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Posted by: Arwyn
« on: July 19, 2015, 10:46:35 PM »

Early on, my fleets are pretty small.

My current restarted game is Ion tech, though that was due to game setup rather than intent (went random for grins). My two battle fleets (more like squadrons) have 1xCG, 1xEscort cruiser, 1x heavy cruiser (railgun), 4xDDG, 2xES, 2xDD

Patrol groups are small right now, as I have no large colonies, so they run 3-4 FG or DD.

System defense is PDC and bases, along with groups of 1-4 FAC squadrons of 10xFAC.

Pretty dinky. :)

Even in my "big" fleet games, I dont think I ever had more than 20 to 30 ships in a fleet.
Posted by: DFDelta
« on: April 01, 2015, 09:40:42 PM »

Primary systems have a fleet permanently assigned to them, which consists of several fuel efficient ships. Usually 2 or 3 cruisers with double that amount in smaller point-defense corvettes per task group (which brings it to around 40k to 50k tons per TG), number of groups per fleet depends on how long the game has been going and how much luck I had with the ressource RNG on my planets. I've had games where I had 5 or 6 groups per system and other where I had to scrap that concept completely.

Offensive fleets consist of a core task group that contains the fleets capital ships and their long range firepower (also the flag), an escort screen which is several groups of medium sized beam/PD ships and at least one interceptor squadron with fast light ships equipped with powerful short range missiles and beams. Tonnage total can be up to 100k tons for the core group and half that for each escort/interceptor group, so around 300k tons for each fleet.
Again, number of such fleets depends on how much time has passed and how many ships I can keep supported in space.

Generally my ships tend to be in service longer then they probably should be. Barring any pressing threats I only replace my ships every second generation, so my fleets tend to accumulate a lot of tonnage in half-obsolete ships.


As for shipyards, I usually have one for each type of ship which would mean around 10 naval yards with varying numbers of slips, a few extra naval yards for support ships with one slip each and several civilian yards to produce freighters and stuff. Around 20 yards total in my home system.
Other systems that have the infrastructure and industry to support shipyards are also capable to produce a limited number of ships (mostly the system defense variants)
Posted by: Vandermeer
« on: March 30, 2015, 05:35:25 PM »

Quote from: Vortex421 on March 30, 2015, 02:56:20 PM
It may be worth starting a new thread to discuss ship class sizes.
Started
Posted by: Vortex421
« on: March 30, 2015, 02:56:20 PM »

It may be worth starting a new thread to discuss ship class sizes.  I've tried to work off of Corvettes being about 4,000 tons, Destroyers up to about 9,000, Cruisers up to about 15,000, etc., but those sizes sound mammoth!  It'd take fifty of my cruisers to deal with one of yours it sounds like.
Posted by: 83athom
« on: March 30, 2015, 02:32:33 PM »

Quote from: Lossmar on March 30, 2015, 12:43:49 PM
How is that even possible without abusing SM mode ( adding minerals ) like me ?

Isn't it a little counterintuitive, i mean how many engines you have to use to give it some reasonable speed ? How much fuel, how fragile this whole thing is ( one secondary explosion can doom whole ship to chain reaction ) ??
When you have Venus (in Sol) and other similar planets (in nearby systems) that have well over several hundred thousand at the least of every resource (the most so far of a single mineral not on one body not a gas giant is 17 million, no sm), it is quite easy. And I am able to move a 5 million ton station section about 1000km/s with the engines on my cruisers alone for about 40b km, I don't think fuel/engines are a problem. Also, these big ships fragile? ::) My light cruisers are able to withstand over 20 damage an increment without the shields draining in the slightest. Also they are able to hold large amounts of AM capability, so you would have to close to close range while the big ships are hammering away. So the only reason that chain reactions would be a problem is when the ship's fight is already lost. Keep in mind the numbers they will be traveling in.
Posted by: Vandermeer
« on: March 30, 2015, 02:00:28 PM »

Ships of larger size are not in the least more fragile, unless maybe when you fight serious amounts of mesons.(but a smart commander knows how to avoid that) Otherwise they turn out to improve even on the size/durability ratio, as for example shields begin really to shine the larger a single unit is (exploiting shield regeneration), and also armor does weight less per layer due to improved surface-to-volume ratio of bigger ships, so you can easily have 10+ layers and only have it weight less than 5% still. (not to mention that enemy damage scatters a lot more over larger hulls, so critical hits {~hitting the same spot luckily and achieve penetration} become immensely unlikely statistically on those giants)
Engines and costs are not a problem too. You don't build these ships right at the start of course, but I have found myself being able to put 100kt designs out as early as 40-50 years into the game easily with home system resources. ...And later there comes an age in the game where such abundance of resources exists, that you can just afford huge ships without bother (or "abuse" of sm mode... ::) - I myself never cheated so far, except maybe for tiny design corrections when something was bothersome).

