My Newbie AAR

[sloanjh]

No.  It's under missile tech.  IIRC each level has a different name, but the number is in parentheses.

I must be blind because I can't see this tech the only warhead strength tech is under energy weapons.

It's NOT called "warhead tech".  It's called something like "implosion warhead" - I can't tell you the exact name 'cuz I'm on a laptop that's cutting off the bottom of the F2 screen and I'm on a conventional start.  Just go to the missiles/kinetic research topic and look for the tech that doesn't make any other sense.

Warhead tech in energy weapons is for torpedoes (which are renamed in 5.1).

John

PS - It's easiest to quote by using the "quote" button.

[randal7]

You've found quite a few systems to not have a potential colony. Other than Mars, have you not found a planet in the 2.00 to 3.00 colony cost range (light blue on the system creation screen and galactic map)? These are often, despite the colony cost difference, easier to colonize than dark blue planets, because of the colony cost rules. Not enough oxygen is always 2.00, whether there is none at all or only .001 pressure short of breathable. Similarly, toxic gases are always 3.00, whether the whole atmosphere is chlorine or just a tiny amount. I have found a 3.00 colony cost planet that only took 2 terraformer/years to be fully habitable.

[Hyfrydle (OP)]

You've found quite a few systems to not have a potential colony. Other than Mars, have you not found a planet in the 2.00 to 3.00 colony cost range (light blue on the system creation screen and galactic map)? These are often, despite the colony cost difference, easier to colonize than dark blue planets, because of the colony cost rules. Not enough oxygen is always 2.00, whether there is none at all or only .001 pressure short of breathable. Similarly, toxic gases are always 3.00, whether the whole atmosphere is chlorine or just a tiny amount. I have found a 3.00 colony cost planet that only took 2 terraformer/years to be fully habitable.

So far potential colonies have been few and far between and Mars has no minerals I'm aiming to colonise Luyten 726-8 A II which has a colony cost of 4.04 which is a bit high but is the best I've found so far. The only other good planets where in the Tau Ceti system and I've not ventured there since the first contact.

[Hyfrydle (OP)]

A very large update today hope you all enjoy!!!!

http://auroranewbieaar.blogspot.com/

[Maximillian]

It appears that the jump drive capacity of your jump ships
is greater than their mass. Don't forget that a jump ship's effective capacity is thel
 lesser of it's drive capacity and it's own mass.

Many people pad out their designs with fuel tankage, spares or magazines to get the most efficiency.

Max

[Hyfrydle (OP)]

It appears that the jump drive capacity of your jump ships
is greater than their mass. Don't forget that a jump ship's effective capacity is thel
 lesser of it's drive capacity and it's own mass.

Many people pad out their designs with fuel tankage, spares or magazines to get the most efficiency.

Max

Yeah realised this too late but in tonights update we'll finally find out what the Tau Ceti aliens are upto.

[Nikolaj]

I just wanted to say how much I'm enjoying reading both your blog and this thread. It's both informative and entertaining. Thanks.

[Hyfrydle (OP)]

Another update and the Tau Ceti aliens are just as nasty as ever. Took a fleet of 4 craft 1 missile launcher, 1 command ship, 1 ant-missiles and the Gateway jump tender. I never stood a chance they started by taking out the Gateway so we had no escape. The missile speed was 32,000 and they sent salvos of 20. I have no idea how to target incoming missiles help much appreciated.

Something else that didn't help was there Ecm which decreased my missile range by nearly half.

Combat was confusing but exciting with more knowledge I can see it been very strategic and great fun.

[Brian Neumann]

Another update and the Tau Ceti aliens are just as nasty as ever. Took a fleet of 4 craft 1 missile launcher, 1 command ship, 1 ant-missiles and the Gateway jump tender. I never stood a chance they started by taking out the Gateway so we had no escape. The missile speed was 32,000 and they sent salvos of 20. I have no idea how to target incoming missiles help much appreciated.

Something else that didn't help was there Ecm which decreased my missile range by nearly half.

Combat was confusing but exciting with more knowledge I can see it been very strategic and great fun.

