Ion 3kt beam brawlers and other 3kt designs

[Abridal (OP)]

Right now my biggest doubt is whether a 3000 ton beam ship with a single 50cm plasma carronade that deals whooping 64 damage at point-blank but only fires once every 55 seconds is worse or better for a brawler than 4 15cm carronades that fire every 5 seconds thanks to capacitor recharge rate 6 and deal 6 damage each for a total of 24.  I have proposed designs for both approaches here, with no shipyard tooled for either yet, and I'd like to ask your thoughts.  While the bigger one can still deal damage at much longer ranges, the crippling damage attenuation makes such benefit dubious at best, useless at worst.  To maximize plasma the optimal distance must be <= 10,000 km, which also requires ships that won't be blown to pieces instantly and preferably faster than the average for their given engine tech.

Maybe save the big guns for the 13,000 ton designs that will happen in the future, once a shipyard expansion is over, which will take a while due to 2 slipways.

Other relevant techs:

Armor - Ceramic Composite
Sensor Strengths - Active 21, Passives 11
Fuel Efficiency - 0. 4
Missiles - Never researched
Gauss - 5 RoF and Launch Velocity
Capacitor Recharge Rate - 6


From a messed pre-TN start game that, due to poor luck with Construction specialized scientists never showing up for a long time and refusal to start researching TN Theory tech without a specialist in it, dragged on for 100 years before the first warships were built.

Now the tricky thing in this game is that there are only two jump points in Sol, one to Barnards and the other to a planet-less system where first contact with a NPR happened, where all jump points are stabilized except the one to Sol.  Curiously that NPR didn't shoot on sight, different from how things normally ended in VB6 Aurora.  Maybe thermal signature reduction might have helped a bit in this, maybe not.  However, they demanded a survey ship to leave Psi Indi immediately after jumping and discovering it, under threat of opening fire otherwise.  That system might be their homeworld or at least an important and inhabited one which connects this way: Sol -> 4 Gruis -> 113 Ursae Majoris -> Psi Indi.  Very, very close.  On one hand I'm lucky my shoddily sluggish transition from pre-TN to TN in this particular game didn't result in doom because these aliens have demonstrated no interest in starting a war, on the other hand,  this means that to expand anywhere besides Barnards Star, starting conflict will likely be necessary.

So far the maximum observed speed of the identified ships belonging to this NPR is 1751 km/s, which means either they are behind in propulsion tech or their ships with military engines are too busy elsewhere to show up in the outskirts of their territory near Sol.  Only one way to find out I suppose.

There are two naval shipyards, each with two slipways and only 3,000 tons capacity, my plan is to only expand capacity in one of them while adding more slipways to the other, which will hopefully later become a factory of stealth missile frigates with cloaking devices and all the joys they bring.  Cloaking device and beam weapons aren't so useful though, apparently.  But there is a lot of research to do before missiles that are useful can be made, so that will have to wait a long time yet.

I decided to try plasma carronades, in part because it's the fastest way to improve ground forces attack capabilities due to how little R&D it requires compared to other beam weapon types.  Brawlers are the way to go as far as designs are concerned when it comes to plasma, therefore these do feature more armor than what Ion 3kt ships tend to have, maybe.  There are both single weapon only and multi-weapon BFCs over-engineered in range to maximize point-blank to-hit chances, maybe a bit too much but while the difference between 85%, 92% or 98% chances to hit isn't that big, the RNG can be harsh.  This is also why I don't use reduced size Gauss cannons.

Operational range is no more than current system + 1 jump, more or less what their fuel reserves comfortably support

Here the design for two PD frigates under construction right now:

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Gladius class Frigate      3,000 tons       79 Crew       899.2 BP       TCS 60    TH 97    EM 0
6750 km/s      Armour 7-18       Shields 0-0       HTK 16      Sensors 11/0/0/0      DCR 1      PPV 16.32
Maint Life 2.58 Years     MSP 416    AFR 48%    IFR 0.7%    1YR 88    5YR 1,315    Max Repair 405 MSP
Captain    Control Rating 1   BRG   
Intended Deployment Time: 6 months    Morale Check Required   

Coelho PEB MION-405 (1)    Power 405    Fuel Use 129.60%    Signature 97.20    Explosion 18%
Fuel Capacity 260,000 Litres    Range 12 billion km (20 days at full power)

