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[andrea]

while we are on topic of Swarm, what is the range of their weapons? I found swarm on 2 different jump chains from sol, just 2 jumps away on both. My current strategy is few big ships ( 36k tons) with tons of armor ( 20 but ever increasing) and lots of railguns.
not one, not 2 but instead all 3 of them sound like a death sentence against a swarm of meson armed enemies.
the only chance I can see is if I can outrange them- 4 fire controls for each ship should be able to kill a few before they get close enough.

the only good side is that most components have a decent HTK just due to sheer size.

[RedKing]

while we are on topic of Swarm, what is the range of their weapons?

I believe Soldiers have a range around 120,000km (modified by your ECM). When dealing with large swarms, the route I went was to build a laser gunboat with multiple 30-35cm lasers shrunk down by 0.75 or 0.5. Slap a bunch of those on a ship (say, 12?) with long-range, high-speed fire controls for each laser seperately. Because of the long recharge time, you don't need a very big reactor. Then put a decent ECM on it. THEN (and this part is important) make sure it has enough thrust to exceed 10000 km/s.

The drones will charge right at you. Head away from them at less than full thrust and slowly let them come into range of your lasers, but outside range of their mesons. Then you can just whittle away at their numbers for how ever long it takes. The reason I like 30-35cm lasers is that the damage is generally enough to vaporize a drone if it hits. The alternative is that you hit and cripple a bunch, leaving them motionless. Then, after you kill off the last mobile one, you reverse course and sweep your way back through all the crippled ones, finishing them off.

I had good results with a design like this, until I got greedy and tried to let them close the distance just a bit more to increase my accuracy. Turned out I had misjudged their range. When you're talking about a swarm of 70-80 drones, even a 5% chance to hit is going to get in a few lucky hits. And when those hits take out engines....yeah, you're pretty much fucked.


The alternative is to missile spam like a boss.

[varsovie]

I remember the one time I defeated +60 drones with my long range MESON armed fighter. It was TEDIOUS (took like 8 hours).
My fighters had 12.000km/s max speed and a little bit more range. So I had to flee from the drone at 9950km/s until the drones get in range, the shoot (and miss often) with my 4 fighter on the drones at 10000km/s, at the end I've destroyed half of the drone and immobilized the other half. Then I had to refuel and go back to finish those sucker. I lost only one fighter because my range was so slightly superior that even with 50km/s difference and 5 second gap, I got withing drone's range and one of my fighter lost his engine.

So my suggestion to deal with those suckers, use you AMM and point defense lasers (if your ships have a minimum of shielding) in automatic fire mode, you'll save a LOT of time.

[andrea]

this being a pure railgun run ( plus CIWS, although I might decide to skip it when I get shields), I guess I am screwed. well, at least it would be a perfect chance to scrap my first generation fleet without keeping shipyard busy. When it is designed and built,  third generation, with 40cm railguns, should be able to deal with them relatively well ( very long range for a beam weapon).
Thanks for the advice!

( fighters would still be allowed I guess, but the only time I tried them I found them to take tons of time to manage. I'll definitely consider it.)

[Flying Dice]

The benefits of fighters will always outweigh the annoyances of managing them, at least in my book.

[andrea]

unless the annoyance of fighters is bigger than the enjoyment of the game. then it might still be efficent, but it becomes pointless.
I guess it comes down to preferences and styles.

[Girlinhat]

Swarm is a unique enemy, in that they use Mesons.  All your shields and armor count for naught, but your HTK on components does matter.  The reliable way to deal with them is Speed, Range, and ECM.  And the furthest range weapons you can manage.

If you don't have quite enough firepower, you can use marines to capture the crippled ships, and that will let you discover the exact capabilities of the enemy.

[Metalax]

My current response to the Swarm. They want to spam meson ships at me? Well I can do that too.

Code: [Select]

Eyrie class Carrier    50,000 tons     921 Crew     9541.5 BP      TCS 1000  TH 960  EM 4500
4000 km/s     Armour 10-120     Shields 150-300     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 60     PPV 0
Maint Life 3.11 Years     MSP 7156    AFR 333%    IFR 4.6%    1YR 1108    5YR 16616    Max Repair 800 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 36 months    Flight Crew Berths 276   
Hangar Deck Capacity 20000 tons     Tractor Beam     

Military Large Stealth (25%) x1.00 EP Magneto-plasma Drive (5)    Power 800    Fuel Use 25%    Signature 192    Exp 10%
Fuel Capacity 5,000,000 Litres    Range 72.0 billion km   (208 days at full power)
Epsilon R300/15 Shields (50)   Total Fuel Cost  750 Litres per day

ECM 30

Strike Group
50x Hawk Fighter   Speed: 10256 km/s    Size: 7.8
2x Falcon Fighter-Scout   Speed: 10000 km/s    Size: 4

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes

Code: [Select]

Hawk class Fighter    390 tons     5 Crew     182.5 BP      TCS 7.8  TH 19.2  EM 0
10256 km/s     Armour 1-4     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 0     PPV 4
Maint Life 4.33 Years     MSP 29    AFR 12%    IFR 0.2%    1YR 2    5YR 37    Max Repair 80 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 0.1 months    Spare Berths 5   

Military Stealth (25%) x2.50 EP Magneto-plasma Drive (1)    Power 80    Fuel Use 484.22%    Signature 19.2    Exp 25%
Fuel Capacity 30,000 Litres    Range 2.9 billion km   (3 days at full power)

S-4 Meson Cannon R-150 (1)    Range 150,000km     TS: 10256 km/s     Power 6-6     RM 15    ROF 5        1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
S-0.5 R-150 Hardened (30%) Fighter Fire Control (1)    Max Range: 150,000 km   TS: 10000 km/s     93 87 80 73 67 60 53 47 40 33
S-0.2 Magnetic Confinement Fusion Reactor (2)     Total Power Output 6    Armour 0    Exp 35%

