First Battlestar

[QuakeIV]

For me upper (and lower) ship size is set by the max size of engine I can economically produce, due to those rather sweet fuel effeciency gains with scale.  I dont usually put more than four or so max sized engines into military ships.

It seems like adding more wouldn't really be that bad of a disadvantage though.  You lose some force granularity but thats not the worst thing in the world.  The jump engine thing is an issue as Jorgen put it (while I was originally messing with this post), though I would point out that its fairly cheap to get a jump point stabalizer that can then happily go about stabalizing the path to your enemy.  Its not really that much of a strategic impediment (for me at least) to simply expand the gate network.  I guess trying to keep the networks divorced buys some security but honestly I haven't really had much success keeping it that way (they usually find some backdoor in or stabalize somewhere that I thought they didnt have any ships and suddenly everything is connected).  Also, to be honest, I think usually the aliens would be better served to worry about me stabilizing a rout to them rather than the vice versa, so that probably puts a certain spin on things.

[Black]

Problem with jumping through stabilized jump point still stands, right? You still get disruption to fire controls if you are not using squadron jump.

[Zap0]

I like the speed, and the armor.
The shields are 4 tiny 25-strength shields? Always build max size generators. Two 20HS generators would give you 142 strength in the same tonnage.
Try reduced fire rate launchers for bigger volleys?
The missiles seem slow and long-ranged. Maybe split the ordnance into faster short-range missiles and some long-range ones? If your fighters are missile ones, they probably don't need as much range either as they can just go wherever the enemy is.
You can benefit a lot from the command and control modules on a ship this size. Adama to the CiC!
Your firepower in all three aspects (beam, missile, fighters) is unimpressive by itself. But that's just the nature of an omni-role ship.
The sensors are huge and will make an amazing contribution to any fleet group this beast is a part of, but they're also the only sensors you have. A ship this size can do with some small redundancy sensors.
The jump issue I assume entirely bypassed by using this ship only in stabilized space. Building a jump engine for a ship this size really is prohibitively expensive and inefficient at this tech level.

A lot of the criticism here about building a ship this size in the first place seems invalid to me. Any mission you'd send 5x 20k ships on you can also send 1x 100k ship on, if you have the ability to build them. In this case the argument isn't quite as strong as you're essentially taping together 5 very different 20k ships, but still.
Supplying or making engines to move 100k of ship is no more difficult than doing the same for a number of smaller vessels, the math here is entirely linear.
The supply situation should be the same, your AFR is about what I get when I upscale my ion era designs, but not your maintenance life (which you have already generously stretched by adding tons of MSP storage). I assume that's because you have a bunch of expensive components like the turrets and sensors, maybe huge engines? I say this ship is still fine if it never accumulates more than a year of maintenance clock.

[Black]

One thing that I would like to mention with comparison 1x 100k ship versus 5x20k ships. The 5 ships can be at 5 different places if necessary, that is not the case for 100k ship. You can kind of see this problem in Steve's current campaign where several jump points are threatened and he has trouble to sufficiently guard them all.

[Theoatmeal2 (OP)]

Ok, thank you for all the replies and suggestions. You are right, trying to marry a carrier and a battleship results in vessel that is poor in both roles.
For this end I have decided to build a carrier, battleship and an escort with the available shipyards at 30k, 60k and 100k. The reason I tried this in the first place is for fun. Don`t tell me Battlestar Galactica wasn`t cool. I have an extensive network of jump gates and my reason for such a high speed in poor tech level was that I have an enemy able to go 5200 km/s. I have also neglected research.

Here are the new ships.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mercury class Carrier      100,000 tons       1,833 Crew       15,867.3 BP       TCS 2,000    TH 5,400    EM 3,000
5400 km/s      Armour 12-191       Shields 100-300       HTK 410      Sensors 77/77/0/0      DCR 100      PPV 0
Maint Life 2.91 Years     MSP 21,917    AFR 800%    IFR 11.1%    1YR 3,830    5YR 57,449    Max Repair 1012.5 MSP
Hangar Deck Capacity 21,000 tons     Magazine 1,740   
Commander    Control Rating 1   BRG   
Intended Deployment Time: 12 months    Flight Crew Berths 420    Morale Check Required   

Ion Drive  EP1350.00 (    Power 10800    Fuel Use 36.81%    Signature 675.0    Explosion 12%
Fuel Capacity 10,225,000 Litres    Range 50 billion km (107 days at full power)
Delta S25 / R300 Shields (4)     Recharge Time 300 seconds (0.3 per second)

