A question on this FAC design. There is no active sensor. Does the Fire Control act as its own sensor? Or does the Fire Control use sensor information from the base or mothership?
B (I assume). Active sensors are very expensive to stick on every ship, especially when you're talking about FAC. I think most people design special "Leader" variants of their FAC that substitute active sensors for a few missile tubes/magazines.
John
1. Any active sensor on any ship/base/pdc, ect will do to allow the fire control lock up. It does not matter if the active sensor is in the same task group or not. For defending a planet having a purpose built pdc with massive active sensors is a good idea. You leave that on to let you see anything approaching, and all your other ships can keep thier actives off line.
2. For FAC the problem of getting a decent sensor into such a small package is the overall size. For most of my designs I will include a .5hs active sensor to spot large enemy ships. This will give me some standoff capability even if there are no other sensors available. I usually only bother to do this with missile ships. There will usually be a scout FAC attached that has NO weapons and uses that space for both passive and a more varied active sensor suite.
Here are some designs from a recent game, General tech level exept for engines is 8000-10000 rp systems.
The Victory is a basic missile FAC. It does have some sensors and can engage either capital ships at long ranges, or FAC at a shorter range.
Victory class Fast Attack Craft 1000 tons 51 Crew 270.1 BP TCS 20 TH 67.2 EM 0
9600 km/s Armour 5-8 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 0 PPV 6.3
Annual Failure Rate: 32% IFR: 0.4% Maint Capacity 42 MSP Max Repair 84 MSP Est Time: 1.28 Years
Magazine 42
GB Magneto-plasma Drive E70 (1) Power 192 Fuel Use 700% Signature 67.2 Armour 0 Exp 48%
Fuel Capacity 20,000 Litres Range 5.1 billion km (6 days at full power)
Size 6 Box Launcher (7) Missile Size 6 Hangar Reload 45 minutes MF Reload 7.5 hours
Missile Fire Control FC56-R20 (1) Range 33.6m km Resolution 20
Missile Fire Control FC28-R100 (1) Range 84.0m km Resolution 100
Size 6 Anti-ship Missile (7) Speed: 40,000 km/s End: 12.5m Range: 30m km WH: 7 Size: 6 TH: 213 / 128 / 64
Active Search Sensor S14-R20 (1) GPS 280 Range 2.8m km Resolution 20
Missile to hit chances are vs targets moving at 3000 km/s, 5000 km/s and 10,000 km/s
This design is classed as a military vessel for maintenance purposes
The Long Ears is the scout for an attack group. I usually try to have 3-4 stationed on planets, and at least 1 per carrier.
Long Ears class Fast Scout Craft 1000 tons 85 Crew 378.9 BP TCS 20 TH 67.2 EM 0
9600 km/s Armour 5-8 Shields 0-0 Sensors 11/22/0/0 Damage Control Rating 0 PPV 0
Annual Failure Rate: 32% IFR: 0.4% Maint Capacity 59 MSP Max Repair 140 MSP Est Time: 1.16 Years
GB Magneto-plasma Drive E70 (1) Power 192 Fuel Use 700% Signature 67.2 Armour 0 Exp 48%
Fuel Capacity 30,000 Litres Range 7.7 billion km (9 days at full power)
Active Search Sensor S28-R20 (1) GPS 560 Range 5.6m km Resolution 20
Active Search Sensor S140-R100 (1) GPS 14000 Range 140.0m km Resolution 100
Active Search Sensor S28-R1 (1) GPS 28 Range 280k km Resolution 1
Thermal Sensor TH1-11 (1) Sensitivity 11 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 11m km
EM Detection Sensor EM2-22 (1) Sensitivity 22 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 22m km
The Scorpion class is the beam armed version. It has an active sensor to spot incomming missiles and because the FAC is so fast the meson is only about 1/2 as effective as a turret pd weapon would be.
Scorpion class Fast Attack Craft 1000 tons 103 Crew 273.9 BP TCS 20 TH 67.2 EM 60
9600 km/s Armour 5-8 Shields 2-300 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 0 PPV 4
Annual Failure Rate: 32% IFR: 0.4% Maint Capacity 43 MSP Max Repair 84 MSP Est Time: 1.3 Years
GB Magneto-plasma Drive E70 (1) Power 192 Fuel Use 700% Signature 67.2 Armour 0 Exp 48%
Fuel Capacity 20,000 Litres Range 5.1 billion km (6 days at full power)
Delta R300/12.5 Shields (1) Total Fuel Cost 13 Litres per day
R8/C4 Meson Cannon (1) Range 80,000km TS: 9600 km/s Power 4-4 RM 8 ROF 5 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 0 0
Fire Control S03 48-8000 gb (1) Max Range: 96,000 km TS: 8000 km/s 90 79 69 58 48 38 27 17 6 0
Stellarator Fusion Reactor Technology PB-1 AR-0 (1) Total Power Output 6 Armour 0 Exp 5%
Active Search Sensor S28-R1 (1) GPS 28 Range 280k km Resolution 1
Hope these examples help you.
Brian