Having built survey and cargo ships, a warship design seemed like an easy jump and, since all my tech seemed best geared for PD, I went with that. I'm a little crestfallen that my tracking speed isn't adequate, since it exceeds some examples from the wiki . . . and since my shipyard just finished tooling up for the design, lol. I'm on the verge of fire-rate 4 gauss cannons, so I might retool the shipyard again before I finally lay down keels.
My long range fire control was intended for a 15cm laser, but when I designed the laser I found my capacitor rate didn't match the power requirement, so I couldn't use as I intended (assuming I got the right ideas from the wiki to begin with) for PD. I just used the already designed fire control (probably costing me HS, but I was juggling so many other new concepts, that slipped by me).
What I haven't yet figured out to my satisfaction are the priority hierarchy when designing---that fire control I built before the laser was probably a mistake, for instance. I need to build orbital habitats to establish my first extrasolar colony and a tug to haul them, but I have the dilemma of not wanting to design an Orbital too large to transport and not knowing how to design the tug without knowing how powerful it needs to be to get the payload where it needs to go.
(Never mind that I can't dedicate my factories to actually building the orbital components when I need to keep churning out automines before Earth runs out of duranium, lol . . . Aurora is great . . . all will be moot when the extraterrestrial nasties arrive to wipe me out while I'm muddling through all this stuff!)
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For a first warship, it's great!
1) Gauss cannons are slightly more effective than railguns against fast targets such as missiles at your tech level and ship speed: Including crew, power, differences in fire controls etc, weight between 2 railguns and 1 turreted Gauss barrel is a wash.
8 shots at 5000km/s vs. 3 at 16000km/s; I'd still favour railguns - much better aganst slow targets, may be cheaper.
2) Personally, I'd ditch the meson weapons unless you have a specific plan for them. They don't play well with anything else.
3) I'm not a fan of 12cm lasers, even if they are the best match for your capacitor tech... but seems to match your requriements.
4) You should be able to maintain performance and total size by halving your fuel load in favour of bigger, less stressed engines of the same power.
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Some things I don't actually consider mistakes:
a) Overengineered fire controls. It can act as a buffer against enemy ECM; while ECCM may be more cost-efficient, it goes to waste if the enemy doesn't field ECM while longer FC range improves accuracy either way.
b) Light shields over significant armour. Shields to prevent shock damage, and to avoid scratching the paint when occasional hits are expected, such as a gunnery duel at extreme range or the occasional leaker against missiles you can almost handle. The armour adds a much larger safety margin if things get ugly and is useful in nebula systems.
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I didn't consider the FCs a mistake, I just thought they were surprising, because I have seen errors the other way a LOT. Having longer ranged FCs means your long ranged fire will be accurate, which is kind of important.
Normally you don't see FC research a full tier (possibly two) ahead of the beam research.
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Please elaborate on the meson weapons problem. I'd love to save myself unnecessary headaches. I figured they'd help against armored missiles (per the wiki) and even at 1 dmg would be effective against incoming small missiles. If forced to brawl, they give me guaranteed 4 dmg regardless of enemy defenses.
Further reading suggests my layered ranges just aren't extensive enough to be effective (as three layers anyway), but I'm grateful for the practice it gave me in anticipation of future tech. I can expect those 12cm lasers to get two shots at 30,000km/s incoming, right? I figure I'll have to set the other two systems to Final Fire, since they will only get one shot at their ranges anyway---might as well be a higher percentage close one.
All that aside, here's my finalized design.
Troy class Area Defence Cruiser 12 000 tons 371 Crew 3012 BP TCS 240 TH 420 EM 540
5000 km/s Armour 6-46 Shields 18-375 Sensors 22/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 21 PPV 68.91
Maint Life 3.32 Years MSP 1726 AFR 104% IFR 1.5% 1YR 238 5YR 3564 Max Repair 525 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 18 months Spare Berths 1
600 EP Internal Fusion Drive (2) Power 600 Fuel Use 21% Signature 210 Exp 10%
Fuel Capacity 500 000 Litres Range 35.7 billion km (82 days at full power)
Delta R375/180 Shields (7) Total Fuel Cost 53 Litres per hour (1 260 per day)
Quad 12cm C4 Ultraviolet Laser Turret (1x4) Range 160 000km TS: 16000 km/s Power 16-16 RM 4 ROF 5 4 4 4 4 3 2 2 2 1 1
Quad R80t/C4 Meson Cannon Turret (1x4) Range 80 000km TS: 16000 km/s Power 16-16 RM 8 ROF 5 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 0 0
Quad Gauss Cannon R3-100 Turret (1x12) Range 30 000km TS: 16000 km/s Power 0-0 RM 3 ROF 5 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Fire Control S04 R80k-TS16000 (MCT) (1) Max Range: 160 000 km TS: 16000 km/s 75 70 64 60 55 49 44 40 35 30
Fire Control S08 160-16000 (UL12cmT) (1) Max Range: 320 000 km TS: 16000 km/s 77 75 72 70 67 64 62 60 57 55
Fire Control S02 R32-TS16000 (GCT) (1) Max Range: 64 000 km TS: 16000 km/s 67 55 42 29 17 4 0 0 0 0
Tokamak Fusion Reactor P8-50t (6) Total Power Output 48 Armour 0 Exp 5%
Active Search (PD) MR2mk-R50 (1) GPS 32 Range 2.6m km MCR 279k km Resolution 1
Thermal Sensor TH2-22 (SR) (1) Sensitivity 22 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 22m km
This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
I traded half the fuel load/range (which also allowed me to get a little fuel tank redundancy I wanted, but forgot, in the first attempt) and managed to get my armor levels up to 6 and get my shields up to 18. I fiddled with doubling my fire controls, so I could target each turret separately, but couldn't find enough weight-saving to retain my planned 5000km/s fleet speed, but that allowed me to recognize the weight-savings of quad turrets versus my double twins and add extra engineering space (and lower AFR) to get down to fleet speed. I'm losing some redundancy, but I can't have everything, lol.
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The problem with the mesons is that, just like your Gauss cannons, they only have enough range for one shot before the missiles hit. But unlike the Gauss cannons, they only fire 1 shot per gun per 5 second tick, while your Gauss cannons fire 3 per gun per tick. A meson turret can kill 4 missiles at most before they hit, a Gauss turret can kill 12.
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Mesons have neither the range of lasers nor the volume of fire of railguns or Gauss weapons. Against ships, 1 point of armour-piercing damage may or may not be better than 2-4 points of laser damage depending on the target... but mixing isn't very good:
If you add mesons to a mostly-laser armament, you'll inflict little damage before you burn through shields/armour anyway so you may as well use a weapon that gets there faster. If you add lasers to a mostly-meson armament, chances are they won't do anything before the mesons finish the fight.