Nightfall Anti-Ship Missile (580)    Speed: 14,933 km/s    End: 56.3m     Range: 50.4m km    WH: 4    Size: 3    TH: 89/53/26

Active Search Sensor AS105-R100 (1)     GPS 14700     Range 105.3m km    Resolution 100
Thermal Sensor TH7-77 (1)     Sensitivity 77     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  69.4m km
EM Sensor EM7-77 (1)     Sensitivity 77     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  69.4m km

Strike Group
36x Fury II Fighter   Speed: 10520 km/s    Size: 9.98
4x Fury II-L Fighter   Speed: 10520 km/s    Size: 9.98
1x Viper Assault Shuttle   Speed: 9128 km/s    Size: 19.99

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
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jupiter class Battlecruiser      60,000 tons       1,412 Crew       11,009.1 BP       TCS 1,200    TH 3,240    EM 1,500
5400 km/s      Armour 12-136       Shields 50-300       HTK 347      Sensors 77/77/0/0      DCR 40      PPV 258.4
Maint Life 3.02 Years     MSP 16,587    AFR 720%    IFR 10.0%    1YR 2,721    5YR 40,813    Max Repair 810.000 MSP
Commander    Control Rating 1   BRG   
Intended Deployment Time: 12 months    Morale Check Required   

Ion Drive  EP1080.00 (6)    Power 6480.0    Fuel Use 41.15%    Signature 540.000    Explosion 12%
Fuel Capacity 6,818,000 Litres    Range 49.7 billion km (106 days at full power)
Delta S25 / R300 Shields (2)     Recharge Time 300 seconds (0.2 per second)

Twin 20cm C4 Ultraviolet Laser Turret (16x2)    Range 192,000km     TS: 10000 km/s     Power 20-8     RM 40,000 km    ROF 15       
Beam Fire Control R192-TS10000 (4)     Max Range: 192,000 km   TS: 10,000 km/s     95 90 84 79 74 69 64 58 53 48
Gas-Cooled Fast Reactor R64 (2)     Total Power Output 129    Exp 5%

Active Search Sensor AS105-R100 (1)     GPS 14700     Range 105.3m km    Resolution 100
Active Search Sensor AS11-R1 (1)     GPS 36     Range 11.2m km    MCR 1m km    Resolution 1
Thermal Sensor TH7-77 (1)     Sensitivity 77     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  69.4m km
EM Sensor EM7-77 (1)     Sensitivity 77     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  69.4m km

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Apollo II class Escort Cruiser      30,000 tons       641 Crew       4,865 BP       TCS 600    TH 1,620    EM 1,500
5400 km/s      Armour 6-86       Shields 50-300       HTK 149      Sensors 17/17/0/0      DCR 20      PPV 138.32
Maint Life 3.01 Years     MSP 6,027    AFR 360%    IFR 5.0%    1YR 1,000    5YR 15,003    Max Repair 607.500 MSP
Commander    Control Rating 1   BRG   
Intended Deployment Time: 12 months    Morale Check Required   

Ion Drive  EP810.00 (4)    Power 3240.0    Fuel Use 47.52%    Signature 405.000    Explosion 12%
Fuel Capacity 3,913,000 Litres    Range 49.4 billion km (105 days at full power)
Delta S25 / R300 Shields (2)     Recharge Time 300 seconds (0.2 per second)

Twin Gauss Cannon R300-100 Turret (8x6)    Range 30,000km     TS: 16000 km/s     Power 0-0     RM 30,000 km    ROF 5       
Beam Fire Control R192-TS16000 (2)     Max Range: 192,000 km   TS: 16,000 km/s     95 90 84 79 74 69 64 58 53 48

Active Search Sensor AS50-R100 (1)     GPS 3360     Range 50.3m km    Resolution 100
Active Search Sensor AS11-R1 (1)     GPS 36     Range 11.2m km    MCR 1m km    Resolution 1
Thermal Sensor TH1.6-17.6 (1)     Sensitivity 17.6     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  33.2m km
EM Sensor EM1.6-17.6 (1)     Sensitivity 17.6     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  33.2m km

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By the way how do I bring down the annual failure rate?

[Black]

Having fun is completely valid and very important aspect. Many of us, including me, build designs that are driven by role-play and as such are far from "ideal" ships.

[kingflute]

By the way how do I bring down the annual failure rate?

