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.