Mesons have other capabilities, most of which don't matter: The AI doesn't use armoured missiles, PDCs, and from my experience they don't armour/shield their ships so heavily that they're worth it (one notable spoilery exception, but against that I prefer lasers for different reasons). Mesons are sometimes competitive by cost because their build cost doesn't scale with capacitor tech; not so relevant before capacitor-6 in my opinion.
Generally, railguns and Gauss cannons are more effective for PD than longer-ranged weapons; long-range area defence vessels are useful because they have the advantage of longer beam range and better armour penetration in beam-vs-beam combat. Gauss is your best PD option by tonnage, 10cm railguns are a compromise: competitive at PD on fast ships, and while they don't have range or armour penetrations they have decent firepower at short range.
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My intended battle group of two Troy class, a missile cruiser and a smaller surveillance ship (Agamemnon B and Albatross classes shared below) encountered hostiles in the system next door and managed to take out two separate fleets of 24 and 20 750-ton fast-attackers (~10,500 km/s). The Agamemnon seems to have done the lion's share of the work with it's ASMs and AMMs, but the Troy didn't hold up particularly well once the few remaining bogies managed to close within something like 50,000 km and open up with what I believe were railguns. In this engagement, the gauss turrets proved useless, but I designed this battle group with a different threat in mind . . . I still don't know if it would succeed against a missile attack, since my point defense setup was not tested. Here are my missile cruiser and surveillance frigate:
Agamemnon B class Missile Cruiser 15 200 tons 375 Crew 2703.6 BP TCS 304 TH 1520 EM 540
5000 km/s Armour 6-54 Shields 18-300 Sensors 28/80/0/0 Damage Control Rating 30 PPV 23
Maint Life 4.78 Years MSP 2168 AFR 94% IFR 1.3% 1YR 156 5YR 2341 Max Repair 380 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 18 months Spare Berths 0
Magazine 675
760 EP Internal Fusion Drive (2) Power 760 Fuel Use 18.6% Signature 760 Exp 10%
Fuel Capacity 750 000 Litres Range 47.8 billion km (110 days at full power)
Delta (2.5) R300/180 Shields (7) Total Fuel Cost 53 Litres per hour (1 260 per day)
CIWS-160/8 (4x8) Range 1000 km TS: 16000 km/s ROF 5 Base 50% To Hit
ML-S6-Mk2 Missile Launcher (ASM/45s) (3) Missile Size 6 Rate of Fire 45
ML-S1-50t Missile Launcher (AMM-1) (5) Missile Size 1 Rate of Fire 10
MFC-19m/2m-Res1t (AMM-1) (1) Range 19.1m km Resolution 1
MFC-201mk-R3000t (ASM-1) (1) Range 201.3m km Resolution 60
ASM-1 (42) Speed: 33 700 km/s End: 49.9m Range: 100.9m km WH: 12 Size: 6 TH: 191/114/57
AMM-1 R2.5mk (423) Speed: 61 200 km/s End: 0.7m Range: 2.5m km WH: 1 Size: 1 TH: 489/293/146
Active Search MR206mk-R4000t (1) GPS 16800 Range 206.6m km Resolution 80
Active Search (PD) MR2mk-R50 (1) GPS 32 Range 2.6m km MCR 279k km Resolution 1
Thermal Sensor TH2-28 (SR) (1) Sensitivity 28 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 28m km
EM Detection Sensor EM10-80 (1) Sensitivity 80 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 80m km
Missile to hit chances are vs targets moving at 3000 km/s, 5000 km/s and 10,000 km/s
This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
Albatross class Recon Frigate 8 000 tons 217 Crew 1738 BP TCS 160 TH 800 EM 540
5000 km/s Armour 6-35 Shields 18-300 Sensors 700/80/0/0 Damage Control Rating 9 PPV 0
Maint Life 3.21 Years MSP 1222 AFR 56% IFR 0.8% 1YR 179 5YR 2686 Max Repair 700 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 18 months Spare Berths 0
400 EP Internal Fusion Drive (2) Power 400 Fuel Use 24% Signature 400 Exp 10%
Fuel Capacity 500 000 Litres Range 46.9 billion km (108 days at full power)
Delta (2.5) R300/180 Shields (7) Total Fuel Cost 53 Litres per hour (1 260 per day)
Thermal Sensor TH50-700 (1) Sensitivity 700 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 700m km
EM Detection Sensor EM10-80 (1) Sensitivity 80 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 80m km
This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
As this battle group finished its engagement a second Agamemnon B and a pair of an improved class of area defense cruisers came off the docks. After fleet training I sent a battle group of my two missile cruisers, two of the new Salamis class, and the Albatross back to Proxima to engage the scary 60,000t, 600 shield-strength monster (which before I couldn't scratch with a few missile volleys before the second fleet of 20 fast attackers drove me off) . . . I now very much see the value in 15cm lasers over the 12cm variety in the old class. The engagement would have taken forever without four, 15cm quad-turrets. Gauss turrets still useless (didn't want to close within the same range those fast attackers managed to hurt me, which worked great), but they still haven't been tested against the intended threat.
Salamis class Area Defence Cruiser 15 200 tons 461 Crew 3881 BP TCS 304 TH 1520 EM 540
5000 km/s Armour 6-54 Shields 18-300 Sensors 28/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 30 PPV 84.14
Maint Life 5.32 Years MSP 3192 AFR 92% IFR 1.3% 1YR 189 5YR 2831 Max Repair 384 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 18 months Spare Berths 0
760 EP Internal Fusion Drive (2) Power 760 Fuel Use 18.6% Signature 760 Exp 10%
Fuel Capacity 750 000 Litres Range 47.8 billion km (110 days at full power)
Delta (2.5) R300/180 Shields (7) Total Fuel Cost 53 Litres per hour (1 260 per day)
Quad 15cm C6 Far Ultraviolet Laser Turret (2x4) Range 300 000km TS: 16000 km/s Power 24-24 RM 5 ROF 5 6 6 6 6 6 5 4 3 3 3
Twin Gauss Cannon R4-100 Turret (3x8) Range 40 000km TS: 16000 km/s Power 0-0 RM 4 ROF 5 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0
Fire Control S08 160-16000 (UL12cmT) (2) Max Range: 320 000 km TS: 16000 km/s 97 94 91 88 84 81 78 75 72 69
Fire Control S02 R32-TS16000 (GCT) (3) Max Range: 64 000 km TS: 16000 km/s 84 69 53 37 22 6 0 0 0 0
Tokamak Fusion Reactor P8-50t (6) Total Power Output 48 Armour 0 Exp 5%
Active Search (PD) MR2mk-R50 (1) GPS 32 Range 2.6m km MCR 279k km Resolution 1
Thermal Sensor TH2-28 (SR) (1) Sensitivity 28 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 28m km
This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
I welcome thoughts and advice on the designs and the doctrine. I recently finished research on the next engine tech and I'm working on a new generation of defenses; after upgrading weapons tech, I'll probably be looking to field an improved battle group with the same doctrine. I have a shipyard prepped to pump out a single 20,000t addition to my force, but I'm both leaning towards and shying away from (I designed and researched systems that I couldn't use and had to redesign) the notion of it being a carrier so I can specialize for mission. I could have used a high-powered microwave (for which I've done no research) on the big target at Proxima, where a faster enemy might have diced my fragile fleet, but it would have been a waste of space if I had only encountered the unshielded 750t ships.
