Big ships v Smaller ships

[DFNewb (OP)]

How do people feel about this? With the changes to maintenance (and even a bit of the CC QoL update for shipyards) its much easier to have large ships early.

do you like to make large ships or small ships?

I have been making ships with size 25 engines two large fuel storage and then whatever they need to do their role with a 5 year deployment time and 6 year maintenance time for surveyors and 2y deploy / 3y maintain for military ships. This leads to ships generally under 10000tons. For example:

Cutlass II class Cruiser      4 541 tons       137 Crew       561.3 BP       TCS 91    TH 313    EM 0
3441 km/s      Armour 3-24       Shields 0-0       HTK 35      Sensors 8/8/0/0      DCR 2      PPV 24
Maint Life 3.23 Years     MSP 273    AFR 66%    IFR 0.9%    1YR 39    5YR 592    Max Repair 156.25 MSP
Cheetah    Control Rating 1   BRG   
Intended Deployment Time: 24 months    Morale Check Required   

Ion Drive  EP312.50 (1)    Power 312.5    Fuel Use 31.62%    Signature 312.5    Explosion 10%
Fuel Capacity 500 000 Litres    Range 62.7 billion km (210 days at full power)

Particle Beam-3 (4)    Range 128 000km     TS: 3 441 km/s     Power 7-3     RM 150 000 km    ROF 15       
Beam Fire Control R128-TS3600 (1)     Max Range: 128 000 km   TS: 3 600 km/s     83 76 69 62 55 48 41 34 27 20
Gas-Cooled Fast Reactor R6 (2)     Total Power Output 12.4    Exp 5%

Active Search Sensor AS2-R1 (1)     GPS 2     Range 2m km    MCR 219.8k km    Resolution 1
Thermal Sensor TH1.0-8 (1)     Sensitivity 8     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  22.4m km
EM Sensor EM1.0-8 (1)     Sensitivity 8     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  22.4m km

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes

Which were doing really well against an NPR until the NPR starting pumping out 12450ton (4135km/s) ships with 1 spinal laser and 9 regular lasers which outrange and outdamage me. Sure they clearly have more specialized tech than I do for their beam weapons but it made me wonder if I could make a 12450ton ship with my current tech that can match theirs.

This is what I currently have:

Axe class Battlecruiser      11 334 tons       351 Crew       1 447.7 BP       TCS 227    TH 938    EM 0
4136 km/s      Armour 4-44       Shields 0-0       HTK 87      Sensors 8/8/0/0      DCR 4      PPV 72
Maint Life 2.29 Years     MSP 719    AFR 257%    IFR 3.6%    1YR 187    5YR 2 798    Max Repair 156.25 MSP
Cheetah    Control Rating 1   BRG   
Intended Deployment Time: 24 months    Morale Check Required   

Ion Drive  EP312.50 (3)    Power 937.5    Fuel Use 31.62%    Signature 312.5    Explosion 10%
Fuel Capacity 500 000 Litres    Range 25.1 billion km (70 days at full power)

Particle Beam-3 (12)    Range 128 000km     TS: 4 136 km/s     Power 7-3     RM 150 000 km    ROF 15       
Beam Fire Control R128-TS4400 (1)     Max Range: 128 000 km   TS: 4 400 km/s     92 84 77 69 61 53 45 38 30 22
Gas-Cooled Fast Reactor R6 (6)     Total Power Output 37.2    Exp 5%

Active Search Sensor AS2-R1 (1)     GPS 2     Range 2m km    MCR 219.8k km    Resolution 1
Thermal Sensor TH1.0-8 (1)     Sensitivity 8     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  22.4m km
EM Sensor EM1.0-8 (1)     Sensitivity 8     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  22.4m km

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes

At less than 3 times the cost and 3 times the build time I have a ship with 3 times the damage, 1 more layer of armor, that moves faster.
The only restriction would be shipyard size but even 10 years in you can easily have massive shipyards not to mention with the starting default build points you could make 40 of these which I think could handle the 10 enemy ships with 10 lasers each but maybe not. I probably just need better tech to fight them but this is supposed to be a discussion on ship sizes.

[Jorgen_CAB]

In my opinion there does not need to be a choice between either large or small ships as you can use both for different reasons.

There are both pros and cons with either types.

A smaller ship will obviously tend to always be specialised while a larger ship can perform multiple mission types and become more and more self sufficient and use more efficient component designs.

Smaller ships are generally faster and cheaper to research and also is faster to build... A shipyard with two shipyards at 4000t build two such ships faster than a single yard at 8000t for example. Smaller ships have a lower thermal radiation for the same speed as a larger ship.

Large ships tend to be more expensive to research individual parts but those parts also are more efficient in return. Larger ships can withstand more punishment in combat and not be destroyed and can also have more layers of armour for the same weight than a smaller one.

