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[Sirus]

another of my ships found the system of Manticore (FUCK YES)

Someone's a Weber fan

[Flying Dice]

another of my ships found the system of Manticore (FUCK YES)

Someone's a Weber fan

Actually, his novels are a curious thing for me: I enjoy his writing, but the constant political flanderization gets annoying, as does his overuse of authoritarian theocracies as antagonists. So I tend to just ignore those bits and enjoy the rest. (Actually, now that I think on it, Heinlein was somewhat similar IMO, except with promotion of free-love instead of political propaganda, for the most part, although it was generally much less intrusive.)


So I mostly read his stuff for the battles. Oh, and Hells Gate is just plain awesome, and I can't wait for the third volume, whenever that will finally be finished.

[Sirus]

another of my ships found the system of Manticore (FUCK YES)

Someone's a Weber fan

Actually, his novels are a curious thing for me: I enjoy his writing, but the constant political flanderization gets annoying, as does his overuse of authoritarian theocracies as antagonists. So I tend to just ignore those bits and enjoy the rest. (Actually, now that I think on it, Heinlein was somewhat similar IMO, except with promotion of free-love instead of political propaganda, for the most part, although it was generally much less intrusive.)


So I mostly read his stuff for the battles. Oh, and Hells Gate is just plain awesome, and I can't wait for the third volume, whenever that will finally be finished.

I keep trying to read Hell's Gate. I like the idea, but so far the magic society is getting it's ass kicked, and it doesn't look like they even have a chance; something like 50 casualties to kill 10 people, despite wielding lightning cannons and other awesome stuff. Then a fortress of theirs gets curb-stomped. Still early in the book, but I'm not too fond of this.

I'm in the middle of A Mighty Fortress. Great series.

[Flying Dice]

another of my ships found the system of Manticore (FUCK YES)

Someone's a Weber fan

Actually, his novels are a curious thing for me: I enjoy his writing, but the constant political flanderization gets annoying, as does his overuse of authoritarian theocracies as antagonists. So I tend to just ignore those bits and enjoy the rest. (Actually, now that I think on it, Heinlein was somewhat similar IMO, except with promotion of free-love instead of political propaganda, for the most part, although it was generally much less intrusive.)


So I mostly read his stuff for the battles. Oh, and Hells Gate is just plain awesome, and I can't wait for the third volume, whenever that will finally be finished.

I keep trying to read Hell's Gate. I like the idea, but so far the magic society is getting it's ass kicked, and it doesn't look like they even have a chance; something like 50 casualties to kill 10 people, despite wielding lightning cannons and other awesome stuff. Then a fortress of theirs gets curb-stomped. Still early in the book, but I'm not too fond of this.

I'm in the middle of A Mighty Fortress. Great series.

Read the second volume. Suffice to say, the tides turn. It also gets deeper into the political plotting on both sides. Rumor has it that a third faction with near-modern technology but no magic/psykers is going to be introduced further along.

[Sirus]

another of my ships found the system of Manticore (FUCK YES)

Someone's a Weber fan

Actually, his novels are a curious thing for me: I enjoy his writing, but the constant political flanderization gets annoying, as does his overuse of authoritarian theocracies as antagonists. So I tend to just ignore those bits and enjoy the rest. (Actually, now that I think on it, Heinlein was somewhat similar IMO, except with promotion of free-love instead of political propaganda, for the most part, although it was generally much less intrusive.)


So I mostly read his stuff for the battles. Oh, and Hells Gate is just plain awesome, and I can't wait for the third volume, whenever that will finally be finished.

I keep trying to read Hell's Gate. I like the idea, but so far the magic society is getting it's ass kicked, and it doesn't look like they even have a chance; something like 50 casualties to kill 10 people, despite wielding lightning cannons and other awesome stuff. Then a fortress of theirs gets curb-stomped. Still early in the book, but I'm not too fond of this.

I'm in the middle of A Mighty Fortress. Great series.

Read the second volume. Suffice to say, the tides turn. It also gets deeper into the political plotting on both sides. Rumor has it that a third faction with near-modern technology but no magic/psykers is going to be introduced further along.

I didn't even know there was a second volume. That first one is over 1200 pages long, and I'm somewhere in the 400s.

[Repulsion]

No idea who that author is, or what those books are...

But I'm starting to want to read them! They sound pretty interesting.

A bit more on topic, I've found no NPC's, despite finding quite a few low colony cost planets.

[Flying Dice]

Set NPR gen rate to 80% in the game info screen, and you'll get plenty.

[Jacob/Lee]

Bad luck has given me two NPR-discovered NPRs that have no TN capability at all, and are literally just hordes of low-tech infantry. Must be those fabled Conventional Empires I heard somebody mention that Steve added to screw with ground combat.

[Sowelu]

Also, currently laying down the first hulls for my new generation of missile destroyers. I'm planning for 5-ship squadrons, with three basic destroyers, a sensor-heavy leader with a number of sensor buoys for JP and planet picketing, and a Jump Destroyer with an engine large enough to ferry an entire squadron.

Seems a little odd to me that your ship with the biggest sensors also has the smallest CIWS, and I don't see any AMMs either.  But then again, maybe those CIWS are overkill already, dunno, never played around with them so much...

