Questions related to mechanics

[Victuz (OP)]

Yeah I'll definitely make sure I have more launchers than that therefore increasing the damage potential. So far I simply couldn't do that because the tech is not ready yet and as I mentioned this thing is mainly a blueprint for a proper ship later on.

As for the speed of the drone it's designed specifically with the aliens who I've been fighting so far, their fastest ships were moving at 3k/s, and every year or so I send a sensor ship giving signals on all frequencies so the buggers attack it. This way I've noticed that they have actually gone through one speed increase (from 2k/s to 3k/s). I'm working on ion drone engines right now so that will help the speed too. Additionally after I've got better tech I decided to redesign the redeemer missiles into size 2's:

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The Archangel MK.1
Missile Size: 2 MSP  (0.1 HS)     Warhead: 4    Armour: 0     Manoeuvre Rating: 15
Speed: 21000 km/s    Endurance: 20 minutes   Range: 25.7m km
Cost Per Missile: 1.825
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 315%   3k km/s 105%   5k km/s 63%   10k km/s 31.5%
Materials Required:    1x Tritanium   0.69x Gallicite   Fuel x500


It's slightly slower than the redeemers but the CtH is comparatively higher. And if it turns out they're too slow I can always change the 0.2 in fuel into 0.1 and put that extra point in engines (that bumps the speed up to 24k/s with the range falling to 12.7m), it's main advantage though is the fact that it has the same punch (even if tiny only 2 layers) but one Minerva drone can carry twice as many missiles now.

As for the close combat I pretty much ditched the idea right after I wrote the post. A jack of all trades is a master of none, I'll just have to design some specialized close range brawlers that if something goes really wrong will protect the Royals so they can retreat. But I don't know about that thermal. It's only size 1 and not having something like that makes me feel a tad blind.

Damage control has just been removed as per your suggestion. Never actually got around to researching it before so I don't even fully know how it works, I'll think about getting the armor down as well but since I have ceramic composite it doesn't really make that much of a difference tonnage/speed wise... actually scratch that after ditching 15 out of the 20 shields (that I have to remake as well now since I just got the better tech) 4 armor is the difference between being below or above 3k/s

OK so that's the state of the ship after a very quick redesign (without the new tech yet)

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Royal class Missile Frigate    3 900 tons     378 Crew     788.6 BP      TCS 78  TH 57.6  EM 300
3076 km/s     Armour 4-22     Shields 10-300     Sensors 8/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 2     PPV 15
Maint Life 3.18 Years     MSP 253    AFR 60%    IFR 0.8%    1YR 38    5YR 565    Max Repair 160 MSP
Magazine 160    

Military Ion MK.II (4)    Power 60    Fuel Use 70%    Signature 14.4    Armour 0    Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 200 000 Litres    Range 131.8 billion km   (496 days at full power)
Gamma R300/18 Shields (5)   Total Fuel Cost  90 Litres per day

Minerva Launcher (1)    Missile Size 20    Rate of Fire 600
Missile Fire Control FC217-R50 (70%) (1)     Range 217.2m km    Resolution 50
Redeemer MK.1 (6)  Speed: 25 500 km/s   End: 11m    Range: 16.9m km   WH: 4    Size: 4    TH: 153 / 91 / 45
Minerva MIRV MK.1 (7)  Speed: 8 000 km/s   End: 535.7m    Range: 272.2m km   WH: 0    Size: 20    TH: 13 / 8 / 4

Active Search Sensor MR10-R65 (70%) (1)     GPS 1040     Range 10.3m km    Resolution 65
Thermal Sensor TH1-8 (70%) (1)     Sensitivity 8     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  8m km

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

Now that I look at it I might actually want to look into the power increase path for engines. Since they're not supposed to be engaging in direct combat if they're the fastest thing around that would certainly help avoid it.

