My very first combat ship.

[Hawkeye]

The Deuchland I looks good, overall.
I´d reduce the Maint. Life quite a bit, given that the deployment time is only 3 months though.
Perhaps increase fuel/deployment time a bit at the cost of it, because with those numbers, training up a task group of those will be quite tedious, having to pull them back to base for re-fuel/shore leave all the time.

If you play without fleet experience _and_ intend them only inside your home system, range/deployment time are fine, however.

I´d also go the full "4 x size, 4 x tracking speed" road for the gauss turret´s firecon.
Either you put your guns into turrets for anti-missile work --> as much tracking speed as you can get
or you put them in fixed mounts (as your railgun) --> as much tracking range as you can get (don´t take that literally. Obviously, a 400.000 km range FC doesn´t make sense for a 40.000 km range gun)


Pretty much everything above goes for the Cutter too.

In addition, I´d only keep the res-1 sensor on that ship and strenghten the point defense capability instead.

Also, if you intend to keep at least two of those in company with the Deuchland, I´d reduce the gauss turrets on the Deuchland in favor of more railguns, to give it a bit more offensive punch.

This is, if you don´t have another type doing the offensive work.
If that is the case, drop the 15cm railgun for 10cm ones, which will have a better ROF and thus be superior at anti-missile work.


PS.: is the Deuchland actually meant to be named "Deutschland"?

[GenJeFT (OP)]

Yea. Its meant to be Deutchland but I cant spell it.

It may not matter in the end. I now get error 94 messages and I dont know how to fix it. Invalid use of Null.

Great game. But boy does it crash a lot.

Now I just have to find someplace where the value is 0 and it should not be.

*EDIT*

Never mind, I found the source of the error.

I designed those turrets as PD before I carried out my own missile design tests and found out exactly how fast missiles can travel. The ships are also designed to take on a specific opponent that has no weapons other then missiles and for some reason seems to have almost no ability to launch those missiles beyond point blank range. It has to close within 20,000 km to fire. So point defense in this situation is a questionable value anyway.

Also, to get an idea on how I aim to design my ships, look at WWII ship design. Destroyers will tend to have multipurpose guns.

[Charlie Beeler]

The Deuchland has a critical flaw, no powerplant for the railgun.  You need a 1hs plant to feed that C3.

Why the two turret versions for the Gauss Cannons?  Personally I don't use the armor for turrets, by the time you taking internal damage in ships this small they don't have much staying power left.

You've got a tech mismatch between S02 and S03.  S02/4hs appears to be using 16k/km 50%/tracking speed 3k/kps (2X range/2Xspeed), while the S03/8hs appears to be using using 24k/km 50%/tracking speed 3k/kps (4X range/2Xspeed).  At the very least upgrade the S02 to 24k/km 50%.

Assuming you've invested is tracking bonus 20% I remove all of those active sensors and add a single res 1/8hs suite.  With the assumption that you'll be facing missiles in the 20k/kps speed range you need to track them for at least 50 seconds (1m/km).  That 8hs sensor will see 1-6msp missiles at 1.1m/km and ships 50hs or larger at 10.2m/km.  Add in a 5hs EM passive suite and you'll see most active sensors at a sufficient range to not be totally surprised.  Thermal sensors are mostly a waste of space do to detection ranges being well inside of combat ranges.

[GenJeFT (OP)]

The Deuchland has a critical flaw, no powerplant for the railgun.  You need a 1hs plant to feed that C3.

Why the two turret versions for the Gauss Cannons?  Personally I don't use the armor for turrets, by the time you taking internal damage in ships this small they don't have much staying power left.

You've got a tech mismatch between S02 and S03.  S02/4hs appears to be using 16k/km 50%/tracking speed 3k/kps (2X range/2Xspeed), while the S03/8hs appears to be using using 24k/km 50%/tracking speed 3k/kps (4X range/2Xspeed).  At the very least upgrade the S02 to 24k/km 50%.

Assuming you've invested is tracking bonus 20% I remove all of those active sensors and add a single res 1/8hs suite.  With the assumption that you'll be facing missiles in the 20k/kps speed range you need to track them for at least 50 seconds (1m/km).  That 8hs sensor will see 1-6msp missiles at 1.1m/km and ships 50hs or larger at 10.2m/km.  Add in a 5hs EM passive suite and you'll see most active sensors at a sufficient range to not be totally surprised.  Thermal sensors are mostly a waste of space do to detection ranges being well inside of combat ranges.

