The Terran Mercantile Guild has finalized the design of it's new commercial jump carrier:

Holtzman class Heighliner      504,000 tons       4,193 Crew       35,049.8 BP       TCS 10,080    TH 40,000    EM 0
3968 km/s    JR 2-25(C)      Armour 10-564       Shields 0-0       HTK 616      Sensors 14/18/0/0      DCR 11      PPV 0
MSP 2,043    Max Repair 1250 MSP
Hangar Deck Capacity 150,000 tons     Cryogenic Berths 8,000   
Admiral    Control Rating 4   BRG   AUX   ENG   PFC   
Intended Deployment Time: 3 months    Flight Crew Berths 3,000   

Guild JC504K Commercial Jump Drive     Max Ship Size 504000 tons    Distance 25k km     Squadron Size 2

Guild Commercial Magnetic Fusion Drive  EP5000.00 (8)    Power 40000    Fuel Use 1.12%    Signature 5000    Explosion 5%
Fuel Capacity 8,052,000 Litres    Range 257.2 billion km (750 days at full power)

Guild CIWS-200 (8x10)    Range 1000 km     TS: 20,000 km/s     ROF 5       
Guild Active Search Sensor AS66-R100 (20%) (1)     GPS 3600     Range 66.7m km    Resolution 100
Guild Active Search Sensor AS14-R1 (20%) (1)     GPS 36     Range 14.4m km    MCR 1.3m km    Resolution 1
Guild Thermal Sensor TH1.0-14.0 (20%) (1)     Sensitivity 14.0     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  29.6m km
Guild EM Sensor EM1.0-18.0 (20%) (1)     Sensitivity 18.0     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  33.5m km

This design is classed as a Commercial Vessel for maintenance purposes

The new design is a bit more than twice the size of the previous class, with more than double the hangar capacity, four times the speed, and slightly improved range. Each ship requires about 40k tons of TN elements but are the largest ships produced by the Terran Mercantile Guild and are hugely important for interstellar commerce and military transport. Indeed, the new class will be the largest ever built in Guild space once completed. The keels of the first two ships of the new class, Princess Irulan and Lady Jessica, have just been laid down and construction will take about eight years to complete. At that point the long serving Pegasus and Stallion will be decommissioned and two additional Holtzmans will be constructed. Finally Bronco, the last ship of the Pegasus class, will be decommissioned once the two additional Holtzmans are complete. The previous Pegasus class served the Guild for nearly 400 years and it is hoped that the Holtzmans will last at least twice that long.

"A Heighliner is truly big. Its hold will tuck all our frigates and transports into a little corner - we'll be just a small part of the ship's manifest." - Duke Leto Atreides, Dune

Quote from: liveware on June 19, 2020, 11:10:01 AM

Code: [Select]

Piranha III-MF class Fighter      23 tons       1 Crew       13 BP       TCS 0    TH 1    EM 0
10919 km/s      Armour 1-0       Shields 0-0       HTK 1      Sensors 0/0/0/0      DCR 0      PPV 0.1
Maint Life 20.17 Years     MSP 20    AFR 5%    IFR 0.1%    1YR 0    5YR 1    Max Repair 15 MSP
Magazine 1   
Lieutenant    Control Rating 1   
Intended Deployment Time: 0.3 days    Morale Check Required   

Guild Magnetic Fusion Drive  EP5.00 (1)    Power 5    Fuel Use 2262.74%    Signature 0.80    Explosion 20%
Fuel Capacity 1,000 Litres    Range 0.3 billion km (8 hours at full power)

Guild Size 1 Box Launcher (1)     Missile Size: 1    Hangar Reload 50 minutes    MF Reload 8 hours
Guild Missile Fire Control FC9-R1 (20%) (1)     Range 9.1m km    Resolution 1
Guild Size 1 Missile (1)    Speed: 75,000 km/s    End: 0m     Range: 0.2m km    WH: 1    Size: 1    TH: 350/210/105

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


This is essentially a tiny beam fighter. However, I think it lacks the speed of a real beam fighter to chase down the enemy. My fleet speed at this tech level is higher than that

I'm really struggling to get any useful range and speed with the micro engines. My 5 ton 5 EP variant used in the preceding post has a 200% power modifier and that's about as high as I can go without sacrificing more range.

I haven't tried making a micro beam fighter yet... maybe that will be next.

I considered creating a longer range size 1 missile but dropped the concept after considering that my existing size 6 missile and associated missile bombers are far more capable than anything I could design at size 1. The existing size 1 missiles and their microfighters are mostly for helping shoot down enemy missiles. In all likelihood the scout carrier and microfighters won't be doing any fighting. If they see something dangerous they are going to run home and get their bigger friends to come help them. The fighters are mostly just there to drop sensor buoys.