Twin Taurus CEMB-5 Turret (1x10)    Range 50,000km     TS: 20000 km/s     Power 0-0     RM 50,000 km    ROF 5       
Marques Eletro CTU 240km-20k (1)     Max Range: 240,000 km   TS: 20,000 km/s     96 92 88 83 79 75 71 67 62 58

Camara Sistemas Microsensor m1 (2)     GPS 11     Range 6.1m km    MCR 545.7k km    Resolution 1
Carneiro ST Básico m1 (1)     Sensitivity 11     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  26.2m km

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes

The reason for 7 layers of armor is because it won't just stay back once there are no missiles left to shoot down.  It is intended be deployed offensively in swarms as well and last enough to, given enough numbers of them, cause sizable damage or at least saturate shields and dent armors so the carronades will finish them off.  For now I'm considering just them, a rearguard with a big EM/TH sensor ship for longer range detection and not bothering with big active sensors at all because I don't have enough turret tracking speed bonus researched to justify it.

This speed is likely close to the point of unjustifiable diminishing returns going above average speed for Ion but I like fast ships (I did an even faster Ion engine Particle Beam ship to kite spoilers with FACs in VB6 Aurora), specially at such sizes and with thermal reduction.  Final defensive fire with enough of these should weather the storm and bring a swarm of 3kt ships to the brawl mostly unscathed.

Using two active sensors for redundancy in case of microwave surprise.  I'm aware it is questionable because having two BFCs would be needed to have a point in this and these aren't designed to operate on their own, but those are so small and there was spare room for just one more, and the RNG might destroy one of those instead of a more critical component once armor gets pierced through, so why not?

On pure DPS 15cm is obviously much better than bigger plasma carronades, but I wonder which of these is truly the best all-around option.  A battery of 4 fast firing small caliber carronades:

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Malleus class Frigate      3,000 tons       84 Crew       794.6 BP       TCS 60    TH 97    EM 0
6750 km/s      Armour 7-18       Shields 0-0       HTK 19      Sensors 0/0/0/0      DCR 1      PPV 16
Maint Life 2.97 Years     MSP 620    AFR 72%    IFR 1.0%    1YR 105    5YR 1,576    Max Repair 405 MSP
Captain    Control Rating 1   BRG   
Intended Deployment Time: 6 months    Morale Check Required   

Coelho PEB MION-405 (1)    Power 405    Fuel Use 129.60%    Signature 97.20    Explosion 18%
Fuel Capacity 260,000 Litres    Range 12 billion km (20 days at full power)

TriOptimum PAX-15 Plasma Autocannon (4)    Range 60,000km     TS: 6,750 km/s     Power 6-6     RM 10,000 km    ROF 5       
Marques Eletro CT 120km-6750 (1)     Max Range: 120,000 km   TS: 6,750 km/s     92 83 75 67 58 50 42 33 25 17
Alfaro Aeromarine Stellarator R24 (1)     Total Power Output 24.6    Exp 7%

Camara Sistemas Microsensor m1 (2)     GPS 11     Range 6.1m km    MCR 545.7k km    Resolution 1

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes

Or a single big gun, the biggest researched so far, which has more room for engineering spaces and MSP as a bonus due to reduced power plant requirements and can, with enormous losses in damage potential, hit targets at a much longer range:

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Malleus - Copy class Frigate      3,000 tons       88 Crew       773.7 BP       TCS 60    TH 97    EM 0
6750 km/s      Armour 7-18       Shields 0-0       HTK 20      Sensors 0/0/0/0      DCR 2      PPV 16
Maint Life 4.13 Years     MSP 592    AFR 36%    IFR 0.5%    1YR 56    5YR 833    Max Repair 405 MSP
Captain    Control Rating 1   BRG   
Intended Deployment Time: 6 months    Morale Check Required   

Coelho PEB MION-405 (1)    Power 405    Fuel Use 129.60%    Signature 97.20    Explosion 18%
Fuel Capacity 260,000 Litres    Range 12 billion km (20 days at full power)

TriOptimum PAX-50 Plasma Macro Cannon (1)    Range 480,000km     TS: 6,750 km/s     Power 64-6     RM 10,000 km    ROF 55        64 32 21 16 12 10 9 8 7 6
Marques Eletro CTU 480km-6750 (1)     Max Range: 480,000 km   TS: 6,750 km/s     98 96 94 92 90 88 85 83 81 79
Alfaro Aeromarine Stellarator R6 (1)     Total Power Output 6    Exp 7%

