Need to see a man about a destroyer.

[Theoatmeal2 (OP)]

Any tips before I commit to building? That annual failure rate seems pretty high

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Furious class Destroyer (P)      30,000 tons       731 Crew       4,776.4 BP       TCS 600    TH 840    EM 3,000
4000 km/s      Armour 6-86       Shields 100-300       HTK 161      Sensors 24/24/0/0      DCR 11      PPV 155.85
Maint Life 1.98 Years     MSP 3,594    AFR 655%    IFR 9.1%    1YR 1,217    5YR 18,250    Max Repair 525.0000 MSP
Commander    Control Rating 1   BRG   
Intended Deployment Time: 12 months    Morale Check Required   

Eurojet M-600S Ion Drive (4)    Power 2400.0    Fuel Use 55.21%    Signature 210.0000    Explosion 12%
Fuel Capacity 4,324,000 Litres    Range 47 billion km (135 days at full power)
Gamma S20 / R300 Shields (5)     Recharge Time 300 seconds (0.3 per second)

Mk-1 15.0cm C3 Near Ultraviolet Laser (15)    Range 180,000km     TS: 4,000 km/s     Power 6-3     RM 30,000 km    ROF 10       
Twin Gauss Cannon R300-100 Turret (5x6)    Range 30,000km     TS: 12000 km/s     Power 0-0     RM 30,000 km    ROF 5       
Beam Fire Control R192-TS4050 (2)     Max Range: 192,000 km   TS: 4,050 km/s     95 90 84 79 74 69 64 58 53 48
Beam Fire Control R192-TS12000 (1)     Max Range: 192,000 km   TS: 12,000 km/s     95 90 84 79 74 69 64 58 53 48
Gas-Cooled Fast Reactor R93 (1)     Total Power Output 92.6    Exp 5%

SA-50M Active Search Sensor (1)     GPS 4800     Range 51.3m km    Resolution 100
M-1 Missile Detection Sensor (1)     GPS 52     Range 11.5m km    MCR 1m km    Resolution 1
EM-24M Electromagnetic Sensor (1)     Sensitivity 24     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  38.7m km
TH-24M Thermal Sensor (1)     Sensitivity 24     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  38.7m km

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
This design is classed as a c for auto-assignment purposes


[Cobaia]

Hello Theoatmeal2,

That's a well rounded ship I would class it as a Cruiser that's an heavy ship with some thick armor and shields.

That AFR seems scary at least how I play.

You also have a deployment time of 1 year and 2 years of maint life I'll try to sync those up.

The range seems extreme but it dependes on the mission for this vessel. I'll cut down on the fuel or extend the deployment time and maint life.

There is no ECM nor ECCM that's something I would change has well.

So in my opinion I would split this into two smaller ships, one for PD one for the Brawl with the lasers!

[Froggiest1982]

There are a few things and I am sure most will be highlighted soon since you kindly asked for community help. I do not write much in this kind of post as I am more of a fail and repeat guy. Also, people should be free to design "not perfect" ships.

So I will go with mostly something I prefer rather than a change. 1 Power plant only is a bit risky since your ship is mostly beam based. The PD gauss turrets will still function without it, true, but you will be incapacitated to attack.

I tend to have 2 power plants plus one in backup and sometimes even 2.

In your case, you could have 3 of 50.

[Blogaugis]

Any tips before I commit to building? That annual failure rate seems pretty high

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Furious class Destroyer (P)      30,000 tons       731 Crew       4,776.4 BP       TCS 600    TH 840    EM 3,000
4000 km/s      Armour 6-86       Shields 100-300       HTK 161      Sensors 24/24/0/0      DCR 11      PPV 155.85
Maint Life 1.98 Years     MSP 3,594    AFR 655%    IFR 9.1%    1YR 1,217    5YR 18,250    Max Repair 525.0000 MSP
Commander    Control Rating 1   BRG   
Intended Deployment Time: 12 months    Morale Check Required   

Eurojet M-600S Ion Drive (4)    Power 2400.0    Fuel Use 55.21%    Signature 210.0000    Explosion 12%
Fuel Capacity 4,324,000 Litres    Range 47 billion km (135 days at full power)
Gamma S20 / R300 Shields (5)     Recharge Time 300 seconds (0.3 per second)