Increasing the range on the fighters is a probably good idea though.

Regardless I think its kind of impressive that you managed to make a bloody 23t fighter work to some capacity. I have designed bigger missiles than those

I considered creating a longer range size 1 missile but dropped the concept after considering that my existing size 6 missile and associated missile bombers are far more capable than anything I could design at size 1. The existing size 1 missiles and their microfighters are mostly for helping shoot down enemy missiles. In all likelihood the scout carrier and microfighters won't be doing any fighting. If they see something dangerous they are going to run home and get their bigger friends to come help them. The fighters are mostly just there to drop sensor buoys.

Increasing the range on the fighters is a probably good idea though.

Well, it turned into more of a cruiser-sized ship, but here is my finalized scout carrier:

Swordfish class Scout Carrier      10,040 tons       272 Crew       4,089.9 BP       TCS 201    TH 312    EM 0
9711 km/s      Armour 3-41       Shields 0-0       HTK 60      Sensors 70/90/2/2      DCR 30      PPV 36
Maint Life 2.36 Years     MSP 2,546    AFR 81%    IFR 1.1%    1YR 622    5YR 9,333    Max Repair 2193.75 MSP
Hangar Deck Capacity 250 tons     Magazine 12   
Commander    Control Rating 1   BRG   
Intended Deployment Time: 3 months    Flight Crew Berths 20    Morale Check Required   

Guild Magnetic Fusion Drive  EP1950.00 (1)    Power 1950    Fuel Use 31.47%    Signature 312.00    Explosion 13%
Fuel Capacity 1,250,000 Litres    Range 71.2 billion km (84 days at full power)

Quad Guild Gauss Cannon R500-100 Turret (1x20)    Range 48,000km     TS: 50000 km/s     Power 0-0     RM 50,000 km    ROF 5        1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
Guild Beam Fire Control R48-TS20000 (20%) (1)     Max Range: 48,000 km   TS: 20,000 km/s     96 92 88 83 79 75 71 67 62 58

Guild Size 1 Sensor Satellite (6)    Speed: 0 km/s    End: 0m     Range: 0m km    WH: 0    Size: 1    TH: 0/0/0
Guild Size 1 Missile (6)    Speed: 75,000 km/s    End: 0m     Range: 0.2m km    WH: 1    Size: 1    TH: 350/210/105

Guild Active Search Sensor AS149-R100 (20%) (1)     GPS 18000     Range 149.1m km    Resolution 100
Guild Thermal Sensor TH5-70 (20%) (1)     Sensitivity 70     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  66.1m km
Guild EM Sensor EM5-90 (20%) (1)     Sensitivity 90     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  75m km
Improved Gravitational Sensors (1)   2 Survey Points Per Hour
Improved Geological Sensors (1)   2 Survey Points Per Hour
ELINT Module (1)     Sensitivity 11     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  26.2m km

ECCM-3 (1)         ECM 30

Strike Group
6x Piranha III-S Fighter   Speed: 9284 km/s    Size: 0.35
6x Piranha III-MF Fighter   Speed: 10919 km/s    Size: 0.46

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

For completeness's sake, here are the microfighter designs also:

Piranha III-S class Fighter      18 tons       1 Crew       11.9 BP       TCS 0    TH 1    EM 0
9284 km/s      Armour 1-0       Shields 0-0       HTK 1      Sensors 0/0/0/0      DCR 0      PPV 0
Maint Life 22.04 Years     MSP 20    AFR 4%    IFR 0.0%    1YR 0    5YR 1    Max Repair 15 MSP
Lieutenant    Control Rating 1   
Intended Deployment Time: 0.3 days    Morale Check Required   

Guild Magnetic Fusion Drive  EP3.25 (1)    Power 3.2    Fuel Use 770.76%    Signature 0.5200    Explosion 13%
Fuel Capacity 1,000 Litres    Range 1.3 billion km (39 hours at full power)

Guild Active Search Sensor AS4-R1 (20%) (1)     GPS 4     Range 4.5m km    MCR 408.7k km    Resolution 1

This design is classed as a Fighter for production, combat and planetary interaction

Piranha III-MF class Fighter      23 tons       1 Crew       13 BP       TCS 0    TH 1    EM 0
10919 km/s      Armour 1-0       Shields 0-0       HTK 1      Sensors 0/0/0/0      DCR 0      PPV 0.1
Maint Life 20.17 Years     MSP 20    AFR 5%    IFR 0.1%    1YR 0    5YR 1    Max Repair 15 MSP
Magazine 1   
Lieutenant    Control Rating 1   
Intended Deployment Time: 0.3 days    Morale Check Required   

Guild Magnetic Fusion Drive  EP5.00 (1)    Power 5    Fuel Use 2262.74%    Signature 0.80    Explosion 20%
Fuel Capacity 1,000 Litres    Range 0.3 billion km (8 hours at full power)

Guild Size 1 Box Launcher (1)     Missile Size: 1    Hangar Reload 50 minutes    MF Reload 8 hours
Guild Missile Fire Control FC9-R1 (20%) (1)     Range 9.1m km    Resolution 1
Guild Size 1 Missile (1)    Speed: 75,000 km/s    End: 0m     Range: 0.2m km    WH: 1    Size: 1    TH: 350/210/105

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

Next I will need to redesign my commercial jump carrier and then most likely my main fleet carrier. As I now have a smaller carrier design for dedicated scouting, the fleet carrier can probably be somewhat slower and have larger hangar capacity.