The size of the ship you build should not be some arbitrary size limit but rather depending in the role they are suppose to carry out from a strategic point of view. As a general thought I view larger ship classes to be best for more offensive purposes while smaller ships are better for defensive purposes. With this I mean from a strategic point of view and not tactical. Small ships work really well as shorter ranged who can dedicate less space for fuel, maintenance and deployment times. A larger ship can maintain a more efficient command structure and be more efficient in terms of engine, defences, fuel, deployment and maintenance perspective.

What constitute a small or a big ship really depend on your industrial and technological capacity. The maximum size usually will depend on the most research efficient jump drive that you can get your hands on, this put some severe limitations on early ship design sizes. At a conventional start then a big ship might be in the range of about 10000t while later on a 10000t ship is a somewhat small mid sized ship where many ships perhaps are in the 30-40.000t size or even bigger.

Once I reach about Magneto Plasma level engine technology my ships tend be 15-20000t for a mid sized destroyer and 5-10.000 for smaller less capable but still multi-purpose to some degree. Anything below 5000t would be almost exclusively dedicated to one function only. Ships above 20000t would likely be some dedicated carrier capable ship of some kind at that point in time.

All in all the size and the number of ship types you can maintain will largely depend on the amount of research you can afford to dump into component research versus continue to research better basic technology. So this is solely depending on your overall needs and potential enemies that you face and how advanced these enemies are.

[DFNewb (OP)]

In my opinion there does not need to be a choice between either large or small ships as you can use both for different reasons.

There are both pros and cons with either types.

A smaller ship will obviously tend to always be specialised while a larger ship can perform multiple mission types and become more and more self sufficient and use more efficient component designs.

Smaller ships are generally faster and cheaper to research and also is faster to build... A shipyard with two shipyards at 4000t build two such ships faster than a single yard at 8000t for example. Smaller ships have a lower thermal radiation for the same speed as a larger ship.

Large ships tend to be more expensive to research individual parts but those parts also are more efficient in return. Larger ships can withstand more punishment in combat and not be destroyed and can also have more layers of armour for the same weight than a smaller one.

The size of the ship you build should not be some arbitrary size limit but rather depending in the role they are suppose to carry out from a strategic point of view. As a general thought I view larger ship classes to be best for more offensive purposes while smaller ships are better for defensive purposes. With this I mean from a strategic point of view and not tactical. Small ships work really well as shorter ranged who can dedicate less space for fuel, maintenance and deployment times. A larger ship can maintain a more efficient command structure and be more efficient in terms of engine, defences, fuel, deployment and maintenance perspective.

What constitute a small or a big ship really depend on your industrial and technological capacity. The maximum size usually will depend on the most research efficient jump drive that you can get your hands on, this put some severe limitations on early ship design sizes. At a conventional start then a big ship might be in the range of about 10000t while later on a 10000t ship is a somewhat small mid sized ship where many ships perhaps are in the 30-40.000t size or even bigger.

Once I reach about Magneto Plasma level engine technology my ships tend be 15-20000t for a mid sized destroyer and 5-10.000 for smaller less capable but still multi-purpose to some degree. Anything below 5000t would be almost exclusively dedicated to one function only. Ships above 20000t would likely be some dedicated carrier capable ship of some kind at that point in time.

All in all the size and the number of ship types you can maintain will largely depend on the amount of research you can afford to dump into component research versus continue to research better basic technology. So this is solely depending on your overall needs and potential enemies that you face and how advanced these enemies are.

The jump drive thing isn't really an issue for me as I have been using Civilian jump ships with both types of jump engine to move ships through systems (and also work as a refueling hub).

Seems like you make ships much larger than I usually do (the same way NPR's do to me aswell) so I guess I should make larger ships.

[non sequitur]

One of my favorite campaigns in VB6 was using "star destroyer" doctrine. Military ships were big (120k) multi-mission vessels armed only with lasers. Lots of shields and armor. They weren't terrible efficient, but the they were resilient.

[rainyday]

I am always amazed by how big some people build their ships but I think that's because I always do conventional starts and struggle to get shipyards that can produce those multi-hundred thousand ton monsters.  I feel like I'm on the low end but not as low as people who like truly small ships.  Mine tend to fall into the 4000-32000 range mid game. 

I like mixed task groups so what I tend to do is pick a speed and engine size then build around that in multiples to maintain consistent speed across the fleet.  Ex.  Size 1250 engines can give you a nice ~31% engine to mass ratio with this progression:

1 Engine - 4000 Tons - Corvette / Gunship
2 Engines - 8000 Tons - Frigate / Destroyer
4 Engines - 16000 Tons - Cruiser
8 Engines - 32000 Tons - Battleship

I did some math to work out roughly the sizes of these ships based on the conversion of Aurora/Traveller tons to volume and it runs from about 100 meters to 400 meters for various cylindrical shapes.  That feels about right to me for the kind of gritty near future scifi that I like to imagine and it seems fairly consistent with the AI ships that I've met (mostly spoilers).

