Sensor and AWACS/Hawkeye designs

[sonofliberty (OP)]

Assuming you have kept your missile techs in line with your engine tech(so WH:8 Agility:100 Fuel:0.5 Max power:x3) then you should be able to design something like the following for the short-ranged anti-ship role.

WH 1.125 Fuel 0.175 Agility 1.1 size 1.6 x6 power fusion engine

Code: [Select]

Missile Size: 4 MSP  (0.2 HS)     Warhead: 9    Armour: 0     Manoeuvre Rating: 38
Speed: 48000 km/s    Engine Endurance: 6 minutes   Range: 16.4m km
Cost Per Missile: 6.85
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 1824%   3k km/s 608%   5k km/s 364.8%   10k km/s 182.4%
Materials Required:    2.25x Tritanium   4.6x Gallicite   Fuel x437.5

Development Cost for Project: 685RP
For your fighter I'd recommend using max power engines and adding some more small fuel tanks to bring the range back up a bit. I'd also put a fighter engineering space on the design as it should almost entirely remove the chance of breakdowns over the fighters expected lifetime.

I must be a couple of techs behind you there. OTOH, this missile will fit my needs until I catch up.

Missile Size: 3.875 MSP  (0.19375 HS)     Warhead: 6    Armour: 0     Manoeuvre Rating: 33
Speed: 33000 km/s    Engine Endurance: 20 minutes   Range: 38.8m km
Cost Per Missile: 4.86
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 1089%   3k km/s 363%   5k km/s 217.8%   10k km/s 108.9%
Materials Required:    1.5x Tritanium   3.36x Gallicite   Fuel x437.5

Development Cost for Project: 486RP

Making my WH size 1.125 still left me with a warhead of 6. I also do not have the ability to make a x6 power engine.

[metalax]

That's quite a huge bit of agility, are these missiles really required to reliably hit targets way faster then 10k km/s? Wouldn't most of those MSPs be better spent on WH instead considering Size 1 AMMs normally work fine against FTRs and FACs?

True, that was just a quick design for illustration, so not optimised. I also tend to make my size 3-4 missiles for taking out fighters/facs as well as anti-ship work, so I tend to run with a higher agility. Still, agility would be cut somewhat to boost engine size/fuel when optimising it.

I had ignored engineering spaces thinking that if a fighter gets hit, it is dead. It will not likely get "damaged". Are engineering spaces necessary for maintenance? Shouldn't the CV or PDC provide the maintenance? That is how we did it in the USN.

Yes, engineering spaces on the actual fighter are needed for maintenance, ie reducing how often failures occur. The failure rate listed on the design is for when the fighter has no time on it's maintenance clock. As a fighters maintenance clock increases, it will start suffering maintenance failures more frequently. Carriers are good for actual repairs as quite often a single fighter sized engineering space wont carry enough supplies to actually fix something that broke.

[sonofliberty (OP)]

Ok. Here are the latest versions then.

F15Eagle class Fighter    468 tons     5 Crew     119.9 BP      TCS 9.35  TH 144  EM 0
15401 km/s     Armour 1-5     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 0     PPV 1.8
Maint Life 11.15 Years     MSP 40    AFR 6%    IFR 0.1%    1YR 1    5YR 9    Max Repair 25 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 0.5 months    Spare Berths 1   
Magazine 12   

24 EP Internal Fusion Drive (6)    Power 24    Fuel Use 93.7%    Signature 24    Exp 12%
Fuel Capacity 5,000 Litres    Range 2.1 billion km   (37 hours at full power)

Size 4 Box Launcher (3)    Missile Size 4    Hangar Reload 30 minutes    MF Reload 5 hours
F15BMissile Fire Control FC18-R5 (1)     Range 18.6m km    Resolution 5
Size 3.875 Anti-ship Missile (3)  Speed: 33,000 km/s   End: 19.6m    Range: 38.8m km   WH: 6    Size: 3.875    TH: 363/217/108

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

F16A-Falcon  class Fighter    478 tons     7 Crew     240.5 BP      TCS 9.55  TH 120  EM 0
12565 km/s     Armour 1-5     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 0     PPV 2
Maint Life 9.64 Years     MSP 79    AFR 7%    IFR 0.1%    1YR 2    5YR 23    Max Repair 131 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 0.5 months    Spare Berths 5   

24 EP Internal Fusion Drive (5)    Power 24    Fuel Use 93.7%    Signature 24    Exp 12%
Fuel Capacity 5,000 Litres    Range 2.0 billion km   (44 hours at full power)

F1610cm C0.3 Far Ultraviolet Laser (1)    Range 150,000km     TS: 12565 km/s     Power 3-0.3     RM 5    ROF 50        3 3 3 3 3 2 2 1 1 1
F16Fire Control S01 175-5000 (FTR) (1)    Max Range: 350,000 km   TS: 20000 km/s     97 94 91 89 86 83 80 77 74 71
F16Tokamak Fusion Reactor Technology PB-1 (1)     Total Power Output 4    Armour 0    Exp 5%

This design is classed as a Fighter for production, combat and maintenance purposes

[Charlie Beeler]

What tech levels are you currently using?

