Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Tarran]

Yeah, it isn't wasted. I had Steve himself tell me so I believe.

[Flying Dice]

Hm, I could swear I got that from a reputable source, either one of Steve's earlier AARs or someone who I had reason to believe knew their shit.

[Karlito]

That doesn't surprise me, it's a particularly persistent myth for whatever reason.

[forsaken1111]

The reason people say that is that the square values will penetrate one 'level' lower on average, IIRC. Its still not a waste though.

[MarcAFK]

I tend to believe the square rule applies well but only in certain situations, if you happen to have missiles that will penetrate the enemy armour in a single hit then you'll find that anything over that size isn't really needed and anything under that size would require 2 hits on the same location. So in theory taking those 4 armour level destroyers as an example, if i use 25 power missiles i should manage to land a penetrating hit for every missile that gets through, but that single level of internal damage isn't really likely to hit anything valuable.
whereas if i make smaller faster missiles i'm far more likely to actually land hits anyway.
Personally i use 2 types of Antiship missiles, one with the largest warhead i can manage while still getting enough speed to consistantly land hits as often as possible, and the second type is much smaller but with whatever warhead/size ratio i can manage to find is the highest, i usually find that size 2-4 missiles get the most bang per buck, and as a further bonus the launchers fire much faster and overwhelm PD better.
I'll fire up my current low tech game and see what numbers i can get.
EDIT: I can see straight up that my even my 5,000 ton destroyers have 50% more launchers than the ship under discussion.
EDIT: Actually I'm not noticing a huge difference between Warhead/size ratio at the tech levels used on that ship, maybe the new engines have changed things from what i remember.

[Crimson]

I tried digging out some of my older designs from my copy of Aurora 5.54 when I was still learning the mechanics of Aurora and saw some funny designs (and a few that made me wtf).

Anyway, thanks for the tips. I'll see what I can do with all of my 2nd gen designs.

[Bronimin]

-

[forsaken1111]

You said no planets you've surveyed have had any sorium. Does that include the gas giants? The sorium harvesters only work on gas giants that actually have sorium.

[Bronimin]

-

[Metalax]

I have just started getting back into this game, and have (after a good 10 years ingame time) hit what I have heard being called the 'sorium crunch'. Earth ran out of sorium long ago and I didn't notice, meaning I have been running on reserve fuel for a fairly long time, I have roughly 10m units left in the stockpile. No planets I have surveyed have any reasonably accessable sorium deposits, so its looking like my only option is to try out sorium harvester modules. I have designed this ship, with the hope that it could fly itself to saturn, and use Atlas as a fuel depot for collection by specialised tankers:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Code: [Select]

Ard class Fuel Harvester    344 700 tons     490 Crew     2471 BP      TCS 6894  TH 3200  EM 0
464 km/s     Armour 1-437     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 1     PPV 0
MSP 4    Max Repair 64 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 24 months    Spare Berths 0   
Habitation Capacity 50 000   
Fuel Harvester: 25 modules producing 600000 litres per annum

Newton Engines: Commercial Plasma Drive (10)    Power 320    Fuel Use 4.05%    Signature 320    Exp 4%
Fuel Capacity 2 000 000 Litres    Range 25.8 billion km   (643 days at full power)

This design is classed as a Commercial Vessel for maintenance purposes
This design is classed as an Orbital Habitat for construction purposes
Made it an orbital habitat so that its easier to construct.

To get one of these fueled would consume 1/5 of my fuel stock I have left; I am planning to get two into the air- devoting 80% of my construction to their completion- by the end of the next year. No idea how mych fuel I would have at that point since the commercial shipping lines show no sign of even attempting to conserve fuel. Hopefully I can get at least one of them out to saturn.

Don't worry too much about it consuming a major chunk of your fuel stock. Earth to Saturn is approximately 1.4 billion km so as soon as you build one of the harvesters(remember to mark the tanker checkbox on the class screen) you can immediately order it to unload 90% fuel back to earth leaving you with a 2.5 billion range. If you need to reach Neptune you will need to load some additional fuel, approximately double, Neptune being 4.5 billion out.