That said I'm doing a Star Wars themed campaign right now and I am planning to try some ludicrously big ships so I'll let you know how it goes.
 

[non sequitur]

My experience is that getting the shipyard up to that size isn't all that hard. Just set that initial shipyard on constant expansion and wait a decade or two. The hard part is getting the maintenance facilities to keep up. I basically had to strip-mine my entire system of neutrionium just to build enough Maintenance facilities.

[Nori]

With the shield changes, big ships can have a large bonus to survivability. I have a 25kt ship at around 30k research level (magneto engine) and it has 1000 htk counting shields and armor.

[Jorgen_CAB]

The jump drive thing isn't really an issue for me as I have been using Civilian jump ships with both types of jump engine to move ships through systems (and also work as a refuelling hub).

If you use two jump engines in one ship/station that is a bug so should not really be used, that is certainly not intentional. Anything with a military jump drive is suppose to be a military ship/station.

When I spoke about jump engines being a limitation I mainly meant from a research perspective. From conventional technology then using ships larger then say 10000 can be a bit expensive research wise for first generation military engines. 10000t is not really a very large ship in general. After a few generation of Jump Engine tech it will become less and less of an issue for limitation of size. You then have engine size, which also can be quite expensive early on, especially if you need many different types of engines.

[Jorgen_CAB]

My experience is that getting the shipyard up to that size isn't all that hard. Just set that initial shipyard on constant expansion and wait a decade or two. The hard part is getting the maintenance facilities to keep up. I basically had to strip-mine my entire system of neutrionium just to build enough Maintenance facilities.

The size of the ship should not really matter all that much though... small ships actually builds faster for the same total tonnage so will fill up maintenance facilities even faster if you build ships continually.

[Desdinova]

The jump drive thing isn't really an issue for me as I have been using Civilian jump ships with both types of jump engine to move ships through systems (and also work as a refuelling hub).

If you use two jump engines in one ship/station that is a bug so should not really be used, that is certainly not intentional.

I think it was Steve's inention that you could create jump tenders capable of jumping both types of ship, which is why military jump drives count as commercial components and you can jump other ships larger than the jump ship with a sufficient drive.

[Father Tim]

The jump drive thing isn't really an issue for me as I have been using Civilian jump ships with both types of jump engine to move ships through systems (and also work as a refuelling hub).

If you use two jump engines in one ship/station that is a bug so should not really be used, that is certainly not intentional.

I think it was Steve's inention that you could create jump tenders capable of jumping both types of ship, which is why military jump drives count as commercial components and you can jump other ships larger than the jump ship with a sufficient drive.

I doubt it.  If Steve had thought much about it, he would have coded C# Aurora to be the same as VB Aurora and allowed military jump drives to move civilian-engined ships.

[DFNewb (OP)]

The jump drive thing isn't really an issue for me as I have been using Civilian jump ships with both types of jump engine to move ships through systems (and also work as a refuelling hub).

If you use two jump engines in one ship/station that is a bug so should not really be used, that is certainly not intentional.

I think it was Steve's inention that you could create jump tenders capable of jumping both types of ship, which is why military jump drives count as commercial components and you can jump other ships larger than the jump ship with a sufficient drive.

I doubt it.  If Steve had thought much about it, he would have coded C# Aurora to be the same as VB Aurora and allowed military jump drives to move civilian-engined ships.

Then I will just make 1 for civie ships and 1 for military ships and use them together in a fleet, really doesn't make much difference it's viable even if he restricts 1 Jump drive per ship.

[Pedroig]

But that gets back to the problem of size without the cost reduction of being limited to only commercial...

It is very rare for me to have a military ship breach 100,000 tons, but it is rare I have a commercial ship that small by early mid-game.

500k military jump engines, I shudder at the thought of the cost...

[DFNewb (OP)]

But that gets back to the problem of size without the cost reduction of being limited to only commercial...

It is very rare for me to have a military ship breach 100,000 tons, but it is rare I have a commercial ship that small by early mid-game.

500k military jump engines, I shudder at the thought of the cost...

It really doesn't.... Just make two commercial ships each with size 100 jump engines just 1 for military and 1 for commercial. Works the exact same as having 1 ship with both...

[Pedroig]

But that gets back to the problem of size without the cost reduction of being limited to only commercial...

It is very rare for me to have a military ship breach 100,000 tons, but it is rare I have a commercial ship that small by early mid-game.

500k military jump engines, I shudder at the thought of the cost...

It really doesn't.... Just make two commercial ships each with size 100 jump engines just 1 for military and 1 for commercial. Works the exact same as having 1 ship with both...

Someone snuck in a reply, I was referring to Tim...    So having a military jump engine trying to jump a 500k commercial freighter...