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[Flying Dice]

A newbish question, if I may. I'm in my first game out of the tutorial and I've just researched the asteroid mining tech. I want to create vessels that can extract, store and transport minerals from asteroids without the use of freighters or immobile mining bases. I created a new ship and added a few asteroid mining modules, the basic components required for space flight as well as a cargo hold and handling system for the minerals. I don't know how to begin the process of mining though or even if this design can work as intended.

Post the design so we can see. I don't make much use of asteroid miners myself, but as I recall, you just order them to move to the asteroid and they'll start extracting minerals and depositing them on the surface. It might be better to use dedicated freighters or mass drivers to transport the minerals, as doing so with the miners will require them to stop mining while they carry the minerals home. This also allows you to cut the tonnage substantially, so you can use your larger commercial shipyards for terraformers, JGCs, etc., rather than mining ships.

[Bremen]

Layered defense. Carronade-armed heavy battleships to deal with anything unlucky enough to come out in range. Missile-armed pickets for everything else, or as backup if the battleships get overwhelmed.

This comes up often, but I maintain that the best jump point defense as the game currently stands is meson armed FACs. They have the speed to close with ships regardless of their jump distance, can easily have ridiculously high maintenance times because they're small, are fairly hard to shoot down once sensors come online, and *nothing* can survive massed meson fire for long. And if worst comes to worst they can often disengage once the enemy starts shooting back.

[RedKing]

What Flying Dice said. Just pick an asteroid and fly a miner to it. It'll autocreate the mining "colony", although you'll have to close and reopen your Production/Research window to see it.

That said, I prefer the slow behemoth design for miners: 100,000+ tons, usually 12-15 mining modules. Speed of no more than 1500 km/s a second or so. Considering that a mining ship will spend 95% of its operational life not moving, I figure engines are a minimal concern. Hell, if I didn't regularly neglect tractor beam research, I'd probably nix the engines altogether and use tugs to move them into place.

[MaximumZero]

it's a lot harder to get angry when zombie whales come ROFLstomp your precious fort

Honestly, I think that's part of the experience. Also, it's hilarious.

[mikefictiti0us]

Thanks for the advice. It seems that I was mining the materials but I didn't realize that the vessel does not automatically store what it mines. A command to pick up any materials at the site did the job. Definitely an inefficient way to go about things though. I think I'll try the advice previously stated, mining vessels coupled with dedicated freighters until I get mass drivers.

[PTTG??]

Orbital mining stations with hypertugs. Ten billion tons of engine and a tractor beam, combined with a separate ten billion tons of mining equipment. Next game I do, I'm going to try that.

[Girlinhat]

Yeah, mining ships with their own cargo don't work very well.  In Sol it's best to just invest in a pair of mass drivers and send the stuff back.  Outside Sol, mass driver the goods to a central point, and then freighter the resources from there to Earth.

[Flying Dice]

Orbital mining stations with hypertugs. Ten billion tons of engine and a tractor beam, combined with a separate ten billion tons of mining equipment. Next game I do, I'm going to try that.

That's no moon!


Related: as expected, that nice shiny system with a bunch of nearly habitable worlds is infested with Precursors. I sent in two squadrons of destroyers, and am following up with a light carrier group. I'm considering doing a short little writeup of the action, as well, as it is a bit more interesting than the usual 'Precursors outrun my ships, shoot down hundreds of missiles, and still have enough left to sandpaper all of my ships into oblivion', not least because a) they retreated before taking a shot, despite the fact that their apparent AMM ships had only used up what looked like a third of their ordinance, b) they're based in the B-component, which is easily two or three weeks away from the JP, and c) They outspeed my carrier, PD ships, and mainline missile destroyers, but my saturation offense destroyers (100x 0.33 launchers, S1 missiles) have about a 150km/s edge on them, so assuming they have worse range than me, I can easily beat them at their own game, rather than bulling my way through with massive balls heavy armor and shields as per usual antiprecursor tactics.

[Sirus]

Orbital mining stations with hypertugs. Ten billion tons of engine and a tractor beam, combined with a separate ten billion tons of mining equipment. Next game I do, I'm going to try that.

That's no moon!

