Carrier Strike Group Critique

[liveware (OP)]

Gauss are always set to FDF. For the time being, I am at a loss to explain my poor gauss performance.

CIWS destroy 100% of inbound missiles I have thus far encountered.

...So then there is no problem at all with your Gauss performance.

They're not shooting down any missiles because every missile is dead before they get a chance. 0 for 0 may not be impressive or informative but it's as perfect a score as circumstances allow.

My expectation is that gauss in FDF will engage missiles at 10k km range. If my CIWS is destroying missiles at 1k km range, then my gauss has failed it's performance specifications.

Your Gauss guns aren't at fault for your incorrect expectations about firing sequence. Look at xenoscepter's second link.

Hah, you are quite right. CIWS works differently than I expected.

[liveware (OP)]

Why have ASM on the Carrier if you can deploy Bomber Strike Groups?
Aren't you losing tonnage that could go to more Bombers?

The same thing applies for the Gauss. You have PD fighters that could replace the tonnage.

I also built Carriers with weapons in the past, but I've been replacing that tonnage either for Hangar space or nothing. In the first case I get more Strike Group tonnage, in the second case I get a lower tonnage carrier and can deploy more carriers faster.

I'm assuming those carriers don't go alone, so your task group would be specialized, having Missile Destroyers/Cruisers and Escort Destroyers/Cruisers, this is another motive to lose the Gauss and the ASM on the Carriers. I believe that 1 function per ship works better than a multi-role ship, reducing tonnage or getting more tonnage for the job description.

Carrier magazines are for reloading bombers.

My use case for the AMM defenses on the carrier is to save the carrier from missiles in the event of a tactical error on my part or an ambush when fighters are away from the carrier. My original designs had no turrets or CIWS bit I decided I could afford the 2-3k tons of hiul space that would have otherwise been dedicated to hangars.

At least one of the carrier Gauss turrets has a 100% accuracy gun. This was intended to kill any missiles that leak through the rest of missile defences. For example, my PD gauss fighters use I think 8% accuracy guns, so even with 6 of them firing there is a chance a missile will get through.

Against a force with large missile barrages, I would likely equip the carrier with additional gauss fighters than the standard compliment of 6.

I should probably reclassify the carrier to something other an 'escort carrier' as that seems to throw off people's expectations. I designated them as such as they are intended to escort my commercial jump ships. Classifying them as light carriers or scout carriers is probably more truthful to their actual usage.

[liveware (OP)]

People seem to dislike my sensor compliment. What do you all typically use for sensors in your fleets? I usually deploy a network of sensor buoys before any significant battle which tends to reduce the sensor requirements for my battle fleets. Hence the the abundance of short range res 1 sensors on my ships.

The res 500 sensor on my carrier is outdated but the res 500 on my scout fighter is relatively up to date. This sensor configuration has been adequate thus far at detecting the relatively large hostile ships I have been encountering from outside of hostile missile range.

The carrier is fairly fast and is capable of running away from anything it can't fight straight up... at least from what I have come across so far. I am hoping to get the next design iteration above 10k km/s max speed as speed is definitely useful for the tactics I tend to use with this carrier design.

[Ulzgoroth]

I use a 200-ton resolution 1 sensor for (non-fighter) ships that need antimissile capability - and I might develop a bigger one later if hull sizes and sensor tech make it look desirable. It currently detects missiles at at least 1.7 mkm, though my existing battleships have an older model. On those ships it's the only active sensor, since they're beam battleships that have no need for a lock on any targets outside the 15-19 mkm maximum range.

Other than that I've got 5 ton fighter microsensors in R1 intercept (with frankly inadequate range against missiles) and R60 anti-ship (also with inadequate range), and a 50 ton R100 sensor mainly used on my scout fighters that boasts the longest range of anything I've deployed. Plus I've got a new 50-ton R1 sensor in the catelogue, though I'm not sure what platforms might wind up with that.

I don't have any active sensor buoys, or buoys designed for tactical use, though I've got passive picket buoys intended to monitor jump points. For really long-range spotting I'm hoping to rely on my passives and my scout fighters (which carry passives), but none of that has really been tested against mobile opposition and it might go horribly wrong.

