One mineral to rule them all, one mineral to find them

[SevenOfCarina]

Because they've never watched three years of missile production get eaten in about 20 minutes by a very big, angry ball of railgun fighters.

Yes, because constructing a ball of railgun fighters that big would require twenty years' worth of gallicite production! A 10cm railgun is 150dT - add in the reactors and fire controls, and a useful point-defence railgun fighter is going to displace at least 400dT, more likely 500dT. A big size-six missile will only displace 15dT, in contrast. Let's take 450dT and assume the fighter has a maximum speed one-third that of the missile, and neglecting range penalties and officer bonuses, a single fighter will shoot down 4/3 missiles, on average - the gallicite cost to shoot down one missile per 5s increment using these railgun fighters is 3/4 * 450dt/15dt/3 = 7.5 times the cost of a single missile! To break even, you'd need to shoot down a total of eight missiles per railgun fighter over their lifetime, which is only ever happening if the enemy is nice enough to use full-size launchers. A railgun fighter might take down two equal-tech missiles per fighter per increment on a good day, which is pretty trash considering that a single size-six box launcher is 45dT and packing enough on an equal-tonnage missile fighter to overwhelm its point-defence is utterly trivial. It'll cost the enemy perhaps half the cost of your fighters in ordnance to destroy them, which is still quite bad in a war of attrition.

The logistics problems that most people usually associate with missile fleets apply equally to beam fleets too. Beam ships are strictly superior to missiles only when they can achieve a perfect victory without taking losses, which is very very unlikely unless you're at a substantial tech advantage. Refilling the magazines of a fleet is significantly cheaper than needing to outright replace 20-30% of the fleet after each engagement, especially considering the loss of experienced crew. Plus, beam ships need to be faster so they're going to need more gallicite anyway, and they're usually a bigger burden on fuel and MSP. Worse, they pretty much need to be replaced every engine generation, unlike missile ships, which have no issues with using obsolete engines or shooting obsolete missiles.

[Zap0]

For better or worse, this is spot on. Gallicite and to a extent, Corundium, are what I'm always prospecting for and while Corundium may drop off a bit, Gallicite is always a problem. If you go beam ships only it is far less of a issue, but still a constant problem. I tend to make larger engines but at 90% power to save Gallicite.

Larger engines don't actually help with Gallicite, just with fuel efficiency.

Really? I thought there was a bonus to going under 100% to Gallicite? Must just be misremembering. I haven't fired up the game for a few months while waiting for 1.13. 

Ah, that there is, but that's the fuel consumption modifier. Different knob to turn

[smoelf]

It is possible to know what you need in the future and then build your economy around it.

I think this is key. As I have progressed in the game, each iteration has taught something different about what to keep an eye on. I had one game with a severe gallicite crunch and ever since, I have watched my gallicite levels very closely, even before I need it to massproduce warships. In my latest save I was instead close to getting a corundium crisis, since I hadn't really expanded my mining operations to those levels in previous games.

Of course luck plays a role in which minerals you have access to at various accessibilities, but knowing what to plan ahead for, means that you can prevent the disaster by expanding accordingly.

[Arwyn]

The logistics problems that most people usually associate with missile fleets apply equally to beam fleets too. Beam ships are strictly superior to missiles only when they can achieve a perfect victory without taking losses, which is very very unlikely unless you're at a substantial tech advantage. Refilling the magazines of a fleet is significantly cheaper than needing to outright replace 20-30% of the fleet after each engagement, especially considering the loss of experienced crew. Plus, beam ships need to be faster so they're going to need more gallicite anyway, and they're usually a bigger burden on fuel and MSP. Worse, they pretty much need to be replaced every engine generation, unlike missile ships, which have no issues with using obsolete engines or shooting obsolete missiles.

I agree, sort of. The thing is, even if your running pure missile fleets, you have some other classes present for AM duties, or you have really big expensive ships. Missiles eat lots of mass on ships with launchers and magazines, add anything else and you get very expensive (and big) ships. Even if thats AMM boats.

So, if your talking about refit/replacement, I have yet to have an equal fight were I didnt take damage/casualties. Now, unequal fights, sure. I have had missile fleets walk away scot-free after barfing a literal wall of missiles at an enemy and obliterating them before they got in range. Fun when it happens. I have also creamed enemy fleets with fighter strikes they couldnt detect. Also fun when it works.The majority of the time though, (assuming your not gaming the system) your going to have damage no matter the fleet composition. So your going to being investing in replacements, no matter what.

Where there is some trade off is that obsolete beams are useful longer, at least IMO. If you have a beam ship, they are still of some use even as obsolete platforms. Missiles are a lot harder, as you get more than a generation back, or worse, your hit rate effectiveness drop and the enemy counter outpace them. So, if you invest in upgrading engines and fire controls, while expensive, is still cheaper than building a net new ship, most of the time. Obviously at some point it is counter productive to upgrade and its better to scrap and recover minerals. Those beam ships arent great for front line service, but make decent pickets and patrol vessels. Thats as true in Aurora as it is in the real world. There are still WW2 vintage vessels in active service as patrol craft including minesweepers, corvettes, and tank landing craft.

Fun fact, the Russian Navy has the longest continuously serving naval vessel. Originally commissioned in 1915 (World War 1!) as the salvage ship Volkov, the ship was renamed after the Revolution as the Kommuna. She is still in service as a sub tender today.

So, those (smaller) obsolete beam ships can get shuffled off as patrol craft and military strength to backwater systems. More importantly, they dont need a fleet train to support them or dedicated ammo depots, just maint facilities.

I do tend to disagree with missile replenishment being cheaper all the time. I have absolutely run into issues with minerals in sustained wars due to the missile replenishment eating me alive. This is actually one of the reasons I dont use box launchers as primary missile systems. They are Godawful expensive to feed, and they do tend to either A) Overkill the hell out of stuff, wasting missiles or B) Shoot their bolt and have to run away from the battle. There is also they annoying tendency for box launchers to blow up when struck, and I have had that happen enough to find them not worth it on bigger ships, especially early game. I use them all the time on fighters and small craft though.

In particular, AMM ships EAT missiles by the fistful. I have had them consistently be one of the biggest replenishment issues. That was one thing that has caught me a couple of times.

Tactically, I agree with your assessment. Missile boats are more efficient cost wise. Strategically, they are more expensive in sustainment, infrastructure support, and logistics chain. Particularly the longer the shooting war goes, beams just tend to be a better investment over longer periods.