Author Topic: Military or commercial for giant carriers?  (Read 1977 times)

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Offline smoelf (OP)

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Military or commercial for giant carriers?
« on: October 05, 2021, 01:16:52 PM »
Do you prefer to use military or commercial engines for giant carriers?

It might seem like a no-brainer for most play-throughs and carriers. Fast speed to get them to the battlefield at the same time as the rest of your forces, but if you are planning to build carriers of a fairly large size, it will be a huge cost to research the jump drives required to get them anywhere, and the maintenance required of such a jump drive is also fairly high. However, building them with commercial engines results in using a jump drive with a much lower research cost, meaning you can get to use them much quicker - especially early game - but the jump drive takes up for space and the ship will be significantly slower.

So, I'm curious to hear if anyone has had thought on this and also to get an opinion on two concrete examples. These are extremely lowtech (and it's been a while since I last played, so bear with me), but are identical except for the engine and jump drive. I haven't added any modules to the military version, so the final speed and range will be a bit lower, but it does give some room for improvements.

(Also, I know these are 'giant' for some people, but this is still early game ;) )

Code: [Select]
Primus class Mothership (P)      229,106 tons       2,981 Crew       15,061.4 BP       TCS 4,582    TH 4,800    EM 6,000
1047 km/s    JR 2-25(C)      Armour 5-333       Shields 200-333       HTK 838      Sensors 150/150/0/0      DCR 170      PPV 120
Maint Life 2.46 Years     MSP 68,663    AFR 2799%    IFR 38.9%    1YR 15,675    5YR 235,131    Max Repair 1685.5 MSP
Hangar Deck Capacity 45,000 tons     
Hunter    Control Rating 1   BRG   
Intended Deployment Time: 24 months    Flight Crew Berths 900    Morale Check Required   

JC251K Commercial Jump Drive     Max Ship Size 251000 tons    Distance 25k km     Squadron Size 2

Commercial Nuclear Pulse Engine  EP240.00 (20)    Power 4800    Fuel Use 5.05%    Signature 240    Explosion 5%
Fuel Capacity 2,000,000 Litres    Range 31.1 billion km (343 days at full power)
Beta S20 / R333 Shields (10)     Recharge Time 333 seconds (0.6 per second)

10cm Railgun V10/C3 (40x4)    Range 10,000km     TS: 2,000 km/s     Power 3-3     RM 10,000 km    ROF 5       
Beam Fire Control R128-TS8000 (4)     Max Range: 128,000 km   TS: 8,000 km/s     92 84 77 69 61 53 45 38 30 22
Improved Pebble Bed Reactor R62 (3)     Total Power Output 187.5    Exp 5%

Active Search Sensor AS4-R1 (2)     GPS 12     Range 4.8m km    MCR 430.9k km    Resolution 1
Thermal Sensor TH25-150 (1)     Sensitivity 150     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  96.8m km
EM Sensor EM25-150 (1)     Sensitivity 150     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  96.8m km

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

Code: [Select]
Primus - Copy class Mothership (P)      217,795 tons       5,073 Crew       79,196.8 BP       TCS 4,356    TH 7,680    EM 6,000
1763 km/s    JR 3-50      Armour 5-322       Shields 200-333       HTK 1133      Sensors 150/150/0/0      DCR 170      PPV 120
Maint Life 0.25 Years     MSP 96,590    AFR 2530%    IFR 35.1%    1YR 384,113    5YR 5,761,697    Max Repair 62797.2 MSP
Hangar Deck Capacity 45,000 tons     
Hunter    Control Rating 1   BRG   
Intended Deployment Time: 24 months    Flight Crew Berths 900    Morale Check Required   

J250000(3-50) Military Jump Drive     Max Ship Size 250000 tons    Distance 50k km     Squadron Size 3

Nuclear Pulse Engine  EP384.00 (20)    Power 7680    Fuel Use 16.36%    Signature 384    Explosion 8%
Fuel Capacity 2,000,000 Litres    Range 10.1 billion km (66 days at full power)
Beta S20 / R333 Shields (10)     Recharge Time 333 seconds (0.6 per second)