It looks like you're using:
Tokamak Fusion Reactor Technology
Internal Confinement Fusion Drive Technology
Fuel Consumption: 0.6 Litres per Engine Power Hour
from here it is less certain
Maximum Engine Power Modifier x2.5(x5 missile engine)
Fusion-boosted Fission Warhead: Strength: 5 x MSP
Missile Agility 100 per MSP

Specificly what are you using for:
Active Grav Sensor Strength
EM Sensor Sensitivity
Armour

Keep in mind that the multiple engine use in your fighters is really only limiting range.(granted at these sizes the efficiency modifier doesn't change much)  As you've noted ships this small are fragile, so the component redundency is less beneficial.

[sonofliberty (OP)]

What tech levels are you currently using?

It looks like you're using:
Tokamak Fusion Reactor Technology
Internal Confinement Fusion Drive Technology
Fuel Consumption: 0.6 Litres per Engine Power Hour
from here it is less certain
Maximum Engine Power Modifier x2.5(x5 missile engine)
Fusion-boosted Fission Warhead: Strength: 5 x MSP
Missile Agility 100 per MSP

Specificly what are you using for:
Active Grav Sensor Strength
EM Sensor Sensitivity
Armour

Keep in mind that the multiple engine use in your fighters is really only limiting range.(granted at these sizes the efficiency modifier doesn't change much)  As you've noted ships this small are fragile, so the component redundency is less beneficial.

Specificly what are you using for:
Active Grav Sensor Strength: Researching Active Grav Sensor 48, done in 1 yr 9 months
EM Sensor Sensitivity: Researching EM Sensor Sensitivity 14, complete in 2 yrs 8 months
Armour: Researching compressed carbon armor, but it is a back burner project atm with only 1 lab to help build researcher skill. Completion date currently 97 years

The last two could be further prioritized if necessary. Active Grav Sensor 48 is currently maxed out with best researcher, so it cannot be sped up anymore.

Edit to add: Current missile agility is 80, not 100. Also I get 6/msp not 5.
Missile Agility 100 will not even start for 3 years; ok I moved some researchers around to knock 1.5 years off of launcher reload rate 5. So agility 100 will start in 1.5 years.

[Starfyre]

Yes, engineering spaces on the actual fighter are needed for maintenance, ie reducing how often failures occur.  The failure rate listed on the design is for when the fighter has no time on it's maintenance clock.  As a fighters maintenance clock increases, it will start suffering maintenance failures more frequently.  Carriers are good for actual repairs as quite often a single fighter sized engineering space wont carry enough supplies to actually fix something that broke.

Maintenence modules for fighters aren't worth it for anything other than a scout fighter, becuse they get in the way of the holy grail of fighter survival and versatility, maximum speed.   The maintenence clock is only incremented or checked when the fighter is deployed, ie, not in a hangar, and your strike fighter is going to be in and out of the hangar on the order of a day or two tops per deployment, simply because of fuel exhaustion.  On the rare chance that a fighter does catch the wrath of the RNG and lose an engine, the carrier can always grab it for in-hangar repairs.   I don't think I've ever seen a strikefighter suffer a maintenence failure even without engineering spaces.   had a couple scout fighters get dinged, but I've had them picket stuff for weeks at a time before.

[Charlie Beeler]

With those techs I'd change the ASM stats to:
2.6msp engine (X5) giving 13EP
1msp warhead giving 6pt
.4 fuel (1000liter)

Speed is now 65,000kps, range 68.6m km/17.61minutes, tohit vs 3000/5000/10000   216.7%/130%/65%

I very rarely use much agility in ASM's.  With the bias towards engine the missiles are faster and thus more difficult to intercept.  Since the primary target is warships I plan against expected speeds, in this case 5k/kps and 130% is actually a bit of overkill.


My version of the Eagle would look something like this:
1x5hs engine (x2.5) 250EP
1xtiny fuel storage(5000liter)
1xMFC Res-10 size-1.8hs  67m/km vs 500hs and larger
3x 4msp box launcher(what you currently have)

The result will be a little closer to 10hs, have a speed close to 25k/kps, range drops too 322m/km. 

I like to have smallcraft be able to engage from well outside of expected missile defense ranges and I'm willing to bring carriers in closer.  That MFC can engage similiar sized smallcraft and larger at close too the max range of the missile I spec'd.  Granted, this approach requires another platform with actives that can see the target at those ranges.

[sonofliberty (OP)]

Thanks for all of your help.