To get your point defense working you need to set the modes in the Battle Control Window (F8).  Select the launchers you want with the fire control you want them to use.  then hit the assign button.  Then in the middle there is a box of assign missiles to launchers.  Select the missile you want them to fire and hit the assign button.  Finally you will need to set the fire control to point defense, on the far right is a small box that will say how many missiles to assign per incomming missile.  Figure out what your chance of hitting the incomming missiles is and set the point defense to that number.  (It will probably be 5 for each incomming missile).  Hit the Set Mode button and your point defense is now configured.  This step is probably why your point defense didn't work as the default mode is "none", which means that no missiles will be launced on the incomming missiles.  Also once you have done this for one ship, hit the button on the far right to copy to all ships of the same class.  I routinely do this whenever I am sending a fleet out.  This way all of my ships have their point defense set up and on automatic.  Do the same for all of your beam weapons, even those that are not good for point defense.  If you are being hit by missiles the chances are the beam weapons are out of range of any enemy at the time, so you might as well use them to thicken up your missile defenses.  If you do this then having an enemy fleet open up from long range when you don't know they are there won't be as dangerous to you.

Brian

[Hyfrydle (OP)]

The point defense craft I was using was as follows:

Fly Swatter class Area Defence Cruiser 4700 tons 536 Crew 462.2 BP TCS 94 TH 160 EM 0
1702 km/s Armour 1-24 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 3 PPV 48
Annual Failure Rate: 58% IFR: 0.8% Maint Capacity 184 MSP Max Repair 30 MSP Est Time: 4.08 Years

Nuclear Pulse Engine E9 Military (4) Power 40 Fuel Use 90% Signature 40 Armour 0 Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 100,000 Litres Range 42.6 billion km (289 days at full power)

Twin R4/C3 Meson Cannon Turret (4x2) Range 20,000km TS: 15000 km/s Power 8-6 RM 4 ROF 10 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Fire Control S04 10-16000 Anti-Missile Mesons (1) Max Range: 20,000 km TS: 16000 km/s 50 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Gas-Cooled Fast Reactor Technology PB-1 AR-0 (4) Total Power Output 36 Armour 0 Exp 5%

This design is classed as a military vessel for maintenance purposes

Maybe the problem was the speed of the missiles which were 32,000 km/s so by the time they where in range it was too late would this be correct?

Also the PD list for beam weapons has different options than the missile PD what are the options I think the top one was area or something.

Again all help greatly received.

Also if your reading my blog it would be great if you became a follower so I can see the popularity. This would keep me updating regularly.

[UnLimiTeD]

You should research a level of meson focusing technology, even if it starts getting expensive.
50k range is a must if you actually intend on hurting someone with them aside from missiles.

For Beam-Weapons the options are:

Area Defense
Final Defensive Fire
Final Defensive Fire (Self only)

What they do:
1. "Area Defense" works like regular weapons, in the fire phase, if not assigned another task, the weapons will target missiles in the set range and fire on them.
This works best with weapons with a reasonable range, to actually hit something 5 seconds before it can reach you.
It works nicely when having your Missile Defense fly in front of your fleet.

2."Final Defensive Fire" fires the weapons in the movement phase, when the missiles move, and can thus be used on far shortar ranges.
The average CIWS has a range between 1000 and 60000 km, and will operate in that mode.

It is basically a point black defense and should be used with Gauss cannons and Missile defenses within the fleet.

3. Self only explains it all, the ship will only defend itself.

Feedback for your ships:
I would try to get the firecontrols have double the range of your weapons, at 50% range, they also have 50% accuracy, and thus, having a higher fire control range increases your hitchance.
As you will get only one shot, you can of course set the FDF range to 1 (10k km) and be happy with 50% accuracy.
As your obviously fighting high tech enemies, presumable [spoiler:2709qujf]Precursors[/spoiler:2709qujf], A level of Gauss technology might be a good investment aswell, as those weapons make a formidable Antimissile Defense.

I'd wait to the next engagement, research Ion Engines and a level of Armor and Meson range, and overhaul your Cruisers to be a little more speedy.
Also grants the access to missile engine tech.