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Albatross and Salamis look fine to me, I'm not so sure about Agamemnon.
- CIWS aren't very efficient on ships meant to operate with others, and with a homogenous fleet speed you probably want to bring some area defence cruisers along.
- One 3-missile salvo is very easily stopped by point defence; I'd look into reduced-sized launchers and field more of them.
- Sensor package seems excessive. I'd get rid of the Passives. Actually, I'd go one step further and put the EM sensor on a different sensor ship (smaller than the TH scout is fine - EM signatures tend to be either huge or neglegible).
- ASM range seems a little short for the fire control; lagging behind a bit is reasonable in light of ECM but half the range seems excessive. I'd rather turn down the resolution a little to have a reserve against smaller ships.
Generally, I think you're better off fielding a leaner, more powerful warship. Eliminate optional components/reloads if you don't need them, put them on supporting vessels if you do.
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Unless you are sure you are going to use these ships separately, other ones than the sensor ship should be good with just size 1 reserve sensors.
Generally I would say you should concentrate on the sensor techs in the near future. It is noticeably starting to lag behind other branches. If I read it right, you have Gaus at 4 shots/5s while passive sensors at strength 8. Otherwise, some nice ships.
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Speaking of sensors, don't forget that improving your EM sensor tech will also improve your active sensors.
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Albatross and Salamis look fine to me, I'm not so sure about Agamemnon.
Dunno. In my only action thus far, it was just a single Agamemnon that saved the day, with a Troy twice getting knocked out of action. It might be a stinker against future threats, but it's exceeded expectations thus far.
At the time I placed the CIWS, the Agamemnon had a larger signature than the pair of Troy area-defense cruisers that went with it, so I figured it would draw enemy targeting . . . saved space to use CIWS instead of full gauss turrets. The Salamis-class replacements are as massive, but the hostiles defied my expectations anyway by targeting a Troy, so I'll bear CIWS-appropriateness in mind in the future.
Three-missile salvos aren't enough even if they're good missiles? The missile-designer app (that thing's great!) led me to believe they'd do decently against faster PD tracking speeds than my own and that at least half should get through. I've produced 9-dmg versions with a better hit-chance, but I wanted to expend the older models first.
Everyone seems to be in agreement about my sensor kerfuffle . . . some combination of going a little redundancy-crazy or being unsure of ship roles down the line led me there. Next-generation warships should be more efficient on that front if I can get over my hang ups. I'm very inclined to go with Detros's suggestion of size-1 reserve sensors . . . I don't know if I can stomach an individual ship being completely blind. Sensor tech improvements are definitely on my docket (EM sensitivity already bagged and corresponding strength improvement is coming up after a tracking speed improvement).
What I've found, and might be willing to accept, are the fragility of these designs. If anything big or numerous gets in close with rapid fire weapons they'll probably tear up the entire battle group. Just two or three, likely damaged, 750t attackers managed to twice knock out an area defense cruiser, but my intended doctrine had always been to engage at greater range and stop all incoming---I would have fared perfectly in my running engagements if I had two of the missile cruisers, as I now deploy. Attackers capable of closing and out-ranging my own beams will probably be great trouble, but I'm hoping nothing that fast will be durable enough to survive my missile attack.
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I now noted your ASM suite on Agamemnon has active radar of resolution 80 while fire controls are resolution 60. You can probably turn both bit down as your ASMs have range of only 100M km while these two sensors have range 200M km. Unless you have sensors on those missiles, having greater range active radar is fine but fire controls need to see the target only while firing so you should match them with missile range. And the different resolution of MFC and AS can lead to confusion when you see a target only on one of those.
Everyone seems to be in agreement about my sensor kerfuffle . . . some combination of going a little redundancy-crazy or being unsure of ship roles down the line led me there. Next-generation warships should be more efficient on that front if I can get over my hang ups. I'm very inclined to go with Detros's suggestion of size-1 reserve sensors . . . I don't know if I can stomach an individual ship being completely blind. Sensor tech improvements are definitely on my docket (EM sensitivity already bagged and corresponding strength improvement is coming up after a tracking speed improvement).
I am putting 1 size TH+EM sensors on nearly everything, even commercial ships (you know, they are needed for traffic control). Every ship with guns (except CIWS-only ones) gets reserve ASM active sensor. BFCs are doubled as are other military systems. Scouts and sensor ships get full suite of active sensors and TH+EM of size 4. Sensor platforms and PDC can go to size 10 or so. I don't like the big size (50) sensors as they make seeing just too easy, are expensive to research, take sooo much space and you get reeeally blind if you somehow lose them. No "spinal sensors" for me.
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It may be good practice to give major warships enough sensors to be tactically self-sufficient... a size-1 resolution-1 active for most, coarser resolution for primary missile attackers.
Sometimes I didn't even do that, and put various size-1 sensors on a civilian auxiliary ship along with some fuel, cryogenic transport etc, or rely on long-endurance scout fighters which have some advantages (less likely to be shot at, can do some scouting without annoying the neighbours too much).
Tbh, none of this matters much for a small navy. But as you field more ships, it pays to formulate a design doctrine that gives you the flexibility and redundancy you want without undue cost/duplication.
