Print

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

[Bremen]

They had 1 column of armor and were 1000 tons versus my >7 columns and 4000+ ton ships. I knew they wouldn't do much, and I couldn't dodge them (10,000km/s versus ~1,700km/s doesn't stack up...) so I just let them hit me.

Also, the enemy ships have ECM 30 or more. How good is that?

EDIT: I have realized that 326 size 2 AMMs a ship isn't going to cut it, and I'm going to sport a pure-PD vessel in my fleets. What kind of turret should I use, gauss, railgun, or laser?

Railguns can't be turreted. Generally gauss is seen as the best pure anti-missile system, though lasers are decent and can be more effective anti-fighter/secondary anti-ship weapons.

[Girlinhat]

Gauss get incredible ROF, doing only one damage per hit but the ROF makes up for it.  If you get 6 shots per gauss, with 4 gauss on a turret, you're getting 24 tries to hit every 5 seconds!  If the enemy AMM have no armor (as is most common) then you're getting a pretty good kill rate.  Being turreted also gives bonus tracking speed and easier cluster fire, 1/4 as many items on your weapon list   It's also not terrible, if you can get close enough (usually 10k km) you can cause a lot of damage very fast on enemy ships.  24 damage per 5 seconds per turret is a lot of damage output, especially when you consider that gauss uses no reactor, saving a lot of space on powerplants and letting you install - yes!  More Gauss!

[LostCosmonaut]

Alternative option: Use 10cm railguns, and make your ship fast enough that it doesn't matter that they're not turreted. I actually tried this once, and it worked pretty well. The only problem is your ships will have to be about 50-60% engines by mass. Of course, they'll be harder to hit in the first place.

On normal (not obscenely fast) ships, though, definetely add gauss. Against AMM spam, gauss turrets will be far, far more effective than something like lasers or mesons. Against a small trickle of normal ASMs, lasers or mesons work fine. I would recommend having some ships with these weapon systems in addition to gauss only ships. The laser/meson ships can then be used in a secondary antishipping role.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Another thing to note is that lasers are the only thing I've seen that are remotely effective against invader plasma torpedoes.

[Girlinhat]

We call those "fighters".  A fighter mounting a single railgun/laser does pretty good for swarm PD.  If you can get them small enough to fit into a boat bay (5 HS) then you can pack a LOT of the cheap blighters in.  Con: 5 HS of gauss probably works just as well, and you have to keep up with the fighters.  Pro: You can build new fighters with new weapons more cheaply than you can refit an entire ship, and the fighters can defend OTHER ships by flying alongside a different TG.

[LostCosmonaut]

I was thinking something more along these lines:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Lima class Cruiser    7,300 tons     790 Crew     1774.8 BP      TCS 146  TH 2400  EM 0
16438 km/s     Armour 3-33     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 2     PPV 18
Maint Life 2.03 Years     MSP 304    AFR 213%    IFR 3%    1YR 99    5YR 1481    Max Repair 60 MSP

Internal Confinement Fusion Drive E7/120/120 (20)    Power 120    Fuel Use 70%    Signature 120    Armour 0    Exp 16%
Fuel Capacity 200,000 Litres    Range 70.4 billion km   (49 days at full power)

10cm Railgun V3/C3 (6x4)    Range 21,760km     TS: 16438 km/s     Power 3-3     RM 3    ROF 5        1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Fire Control S01.4 10.88-16000 (6)    Max Range: 21,760 km   TS: 16000 km/s     54 8 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Tokamak Fusion Reactor Technology PB-.5/4 (5)     Total Power Output 20    Armour 0    Exp 5%

Active Search Sensor MR8-R1 (1)     GPS 48     Range 8.6m km    Resolution 1

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes

It seems hopelessly practical, but based on testing, it actually works quite well.

[Jacob/Lee]

>49 days at full power
NOPE.png

It takes my fleet 3 times that long to just get to the battlezone. I'll stick with the turrets, anyway

[Girlinhat]

Wow, yeah, short flight time.  If you've got good oilers, then awesome, otherwise you might have trouble reaching the next system!

[Flying Dice]

In reference to your earlier question, Jacob/Lee, 30 ECM would be an ECM-3, or the third level of ECM tech.


That ship occupies what I sometimes think of as the Useless Zone (like the Twilight Zone, but less mysterious and more waste of resources), in that it is too large to make a proper FAC, frigate (at least at that tech level), or fighter, but is too small to be a destroyer, and so fails at both. If it were smaller and weaker, it would be cheap enough for you to churn out scores of them in months and use them to swarm enemies, and if it were stronger, it could hold its own in battle and be large enough to carry everything it needs, such as sufficient fuel. As it stands, you'd use resources to build a ship that isn't particularly effective at what it is supposed to do. If you want a fast EW ship, drop some engines and guns. If you want an AMM escort, beef it up.

