Personally I'd be more comfortable having some redundant FCs/sensors and reactors in the battlestar, if only to avoid an unlucky shock damage roll from neutering the whole ship's weapons until it's repaired (and in a battle repair times seem like an eternity!).

i don't think i've ever once researched shields beyond having a backup defense scientist practicing on it.  im pretty satisfied that armor at TL "N+1" is materially better than having armor and shields both at "N", and the former is considerably cheaper as well.

I have a few times and I am glad that I did. Here is why. Armor cells can only take a single damage and then they need to be repaired at a shipyard. This means that a ship with a long deployment time (or a parasite attached to a carrier) will accumulate armor damage after multiple engagements, reducing it's ability to keep fighting. A shield can recharge to full strength between engagements, meaning that after several engagements a shield can provide much more than a single armor layer's worth of defense even though the shield itself may only provide a fraction of an armor layer's worth of protection at any one time.

So, long story short, shields are good for ships which make use of hit and run tactics. They do require some reasearch investment however. I think gamma shields are the first 'usefull' shield level and I always get the 2x recharge tech to go along with that.

With the changes to hanger armor repairs, this may make shields less useful, but we shall see how that works out.

i don't think i've ever once researched shields beyond having a backup defense scientist practicing on it.  im pretty satisfied that armor at TL "N+1" is materially better than having armor and shields both at "N", and the former is considerably cheaper as well.

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Millonis Block II class Battlestar (P)      36,000 tons       855 Crew       5,247.3 BP       TCS 720    TH 2,880    EM 0
4000 km/s      Armour 7-97       Shields 0-0       HTK 192      Sensors 0/0/0/0      DCR 15      PPV 104
Maint Life 1.64 Years     MSP 3,366    AFR 691%    IFR 9.6%    1YR 1,477    5YR 22,161    Max Repair 720.00 MSP
Hangar Deck Capacity 12,000 tons     Cargo Shuttle Multiplier 3   
Captain    Control Rating 5   BRG   AUX   ENG   CIC   PFC   
Intended Deployment Time: 12 months    Flight Crew Berths 240    Morale Check Required   

Magneto-plasma Drive  EP1440.00 (2)    Power 2880.0    Fuel Use 40.32%    Signature 1440.00    Explosion 12%
Fuel Capacity 1,703,000 Litres    Range 21.1 billion km (61 days at full power)

25cm Railgun V40/C4 (4x4)    Range 200,000km     TS: 5,000 km/s     Power 15-4     RM 40,000 km    ROF 20       
Sliwa Weapon Systems SWS-100MM-KWS (Kinetic Weapon System) (24x4)    Range 10,000km     TS: 5,000 km/s     Power 3-3     RM 10,000 km    ROF 5       
Mani Sensor Systems MSS-R256/TR5KKM/S-BFC  (1)     Max Range: 256,000 km   TS: 5,000 km/s     96 92 88 84 80 77 73 69 65 61
Beam Fire Control R96-TS5000 (2)     Max Range: 96,000 km   TS: 5,000 km/s     90 79 69 58 48 38 27 17 6 0
Stellarator Fusion Reactor R88 (1)     Total Power Output 88.2    Exp 5%

Active Search Sensor AS75-R100 (1)     GPS 10500     Range 75.9m km    Resolution 100
Active Search Sensor AS11-R1 (1)     GPS 53     Range 11.6m km    MCR 1m km    Resolution 1

ECM 10

Strike Group
2x Raptor-A Recon Craft   Speed: 6005 km/s    Size: 9.99
2x Raptor-M Boarding Craft   Speed: 6004 km/s    Size: 9.99
18x Viper MKII Space-Superiority-Fighter   Speed: 15013 km/s    Size: 9.99
2x Raptor-P Recon Craft   Speed: 9608 km/s    Size: 9.99
its not done and just a prototype so am not adding it to the OP but its the Block II of the Milonis and features many changes some that I have taken from the advice given, the biggest changes are engine fuel efficiency, proper Ship-Ship weapons and the incorporation of better BFCs, a lot of the design decisions from these vessels will make sense once i have written up the doctrine for you guys to read and how my game is at the moment so just keep that in mind.

But i will say that a battlestar is supposed to combine a carrier and battleship in one atleast thats how it is in BSG

I like the choice of 25cm railguns... those I think are a good breakpoint in terms of DPS and armour penetration. 4 of them isn't a alot but since this thing is a carrier first and battleship second (I think?) the 25cm railguns are appropriate and fitting with the overall theme. I'm wondering what shield tech you have available? At 7 layers of armour you may find a few shield generators to be more effective. At 30k ton+ ship size 1 layer of armor can be a huge displacement savings.