This design is classed as a Fighter for production, combat and maintenance purposes

Code: [Select]

Falcon class Fighter-Scout    200 tons     2 Crew     204.5 BP      TCS 4  TH 9.6  EM 0
10000 km/s     Armour 1-3     Shields 0-0     Sensors 4/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 0     PPV 0
Maint Life 12.41 Years     MSP 64    AFR 3%    IFR 0%    1YR 1    5YR 12    Max Repair 72 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 0.1 months    Spare Berths 8   

Military Small Stealth (25%) x2.50 EP Magneto-plasma Drive (1)    Power 40    Fuel Use 489.16%    Signature 9.599999    Exp 25%
Fuel Capacity 20,000 Litres    Range 3.7 billion km   (4 days at full power)

Hardened (30%) S-01 R-001 ASS MR-6 Ms6-0.7 (1)     GPS 36     Range 6.5m km    Resolution 1
Hardened (30%) S-01 R-016 ASS MR-25 (1)     GPS 576     Range 25.9m km    Resolution 16
Hardened (30%) Thermal Sensor TH0.3-4 (1)     Sensitivity 4     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  4m km

This design is classed as a Fighter for production, combat and maintenance purposes
Also time to capture Swarm ships is running out, they will be disabled from being captured in 6.2 due to too many errors relating to their capturing and the fact that it's not really reasonable to board a giant oraganism.

[Girlinhat]

Aw damn... not capturing swarm really takes out a lot of their capacity...  I guess fragging will become the default procedure then.  Prepare the laser batteries!

Either way, thermal suppression on fighter engines isn't worth the added cost.  They function in such close range that they're gonna get spotted by actives just as easy.

[Metalax]

Yes, they will get spotted by actives... after they get switched on. NPR's regularly run around with their actives switched off to try and avoid detection by others EM sensors, and only switch them on when they detect something on their passives. As such it is possible to get into firing range and get a first shot off before the enemy knows you are there, if you creep up at low engine output.

[Girlinhat]

I also fail to see the point.  Fighters don't quite have the firepower to justify a stealth strike against swarm.  There's so many swarm ships that you can't do significant damage in the first shot, I'd think.  Unless you've just got a ton of fighters.

[Bremen]

I also fail to see the point.  Fighters don't quite have the firepower to justify a stealth strike against swarm.  There's so many swarm ships that you can't do significant damage in the first shot, I'd think.  Unless you've just got a ton of fighters.

His have mesons, which would make for a rather devastating first strike if he can get into beam range without being detected.

[Metalax]

Unless you've just got a ton of fighters

Yes.  We do.

And yes, I know it's not necessary to do a stealth strike, but it can still be a fun way of starting off a battle.

His have mesons, which would make for a rather devastating first strike if he can get into beam range without being detected.

Indeed particularly as they will be firing in groups of 25 fighters, launched off of 6 carriers. Thats 12 kills/disabled/damaged ships after the first strike, and we can do the same every 5 seconds.

Against a missile armed opponent, thats 3 rounds of firing before the first missiles can start moving towards the fighters.

[varsovie]

That's why I have some forward recon FACs all around an invasion task group.Their small size and low heat output mean they don't get targeted.

[Gamerlord]

Hey guys, what do you think of these for early game military ships?

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Shelob Mark 1 class Fighter Transport    25,950 tons     244 Crew     2083 BP      TCS 519  TH 1200  EM 0
2312 km/s     Armour 1-78     Shields 0-0     Sensors 16/16/0/0     Damage Control Rating 1     PPV 0
Maint Life 0.05 Years     MSP 50    AFR 5387%    IFR 74.8%    1YR 1048    5YR 15714    Max Repair 20 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 120 months    Flight Crew Berths 191   
Hangar Deck Capacity 10000 tons     Cryogenic Berths 200   

80 EP Magneto-plasma Drive (15)    Power 80    Fuel Use 7.96%    Signature 80    Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 5,000,000 Litres    Range 435.7 billion km   (2181 days at full power)

Active Search Sensor MR14-R100 (1)     GPS 1800     Range 14.4m km    Resolution 100
Thermal Sensor TH2-16 (1)     Sensitivity 16     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  16m km
EM Detection Sensor EM2-16 (1)     Sensitivity 16     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  16m km

Strike Group
20x Nardrol Mark 1 Attack Craft   Speed: 19200 km/s    Size: 10

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Nardrol Mark 1 class Attack Craft    500 tons     24 Crew     159 BP      TCS 10  TH 192  EM 0
19200 km/s     Armour 1-5     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 0     PPV 3
Maint Life 3.61 Years     MSP 20    AFR 20%    IFR 0.3%    1YR 2    5YR 35    Max Repair 24 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 3 months    Spare Berths 0   

48 EP Magneto-plasma Drive (4)    Power 48    Fuel Use 771.63%    Signature 48    Exp 30%
Fuel Capacity 25,000 Litres    Range 1.2 billion km   (16 hours at full power)

10cm Railgun V3/C4 (1x4)    Range 24,000km     TS: 19200 km/s     Power 3-4     RM 3    ROF 5        1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Fire Control S00.1 12-1500 H70 (FTR) (1)    Max Range: 24,000 km   TS: 6000 km/s     58 17 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Stellarator Fusion Reactor Technology PB-1 (1)     Total Power Output 6    Armour 0    Exp 5%

This design is classed as a Fighter for production, combat and maintenance purposes

I'm planning a missile version, but my missile techs pretty low at the moment.