Back in VB Aurora I think I'd build some really big anti-ship active sensors to track over system-spanning ranges, but the C# rules make that prohibitive.

[d.rodin]

People seem to dislike my sensor compliment. What do you all typically use for sensors in your fleets? I usually deploy a network of sensor buoys before any significant battle which tends to reduce the sensor requirements for my battle fleets. Hence the the abundance of short range res 1 sensors on my ships.

The res 500 sensor on my carrier is outdated but the res 500 on my scout fighter is relatively up to date. This sensor configuration has been adequate thus far at detecting the relatively large hostile ships I have been encountering from outside of hostile missile range.

The carrier is fairly fast and is capable of running away from anything it can't fight straight up... at least from what I have come across so far. I am hoping to get the next design iteration above 10k km/s max speed as speed is definitely useful for the tactics I tend to use with this carrier design.

I use specialized sensor ships in big and small fleets:
4x of them travel with my Strike Fleet

Zenit G9 class Surveillance Cruiser      9 999 tons       271 Crew       12 173.8 BP       TCS 4    TH 160    EM 0
20003 km/s      Armour 20-41       Shields 0-0       HTK 63      Sensors 250/250/0/0      DCR 76      PPV 0
Maint Life 6.23 Years     MSP 12 176    AFR 50%    IFR 0.7%    1YR 538    5YR 8 069    Max Repair 3250 MSP
Hangar Deck Capacity 1 000 tons     Cryogenic Berths 400   
Commander    Control Rating 2   BRG   AUX   
Intended Deployment Time: 12 months    Flight Crew Berths 20    Morale Check Required   

Plasma Core AM Drive 125% EP2000.00 (2)    Power 4000    Fuel Use 13.81%    Signature 80.00    Explosion 12%
Fuel Capacity 1 000 000 Litres    Range 130.4 billion km (75 days at full power)

Active Search Sensor AS89-R1 (5%) (1)     GPS 500     Range 89.2m km    MCR 8m km    Resolution 1
Active Search Sensor AS414-R100 (5%) (1)     GPS 50000     Range 414.1m km    Resolution 100
Active Search Sensor AS242-R20 (5%) (1)     GPS 10000     Range 242.1m km    Resolution 20
Thermal Sensor TH5-250 (5%) (1)     Sensitivity 250     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  125m km
EM Sensor EM5-250 (5%) (1)     Sensitivity 250     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  125m km
Cloaking Device: Class cross-section reduced to 2.00% of normal

ECM 70

Strike Group
2x Tu-142 G9 Recon Fighter   Speed: 57675 km/s    Size: 9.99

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes

This one travels with FAC "Fire Brigade" : 48 FACs divided in 4 groups with 2 of them in each group:

Udaloy-AS G9 class Fast Scout Craft      975 tons       43 Crew       2 857.8 BP       TCS 19    TH 46    EM 0
59101 km/s      Armour 1-8       Shields 0-0       HTK 11      Sensors 50/50/0/0      DCR 1      PPV 0
Maint Life 15.34 Years     MSP 3 115    AFR 4%    IFR 0.1%    1YR 25    5YR 372    Max Repair 1872 MSP
Lieutenant Commander    Control Rating 1   
Intended Deployment Time: 6 days    Morale Check Required   

Plasma Core AM Drive 300% EP1152.00 (1)    Power 1152    Fuel Use 251.56%    Signature 46.08    Explosion 30%
Fuel Capacity 250 000 Litres    Range 18.4 billion km (3 days at full power)

Active Search Sensor AS108-R20 (5%) (1)     GPS 2000     Range 108.3m km    Resolution 20
Active Search Sensor AS185-R100 (5%) (1)     GPS 10000     Range 185.2m km    Resolution 100
Active Search Sensor AS39-R1 (5%) (1)     GPS 100     Range 39.9m km    MCR 3.6m km    Resolution 1
EM Sensor EM1.0-50.0 (5%) (1)     Sensitivity 50     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  55.9m km
Thermal Sensor TH1.0-50.0 (5%) (1)     Sensitivity 50     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  55.9m km

ECM 60

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes

Each fighter-bomber wing in carriers and fighter bases have 1 of them (wing: 4x FBs + 1 Recon Fighter):