For sensor buoys, wouldn't it be better to use one (tiny) launcher and an itty bitty magazine than to have six box launchers?

[Flying Dice]

Also, currently laying down the first hulls for my new generation of missile destroyers. I'm planning for 5-ship squadrons, with three basic destroyers, a sensor-heavy leader with a number of sensor buoys for JP and planet picketing, and a Jump Destroyer with an engine large enough to ferry an entire squadron.

Seems a little odd to me that your ship with the biggest sensors also has the smallest CIWS, and I don't see any AMMs either.  But then again, maybe those CIWS are overkill already, dunno, never played around with them so much...

For sensor buoys, wouldn't it be better to use one (tiny) launcher and an itty bitty magazine than to have six box launchers?

I had to dump some CIWS to equalize the size. If I'd included all the modules I wanted, the jump engine would have been larger, forcing me to increase the size of the jump escort and put further time into increasing the tonnage of my shipyards. Basically I set the tonnage at 16k and made sure not to break that.

As for the CIWS: If I run into anything that can easily saturate that, I'd need more defenses than I could cram on a destroyer anyways. Most likely this will be an enemy that uses AMMs offensively. 30 shields and six CIWS is enough to deal with the weight of fire a similar ship could throw. Heck, if need be, I can detach the leader if it is targeted, and run it straight away, while still giving the rest of the squadron sensor coverage, allowing the three normals to kill the enemy missile platform before enough volleys hit home to saturate the defenses and pop the shields.

(In terms of how CIWS works: It takes your Gauss fire rate, beam FC range, tracking speed, AS strength, and ECCM tech and builds a self-contained PD module with it. In the case of those ships, their CIWS fires 6 shots every 5 seconds, with a tracking speed of 25,000 km/s. IIRC the base chance TH is always 50% for CIWS. It is basically a more advanced version of Metal Storm weapon systems in a PD role. So 6 of those CIWS would be able to target 6 missiles at point-blank range, with 6 shots per missile, each with a 50% cTH. Basically, one CIWS will pretty much automatically eliminate one missile from each volley. The hope here is that my ships will outgun lighter missile ships and EW ships, and outrun anything that has a heavy enough volley to saturate the CIWS and grind the shields down faster than they can recharge.)

With the sensor buoys, as I mentioned, I was already running out of space. Even a tiny magazine and x0.25 launcher would have taken up more space than some box launchers, and with the fuel capacity of those ships, I don't see them operating away from colonies long enough to need much more than 6 buoys.

[Repulsion]

I have 65% research bonus scientist.

I believe she started with around a 35% bonus, but she increases her bonus insanely fast. Just a few years ago, she had a 50% bonus!

[Sirus]

Fun fact: Typing in "Aurora Pentarch" on Google returns this thread as the second result, first result being the wiki

[Girlinhat]

Buoys like that are best used on-demand, when you have sighted an enemy colony and want to deploy a buoy to get some advanced intel just before you rush the offensive.  You should only need one, maybe two per battle, and reloading should be easy.  That said, I'm actually fond of mounting a boat bay and a fighter engine+thermal sensor so you can have a "buoy" that moves, and consumes 6 HS in the mothership.  If you utilize picket (drops thermal sig to 0) and good waypoints, your scout probe should be able to go somewhere very fast and sit silent with thermal sensors, and then be recovered.  If you have sufficient thermal cloaking on the engines and powerful enough active sensors (for range) you can even mount an active sensor to get very short locks on targets, which can prove useful for firing drones at enemy PDCs, but you need your scout to move immediately as they'll get spotted and attacked immediately.  Of course, that can do good to distract the enemy and lure them to/from an objective.

[Flying Dice]

Oh, if I wanted that sort of thing, I'd be using my sensor drone design, but I'm saving that for my second generation of stealth/scout cruisers, as it mounts a fairly heavy package, and I plan on using magazine storage for them. The buoys are specifically intended to help destroyers fill their ideal role as frontier pickets and protection of commercial shipping. This way, they can drop buoys at nearside JPs, and sit in a central position on picket (likely with a small ammunition depot with maint. facilities for reloading buoys somewhere in-system). Once they get a hit, they can go active and respond to the threat. If it ever comes down to another assault on a hostile system, I'll be bussing in a few score FACs and frigates, as that worked fairly well last time. Of course, by the time I finish digesting Basil and Manticore, I should have heavy enough industrial capacity to start putting out light cruisers, so destroyers should ideally never be my mainline force, except out of desperation. They're there to keep an eye on my borders and pick off survey ships and light enemy forces.

Of course, once I get the tech to put up proper carriers and fighters, the destroyers will be intergrated into a larger defense doctrine involving highly mobile light forces that can harry and raid enemy shipping for long periods of time. Hell, I may even invest in hyper-capable carriers, gog knows I have enough massive multistar systems.

[Tarran]

Fun fact: Typing in "Aurora Pentarch" on Google returns this thread as the second result, first result being the wiki

Likely because this thread has nearly 600 goddamn pages. This thread is like an entire additional forum to Steve's forum.