MaxTech Fighter, AMM-Based.

[xenoscepter (OP)]

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New Class Strikefighter (P)      500 tons       17 Crew       554.8 BP       TCS 10    TH 1,000    EM 0
100154 km/s      Armour 1-5       Shields 0-0       HTK 4      Sensors 0/0/0/0      DCR 0      PPV 1.5
Maint Life 0 Years     MSP 0    AFR 99%    IFR 1.4%    1YR 148    5YR 2,224    Max Repair 500 MSP
Magazine 60   
Lieutenant Commander    Control Rating 1   
Intended Deployment Time: 0.8 days    Morale Check Required   

T200-100T Photonic Drive, Class 1000/250M (1)    Power 1000    Fuel Use 156.25%    Signature 1000    Explosion 25%
Fuel Capacity 32,000 Litres    Range 7.38 billion km (20 hours at full power)

R0-75/12 Missile Launcher, Class 1 (2)     Missile Size: 1    Rate of Fire 5
T5/10-75R1 Missile FCS, Low Grade (2)     Range 9.8m km    Resolution 1
Class 1 Attack Munition (60)    Speed: 270,000 km/s    End: 0.6m     Range: 9.7m km    WH: 4    Size: 1    TH: 13860/8316/4158

T20/10-75R1 Active Sensor Suite, Low Grade (1)     GPS 4     Range 9.8m km    MCR 879.5k km    Resolution 1

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 Fighter for production, combat and planetary interaction

 --- As part of my ongoing MaxTech project, I tested my Three Doctrine and found it clearly wanting. As I continued on with designs, I very quickly found that AMMs were absurd and that any Beam-Focused fighter would be mostly useless. I retained my Gauss-Based Interceptor, but re-classified it as a "Light Fighter" to be used almost exclusively for attacking enemy shipping. The idea being that while the enemy is tied up fighting my forces they might detect an enemy civilian ship. If they do, they deploy a couple of those little bastards to go hit it, either forcing the enemy to divide it's firepower and/or forces or else take the loss.

 --- That is not this ship however; this ship is my main line fighter... at least for now, anyways. I still intend to experiment with a Railgun / Missile Fighter, but whether I can make that useful enough to be the backbone of my Fighter Corps or not remains to be seen. This ship mounts a pair of Size-1 Launchers sporting a x0.75 Size Reduction and a Reload Rate of 12. The magazine is intended to be used with the launchers hotloaded, giving it 30 salvoes worth of fire. Each Class-1 Attack Munition is designed to be able to fully penetrate a single layer of armor and deal 1 point of damage to whatever is underneath it. Having a pair of Missile FCS instead of just one means that it can engage two targets at a time. It would be used for enemy fighter spam, enemy bombers, as a primary commerce raider and as an auxiliary AMM platform.

 --- The Gauss fighter would not be a primary commerce raider, but rather an opportunistic one since it requires much less support for it's weaponry and is likewise half the size of this ship. For those of you wondering why I didn't go with Box Launchers to have a bigger salvo size, it's because it halves the total missiles that I can deploy per fighter. I took the liberty of assembling the same ship with only the missile launcher configuration changed and some more fuel; it has half the number of missiles and takes WAY longer to reload in exchange for less than .5 billion km range and a 30 missile alpha strike.

The Box Launcher version:

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New Class Strikefighter (P)      500 tons       11 Crew       533.6 BP       TCS 10    TH 1,000    EM 0
100154 km/s      Armour 1-5       Shields 0-0       HTK 2      Sensors 0/0/0/0      DCR 0      PPV 4.5
Maint Life 0 Years     MSP 0    AFR 99%    IFR 1.4%    1YR 143    5YR 2,150    Max Repair 500 MSP
Magazine 30   
Lieutenant Commander    Control Rating 1   
Intended Deployment Time: 0.9 days    Morale Check Required   

T200-100T Photonic Drive, Class 1000/250M (1)    Power 1000    Fuel Use 156.25%    Signature 1000    Explosion 25%
Fuel Capacity 34,000 Litres    Range 7.85 billion km (21 hours at full power)

Size 1 Box Launcher (30)     Missile Size: 1    Hangar Reload 50 minutes    MF Reload 8 hours
T5/10-75R1 Missile FCS, Low Grade (2)     Range 9.8m km    Resolution 1
Class 1 Attack Munition (30)    Speed: 270,000 km/s    End: 0.6m     Range: 9.7m km    WH: 4    Size: 1    TH: 13860/8316/4158

T20/10-75R1 Active Sensor Suite, Low Grade (1)     GPS 4     Range 9.8m km    MCR 879.5k km    Resolution 1

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 Fighter for production, combat and planetary interaction


[nuclearslurpee]

Interesting. I won't make too many comments as others can take a crack at this, for the most part this looks reasonable. You can squeeze some tonnage out of the design with a slightly smaller 300% boost engine and a bit more fuel, but this isn't terribly important and I really only suggest it because I would probably prefer a bit more speed in exchange for range even at this tech level.