I think your reading the S02 and S03 wrong. The S02 has accuracy of 50% at a range of 64k/km and tracking speed of 6k/km, its 2x range/2x speed meant for point defense. Turns out its completely unable to fight what I am up against but its not 16k/km and 3k/kps. The SO3 has a range of 192k/km and tracks at 3k/kps, which works for the MAC gun which unfortunately only shoots out to 92k/km. So that long range fire control wont need to be upgraded for a while. Unless your a reading the wrong ship stats. The county class is no longer used and only one was built for testing reasons.

The really long range sensor has proven to be great with its range of 151.5m/km. It detects long range targets with a lot of time to react (even after the target came in range it was another 10 hours before fighting began). The mid range scanner is a pile of dog poo, absolutely worthless and will be removed. The short range scanner for detecting missiles did a great job, only problem is its range is to short.

Also, 20k/kps speed missiles would be absolutely great right now. The ones I ran into with this one ship close at 30k/kps + and even then I was able to track them for about 30 seconds before impact. I am going to try and double the range of the PD scanner because its range is to short.

Two different turrets only exist because I wanted to cram more firepower onto the ship then initially planned. I am not making 3 armor turrets again for a ship that small because they did not help. They will probably be downgraded to single unarmored turrets. Maybe, just maybe twins.

I did not know about the railguns power requirement and the game generated no error. I figured the engines were providing enough power.

Other note, the first thing in the battle (which rapidly ran away because it was unarmed) to see the target was a jump capable scout that has a massive thermal suite. It spotted this ship at nearly twice as far as the active scanners could. The enemy ship did not even notice my fleet until I turned on the combat ships active scanners so it does not have much in the way of passive sensors.

This has been an interesting experience so far.

[Charlie Beeler]

I think your reading the S02 and S03 wrong. The S02 has accuracy of 50% at a range of 64k/km and tracking speed of 6k/km, its 2x range/2x speed meant for point defense. Turns out its completely unable to fight what I am up against but its not 16k/km and 3k/kps. The SO3 has a range of 192k/km and tracks at 3k/kps, which works for the MAC gun which unfortunately only shoots out to 92k/km. So that long range fire control wont need to be upgraded for a while. Unless your a reading the wrong ship stats. The county class is no longer used and only one was built for testing reasons.

Nope, you've actually confirmed that I was extrapolating correctly. I just didn't state it clearly.  I was referencing the base tech selections made during the BFC design not the resulting specs.  For Max Range 64k/km Tracking Speed 6k/kps (2xRange/2xSpeed) the base techs have to be (50% at 16k/km) and (Speed 3k/kps).

I did misstate on the S03.  It should have been: For Max Range 192k/km Tracking Speed 3k/kps (4xRange/STDxSpeed) the base techs have to be (50% at 24k/km) and (Speed 3k/kps).

The tech mismatch between the BFC's is that S02 is using (50% at 16k/km) and S03 is using (50% at 24k/km).

For your PD BFC you'd be better served by using (STDxRange/4xSpeed) using (50% at 24k/km) and (Speed 3k/kps).  The Max range will only be 48k/km for a base hit at 10k of 79% vs your current 84%, but the tracking speed will be 12k/kps vs 6k/kps.  Against 30k/kps missiles that changes the base hit chance from 16.9% to 31.7%, just short of doubling your chances using the tech you already have.
 

The really long range sensor has proven to be great with its range of 151.5m/km. It detects long range targets with a lot of time to react (even after the target came in range it was another 10 hours before fighting began). The mid range scanner is a pile of dog poo, absolutely worthless and will be removed. The short range scanner for detecting missiles did a great job, only problem is its range is to short.

The downside to using that longer ranged active is the signature it puts out.  The GPS of 22400 is also it's detectable signature.  A 1hs EM sensor with your sensitivity tech will see at 179.2m/km.  That's not good if your needing to slip into beam ranges undetected.

Also, 20k/kps speed missiles would be absolutely great right now. The ones I ran into with this one ship close at 30k/kps + and even then I was able to track them for about 30 seconds before impact. I am going to try and double the range of the PD scanner because its range is to short.

I presume that you have a larger res1 active on your scout.  You'd need at least 7hs with your tech to track a 30k/kps missile for 30seconds.  For 50seconds it needs to be at least 11hs.