Add engineering spaces, they do provide a little in the way of MSP as well as dropping your annual faliure rate

[Hallec]

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mercury class Carrier      100,000 tons       1,833 Crew       15,867. 3 BP       TCS 2,000    TH 5,400    EM 3,000
5400 km/s      Armour 12-191       Shields 100-300       HTK 410      Sensors 77/77/0/0      DCR 100      PPV 0
Maint Life 2. 91 Years     MSP 21,917    AFR 800%    IFR 11. 1%    1YR 3,830    5YR 57,449    Max Repair 1012. 5 MSP
Hangar Deck Capacity 21,000 tons     Magazine 1,740   
Commander    Control Rating 1   BRG   
Intended Deployment Time: 12 months    Flight Crew Berths 420    Morale Check Required   

Ion Drive  EP1350. 00 (    Power 10800    Fuel Use 36. 81%    Signature 675. 0    Explosion 12%
Fuel Capacity 10,225,000 Litres    Range 50 billion km (107 days at full power)
Delta S25 / R300 Shields (4)     Recharge Time 300 seconds (0. 3 per second)

Nightfall Anti-Ship Missile (580)    Speed: 14,933 km/s    End: 56. 3m     Range: 50. 4m km    WH: 4    Size: 3    TH: 89/53/26

Active Search Sensor AS105-R100 (1)     GPS 14700     Range 105. 3m km    Resolution 100
Thermal Sensor TH7-77 (1)     Sensitivity 77     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  69. 4m km
EM Sensor EM7-77 (1)     Sensitivity 77     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  69. 4m km

Strike Group
36x Fury II Fighter   Speed: 10520 km/s    Size: 9. 98
4x Fury II-L Fighter   Speed: 10520 km/s    Size: 9. 98
1x Viper Assault Shuttle   Speed: 9128 km/s    Size: 19. 99

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

Are those missiles for your fighters?  you may want to consider a faster or heavier missile, those have a pretty long range for fighter missiles, unless that is what you are going for.

[Theoatmeal2 (OP)]

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mercury class Carrier      100,000 tons       1,833 Crew       15,867. 3 BP       TCS 2,000    TH 5,400    EM 3,000
5400 km/s      Armour 12-191       Shields 100-300       HTK 410      Sensors 77/77/0/0      DCR 100      PPV 0
Maint Life 2. 91 Years     MSP 21,917    AFR 800%    IFR 11. 1%    1YR 3,830    5YR 57,449    Max Repair 1012. 5 MSP
Hangar Deck Capacity 21,000 tons     Magazine 1,740   
Commander    Control Rating 1   BRG   
Intended Deployment Time: 12 months    Flight Crew Berths 420    Morale Check Required   

Ion Drive  EP1350. 00 (    Power 10800    Fuel Use 36. 81%    Signature 675. 0    Explosion 12%
Fuel Capacity 10,225,000 Litres    Range 50 billion km (107 days at full power)
Delta S25 / R300 Shields (4)     Recharge Time 300 seconds (0. 3 per second)

Nightfall Anti-Ship Missile (580)    Speed: 14,933 km/s    End: 56. 3m     Range: 50. 4m km    WH: 4    Size: 3    TH: 89/53/26

Active Search Sensor AS105-R100 (1)     GPS 14700     Range 105. 3m km    Resolution 100
Thermal Sensor TH7-77 (1)     Sensitivity 77     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  69. 4m km
EM Sensor EM7-77 (1)     Sensitivity 77     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  69. 4m km

Strike Group
36x Fury II Fighter   Speed: 10520 km/s    Size: 9. 98
4x Fury II-L Fighter   Speed: 10520 km/s    Size: 9. 98
1x Viper Assault Shuttle   Speed: 9128 km/s    Size: 19. 99

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

Are those missiles for your fighters?  you may want to consider a faster or heavier missile, those have a pretty long range for fighter missiles, unless that is what you are going for.

Yep, I`m fighting an enemy with 30mkm range missiles. The furies are designed to work in tandem, one paints the other fires. I`ll do faster when I get magneto-plasma.

[TheTalkingMeowth]

If your enemy is at 5200 km/s, those missiles are painfully ineffective.

Their hull-mounted weapons will track at 5200km/s, meaning every shot has >1/3 chance of hitting a missile. Even if you launched all 580 missiles in one volley, they would only need 580*14933/5200=1665.5 shots (I'm neglecting the fact that fire controls have slightly less than 100% accuracy at 10k, since crew grade will make up for it).

