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[Sheb]

I don't think it is possible to shoot more than once every 5-second increment. And pthe power is lost.

[Narmio]

A few points:

* You cannot shoot more than once every 5 seconds.  If you over-engineer your beam weapons, that is "Give them capacitors capable of delivering more energy than they need to fire once per five seconds", they require more power but do not gain anything.  The R6/C4 cannon Sirus posted is perfect - that meson cannon (12cm, I believe) requires 4 energy to fire, and so if you put rank 4 caps in it it fires as fast as possible and wastes no energy.  The R6/C10 cannon in the turret, however, has the same power requirement and feeds 10 cap/second (which is quite high tech, btw, mid-game stuff).

* Design your PD turrets to have the same tracking speed as your max beam fire control, that is four times the fire control rating you've researched.  Then design a beam fire control with 4* speed (which makes it four times as large and expensive).  It is totally not necessary to also make it hit at 4* range, like Sirus has.  The two combine to make it sixteen times the base size and cost. And you usually want multiple beam FCs on a dedicated escort.  Each one is 800 tons!  And for a very small increase in your hit chance at 10,000km, which is where you will be using it. 

* Always set your PD fire controls to engage in Final Fire mode and at minimum range - 10kkm. Missiles will almost always travel the entire breadth of your PD beam range in one five-second tick. Final Fire always gets off one snap-shot just before missile impact, Area Defence you don't get that, you fire at visible missiles in the ship's normal turn. So there's no point using them in Area Defence mode, especially since their to-hit chances are terrible the further the target is.  And you get a bonus the longer you've tracked an incoming missile for, so waiting is doubly helpful.

* Gauss are the best beam-PD weapon with mesons and lasers roughly tied for second place. The meson and laser tech-lines, however, are more useful for also researching big, offensive beam weapons, while gauss have no range at all.  You've got to get to hull-bumping range to use gauss offensively, while decent laser/meson tech will allow you to engage at 200,000km or so.  Which remember, is still a really tiny distance in a game where missiles routinely fly 50,000,000km. Offensive beam weapons are only a good idea if your ships are very fast and very well defended.

[Sheb]

Or to defend jump point, or to finish crippled ships while saving ordnance.

[Narmio]

Or to defend jump point, or to finish crippled ships while saving ordnance.

Aye.  Those too.  Having offensive beam capability - even if it's just dual-use PD beams - is very useful for a fleet. You don't always get to control range! Also, if you haven't experienced the logistical nightmare that is keeping a big fleet stocked with ASMs and AMMs yet... When you do, you'll want to use your beams as often as possible!

It's part of the game's design.  Missiles are tactically superior but strategically inferior. Have access to both and a plan for dealing with different varieties of opponents and you'll do well.

[Sheb]

I know what you mean. I just burned through 3 years' worth of missiles in a single battle.

[Karlito]

* Always set your PD fire controls to engage in Final Fire mode and at minimum range - 10kkm. Missiles will almost always travel the entire breadth of your PD beam range in one five-second tick. Final Fire always gets off one snap-shot just before missile impact, Area Defence you don't get that, you fire at visible missiles in the ship's normal turn. So there's no point using them in Area Defence mode, especially since their to-hit chances are terrible the further the target is.  And you get a bonus the longer you've tracked an incoming missile for, so waiting is doubly helpful.

Once you've got a larger fleet and higher tech, it could become effective to build some ships designed for area defense. You can use the buttons for "Escorts" at the bottom of the TG window (F12) to launch a subfleet of ships that will stay a specified distance ahead of the main fleet. Those ships can then engage missiles with a window of twice their maximum range, since they can fire on enemy missiles as they approach and recede (toward your main fleet). Like I said, it requires a certain level of tech to make it work, but it has the potential to save you some AMM during the battle, which you might find useful.

[Areyar]

Won't the AI generally shoot at the closest ships first?

Which is still effective use of escorts, but they won't get to shoot twice in that case.

[Sheb]

Well, I think they target the biggest ships first. In a lot of case, they won't even see your escorts since they're too small.

[Sirus]

Only if the escort ships have active sensors of their own.

I've noticed that enemies tend to go after whichever ship has active sensors, since those are the most visable. If the escort ships are relying on sensor readings from the warships behind them, they can plink away at missiles while they fly by harmlessly.

About the turret: Yeah, I accidently over-designed it. I actually made it in a test file, where I just instant every tech I need for testing strategies. I actually had to lower the tech levels of the stuff involved to make it more "realistic". My bad 

[Micro102]

I don't think it is possible to shoot more than once every 5-second increment. And the power is lost.

Oooooo that's right, having too high a tech in generators can be a bad thing


Anyway, I have found 2 races so far, both are neutral/friendly, and one of them was kind(?) enough to build jumpgates on every jump point they could reach.


Questions on civilian economy. If I keep feeding it, will they do anything other then build mining colonies and make commercial ships?

[Neonivek]

Hmmm sounds like maybe stealth squadrons could be viable... If only I could understand the game...

At all *sobs and cries*

 

[creodor]

Questions on civilian economy. If I keep feeding it, will they do anything other then build mining colonies and make commercial ships?

No, they won't. But those are already a helpful thing for them to handle.

[Neonivek]

I have a question:

I would love to start at a low low tech planet start (possibly by lowering the starting year to 1960 and halfing my research pool)

Will that get me uttarly massacred?

Also

UNNNNG!!! My Aurora keeps getting glitches

Latest one?

I don't have a "TechSystem"... Dang error 3201

It will start but I bet it will cause something stupid like enemy empires won't build ships.

[Sheb]

The starting year is jsut for flavor. What you can do is a pre-TN start. You start with no techs, and no TN industries (just "Conventional Industry" that do a bit of everything and is good at nothing). And the NPR starts with techs.

[Neonivek]

Ok, now if I read this thread right the first thing I do is... build a survey ship.

*clicks*

*BOOM!*

What did I do!?!