Two different turrets only exist because I wanted to cram more firepower onto the ship then initially planned. I am not making 3 armor turrets again for a ship that small because they did not help. They will probably be downgraded to single unarmored turrets. Maybe, just maybe twins.

Take a look at what the volume of fire would be if you replaced to turrets all together with roughly the same mass of 10cm railguns (with the support powerplants)

I did not know about the railguns power requirement and the game generated no error. I figured the engines were providing enough power.

The Class design screen won't throw an error for lack of powerplants.  Take look at the left side of the screen though.  You'll find a couple of boxes that reference the required power per cycle and power generated to meet the requirement.

Other note, the first thing in the battle (which rapidly ran away because it was unarmed) to see the target was a jump capable scout that has a massive thermal suite. It spotted this ship at nearly twice as far as the active scanners could. The enemy ship did not even notice my fleet until I turned on the combat ships active scanners so it does not have much in the way of passive sensors.

While the OPFOR appears to not have had a thermal suite that could see your signature at range, the response to your Actives coming up shows that they do have EM sensors.  Thermal sensors are fairly myopic (tactically) by comparison to EM.  It's a function of the differences between the signatures being generated.

This has been an interesting experience so far.

[GenJeFT (OP)]

Nope, you've actually confirmed that I was extrapolating correctly. I just didn't state it clearly.  I was referencing the base tech selections made during the BFC design not the resulting specs.  For Max Range 64k/km Tracking Speed 6k/kps (2xRange/2xSpeed) the base techs have to be (50% at 16k/km) and (Speed 3k/kps).

I did misstate on the S03.  It should have been: For Max Range 192k/km Tracking Speed 3k/kps (4xRange/STDxSpeed) the base techs have to be (50% at 24k/km) and (Speed 3k/kps).

The tech mismatch between the BFC's is that S02 is using (50% at 16k/km) and S03 is using (50% at 24k/km).

Ah, that makes more sense now.

For your PD BFC you'd be better served by using (STDxRange/4xSpeed) using (50% at 24k/km) and (Speed 3k/kps).  The Max range will only be 48k/km for a base hit at 10k of 79% vs your current 84%, but the tracking speed will be 12k/kps vs 6k/kps.  Against 30k/kps missiles that changes the base hit chance from 16.9% to 31.7%, just short of doubling your chances using the tech you already have.

I am going to bump up the tracking speed of the fire control system and the turret tracking speed to 12k/kps (I think I have tech to push it higher then that now as well). But I have to increase the range of the point defense fire control because there was not enough time for the weapons to fire even with how long I was able to track the missiles. Which seemed like a long time.

The downside to using that longer ranged active is the signature it puts out.  The GPS of 22400 is also it's detectable signature.  A 1hs EM sensor with your sensitivity tech will see at 179.2m/km.  That's not good if your needing to slip into beam ranges undetected.

Yea, but it did give me some interesting information. I did a "commanders diary" as a fun project during this engagement (the engagement is not finished, but the diary is, the commander is dead). I turned on the active scanners at 12:42 on the 18th of March. From there it was not until 14:43 that it realized my ships were scanning it when it turned around and put distance between it and my ships. The enemy ship moves at about 4420kps. If it has EM sensors, but they are crap. It seems to be on patrol more then anything and it just stumbles across my units.

I presume that you have a larger res1 active on your scout.  You'd need at least 7hs with your tech to track a 30k/kps missile for 30seconds.  For 50seconds it needs to be at least 11hs.

The scout actualy has no active scanners (I dont want it to have a signature, its thermally shielded up the arse as well, less then 75% thermal signature). It has a GIANT passive thermal scanner unit that weighs 1,000 tons. That passive scanner detected the enemy ship at 08:05 March 18. To help calculate the distance the enemy thermal contact is 1440. Its a rather out of date passive sensor, I could make a better one at this point.

Take a look at what the volume of fire would be if you replaced to turrets all together with roughly the same mass of 10cm railguns (with the support powerplants)

Don't those only track at the speed of your ship? Or only a measly 2260kps for me.

While the OPFOR appears to not have had a thermal suite that could see your signature at range, the response to your Actives coming up shows that they do have EM sensors.  Thermal sensors are fairly myopic (tactically) by comparison to EM.  It's a function of the differences between the signatures being generated.

Provided they actually have things that generate EM on. Its not hard to keep a ships EM signature down.