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Here are the successor designs, an opportunity to see if I'm learning my lessons here. :)
Missile Cruiser Project class Missile Cruiser 20 000 tons 568 Crew 5380.52 BP TCS 400 TH 4000 EM 1800
10000 km/s Armour 6-65 Shields 60-240 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 43 PPV 78.4
Maint Life 5.19 Years MSP 5549 AFR 96% IFR 1.3% 1YR 343 5YR 5148 Max Repair 1000 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 12 months Flight Crew Berths 17
Hangar Deck Capacity 1000 tons Magazine 632
2000 EP Magnetic Fusion Drive (2) Power 2000 Fuel Use 48.57% Signature 2000 Exp 16%
Fuel Capacity 1 500 000 Litres Range 27.8 billion km (32 days at full power)
Theta S4-RC240/288 Shields (15) Total Fuel Cost 180 Litres per hour (4 320 per day)
Triple Gauss R4-100/TS25000 Turret (2x12) Range 40 000km TS: 25000 km/s Power 0-0 RM 4 ROF 5 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0
FC S02 R48k-TS25000 (Gauss Turret) (2) Max Range: 96 000 km TS: 25000 km/s 90 79 69 58 48 38 27 17 6 0
ML S6-RL150s (50% Reduction) (8) Missile Size 6 Rate of Fire 150
S1-RL6 (AMM) Missile Launcher (8) Missile Size 1 Rate of Fire 5
MFC-32/3.5mk-R50t (AMM-2) (2) Range 32.3m km Resolution 1
MFC-173mk-R4000t (ASM-2) (4) Range 173.9m km Resolution 80
Active Search (PD) MR6mk/AM705k-R1 (1) GPS 36 Range 6.5m km MCR 706k km Resolution 1
Active Search MR350mk-R4000t (1) GPS 22400 Range 350.6m km Resolution 80
This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
First ship in class very likely to be the Sun Tzu and I'm glad I decided to post because I could probably stand to mount a smaller active long range sensor, which just needs to be strong enough for the ship to use its ASMs. The Julu class area defense cruisers also have yet to be officially named:
Point Defence Cruiser Project class Area Defence Cruiser 20 000 tons 650 Crew 7188.6 BP TCS 400 TH 4000 EM 1200
10000 km/s Armour 6-65 Shields 40-240 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 43 PPV 110.6
Maint Life 5.69 Years MSP 7414 AFR 96% IFR 1.3% 1YR 388 5YR 5819 Max Repair 1000 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 12 months Flight Crew Berths 18
Hangar Deck Capacity 1000 tons
2000 EP Magnetic Fusion Drive (2) Power 2000 Fuel Use 48.57% Signature 2000 Exp 16%
Fuel Capacity 1 500 000 Litres Range 27.8 billion km (32 days at full power)
Theta S4-RC240/288 Shields (10) Total Fuel Cost 120 Litres per hour (2 880 per day)
Quad 15cm C6/TS25000 Far UV Laser Turret (2x4) Range 300 000km TS: 25000 km/s Power 24-24 RM 5 ROF 5 6 6 6 6 6 5 4 3 3 3
Triple Gauss R4-100/TS25000 Turret (3x12) Range 40 000km TS: 25000 km/s Power 0-0 RM 4 ROF 5 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0
FC S08-R240k-TS25000 (FUV Turret) (2) Max Range: 480 000 km TS: 25000 km/s 98 96 94 92 90 88 85 83 81 79
FC S02 R48k-TS25000 (Gauss Turret) (3) Max Range: 96 000 km TS: 25000 km/s 90 79 69 58 48 38 27 17 6 0
P10-S1 Magnetic Confinement Fusion Reactor (5) Total Power Output 50 Armour 0 Exp 5%
Active Search (PD) MR6mk/AM705k-R1 (1) GPS 36 Range 6.5m km MCR 706k km Resolution 1
This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
I have yet to design the primary surveillance ship that will accompany the two pairs of these in my battle groups, but the carrier/flagship/jumpship is nearly designed ... just waiting on scientists to finish designing a 40,000t military jump drive. At present, I can manage 10,000t of hangar space, but I may have to trim that down to fit some CIWS, some reserve sensors, or more shields. My missile-armed strikefighters weigh in at just under 250t, so I can manage 16 of them and 1000t of auxillary (probably sensor) craft with half that space. I've designed interceptors at ~300t, but I debate whether two squadrons of 6 fighters is worth that space when the battle group's escorts are so strong in point defense already and the carrier needs a few extra systems of its own.
Spacecraft Carrier Project class Carrier 34 500 tons 1022 Crew 7700.4 BP TCS 690 TH 8000 EM 1200
11594 km/s Armour 6-94 Shields 40-240 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 110 PPV 0
Maint Life 8.34 Years MSP 13950 AFR 95% IFR 1.3% 1YR 357 5YR 5358 Max Repair 1000 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 12 months Flight Crew Berths 120
Flag Bridge Hangar Deck Capacity 10000 tons
2000 EP Magnetic Fusion Drive (4) Power 2000 Fuel Use 48.57% Signature 2000 Exp 16%
Fuel Capacity 3 000 000 Litres Range 32.2 billion km (32 days at full power)
Theta S4-RC240/288 Shields (10) Total Fuel Cost 120 Litres per hour (2 880 per day)
Active Search (PD) MR6mk/AM705k-R1 (1) GPS 36 Range 6.5m km MCR 706k km Resolution 1
This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
Thanks for having a look and double that for all the great advice.
EDIT: Almost forgot, my Gauss turrets don't seem to be working on those previous ADCs, so I should probably mention that here (I've posted about it, specifically, in the Academy sub-forum) in case someone notices what might be wrong before I start building these (hopefully) beauties. I doubt it's a combat interface/assignment/PD setup issue because the range indicator radius doesn't display on the System Map; I don't think it's a design issue either, but maybe someone sees something I missed?
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Your AMM fire control way outranges your Missile Detection Range.
Your ships don't have a lot of range and the boosted engines will make it difficult to build tankers that can keep up.
You don't need sensors on your carrier.
Don't forget to put magazines on your carrier if you want to reload fighters.
You should probably have some electronic warfare systems.
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Your AMM fire control way outranges your Missile Detection Range.
Your ships don't have a lot of range and the boosted engines will make it difficult to build tankers that can keep up.
You don't need sensors on your carrier.
Don't forget to put magazines on your carrier if you want to reload fighters.
You should probably have some electronic warfare systems.
Thanks. Primary missile detection will be on that sensor ship I haven't yet designed. The sensor on the cruiser is just a backup in case things go bad for my recon ship ... I just hope my AMM has at least 20 mil km range and I didn't revise my design decision (but I think I built the missile first, so I should be okay there).
My engines should be only modestly boosted, I certainly didn't go over 1.5; I read somewhere around here that x1.00 engines were inefficient and EP should be either above or below that (hope the extra 0.5 isn't overboard). In order to retain the capabilities and fleet speed I desired, I needed to trade range, but I figure 28 billion km was enough when I was never pressed to use anywhere close to the 47 billion km range of my rangiest previous designs. My un-designed tankers can take their time as long as I still have enough fuel to conduct operations at destination ... fleet can even keep speed with slower tankers and top off just before entering a contested system if I need to. I guess I'm saying it was a choice (hopefully not a bad one) rather than an oversight.
I'm intending to mount small sensors on every capital ship, enough to use their systems if primary recon goes down. If things go bad, possible PD fighters might need the carrier's emergency actives to defend it and the carrier itself might need it if I find room for a gauss turret or two (none of which seem to be working in my game anyway---they don't even display max weapon range, which makes me suspect it isn't a Combat Assignments problem on my part).
I haven't forgotten the carrier's mags, but the reminder is welcome, just in case I do forget it when it really counts, lol. I'm waiting for the jump drive to come off the drawing board so I can see how much space I have to work with. I might opt for custom size magazines, depending on what I have to give up and still meet my tonnage goal.
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My engines should be only modestly boosted, I certainly didn't go over 1.5; I read somewhere around here that x1.00 engines were inefficient and EP should be either above or below that (hope the extra 0.5 isn't overboard).
That might have been me, and stems from engine costs scaling: quadratically below 1.0, linear above. If 1.0 is reasonable for our speed/range requirement, 0.85 or 0.9 often saves fuel and BP; ship slightly larger for the same capability, but cheaper.