Mk-1 15.0cm C3 Near Ultraviolet Laser (15)    Range 180,000km     TS: 4,000 km/s     Power 6-3     RM 30,000 km    ROF 10       
Twin Gauss Cannon R300-100 Turret (5x6)    Range 30,000km     TS: 12000 km/s     Power 0-0     RM 30,000 km    ROF 5       
Beam Fire Control R192-TS4050 (2)     Max Range: 192,000 km   TS: 4,050 km/s     95 90 84 79 74 69 64 58 53 48
Beam Fire Control R192-TS12000 (1)     Max Range: 192,000 km   TS: 12,000 km/s     95 90 84 79 74 69 64 58 53 48
Gas-Cooled Fast Reactor R93 (1)     Total Power Output 92.6    Exp 5%

SA-50M Active Search Sensor (1)     GPS 4800     Range 51.3m km    Resolution 100
M-1 Missile Detection Sensor (1)     GPS 52     Range 11.5m km    MCR 1m km    Resolution 1
EM-24M Electromagnetic Sensor (1)     Sensitivity 24     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  38.7m km
TH-24M Thermal Sensor (1)     Sensitivity 24     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  38.7m km

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
This design is classed as a c for auto-assignment purposes

It's fine, I suppose... Use the #, for designs, so that it is easier to read.
I guess you could drop the intended deployment time to 7 months, unless you expect to travel at slower speeds than maximum (to reduce thermal signature, presumably).
It's even better in terms of speed than my own comparable ship by size, in a thread not far away from your own:

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Konigsberg G2 class Light Cruiser      25,000 tons       678 Crew       2,838.6 BP       TCS 500    TH 500    EM 1,200
1000 km/s      Armour 10-76       Shields 40-333       HTK 151      Sensors 4/4/0/0      DCR 25      PPV 186.72
Maint Life 5.68 Years     MSP 2,344    AFR 193%    IFR 2.7%    1YR 123    5YR 1,842    Max Repair 182.4 MSP
Troop Capacity 1,000 tons     Magazine 270    Cryogenic Berths 200    Cargo Shuttle Multiplier 1   
Captain    Control Rating 2   BRG   AUX   
Intended Deployment Time: 3 months    Morale Check Required   

G4-ME Improved Nuclear Pulse Engine  EP250.00 (2)    Power 500    Fuel Use 44.27%    Signature 250    Explosion 10%
Fuel Capacity 500,000 Litres    Range 8.1 billion km (94 days at full power)
G2-CSSG Beta S20 / R333 Shields (2)     Recharge Time 333 seconds (0.1 per second)

G2-PCHS6 20 cm C2 Plasma Carronade (4)    Range 100,000km     TS: 3,000 km/s     Power 10-2     RM 10,000 km    ROF 25       
G2-QLT Quad G2-HS3 10cm C1.5 Visible Light Laser Turret (4x4)    Range 60,000km     TS: 12000 km/s     Power 12-6     RM 20,000 km    ROF 10       
G2-QGCT Quad G2-HS6-GC Gauss Cannon R300-100 Turret (2x12)    Range 30,000km     TS: 12000 km/s     Power 0-0     RM 30,000 km    ROF 5       
G2-CSBFC Beam Fire Control R128-TS12000 (70%) (3)     Max Range: 128,000 km   TS: 12,000 km/s     92 84 77 69 61 53 45 38 30 22
G3-O32PP Improved Pebble Bed Reactor R32 (1)     Total Power Output 32    Exp 5%

G1-.3ML Size 5 Missile Launcher (30.0% Reduction) (24)     Missile Size: 5    Rate of Fire 6710
G1-SSMFC Missile Fire Control FC32-R50 (70%) (1)     Range 32.2m km    Resolution 50
G4DF (54)    Speed: 15,600 km/s    End: 27.1m     Range: 25.4m km    WH: 4    Size: 5    TH: 52/31/15

G3-SSASS Active Search Sensor AS23-R50 (70%) (1)     GPS 800     Range 23.5m km    Resolution 50
G3-SMASS Active Search Sensor AS6-R1 (70%) (1)     GPS 16     Range 6.4m km    MCR 574.5k km    Resolution 1
.8EMS EM Sensor EM0.8-4.0 (70%) (1)     Sensitivity 4     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  15.8m km
.8TS Thermal Sensor TH0.8-4.0 (70%) (1)     Sensitivity 4     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  15.8m km

ECCM-1 (4)         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 c for auto-assignment purposesBasically, Your design would win in this hypothetical 1V1 engagement, mostly due to superior speed and technology.

