Right now my biggest doubt is whether a 3000 ton beam ship with a single 50cm plasma carronade that deals whooping 64 damage at point-blank but only fires once every 55 seconds is worse or better for a brawler than 4 15cm carronades that fire every 5 seconds thanks to capacitor recharge rate 6 and deal 6 damage each for a total of 24. I have proposed designs for both approaches here, with no shipyard tooled for either yet, and I'd like to ask your thoughts. While the bigger one can still deal damage at much longer ranges, the crippling damage attenuation makes such benefit dubious at best, useless at worst. To maximize plasma the optimal distance must be <= 10,000 km, which also requires ships that won't be blown to pieces instantly and preferably faster than the average for their given engine tech.
Maybe save the big guns for the 13,000 ton designs that will happen in the future, once a shipyard expansion is over, which will take a while due to 2 slipways.
Other relevant techs:
Armor - Ceramic Composite
Sensor Strengths - Active 21, Passives 11
Fuel Efficiency - 0. 4
Missiles - Never researched
Gauss - 5 RoF and Launch Velocity
Capacitor Recharge Rate - 6
From a messed pre-TN start game that, due to poor luck with Construction specialized scientists never showing up for a long time and refusal to start researching TN Theory tech without a specialist in it, dragged on for 100 years before the first warships were built.
Now the tricky thing in this game is that there are only two jump points in Sol, one to Barnards and the other to a planet-less system where first contact with a NPR happened, where all jump points are stabilized except the one to Sol. Curiously that NPR didn't shoot on sight, different from how things normally ended in VB6 Aurora. Maybe thermal signature reduction might have helped a bit in this, maybe not. However, they demanded a survey ship to leave Psi Indi immediately after jumping and discovering it, under threat of opening fire otherwise. That system might be their homeworld or at least an important and inhabited one which connects this way: Sol -> 4 Gruis -> 113 Ursae Majoris -> Psi Indi. Very, very close. On one hand I'm lucky my shoddily sluggish transition from pre-TN to TN in this particular game didn't result in doom because these aliens have demonstrated no interest in starting a war, on the other hand, this means that to expand anywhere besides Barnards Star, starting conflict will likely be necessary.
So far the maximum observed speed of the identified ships belonging to this NPR is 1751 km/s, which means either they are behind in propulsion tech or their ships with military engines are too busy elsewhere to show up in the outskirts of their territory near Sol. Only one way to find out I suppose.
There are two naval shipyards, each with two slipways and only 3,000 tons capacity, my plan is to only expand capacity in one of them while adding more slipways to the other, which will hopefully later become a factory of stealth missile frigates with cloaking devices and all the joys they bring. Cloaking device and beam weapons aren't so useful though, apparently. But there is a lot of research to do before missiles that are useful can be made, so that will have to wait a long time yet.
I decided to try plasma carronades, in part because it's the fastest way to improve ground forces attack capabilities due to how little R&D it requires compared to other beam weapon types. Brawlers are the way to go as far as designs are concerned when it comes to plasma, therefore these do feature more armor than what Ion 3kt ships tend to have, maybe. There are both single weapon only and multi-weapon BFCs over-engineered in range to maximize point-blank to-hit chances, maybe a bit too much but while the difference between 85%, 92% or 98% chances to hit isn't that big, the RNG can be harsh. This is also why I don't use reduced size Gauss cannons.