That joke has been made. Several times

Regardless, I'd like a write-up. Sounds interesting.

[Flying Dice]

Orbital mining stations with hypertugs. Ten billion tons of engine and a tractor beam, combined with a separate ten billion tons of mining equipment. Next game I do, I'm going to try that.

That's no moon!

That joke has been made. Several times

Regardless, I'd like a write-up. Sounds interesting.

Well then, here ya go:

Oh, and it was a 2025 start with OBed ships and increased difficulty NPRs, as a sort of RP game. I set up my tech to be rather unbalanced; Magnetic Confinement drives, but absolute shit for weapons and sensor tech, stuff that would fit with Ion drives, or maybe even Nuclear Pulse drives in some cases.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The scout cruiser TFN Argentina jumped into the Alpha Centauri system on 5 January, 2025, accompanied by the TFN Leonidas, the first of a modern class of military jump tenders designed to transport the new Spruance-class light carriers. She had been traveling in-system towards the second world of the primary for five hours when her sensor officer detected five thermal contacts at extreme range. Her captain, Commander Laura Thorpe, ordered the activation of the main sensor array, along with an immediate course reversal. The five contacts began to close on her ship at 6611 km/s, while the Argentina could only achieve a maximum velocity of 5000km/s. Nevertheless, the distance was great enough that the alien vessels would not intercept the Argentina before it reached the jump point.

A few seconds later, the first data from the active sensor ping returned, the ship profiles indicating three classes: a single 12100 ton vessel with a thermal signature of 1600, which Commander Thorpe's Tactics Officer dubbed the 'Ise' class; one 6050 class vessel with a thermal signature of 800, which was dubbed the 'Kirishima' class, and three vessels of identical tonnage and thermal output to the Kirishima class, which had slightly different external structures, which were dubbed 'Nagato' 001-003. Commander Thorpe transmitted this data to the Leonidas, which jumped briefly back to Sol to transmit the data, before returning to Alpha Centauri.

A team of analysts headed by Captain Rebecca Wade, Vice Admiral Dickenson's Chief of Intelligence, determined a threat rating in excess of standard 'hostile first encounter' simulations and exercises, and recommended application of substantial force. As per this report, Vice Admiral Dickenson deployed the 1^st and 3^rd Destroyer Squadrons to Alpha Centauri, just twenty minutes after reception of the initial contact report. The four destroyers of DesRon1 were escorted through the jump point by the TNS Clovis, another jump tender of the Leonidas class. They set course for the thermal contacts, passing the Argentina by less than 100,000 kilometers, just under 1 million kilometers from the jump point. DesRon3 transited the point in the company of Clovis just seconds before the Argentina transited into Sol with the Leonidas.

The ships of DesRon1 entered maximum effective missile range of the alien vessels, but were unable to achieve lock. The alien ECM systems were estimated to fall at a rating of 50 on the Bernhart-Kishimoto scale, limiting the effective range of their weapons to 58.5 million kilometers. Vice Admiral Alexander Dodd, the CO of DesRon1, ordered his ships to close to 55 million kilometers and maintain seperation to the greatest possible degree, as the four Oregon class missile destroyers of DesRon1 had a maximum velocity of 6250 km/s. At 60 million kilometers, Vice Admiral Dodd's flagship, the Oregon, came under fire from enemy ASMs. Their CIWS easily dealt with the threat, and after shooting down 6 volleys of 2 missiles each, the lone Kirishima class vessel broke off, setting course for an unknown location near Alpha Centauri B. Upon reaching effective range, the four destroyers launched a total of eight volleys consisting of ten missiles each from every ship, targeting the four vessels in the hopes of achieving crippling damage on the entire enemy force, freeing DesRon1 to pursue the fleeing ship. ((Hah, they don't know what Precursors are yet!))

