I've been working on this on-and-off since the challenge was posted. It was delayed by far too many clean-sheet redesigns when I was sure I'd finalised what I wanted and set out to produce a pretty version without all the experimental equipment draining my RP allowance, and then when I ran the battles I eventually found I had a lemon. Of course, I'd started with the fleets that looked most threatening, so (other than deciding that - since I could barely scratch it - I wouldn't inclde the Roadrunner after all) I got to the end and was embarrassed to discover that the AMM fleet could walk all over me. Of course I slapped on more armour, but what really turned the trick was remembering that a weapon's Tracking Speed is floored by the racial Fire Control Speed, which rapidly brought on the brainwave that not only could I make my ships even slower, I should buy that tech instead of armour. So here's the Energy Legion, a penny-pincher's dream.
Energy Legion (DIT_grue)
TechTheoretical:
Ion Drive Technology: 10,000 RP
Fire Control Speed Rating 4,000 km/s: 8,000 RP
Component List:
0.8HS Active Sensor MR1-R1: 130 RP
0.7HS Active Search Sensor MR0-R1: 110 RP
Fire Control S01 48-4000: 290 RP
Fire Control S02 96-4000: 580 RP
75 EP Commercial Ion Drive 25x0.25: 94 RP
134.4 EP Commercial Ion Drive 28x0.40: 269 RP
135 EP Commercial Ion Drive 25x0.45: 304 RP
15cm C3 Near Ultraviolet Laser: 220 RP
10cm C3 Near Ultraviolet Laser: 150 RP
10cm Railgun V1/C2: 200 RP
1.0HS Gas-Cooled Reactor 4.5power: 140 RP
0.5HS Gas-Cooled Reactor 2.25power: 70 RP
Ships:
Architecti class Salvager 16,900 tons 98 Crew 332.775 BP TCS 338 TH 75 EM 0
221 km/s Armour 1-58 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 1 PPV 0
MSP 12 Max Repair 200 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 3 months Spare Berths 6
Cargo 5000
Salvager: 1 module(s) capable of salvaging 500 tons per day
75 EP Commercial Ion Drive 25x0.25 (1) Power 75 Fuel Use 1.64% Signature 75 Exp 2%
Fuel Capacity 10,000 Litres Range 6.5 billion km (338 days at full power)
This design is classed as a Commercial Vessel for maintenance purposes
The Architecti uses a single small fuel tank.
Cohort class Frigate 6,000 tons 158 Crew 514.36 BP TCS 120 TH 269 EM 0
2241 km/s Armour 4-29 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 2 PPV 30
Maint Life 2.43 Years MSP 107 AFR 144% IFR 2% 1YR 25 5YR 374 Max Repair 29 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 6 months Spare Berths 1
134.4 EP Commercial Ion Drive 28x0.40 (2) Power 134.4 Fuel Use 5.1% Signature 134.4 Exp 4%
Fuel Capacity 10,000 Litres Range 5.9 billion km (30 days at full power)
10cm Railgun V1/C2 (10x4) Range 10,000km TS: 4000 km/s Power 3-2 RM 1 ROF 10 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Fire Control S01 48-4000 (5) Max Range: 96,000 km TS: 4000 km/s 90 79 69 58 48 38 27 17 6 0
0.5HS Gas-Cooled Reactor 2.25power (1) Total Power Output 2.25 Armour 0 Exp 5%
1.0HS Gas-Cooled Reactor 4.5power (4) Total Power Output 18 Armour 0 Exp 5%
0.8HS Active Sensor MR1-R1 (1) GPS 13 Range 1.0m km MCR 111k km Resolution 1
This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
The Cohort class uses two tiny fuel tanks.
Tormenta class Frigate 6,000 tons 171 Crew 678.35 BP TCS 120 TH 270 EM 0
2250 km/s Armour 4-29 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 2 PPV 35
Maint Life 2.31 Years MSP 141 AFR 144% IFR 2% 1YR 36 5YR 537 Max Repair 58 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 6 months Spare Berths 2
135 EP Commercial Ion Drive 25x0.45 (2) Power 135 Fuel Use 7.13% Signature 135 Exp 4%
Fuel Capacity 15,000 Litres Range 6.3 billion km (32 days at full power)
10cm C3 Near Ultraviolet Laser (1) Range 90,000km TS: 4000 km/s Power 3-3 RM 3 ROF 5 3 3 3 2 1 1 1 1 1 0
15cm C3 Near Ultraviolet Laser (8) Range 180,000km TS: 4000 km/s Power 6-3 RM 3 ROF 10 6 6 6 4 3 3 2 2 2 1
Fire Control S02 96-4000 (2) Max Range: 192,000 km TS: 4000 km/s 95 90 84 79 74 69 64 58 53 48
1.0HS Gas-Cooled Reactor 4.5power (6) Total Power Output 27 Armour 0 Exp 5%
0.7HS Active Search Sensor MR0-R1 (1) GPS 12 Range 890k km MCR 97k km Resolution 1
This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
The Tormenta class uses one small and one tiny fuel tanks.
