Argonaut Class (Oversized) Heavy Cruiser

[Jorgen_CAB]

Also I know giant ships have a very high failure rate, but isn't it still a bit high on this design?  How many engineering spaces do you have?  I'd try to make some space to add more, otherwise you're really burning through your maintenance supplies long before you start any shooting.

This is sort of a red herring... becasue ten 10k ship will have the same total failure rate as ONE 100k ship in practical terms. The difference is that on the one ship only one thing can happen each increment but on the ten there is potential of several, but overall the chance are similar over time. Larger ships also get more benefit from good leaders and main engineering facilities.

[StarshipCactus]

I'm no expert but the first thing I thought of is a carrier with most of it being hanger space for fighters. Those fighters can shoot down AMMs and keep out of range of the gauss guns and won't die quickly to the ASMs or other beam weapons if they're quick. You could kite in range and I think you could do OK. I think railguns are the best for their size for small fighters in huge numbers.

[Chris Foster]

Probably answered this already, but what did you use to make the picture? (if you say ms paint i'm going to feel like an idiot for how obvious that answer would be)

But yeah, good ship (I think) I really have no idea since I've never made anything bigger than 30kt since I like to play conventional start and have a problem starting new games too often.

However, disregarding the very (very) large missile armament, how does a ship of this speed manage in attempting to use its beam weapons? normally nprs will just outrun me or have like 50 lasers on one ship and just take my fleets apart one at a time.

[nuclearslurpee]

Probably answered this already, but what did you use to make the picture? (if you say ms paint i'm going to feel like an idiot for how obvious that answer would be)

I can't speak for the OP but Paint.net is fantastic for this kind of work as it gives you a layers tool to work on different parts of the ship and combine them at the end.

[Warer]

So been tinkering around with the new release having not played in over a decade, and as an experiment decided to try and put together a version of one of the ships I've used in my writing. And then because I'm nothing if not overly ambitious I decided it was the perfect excuse to draw a pixelart profile of the ship, which ended up being far more time consuming than I anticipated but pretty satisfying now its done.


Click the image for the full resolution image.

Argonaut class Heavy Cruiser      114,497 tons       2,442 Crew       20,259.4 BP       TCS 2,290    TH 1,750    EM 0
2183 km/s      Armour 16-210       Shields 0-0       HTK 743      Sensors 110/55/0/0      DCR 30-2      PPV 475
Maint Life 2.26 Years     MSP 91,105    AFR 10488%    IFR 145.7%    1YR 24,008    5YR 360,125    Max Repair 1093.7500 MSP
Hangar Deck Capacity 250 tons     Magazine 8,874 / 0   
Commodore    Control Rating 5   BRG   AUX   ENG   CIC   FLG   
Intended Deployment Time: 24 months    Flight Crew Berths 5    Morale Check Required   
11x Suárez Industrias de Hipermateriales OF-Drive Ring - DH93-5   

Calasso Aerospace MGT-VT-1875-3582 'Roheryn' Fusion Drive Engine (4)    Power 5000.0    Fuel Use 151.79%    Signature 437.5000    Explosion 20%
Fuel Capacity 22,000,000 Litres    Range 22.8 billion km (120 days at full power)

Alexandria Consolidated Arsenal Spinal C4-111K-NU 37.50cm Laser (1)    Range 384,000km     TS: 4,000 km/s     Power 37-4     RM 30,000 km    ROF 50       
Twin Sons of Wayland Precision Arms C4-48K-NU 25.0cm Laser Turret (2x2)    Range 384,000km     TS: 3500 km/s     Power 32-8     RM 30,000 km    ROF 20       
Alexandria Consolidated Arsenal Spinal V40/C4 20cm Railgun (3x4)    Range 160,000km     TS: 4,000 km/s     Power 12-4     RM 40,000 km    ROF 15       
Quad Alexandria Consolidated Arsenal GR30-17-57D  'Cyclone' Gauss Cannon Turret (10x12)    Range 30,000km     TS: 23900 km/s     Power 0-0     RM 30,000 km    ROF 5       
CIWS-160 (20x6)    Range 1000 km     TS: 16,000 km/s     ROF 5       
Suzuki-Tisdell Technologies PDF-B-R64 'Khetaka' Fire Control Computer (4)     Max Range: 64,000 km   TS: 16,000 km/s    ECCM-1     84 69 53 38 22 6 0 0 0 0
Lightfoot & Massare Technical LRL-38K-R4 Fire Control Computer (3)     Max Range: 384,000 km   TS: 4,000 km/s    ECCM-1     97 95 92 90 87 84 82 79 77 74
Avalon Orbital Industries Mark 12 MMD Fusion Reactor (5)     Total Power Output 200    Exp 5%