Tu-142 G9 class Recon Fighter      500 tons       21 Crew       1 420.6 BP       TCS 10    TH 23    EM 0
57675 km/s      Armour 1-5       Shields 0-0       HTK 9      Sensors 0/0/0/0      DCR 1      PPV 0
Maint Life 27.58 Years     MSP 1 955    AFR 2%    IFR 0.0%    1YR 5    5YR 74    Max Repair 936 MSP
Lieutenant Commander    Control Rating 1   
Intended Deployment Time: 3 days    Morale Check Required   

Plasma Core AM Drive 300% EP576.00 (1)    Power 576    Fuel Use 355.76%    Signature 23.04    Explosion 30%
Fuel Capacity 150 000 Litres    Range 15.2 billion km (3 days at full power)

Active Search Sensor AS185-R100 (5%) (1)     GPS 10000     Range 185.2m km    Resolution 100
Active Search Sensor AS108-R20 (5%) (1)     GPS 2000     Range 108.3m km    Resolution 20

ECM 30

This design is classed as a Fighter for production, combat and planetary interaction

hovewer all other ships always (FACs are only exception) have sensors necessary for theyr role: AMM Destroyers res1 sensors, Missle Cruisers res100 + res20 sensors, Beam / PD cruisers : res1 + res20 sensors.

[liveware (OP)]

I use a 200-ton resolution 1 sensor for (non-fighter) ships that need antimissile capability - and I might develop a bigger one later if hull sizes and sensor tech make it look desirable. It currently detects missiles at at least 1.7 mkm, though my existing battleships have an older model. On those ships it's the only active sensor, since they're beam battleships that have no need for a lock on any targets outside the 15-19 mkm maximum range.

Other than that I've got 5 ton fighter microsensors in R1 intercept (with frankly inadequate range against missiles) and R60 anti-ship (also with inadequate range), and a 50 ton R100 sensor mainly used on my scout fighters that boasts the longest range of anything I've deployed. Plus I've got a new 50-ton R1 sensor in the catelogue, though I'm not sure what platforms might wind up with that.

I don't have any active sensor buoys, or buoys designed for tactical use, though I've got passive picket buoys intended to monitor jump points. For really long-range spotting I'm hoping to rely on my passives and my scout fighters (which carry passives), but none of that has really been tested against mobile opposition and it might go horribly wrong.

Back in VB Aurora I think I'd build some really big anti-ship active sensors to track over system-spanning ranges, but the C# rules make that prohibitive.

I highly recommend active buoys. I use them extensively and they can provide extremely good sensor coverage (if you're willing to put in some micro effort to set them up).

[liveware (OP)]

That Zenit G9 cruiser concept is appealing. I'd like to try and get sensor ranges similar to that on my next carrier design iteration. Being able to see stuff from far off is definitely useful. Even if you can't spot missiles at 200m km it still helps to know if there is an enemy fleet out there.

I should note that I am intentionally limiting myself to fighter/carrier fleets at the moment in order to save on shipyard retooling costs and micromanagement. I can get quite a lot of millage out of a carrier and can usually get through a few iterations out of fighter craft before I need to upgrade carrier designs.

[d.rodin]

That Zenit G9 cruiser concept is appealing. I'd like to try and get sensor ranges similar to that on my next carrier design iteration. Being able to see stuff from far off is definitely useful. Even if you can't spot missiles at 200m km it still helps to know if there is an enemy fleet out there.

I should note that I am intentionally limiting myself to fighter/carrier fleets at the moment in order to save on shipyard retooling costs and micromanagement. I can get quite a lot of millage out of a carrier and can usually get through a few iterations out of fighter craft before I need to upgrade carrier designs.

I build many ships, but they are small (and i have a lot of shipyards and slipways):

2500 tons - frigate
5000 - destroyer / missle destroyer
10000 - light cruiser
15000 - cruiser
20000 - missle cruiser / heavy cruiser
25000 - light carrier / aux carrier / battlecruiser
30000 - carrier / battleship
35000 - assault carrier

i have 2 shipyards capable of building 35kt ships (20 slipways in total), but my max design is 25kt

[liveware (OP)]

That Zenit G9 cruiser concept is appealing. I'd like to try and get sensor ranges similar to that on my next carrier design iteration. Being able to see stuff from far off is definitely useful. Even if you can't spot missiles at 200m km it still helps to know if there is an enemy fleet out there.