EDIT:
Yep getting the ion engines for drones got the speed up to 12k/s while filled with Archangel missiles

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Missile Size: 20 MSP  (1 HS)     Warhead: 0    Armour: 1     Manoeuvre Rating: 5
Speed: 12000 km/s    Endurance: 357 minutes   Range: 257.1m km
Cost Per Missile: 15.075
Second Stage: Archangel MK.1 x6
Second Stage Separation Range: 15 000 000 km
Overall Endurance: 6 hours   Overall Range: 282.8m km
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 60%   3k km/s 20%   5k km/s 12%   10k km/s 6%
Materials Required:    6.25x Tritanium   7.89x Gallicite   Fuel x5000

Btw the armor is there because... well I'm kind of obsessive compulsive and I couldn't leave it at 19 -_-

[Zook]

The problem is that these aliens will out-tech you for a looong time. They spot you at ridiculous ranges, they shoot at you from ridiculous ranges and they are much faster than any ship you can build (fighters notwithstanding). Most fleets they field will also shrug off a salvo of three (or ten or twenty) missiles without breaking a sweat, shooting them down with point-defense guns.

That means your fleet must be able to:
1) survive anything they can throw at you, and that implies shooting down thirty or forty missiles every 10 seconds. Numbers vary, but if your fleet isn't comfortable with that number of missiles coming its way at 30k km/s, you'd better wait a few more years, and
2) fire enough missiles per 5-sec turn to overcome massive PD or anti-missile-missile fire itself *and* do enough damage to kill what's behind that wall of fire.

2b) Optionally you can hope that particular fleet relies mostly on AMMs instead of guns for defense. Then you can try to exhaust their missile magazines.

Fighters might do the trick, but you *need* reduced-size launchers (that branch of the tech tree finally leads to box launchers). Four size-6 launchers on a 300-ton fighter and three 8000-ton carriers full of these should give you about 150 missiles. Don't forget to click "synchronize fire" before you launch. If your fighters can get close enough before getting spotted, you can enjoy the fireworks. If not, all you've risked is 70 or 80 fighters, hopefully flown by volunteers who had no navy life insurance.

[Victuz (OP)]

The problem is that these aliens will out-tech you for a looong time. They spot you at ridiculous ranges, they shoot at you from ridiculous ranges and they are much faster than any ship you can build (fighters notwithstanding). Most fleets they field will also shrug off a salvo of three (or ten or twenty) missiles without breaking a sweat, shooting them down with point-defense guns.

Thing is though that to my surprise they don't seem that much superior to me in tech. I mean I don't know if perhaps their civilian tech is far ahead but navy wise they seem to be only slightly ahead and that's only in terms of their weaponry (they are actually slower than most my ships), they don't shoot at me from ridiculous ranges (at least the sensor ships I've sent them so far) but instead opt in to get close and blast me with gauss guns (I've seen missiles from them but in general they only tickled), and those are quite definitely more advanced than mine since I don't HAVE gauss cannons and I'm instead working on the laser tech.
I don't know about their point defense but it most probably is capable, since they're focused on the gun tech. That's one of the reasons I'm intending to rely on the element of surprise, attack from stealth possibly beyond their sensor range. Additionally in a perfect world where I have all the tech Minervas would be filled with size 1 missiles that would have the highest chance of hitting and would probably get there fastest.

And if it turns out that I was being harassed by their ships from 20 years ago and now they have better stuff than I'll just lock myself up behind a wall of mines and sensors and hope for the best while the tech gets to where it needs to be.

That means your fleet must be able to:
1) survive anything they can throw at you, and that implies shooting down thirty or forty missiles every 10 seconds. Numbers vary, but if your fleet isn't comfortable with that number of missiles coming its way at 30k km/s, you'd better wait a few more years, and
2) fire enough missiles per 5-sec turn to overcome massive PD or anti-missile-missile fire itself *and* do enough damage to kill what's behind that wall of fire.

I'm working on both these, Again the ship I made is merely a blueprint for a more advanced unit that will basically fill the same role but with "slightly" more punch. As for avoiding the 30k km/s the missiles since my laser and turret tech is kind of in the barn right now I'll probably have to rely on AMM's, and that might not be so bad since the fleet is supposed to be the one surprising people with missiles, not the other way around.

2b) Optionally you can hope that particular fleet relies mostly on AMMs instead of guns for defense. Then you can try to exhaust their missile magazines.

I would probably loose at that but we'll see.