Alexandria Consolidated Arsenal ASM-8C 'Arbalest' (36)     Missile Size: 8    Rate of Fire 25
Alexandria Consolidated Arsenal AMM-1B 'Atlatl' (36)     Missile Size: 1    Rate of Fire 10
Barry-Sonnenkind Netzelektro ASM-R507 Anti-Ship Missile Fire Control Computer (4)     Range 89.4m km    Resolution 50   ECCM-1
Suzuki-Tisdell AM-R50B Anti Missile Fire Control Computer (6)     Range 24.3m km    Resolution 1   ECCM-1
SASM-8 Mark 4 'Akondio' Anti-Ship Missile (709)    Speed: 21,100 km/s    End: 45.2m     Range: 57.3m km    WH: 6.25    Size: 8    TH: 70/42/21
LASM-8 Mark 4 'Velos' Anti-Ship Laser-Warhead Missile (200)    Speed: 21,100 km/s    End: 45.2m     Range: 57.3m km    WH: 5    Size: 8    TH: 70/42/21
SAMM-1 Mark 2 'Kopis' Anti-Missile Missile (1600)    Speed: 31,800 km/s    End: 1.1m     Range: 2.2m km    WH: 1    Size: 1    TH: 106/63/31

Barry-Sonnenkind Netzelektro AS167-R60 (50%) 'Argus' Primary Active Search Sensor (1)     GPS 31500     Range 167.8m km    Resolution 60
Barry-Sonnenkind Netzelektro AS88-R100 (50%) 'Talos' Secondary Active Search Sensor  (1)     GPS 10500     Range 89m km    Resolution 100
Thales-Rieger Electronic Systems AMDS-22-R1 'Dubán' Missile Defence Sensor (2)     GPS 147     Range 22.7m km    MCR 2m km    Resolution 1
Thales-Rieger Electronic Systems PTH10B-110 Thermal Sensor  (1)     Sensitivity 110     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  82.9m km
Thales-Rieger Electronic Systems PEM5D-55 EM Sensor (1)     Sensitivity 55     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  58.6m km

Electronic Warfare Jammers:   Sensor 2    Fire Control 2    Missile 2   

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
This design is classed as a Warship for auto-assignment purposes

Aurora isn't really kind to multipurpose ships or those with lots of redundant systems as they increase the weight and cost very quickly. On the other hand the process of building out the ship and actually seeing it all logically ordered out has been really useful in terms of its capabilities and it made we re-think a few of the weapon choices.

One thing to note is that I added OF-Drive Rings as a misc component at 750 tons apiece, but balanced it out by doubling fuel and maintenance storage. Basic idea is they're the key behind non-newtonian spaceflight. The rings contain a top and bottom ring segment made of non-newtonian materials with the rest of the ring composed of superconductors, capacitors and power management systems. When power gets passed through them it creates a pair of oval bubble where newtonian physics is somewhat shifted, specifically thrust passed through the confluence where the two bubbles intersect enables the generation of instantaneous sustained velocity. In the story the rings also generate a simulated gravity in proportion to the power passed through them, which also has an effect on how fast the ship goes (so the faster the ship goes the higher the simulated gravity pulling down on the non-newtonian ring segment).

In terms of tech it uses a renamed Ion Engine and Magnetic Mirror Fusion reactors, though again I went with way more than needed for the design because in my head the reactors are not just powering the weapons here, but also the OF-Drive Rings which are quite power hungry.

I'd be really interested to hear peoples opinions/critiques of the design as the whole design process has been satisfyingly crunch so far but I am very rusty when it comes to Aurora.

She is a beauty.

[BwenGun (OP)]

Probably answered this already, but what did you use to make the picture? (if you say ms paint i'm going to feel like an idiot for how obvious that answer would be)

But yeah, good ship (I think) I really have no idea since I've never made anything bigger than 30kt since I like to play conventional start and have a problem starting new games too often.

However, disregarding the very (very) large missile armament, how does a ship of this speed manage in attempting to use its beam weapons? normally nprs will just outrun me or have like 50 lasers on one ship and just take my fleets apart one at a time.

I used GIMP (https://www.gimp.org/) to put it together. Though if you haven't used GIMP in the past I'd say Nuclearslurpee's suggestion of paint.net is likely to be a lot more user friendly and may have the same necessary functionality.

As for how, I do the outline on a transparent layer as the first step. There's a lot of pixelart around that can be used for inspiration. I in particular cribbed the Gauss turrets from fan pixelart from the reimagined Battlestar Galactic and then heavily modified them to fit the aesthetic a bit better and go from dual to quad mountings. I've also been building up a couple of image files with my own outlines for weapons and subsystems and once you have it you can quite easily copy and paste things to rapidly add stuff with minimal tweaking.

Once the outline is done I fill it with a neutral gray, add in light and shadows, and then finally colour everything in. I learnt how to do it using this tutorial: https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=6360.0 which is excellent.

And yeah, in actual gameplay the ship needs much, much, bigger engines in order to function as a mixed role ship.

She is a beauty.

Thank you!