Order of Battle:
1x Architecti
7x Cohort
3x Tormenta
Total = 5,993.345 BP
This is intended as a brutally simple, straight-forward fleet. Cohorts provide anti-missile cover, while the Tormenta class is intended to prevent anyone kiting them with beam weapons.
Standard Tactics:
All active sensors turned on, all weapons evenly distributed over available fire controls and configured for Final Defensive Fire at 10,000km. Each class is organised into a separate Task Group.
The Tormentas are set to Follow the Cohorts, both other TGs ordered to proceed to the JP at their own best speed. Use the occupation of the JP (or implacable advance toward it) to force the enemy to commit to battle. If under missile fire, weather it, depending on point defence and armour to survive.
When engaging at energy ranges, try to hold the best possible range as long as possible. (Since the enemy will almost always be faster, they can control the range, but you can still affect the rate at which they change it. The 15cm lasers are intended to outrange most energy weapons, so the typical strategy is to retreat from a charging enemy while firing at maximum rate.) Targetting priorities are for the most urgently threatening ships first - usually the longest-ranged weapon that doesn't appear to be out of ammunition - and sensor ships will be low priority unless the enemy is stupid enough to have a single sensor platform and bring it within killing range. In the balance between killing the enemy as rapidly as possible and avoidance of overkill, the emphasis should be on speed; but units slowed by engine damage may become lower priority than their closer sister-ships.
Special Case: If a fast-salvager type enemy is detected (a single ship with Thermal signature greater than 15,000 and moving at more than 4,500 km/s) then the combat ships should follow it through the jump point as rapidly as possible, taking up position at a waypoint 500,000 km off the JP towards where the wreck was originally located. Once the enemy is detected again they should advance towards it, then set course for the JP at their best speed once it is within 250,000km, and fire all weapons on it as often as possible. (Then hope for good luck: there's better than even odds that it will still escape, thus winning.)
vs Gatling Fleet (lennson)
Once the Energy Legion finally crept into active sensor range, the Gatlings pursued them immediately. When they were within a few hundred thousand kilometres the enemy reversed course, then opened fire as the distance continued to close only slightly more slowly. As they charged forward, their great speed not only gave the enemy few chances to fire unanswered, but limited the accuracy of their fire controls, thus devaluing even the few volleys they had time for. Even so, the beam weapons hit harder as the range shrank, and the first Gatling was destroyed just before reaching its own effective range.
In the moment the fleets intermingled, both unleashed broadsides of railguns, but though the targetted ships writhed under the pounding and vomited copious fountains of air, every single one clung to its assigned position. The Gatlings' guns cycled swiftly, whereas the Legion seemed to be alternating railgun fire with lasers, but both were equally lethal: two Gatlings and one Cohort were reduced to shattered wreckage. Another Cohort fell victim to the next exchange of fire, the consequence of focussed rather than divided targetting; although the Gatlings also lost a ship's worth of weapons at this point, even if this was not externally apparent. By now it was taking multiple firing cycles for the Gatlings to chew through the armour of their target and then take it down, and the Legion was perhaps unlucky - despite their lasers doing a total of 42 damage to the engines of two already badly-damaged ships, neither lost any function at all. As if to compensate, their railgun-equipped ships again underestimated how much it would take to kill the two battered ships (in fact, those two 25HTK engines collectively absorbed at least 63 damage, with one of them still functioning!), and assigned many of their weapons to a fresh target... whereupon a lucky hit slipped through a gap torn in the armour to lodge in the engine, which failed catastrophically and tore the ship apart from the inside.
In short order, two of the three surviving Gatlings were engineless, and thus could be avoided and picked off at leisure; the last was attempting to use its sole remaining railgun to finish a crippled Cohort. Of course, being capable of evasion, it was a much harder target than its fellows, and successfully killed its target - though it lost the weapon at about the same time. Its engine continued to withstand incredible punishment, but the fuel tanks did not prove so resilient and thus it was brought to bay and destroyed despite the Legion being wrong-footed by its abrupt escape attempt. This brought the violence to a conclusion eighty seconds after the first shot was fired.