Fighters might do the trick, but you *need* reduced-size launchers (that branch of the tech tree finally leads to box launchers). Four size-6 launchers on a 300-ton fighter and three 8000-ton carriers full of these should give you about 150 missiles. Don't forget to click "synchronize fire" before you launch. If your fighters can get close enough before getting spotted, you can enjoy the fireworks. If not, all you've risked is 70 or 80 fighters, hopefully flown by volunteers who had no navy life insurance.

Yeah I did get box launchers the last time and seeing them on fighters was fantastic. I was planning to make a carrier in the fleet anyway, but mostly as a prevention measure for when the bad guys are actually trying to intercept us.


EDIT:
OK I got some tech and made some changes to the ship.

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Royal class Missile Frigate    5 000 tons     397 Crew     974 BP      TCS 100  TH 72  EM 300
3000 km/s     Armour 4-26     Shields 10-300     Sensors 8/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 2     PPV 40
Maint Life 2.79 Years     MSP 244    AFR 100%    IFR 1.4%    1YR 46    5YR 683    Max Repair 160 MSP
Magazine 160    

Military Ion MK.II (5)    Power 60    Fuel Use 70%    Signature 14.4    Armour 0    Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 200 000 Litres    Range 102.9 billion km   (396 days at full power)
Gamma R300/18 Shields (5)   Total Fuel Cost  90 Litres per day

Minerva Launcher MK.2 (8)    Missile Size 20    Rate of Fire 20000
Missile Fire Control FC217-R50 (70%) (1)     Range 217.2m km    Resolution 50
Minerva MK.2 (8)  Speed: 12 000 km/s   End: 416.6m    Range: 300.1m km   WH: 0    Size: 20    TH: 20 / 12 / 6

Active Search Sensor MR10-R65 (70%) (1)     GPS 1040     Range 10.3m km    Resolution 65
Thermal Sensor TH1-8 (70%) (1)     Sensitivity 8     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  8m km

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


Before I proceed I have a question. Initially I had a magazine able to fit 8 more Minervas in the ship but I noticed the launchers also provide magazine capacity. Is that capacity for the second salvo or does it count as the missiles actually IN the launchers from the start?

Anyway, while this is still not entirely finished I'm rather happy (gotta get new engines and missile fire control on it) with how it's turning out. So the main change is I got the box launcher tech, and right before it I got the 0.25 size tech and decided to use it instead. This way with the lvl 3 reload tech for launchers I can actually fire a second salvo before the original drone gets to it's target (reload time is about 5 and a half hours and the drone can go for about 7 assuming target at max range).
Additionally because of the now smaller size I decided to have 8 of the damn things on the ship meaning that one simultaneous salvo shoots out 8 Minerva drones carrying 6 Archangel Missiles each.
Each archangel does 4 damage (enough to damage 2 layers of armor if the wiki is correct) so assuming all of them hit that's 8x6x4=192 damage. A reasonable increase from the original 1x3x4=12 damage.

All I'm going to do now is get all the tech on it up to date and start producing these things. Originally I planned to have only a few of them in a fleet but I think for proper offensive operations I might actually mass produce them to do the bulk of the damage. (They would ofc have to be covered because they're useless if ambushed).
I don't have many plans in terms of upgrading them. Eventually I might put some cloaking on them and reduce the thermal emissions so they can serve as proper hidden hit and run ships, not to mention upgrading the tech in general.

EDIT2:

Allright I'm not sure about the magazine thing so I opted out to just add one anyway. The final build is something like that:

The ship

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Royal MK.2 class Missile Frigate    5 500 tons     415 Crew     1245.8 BP      TCS 110  TH 64  EM 300
3636 km/s     Armour 3-27     Shields 10-300     Sensors 33/11/0/0     Damage Control Rating 2     PPV 40
Maint Life 2.19 Years     MSP 283    AFR 121%    IFR 1.7%    1YR 79    5YR 1190    Max Repair 175 MSP
Magazine 321    

Military Magneto-Plasma (5)    Power 80    Fuel Use 60%    Signature 12.8    Armour 0    Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 200 000 Litres    Range 109.1 billion km   (347 days at full power)
Gamma R300/18 Shields (5)   Total Fuel Cost  90 Litres per day

