What's Going On In Your Empire: C# Edition

[nuclearslurpee]

approaching a planet guarded by two Automata (precursor) bases, both of which were 28,000 tons (in line with the wider range of NPR hull sizes in v2.2).

I can already hear the crying and wailing of players encountering the New! Improved! 50% Larger Salvo Size! AMM Spam!!   

Of course, I shall endeavor to solve the problem by building even bigger warships. 

Interesting to see that the new missile mechanics mean small salvos can still have some chance to penetrate the AMM screen under the right circumstances. Decoys seem very effective. Have you yet had some chance to observe if this affects the balance between launcher sizes - I'm sure large salvos from box/small launchers are the king at least in a single engagement, but perhaps larger, launchers have some useful niches now?

[Steve Walmsley]

approaching a planet guarded by two Automata (precursor) bases, both of which were 28,000 tons (in line with the wider range of NPR hull sizes in v2.2).

I can already hear the crying and wailing of players encountering the New! Improved! 50% Larger Salvo Size! AMM Spam!!   

Of course, I shall endeavor to solve the problem by building even bigger warships. 

Interesting to see that the new missile mechanics mean small salvos can still have some chance to penetrate the AMM screen under the right circumstances. Decoys seem very effective. Have you yet had some chance to observe if this affects the balance between launcher sizes - I'm sure large salvos from box/small launchers are the king at least in a single engagement, but perhaps larger, launchers have some useful niches now?

Its very early in testing. I think larger missiles are a LOT more viable now and we should see a much greater variety in missile design. I have gone for size-12, which is something I would never have considered before. I think much larger missiles are viable.

Mass salvos are less effective than previously, due to the effect of ship decoys. Smaller salvos are more effective when missile decoys are present. That said, a larger salvo is always going to be more effective than a smaller salvo - all the changes are doing is reducing the overall rate of change in effectiveness to create more interesting decisions.

One thing I have found so far is that I am not automatically going to 0.4x, or 0.3x for launchers. Larger missiles, with the benefits of decoys and other to-hit and survivability mods, are much slower to launch, so if you plan multiple salvos in a battle, then 0.6x is a better option.

Box launchers are still an issue for large ships due to the chance of a missile exploding on-board, but missile-armed fighters are still fine and probably gain a little vs beam-armed - which I think is correct as I think energy fighters were a better option before.

[SpaceMarine]

approaching a planet guarded by two Automata (precursor) bases, both of which were 28,000 tons (in line with the wider range of NPR hull sizes in v2.2).

I can already hear the crying and wailing of players encountering the New! Improved! 50% Larger Salvo Size! AMM Spam!!   

Of course, I shall endeavor to solve the problem by building even bigger warships. 

Interesting to see that the new missile mechanics mean small salvos can still have some chance to penetrate the AMM screen under the right circumstances. Decoys seem very effective. Have you yet had some chance to observe if this affects the balance between launcher sizes - I'm sure large salvos from box/small launchers are the king at least in a single engagement, but perhaps larger, launchers have some useful niches now?

One thing I have found so far is that I am not automatically going to 0.4x, or 0.3x for launchers. Larger missiles, with the benefits of decoys and other to-hit and survivability mods, are much slower to launch, so if you plan multiple salvos in a battle, then 0.6x is a better option.

Box launchers are still an issue for large ships due to the chance of a missile exploding on-board, but missile-armed fighters are still fine and probably gain a little vs beam-armed - which I think is correct as I think energy fighters were a better option before.

Really? most players i have interacted with and my own experience says otherwise that beam fighters are just overall worse than missile fighters, this is usually because of the large size of beam weapons requiring significantly cut down capability, either in speed, weapon shots or elsewhere not to mention the size of the BFC which has to still be big even with single weapon fire control due to the need for high range to achieve high accuracy, missile tubes are cheap small and allow fighters to pack significantly more firepower in a smaller package

[Steve Walmsley]

Box launchers are still an issue for large ships due to the chance of a missile exploding on-board, but missile-armed fighters are still fine and probably gain a little vs beam-armed - which I think is correct as I think energy fighters were a better option before.

Really? most players i have interacted with and my own experience says otherwise that beam fighters are just overall worse than missile fighters, this is usually because of the large size of beam weapons requiring significantly cut down capability, either in speed, weapon shots or elsewhere not to mention the size of the BFC which has to still be big even with single weapon fire control due to the need for high range to achieve high accuracy, missile tubes are cheap small and allow fighters to pack significantly more firepower in a smaller package

It's been debated a lot. I think many players dismiss energy fighters because they take losses, where missile fighters generally don't.

However, this is a recent campaign based on energy-armed fighters as the main striking force. They have a huge force-multiplier once you generate a large enough wave of fighters, plus they are very good at point defence - which missile fighters can't do at all. Also, the cost of their losses compares favourably with the cost of expenditure of ordnance by missile fighters.

http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=12909.0

EDIT: Also, energy-armed fighters also got a boost in v2.2 with the new plasma carronade rules.