What Warhead strenght did they have?
Missiles Crater Armor, so a 4 point strength missile creates this Damage template:

0XXX0
00X00
00000

More armor on your ships would make them tremedously more durable^^

If all else fails, and you really want that system rather now than tomorrow, you could build a commercial freighter (lots of outer hull) and plaster it with 10 levels of armor, just send it in and try to deplete their missile Storage.
Of course, shooting missiles down is cheaper.

[Hyfrydle (OP)]

I just wanted to say how much I'm enjoying reading both your blog and this thread. It's both informative and entertaining. Thanks.

Do you play Solium Infernum at all? I played a Email game and I'm sure one player was called Flop.

[Hyfrydle (OP)]

What Warhead strength did they have?

On the system map it said 20 X 16 does that mean 20 missiles with a warhead strength of 16 for a total of 320 damage?

Also what is a standard armor level for military ships?

I now have lots of info on there missiles and ships so the next plan should be designing ships and missiles that counter there current tech. The Tau Ceti aliens have colonies? Do [spoiler:1e5icfnm]precursors[/spoiler:1e5icfnm] have colonies?

[StratPlayer]

The point defense craft I was using was as follows:

Fly Swatter class Area Defence Cruiser 4700 tons 536 Crew 462.2 BP TCS 94 TH 160 EM 0
1702 km/s Armour 1-24 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 3 PPV 48
Annual Failure Rate: 58% IFR: 0.8% Maint Capacity 184 MSP Max Repair 30 MSP Est Time: 4.08 Years

Nuclear Pulse Engine E9 Military (4) Power 40 Fuel Use 90% Signature 40 Armour 0 Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 100,000 Litres Range 42.6 billion km (289 days at full power)

Twin R4/C3 Meson Cannon Turret (4x2) Range 20,000km TS: 15000 km/s Power 8-6 RM 4 ROF 10 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Fire Control S04 10-16000 Anti-Missile Mesons (1) Max Range: 20,000 km TS: 16000 km/s 50 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Gas-Cooled Fast Reactor Technology PB-1 AR-0 (4) Total Power Output 36 Armour 0 Exp 5%

This design is classed as a military vessel for maintenance purposes

Maybe the problem was the speed of the missiles which were 32,000 km/s so by the time they where in range it was too late would this be correct?

Also the PD list for beam weapons has different options than the missile PD what are the options I think the top one was area or something.

Again all help greatly received.

Also if your reading my blog it would be great if you became a follower so I can see the popularity. This would keep me updating regularly.

Hey Hyfrydle,

I don't see any active sensors on your ship.  That could be the problem.  

From Steve's Tutorial on designing a beam-weapon ship:

Although the beam weapons are short-ranged compared to missiles, the ship will need to find and target its enemies so we need one or more active sensors. We already designed an active sensor with a twenty million kilometer range for our geological survey ship so lets add one of those. That sensor won't be suitable for detecting missiles though so we will need a second sensor with a resolution of zero.

[Hyfrydle (OP)]

I don't see any active sensors on your ship. That could be the problem.

I had the following command ship providing sensor cover:

Sunstrike class Command Ship 4950 tons 376 Crew 705.4 BP TCS 99 TH 320 EM 0
3232 km/s Armour 6-25 Shields 0-0 Sensors 25/25/0/0 Damage Control Rating 3 PPV 0
Annual Failure Rate: 65% IFR: 0.9% Maint Capacity 267 MSP Max Repair 150 MSP Est Time: 1.86 Years
Flag Bridge

Nuclear Pulse Engine E9 Military ( Power 40 Fuel Use 90% Signature 40 Armour 0 Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 100,000 Litres Range 40.4 billion km (144 days at full power)

Active Search Sensor MR75-R150 (1) GPS 15000 Range 75.0m km Resolution 150
Thermal Sensor TH5-25 (1) Sensitivity 25 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 25m km
EM Detection Sensor EM5-25 (1) Sensitivity 25 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 25m km

After re-reading your post I think your right the active sensor on the Sunstrike would not detect missiles although they did show up on the system map. Need to make a resolution zero sensor and add that to the Fly Swatter design. Wow the number of mistakes I make when playing Aurora are so annoying. The other big mistake was not leaving my jump tender by the jump gate!!!!!

This design is classed as a military vessel for maintenance purposes