Minerva Launcher MK.2 (8)    Missile Size 20    Rate of Fire 20000
Missile Fire Control FC326-R50 (70%) (1)     Range 326.7m km    Resolution 50
Minerva MIRV MK.3 (16)  Speed: 16 000 km/s   End: 312.5m    Range: 320m km   WH: 0    Size: 20    TH: 26 / 16 / 8

Active Search Sensor MR10-R65 (70%) (1)     GPS 1040     Range 10.3m km    Resolution 65
Thermal Sensor TH3-33 (70%) (1)     Sensitivity 33     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  33m km
EM Detection Sensor EM1-11 (70%) (1)     Sensitivity 11     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  11m km

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

The drone

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Missile Size: 20 MSP  (1 HS)     Warhead: 0    Armour: 1     Manoeuvre Rating: 5
Speed: 16000 km/s    Endurance: 312 minutes   Range: 300.0m km
Cost Per Missile: 18.9085
Second Stage: Archangel MK.2 x6
Second Stage Separation Range: 20 000 000 km
Overall Endurance: 5 hours   Overall Range: 330.0m km
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 80%   3k km/s 25%   5k km/s 16%   10k km/s 8%
Materials Required:    6.25x Tritanium   12.1435x Gallicite   Fuel x5000

The missiles

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Missile Size: 2 MSP  (0.1 HS)     Warhead: 4    Armour: 0     Manoeuvre Rating: 17
Speed: 32000 km/s    Endurance: 16 minutes   Range: 30.0m km
Cost Per Missile: 2.2417
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 544%   3k km/s 170%   5k km/s 108.8%   10k km/s 54.4%
Materials Required:    1x Tritanium   1.1767x Gallicite   Fuel x500

Development Cost for Project: 224RP

That's about it for this ship. Now what I mainly have to do is design a sensor boat that's powerful enough to detect ships at the range of 200-300m km which is the operating range I've decided upon. Than I'll make about 3 of these + a sensor + a jump ship get them to the nearest system where the aliens are at and raid them to see if it was all worth anything.

[Victuz (OP)]

This was a triumph, I'm making a note here huge success.

I managed to blow up a few of the enemy ships from the range of 250m km's and get away unscathed. In the process I found one of their planets in the system next to sol and I'm planning to invade it.

Now I'm planning to make more ships and start an invasion of this planet (after destroying the remaining ships prior to that ofc). However there is one thing I'm not entirely sure about.
I have 3 brigades, two of them are mobile infantry brigades and one of them is an assault infantry brigade. So far all understandable. What I'm not entirely sure on is the troop module capacity.
I know one module can hold a battalion (and 5 of them are needed for engineer battalions). Now do brigade headquarters count? What I mean is, if I want to carry a whole brigade on one ship (however dangerous this may be) do I need 4 troop carrying modules or 5 because of the HQ?
Additionally how many company drop modules would I need for that? Can the HQ stay on the ship and still serve or does it need to make the drop with the rest of the soldiers?

[Charlie Beeler]

HQ's (both Brigade and Division) are battalion sized thus need a single troop module.

Drop Modules are vary different from Troop Transport Modules.  IIRC they are adiquitely discribed in the wiki.  But a quick answer is that company drop modules are only useful to Marine Companies.

For subunits to recieve the HQ bonus the assigned HQ must be on the same colony.

[niflheimr]

Time-on-target is the one proven way to break any AAM or PD defense . Design 5 missiles with slightly different speed (around 1k difference for size 5 works) and do the math.

It doesn't matter if they are spoilers or NPRs , 500 missiles in 10 or 20 salvoes will blow them to smithereens.

[Victuz (OP)]

Ok while this is going on (slightly worse now as the aliens got kind of annoyed with me blowing up their ships) I have a few more questions.
1. Thermal signature, is it counted on a ship by ship basis or does it sum up the signature for a whole TG? so 10 ships with a signature of 69 are still only showing as 69 or do they show up as 690?

2. PDC's. I've built a pretty hefty PDC on Earth and one around my colony cause they were demanding protection. The issue is I didn't have missiles at the colony when I built it (I have them now) and I accidentally left a fuel tank on the pdc while I was constructing it. This means that I constantly get the "out of fuel" message for both of them and additionally none of them want to load up on missiles.