Operational range is no more than current system + 1 jump, more or less what their fuel reserves comfortably support
Here the design for two PD frigates under construction right now:
Gladius class Frigate 3,000 tons 79 Crew 899.2 BP TCS 60 TH 97 EM 0
6750 km/s Armour 7-18 Shields 0-0 HTK 16 Sensors 11/0/0/0 DCR 1 PPV 16.32
Maint Life 2.58 Years MSP 416 AFR 48% IFR 0.7% 1YR 88 5YR 1,315 Max Repair 405 MSP
Captain Control Rating 1 BRG
Intended Deployment Time: 6 months Morale Check Required
Coelho PEB MION-405 (1) Power 405 Fuel Use 129.60% Signature 97.20 Explosion 18%
Fuel Capacity 260,000 Litres Range 12 billion km (20 days at full power)
Twin Taurus CEMB-5 Turret (1x10) Range 50,000km TS: 20000 km/s Power 0-0 RM 50,000 km ROF 5
Marques Eletro CTU 240km-20k (1) Max Range: 240,000 km TS: 20,000 km/s 96 92 88 83 79 75 71 67 62 58
Camara Sistemas Microsensor m1 (2) GPS 11 Range 6.1m km MCR 545.7k km Resolution 1
Carneiro ST Básico m1 (1) Sensitivity 11 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 26.2m km
This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
The reason for 7 layers of armor is because it won't just stay back once there are no missiles left to shoot down. It is intended be deployed offensively in swarms as well and last enough to, given enough numbers of them, cause sizable damage or at least saturate shields and dent armors so the carronades will finish them off. For now I'm considering just them, a rearguard with a big EM/TH sensor ship for longer range detection and not bothering with big active sensors at all because I don't have enough turret tracking speed bonus researched to justify it.
This speed is likely close to the point of unjustifiable diminishing returns going above average speed for Ion but I like fast ships (I did an even faster Ion engine Particle Beam ship to kite spoilers with FACs in VB6 Aurora), specially at such sizes and with thermal reduction. Final defensive fire with enough of these should weather the storm and bring a swarm of 3kt ships to the brawl mostly unscathed.
Using two active sensors for redundancy in case of microwave surprise. I'm aware it is questionable because having two BFCs would be needed to have a point in this and these aren't designed to operate on their own, but those are so small and there was spare room for just one more, and the RNG might destroy one of those instead of a more critical component once armor gets pierced through, so why not?
On pure DPS 15cm is obviously much better than bigger plasma carronades, but I wonder which of these is truly the best all-around option. A battery of 4 fast firing small caliber carronades:
Malleus class Frigate 3,000 tons 84 Crew 794.6 BP TCS 60 TH 97 EM 0
6750 km/s Armour 7-18 Shields 0-0 HTK 19 Sensors 0/0/0/0 DCR 1 PPV 16
Maint Life 2.97 Years MSP 620 AFR 72% IFR 1.0% 1YR 105 5YR 1,576 Max Repair 405 MSP
Captain Control Rating 1 BRG
Intended Deployment Time: 6 months Morale Check Required
Coelho PEB MION-405 (1) Power 405 Fuel Use 129.60% Signature 97.20 Explosion 18%
Fuel Capacity 260,000 Litres Range 12 billion km (20 days at full power)
TriOptimum PAX-15 Plasma Autocannon (4) Range 60,000km TS: 6,750 km/s Power 6-6 RM 10,000 km ROF 5
Marques Eletro CT 120km-6750 (1) Max Range: 120,000 km TS: 6,750 km/s 92 83 75 67 58 50 42 33 25 17
Alfaro Aeromarine Stellarator R24 (1) Total Power Output 24.6 Exp 7%
Camara Sistemas Microsensor m1 (2) GPS 11 Range 6.1m km MCR 545.7k km Resolution 1
This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
Or a single big gun, the biggest researched so far, which has more room for engineering spaces and MSP as a bonus due to reduced power plant requirements and can, with enormous losses in damage potential, hit targets at a much longer range:
Malleus - Copy class Frigate 3,000 tons 88 Crew 773.7 BP TCS 60 TH 97 EM 0
6750 km/s Armour 7-18 Shields 0-0 HTK 20 Sensors 0/0/0/0 DCR 2 PPV 16
Maint Life 4.13 Years MSP 592 AFR 36% IFR 0.5% 1YR 56 5YR 833 Max Repair 405 MSP
Captain Control Rating 1 BRG
Intended Deployment Time: 6 months Morale Check Required
Coelho PEB MION-405 (1) Power 405 Fuel Use 129.60% Signature 97.20 Explosion 18%
Fuel Capacity 260,000 Litres Range 12 billion km (20 days at full power)
TriOptimum PAX-50 Plasma Macro Cannon (1) Range 480,000km TS: 6,750 km/s Power 64-6 RM 10,000 km ROF 55 64 32 21 16 12 10 9 8 7 6
Marques Eletro CTU 480km-6750 (1) Max Range: 480,000 km TS: 6,750 km/s 98 96 94 92 90 88 85 83 81 79
Alfaro Aeromarine Stellarator R6 (1) Total Power Output 6 Exp 7%
Camara Sistemas Microsensor m1 (2) GPS 11 Range 6.1m km MCR 545.7k km Resolution 1
This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
Originally the 3kt shipyard where these designs will be constructed were used to build for survey. A modular survey ship questionably defined as scout carrier with a 375tons capacity hangar and a reduced heat signature engine, that houses a "fighter" without engines or fuel and a single grav or geosurvey module so the same vessel can swap survey roles by swapping its "fighters" and pack the bonus of never suffering maintenance failure on the survey modules which is quite expensive in MSP. They also are fitted with a big passive EM sensor. To allow them to jump, a Jump Scout and ELINT ship accompanies two of them to other systems and, when convenient, try ELINT. However, so far I had no luck whatsoever with ELINT, despite the 121 sensivity EM sensor in the scout carriers that accompany it during surveys to jump together, and I don't want to park those ships almost next to currently non-hostile aliens to try more luck with ELINT.
Here they are, and the jump scout will likely be used to squadron jump the beam frigates into potentially hostile territory while remaining behind:
Juno class Jump Scout 3,000 tons 75 Crew 647.6 BP TCS 60 TH 76 EM 0
5250 km/s JR 3-50 Armour 1-18 Shields 0-0 HTK 21 Sensors 16/11/0/0 DCR 3 PPV 0
Maint Life 4.02 Years MSP 404 AFR 24% IFR 0.3% 1YR 40 5YR 599 Max Repair 283.5 MSP
Captain Control Rating 1 BRG
Intended Deployment Time: 14 months Morale Check Required
Evento Horizonte S3000 m1 Max Ship Size 3000 tons Distance 50k km Squadron Size 3
Coelho PEB MION-315 Umbra (1) Power 315 Fuel Use 18.37% Signature 75.60 Explosion 9%
Fuel Capacity 247,000 Litres Range 80.7 billion km (177 days at full power)
Carneiro ST 1.5x m1 (1) Sensitivity 16.5 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 32.1m km
ELINT Module (1) Sensitivity 11 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 26.2m km
This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
This design is classed as a Intelligence Ship for auto-assignment purposes
Oculus class Scout Carrier 3,000 tons 80 Crew 634.8 BP TCS 60 TH 75 EM 0
5209 km/s Armour 1-18 Shields 0-0 HTK 17 Sensors 0/121/0/0 DCR 2 PPV 0
Maint Life 3.73 Years MSP 330 AFR 29% IFR 0.4% 1YR 37 5YR 556 Max Repair 312.5 MSP
Hangar Deck Capacity 350 tons
Captain Control Rating 2 BRG SCI
Intended Deployment Time: 14 months Flight Crew Berths 7 Morale Check Required
Coelho PEB MION-312 (1) Power 312.5 Fuel Use 49.41% Signature 75.000 Explosion 12%
Fuel Capacity 504,000 Litres Range 61.2 billion km (136 days at full power)
Camara Sistemas Sensor EM-121 (1) Sensitivity 121 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 87m km
Strike Group
1x Gaia Geosurvey Module Speed: 1 km/s Size: 6.73
This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
Is there something wrong with the Jump Scout+ELINT or does it have to get dangerously close to an alien contact and keep that position for a long time to get anything out of it?