Evaluation: This confrontation feels like it could probably be analysed fairly well using Lanchester's Square Law - the superiority of the Gatlings' equipment has proven woefully incapable of compensating for the weight of numbers every time I've run the battle with a force designed using this general philosophy.
vs DemoFleet FAC (Sublight)
Waiting on the jump point, the FACs spotted the enemy on thermals at just over four million klicks, rather closer than their doctrine called for at this stage of the battle. One Blanco immediately painted the target while the fleet launched its initial missile strike and backed off until it could empty its magazines. Since all the enemy ships were identically sized, the first two volleys would be targetted on one of each class. The enemy ignored their manoeuvers, advancing steadily on the jump point, so rather than continue retreating out to eighty million kilometres the admiral decided to hold the current distance.
Out of the first wave, two missiles hit, though without breaching the armour. The Legion destroyed every missile in the second volley. Therefore the third launch was against the previously damaged target, though it again failed to score any hits. Once the launchers had cycled for the final time, the FACs charged.
Not surprisingly, enemy missiles still hadn't materialised when they backpedalled off the JP at around 200,000 km. The FACs' speed advantage was relatively slight, and the rate of closure dropped precipitously even as one of the Allendes began to be subjected to occasional energy weapon fire. Even the token armour of that class was sufficient to weather a few weak shots here or there, but shortly before they regained the JP an unusually accurate flurry finally punched through, and by extreme bad luck gutted the ship. It not only lost the sole fire control and half its engines (one of which exploded), but every drop of fuel on board, leaving it immobile and useless. Swiftly redirecting their attention, the Legion's next broadside was guided by equally malevolent luck, a single hit slipping through the armour to scrap the fire control - at least they could not detect this mission kill, and would have to keep pounding a dead ship flying. That didn't last long, however, and only two further broadsides were required to leave it a lifeless wreck, with life pods spilling away from it at the last moment.
As the fleet closed in, the accuracy and hitting power of the enemy's lasers increased and a few lighter but faster-firing weapons also became evident. It took only two volleys for them to convert the third Allende they targetted to a dissipating cloud of gas around drifting rubble, with the fourth and fifth following in immediate sequence. At this point twenty Pulse Punch missiles were launched at the previously-damaged ship, which was believed to be of the laser-armed class, the range finally being short enough that the enemy would have no opportunity to intercept them. Murphy meddled again, three missing despite a projected 96% hit rate, but four hits in the middle of the string did at least produce atmospheric venting. Even as they detonated, yet another missile boat blew apart, but the enemy swiftly assessed the survivors as posing no further threat and began targetting Quetzalcoatls - presumably as the only other class not known to mount a powerful (thus large) active sensor.
If the armour on the Allende class was inadequate, that on the other FACs was pathetic. When even their secondary lasers prove able to wreak havoc in a single shot, they begin spreading their fire very widely rather than maintaining singular focus. The FACs' last offensive capability is wiped away in a single ripple of shots, and - trapped this deep within the enemy's range envelope - the only choice remaining is between destruction and surrender.
Evaluation: If I'd been keeping a closer eye on the event log (or had remembered from my previous attempt) I would have spotted the massive overkill going on, the Legion would have been splitting their fire earlier, and I doubt they'd have gotten even as close as they did. On the other hand, a little carelessness, a little luck; maybe encourage things along by holding the missile strike in order to expend the Allendes as decoys... even one good HPM volley would have gutted the Tormentas, and without them the Cohorts could have been kited at leisure. Of course, the analysis required to identify the critical range for the missiles is entirely trivial, and if they can't be or aren't fired once inside it that should ring very loud alarm bells.
vs DemoFleet AMM (Sublight)
When the AMM fleet arrives, it finds the Energy Legion sitting on the jump point. In accordance with established doctrine, it fires single full volleys at individual ships. Worryingly, it takes four volleys to destroy the first target, and another three for the second - half their ammunition to kill a fifth of the enemy's ships. In the end, they managed to kill 5 ships and cripple one more, which was not quite enough to win on BP value; and without any viable weapons, their slower ships could be chased down and destroyed by the enemy fleet.
Evaluation: Given perfect knowledge of their enemy, they could have killed all the Tormentas at range, then simply closed in to use their missiles as energy weapons - without losing significant portions of each wave to interceptions, I suspect they could at least have won on a half-extant-BP basis.
