Advice on JP defense platform

[MoonDragon (OP)]

I'm still quite a newb at this, so I need some constructive criticism on my designs. Specifically, a beam platform designed to guard a JP.

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Fortress class Beam Defence Base    6250 tons     726 Crew     1827 BP      TCS 125  TH 0  EM 300
1 km/s     Armour 10-30     Shields 10-300     Sensors 70/55/0/0     Damage Control Rating 10     PPV 48
Annual Failure Rate: 31%    IFR: 0.4%    Maint Capacity 2827 MSP    Max Repair 160 MSP    Est Time: 10.14 Years


25cm C8 Far Ultraviolet Laser (6)    Range 192,000km     TS: 3000 km/s     Power 16-8     RM 5    ROF 10        16 16 16 16 16 13 11 10 8 8
Samsung Fire Control S04 96-3000 (2)    Max Range: 192,000 km   TS: 3000 km/s     95 90 84 79 74 69 64 58 53 48
Siemens InCo Fusion Reactor Technology PB-1 AR-0 (8)     Total Power Output 48    Armour 0    Exp 5%

Samsung Thermal Sensor TH5-70 (1)     Sensitivity 70     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  70m km
Samsung EM Detection Sensor EM5-55 (1)     Sensitivity 55     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  55m km

This design is classed as a military vessel for maintenance purposes
My armor tech is up to Ceramic Composite. I have access to level 3 Gauss cannons (or will very soon) and level 3 Mason tech. So the question is, does this platform need anything more (like, for example, some anti-missile defenses)? Does it have too much of anything?

My understanding is that a good JP defense platform would never really end up being under attack. It should kill anything that comes through the JP before it can shoot back. But I still put some skin on it, just in case.

The two fire controls should each have 3 different lasers attached to them, so that they can operate independently and target two separate ships if necessary.

[sloanjh]

Something to be aware of: (unlike StarFire) jump ships don't come through right at the jump point!  One of the lines of jump engine tech is "Jump Point Distance" - this is a random distance away from the jump point that the jump ship (and the ships that it is escorting) will arrive.  You've got almost 200k km range on your beam weapons, which looks like it corresponds to the 3rd level of this tech, so there's a good chance you'll get low-tech enemies, but at higher techs they might jump in outside your range.

John

[mrwigggles]

Something to be aware of: (unlike StarFire) jump ships don't come through right at the jump point!  One of the lines of jump engine tech is "Jump Point Distance" - this is a random distance away from the jump point that the jump ship (and the ships that it is escorting) will arrive.  You've got almost 200k km range on your beam weapons, which looks like it corresponds to the 3rd level of this tech, so there's a good chance you'll get low-tech enemies, but at higher techs they might jump in outside your range.

John

So you should probably build a field at corresponding jump point length and build more then one of them?

[Rathos]

In my current game the jump point out of Sol was about 2 million kilometers from an asteroid.

I'm currently building one of these to put on the rock dubbed 'Defense Station Omega'.

Its also going to be the main Headquarters for my navy instead of on Earth like it usually is.

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Iowa class Sol Defense Base    2417550 tons     88490 Crew     309372.4 BP      TCS 48351  TH 0  EM 0
Armour 104-1604     Sensors 300/1050     Damage Control Rating 0     PPV 1340
Troop Capacity: 20 Battalions    Magazine 91300    
Maintenance Modules: 500 module(s) capable of supporting ships of 100000 tons

Fuel Capacity 500,000 Litres    Range N/A
12cm C2 Visible Light Laser (10)    Range 80,000km     TS: 2000 km/s     Power 4-2     RM 2    ROF 10        4 4 2 2 1 1 1 1 0 0
CIWS-80 (10x4)    Range 1000 km     TS: 8000 km/s     ROF 5       Base 50% To Hit
Fire Control S12 48-8000 (1)    Max Range: 96,000 km   TS: 8000 km/s     90 79 69 58 48 38 27 17 6 0
Gas-Cooled Fast Reactor Technology PB-1 AR-0 (2)     Total Power Output 36    Armour 0    Exp 5%

