My Newbie AAR

[StratPlayer]

Another interesting installment Hyfrydle -- thanks for the update!  

And I totally understand and appreciate the approach you're taking with this first AAR.  In my earlier post, I was mainly making a point about one of the things I like about this game -- the richness and depth which allows a player to get deeper into the role-playing and story-telling aspects if they want to.

And some excellent tips and info regarding the geo survey teams.  I think it helps makes a case for using some of the starting research points at the begining of a campaign, at least to get enough tech to give a rudimentary level of space flight and ships right from the get-go -- You don't want to hurt your initial home-world's mineral position by using a green survey team there, but you can't ("realistically") put them anywhere else if you don't have any ships or space-flight technology.  

And thanks for the kind words regarding the fictionalizing, AndonSage.  I probably will do a campaign and try my hand at a fictionalized AAR at some point, but right now my schedule is just too chaotic to put the time into it -- I'd rather spend my available time getting up to speed on just the mechanics of how to play the game at this point.  

And this newbie tutorial / AAR helps.  Thanks again!

[Hyfrydle (OP)]

Another update and know I need some help I want to build some missile PDC's on Earth but I'm not sure where to start can anyone point me in the right direction? Kate Wallace and her team would really appreciate the help  

[Andrew]

PDC's are built by construction factories

[sloanjh]

Another update and know I need some help I want to build some missile PDC's on Earth but I'm not sure where to start can anyone point me in the right direction? Kate Wallace and her team would really appreciate the help  :-)  And that you can only shoot at active (not passive) sensor contacts (unless you shoot at a waypoint and your missiles have on-board guidance).  I usually make a separate PDC design that's just a big active sensor and lots of armor.  

John

[Brian Neumann]

By the time that my empire is getting out into space I try to have a few different designs of pdc's.  The first set is for small pdc's that are easy to assemble from prefab components.  One will be a sensor base with several active sensors, usually comparable to a cruisers sensors and a lot of armour.  The second is a point defense base with a single quad turret, usually meson so it ignores atmospere and the fire controls.  It will also have an active sensor that covers its fire control range at resolution 1.  The third and fourth are missile bases with either 5 size one launchers, or 5 launchers for my standard anti-ship missile and enough magazine space for at least 20 salvo's of asm and 100 of anti-missile missiles.  All of these are small enough for the freighters to move easily, generally two, sometimes 3 sections,or 10-15 cargo holds.  These are all designed to give a developing colony some active defenses.  Once I have gunboats and fighters I will usually include a design for fighters also.

The second major kind of base are the really huge ones that only the biggest planets will have the capacity to build.  I still tend to split the missile and beam bases apart, and will have one or two bases with really huge sensors.  The largest I can afford to prototype.  I have even put in a size 50, resolution 1 active sensor.  Even at early techs it can detect ships or missiles at huge ranges, back it up with a size 10 resolution 150 and you are seeing anything that could possibly be a threat to the planet.  These bases also have lots of armour on them, up to 100 points in one game.  They will have 10-20 missile launcers sized 12-24, and 10 more that fire the standard anti-ship missile.  The beam base will have 3-5 turrets of the biggest mesons/lasers I have and another 3-5 of smaller 5 second cycle time for point defense.

Hope this helps you figure out what you want.

Brian

[sloanjh]

I have even put in a size 50, resolution 1 active sensor.

Dang!!!  Isn't the research cost on this huge (e.g. a level or two on all the active sensor techs)?

John

PS - 50 or 51?  I try to make my active sensor sizes a multiple of 3, so the fire control range matches....

[Hyfrydle (OP)]

By the time that my empire is getting out into space I try to have a few different designs of pdc's.  The first set is for small pdc's that are easy to assemble from prefab components.  One will be a sensor base with several active sensors, usually comparable to a cruisers sensors and a lot of armour.  The second is a point defense base with a single quad turret, usually meson so it ignores atmospere and the fire controls.  It will also have an active sensor that covers its fire control range at resolution 1.  The third and fourth are missile bases with either 5 size one launchers, or 5 launchers for my standard anti-ship missile and enough magazine space for at least 20 salvo's of asm and 100 of anti-missile missiles.  All of these are small enough for the freighters to move easily, generally two, sometimes 3 sections,or 10-15 cargo holds.  These are all designed to give a developing colony some active defenses.  Once I have gunboats and fighters I will usually include a design for fighters also.