Camara Sistemas Microsensor m1 (2)     GPS 11     Range 6.1m km    MCR 545.7k km    Resolution 1

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes


Originally the 3kt shipyard where these designs will be constructed were used to build for survey.  A modular survey ship questionably defined as scout carrier with a 375tons capacity hangar and a reduced heat signature engine, that houses a "fighter" without engines or fuel and a single grav or geosurvey module so the same vessel can swap survey roles by swapping its "fighters" and pack the bonus of never suffering maintenance failure on the survey modules which is quite expensive in MSP.  They also are fitted with a big passive EM sensor.  To allow them to jump, a Jump Scout and ELINT ship accompanies two of them to other systems and, when convenient, try ELINT.  However, so far I had no luck whatsoever with ELINT, despite the 121 sensivity EM sensor in the scout carriers that accompany it during surveys to jump together, and I don't want to park those ships almost next to currently non-hostile aliens to try more luck with ELINT.

Here they are, and the jump scout will likely be used to squadron jump the beam frigates into potentially hostile territory while remaining behind:

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Juno class Jump Scout      3,000 tons       75 Crew       647.6 BP       TCS 60    TH 76    EM 0
5250 km/s    JR 3-50      Armour 1-18       Shields 0-0       HTK 21      Sensors 16/11/0/0      DCR 3      PPV 0
Maint Life 4.02 Years     MSP 404    AFR 24%    IFR 0.3%    1YR 40    5YR 599    Max Repair 283.5 MSP
Captain    Control Rating 1   BRG   
Intended Deployment Time: 14 months    Morale Check Required   

Evento Horizonte S3000 m1     Max Ship Size 3000 tons    Distance 50k km     Squadron Size 3

Coelho PEB MION-315 Umbra (1)    Power 315    Fuel Use 18.37%    Signature 75.60    Explosion 9%
Fuel Capacity 247,000 Litres    Range 80.7 billion km (177 days at full power)

Carneiro ST 1.5x m1 (1)     Sensitivity 16.5     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  32.1m km
ELINT Module (1)     Sensitivity 11     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  26.2m km

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

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Oculus class Scout Carrier      3,000 tons       80 Crew       634.8 BP       TCS 60    TH 75    EM 0
5209 km/s      Armour 1-18       Shields 0-0       HTK 17      Sensors 0/121/0/0      DCR 2      PPV 0
Maint Life 3.73 Years     MSP 330    AFR 29%    IFR 0.4%    1YR 37    5YR 556    Max Repair 312.5 MSP
Hangar Deck Capacity 350 tons     
Captain    Control Rating 2   BRG   SCI   
Intended Deployment Time: 14 months    Flight Crew Berths 7    Morale Check Required   

Coelho PEB MION-312 (1)    Power 312.5    Fuel Use 49.41%    Signature 75.000    Explosion 12%
Fuel Capacity 504,000 Litres    Range 61.2 billion km (136 days at full power)

Camara Sistemas Sensor EM-121 (1)     Sensitivity 121     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  87m km

Strike Group
1x Gaia Geosurvey Module   Speed: 1 km/s    Size: 6.73

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
Is there something wrong with the Jump Scout+ELINT or does it have to get dangerously close to an alien contact and keep that position for a long time to get anything out of it?

[TheTalkingMeowth]

For ELINT specifically, the ELINT sensor has an effective EM sensor rating and that EM sensor rating needs to be sufficient to pick up the target. ELINT have two purposes: identifying the range and resolution of active sensors, and gathering spy data on enemy colonies. You have to accumulate 100 intelligence points to identify the sensor, which without modifiers takes 100 days. On colonies, every 100 points you get some more info about the colony and steal some other info like a ship design, survey data, or possibly tech.

Details here:
http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg109678#msg109678

[nuclearslurpee]

Right now my biggest doubt is whether a 3000 ton beam ship with a single 50cm plasma carronade that deals whooping 64 damage at point-blank but only fires once every 55 seconds is worse or better for a brawler than 4 15cm carronades that fire every 5 seconds thanks to capacitor recharge rate 6 and deal 6 damage each for a total of 24.  I have proposed designs for both approaches here, with no shipyard tooled for either yet, and I'd like to ask your thoughts.  While the bigger one can still deal damage at much longer ranges, the crippling damage attenuation makes such benefit dubious at best, useless at worst.  To maximize plasma the optimal distance must be <= 10,000 km, which also requires ships that won't be blown to pieces instantly and preferably faster than the average for their given engine tech.