Several minutes later, the first volley was intercepted by enemy AMM fire, destroying 34 of the 40 missiles. Five seconds later, the final six were destroyed. This pattern continued until all of the TFN missiles had been destroyed. The alien vessels continued to close. Vice Admiral Dodd ordered DesRon1 to make maximum speed for the Sol jump point, while the ships of DesRon3 closed on the embattled destroyers. The Vice Admiral, who was substantially adverse to risk, ordered his ships to concentrate fire on the Ise class vessel, launching their remaining missiles in the following minutes as they continued to flee. As the final three volleys closed, Nagato 002 broke off, turning to the same heading as the Kirishima 001. There was a brief lull in AMM fire, which quickly ended with the destruction of the final 120 missiles in quick succession. The Nagato 001 and 003, along with the Ise 001, broke off the engagement, fleeing along the same vector.

Vice Admiral Dodd transmitted the information gained during the engagement to Captain Elizabeth Lane, the captain of the TNS Maelstrom and CO of DesRon3, along with a message regarding his intentions to rearm at Earth and return to the system. He then transmitted a message to Clovis, ordering Commander Toby Sharpe to transit the point and send a message to Fleet Command requesting the deployment of Carrier Group 1 to Alpha Centauri.

Captain Lane, commanding four Maelstrom class missile destroyers, began to close on the fleeing enemy ships. It would be a long chase, but her ships had a very slight advantage of 420 km/s. The stern chase to the B-component would cover roughly 2.35 billion kilometers, giving her plenty of time for the organized, calm-natured Captain to plan the engagement and run simulations based on observed capabilities of the enemy ships. Their strength seemed to lie in their defensive capabilities, an ideal situation for her own ships, as the Maelstrom class of missile destroyer had been designed as a saturation weapon, with each ship mounting 100 reduced size launchers, large magazines capable of carrying a total of ten volleys worth of missiles, yet possessing no independent antimissile capability, instead relying on the same dual-role Needle-1 Mk1 missiles for point defence.

Code: [Select]

Maelstrom class Missile Destroyer    16,000 tons     950 Crew     2985.2 BP      TCS 320  TH 2250  EM 0
7031 km/s     Armour 5-56     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 7     PPV 33
Maint Life 2.63 Years     MSP 816    AFR 292%    IFR 4.1%    1YR 167    5YR 2498    Max Repair 420 MSP
Magazine 1000   

Magnetic Confinement Fusion Drive E5 (18)    Power 125    Fuel Use 50%    Signature 125    Armour 0    Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 765,000 Litres    Range 172.1 billion km   (283 days at full power)

CIWS-200 (4x6)    Range 1000 km     TS: 20000 km/s     ROF 5       Base 50% To Hit
Size 1 Missile Launcher (33% Reduction) (100)    Missile Size 1    Rate of Fire 200
Missile Fire Control FC51-R30 (1)     Range 51.8m km    Resolution 30
Needle-1 Mk1 (1000)  Speed: 30,000 km/s   End: 2m    Range: 3.6m km   WH: 1    Size: 1    TH: 190 / 114 / 57

Active Search Sensor MR138-R30 (1)     GPS 12600     Range 138.0m km    Resolution 30

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

Given that the estimated AMM volley of the enemy Nagato class ships was roughly 40 missiles, her own ships should be able to saturate their defenses with concentrated fire. On this basis, she called a planning session with her command crew. After all, they would have plenty of time before contact.

More to come later, plus screenshots.

[Canalan]

Well.  My ships blew the crap out of the alien ships.  I moved survey ships into the area and found 2 thermal contacts on moons.  Sent in the ground troops, and eventually, won one of the battles.  I think.  Suddenly, I get messages saying that so and so have surrendered, and I now own myself some ships in systems I didn't know existed.  They have technology WAY beyond me, and I would like to keep them.  One problem.  Other ships are attempting to knock them out of the firmament with massed missile fire.  Also, I can't pull up system maps for my new ships since I haven't explored their systems.  What do I do?  What has happened?

[Girlinhat]

This happens.  When you take a planet the morale drop causes random ships or PDCs to surrender, most often happening in the middle of an enemy fleet.  Just try and do as much damage as you can before they're destroyed!  Prepare the troopships to capture the recently damaged ships!

[Flying Dice]

It sounds like a Precursor outpost, in which case you basically have a choice between letting the troop transports be destroyed and SM moving them to your home system.

[Canalan]

Yeah, most of them were troopships.  How do I SM move them?

[Girlinhat]

The task group screen, in the "organization" tab or somesuch you can SM them to a new position.