If they use, say, 10cm railguns, they need 417 of them. That's a lot, sure, but the weapons only mass 62550 tons. In other words, an equivalent tonnage of ships can probably no-sell all the missiles you are carrying, simultaneously. I don't know how many missiles you can actually fire per volley, but it's probably less.

The whole point of using fighter launched missiles is that your missiles don't have to outrange enemy capital launched missiles, since the fighters can enter capital missile range without getting shot at due to fire control limits. Sacrifice some range for bigger engines/more boost. Ion drive missiles can go high 20,000 km/s with mid 20 million km range.

[nuclearslurpee]

Yep, I`m fighting an enemy with 30mkm range missiles. The furies are designed to work in tandem, one paints the other fires. I`ll do faster when I get magneto-plasma.

When using missile fighters, small size and speed are your defenses, not long range. You want to have shorter range missiles on your fighters so that you can put more MSP into speed to mitigate enemy AAMs and PD. At ion tech speed of 20k km/s is a bare minimum if you have missiles as a primary weapon, and realistically you can get up to 25k km/s with overboosting.

Do you have intel on enemy sensor capabilities? Even if you just know the GPS signatures you can make some educated guesses to estimate the sensor resolution and range. For example, a "common" NPR sensor design has a 126 GPS signature, which matches a res-1 size-6 sensor with active strength 21 tech (GPS = STR*SIZE*RES). You can then guess that they have EM Sensitivity 11 tech (same RP as Active 21) and estimate a range of 21m km. In your case this would mean that if the enemy has these sensors and another active that has a resolution of, I dunno, 100 or so, your fighters will be safe even as close as 22m km even though the enemy missile range is 30m km, and you should design your own missiles accordingly.

[Froggiest1982]

Having fun is completely valid and very important aspect. Many of us, including me, build designs that are driven by role-play and as such are far from "ideal" ships.

100% agree with this.

[Rich.h]

I would do something about the armour on your cruiser, and possibly the carrier unless you have planned for it to stay well back. 12 layers sounds like a lot, but I have seen folks showing results of combat where an NPR made use of particle lances. If you come across that sort of weaponry you are going to be looking at holes in your ship instantly with every hit.

It can be a frustrating thing at first but simply put in Aurora you cannot get all round ships until higher up the tech chain. Better to have three of those cruisers carrying 50% l;ess weaponry each, but double the armour and shields. It might cost you more to setup the fleet, but they will survive long enough to take out your opponents so your after battle reports is full of repair reports and not casualty lists. Far cheaper in the long run of minerals too.

[TheTalkingMeowth]

I would do something about the armour on your cruiser, and possibly the carrier unless you have planned for it to stay well back. 12 layers sounds like a lot, but I have seen folks showing results of combat where an NPR made use of particle lances. If you come across that sort of weaponry you are going to be looking at holes in your ship instantly with every hit.

It can be a frustrating thing at first but simply put in Aurora you cannot get all round ships until higher up the tech chain. Better to have three of those cruisers carrying 50% l;ess weaponry each, but double the armour and shields. It might cost you more to setup the fleet, but they will survive long enough to take out your opponents so your after battle reports is full of repair reports and not casualty lists. Far cheaper in the long run of minerals too.

They are at Ion tech (that's what, 12000RP?). Particle Lances are 30k RP. I don't think they need to worry about particle lances unless the enemy has WAY higher tech than them. In which case an energy range engagement is probably suicide regardless.

[nuclearslurpee]

I would do something about the armour on your cruiser, and possibly the carrier unless you have planned for it to stay well back. 12 layers sounds like a lot, but I have seen folks showing results of combat where an NPR made use of particle lances. If you come across that sort of weaponry you are going to be looking at holes in your ship instantly with every hit.

It can be a frustrating thing at first but simply put in Aurora you cannot get all round ships until higher up the tech chain. Better to have three of those cruisers carrying 50% l;ess weaponry each, but double the armour and shields. It might cost you more to setup the fleet, but they will survive long enough to take out your opponents so your after battle reports is full of repair reports and not casualty lists. Far cheaper in the long run of minerals too.

If you're seriously worried about particle lances, the solution is to go all-in on shields, not armor. Putting dozens and dozens of armor layers is simply a waste of tonnage and ends up crippling your ship because it doesn't have enough tonnage left for weapons, engines, etc. to be effective in battle. Particle lances hit really hard, but a heavy amount of shielding will negate their armor penetration entirely and then you can fire several rounds of your own beam weapons while the lances recharge.