10cm Railgun V10/C3 (40x4)    Range 10,000km     TS: 2,000 km/s     Power 3-3     RM 10,000 km    ROF 5       
Beam Fire Control R128-TS8000 (4)     Max Range: 128,000 km   TS: 8,000 km/s     92 84 77 69 61 53 45 38 30 22
Improved Pebble Bed Reactor R62 (3)     Total Power Output 187.5    Exp 5%

Active Search Sensor AS4-R1 (2)     GPS 12     Range 4.8m km    MCR 430.9k km    Resolution 1
Thermal Sensor TH25-150 (1)     Sensitivity 150     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  96.8m km
EM Sensor EM25-150 (1)     Sensitivity 150     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  96.8m km

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

Offline nuclearslurpee

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Re: Military or commercial for giant carriers?
« Reply #1 on: October 05, 2021, 01:50:36 PM »
It is a complicated question, and frankly not one that can be answered well at low tech for many reasons, not least of which is that low-tech fighters are usually quite poor in capability.

In this case you have your answer just from looking at the maint life and repair requirements. The military engine carrier will blow up in only a few months after leaving orbit. The culprit is of course that massive jump drive which because it is so expensive has a ridiculous repair requirement. You can also see that the BP cost is over 5x higher because of this.

However, as tech advances you can start to downsize your jump drives and the costs will drop significantly, at the same time the higher-tech engines and other components become more expensive so the importance of the jump drive will drop off over time. At some point it becomes feasible to build large carriers with military engines and jump them from place to place without crippling your entire shipbuilding or maintenance industry.

Even so, this raises an important point which is that even a higher-tech jump drive, regardless of naval or commercial, takes up a lot of space that should be going towards mission payload - hangar space, magazines, fuel, MSP, long-range sensors to identify targets, and whatever else you like to put on your carriers. It is almost certainly going to be a more effective approach to use a dedicated jump ship to escort your carriers, particularly since you only need a couple of them to adequately support your entire navy since carriers should never be involved in a jump point assault. The downside, at least for military engines, is that you will have to tie up a shipyard to make these, but you can just build a few and then retool to something else, and they will probably remain useful for a long time if you keep them out of combat. Another alternative is to rely on stabilized jump points, which limits the ability of your carrier fleets to prosecute an offensive - but not as much as you would think, particularly since most NPRs stabilize their own JP networks so you really only need to make 1-2 connections before invading.

As an aside, it is important with carriers to still consider the necessary speed to operate safely. Even at NPE tech, a carrier traveling at 1,000 km/s is extremely vulnerable to being chased down by an enemy fleet, especially if the fighter strike fails to kill everything or the enemy manages to surprise you. Generally, reasonable fleet speeds can be found at a given tech level from having 30% to 40% of the ship tonnage made up from 1.0x (no boost) engines - at NPE tech this will give speeds in a range of 2400 to 3200 km/s. For a carrier this can mean that you need lower-boost engines but larger to maintain a reasonable speed, which will have the added bonus of excellent fuel efficiency leaving more in reserve for the fighters. This means that to use commercial engines will likely require you to have over half your displacement dedicated to engines which may be extreme unless you have the massive shipyards to construct such a ship. Otherwise, military engines will prove easier to build and deploy in the field until you have the required infrastructure.
 
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Offline smoelf (OP)

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Re: Military or commercial for giant carriers?
« Reply #2 on: October 05, 2021, 03:22:06 PM »
Thank you for your very thorough answer. It is really appreciated.

You make some good points and I think I agree that the kind of fleet I am considering is not really feasible at this tech level. The idea behind it is that I want to do something different by requiring ships to be in either extreme of large or small. So the small ships would have a very low maximum size (possibly 7.500 tons or lower) and the larger ships would have a minimum size of 250.000 tons. The minimum size would increase ever so often but will mainly serve to transport the smaller ships to the battlefield.

The thought was that each large ship would essentially operate as independent vessels with self-sufficient defence and armaments (in the form of FAC's mostly), but I might have to designate a few flagships for the actual fleets. This would take care of the jumpdrive and allow the main carriers to focus on hangar space.
 

Offline Jorgen_CAB

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Re: Military or commercial for giant carriers?
« Reply #3 on: October 05, 2021, 06:30:11 PM »
I often build super carriers with commercial engines as it is not economical (both industry and research) to support them with military jump drives. I usually go with around 40% engines (ship mass) for decent speed even if they are still slow. I also would never put jump drives into main combat ships, especially if the jump drive is a commercial one. A dedicated jump ship would always be preferable. They can also carry additional supplies and fuel for the ships they support.