[Theoatmeal2 (OP)]

Thanks for replies and I just want to say it`s great to have this friendly community to help learn the ropes!:)

I will put a second reactor and take off some fuel...

[nuclearslurpee]

Any tips before I commit to building? That annual failure rate seems pretty high

Use more Engineering Spaces and fewer Maintenance Storage modules. This is a bit more expensive to build but will reduce MSP consumption somewhat.

However, a large ship (and 30 ktons is a large ship) will have a fairly high failure rate anyways... as long as your maint life is in the right ballpark you will be okay.

Personally, I would keep the deployment time as it is. Some people here will tell you to keep deployment time, fuel time, and maint life as close as possible for an "optimized" design, but in my opinion these are not strong designs. At least how I play, ships do not spend 100% of their deployment sailing through space at full speed, often ships are holding position at a jump point or other waypoint ticking up the deployment time without consuming fuel. Having a fleet "on station" is an important strategic consideration which goes beyond the purely tactical optimization of fuel and deployment times to maximize tonnage efficiency in battle.

Other comments: for a ship this large, using only a bridge is wasteful, a large ship should have 2-3 officers in sub-command positions. Auxiliary bridge and CIC module are two important to have on a large combat ship to improve crew training and weapon accuracy, while main engineering is good to have if you can spare enough Engineering-skilled officers.

You do definitely have too much fuel...optimally, the ratio of engine mass to fuel mass is 3:1, and deviating from this ratio should usually be in the direction of higher engine mass to conserve fuel (reduce logistical burden). Here you have worse than 2:1 ratio. You can achieve the same performance and range with larger, lower-boosted engines and a smaller amount of fuel. I think 5x engines with 100% EP modifier and half as much fuel (basically, replace 2M litres of fuel with another engine) will give better performance, at the cost of some range possibly but you have plenty.

Otherwise it looks good. I might drop a Gauss turret for a few more lasers but this is personal taste. I would personally also be a bit antsy with only a single PD fire control, as I'm big on doubling up BFCs for redundancy in case of combat damage, but that's just me and I'm sure this will work fine, if your PD control is shot out you probably will not be saved by PD anyways.

[Froggiest1982]

Any tips before I commit to building? That annual failure rate seems pretty high

Personally, I would keep the deployment time as it is. Some people here will tell you to keep deployment time, fuel time, and maint life as close as possible for an "optimized" design, but in my opinion these are not strong designs. At least how I play, ships do not spend 100% of their deployment sailing through space at full speed, often ships are holding position at a jump point or other waypoint ticking up the deployment time without consuming fuel. Having a fleet "on station" is an important strategic consideration which goes beyond the purely tactical optimization of fuel and deployment times to maximize tonnage efficiency in battle.

Same here. I actually work on a 1:2 ratio for fuel. 6 months fuel 12 months deply for instance. I can refuel at stations or I may need to be "around" for longer.

The supply ratio depends on the ship role, the amount of beams installed and such. I don't look at the Maint Life as could be deceiving in some circumstances.

[nuclearslurpee]

Same here. I actually work on a 1:2 ratio for fuel. 6 months fuel 12 months deply for instance. I can refuel at stations or I may need to be "around" for longer.

The supply ratio depends on the ship role, the amount of beams installed and such. I don't look at the Maint Life as could be deceiving in some circumstances.

I usually set fuel based on range, not time. I don't need my ships able to travel for N days, I need them to reach out to X billion km to defend my empire (sometimes, uh, prophylactically...).

