This thread will serve as a compendium of ship designs from my multiple player race Honorverse AAR: Manticore Defiant (
http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=13085.msg162008#msg162008). While I encourage feedback, comments or suggestions for future development of the various factions, I'm definitely aware that the weapons mix on many of these ships is unconventional and not "meta". This is to fit the lore. I've reviewed all the available lore books and a "standard warship" in this setting carries a balanced armament, quite often with an equal number of missile launchers, lasers and point defense installations. Ships that deviate from this pattern tend to have a note about how they are particularly missile or beam heavy.
As noted in the introduction to my AAR, I used information from the Jayne's Intelligence Review and Saganami Island Ship Books to calculate the volume of a series of reference hulls and from that approximated hydrogen displacement tons (used by Aurora). The resulting ships were still quite large in Aurora terms, so I divided all of the derived sizes in half. This tends to work out nicely in the few cases where the exact armaments of ships from the earlier Manticore Ascendant era are known. I expect later in the campaign smaller ships like destroyers and cruisers will grow to be near their actual size, but even 1:2 scale battleships and the like are just too massive so I'm working closer to probably a 1:4 scale for those. Fortunately, MA battleships were much smaller than their later era counterparts so let's just pretend it works out. They'll still be beasts in Aurora terms.
Weapons of the Honorverse (1590) Autocannon (Railguns) - the point defense weapon of choice in the present era. Smaller navies or pirates sometimes employ large autocannon in offensive roles.
Countermissile (AMM) - as the name implies, countermissiles are used to shoot down incoming missiles. These have not been developed yet in lore or game.
Energy Torpedo (Plasma Carronade) - a large, slow firing energy weapon that does extreme damage at point blank range. Usually found on very large heavily armored ships.
Laser (Laser) - the standard energy weapon employed in various calibers by all mainstream navies.
Missiles (ASM) - almost every ship in this setting is equipped with at least a few missiles in either standard or external launchers. Most navies employ multiple sizes of missiles with light, heavy and capital missiles being the most common designations. Larger ships need bigger warheads to more effectively damage the heavy armor of their peers.
Point Defense Cluster (Gauss Cannon) - eventually replaces autocannon in the final fire point defense role. Not developed yet in this era.
Sidewall (Shields) - no navy in the present era has deployed sidewalls yet
Comparison of Missiles in use in the Haven Sector (1590) Imperial Andermani NavyThe IAN's missile doctrine is based on high damage alpha strikes to soften up enemy fleets while closing to energy range. Unlike more conventional navies, it has standardized on a single missile design, a licensed local variant of the Solarian League's last generation capital ship killer the Starscream (Sternenschrei). These missiles are manufactured in single use pods that can be carried on external rails by even the smallest IAN combatants. A stealth corvette armed with Sternenschrei can severely damage unsuspecting targets far above its own weight class.
Kretschmer Sternenschrei
SZ: 8 Speed: 20000 km/s Range: 10.4mkm WH: 9
Royal Manticoran NavyThe RMN utilizes a traditional missile doctrine with reduced size magazine fed launchers. It tends to favor small, slow firing launchers in order to pack more weight of fire into individual salvos. The RMN prefers to stand off and engage in sustained missile duels, so most ships have sufficient magazine space for 5-10 salvos. At present the RMN uses size 4 light missiles on small combatants and size 6 heavy missiles on its cruisers and battlecruisers. The missiles are designed to allow salvos from mixed task groups to arrive close enough together to saturate an opponent's point defense capabilities.
Mark 4 Light Missile (RMN)
SZ: 4 Speed: 18200 km/s Range: 10.2mkm WH: 6
Mark 6 Heavy Missile (RMN)
SZ: 6 Speed: 17933 km/s Range: 10.1mkm WH:9