[nuclearslurpee]

Really? most players i have interacted with and my own experience says otherwise that beam fighters are just overall worse than missile fighters, this is usually because of the large size of beam weapons requiring significantly cut down capability, either in speed, weapon shots or elsewhere not to mention the size of the BFC which has to still be big even with single weapon fire control due to the need for high range to achieve high accuracy, missile tubes are cheap small and allow fighters to pack significantly more firepower in a smaller package

Beam fighters do require a bit of tech to get up to snuff, but once they do they are extremely competitive. Steve has linked his BSG AAR, which is arguably the definitive exposition of C# beam fighters. This was discussed a lot in the comment thread for that AAR, but the general outcome was that for a sufficient mass of beam fighters the cost of replacing losses among the fighters is significantly less than the cost of re-arming missile bombers, since only some beam fighters are lost whereas every missile fired must be replaced.

BFCs really do not have to be as large as you imagine, since beam fighters should usually be fighting at fairly close range. For railgun-armed fighters, 2xSpeed/1xRange is sufficient which comes out to 25 tons as a single-weapon BFC. If you use lasers or plasma, you may want longer range (but this is questionable, you probably still want to close to point-blank for maximum damage per shot) but you also can use a lower speed multiplier since point defense may not be so important, there are options to keep BFC size down. Since lasers/plasma fighters are also probably bigger than railgun fighters, you have a bit more tonnage that can be used for a bigger BFC.

The catch with beam fighters is that you really do need to have enough of them, a critical mass to overcome either AMM spam or long-range enemy beam fire. A dozen railgun fighters as fleet escorts will not do very much (except maybe against some spoiler races that play differently). With the 2.2 changes it seems like this is something missile fighters will become useful for, since a smaller salvo of missiles can still be very effective in some circumstances. WH40K-style hybrid carriers with a squadron of bombers could be a useful fleet addition in this case, whereas in <2.1 versions this is kind of a waste of tonnage. On the other hand, if you play with multiple player races and use a lot of sensor screens, beam fighters can remain as useful interceptors against such missile bomber tactics.

[SpaceMarine]

"BFCs really do not have to be as large as you imagine, since beam fighters should usually be fighting at fairly close range. For railgun-armed fighters, 2xSpeed/1xRange is sufficient which comes out to 25 tons as a single-weapon BFC."

The catch for this though is the you need high range on the BFC for accuracy versus missiles and targets because of how range effects accuracy in terms of scaling if your railgunr ange is 10,000km you need a 96,000km range bfc to get the majority of the accuracy out of it, a 48,000km bfc for example would mean accuracy drops to around 75% at 10,000km

also you want to be using the maximum extent of your tracking capability with fighters since thats the advantage fighters have speed, this means if i have a 3000km/s racial tracking i want my fighters going 12kkm/s

[nuclearslurpee]

The catch for this though is the you need high range on the BFC for accuracy versus missiles and targets because of how range effects accuracy in terms of scaling if your railgunr ange is 10,000km you need a 96,000km range bfc to get the majority of the accuracy out of it, a 48,000km bfc for example would mean accuracy drops to around 75% at 10,000km

It's actually closer to 80%, but if you double the range (and BFC size) you gain only +10% accuracy so there is a diminishing returns aspect. Similar to ship-based PD, there is a point at which you benefit more from adding extra weapons than from using the same tonnage for bigger BFCs, and this applies for fighters as well, especially since doubling the BFC size doesn't just mean adding 25 tons of BFC, but also the needed engines to maintain desired speed, armor/fuel/etc. to match, and so on.

This also becomes less difficult as tech increases. In Steve's BSG AAR, he started with 64k km/4k km/s BFC techs which I would say is an early-to-mid-game tech level, fairly reasonable to achieve before you start mass-producing supercarriers. In this case, the difference between 1x and 2x range is 84% vs 92%, only a +8% difference which is even more of a diminishing return. It does depend a lot on tech level, but I don't think anyone is advocating for beam fighters at very low tech levels, it is clear you do need a minimum tech base for them to be effective (including engine boosting, capacitor and reactor techs, armor, etc.).

Finally, it's important to note that one of the major advantages for beam fighters is flexibility. If you want PD, you will always do better to build large, dedicated PD ships with the best BFCs, AMM systems, etc. Beam fighters are honestly not great for PD, even if you design them purely as PD units they will not be better than a larger ship class, but beam fighters can be a useful augment for your fleet's PD and an equally capable offensive striking arm in the same package. If we evaluate them solely or even primarily on their PD efficiency, we are missing a large fraction of the point IMO.

also you want to be using the maximum extent of your tracking capability with fighters since thats the advantage fighters have speed, this means if i have a 3000km/s racial tracking i want my fighters going 12kkm/s

This isn't a requirement unless you are trying to compete with a much higher-tech opponent. If you have 3000 km/s racial tracking, but your enemies are flying around with ion engines at ~4500 km/s, you don't need more than 1.5x tracking modifier on your BFCs. In this case maybe you want 2x for future-proofing but there is no a priori requirement for beam fighters to have the same tracking speed as their flight speed. The exception is if you want to design your beam fighters for PD, but again this is wasteful IMO as dedicating beam fighters to pure PD requires a lot more compromises the make them less flexible and effective in other roles, when larger ships are more effective for PD anyways.