Size 100 Missile Launcher (10)    Missile Size 100    Rate of Fire 1000
Size 2 Missile Launcher (100)    Missile Size 2    Rate of Fire 20
Size 1 Missile Launcher (100)    Missile Size 1    Rate of Fire 10
Missile Fire Control FC336-R1 (1)     Range 10.1m km    Resolution 1
Missile Fire Control FC336-R100 (1)     Range 1,008.0m km    Resolution 100
Missile Fire Control FC357-R14 (1)     Range 149.9m km    Resolution 14
Firestorm 90mkm Class II (2150)  Speed: 48,000 km/s   End: 31.2m    Range: 90m km   WH: 1    Size: 2    TH: 480 / 288 / 144
Stormfury 225mkm ASM Class II (1000)  Speed: 36,000 km/s   End: 104.2m    Range: 225m km   WH: 1    Size: 2    TH: 360 / 216 / 108
Fireshield 1.8mkm Class II (5000)  Speed: 39,800 km/s   End: 0.7m    Range: 1.8m km   WH: 1    Size: 1    TH: 557 / 334 / 167
Ranger 225mkm ASM Torpedo Class II (400)  Speed: 32,000 km/s   End: 117.2m    Range: 225m km   WH: 50    Size: 100    TH: 277 / 166 / 83
Slammer 135mkm ASM Torpedo Class II (400)  Speed: 40,000 km/s   End: 56.2m    Range: 135m km   WH: 100    Size: 100    TH: 346 / 208 / 104

Active Search Sensor S1050-R14 (1)     GPS 14700     Range 147.0m km    Resolution 14
Active Search Sensor S1050-R100 (1)     GPS 105000     Range 1,050.0m km    Resolution 100
Active Search Sensor S1050-R1 (1)     GPS 1050     Range 10.5m km    Resolution 1
Thermal Sensor TH50-300 (1)     Sensitivity 300     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  300m km
EM Detection Sensor EM50-300 (1)     Sensitivity 300     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  300m km

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 Planetary Defence Centre and can be pre-fabricated in 968 sections
It will probably be outdated between the time I build it and when it gets finished though. My missile tech is pretty high (even if not the launchers) and the NPR I ran into had really crappy PD. My old Class I missiles were even able to pierce their defenses, and those had half the speed and firepower. Also, torpedo missiles rock. Even if you can only fire them slowly every time I've had one hit the enemy blew up. And I think they've only dodged one or two (and that was by one of their gunboats.) The problem of course is manufacturing them. It takes about 16 days for a Ranger II and 20 for a Slammer II.

[MoonDragon (OP)]

Something to be aware of: (unlike StarFire) jump ships don't come through right at the jump point!  One of the lines of jump engine tech is "Jump Point Distance" - this is a random distance away from the jump point that the jump ship (and the ships that it is escorting) will arrive.  You've got almost 200k km range on your beam weapons, which looks like it corresponds to the 3rd level of this tech, so there's a good chance you'll get low-tech enemies, but at higher techs they might jump in outside your range.

John

If that's the only drawback to my design, then I'm ecstatic. Since I am in the early stages of the game, I don't expect to be attacked by something very high tech. And if I am, there is little I can do to defend myself. These platforms are just supposed to be an insurance policy. Not an actual blockade of a known dangerous JP. But, if I end up with a known scary JP, I can just slap 6-10 of these guys in a circle around it and I should be mostly OK. Thanks for the advice.

[lastverb]

Rathos: how many enginnering teams you got? it will take a hundreds of years to just assemble it

[Hawkeye]

Hm, I don´t see any active sensor.
Without one to light up the targets, your lasers can´t shoot at anything that comes though the JP.

Also: Your Laser- and Armor tech are quite advanced for early game. I would focus research on beam firecon range/speed so your lasers can use their full potential (not sure, but the 25cm FUV-Lasers should have a range of at least 400.000km)

[Rathos]

Rathos: how many enginnering teams you got? it will take a hundreds of years to just assemble it

Hundreds of years is no impediment to my Imperium's bureaucracy.