Maybe save the big guns for the 13,000 ton designs that will happen in the future, once a shipyard expansion is over, which will take a while due to 2 slipways.

First of all, the words "3000 ton beam ship" and "brawler" do not belong in the same sentence together. A 3,000-ton ship can have many viable uses, and if I'm being honest putting plasma cannons on such small ships is a viable way to construct an "emergency" JP defense fleet. However, for a general-purpose beam brawler you really need a heavier ship that can mount enough armor to close the range and actually survive a beam brawl - plus enough engines, fuel, good BFCs, etc. to have a capable ship.

In this case there is no question in my mind that you should be planning on a much larger ship. 50cm carronades cost 30k RP, which is a sufficiently advanced tech level that you should easily have slipways of sufficient size in your empire to build ships of a useful size (compare to ion engine tech, which is a common start-of-game tech level for many players and this costs 10k RP plus the preceding techs).

That being said, we must make do with what we have available:

The major advantage of building small ships, and I must concede that there is an advantage, is that you can build a lot of them fairly quickly. So to assess these designs we really want to think about a fairly numerous swarm of them and not just assessing a single ship at a time. Given this, I think the optimal plan is to build both ships in roughly equal proportions. The 50cm variant provides a heavy alpha strike which can eliminate key targets in the first salvo, or at least damage/cripple them - even with the poor penetration profile of plasma weapons, 64 damage will chew through a lot of armor and deal internal damage to many NPR ships, not to mention the potential for a lot of shock damage as well. The 15cm variant provides the necessary DPS to clean up after the first volley, either to eliminate damaged ships before they can fire back again or to press the attack against surviving ships.

Note that you should be able to build both variants out of a single shipyard, so tooling for two classes is not a problem here.

As general advice, I recommend not using thermal reduction on your engines for the most part. Most ships do not need this for their mission, and particularly not small ships which are not intended for stealth missions. Conversely, thermal reduction makes engines very expensive, so ships will take longer to build and will require much more gallicite which is often a scarce resource.

Here they are, and the jump scout will likely be used to squadron jump the beam frigates into potentially hostile territory while remaining behind:

This doesn't work, a squadron jump always requires the jump ship leading the squadron to jump through with its squadron. Only a standard jump can leave the jump ship behind.

A modular survey ship questionably defined as scout carrier with a 375tons capacity hangar and a reduced heat signature engine, that houses a "fighter" without engines or fuel and a single grav or geosurvey module so the same vessel can swap survey roles by swapping its "fighters" and pack the bonus of never suffering maintenance failure on the survey modules which is quite expensive in MSP.

This is a really cool concept, which sounds like absolute micromanagement hell to execute in practice. Also note that you aren't saving anything in MSP as the ship with the hangar must pay to maintain its parasite. Also, the bonus from the Science officer is not passed to the parasite survey satellite, just FYI.

Is there something wrong with the Jump Scout+ELINT or does it have to get dangerously close to an alien contact and keep that position for a long time to get anything out of it?

It should work fine, but it's useless tonnage if you expect to use this ship for squadron jumps as in that case you want armor for surviving or some weapon to contribute to the battle.

[misanthropope]

i incline to the bigger stick; 7 layers of armor seems plausibly sufficient to close but i doubt it will buy you enough S for your DPS.

saddling yourself such difficulty with managing your fleet in exchange for a modest edge in ground combat that can be only useful if you win in space, seems to me the tail wagging the dog.  just the fact that you need to research another beam tree to have point defense appears to neuter the perceived ground combat bonus, compared to rail-only or even laser-only beam development.

[Jorgen_CAB]

i incline to the bigger stick; 7 layers of armor seems plausibly sufficient to close but i doubt it will buy you enough S for your DPS.

saddling yourself such difficulty with managing your fleet in exchange for a modest edge in ground combat that can be only useful if you win in space, seems to me the tail wagging the dog.  just the fact that you need to research another beam tree to have point defense appears to neuter the perceived ground combat bonus, compared to rail-only or even laser-only beam development.

Why is this?!?

Carronade is a really good weapon for the research you invest into it if you use the doctrine correctly. They are really good as Ground to Orbit weapons, good for ground units and if you combine it with Gauss PD you also get the best point defence the game can offer you long term as well.