I agree that the launcher + magazine approach is correct at MaxTech, as previously shown a box launcher strategy can be easily defeated, so this strategy allows the potential for attrition of enemy AMMs prior to closing for a beam engagement.

I am starting to wonder about the potential for micro submunition missiles to overwhelm AMM defenses. 0.1-MSP micro missiles may be slightly less damaging than sandpaper individually but they can likely penetrate point defenses in a massive volley which is better than nothing.

[xenoscepter (OP)]

...I am starting to wonder about the potential for micro submunition missiles to overwhelm AMM defenses. 0.1-MSP micro missiles may be slightly less damaging than sandpaper individually but they can likely penetrate point defenses in a massive volley which is better than nothing...

 --- Minimum size for a missile is still 1, unfortunately.

[nuclearslurpee]

...I am starting to wonder about the potential for micro submunition missiles to overwhelm AMM defenses. 0.1-MSP micro missiles may be slightly less damaging than sandpaper individually but they can likely penetrate point defenses in a massive volley which is better than nothing...

 --- Minimum size for a missile is still 1, unfortunately.

@Steve plz

[xenoscepter (OP)]

 --- Minimum Capacitors is still 1 too, though that is much less of an issue. I'd like both missiles and launchers in sizes less than one to be honest, but not less than .25 Size. Size 0.1 missiles are kind of meme-y for anything in a practical tech range, while a 0.5 or less rocket would make for a nice mini-rocket or buoy at many tech levels.

[alex_brunius]

I prefer to not have active sensors on all fighters but instead use a few unarmed dedicated sensor fighters which basically allows 4 times larger MFC on the armed fighters significantly increasing maximum engagement ranges.

[xenoscepter (OP)]

I prefer to not have active sensors on all fighters but instead use a few unarmed dedicated sensor fighters which basically allows 4 times larger MFC on the armed fighters significantly increasing maximum engagement ranges.

 --- Yep, the trade-off for that though is that your fighters are basically blind or operating with reduced ranges if the enemy focuses that one fighter down.

[Andrew]

--- Minimum Capacitors is still 1 too, though that is much less of an issue. I'd like both missiles and launchers in sizes less than one to be honest, but not less than .25 Size. Size 0.1 missiles are kind of meme-y for anything in a practical tech range, while a 0.5 or less rocket would make for a nice mini-rocket or buoy at many tech levels.

They also make antimissile defense impossible which is why they were removed. Unless antimissile defense can be prioritised to engage larger missiles, you can fire a swarm of harmless micromissiles accompanying your actual missiles and completely overwhelm any reasonable anti-missile defense , micro missiles were eliminated for a good reason.

[alex_brunius]

I prefer to not have active sensors on all fighters but instead use a few unarmed dedicated sensor fighters which basically allows 4 times larger MFC on the armed fighters significantly increasing maximum engagement ranges.

 --- Yep, the trade-off for that though is that your fighters are basically blind or operating with reduced ranges if the enemy focuses that one fighter down.

True, unless you sacrifice even more firepower to get some redundancy in more sensors fighters. It's a tradeoff, but one somewhat inspired by real world carrier ops ( E-2 Hawkeye having a large dedicated sensor so that fighters can get away with smaller ones ).

The way I look at it though is that it will be alot harder for any enemy to nab my fighter(s) if I got that extra range for protection, and usually if they can kill one they can kill all of them as well.

Another tactical option it opens up to have dedicated sensor fighters is that if you fly into a high threat scenario you can approach from different directions with the armed fighters so that the bulk of your force are at less risk and you only risk the sensor fighter that need to advertise it's position when going active.

[Jorgen_CAB]

I always put a resolution-1 5 ton active sensor on all fighter platforms... mainly as a backup sensors when needed for point blank combat or missile defence.

Dedicated sensor fighters obviously is a must at all time, I rarely have them follow the actual strike group either as the sensor platform often can be much further away than the strike fighters... I also don't want to reveal the attack vector of the actual strike group. I might have a dedicated resolution 1 sensor plattform with the strike group though to defend against any incoming missiles. In a multi-faction game fighters are quite vulnerable to enemy interceptors both in the form of beam and missile variants.

[bdub1]

Would some kind of Sensor drone work?
I don know the kind of range you could get out of an S1 sensor drone, or if it'd work at all