The second major kind of base are the really huge ones that only the biggest planets will have the capacity to build.  I still tend to split the missile and beam bases apart, and will have one or two bases with really huge sensors.  The largest I can afford to prototype.  I have even put in a size 50, resolution 1 active sensor.  Even at early techs it can detect ships or missiles at huge ranges, back it up with a size 10 resolution 150 and you are seeing anything that could possibly be a threat to the planet.  These bases also have lots of armour on them, up to 100 points in one game.  They will have 10-20 missile launcers sized 12-24, and 10 more that fire the standard anti-ship missile.  The beam base will have 3-5 turrets of the biggest mesons/lasers I have and another 3-5 of smaller 5 second cycle time for point defense.

Hope this helps you figure out what you want.

Brian

Wow thanks for all this fantastic info I gather from this that the most powerful sensor possible is required along with firecontrols to match. Is it also correct that numerous installations can be linked to one firecontrol?

Also what kind of range should I be looking at for planet based defences?

When it comes to magazines I'm still trying to get my head around them is the following correct?

A magazine of 50 can store 50 size 1 missiles or 10 size 5 missiles?

Also I presume the turrets are treated slightly differently as they are not affected by ship speed.

One final question when I select to build a PDC in the class screen the default design comes with fuel storage which I suppose is not required but when I remove it I get an error message. The game continues fine after that as far as I can tell.

Sorry for all the questions but I want to document this in my AAR so I need to make sure I understand it first.

[UnLimiTeD]

Stop being sorry for your questions.
Your assumption on magazines is correct.
The range on your PDCs honestly depends on available tech, to put it that simple.

On ships, the maximum weapon tracking speed is either the speed of the ship it's mounted on, or your highest Fire Control Tracking speed level, whichever is higher.
Now of course you can make firecontrols up to 4x the size for faster tracking speed, and this is where turrets make the real difference.

If a weapon is mounted on a turret, the turret tracking speed is used instead of the ship speed to calculate the tracking speed of the weapon.
The turret tech you research is the turret tracking speed for 10% gear, meaning the turret's size is 10% of the mounted weapons.
You can increase that similar to firecontrols to match your target, by inserting the desired tracking speed.

[Brian Neumann]

Wow thanks for all this fantastic info I gather from this that the most powerful sensor possible is required along with firecontrols to match. Is it also correct that numerous installations can be linked to one firecontrol?

Also what kind of range should I be looking at for planet based defences?

When it comes to magazines I'm still trying to get my head around them is the following correct?

A magazine of 50 can store 50 size 1 missiles or 10 size 5 missiles?

Also I presume the turrets are treated slightly differently as they are not affected by ship speed.

One final question when I select to build a PDC in the class screen the default design comes with fuel storage which I suppose is not required but when I remove it I get an error message. The game continues fine after that as far as I can tell.

Sorry for all the questions but I want to document this in my AAR so I need to make sure I understand it first.

You have the magazine capacity right.  On planets there is currently no delay for reloading the magazine from the planetary stockpile.  This means that you do not need to have a huge magazine for the pdc.  I still prefer to have a large enough magazine for a decent fight.

If you want your pdc's energy weapons to be effective against missiles you will need to put them in turrets.  Currently only lasers, mesons, and gauss cannon can be in a turret.  Gauss cannon are a poor weapon for pdc's as they will be blocked by even the tiniest atmospere will block them.  In general I prefer mesons as they end up being effective from any colony they are placed on, and they ignore armour on the receiving end.  While in theory they are shorter ranged than an equal tech laser would be, in effect if there is much atmosphere they have an equivilent range.  I do tend to put even the biggest mesons/lasers in turrets so they can benifit from future fire control upgrades more.  It is another place to pay a little extra to start, and save in the long run.  They can also act as additional point defense for the planet.  For a small base that is primarily for point defense my preferense is the 10cm meson as it is small, ignores the atmosphere, and if any assult landings are attempted they will chew up the ships landing.