I can't figure out how to fix that since they can't take orders and I don't notice any orders. I tried refitting them into their exact design but as the cost of that is 0 I constantly got the "dividing by 0" message.
Any help with that?

[Beersatron]

Ok while this is going on (slightly worse now as the aliens got kind of annoyed with me blowing up their ships) I have a few more questions.
1. Thermal signature, is it counted on a ship by ship basis or does it sum up the signature for a whole TG? so 10 ships with a signature of 69 are still only showing as 69 or do they show up as 690?

2. PDC's. I've built a pretty hefty PDC on Earth and one around my colony cause they were demanding protection. The issue is I didn't have missiles at the colony when I built it (I have them now) and I accidentally left a fuel tank on the pdc while I was constructing it. This means that I constantly get the "out of fuel" message for both of them and additionally none of them want to load up on missiles.

I can't figure out how to fix that since they can't take orders and I don't notice any orders. I tried refitting them into their exact design but as the cost of that is 0 I constantly got the "dividing by 0" message.
Any help with that?

Change the design of the PDC by unlocking it and removing the fuel tanks then locking the design again.

Then go to the ship/pdc listing screen and click on each PDC one at a time - this forces the new design onto the existing PDC.

[Conscript Gary]

Ok while this is going on (slightly worse now as the aliens got kind of annoyed with me blowing up their ships) I have a few more questions.
1.  Thermal signature, is it counted on a ship by ship basis or does it sum up the signature for a whole TG? so 10 ships with a signature of 69 are still only showing as 69 or do they show up as 690?

It's per-ship, so they would see ten strength 69 contacts.

Also for the PDCs, I'm pretty sure you could use the individual ships window to transfer fuel and ordnance to them manually without unlocking the design in SM mode

[Victuz (OP)]

Thanks for the answers I'll check out the way without using SM first and than if that doesn't work I'll try the SM way.

On a more spoilery note:
It turns out the first aliens I met were in fact NOT precursors. This explains the fact they were not so far ahead of me and now I'm actually kicking their ass wherever I meet them. Still not entirely sure why they're in completely unrelated systems but hey, their colonies have a lot of minerals on them.
I know that mainly because now I have in fact met precursors. And they're scary, ships going 8,5k km/s despite being over 12k tonnes big and size 4 missiles going 35k km/s are no joke. I managed to win only because of the overwhelming numbers of AMM ships and Royal's that I had. Still had to use AMM missiles to blow the last ship out from the sky, it was a fun fight.

Since my encounter with spoilers I had an idea roaming around my head and since I didn't have a chance to check it out yet I've decided to ask you. You see my ships have relatively low thermal emissions compared to everything I've met so far and they seem to go relatively undetected having a big advantage on the front of passive sensors. The only time I get detected is when I use active sensors to lock onto targets.

Because of that I started thinking of ways to lock onto targets without the use of active sensors, the most obvious way seemed to be to set up a waypoint on an enemy and than sending Minervas there. All seems fine up until the missiles actually get there, than they just kind of hang around until their fuel runs out and self destruct.
So I thought of something else. What if I used a drone to carry two mines to the spot, one with an active sensor on board and one (or multiple) with missiles on. Would they automatically lock onto targets in the range of the sensor or would they still just hang around doing nothing?
It seems like a good way to blow up ships without turning on the active sensors. I actually have proper mines prepped up and launchers too, however I can't seem to find any targets to test the theory on...

[Conscript Gary]

Missiles require onboard sensors or a fire control to lock onto targets.
So, as neat as the idea of dropping an active sensor buoy to direct a neighbor mine's submunitions is, it wouldn't work.

[Jikor]

So in this situation having thermal sensors on your missiles would have caused them to see the targets and lock on.

[Victuz (OP)]

So no active sensor buoy but instead a buoy with missiles equipped with thermal sensors would work?
Gotta test that out tomorrow.

[Jikor]

Or you can put a thermal sensor on the missile itself. This also helps missiles re-target in an overkill situation which reduces wasted missiles.