I'm thinking I might develop a corvette sized mini-carrier dedicated to fielding tiny ships with crew size of 1 or 2 each. Then I could limit my exposure to hostiles by sending the mini-carriers into more dangerous regions of space. That's probably a better approach than my current method of just waiting for my long range survey ships to stumble on a hostile fleet.

Quote from: liveware on June 17, 2020, 08:57:58 PM

Well then I suppose the actives remain. So then would it be better to mount thermals or EM sensors?

My intuition is that thermals are superior as everything has a thermal signature. However I can see an argument for EM sensors against large military ships which presumably have large active sensor arrays.

EM sensors also pick up raised shields - the advantage of EM sensors is that ships that have EM signatures often have massive ones whereas ships with thermal signatures often can have relatively small signatures. My ships tend to have both passives (equal size) and almost always when a ship is detected its thermal is unknown - this is because of the aforementioned reason so the EM sensor will generally detect ships from further away.
I think having a minimum size thermal even if you aren't using it as your main means of detection is a good peace of mind since you won't have ghosts shooting at you with beam weapons.
Of course as you already said not every ship has an EM signature which is what balances things.

My advice is this - of you are only concerned with finding the enemy then go passive only, this potentially allows you to stealthily observe enemy fleet movements as well, especially if you have a stealth cloak and thermal reduction.

On the other hand, you might want to know more than just emissions and you want to know the size of ships, in which case you want a ship that has a large active sensor. In the case of sensor fighters I recommend you just go active only and use the extra space for a bigger active. Such a craft needs to be at least faster than the fastest enemy because it will be detected.

Edit: You might also want a sensor fighter with a smaller active meant for actually targetting enemy craft as well but it will only fly against targets that have already been detected.

To be honest you always never want to use actives to "find" the enemy as they will always find you first no matter what ship or method you use. No fleet should be giving up EM signatures if they don't think they are detected. This is why thermal sensors also is important and should never be neglected. If you run sensor scout them make sure you have some specialised on EM and some on Thermal.

Sure... you cab go active for a few seconds and turn them off and move away. This works really way for any small active sensor scout, even tiny ones. But yo should never do that with sensor on your fleet ships as that will potentially reveal your fleets general position to the enemy and they are more likely to then find you than the reverse.

Whether or not you use passive sensors only or not might also depend on if you want to enemy to know you are there at all or not too. In some instances you know that the enemy know you are there but not exactly where, then using active is just fine. But in some instances you rely entirely in stealth to not be revealed until you strike.

Having a multitude of options is also nice... therefore scouts in different sizes is good to have. Smaller scouts is good because you can cheaply use many different resolutions for different situations. When using small active scout you also should move the ships at least two to three in each area so you can alternate using their actives on and off, it is very effective. Even against human opponents.

Well then I suppose the actives remain. So then would it be better to mount thermals or EM sensors?

My intuition is that thermals are superior as everything has a thermal signature. However I can see an argument for EM sensors against large military ships which presumably have large active sensor arrays.

EM sensors also pick up raised shields - the advantage of EM sensors is that ships that have EM signatures often have massive ones whereas ships with thermal signatures often can have relatively small signatures. My ships tend to have both passives (equal size) and almost always when a ship is detected its thermal is unknown - this is because of the aforementioned reason so the EM sensor will generally detect ships from further away.
I think having a minimum size thermal even if you aren't using it as your main means of detection is a good peace of mind since you won't have ghosts shooting at you with beam weapons.
Of course as you already said not every ship has an EM signature which is what balances things.

My advice is this - of you are only concerned with finding the enemy then go passive only, this potentially allows you to stealthily observe enemy fleet movements as well, especially if you have a stealth cloak and thermal reduction.

On the other hand, you might want to know more than just emissions and you want to know the size of ships, in which case you want a ship that has a large active sensor. In the case of sensor fighters I recommend you just go active only and use the extra space for a bigger active. Such a craft needs to be at least faster than the fastest enemy because it will be detected.

Edit: You might also want a sensor fighter with a smaller active meant for actually targetting enemy craft as well but it will only fly against targets that have already been detected.