I highly recommend to look closely at the fighter designs in the BSG campaign Steve linked, which show that you can develop very effective beam fighters without having to make them "perfect" with maximum possible speed, range etc. and yet they are still extremely effective.

[SpaceMarine]

Railguns cannot be turreted however fighters can go the speeds of turrets in terms of tracking making railguns as effective in terms of tracking as gauss weapons while not being anywhere near the size of a gauss weapon, combined with flexibility to attack in swarms against enemy shipping (If you accept casualities) and the mobility of PD it provides the systems become very effective, the reason i advocate for 4x tracking is for this PD role imo theres no point in having fighters do PD especially railgun onces if your not making use of the platform ie speed of the fighter, this usually leads me to build 500t beamfighters with railguns 3 or 4 shot at speeds matching tracking the purpose of which is PD, swarm attacks and their overall flexibility.

what id ideally like is the ability to make multirole fighters that can swarm in attacks, use missiles and provide point defense however this is of course very difficult to say the least due to all the systems you have to cram in, my usual is larger more expensive fighters capable of more missions atleast thats the goal while something like steves BSG fighters are cheap small and planned for one primary purpose and doesnt excel at anything but does a couple things alright, and thats perfectly valid.

[xenoscepter]

 --- Beam Fighters are great. Not sure why people would think otherwise.

[Panopticon]

Wasn't there a big to do with people whining about how the Meson changes would kill beam fighters in C#?

[nuclearslurpee]

Wasn't there a big to do with people whining about how the Meson changes would kill beam fighters in C#?

Beam weapons were weaker in general in VB6, so the overpowered mesons of that era were pretty much the only way beam fighters could be a serious threat. There's been a lot of changes in the last several major updates that have made beam fighters more viable, and more diverse, but losing mesons was a definite short-term hit.

Speaking of beam weapon-related buffs to small craft, look out for the constant-size particle beams in 2.2+, I expect to see the higher tech levels deployed as pretty devastating FAC weapons and you'll be able to fit some high-damage Particle Lances on ships in the 1,500 to 2,000-ton range. 

[Steve Walmsley]

Speaking of beam weapon-related buffs to small craft, look out for the constant-size particle beams in 2.2+, I expect to see the higher tech levels deployed as pretty devastating FAC weapons and you'll be able to fit some high-damage Particle Lances on ships in the 1,500 to 2,000-ton range. 

Like this one? From my previous test campaign.

Faustus V class Interceptor      2,000 tons       22 Crew       886.6 BP       TCS 40    TH 806    EM 0
20164 km/s      Armour 1-14       Shields 0-0       HTK 14      Sensors 0/0/0/0      DCR 0-0      PPV 12
Maint Life 1.15 Years     MSP 1,150    AFR 400%    IFR 5.6%    1YR 878    5YR 13,169    Max Repair 403.125 MSP
Commander    Control Rating 1   BRG   
Intended Deployment Time: 1.5 days    Morale Check Required   

Ravenor AC-800-DB Attack Craft Drive (1)    Power 806.2    Fuel Use 166.02%    Signature 806.25    Explosion 21%
Fuel Capacity 198,000 Litres    Range 10.7 billion km (6 days at full power)

Valentinian-Ventris V12-240 Heavy Lance Battery (1)    Range 240,000km     TS: 20,164 km/s     Power 37-5    ROF 40       
MK III Faustus Fire Control (1)     Max Range: 320,000 km   TS: 15,000 km/s     97 94 91 88 84 81 78 75 72 69
R-5B Inertial Confinement Fusion Reactor (1)     Total Power Output 5.1    Exp 20%
MK III Fury Augur Array (1)     GPS 3     Range 3.5m km    MCR 317.9k km    Resolution 1

[kilo]

So this little bastard of 2000 tons is armed with a 12 damage particle lance. Am I right about that? It makes it a nasty little ship killer and pretty inconvenient to kill with beam weapons. I like the thought that Aurora gets more viable ship types with each iteration.

[Steve Walmsley]

So this little bastard of 2000 tons is armed with a 12 damage particle lance. Am I right about that? It makes it a nasty little ship killer and pretty inconvenient to kill with beam weapons. I like the thought that Aurora gets more viable ship types with each iteration.

Yes, that's right. It proved very effective

[nuclearslurpee]

Depending on how much of this filters to the NPRs, we are fast approaching the point where anti-fighter doctrine will be almost as important as anti-missile doctrine.