That is a very local phenomenon though. The numbers put your engines at 50Hs and 1.6 power. That is rather stressed. Using 30% of your engine weight in fuel as in your cruisers is about the most performance you can cram into a given tonnage (theoretical optimum is 40%, for almost no measurable increase), with no consideration of fuel efficiency.
While it would result in individually less capable ships at 20000t, I'd probably be happier with 4x 0.8 power engines and building more of them.
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That might have been me, and stems from engine costs scaling: quadratically below 1.0, linear above. If 1.0 is reasonable for our speed/range requirement, 0.85 or 0.9 often saves fuel and BP; ship slightly larger for the same capability, but cheaper.
That is a very local phenomenon though. The numbers put your engines at 50Hs and 1.6 power. That is rather stressed. Using 30% of your engine weight in fuel as in your cruisers is about the most performance you can cram into a given tonnage (theoretical optimum is 40%, for almost no measurable increase), with no consideration of fuel efficiency.
While it would result in individually less capable ships at 20000t, I'd probably be happier with 4x 0.8 power engines and building more of them.
Thanks. I guess that 1.5 number was a goalpost I shifted to get to even fleet speed while retaining my tonnage, which shouldn't have been the hard limit I imposed on myself when that only matters for the jump-carrier.
If I have a spare PP scientist (my top gal is still working on the jump drive) that can get new engine designs out close to the time the jump drive comes off the drawing board, I may redesign and maybe get a little more range in the bargain ... probably at the cost of cutting even more hangar space from my poor carrier and adding another six-or-more months of shipyard work. Starting to get nervous that something nasty is going to pop into the Solar System while my only functional battle group is off playing with the neighbors . I have to first finish up a fight over some alien wreckage that's now eating my attention before I can make sound build decisions. :D
If not these, then my next generation of warships will definitely be informed by your engine advice.
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The missile cruiser has quite small volleys. AI PD is pretty weak usually, but you could still have trouble scoring hits. I think you've got your fire controls backwards; there isn't much reason to have so many anti-ship FC's, while you could use two more AMM FC's. 2-3 AMM launchers per AMM FC is usually smart.
You may get better final defensive fire coverage from having more Gauss turrets, but making them smaller. As it is, you can only target 2 missile salvos at a time. Your GC's can theoretically kill 24 missiles in FDF, assuming they're all in 2 or fewer salvos. But worst case scenario is when they're all in individual salvos, in which case 22 will make it through FDF.
Not sure you really need a dedicated sensor ship given the fact that you have such powerful actives. For example, if your missile cruiser was at the sun, you could detect a 4000 ton nearly at Jupiter.
That jump engine is going to take an eternity to research and is going to cost a fortune to build.
I like the ADC aside from that minor point about the GC turrets.
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The missile cruiser has quite small volleys. AI PD is pretty weak usually, but you could still have trouble scoring hits. I think you've got your fire controls backwards; there isn't much reason to have so many anti-ship FC's, while you could use two more AMM FC's. 2-3 AMM launchers per AMM FC is usually smart.
My ASM design philosophy was to overwhelm enemy FCs rather than overwhelming the PD weapons themselves; is that a mistake? I haven't yet faced enemy missile attacks that needed more than one AMM fire control and I thought I might be overly cautious in fitting that second one in this design, lol.
You may get better final defensive fire coverage from having more Gauss turrets, but making them smaller. As it is, you can only target 2 missile salvos at a time. Your GC's can theoretically kill 24 missiles in FDF, assuming they're all in 2 or fewer salvos. But worst case scenario is when they're all in individual salvos, in which case 22 will make it through FDF.
I don't intend these ships for independent operations, certainly don't plan on sending any into combat individually. So final fire coverage for a battle group with pairs of the cruisers would be a total of 10x3 GC turrets facing salvos likely already weakened by 4 (at present, you say I need more) AAM FCs, 4x4 15cm laser turrets, and maybe 6-9 fighters each armed with 2 reduced-sized GCs at 25% accuracy.
Not sure you really need a dedicated sensor ship given the fact that you have such powerful actives. For example, if your missile cruiser was at the sun, you could detect a 4000 ton nearly at Jupiter.
That jump engine is going to take an eternity to research and is going to cost a fortune to build.
I like the ADC aside from that minor point about the GC turrets.
I probably should scale down the actives to the range of the ASM. I might have been conflating the benefits of over-ranged FCs with active sensor requirement (and maybe that only apply to beams anyway?) or I might have been trying to get good mid-resolution range without designing a dedicated sensor for the purpose---both thoughts crossed my mind every time I designed a LR active and I don't remember which choice I went with. I haven't yet designed a fleet surveillance ship, so I may need to rethink doctrine. 350m km actives get me halfway to Jupiter, which might be overkill as you say and too much to be repeated on two ships if I dedicate one to that purpose instead and scale back the cruiser actives to the ~173m km range of my ASM FCs (the missiles themselves range at 150m km, iirc).
40,000t carrier needs a jump engine that gets the job done, and since smaller ships can't jump bigger it has to go on the carrier. That design crept up in size from an initial plan for a 30,000t carrier, but my "definite" (since I may be revising after forgetting to account for magazine space) requirements of 10,000km/s fleet speed and 10,000t of hangar space required a much more massive ship. I tell myself that's going to be my warship-size limit, but we'll see, lol.
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40,000t carrier needs a jump engine that gets the job done, and since smaller ships can't jump bigger it has to go on the carrier. That design crept up in size from an initial plan for a 30,000t carrier, but my "definite" (since I may be revising after forgetting to account for magazine space) requirements of 10,000km/s fleet speed and 10,000t of hangar space required a much more massive ship. I tell myself that's going to be my warship-size limit, but we'll see, lol.
The option I have seen others mentioned several times and which I have myself used too is to have one big ship with sensor and jump engine with only self defence capabilities while you have multiple same sized ships bristling with guns or with hangar space. That way those combatants don't get bogged with size of jump engines. For Sun fleet (http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=9404) from my previous game of Pentagram I went step further and separated sensor and tender ship. In current Trisabria I have cruisers (15kt) and destroyers (7.5kt) with guns, frigates (3750t) with sensors and so far no separate military tender, only pack of gatebuilders and combined mili+civ jump tenders.
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The option I have seen others mentioned several times and which I have myself used too is to have one big ship with sensor and jump engine with only self defence capabilities while you have multiple same sized ships bristling with guns or with hangar space.
I might have considered that option, but I had already exceeded 30,000t for the carrier because of the speed and hangar space requirements I imposed, though I'll be breaking my hangar space requirement in favor of magazine capacity I forgot to include. My hard limit is the 5,000t I need for 16 strikefighters (20, if I can get their tonnage down to 200 at the next level of engine tech) and 1000t of sqaudron support craft, but I'd like another 5,000 tons of flexibility, especially if I find my strike squadron needs protection. I've got a 6 ship limit to squadron-jump at present, so no secondary escort carrier can tag along without I break doctrine.