[Father Tim]

I'm still quite a newb at this, so I need some constructive criticism on my designs. Specifically, a beam platform designed to guard a JP.

You don't need the THermal or EM sensors, unless you're worried about ships coming up from behind and not through the JP.  You DO need an active sensor, or you won't be able to shoot at all.

Ships coming through the jump point will be deaf, dumb & blind, but they can move at full speed immediately after emerging, so they'll likely run (possibly away from you) in a straight line directly away from the jump point.  You might want faster recharge, longer range, or both.  Balancing the demands of energy weapons in a fixed amount of hull space is one of the toughest things in Aurora.

I wouldn't bother putting shields on a JP base, since you won't have the time to raise them, and keeping them on burns fuel.  Which means you should install a fuel tank or remove the shields.

Expect your base to have to fight three enemy ships simultaneously, since that's the default squadron size.  Of course, that's generally two combat ships and a jump tender, so you might be fine concentrating your fire on the warships and hoping to mop up the jumpship afterwards.

[waresky]

When u fight some battles..u found a JP Base Sieger out to date.

GunBoat or "System Defence Boats" with 35-40 cm Near Violet Laser,800.000km range and very fast target acquisition.
Radar and good ECM countermeasure for blind enemy missile launcher ranges..

[MoonDragon (OP)]

Hm, I don´t see any active sensor.
Without one to light up the targets, your lasers can´t shoot at anything that comes though the JP.

That was my big question. Something I either did not see in the tutorials, or glazed over and did not remember because I didn't realize it was important. Do you must have active sensors to attack ships? I've built area defense frigates that successfully took down swathes of missiles, where the only sensors were passive thermal and the beam fire control. But to shoot a ship, you have to have an active sensor, correct?

Also: Your Laser- and Armor tech are quite advanced for early game. I would focus research on beam firecon range/speed so your lasers can use their full potential (not sure, but the 25cm FUV-Lasers should have a range of at least 400.000km)

I manually spent my start game research points to up my ship engines and laser weapons really high (well, really high for a new game at least). That freed up my scientists to focus on the few remaining techs that I need. I thought I had all my laser based tech to be of the same level. But now that you mentioned it, I looked and my beam firecon could use a couple of more levels of upgrades.

[Father Tim]

That was my big question. Something I either did not see in the tutorials, or glazed over and did not remember because I didn't realize it was important. Do you must have active sensors to attack ships? I've built area defense frigates that successfully took down swathes of missiles, where the only sensors were passive thermal and the beam fire control. But to shoot a ship, you have to have an active sensor, correct?

Aye.  In fact, your ability to shoot missiles without an active sensor is a bug (unless you were using CIWS, which are designed to in part to avoid that problem).

[Hawkeye]

Hm, I don´t see any active sensor.
Without one to light up the targets, your lasers can´t shoot at anything that comes though the JP.

That was my big question. Something I either did not see in the tutorials, or glazed over and did not remember because I didn't realize it was important. Do you must have active sensors to attack ships? I've built area defense frigates that successfully took down swathes of missiles, where the only sensors were passive thermal and the beam fire control. But to shoot a ship, you have to have an active sensor, correct?

Yes, you need actives to light up a target. The fact that you could shoot down missiles without one is a bug for anything except CIWS (those have an integrated, short ranged sensor), which has allready been reported and will likely be gone in the next version.

Also: Your Laser- and Armor tech are quite advanced for early game. I would focus research on beam firecon range/speed so your lasers can use their full potential (not sure, but the 25cm FUV-Lasers should have a range of at least 400.000km)

I manually spent my start game research points to up my ship engines and laser weapons really high (well, really high for a new game at least). That freed up my scientists to focus on the few remaining techs that I need. I thought I had all my laser based tech to be of the same level. But now that you mentioned it, I looked and my beam firecon could use a couple of more levels of upgrades.

Don´t worry, we pretty much all have "been there, done that"  

[MoonDragon (OP)]

Excellent. Thanks a lot for the advice guys.

Now if only my game didn't break, so that I could apply the lessons learned... *sigh*