You get 35cm Carronades and three shot Gauss for a mere total of 22.5kRP for that you can get... 20cm Near Ultra Violet lasers (21.5k RP) or 20cm Railgun with launch velocity 30k (24.5 RP). Your ground troops are at AP 12 while the other are only at 10, you also get by far more powerful ground to space weapons that are cheap and better ground PD systems. You also need to consider that the weapon system in and of itself is cheaper and you don't need to rely on overly expensive engines as you need with railguns (in general), you also might get away with having a half size fire control which saves both resources and some space, if you only fit one large beam system on the ship.
Your doctrine are likely to be that carronades is a defensive beam weapons and mostly for close encounters such as JP assault/defence or defence of planets with space dominance as a secondary role, missiles is your primary long range role likely anyway in most cases, but does not have to be that way.

I have been in a few multi-faction skirmishes and the chock effect of the really high damage of carronade is a real and very important consideration of that weapons system, DPS is not everything. Assaulting someone who have Carronades on their ships in a JP can be quite chocking to behold as your ship are likely to take internal damage long before their armour is broken, which means you can spread the damage around more readily as well, quite lethal. You also have to factor in the pretty huge range of those carronades at pretty low tech level and the amount of alpha damage and chock they can do at relatively long ranges.

I'm not saying it is better, just that it is quite a viable way to build your forces over other options.

[Migi]

For a 3kT ship I would expect it to be specialised and have a limited mission, it's basically an oversized FAC.
Multiple anything is a waste of space in a ship this size, especially sensors. Every ship already has a sensor so why do you need 2 on every ship?

I'm a little unclear about how you intend to use them, are they for offensives into enemy territory or are they a stopgap defence force to hold a jump point?
If the latter, you should consider offloading as much fuel and maintenance as possible into a support station (or multiple stations) which you tug to the point you are defending. If you are defending a jump point, the jump shock gives you a few 'free' increments to recharge while the enemy is recovering, so the low ROF is less of a penalty in that situation.

I'll say this about low ROF vs high ROF weapons: once something is damaged it's preferable to be able to hit it with a high ROF weapon, rather than having to wait for the low ROF weapon to cycle round, so I would say that a mix of both would serve you best.

[nuclearslurpee]

saddling yourself such difficulty with managing your fleet in exchange for a modest edge in ground combat that can be only useful if you win in space, seems to me the tail wagging the dog.  just the fact that you need to research another beam tree to have point defense appears to neuter the perceived ground combat bonus, compared to rail-only or even laser-only beam development.

This isn't a great take. It's pretty typical to research at least 2 types of weapon systems, sometimes even more, to cover both offensive and PD needs. The only weapon systems which are able to provide both offense and PD are missiles (and even then, you probably want Gauss PD for final defense if AMMs are not enough or run out), lasers (pretty poor at PD but serviceable), and railguns (good in both roles but short range and vulnerable to other beam weapons). Not to mention, 10cm railguns are quite good PD weapons, in fact superior to Gauss at low tech level and competitive for much of the game, so if a player wants to they can focus on a single offensive weapon type and just use 10cm railguns for PD and have a very effective loadout.

I'll say this about low ROF vs high ROF weapons: once something is damaged it's preferable to be able to hit it with a high ROF weapon, rather than having to wait for the low ROF weapon to cycle round, so I would say that a mix of both would serve you best.

This is quite true and why I recommend using a balanced mix of both classes.

[misanthropope]

discounting rails as an alternative to plasma because of the short range is a good take?  huh.

[nuclearslurpee]

Discounting plasma because you need to research another weapon system for PD is a bad take, because (1) you don't as long as 10cm railguns can be researched for peanuts, and (2) researching multiple weapon systems is a pretty standard practice, otherwise Gauss wouldn't be used. If you want to minimax your research points then, yeah, lasers or rails do that for you, but you really don't have to minimax your research points.

Short range of rails I mentioned in the context of comparison to missiles and lasers, and was not meant as a comparison with plasma - although it is true that the short range of both rails and plasma makes them somewhat redundant if used together, and I would probably just use 10cm railguns for PD until I had good Gauss tech if I wanted to make a plasma-focused fleet.

[Abridal (OP)]

These frigates will be used for 1 - offensives with massed numbers, 2 - fulfilling PPV requirements and 3 - JP defense.  They are not intended to be one-trick ponies that can do only #3.

Here are some changes and a jump frigate.  The primary changes are the addition of one extra layer of armor at the expense of a small loss in range and maintenance capabilities, discarding sensor redundancy and the abandonment of thermal reduction engines to save costs in construction and maintenance, partly compensating the needed reduction in engineering spaces and MSP storage to fit in everything.