[Charlie Beeler]

Ah, that makes more sense now.

I am going to bump up the tracking speed of the fire control system and the turret tracking speed to 12k/kps (I think I have tech to push it higher then that now as well). But I have to increase the range of the point defense fire control because there was not enough time for the weapons to fire even with how long I was able to track the missiles. Which seemed like a long time.

Not quite correct.  This part is a little counter intuitive.  The actual "tracking" is done by the active sensor not the fire control.  The BFC only has to be able to see the target at the range you wish to fire.

Yea, but it did give me some interesting information. I did a "commanders diary" as a fun project during this engagement (the engagement is not finished, but the diary is, the commander is dead). I turned on the active scanners at 12:42 on the 18th of March. From there it was not until 14:43 that it realized my ships were scanning it when it turned around and put distance between it and my ships. The enemy ship moves at about 4420kps. If it has EM sensors, but they are crap. It seems to be on patrol more then anything and it just stumbles across my units.

Rest assured, if it reacted the game cycle after you activated your sensors it has a EM passive sensor.  They don't have to be vary large to see active scan signatures over 20k.

The scout actually has no active scanners (I dont want it to have a signature, its thermally shielded up the arse as well, less then 75% thermal signature). It has a GIANT passive thermal scanner unit that weighs 1,000 tons. That passive scanner detected the enemy ship at 08:05 March 18. To help calculate the distance the enemy thermal contact is 1440. Its a rather out of date passive sensor, I could make a better one at this point.

That thermal sig and the speed you posted with it earlier indicates a rather large ship.

Don't those only track at the speed of your ship? Or only a measly 2260kps for me.

Or your researched tracking speed, whichever is greater.  This is where that missile bonus tracking tech really helps.  The hit penalty is the simple division of your tracking speed vs the target speed, provided of course the target is faster than your track.  The bonus is directly subtracted from the penalty.  Now the real benefit of the railgun over gauss turrets with few shots kicks in.  For the a little fewer hull spaces than a turret gauss cannon you have 2 10cm railguns, with supporting powerplant, and 8 shots vs 2.  The volume of fire averages to about twice as many missile intercepts as the GC turret. 

Provided they actually have things that generate EM on. Its not hard to keep a ships EM signature down.

Right up until you activate your active sensors.  They are a huge beacon that says here I am.  That's not a bad thing as long as you're prepared.

[GenJeFT (OP)]

Not quite correct.  This part is a little counter intuitive.  The actual "tracking" is done by the active sensor not the fire control.  The BFC only has to be able to see the target at the range you wish to fire.

That is counter intuitive. I would not have figured that out.

Rest assured, if it reacted the game cycle after you activated your sensors it has a EM passive sensor.  They don't have to be vary large to see active scan signatures over 20k.

I was using half hour time increments by this point. Unless a cycle is something different.

That thermal sig and the speed you posted with it earlier indicates a rather large ship.

16,900 ton ship. I wonder how many missiles the thing has.

Or your researched tracking speed, whichever is greater.  This is where that missile bonus tracking tech really helps.  The hit penalty is the simple division of your tracking speed vs the target speed, provided of course the target is faster than your track.  The bonus is directly subtracted from the penalty.  Now the real benefit of the railgun over gauss turrets with few shots kicks in.  For the a little fewer hull spaces than a turret gauss cannon you have 2 10cm railguns, with supporting powerplant, and 8 shots vs 2.  The volume of fire averages to about twice as many missile intercepts as the GC turret.

So then what good are turrets if spinal mount weapons track just as well? Also, is the railguns rate of fire not fixxed while you can upgrade the gauss cannon rate of fire?

*EDIT*

Nevermind, I got it. The weapons will take either the ship speed as its tracking speed or the fire control systems tracking speed, whichever is greater. BUT, from my understanding (of the wiki) it reverts to the best tracking speed available to the empires scanners (in my case 3k/kms) NOT what scanner it may be attached to. So if I attach it to a fire control that tracks at 6k/kms (2x from base of 3k/kms) the weapon will only be working at the 3k/kmps which is available to the empire. Turrets allow you to break that number and go above the base rate available to your empire.

[Charlie Beeler]

You've got most of it. The minimum cycle is 5 seconds.

[GenJeFT (OP)]

You've got most of it. The minimum cycle is 5 seconds.

Which means this thing did not detect the active sensors for a long time, or at least did not react to it.