My doctrine requires my carrier to be defended by pairs of the cruiser designs I posted and that jump drive might as well be carried on the ship receiving the most defense rather than on a ship whose actives might draw enemy fire. If I ever find myself suddenly biting off far more than I ever hoped of chewing (missile volleys with a salvo number per volley vastly exceeding my FCs, for instance), I'm detaching that surveillance ship and sending it one direction while the rest of the TG runs for their lives.
One thing that isn't reflected in my ship designs and is turning out to be a problem is my ordnance loadout. I'm in a (probably relatively at 5 jumps from Sol) distant fight and I've run out of ASMs. I sent my "old" Agamemnon B-class missile cruisers out with 42/423 ASM/AMM loadout (it's a pair of them, so 84 total ASMs), so I'm now empty on my ASMs and I still have over 600 AMMs between the two of them ... the TG PD has been performing so well, I disabled the AMMs after wasting a couple hundred. Now wishing I had been less fearful of enemy missile attack.
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Jeez, after reading these i dont know if my warships are super effective or super inefficient. My cruisers start at 40kt and my first fielded ship was a 56kt cruiser haha. Also. My first batch of dighters are periodically crashing and killing all my officers. I was under the impression that they would stat docked on the planet but is that not the case? Btw i started playing yesterday and went in balls deep. First go.
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Size in itself has nothing to do with that.
At comparable tech level and expenditure on my navy, I've mass-produced cheap 100.000t designs in one game and fielded fewer 12000t-designs with a higher unit cost and far greater logistics burden in another.
And I was equally satisfied with either.
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Jeez, after reading these i dont know if my warships are super effective or super inefficient. My cruisers start at 40kt and my first fielded ship was a 56kt cruiser haha. Also. My first batch of dighters are periodically crashing and killing all my officers. I was under the impression that they would stat docked on the planet but is that not the case? Btw i started playing yesterday and went in balls deep. First go.
I too am on my first play ... and it seems this game doesn't have a shallow end of the pool. It's great.
You need a hangar to house those fighters (a PDC will work), designate whatever sports the hangar as a mothership (may or may not be necessary, three "landing" orders seem similar), and you'll need to "land" those fighters or they will fall apart on you fairly quickly, based on what I read before I started designing mine.
Those last designs were tweaked again before I began shipyard retooling, helped by a new armor tech that bought me weight savings and extended all ships to 38 days of full burn, but the biggest change is that my carrier will just have to do without a jump drive. I've designed a dedicated, fleet speed jump tender for the purpose and kept my full, intended 10,000t of hangar space and added 1152 in magazine capacity (maybe I designate the carrier as collier since 36 attacks of 16x3 fighters might be excessive?).
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Size in itself has nothing to do with that.
At comparable tech level and expenditure on my navy, I've mass-produced cheap 100.000t designs in one game and fielded fewer 12000t-designs with a higher unit cost and far greater logistics burden in another.
And I was equally satisfied with either.
I currently have 4 fuel harvester bases in different systems, each one weighing in at just over 1 million tons.
Tugging them to their destination took years.
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Ah. Well i mass produced like 500 fighters so i could stick them in my carriers that were being built. But that save crashed anyhow. On a second play through and as long as no one is flying them they seem content enough to stay "landed" im on mobile so i cant post my designs atm but i would be welcome to some criticism on my designs.
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Okay. So here is what turned out to be the final design of my first carrier, which is now loaded with craft and is carrying out trials/task force training:
Africa (Spacecraft Carrier) class Carrier 40 000 tons 1181 Crew 8566.58 BP TCS 800 TH 8000 EM 1200
10000 km/s Armour 6-104 Shields 40-240 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 130 PPV 0
Maint Life 9.79 Years MSP 16060 AFR 106% IFR 1.5% 1YR 303 5YR 4551 Max Repair 1000 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 12 months Flight Crew Berths 85
Flag Bridge Hangar Deck Capacity 10000 tons Magazine 864
2000 EP Magnetic Fusion Drive (4) Power 2000 Fuel Use 48.57% Signature 2000 Exp 16%
Fuel Capacity 3 545 000 Litres Range 32.8 billion km (38 days at full power)
Theta S4-RC240/288 Shields (10) Total Fuel Cost 120 Litres per hour (2 880 per day)
CIWS-25000 (8x5s) (4x8) Range 1000 km TS: 25000 km/s ROF 5 Base 50% To Hit
Active Search (PD) MR6mk/AM705k-R1 (1) GPS 36 Range 6.5m km MCR 706k km Resolution 1
Strike Group
24x C/A-1 Adder Attack Craft Speed: 17281 km/s Size: 4.34
12x C/F-3 Arafura Interceptor Speed: 25252 km/s Size: 5.94
3x C/RC-2 Anhinga Fast Scout Craft Speed: 38265 km/s Size: 7.84
This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
And the specs for its craft complement:
C/A-1 Adder class Attack Craft 217 tons 1 Crew 75.2 BP TCS 4.34 TH 75 EM 0
17281 km/s Armour 1-3 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 0 PPV 2.7
Maint Life 0 Years MSP 0 AFR 43% IFR 0.6% 1YR 4 5YR 64 Max Repair 37.5 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 0.1 months Spare Berths 3
Magazine 18
75 EP (x3) Magnetic Fusion Drive (1) Power 75 Fuel Use 462.98% Signature 75 Exp 30%
Fuel Capacity 10 000 Litres Range 1.8 billion km (28 hours at full power)
Box Launcher S6-HR45 (3) Missile Size 6 Hangar Reload 45 minutes MF Reload 7.5 hours
MFC RN30mk-R3000t (FTR) (1) Range 30.1m km Resolution 60
ASM-SR-1 (S6, WH16, R29.8k) (3) Speed: 54 700 km/s End: 9.1m Range: 29.8m km WH: 16 Size: 6 TH: 364/218/109
Missile to hit chances are vs targets moving at 3000 km/s, 5000 km/s and 10,000 km/s
This design is classed as a Fighter for production, combat and maintenance purposes
C/F-3 Arafura class Interceptor 297 tons 3 Crew 150.9 BP TCS 5.94 TH 150 EM 0
25252 km/s Armour 1-3 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 0 PPV 3
Maint Life 0 Years MSP 0 AFR 59% IFR 0.8% 1YR 16 5YR 241 Max Repair 75 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 0.1 months Spare Berths 1
150-F EP(x3) Magnetic Fusion Drive (1) Power 150 Fuel Use 458.3% Signature 150 Exp 30%
Fuel Capacity 5 000 Litres Range 0.7 billion km (7 hours at full power)
Gauss Cannon R4-S1.5-AC25 (2x4) Range 40 000km TS: 25252 km/s Accuracy Modifier 25% RM 4 ROF 5 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0
FC S0.5 R48k-TS25000 (FTR) (1) Max Range: 96 000 km TS: 25000 km/s 90 79 69 58 48 38 27 17 6 0
This design is classed as a Fighter for production, combat and maintenance purposes
C/RC-2 Anhinga class Fast Scout Craft 392 tons 4 Crew 264.4 BP TCS 7.84 TH 300 EM 0
38265 km/s Armour 1-4 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 0 PPV 0
Maint Life 8.77 Years MSP 105 AFR 4% IFR 0.1% 1YR 2 5YR 37 Max Repair 99 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 0.1 months Spare Berths 0
150-F EP(x3) Magnetic Fusion Drive (2) Power 150 Fuel Use 458.3% Signature 150 Exp 30%
Fuel Capacity 25 000 Litres Range 2.5 billion km (18 hours at full power)
Active Search MR178mk-R100 (36/18) (1) GPS 9900 Range 178.2m km Resolution 100
This design is classed as a Fighter for production, combat and maintenance purposes
I've reclassified hulls, so my 20,000t ships will be max size for destroyers (frigates up to 15,000t). I'm reconsidering my present designs in favor of maximizing them for their roles. An area defense missile ship really needs to sport those AMM launchers, which my present design does not---I've been spreading limited capability over multiple ships rather than maximizing capability for a role, then adding secondary capability like anti-ship ... a consequence of the limited enemies I've faced and building escorts before seeing firsthand the offensive potential of a carrier strike element. 3xASM salvos as reserve capability (with 24 reloads instead of 48) should be sufficient if these are going to be carrier escorts rather than independent operators. I'll need dedicated strike cruisers/destroyers if I want them to be more effective against targets defending themselves with 48xAMM salvos, but I wonder if I should bother when I can get 24 separate 3xASM salvos from a carrier's attack craft.