By comparison, my Pegasus class destroyer is 2.192 times larger in terms of tonnage, yet only costs 1.863 times as much BP, meaning that it is both more effective as a whole, and more effective per BP used, with similar tech, though admittedly for a different role.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Code: [Select]

Pegasus class Missile Destroyer    16,000 tons     1121 Crew     3306.41 BP      TCS 320  TH 2600  EM 900
8125 km/s     Armour 5-56     Shields 30-300     Sensors 66/66/0/0     Damage Control Rating 30     PPV 15.84
Maint Life 4.87 Years     MSP 1292    AFR 204%    IFR 2.8%    1YR 90    5YR 1349    Max Repair 288 MSP
Magazine 571   

Internal Confinement Fusion Drive E5 (26)    Power 100    Fuel Use 50%    Signature 100    Armour 0    Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 610,000 Litres    Range 137.3 billion km   (195 days at full power)
Delta R300/12.5 Shields (12)   Total Fuel Cost  150 Litres per day

CIWS-250 (8x6)    Range 1000 km     TS: 25000 km/s     ROF 5       Base 50% To Hit
Size 4 Missile Launcher (33% Reduction) (12)    Missile Size 4    Rate of Fire 400
Missile Fire Control FC141-R20 (2)     Range 141.7m km    Resolution 20
Mjolnir-4a (143)  Speed: 30,100 km/s   End: 44.3m    Range: 80.1m km   WH: 9    Size: 4    TH: 301 / 180 / 90

Active Search Sensor MR141-R20 (1)     GPS 5760     Range 141.7m km    Resolution 20
Thermal Sensor TH6-66 (1)     Sensitivity 66     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  66m km
EM Detection Sensor EM6-66 (1)     Sensitivity 66     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  66m km

Missile to hit chances are vs targets moving at 3000 km/s, 5000 km/s and 10,000 km/s

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes


Give me a bit and I'll draw up designs for a AMM ship. Actually, I've also been meaning to run Honor Harrington through the Mary Sue litmus test, just for a bit of a laugh...


ED: Here's a quick, rough design for a PD escort ship. I went with Gauss because I don't have railgun tech, and because it is better for PD. I trimmed quite a bit of engine-fat off, as a ship that will be hanging around larger vessels to keep missiles off of them doesn't need to outrun a FAC.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Code: [Select]

Wolfhound class Destroyer Escort    17,850 tons     1426 Crew     3313.5 BP      TCS 357  TH 2500  EM 0
7002 km/s     Armour 5-60     Shields 0-0     Sensors 66/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 32     PPV 163.44
Maint Life 3.1 Years     MSP 1392    AFR 212%    IFR 3%    1YR 218    5YR 3265    Max Repair 240 MSP

Internal Confinement Fusion Drive E5 (25)    Power 100    Fuel Use 50%    Signature 100    Armour 0    Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 660,000 Litres    Range 133.1 billion km   (220 days at full power)

Quad Gauss Cannon R3-100 Turret (6x12)    Range 30,000km     TS: 12000 km/s     Power 0-0     RM 3    ROF 5        1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Fire Control S02 48-12500 (1)    Max Range: 96,000 km   TS: 12500 km/s     90 79 69 58 48 38 27 17 6 0

Active Search Sensor MR26-R1 (1)     GPS 240     Range 26.4m km    Resolution 1
Thermal Sensor TH6-66 (1)     Sensitivity 66     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  66m km

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes


Uh, yeah, with the M-S litmus test and Honor... I'm not going to let it affect me, but dayum. And that after ignoring ones relating to how the author views the character.

[Tarran]

>49 days at full power
NOPE.png

It takes my fleet 3 times that long to just get to the battlezone. I'll stick with the turrets, anyway

Wow, yeah, short flight time.  If you've got good oilers, then awesome, otherwise you might have trouble reaching the next system!

You two are ignoring the range of 70 billion km. Flight time does not matter, range does. 70 billion km is enough to get to quite a few places.

[Flying Dice]

Problem is, that still isn't very much endurance (by my standards, at least), especially if you're going to have it on active duty, much less fly it around between posts. Just getting that from my shipyards to my frontier (rather close) would drain nearly a fifth of the tank, so we're talking about as little as 56b km worth of fuel. If you're on deployment with a fleet invading territory with that, it would be very easy to run dry, because between simply reaching the enemy systems, combat movement, and movement between different points of attack and defence, you wouldn't get much use before it needed refueling. If you've got a massive oiler train, that might work out, but it really isn't very efficient. I tend to shoot for a minimum of 100b km range on anything larger than a FAC or frigate for that exact reason.

[Girlinhat]

I believe we can agree that this is a skirmisher build.  It's not made to wage war, it's meant to win battles.

[Flying Dice]

Except that judging from the 1 res active sensor, it was probably intended as a pure PD ship. In other words, a ship that would be escorting other, more important ships around. That alone calls for increased range.

[LostCosmonaut]

To be honest, I probably wouldn't use that specific design in itself. It's just something I slapped together from components in my current game to illustrate the concept. It would probably look a lot better if I took a bit of time to refine it.

[lavenders2]

This game is really confusing

I think I get the basic idea though. Work on colonizing mars and build up a basic force until you get jump tech and explore?

[Girlinhat]

You can play however you want, really.  Colonize or ignore Mars, your call!

For easier gameplay, set the NPR to 0, but the NPR generation to ~50%  This way there's no AI to start with, so no one will crash your party, but you can still encounter the AI if you come across a fresh star system with a valid planet.  So, you sort of pace yourself with the AI, and you have plenty of time to sit in Sol and colonize a few worlds and stripmine all the asteroids.