The jump frigate is very identical to the 15cm plasma frigate, but with less firepower and capable of jumping up to six other frigates with it.  On the plus side it has two single weapon only fire controls because their combined mass is identical to a single BFC for multiple weapons, thus it can fire each of its plasma autocannons against a different target.

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Immaterium class Jump Frigate      3,000 tons       82 Crew       547.8 BP       TCS 60    TH 405    EM 0
6750 km/s    JR 7-50      Armour 8-18       Shields 0-0       HTK 17      Sensors 0/0/0/0      DCR 1      PPV 8
Maint Life 3.21 Years     MSP 364    AFR 72%    IFR 1.0%    1YR 53    5YR 799    Max Repair 202.50 MSP
Captain    Control Rating 1   BRG   
Intended Deployment Time: 6 months    Morale Check Required   

Evento Horizonte S3000-7 m1     Max Ship Size 3000 tons    Distance 50k km     Squadron Size 7

Coelho PEB MION-405 m2 (1)    Power 405.0    Fuel Use 129.60%    Signature 405.00    Explosion 18%
Fuel Capacity 238,000 Litres    Range 11 billion km (18 days at full power)

TriOptimum PAX-15 Plasma Autocannon (2)    Range 60,000km     TS: 6,750 km/s     Power 6-6     RM 10,000 km    ROF 5       
Marques Eletro CTU 120km-6750 (2)     Max Range: 120,000 km   TS: 6,750 km/s     92 83 75 67 58 50 42 33 25 17
Alfaro Aeromarine Stellarator R6 (2)     Total Power Output 12    Exp 7%

Camara Sistemas Microsensor m1 (1)     GPS 11     Range 6.1m km    MCR 545.7k km    Resolution 1

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
This design is classed as a c for auto-assignment purposes
Probably this will be the setup of each flotilla: 1 jump, 3 PD, 2 50cm plasma and 1 15cm plasma frigates.  Then build least 35 frigates with such ratio, which should have enough gauss PD and 15 cm carronades moonlighting as PD if necessary to survive until reaching 10k distance and unleashing its barrage. 

Now for the other updated frigates, the PD, 15cm plasma and 50cm plasma ones:

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Gladius III class Frigate      3,000 tons       75 Crew       704.6 BP       TCS 60    TH 405    EM 0
6750 km/s      Armour 8-18       Shields 0-0       HTK 18      Sensors 11/0/0/0      DCR 1      PPV 16.32
Maint Life 2.10 Years     MSP 276    AFR 72%    IFR 1.0%    1YR 83    5YR 1,252    Max Repair 202.50 MSP
Captain    Control Rating 1   BRG   
Intended Deployment Time: 6 months    Morale Check Required   

Coelho PEB MION-405 m2 (1)    Power 405.0    Fuel Use 129.60%    Signature 405.00    Explosion 18%
Fuel Capacity 238,000 Litres    Range 11 billion km (18 days at full power)

Twin Taurus CEMB-5 Turret (1x10)    Range 50,000km     TS: 20000 km/s     Power 0-0     RM 50,000 km    ROF 5       
Marques Eletro CTU 240km-20k (1)     Max Range: 240,000 km   TS: 20,000 km/s     96 92 88 83 79 75 71 67 62 58

Camara Sistemas Microsensor m1 (1)     GPS 11     Range 6.1m km    MCR 545.7k km    Resolution 1
Carneiro ST Básico m1 (1)     Sensitivity 11     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  26.2m km

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

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Malleus class Frigate      3,000 tons       84 Crew       604.2 BP       TCS 60    TH 405    EM 0
6750 km/s      Armour 8-18       Shields 0-0       HTK 22      Sensors 0/0/0/0      DCR 1      PPV 16
Maint Life 2.55 Years     MSP 238    AFR 65%    IFR 0.9%    1YR 51    5YR 767    Max Repair 202.50 MSP
Captain    Control Rating 1   BRG   
Intended Deployment Time: 6 months    Morale Check Required   

Coelho PEB MION-405 m2 (1)    Power 405.0    Fuel Use 129.60%    Signature 405.00    Explosion 18%
Fuel Capacity 238,000 Litres    Range 11 billion km (18 days at full power)