At the bottom of this post I have a 300kt cruiser that actually costs so little that I could easily afford an armada of 20 of them if I wanted to. (..only reason I don't is because I find it bothersome to micromanage too many carrier role ships, and because I need the hangar to store them too)
Fuel is not an issue either as soon as you have at least one valuable gas giant in your supply chain. (making fuel on ground is ridiculously ineffective compared to this) I ended up storing billions of liters extra fuel in any of my games despite only using large ships. They are actually more fuel effective even, because you use more efficient engines on those, and give the hunting to faster fighters/bomber.

Other occasions where I set out to build huge ships:
http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php/topic,7297.msg75070.html#msg75070
http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php/topic,6721.msg68767.html#msg68767
http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php/topic,6738.msg68949.html#msg68949

...The fortresses scratch on the limit of what is possible and affordable in Aurora, as I had to strip mine valuable gallicite planets for some years to make those possible. Setting 3mt battleships into space costs near to nothing when you are 100 years into a standard game however.
Don't judge it before you have tried it. It works well.
Posted by: GodEmperor
« on: March 30, 2015, 12:43:49 PM »

Quote
Cruisers; 100,000-250,000 tons
Battlecruisers; 250,000-500,000 tons
Capital; 500,000-1,000,000 tons
Super Capital; 1,000,000+ tons

How is that even possible without abusing SM mode ( adding minerals ) like me ?

Isn't it a little counterintuitive, i mean how many engines you have to use to give it some reasonable speed ? How much fuel, how fragile this whole thing is ( one secondary explosion can doom whole ship to chain reaction ) ??
Posted by: 83athom
« on: March 30, 2015, 11:37:08 AM »

The fleet composition ratios is as follows;
Fighter/Bomber; 2/1 (wings of two each)
Fighter/Gunship; 4/1
Prowler/Frigate; 2/1
Frigate/Destroyer; 2/1
Destroyer/Cruiser; 3/2
Cruiser/Battlecruiser; 4/3
Battlecruiser/Capital;2/1 (flexible)
Super Capitals; Special
Posted by: Vandermeer
« on: March 30, 2015, 10:32:11 AM »

Quote from: 83athom on March 29, 2015, 09:42:23 PM
That was just a test game. The real one will come when the next update comes. The only thing I am kind of sad about it no really big components (ie oversized railguns, gauss, ect.)
I know that problem. I have come around to fake bigger cannons by making special fire controls that call themselves "turret" or something similar, so for example you pair up 15 particle beams in a "fusion lance" fire control, and it kind of becomes a bigger beam in mind at least.
Posted by: GodEmperor
« on: March 30, 2015, 09:42:25 AM »

My fleets are usually as follows:

FAC/OWP : up to 3k tons
DD/DDG/FFG/FF - 7-9k tons
CL/CA - 10-15k tons
BC/BB/DN/SDN - 20k tons and upwards.

Usually i have 10 escorts ( DD/CL/CA )and 5 capitals ( BC and upwards ) in one fleet.

But then again i always add minerals on Earth by SM mode.
Posted by: MarcAFK
« on: March 30, 2015, 01:13:30 AM »

I generally make my first large fleet at nuclear pulse, then run out of fuel training them up, by the time the fuel problem is over I'm replacing everything with new ION designs which are so much more efficient that I have overabundant fuel again.
Right now, early ION, 25 years in my fleet is around 374k tons.
9,000 ton destroyers x16
6,000 ton Ammo ships x6
6,000 ton  light carriers x 3
6,000 ton sensor ships x2
4,000 ton frigates x16
4,000 ton sensor ships (spotters for the frigates) x4
3,000 ton corvettes x 24
12,000 tons of fighters.
These are all obsolete nuclear pulse which need replacing, my yards at the moment are:
N - 4 - 16,000
N - 4 - 10,900 -Expanding to 16,000
N - 6 -  5,292  -Expanding to  6,000
N - 6 -  2,284  -Expanding to  6,000
C - 6 -  132,000
C - 3 -  132,000- Adding slipway.
I have another 2 naval yards in construction for FAC's to replace the one that is now expanding to 6000. I can't expand much more than this as I have barely 25 million people to spare on earth, I may have to start moving industry to mars to combat their unemployment.
Posted by: 83athom
« on: March 29, 2015, 09:42:23 PM »

Quote from: Vandermeer on March 29, 2015, 06:53:08 PM
When are you going to document something of your big sized UNSC game? Waiting since before christmas I think by now.
That was just a test game. The real one will come when the next update comes. The only thing I am kind of sad about it no really big components (ie oversized railguns, gauss, ect.)
Posted by: Vandermeer
« on: March 29, 2015, 06:53:08 PM »

Quote from: 83athom on March 29, 2015, 06:16:20 PM
Tell me, is this too much?
When are you going to document something of your big sized UNSC game? Waiting since before christmas I think by now.
Posted by: 83athom
« on: March 29, 2015, 06:16:20 PM »

Tell me, is this too much?
Posted by: Viridia
« on: March 29, 2015, 03:45:50 PM »

I've never really started a war with more than twenty to thirty ships, in part due to the fact that I think I tend to go off half-cocked; I've an awful tendency not to bother setting up stockpiles or reserves, just head straight in, and that's something I'm trying to change with the current Starship Troopers-themed game.