Long story short, I think 7 layers of armor is too much. Reduce to 3 or 4 and replace with shields or engines. However for thematic reasons I can understand a heavy armor doctrine.

Agree about the turret thing. However I saw a post from someone recently (xenoscepter?) about using turrets with 0 tracking speed on small fighters... I haven't tried that out yet myself but I wonder if that improves anything. Otherwise yes, the BFC size is a problem for small gauss fighters (especially with the current .2 size reduced range bug).

AFAIK turrets with zero tracking speed will use your racial tracking speed, which is almost always going to be lower than your ship speed especially on a fast fighter, so it's going to be "better" to just put the naked Gauss gun on your fighter by itself, at which point railguns are just more tonnage-efficient than Gauss until the quite late game.

I wonder if commercial engines might help? 3.5m fuel is kinda a lot of fuel and 4k km/s isn't terribly fast. Maybe also reduce the armor somewhat as well? I've fielded pretty solid ion era carriers before with commercial engines at about 30 kton displacement. I can't remember how fast they went but I know they had at least 12k hanger space and something like 50b km range.

I believe Jorgen does this, mainly so he can use commercial jump drives for his large ships, and it works quite well. The main problem you'll have is that you can't get a fleet from A to B terribly fast if you need a rapid reaction, however if your carriers rely heavily on tanker support anyways this isn't a huge limitation especially if you have a lot of smaller system patrol boats flying around to do the whole warning shots thing.

Quote from: liveware on February 16, 2021, 03:54:49 PM

Did you ever consider using gauss fighters instead of railguns? I know the reduced accuracy thing really sucks but you can field extremely tiny gauss fighters and build HUGE numbers of them. Going off the concept that a battlestar should have about 80-160 fighters minimum (based on BSG series) it is possible to field these kinds of numbers on a somewhat larger ship than what you have here. But maybe that is too off topic (I don't want to digress too far).

Actually the main problem you run into if you try to go that small is the fire control. You can get a Gauss cannon as small as 25 tons, and if BFCs were the same as MFCs you could probably get a 50 or 60 ton ship with a boosted engine and high speed. However BFCs currently require you to dedicate more like 100 or 200 tons. The 1.13 changes adding smaller single-weapon BFCs will be a huge change for these kinds of fighters but probably won't let you get down to 50 or 60 tons still.

Quote from: SpaceMarine on February 16, 2021, 04:04:20 PM

I did consider it but because of the nature of my game being a 20% RP game I didnt want to spend any rp on anything else but a single weapon path really, that being railguns, and for gauss to be effective I would of had to gone heavy into it, also the accuracy difference is staggering.

Also worth noting that Gauss generally underperforms compared to good old 10cm railguns on fast fighters, because the main advantage Gauss has is the ability to be turreted and that is a moot point when you can use a fast fighter instead of a turret.

Agree about the turret thing. However I saw a post from someone recently (xenoscepter?) about using turrets with 0 tracking speed on small fighters... I haven't tried that out yet myself but I wonder if that improves anything. Otherwise yes, the BFC size is a problem for small gauss fighters (especially with the current .2 size reduced range bug).

Did you ever consider using gauss fighters instead of railguns? I know the reduced accuracy thing really sucks but you can field extremely tiny gauss fighters and build HUGE numbers of them. Going off the concept that a battlestar should have about 80-160 fighters minimum (based on BSG series) it is possible to field these kinds of numbers on a somewhat larger ship than what you have here. But maybe that is too off topic (I don't want to digress too far).

Actually the main problem you run into if you try to go that small is the fire control. You can get a Gauss cannon as small as 25 tons, and if BFCs were the same as MFCs you could probably get a 50 or 60 ton ship with a boosted engine and high speed. However BFCs currently require you to dedicate more like 100 or 200 tons. The 1.13 changes adding smaller single-weapon BFCs will be a huge change for these kinds of fighters but probably won't let you get down to 50 or 60 tons still.

I did consider it but because of the nature of my game being a 20% RP game I didnt want to spend any rp on anything else but a single weapon path really, that being railguns, and for gauss to be effective I would of had to gone heavy into it, also the accuracy difference is staggering.

Also worth noting that Gauss generally underperforms compared to good old 10cm railguns on fast fighters, because the main advantage Gauss has is the ability to be turreted and that is a moot point when you can use a fast fighter instead of a turret.

Did you ever consider using gauss fighters instead of railguns? I know the reduced accuracy thing really sucks but you can field extremely tiny gauss fighters and build HUGE numbers of them. Going off the concept that a battlestar should have about 80-160 fighters minimum (based on BSG series) it is possible to field these kinds of numbers on a somewhat larger ship than what you have here. But maybe that is too off topic (I don't want to digress too far).