TriOptimum PAX-15 Plasma Autocannon (4)    Range 60,000km     TS: 6,750 km/s     Power 6-6     RM 10,000 km    ROF 5       
Marques Eletro CT 120km-6750 (1)     Max Range: 120,000 km   TS: 6,750 km/s     92 83 75 67 58 50 42 33 25 17
Alfaro Aeromarine Stellarator R24 (1)     Total Power Output 24.6    Exp 7%

Camara Sistemas Microsensor m1 (1)     GPS 11     Range 6.1m km    MCR 545.7k km    Resolution 1

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

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Malleus Maximus class Frigate      3,000 tons       84 Crew       577.5 BP       TCS 60    TH 405    EM 0
6750 km/s      Armour 8-18       Shields 0-0       HTK 22      Sensors 0/0/0/0      DCR 1      PPV 16
Maint Life 4.21 Years     MSP 540    AFR 58%    IFR 0.8%    1YR 49    5YR 732    Max Repair 202.50 MSP
Captain    Control Rating 1   BRG   
Intended Deployment Time: 6 months    Morale Check Required   

Coelho PEB MION-405 m2 (1)    Power 405.0    Fuel Use 129.60%    Signature 405.00    Explosion 18%
Fuel Capacity 238,000 Litres    Range 11 billion km (18 days at full power)

TriOptimum PAX-50 Plasma Macro Cannon (1)    Range 480,000km     TS: 6,750 km/s     Power 64-6     RM 10,000 km    ROF 55       
Marques Eletro CTU 480km-6750 (1)     Max Range: 480,000 km   TS: 6,750 km/s     98 96 94 92 90 88 85 83 81 79
Alfaro Aeromarine Stellarator R6 (1)     Total Power Output 6    Exp 7%

Camara Sistemas Microsensor m1 (1)     GPS 11     Range 6.1m km    MCR 545.7k km    Resolution 1

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
This design is classed as a c for auto-assignment purposes
I finally got some intelligence working.  Replaced the ELINT jump scout with one that has one cargo shuttle bay instead so it can supply the others with MSP, had one of them refit to this new design and the remaining ELINT ship now operates independently, its old design renamed as Umbra Class Intelligence Corvette.  Survey and ELINT designs will still use thermal signature reduction in their engines, for they won't be built in particularly large numbers and are meant to be the predecessors of future cloaked designs.  The Science Department was also removed from the modular survey ship considering it doesn't benefit parasites with survey sensors, replaced with more fuel and maintenance capabilities.

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Oculus II class Scout Carrier      3,000 tons       70 Crew       586.4 BP       TCS 60    TH 75    EM 0
5209 km/s      Armour 1-18       Shields 0-0       HTK 17      Sensors 0/121/0/0      DCR 2      PPV 0
Maint Life 3.62 Years     MSP 305    AFR 29%    IFR 0.4%    1YR 36    5YR 540    Max Repair 312.5 MSP
Hangar Deck Capacity 350 tons     
Captain    Control Rating 1   BRG   
Intended Deployment Time: 14 months    Flight Crew Berths 7    Morale Check Required   

Coelho PEB MION-312 (1)    Power 312.5    Fuel Use 49.41%    Signature 75.000    Explosion 12%
Fuel Capacity 624,000 Litres    Range 75.8 billion km (168 days at full power)

Camara Sistemas Sensor EM-121 (1)     Sensitivity 121     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  87m km

Strike Group
1x Gaia Geosurvey Module   Speed: 1 km/s    Size: 6.73

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

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Juno II class Jump Scout      3,000 tons       72 Crew       448.1 BP       TCS 60    TH 76    EM 0
5250 km/s    JR 3-50      Armour 1-18       Shields 0-0       HTK 19      Sensors 16/0/0/0      DCR 3      PPV 0
Maint Life 4.10 Years     MSP 308    AFR 22%    IFR 0.3%    1YR 29    5YR 439    Max Repair 283.5 MSP
Cargo Shuttle Multiplier 2   
Captain    Control Rating 1   BRG   
Intended Deployment Time: 14 months    Morale Check Required   

Evento Horizonte S3000 m1     Max Ship Size 3000 tons    Distance 50k km     Squadron Size 3

Coelho PEB MION-315 Umbra (1)    Power 315    Fuel Use 18.37%    Signature 75.60    Explosion 9%
Fuel Capacity 244,000 Litres    Range 79.7 billion km (175 days at full power)

Carneiro ST 1.5x m1 (1)     Sensitivity 16.5     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  32.1m km

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


[Migi]

8 armour and squadron size 7 is an impressive amount.