I might now be in the market for cruisers up to 30,000t, but I need those construction brigades to hurry up and build me more places to park them before I build any. I might opt to refit my new destroyers first, to make them better carrier escorts rather than wasting space on both AS and AM capabilities insufficient for either job.
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How do you plan on getting this through a jump point? I don't see a jump engine.
Your CAG leaves 1HS of hanger space unfilled, but I don't think there's too much you can do about it.
Any reason you went with CIWS instead of Gauss turrets? I generally prefer GT's, so my whole task group can benefit. Not that CIWS are a bad choice on a flagship; you certainly can fit more of them.
You have more flight crew births than you need. You need 72, you have 85.
I don't really like the Gauss fighters. With no R1 sensor on any fighters, you can't have your Gauss fighters deal with missiles. FAC's and fighters will also be dangerous. They're also fairly short-ranged, totally unable to escort your bombers all the way to the target and back.
Your missile strike group packs a huge punch, but at only 30mkm range, you are likely to be within AMM range. Your bombers could take heavy casualties, especially because of the lack of support from the Gauss fighters. The worst part is, given an equal-tech opponent, your bombers will die from AMM fire before your missiles hit, and when they do their missiles will self-destruct. I would consider designing a new scout with a good R1 sensor, and swapping that in for one of the other scouts. Other than AMM fire though, your missile strikes will be DEADLY, and you can fire 6 full strikes before you have to visit a collier.
Another issue you may have is simply finding targets. As it stands now, your scouts have to get within ~180mkm of a contact to see it, and you have to have your actives on. It may be worth it to shave some space off the carrier to free up enough room for one more boat bay. In that boat bay I'd put a single scout with a really powerful thermal sensor. The scout would also have the lowest thermal signature tech engines I could make. I'd fly it way ahead of my carrier group, scouting any planets that looked habitable. Upon finding a contact, I'd tail it from as far away as I could, and vector in either a bomber strike.
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Gate transit? Dedicated jump tender I designed after giving up the idea of cramming it onto the carrier:
Birsa Munda (M-40200t) class Jump Tender 40 200 tons 545 Crew 3605.25 BP TCS 804 TH 8125 EM 0
10105 km/s JR 6-750 Armour 1-104 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 1 PPV 0
MSP 56 Max Repair 1087 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 20 months Spare Berths 0
J-40200t(6-750) Military Jump Drive Max Ship Size 40200 tons Distance 750k km Squadron Size 6
625 EP Commercial Magnetic Fusion Drive (13) Power 625 Fuel Use 2.65% Signature 625 Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 520 000 Litres Range 87.9 billion km (100 days at full power)
This design is classed as a Commercial Vessel for maintenance purposes
CIWS on the carrier? Space savings and a little added jump protection for those standard transits. The rest of the battle group (4 ships, all with at least 2x3 Gauss turrets and AMM) should be able to manage the ASM attacks I've seen thus far, but can't handle the 48xAMM salvos per 5 or 10 sec I saw at the wreck stack. I'm hoping to outrange that.
Flight crew births: it would be great if I had read a formula to compute that on the wiki ... if it's there, I missed it. I started building the carrier before I had definite designs for all the craft it would carry. I had crew numbers for my fighters, but not for scouts and other shuttles I decided to house on my (now) destroyers. Also, unless crew is linked only to HS (and I don't think that's the case---I think certain components add crew) I might need leeway for a different complement of spacecraft. If I'm wrong in thinking that, please let me know because otherwise, I'll be needlessly giving myself a cushion in future designs as well. If HS is the only criteria, I should be going with an absolute number of crew berths instead.
Fighters: this crop was designed for fleet point defense, but I had plans to try them as attack escorts if my strikecraft couldn't get in and get out ... they're cheap enough that I'm willing to lose some as part of the learning process. I need better attack range, but I don't yet have the FC for it. 30m k is the best I can manage at present. I just figure I'll have to try and be crafty with it, lol.
Targeting won't be a problem unless I break doctrine. I'm fielding a dedicated surveillance ship that I intend to be primary eyes for all fleet assets:
Cormorant (Surveillance Frigate) class Surveillance Frigate 10 000 tons 296 Crew 3343.1 BP TCS 200 TH 2000 EM 1200
10000 km/s Armour 6-41 Shields 40-240 Sensors 900/18/0/0 Damage Control Rating 10 PPV 0
Maint Life 2.79 Years MSP 2194 AFR 76% IFR 1.1% 1YR 409 5YR 6138 Max Repair 1000 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 12 months Spare Berths 1
2000 EP Magnetic Fusion Drive (1) Power 2000 Fuel Use 48.57% Signature 2000 Exp 16%
Fuel Capacity 900 000 Litres Range 33.4 billion km (38 days at full power)
Theta S4-RC240/288 Shields (10) Total Fuel Cost 120 Litres per hour (2 880 per day)
CIWS-25000 (8x5s) (2x8) Range 1000 km TS: 25000 km/s ROF 5 Base 50% To Hit
Active Search MR648-R100-S10 (1) GPS 36000 Range 648.0m km Resolution 100
Active Search (PD) MR32/3.5mk-R1 (36/18) (1) GPS 180 Range 32.4m km MCR 3.5m km Resolution 1
Thermal Sensor TH50-900 (1) Sensitivity 900 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 900m km
EM Detection Sensor EM1-18 (1) Sensitivity 18 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 18m km
This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposesIt won't help with point defense for a strike group, but it shouldn't have a problem lighting up the targets for attack.