As far as I know Civilians don't touch your fuel stockpiles, unless that has changed and I didn't notice.

If I will be able to get a tanker out there is another story. Here is the design for the tanker anyway:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Code: [Select]

Tobac class Tanker    11 150 tons     60 Crew     527.4 BP      TCS 223  TH 640  EM 0
2869 km/s     Armour 1-44     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 1     PPV 0
MSP 30    Max Repair 100 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 24 months    Spare Berths 0   
Tractor Beam     

Newton Engines: Commercial Plasma Drive (2)    Power 320    Fuel Use 4.05%    Signature 320    Exp 4%
Fuel Capacity 5 000 000 Litres    Range 1992.4 billion km   (8037 days at full power)

This design is classed as a Commercial Vessel for maintenance purposes

Fuel capacity on the Tanker seems rather excessive if it's primary purpose is going to be transferring fuel from Harvesters to colonies. Each of your Harvesters only produces 600,000 a year so a single one of your Tankers could transfer the yearly output of around 8 Harvesters in a single trip. It takes roughly 12 days for the round trip Earth->Saturn->Earth, so 30 trips a year. So one Tanker can transfer the yearly output of 240 Harvesters.

Also are these intended to act as emergency tugs? If you keep the tractor beam I'd recommend removing the engines from the harvesters and just tow them into place, that would reduce their cost so you can get more of them built.

It is also incidentially the fastest thing I have designed as of yet, being the first real craft on the new engines. All my military craft are terribly slow on the old ion ones. Not to mention being simply terrible, what with me still getting a grasp on the basic concepts. I have at least managed to get two missle PDC's around earth, and one around my extrasolar colony. I think they will work, not sure if my missle is any good though, I have a feeling It might be a little too large. I figured that orbital platforms should be firing the largest I could design:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Code: [Select]

Missile Size: 10 MSP  (0.5 HS)     Warhead: 9    Armour: 1     Manoeuvre Rating: 12
Speed: 12000 km/s    Engine Endurance: 110 minutes   Range: 79.5m km
Cost Per Missile: 4.448
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 144%   3k km/s 48%   5k km/s 28.8%   10k km/s 14.4%
Materials Required:    2.5x Tritanium   1.948x Gallicite   Fuel x750


Not a fan of that 14.4% hit chance at what I think is the minimum range for ship encounters? The platforms can fire 15 missles each, every 2 minutes, with a magazine of 200 missiles (Perhaps a bit excessive heh). It is also the only missle they fire. I was thinking of making a MIRV style type as well. Thoughts? It would certainly help the low accuracy I seem to have.

That missile looks really off from what I'd expect with plasma engines. What are your missile techs? Warhead, agility, fuel efficiency, max engine power multiplier?

[Bronimin]

-

[Metalax]

You can see all of your current missile techs listed on the missile design screen.

Your current tech should be from what you've described.

Warhead 3/msp
Agility 32/msp
Fuel Eff 0.7
Power multi x1.5 (converts to x3.0 for missile engines)

I'd really research another 1-2 levels in warhead and possibly agility before really making missiles. You can get away with the relatively low power multiplier due to running plasma engines now but should probably get that up soon as well.

I'll have a fiddle and see what missile design I can create with your current tech.