On the plus side it has two single weapon only fire controls because their combined mass is identical to a single BFC for multiple weapons, thus it can fire each of its plasma autocannons against a different target.

I thought this was quite clever.

I like the fleet composition, it's impossible to know if you have enough PD until you've had at least 1 encounter (often many more) with the enemy so 3 of 7 seems like a good proportion to start out, and because you will be engaging at close range they will be available for offensive fire if the enemy runs out of missiles.

[Jorgen_CAB]

Are there any particular reason why you don't just build 3 18kt beam cruiser flotillas with the same capabilities but just more efficient, just asking?

You definitely seem to have the technology to build larger more efficient ships.

[Abridal (OP)]

Are there any particular reason why you don't just build 3 18kt beam cruiser flotillas with the same capabilities but just more efficient?

You definitely seem to have the technology to build larger more efficient ships.

Currently in this game these were made for there are the following naval shipyards: 1 15kt shipyard with 2 slipways (I have chosen 15kt as the next stepping stone towards bigger) and 3 3kt shipyards with 4 slipways in total, where two of them will soon have an additional slipway.  6 3kt ships simultaneously vs 2 15kt.  Not only it is very obvious how to build a given tonnage of warships faster in this setup but also building more shipyards with 3kt capacity to the extent allowed by duranium production and economy is much faster compared to setting up major production for big ships.  Furthermore, retooling and refits are faster and with so many small shipyards it won't be necessary to do retooling too much, only when better engines and tech is readily available in updated designs. 

In theory I could just delay the building of the first fleet capable of combat beyond Sol for more years until all of these yards are expanded to 15kt or even more, but with a NPR having refueling forward bases 2 jumps away from Sol it doesn't seem right to do so even if the AI will never really attack.  They generously built a vast network of stabilized jump gates, it's long overdue to reap the benefits.  Also, R&D in shields up to theta for bigger ships was happening and still unfinished while the first flotilla of these frigates was almost finished.  Although it is said more armor is better even for big ships in beam combat despite the efficiency of larger generators, with every shield tech costing up to 30k RP researched that may no longer be the case.  Yet, perhaps it was a mistake and I should've researched only armor tech instead, but it's done now and 32 HS theta shields in big ships might be competitive as an alternative to armor even in close quarters beam combat.  I'm not sure.

PS: I made a small yet big mistake with one of the non-combat designs.  Had to refit them with a bit less fuel and more MSP.  Here is the fixed version

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Oculus II class Scout Carrier      3,000 tons       70 Crew       586.5 BP       TCS 60    TH 75    EM 0
5208 km/s      Armour 1-18       Shields 0-0       HTK 17      Sensors 0/121/0/0      DCR 2      PPV 0
Maint Life 4.35 Years     MSP 410    AFR 29%    IFR 0.4%    1YR 35    5YR 524    Max Repair 312.5 MSP
Hangar Deck Capacity 350 tons     
Captain    Control Rating 1   BRG   
Intended Deployment Time: 14 months    Flight Crew Berths 7    Morale Check Required   

Coelho PEB MION-312 (1)    Power 312.5    Fuel Use 49.41%    Signature 75.000    Explosion 12%
Fuel Capacity 614,000 Litres    Range 74.6 billion km (165 days at full power)

Camara Sistemas Sensor EM-121 (1)     Sensitivity 121     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  87m km

Strike Group
1x Gaia Geosurvey Module   Speed: 1 km/s    Size: 6.73

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

[Jorgen_CAB]

If this is like starting technology and you have hardly left Sol yet you don't really need to even contemplate a fleet able to fight anywhere but in the Sol system... perhaps one other system at max. It should be many years until you will need any serious fleet at all.

Any way... building up one or a few shipyards to 20k or above should not take that long, I would probably not even bother building many ships until I'm prepared to attack them or they declare war by attacking your ships. Your technology are quite advanced so you should be more than fine with a skeleton fleet for now, most likely.

Shields is a force multiplier in many ways... it makes your ships avoid chock damage for example. A 3000t ship will have a chance to take shock damage already at 3 points of damage, an 18k ship will start taking chock damage at about 18 points of damage.

This is one reason why hard hitting high damage weapons are so dangerous as they can easily do more damage than what is written on the gun itself through chock damage, shields will mitigate this and they regenerate, armour don't.