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There's no formula for computing flight crew births that I'm aware of. I just added up the crew from all your fighters. When I build a carrier, I design my fighters first, then decide how many of each I'll have on the carrier. Then I design everything else about the carrier. Last thing I do is add enough crew compartments to support the CAG I designed earlier. I agree it can be helpful to have extra flight crew births in case you change what fighters you're carrying. I just wanted to warn you in case it was a mistake and not by design.
HS is not the only criteria, deployment time and the specific components used also affect crew requirements.
I look forward to hearing how your carrier group fairs in battle, especially against an NPR and not just a spoiler.
BTW: Your sensor frigate's thermals can detect a strength 1000 signature almost twice as far out as Jupiter!
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The worst part is, given an equal-tech opponent, your bombers will die from AMM fire before your missiles hit, and when they do their missiles will self-destruct.
Once they've launched the bombers can just fly home, you need to maintain an active sensor lock on your target but you don't need to be in fire-control range. So one option is for the bombers to just get into range, launch and then fly straight back to the carrier, leaving the scout fighter at 170m km to provide active coverage.
Can't say for sure but I think missiles survive the destruction of their launch platform in any event, as long as something is still providing the necessary active sensor coverage. Less certain on this point that the one above though.
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Can't yet report on how the carrier group manages, but I can better report on the performance of a battle group of two Salamis-class, two Agamemnon Bs and an Albatross. Against the aliens at the wreck stack that fire 48xAMM salvos if I get too close, 18 strength shields, a tracking speed of 16000, 5000km/s speed, and no ECCM are not ideal fleet attributes, lol. They handled slow ASM attacks and most faster opponent ships just fine, but two targets I assume to be motionless at the wreck stack were unapproachable. My little battle group actually managed to survive learning that the wreck stack occupiers fire AMMs like crazy, but every ship was turned to Swiss cheese when I checked the armor after getting out of their range.
After a stint in Earth's groundside naval base (200,000t hangars serve as my naval bases, but only Earth's production capacity has managed to assemble one by 2084---my first playthrough is probably a lesson in empire mismanagement) I sent the force back to that system and tricked the remaining two fast opponents that maintained a distance outside of my missile range by baiting them over my jump-point into the system: I detached my missile ships and transited them while continuing to retreat with the rest of the force, transiting the missile ships back when the furthest enemy contact seemed on top of jump-point. Worked like a charm and I gave the TG commander a "Sheridan Medal" for tactical brilliance in honor of a fictional captain that had a knack for winning against technologically superior opponents.
I lost my first ship, one of my surveyors, in a different system against a FAC group of these same aliens ...
Yuri Gagarin class Survey Ship 10 000 tons 172 Crew 1636 BP TCS 200 TH 300 EM 0
6250 km/s JR 3-50 Armour 6-41 Shields 0-0 Sensors 36/1/2/2 Damage Control Rating 8 PPV 0
Maint Life 2.62 Years MSP 869 AFR 94% IFR 1.3% 1YR 179 5YR 2681 Max Repair 312.5 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 36 months Spare Berths 0
J10200(sq3-50k) Military Jump Drive Max Ship Size 10200 tons Distance 50k km Squadron Size 3
625 EP/TR.25 Commercial Magnetic Fusion Drive (2) Power 625 Fuel Use 2.65% Signature 150 Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 750 000 Litres Range 509.4 billion km (943 days at full power)
CIWS-25000 (8x5s) (2x8) Range 1000 km TS: 25000 km/s ROF 5 Base 50% To Hit
Thermal Sensor TH2-36 (1) Sensitivity 36 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 36m km
Improved Gravitational Sensors (1) 2 Survey Points Per Hour
Improved Geological Sensors (1) 2 Survey Points Per Hour
This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
... and dispatched every 5000km/s warship in response, my 10,000km/s ships still engaged in TF training (some still at it). The enemy got off a missile attack that sailed right past most of my PD because they went way heavy on the ECM and were able to launch before I could target ... lesson learned and scientists currently teching up on ECCM. They didn't weather my missile attack when they closed with my fleet for little discernible reason, unless Aurora had the enemy attempt to sacrifice itself for the sake of a small population of aliens I found and wiped out without thinking about the practice it might afford my two marine companies and the intel I might have snatched from prisoners. :( (Hilda Pickens claims it was prudent to wipe out an enemy observation post while her fleet operated in the system and who am I to argue? She is a Sheridan Medal recipient after all ... but I suspect revenge for the doomed crew of Miroslaw Hermaszewski that Pickens's slow force couldn't reach before their life support gave out.)
Anyway, I've seen enough to convince me that my current builds are ugly ducklings of limited utility. I think I can make them work, but their roles were too ill-defined when I designed them. I'm tempted to build an entirely new battle group at the current engine tech level ... primarily because 12 month intended deployments aren't enough to even conduct TF training. My next bunch (assuming I can mine enough of the gallicite and neutronium that's getting a little low) should be better optimized and I'll post the final designs after I reach a compact ECCM with which I'm comfortable. The consequent teching in ECM should also make my next crop of ASMs more deadly.
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Update on the carrier battle group: it performed beautifully against an NPR I'm pretty sure I'm comfortably out-teching. The battle (which took about a week in realtime even with the spacetime bubble on, good grief) seemed to pit what looked like the entire enemy fleet against my battle group of four combatants, the carrier wing, and a surveillance ship. Strike groups of missile fighters are pretty effective against poorly defended ships, as are my gauss fighters though I lost one to ASMs when they engaged a flight of 5 FACs. The 15cm quad lasers did much work after I gauged that the enemy didn't have much in the way of close defenses. I have to build something to take out whatever is launching 40+ AMM salvos near what I assume is the homeworld and I'm currently waiting for Earth to crank out more ASMs for my strikefighters so I can kill more of what appear to be enemy battle stations. Hopefully they were launching the AMMs; if not it will mean even more waiting for ASM production back on Earth.
I think I've already mentioned my concerns with these designs---the 12 month deployment is too short to facilitate fleet training, the engines are too greedy (a tradeoff I knew I was making that I'll remedy at the next level of engine tech), and the weapons loadout could be better specialized. I'll add magazine capacity to that---I need more missiles---but that might just mean I need to bring along the ordnance ships I left at home and crank out more missiles before I need to use them.
More generally, this engagement highlights a need to design and bring along some beam FACs, which my next carrier design or new 30,000t cruisers should be able to house---just from a management standpoint, I need more ships with single FCs to chase down defenseless contacts. I'm glad I designed some rescue shuttles to scoop enemy life pods, but the Marine attack shuttles proved more trouble than they were worth, clicking past constant interruptions telling me how many seconds remain until I get a combat report just doesn't seem worth the trouble.