Bring on the questions.  I usually check the board two or three times a day (eastern standard time USA).  I am always happy to help, or you can send me a pm if you want to.

Brian
Each pdc is effectivly a seperate ship.  Each will need it's own fire control.  They do not however need seperate active sensors.  As long as one active sensor (grav) is operating and detecting what you want to shoot at all of your ships/pdc's will be able to target it.  

As for the weapon ranges from pdcs.  The lighter missile bases usually have the same ranges as my shipboard weapons.  If I have reasearched pdc specific beam fire control I will use that on the pdc's.  It has a 50% greater range IIRC than normal fire control.  One thing to be aware of with pdc's is if there is an atmosphere as the change to beam weapon damage is [damage -(damagex(atmospheric pressure/1 atmospheric pressure)].  Anything over 1 atmospheric pressure means that beam weapons will do no damage.  The one exeption to this is Mesons.  They totally ignore the atmospheric modifiers.  For most beam weapons the change to damage will also affect the range as it is based on the damage the weapon does.  Torpedo's do ignore this effect, and as they also have a constand damage for their range they are affected less than rest of the beam weapons.  They do still need to do at least one point of damage after the atmospheric modifier is applied or they are blocked by the atmosphere.

An atmospheric pressure of .8 atmosphere means that all non meson weapons will do 1/5 normal damage (80/100)%  If they are not doing 5 points of damage at the range the target is at they are blocked by the atmosphere.  (all damage is rounded down to a whole number).

With the big missile bases I want their firecontroll to be at least twice the range of my longest range missile.  This does two two things, it counters enemy ecm that is better than my eccm, and it allows for the base to still be usefull after my missiles have been upgraded a couple of times.  As upgradeing pdc's is a hassle, and seems to have a intermittent bug as well it just makes life simpler.  

All bases need some basic active sensors that cover thier normal engagement range in case the big sensor pdc is taken out.  The advantage of the big base sensor base is it canhave a lot of armour in comparison to the other bases, and it will be the only thing they can spot if their missiles are using em sensors and fired from really long range.  A range where the attackers do not have an actual sensor lock for the bases.

[Hyfrydle (OP)]

Another installment is up and ready to be checked for any mistakes with designs etc.

The info from everyone who is participating is really helping me out the next info I need is help with missile designs for both planet based installations and ships. I'm hoping to start work on a military protection force for Earth once the planet based defences are complete.

[UnLimiTeD]

Somewhere on this board is a file for Excel and Open Office to calculate missile performance.
You insert you tech levels, desired warhead, range and speed of the target and it gives you the ideal configuration for those specifications.
A word on tech levels: Missiles gain a tremendous % bonus in performance with early tech levels, Wh 2->3 = 50%, and the like.
Fuel efficiency helps range, not only on missiles.

PDC Missile Launchers reload double as fast, so you generally go for somewhat larger sizes on ASMs.
Once you researched a few levels of sensor tech, which you should better do sooner than later, you can put a bit of Sensor on the really big missiles, just in case.

Ship based ASMs are generally between size 3 and 6, depending on your requirements.
Larger warheads allow deeper armor penetration, but are weaker in face of enemy Anti Missile Fire, and once you find an enemy with sufficient armor to shrug off your biggest missile, you have to sandpaper him anyways.

You got some good finds on the minerals, generally not that much, but good availabilities, especially duranium.

[AndonSage]

Steve released version 5.10 tonight, btw Be aware that if you upgrade to 5.10, you'll have to start over.

[Hyfrydle (OP)]

Steve released version 5.10 tonight, btw Be aware that if you upgrade to 5.10, you'll have to start over.

Not sure what to do I want to upgrade but it involves restarting which is annoying. I presume the new version has bug fixes and new features are these documented anywhere?

[AndonSage]

I presume the new version has bug fixes and new features are these documented anywhere?

The Tutorial is still on version 4.77. What do you think?   ) are still figuring out the base game  

[Hyfrydle (OP)]

Gonna stick with 5.02 and continue the campaign I'm enjoying writing it up and starting again would be hard work. Also in the next installment the jump points are going to be explored which should keep me busy.