Deployment time for fleet units I usually set in the 9 to 18 months range depending on how I want to play the campaign, but always long enough to remain on station for an extended time without suffering penalties. I usually have my fleets split between training, reserve/overhaul, and on-station assignments so sufficient deployment time is crucial. Sending the entire fleet to go kill an NPR in three months and fly home is not how I play the game.

Maint life I usually shoot to get about 1.5x to 2x the deployment time for most fleet units, less for jump ships as they have egregious maintenance needs. After this for beam ships I will throw on enough MSP to fight a protracted engagement. This way I have a reasonable margin of safety over the deployment time, whether to allow emergency re-deployment without an overhaul or just to avoid bad luck, plus enough stores to engage in beam sniping warfare.

I do also personally prefer to maintain an extensive fleet logistics apparatus with auxiliary fleets of significant size in addition to fleet bases in any system of significance once I can support such colonization efforts. I get the sense sometimes that many players do not do this, for personal taste or other reasons.

[Froggiest1982]

Of course range is important.

I tend to have my forces balanced based on the size of my empire (also distance between supply and fuel depots) so never really face the 1 billion 166 days or 14 billion 30 days scenario. But we going astray here, a bit OT.

I agree with you on most of the points as some are personal and I assume you'll never have 100% of the people agreeing.

[Jorgen_CAB]

In terms of this particular ship I thin in general it is just fine. Most of the comments in terms of redundancy are probably what I agree most with... a ship of this size certainly need more command components as it would greatly benefit from them.

The point about range, deployment, maintenance and logistics will highly depend on ship role and what you expect the ship to do. How big is the empire you need to defend and what type of offensive missions are they suppose to take part in if any.

I usually don't adhere entirely to the 3:1 rule for the whole point that my ships would burn way to much fuel at some point if I did that and still expected the range and operational role. Quite often it is OK to sacrifice some size on engines and fuel for saving the total fuel cost of your fleet... at least it needs to be part of your overall consideration. I quite often look more at fuel efficiency for capital warship rather than just range as one example. Certain ships I will allow much worse fuel efficiency than others. For example I like most capital warship to keep their fuel efficiency at around 60-80% with some deviation. So... better fuel efficient engines also mean more speed or smaller engines in that sense.

On a beam ship such as this one I would likely allow a much higher fuel consumption in favour of less range and better speed... I rarely see beam ships as being long range offensive ships in general, they are mainly defensive in nature for the reason they often need so much speed they are not really useful for long range power projection. Instead I put powerful long range beam weapons on all main capital ships so they can defend themselves if they end up in a beam range fight. The scenario where you only use beam ships obviously are a different story.

In my opinion a capital ship meant for long range power projection will need at least 20-30 billion range (plus any fuel for hangar based vessels). Deployment ranges are probably fine between 6-18 months depending on the ships general role. Maintenance I usually like to be at least 2x times the ships deployment range in engineering and then some extra for MSP storage to save some space and some extra MSP for combat damage repair. I often look for about 9-12 months deployment and two to two and a half year average maintenance life.

Building a power projection fleet with huge range without the use of a supply fleet servicing them will be very expensive in terms of the military tonnage you will need to maintain in terms of actual offensive power. Having some ships that don't need a refuelling ship close can be useful and important, but you need a pretty advanced and prosperous empire to support such ships in any number.

[nuclearslurpee]

I usually don't adhere entirely to the 3:1 rule for the whole point that my ships would burn way to much fuel at some point if I did that and still expected the range and operational role. Quite often it is OK to sacrifice some size on engines and fuel for saving the total fuel cost of your fleet... at least it needs to be part of your overall consideration. I quite often look more at fuel efficiency for capital warship rather than just range as one example. Certain ships I will allow much worse fuel efficiency than others. For example I like most capital warship to keep their fuel efficiency at around 60-80% with some deviation. So... better fuel efficient engines also mean more speed or smaller engines in that sense.

These points are eminently correct, and I think it comes up often enough that it's worth expanding on a bit:

The 3:1 "rule" really is only a lower limit on engine to fuel ratio. As you point out, a larger ratio such as 4:1 or 5:1 (or 10:1, and so on) will give better fuel efficiency which is often a crucial consideration especially for a large empire. There is never any problem with this IMO and I would only criticize such a design on the grounds of net speed, not fuel ratio. Additionally, engines with less than 100% boost are cheaper for the same total EP which is also an important factor.