But you have to also count in the reduction in logistical need for these carriers are huge, especially when you consider their enormous hangars and the fuel you save by carrying all those fighters to the battlefield.

Personally I like super large carriers as they become centrepieces of your fleets but you obviously need to protect them and scout the enemy well so they are not caught off guard without the speed to run away. These carriers are huge hammers and you bring them to overwhelm an enemy not so much to enter into a fair fight of manoeuvring fleets of similar size.

In general I don't really think that slow speed is a great disadvantage on carriers, especially offensive ones. There are usually no real hurry to enter into enemy space as there is to react to an internal threat. They are a great power projection option for a really low overall cost to your logistical and industrial economy.

I would not build them as the only carrier option in my empire though, I still would build a few more "normal" carriers as well for when speed is important.

Options is often better than just make everything the same in my opinion.

Also, a carrier probably should be able to use at least 25% of its hull for hangar space, I usually aim for about 30% for most carrier designs but I also always give every ships some defensive weapons as well, you then need supplies, missiles and extra fuel. In your case you should aim for about 70-75.000t of hangar space, roughly.
« Last Edit: October 08, 2021, 04:47:06 AM by Jorgen_CAB »
 
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Offline liveware

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Re: Military or commercial for giant carriers?
« Reply #4 on: October 08, 2021, 01:52:37 AM »
I have found that commercial engined carriers are easier to manage for a number of reasons. One, big commercial jump drives are way cheaper than military drives. Two, carriers need to be able to refuel their strike craft, so if their own engines have poor fuel economy you can end up running on fumes in a combat situation which is not a good place to be. Three, it's not terribly difficult to design strike craft with long enough range that they can go on useful missions while the carrier stays hidden beyond sensor range. Four, you probably want to bring some support ships (tankers, supply ships, troop ships, etc) along with your main battle fleet so having a big slow carrier that travels at a speed similar to your other support ships isn't really as big of a problem as you might expect.

As a caveat to all of the above, I rarely use carriers alone. They are always supported by fleet ships with abundant missile or beam armament.
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Offline Garfunkel

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Re: Military or commercial for giant carriers?
« Reply #5 on: October 08, 2021, 04:03:41 AM »
I agree with the others that you should always build specialized, separate jump ships. If you have the hull space, they can then double as tankers or supply ships (but not as hospital ships as you generally don't want them to go on a long journey back to Earth or whatever).

Also remember that you can keep building 50% commercial engines for your supercarriers even if all you other commercial ships use 30% or 15% EP enginers.
 
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Offline Jorgen_CAB

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Re: Military or commercial for giant carriers?
« Reply #6 on: October 08, 2021, 04:55:07 AM »
I agree with the others that you should always build specialized, separate jump ships. If you have the hull space, they can then double as tankers or supply ships (but not as hospital ships as you generally don't want them to go on a long journey back to Earth or whatever).

Also remember that you can keep building 50% commercial engines for your supercarriers even if all you other commercial ships use 30% or 15% EP enginers.

I often use hospital "stations" that other supply ship or even jump ship drag along with their tractor beams. I basically give all large ship a tractor beam for many different reasons, even military ones. Turns every ship into a rescue ship in a pinch as well. But that is mainly for role play... but it is also good to attach modules to fleets that you may drop off at certain points or hospital complexes. I can then just have a proper tug come and collect them and drag them back to a colony or Earth.
 

Offline misanthropope

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Re: Military or commercial for giant carriers?
« Reply #7 on: October 08, 2021, 10:37:32 AM »
i just wanted to throw in that the risk from operating through jump gates instead of with jumpships is wildly overstated on these forums.  you need to be careful about your procedure, but you do have a military-engine option without extravagant jump engines.  you do give up the potential to lunge at the homeworld of a large empire, but even though that is the juiciest payoff in the game, the opportunity arises very infrequently.

in general i tend to go commercial (or at least reduced power) whenever my fleet is missile driven.  if you're gonna club the enemy to death with your gallicite stockpile, you have to ruthlessly economize elsewhere.  also, slow+missiles is very light on R&D, and pushing engine tech as hard as possible is my favorite kind of greedy play.