I should note that I am intentionally limiting myself to fighter/carrier fleets at the moment in order to save on shipyard retooling costs and micromanagement. I can get quite a lot of millage out of a carrier and can usually get through a few iterations out of fighter craft before I need to upgrade carrier designs.

I build many ships, but they are small (and i have a lot of shipyards and slipways):

2500 tons - frigate
5000 - destroyer / missle destroyer
10000 - light cruiser
15000 - cruiser
20000 - missle cruiser / heavy cruiser
25000 - light carrier / aux carrier / battlecruiser
30000 - carrier / battleship
35000 - assault carrier

i have 2 shipyards capable of building 35kt ships (20 slipways in total), but my max design is 25kt

Well seeing as one of my scout carriers is equivalent to two of your assault carriers on a tonnage basis, we seem to have somewhat different design philosophies.

I split my my shipyards by tonnage. Small shipyards have several slipways and produce ships up to to approximately 20k tons. Large shipyards produce my capital ships and typically only have one or two slipways, optimizing instead for larger capacity.

I tend to use the capital shipyards much more frequently than the others and fill the capital ships with fighters.

[Zincat]

Zincat

There's no point in mixing gauss and ciws. If you already have the radar and fire control for gauss turrets, just use gauss turrets, because in case you run even just two carriers together, they are SO much better.  CIWS are only for when you 10000000% sure that ship will always go solo, and/or when design space is so limited that you don't want to deal with having sensors.

sneer

lots of ciws ( unless carrier operates alone which I doubt ) gauss turret have better value added  asa they cover whole TF

CIWS has a sensor built in. 2x CIWS on a ship is a bit tonnage consuming, but also very useful. I use anywhere from 1-8 CIWS depending on what I'm designing and what doctrine I'm beholden to, although I don't always use them.

In VB6, that advice held true, but in C# CIWS is much more powerful overall.
Salvo Changes:
http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg115853#msg115853
Point Defense Changes:
http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg107268#msg107268

Now having even one CIWS on just some of your ships will make the PD of every ship in the group more effective, due to them being resolved first. In VB6 you needed more B-FCS to engage more salvos, so to defend two ships against two salvos with CIWS you needed two CIWS per ship, but with two B-FCS and two Gauss Turrets on one ship you could defend a whole fleet from two salvos for roughly the same mass on account of the mutual fire. That's no longer true under the new model, now one B-FCS and two Gauss Turrets can defend a fleet from two salvos, but with two CIWS any ship can defend itself from two salvos for roughly 50% less mass because it saves weight on Fire Control. So in C# CIWS is now more cost-effective for defending a ship from missiles than Gauss Turrets are. They're also more accurate than Gauss per ton overall.

Sorry, I disagree for any kind of fleet situation.
The enemy will still tend to target all your ships at the same time. So most of the ciws of the fleet will be doing absolutely nothing. As such, the salvo changes don't even matter in this specific case.

Say you have 10 ships. And you allocate 1200 tons for PD on every ship, just to simplify. I don't have the game open now, so I'll just make a very rough example. And you have incoming missiles.
If you put with 600 tons in ciws and 500 tons in gauss cannons+ 100 tons in BFC on each, the targeted ship will only be defended by 600 tons of CIWS and 5000 tons of gauss.

If you had done 100 tons in BFC and 1100 tons in gauss cannons on each ship instead, the targeted ship will be defended by 11000 tons of gauss. No matter what your targeted ship, I'd rather have 11000 tons of gauss defending it. And the bigger the fleet, the more this is true, because more and more CIWS end up being unused and you could have put gauss cannons instead.

You might say: but I had some space, so I snuck in a CIWS. I'll counter: but you might have reduced the fuel storage by 100 tons (for the BFC) and used the gauss cannon instead. The cost effectiveness (assuming you mean construction cost) is also.. dubious. If you build a fleet, it's not that very small cost difference that will actually matter.

I am talking about normal situations. If you have in mind a human player who changes the salvos to play around the mechanics, that's a different matter. I doubt it would matter all that much though, and honestly I don't even care since I don't play like that anyway 
And I do use CIWS on important ships. But that's for RP, since I'm an RP guy to the heart. 