However, a lower ratio such as 2:1 is purely counterproductive. The engines cost the same since engine cost is proportional to engine power, not size, but the fuel consumption is increased and the total mass dedicated to engines + fuel is greater. This is why ratios below 3:1 are bad, and I frequently point this out in ship design threads where it comes up in a design.

In summary:

• 3:1 engine to fuel ratio gives idea performance for a single ship (tactically optimal).
• A larger engine to fuel ratio - 4:1, 5:1, 10:1, etc. - gives not as good single-ship performance, but gives lower fuel consumption and in some cases cheaper engines/ships (strategically optimal).
• A smaller engine to fuel ratio, e.g., 2:1 gives worse performance and higher fuel consumption, therefore offering no advantages whatsoever unless a truly weird edge case develops (usually involving emergency shipbuilding programs with whatever engines are on hand).

Hopefully this longer explanation is useful to OP or anyone else unsure about what the 3:1 rule actually means.

[AlStar]

I must say that it's definitely interesting what different people prioritize when building out their ships - I tend to go (perhaps too much) for fuel efficiency. I especially thought that Blogaugis' designs were something that I wouldn't be able to stand - no range, and far too slow. I know it's a missile boat, but even so, my freighters and colony ships go almost as fast!

Although it's significantly smaller than your ship, here's my current main combat ship in my game:

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Aventurine Mk III class Corvette      9,910 tons       236 Crew       982.5 BP       TCS 198    TH 750    EM 0
3784 km/s      Armour 5-41       Shields 0-0       HTK 58      Sensors 5/5/0/0      DCR 5      PPV 32
Maint Life 2.70 Years     MSP 309    AFR 157%    IFR 2.2%    1YR 61    5YR 909    Max Repair 56.2500 MSP
Captain    Control Rating 1   BRG   
Intended Deployment Time: 12 months    Morale Check Required   

Pugh-Crawford Improved Nuclear Pulse Engine  EP150.00 (5)    Power 750.0    Fuel Use 24.11%    Signature 150.00    Explosion 7%
Fuel Capacity 750,000 Litres    Range 56.5 billion km (172 days at full power)

Roper Kinetics 20cm Railgun V30/C3 (2x4)    Range 96,000km     TS: 3,784 km/s     Power 12-3     RM 30,000 km    ROF 20       
Roper Kinetics 10cm Railgun V30/C3 (6x4)    Range 30,000km     TS: 3,784 km/s     Power 3-3     RM 30,000 km    ROF 5       
Cotton-Gamgee Beam Fire Control R96-TS3125 (1)     Max Range: 96,000 km   TS: 3,125 km/s     70 62 54 46 37 29 21 13 5 0
Simmons Drive Systems Improved Pebble Bed Reactor R14-PB20 (2)     Total Power Output 27.2    Exp 10%

Bracegirdle-Tunnelly Active Search Sensor AS15-R20 (1)     GPS 400     Range 15.3m km    Resolution 20
Bracegirdle-Tunnelly Active Search Sensor AS5-R1 (1)     GPS 20     Range 5.6m km    MCR 507.8k km    Resolution 1
Bracegirdle-Tunnelly EM Sensor EM1.0-5.0 (1)     Sensitivity 5     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  17.7m km
Bracegirdle-Tunnelly Thermal Sensor TH1.0-5.0 (1)     Sensitivity 5     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  17.7m km

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
This design is classed as a c for auto-assignment purposes

[Barkhorn]

The big active sensor is superfluous, you don't have any weapons that can shoot that far, so you don't need an active sensor lock that far.  The missile detection sensor is enough for your lasers to fire at max range.  As for the range/deployment/maint-life balance, it's fine to have range lower than deployment or maint-life; you will probably spend a significant percent of your deployments sitting still in the theater of  operations just waiting, not running your engines.  And ultimately, tankers are really cheap.

[TallTroll]

>> The big active sensor is superfluous, you don't have any weapons that can shoot that far, so you don't need an active sensor lock that far.

I suspect that the active is intended as a search sensor for solo patrols, not just to provide an active source for BFC lock