Posted by: clement
« on: February 10, 2017, 08:50:44 AM »The Duke of York Battleship definitely needs more throw weight in order to be able to change the balance of a fight without needing to bring so many of them that you win by sheer tonnage. For offensive ships, number of missiles in a volley is important in order for missiles to make it through defenses and starting to wear down the target.
The Iron Duke is a pretty good ship in my opinion. The only changes I would suggest would be inline with your concerns about the small number of volleys it can produce. For anti-missile defense ships, I prioritize staying power in the fight due to facing several dozen waves of missiles.
For the Vanguard Carrier, I don't see any major flaws other than the size not meeting the standard fleet size for a front line ship. I shoot for a third of my carrier's capacity being used by hangars. Until they get larger, this generally means they do not have much in the way of armor.
I like the County class. I might drop the armor to two layers and add more fuel, but that is about it.
For the Leander and it's parasites (River and Sheffield survey fighters). I would probably look to increase the deployment time on the Leander as well as fuel reserves. Might drop the hanger to 1500 tons, and make the survey ships 500 ton fighters and just carry 3. Currently you end up not using 25 tons of space in the hangers.
For the fighters and missiles. Your engines may not be high enough tech, or you may not have a high enough multiplier for your missile engines. Your fighters should be faster than your fleet, otherwise the only time you can really use them is when your fleet is stationary, because if you fleet is maneuvering, they will not be able to recover fighters without slowing down.
- Drop the shields, with only 6 points of protection, your shield tech is not high enough to contribute enough to defense for the weight it takes up. That will stop 1, maybe 2 missiles and they will probably not recharge in time to help with the next salvo.
- Your Missile Fire Control and Active Search Sensor have ranges of 256 million KM, nearly double the range of your missiles at 143 million KM. While I am a fan of overbuilding fire controls to brute force through ECM, that is a bit much I think. The resolution of both your fire control and search sensor is 100 which gives a target tonnage size of 5000 tons. I generally go for a resolution of 160 to 200 at the tech level you are at. This will reduce the size of your sensors and is more representative of ship sizes. At your current tech level, I would personally lower the missile range to ~100 million KM and then build my fire control and active search sensor to be around 120% of that.
- I would personally remove the hangers from the battleship, unless it is an RP/flavor thing. You have a carrier, let it do that. The battleship throws missiles, maximize that trait. If you drop the hangers, then you can focus the magazines on only carrying one type of missile, which increases number of volleys you can throw.
- After the above changes, I think you should regain 1500+ tons. With that tonnage I would add more launchers and magazines with the goal of maintaining a capability of between 10 to 12 volleys of missiles. I would use any left over space on either fuel or armor.
- Another option to increase throw weight for your battleship is to use slightly miniaturized missile launchers. You could put 25% more launchers on the ship however your reload rate would go up significantly. I have used this option where I felt the longer time between volleys was adequately made up for by the better performance of the larger volleys.
The Iron Duke is a pretty good ship in my opinion. The only changes I would suggest would be inline with your concerns about the small number of volleys it can produce. For anti-missile defense ships, I prioritize staying power in the fight due to facing several dozen waves of missiles.
- Drop the number of missile launchers on the Iron Duke from 30 down to either 20 or 25.
- Drop the number of fire controls down to match the ratio of 5 launchers to 1 fire control.
- Possibly drop the armor on the Iron Duke by 1 or 2, unless from an RP/style point of view you want your ships to have thick belts. 4 layers of armor will absorb two hits at the same point from a strength 4 missile before having any penetration.
- Add magazine space to use the tonnage you gain from the above changes. I tend to look for around 20 full salvos for a defense ship like the Iron Duke.
For the Vanguard Carrier, I don't see any major flaws other than the size not meeting the standard fleet size for a front line ship. I shoot for a third of my carrier's capacity being used by hangars. Until they get larger, this generally means they do not have much in the way of armor.
- I would drop two points of armor off the carrier. This way it can survive strength 4 hits from missiles without damage overflow. Since it does not have sensors, it will be low on the target list for attackers.
- I would look at matching its size and engines to your other ships. At a ship size of 10,000 tons, the 3000 tons of hangar space is reasonable. Use the extra space for more missiles and fuel.
- Don't forget to have Spare Berths for enough pilots to fly your fighters. There is a check box on the ship design screen, top right i think, that says "Save Excess Q" which allows you to have extra crew quarters beyond what the primary crew need.
- Your magazines in the carrier do not have a missile type assigned.
I like the County class. I might drop the armor to two layers and add more fuel, but that is about it.
For the Leander and it's parasites (River and Sheffield survey fighters). I would probably look to increase the deployment time on the Leander as well as fuel reserves. Might drop the hanger to 1500 tons, and make the survey ships 500 ton fighters and just carry 3. Currently you end up not using 25 tons of space in the hangers.
For the fighters and missiles. Your engines may not be high enough tech, or you may not have a high enough multiplier for your missile engines. Your fighters should be faster than your fleet, otherwise the only time you can really use them is when your fleet is stationary, because if you fleet is maneuvering, they will not be able to recover fighters without slowing down.
- Fighter missile launchers should be box launchers, for normal launchers to miniaturize them, they launch to slowly to be usable for fighters, plus there is no need since you don't carry extra missiles. With box launchers you can make the fighter smaller, or at the same size carry more engines mass or more box launchers to get a heavier throw weight for your fighter squadron.
- More speed
- More speed