[Ulzgoroth]

CIWS get some discounts, though they also get some unhelpful redundancy of parts. If the integrated beam fire control and active sensor add up to less than the savings for the guns being smaller than spec, stacking CIWS could give a single ship more protection than stacking general-purpose turrets would.

That only holds up so long as the CIWS-equipped ships never operate together, and it means the ship offers no FDF support to any escorts it might have. Still, it's something.

...Doesn't help with the case for combining them, though, since the fewer Gauss turrets, the less value you're getting for the overhead of your main BFC and anti-missile sensor.

If you're expecting to take significant internal damage, the way CIWS don't depend on separable electronic components might help survivability by ensuring you can't have your fire control capability wiped out entirely by a nasty run of hit location rolls.

[Droll]

CIWS get some discounts, though they also get some unhelpful redundancy of parts. If the integrated beam fire control and active sensor add up to less than the savings for the guns being smaller than spec, stacking CIWS could give a single ship more protection than stacking general-purpose turrets would.

That only holds up so long as the CIWS-equipped ships never operate together, and it means the ship offers no FDF support to any escorts it might have. Still, it's something.

...Doesn't help with the case for combining them, though, since the fewer Gauss turrets, the less value you're getting for the overhead of your main BFC and anti-missile sensor.

If you're expecting to take significant internal damage, the way CIWS don't depend on separable electronic components might help survivability by ensuring you can't have your fire control capability wiped out entirely by a nasty run of hit location rolls.

Is CIWS vulnerable to electronic damage - if not then there is an argument against microwave heavy opponents. I know that NPRs will stick to certain weapon types, one of my enemies really like particle lances for example.

[Jorgen_CAB]

CIWS is generally meant for Commercial designs and not military ships.

The only reason you add CIWS on a ship is when you most often act with them alone or you are guaranteed to get targeted just about every time the NPR attack a fleet with that ship in it and it is the only one of its kind. If you have expensive explorer ships going about adding a couple of CIWS systems actually might save them in a pinch.

So there can be a reason why you want to use CIWS even on military ships...

But... the problem is that even CIWS is inefficient as we discovered a while back... you want really small Gauss guns so you can engage many salvos as effectively as possible.

[liveware (OP)]

CIWS get some discounts, though they also get some unhelpful redundancy of parts. If the integrated beam fire control and active sensor add up to less than the savings for the guns being smaller than spec, stacking CIWS could give a single ship more protection than stacking general-purpose turrets would.

That only holds up so long as the CIWS-equipped ships never operate together, and it means the ship offers no FDF support to any escorts it might have. Still, it's something.

...Doesn't help with the case for combining them, though, since the fewer Gauss turrets, the less value you're getting for the overhead of your main BFC and anti-missile sensor.

If you're expecting to take significant internal damage, the way CIWS don't depend on separable electronic components might help survivability by ensuring you can't have your fire control capability wiped out entirely by a nasty run of hit location rolls.

One objective I had in mind with my last carrier design (Cetan B) was to test whether gauss or CIWS was more effective. Unfortunately I shot myself in foot by misunderstanding the firing sequencing between the two systems, and as previously discussed my gauss turrets have never fired a shot. I think next time around I will be going with a full complement of gauss turrets and zero CIWS as I can tailor the gauss turrets far more precisely than I can CIWS.

[liveware (OP)]

CIWS is generally meant for Commercial designs and not military ships.

The only reason you add CIWS on a ship is when you most often act with them alone or you are guaranteed to get targeted just about every time the NPR attack a fleet with that ship in it and it is the only one of its kind. If you have expensive explorer ships going about adding a couple of CIWS systems actually might save them in a pinch.

So there can be a reason why you want to use CIWS even on military ships...

But... the problem is that even CIWS is inefficient as we discovered a while back... you want really small Gauss guns so you can engage many salvos as effectively as possible.

I stock my carriers with gauss fighters. I posted my heavy fighter design at the beginning of this thread, but I also have a much smaller 125ish ton gauss fighter design that I could use instead. I haven't yet determined whether it is better to keep my existing complement of 500 ton heavy gauss fighters or replace them with the smaller 125 ton versions. I could bring more guns to the fight with the smaller ships but the bigger ships have better range and accuracy.