Edit:

Original missile

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Code: [Select]

Missile Size: 10 MSP  (0.5 HS)     Warhead: 9    Armour: 1     Manoeuvre Rating: 12
Speed: 12000 km/s    Engine Endurance: 110 minutes   Range: 79.5m km
Cost Per Missile: 4.448
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 144%   3k km/s 48%   5k km/s 28.8%   10k km/s 14.4%
Materials Required:    2.5x Tritanium   1.948x Gallicite   Fuel x750

Using ion engines and sticking to your size 10 missiles. 3 spaces warhead, 0.5 fuel, 1.1 agility, 2 size 2.7 x3.00 ion engines.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Code: [Select]

Missile Size: 10 MSP  (0.5 HS)     Warhead: 9    Armour: 0     Manoeuvre Rating: 14
Speed: 19400 km/s    Engine Endurance: 93 minutes   Range: 108.1m km
Cost Per Missile: 5.384
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 271.6%   3k km/s 84%   5k km/s 54.3%   10k km/s 27.2%
Materials Required:    2.25x Tritanium   3.134x Gallicite   Fuel x1250

62% higher speed, 36% longer range, 89% better chance to hit by comparison.

Do note however that they use 66% more fuel which could be a problem if you are really starved for fuel. Also 60% more Gallicite if you are starved for that for some reason.

A size 6 variant using warhead 3, fuel 0.2, agility 0.3, 1 size 2.5 x3.00 ion engine.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Code: [Select]

Missile Size: 6 MSP  (0.3 HS)     Warhead: 9    Armour: 0     Manoeuvre Rating: 12
Speed: 15000 km/s    Engine Endurance: 76 minutes   Range: 68.5m km
Cost Per Missile: 3.567
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 180%   3k km/s 60%   5k km/s 36%   10k km/s 18%
Materials Required:    2.25x Tritanium   1.317x Gallicite   Fuel x500

25% higher speed, 14% lower range, 25% better chance to hit by comparison.
Smaller launcher means faster reload and more launchers in the same tonnage.

Moving on to using your newer plasma engines

Size 10, 3 warhead, 0.5 fuel, 1.1 agility, 2 size 2.7 x3.00 plasma engines.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Code: [Select]

Missile Size: 10 MSP  (0.5 HS)     Warhead: 9    Armour: 0     Manoeuvre Rating: 14
Speed: 25900 km/s    Engine Endurance: 70 minutes   Range: 108.2m km
Cost Per Missile: 6.194
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 362.6%   3k km/s 112%   5k km/s 72.5%   10k km/s 36.3%
Materials Required:    2.25x Tritanium   3.944x Gallicite   Fuel x1250

34% increase in speed and accuracy over the ion engined missile, as expected from simply switching to a higher engine tech.

Similarly for the size 6 missile. warhead 3, fuel 0.2, agility 0.3, 1 size 2.5 x3.00 plasma engine.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Missile Size: 6 MSP  (0.3 HS)     Warhead: 9    Armour: 0     Manoeuvre Rating: 12
Speed: 20000 km/s    Engine Endurance: 57 minutes   Range: 68.5m km
Cost Per Missile: 3.942
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 240%   3k km/s 72%   5k km/s 48%   10k km/s 24%
Materials Required:    2.25x Tritanium   1.692x Gallicite   Fuel x500

Looking at the difference in speed from what you posted, are you not increasing the multiplier on the missile engines when you design them? Or are you sure you actually used ion engine tech for them and not one of the lower engine techs?

[Bronimin]

-

[Metalax]

Missiles really need to use the maximum power available if you want them to have decent chances of penetrating the enemies point defence and hitting.

If you want to design more fuel efficient missiles, you are best off with building a two-stage missile. A second stage with a max-power engine with the warhead that has a range of 5-10 million kms and a first stage that carries it using a slower, fuel efficient engine. Set the separation range at or just under the range of the impacting missile. Adjust the range of your impactor to take account of how far out you start getting hit by enemy PD fire or AMM's.

With your current tech, multi-warhead missiles are not going to be particularly effective as too much space is being taken up by the warhead, so stick to a single carried missile for the moment.

[Crimson]

After several years of simply trying to expand the economy with financial centers, colonization and research, my Empire's income has now stabilized with an annual wealth of 800000. Time to explore systems and improve/expand my navy.

I think I'm up to the last research for expanding civilian economy with RP requirement of 640000.