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[Metalax]

For tugs generally I go with at least 75% of tonnage being engines, stick on a tractor beam and fill up the rest of the space with fuel, allowing for enough engineering space to keep a reasonable maintainance life. If we have reached mid tech armour then put 4-5 layers of armour on to help operate in nebulas as well.

If my fuel situation allows it I may give the tugs higher power engines, usually x1.5 power, letting them handle larger tows at a reasonable pace.

Commercial engined tugs are also designed, for moving things like mining platforms around where speed is not really an issue.

[FritzPL]

Well, I intended on making some orbital habitat platforms and having tugs move them around, so I assume I should use commercial tugs on that?

[Sheb]

Except if you want to enslave your whole population in maintenance part factories, it seems like a good idea.

[FritzPL]

I'm afraid I don't understand.

[andrea]

because a tug that can move orbital habitats is going to be huge. if you make it military, no quantity of engineering spaces is going to avoid it breaking all the time. you will need a steady supply of maintenance parts for it.

I think that is what he meant.

[Metalax]

Eh, they are not that hard to give reasonable maintainance times to.

Code: [Select]

Illustrious class Tug    30,000 tons     553 Crew     4759.9 BP      TCS 600  TH 7200  EM 0
12000 km/s     Armour 3-86     Shields 0-0     Sensors 24/24/0/0     Damage Control Rating 16     PPV 0
Maint Life 1.06 Years     MSP 1611    AFR 443%    IFR 6.2%    1YR 1434    5YR 21509    Max Repair 400 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 12 months    Spare Berths 1   
Tractor Beam     

S-50 x1.00 EP Magneto-plasma Drive (9)    Power 800    Fuel Use 15%    Signature 800    Exp 10%
Fuel Capacity 4,000,000 Litres    Range 160.0 billion km   (154 days at full power)

ASS S-01 R-001 MR-11 (1)     GPS 48     Range 11.5m km    Resolution 1
Thermal Sensor S-01 TH-24 (1)     Sensitivity 24     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  24m km
EM Detection Sensor S-01 EM-24 (1)     Sensitivity 24     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  24m km

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
Using mid-game tech, this can tow an orbital habitat at around 1250 km/s.

[Flying Dice]

I rarely use normal launchers. Aurora missile battles are all about weight of fire, rather than rate of fire. If you hit a ship with a single volley of 40 missiles, you're going to get a lot more through their PD than if you launched four separate salvos of 10 missiles.

Then you're faced with the problem of more than 1 ship/stronger ships than you thought.

I just designed a first strike ship carrying 24 regular size launchers and 24 0.25 launchers. 48 missiles during the first salvo with continued fire capability if the enemy survives.

Actually, I regularly engage far superior forces. The reload penalties only get really absurd for .33x launchers (which should be abhorred in any case because of FUCKING UNEVEN NUMBERS RAAAGE) and .25x launchers. I typically use a 1:1 ratio of 0.5x launchers and box launchers. The box launchers give you a very high alpha strike capability, and through extensive testing I've decided that 0.5x launchers have the ideal balance. Unless you have complete shit for reload speed tech, you're only looking at a reload time of ~+60 seconds in exchange for doubled launcher numbers.

And, as noted in damned near every conversation re: missile combat, nothing says you need to launch all of your missiles at once if the targets don't merit it, hence the concept of hot-switching FC links, or for that matter having different ships target different enemies. Also, if you're encountering ships that can eat a full salvo without blinking, launching a smaller salvo every 30 seconds is going to be worse than one twice the size of the former every 90 seconds or so.

[Karlito]

Does it matter if your launchers take 10 minutes to reload when you have to wait that long to see the results of your first salvo anyway?

[Flying Dice]

There's another point. Ship to ship combat takes a long time to come to the conclusion, relatively speaking. Either you're waiting minutes for your missiles to arrive, or you're waiting minutes-hours for your E/KW platforms to close.

[RedKing]

Eh, they are not that hard to give reasonable maintainance times to.

Code: [Select]

Illustrious class Tug    30,000 tons     553 Crew     4759.9 BP      TCS 600  TH 7200  EM 0
12000 km/s     Armour 3-86     Shields 0-0     Sensors 24/24/0/0     Damage Control Rating 16     PPV 0
Maint Life 1.06 Years     MSP 1611    AFR 443%    IFR 6.2%    1YR 1434    5YR 21509    Max Repair 400 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 12 months    Spare Berths 1   
Tractor Beam     

S-50 x1.00 EP Magneto-plasma Drive (9)    Power 800    Fuel Use 15%    Signature 800    Exp 10%
Fuel Capacity 4,000,000 Litres    Range 160.0 billion km   (154 days at full power)

ASS S-01 R-001 MR-11 (1)     GPS 48     Range 11.5m km    Resolution 1
Thermal Sensor S-01 TH-24 (1)     Sensitivity 24     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  24m km
EM Detection Sensor S-01 EM-24 (1)     Sensitivity 24     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  24m km

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
Using mid-game tech, this can tow an orbital habitat at around 1250 km/s.

Here's my latest iteration of the Rover-class tug:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Rover III class Tug    31,900 tons     274 Crew     1839 BP      TCS 638  TH 5000  EM 0
7836 km/s     Armour 1-89     Shields 0-0     Sensors 8/11/0/0     Damage Control Rating 1     PPV 0
MSP 36    Max Repair 125 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 24 months    Spare Berths 3   
Tractor Beam     

CIF-500 LongHaul (10)    Power 500    Fuel Use 4.42%    Signature 500    Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 5,000,000 Litres    Range 638.2 billion km   (942 days at full power)

ThermaSens-8 (1)     Sensitivity 8     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  8m km
MagnaSens-11 (1)     Sensitivity 11     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  11m km

This design is classed as a Commercial Vessel for maintenance purposes

Obviously built for duration rather than performance. One of their chief duties is toting these babies around:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Gaia class Terraformer    607,250 tons     3014 Crew     13544.4 BP      TCS 12145  TH 0  EM 0
1 km/s     Armour 1-638     Shields 0-0     Sensors 8/8/0/0     Damage Control Rating 1     PPV 0
MSP 14    Max Repair 500 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 3 months    Spare Berths 2   
Recreational Facilities
Terraformer: 20 module(s) producing 0.05 atm per annum


ThermaSens-8 (1)     Sensitivity 8     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  8m km
MagnaSens-8 (1)     Sensitivity 8     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  8m km

This design is classed as a Commercial Vessel for maintenance purposes

Big and expensive, but the payoff is significant. I can drop a breathable amount of oxygen on any rock in under two years' time. If I have to start from an airless rock, and go with a standard mix of 0.3atm N₂ and 0.1atm O₂, then it's under eight years (and then adjusting for temperature, of course). If I have a ship captain with a high terraforming skill, it can be considerably less. I've got seven standard-habitable worlds in the Confederation now, with another two under terraforming, and one of the habitable ones undergoing a bit of habitat improvement to make it more pleasant.

[FritzPL]

I never thought terraforming modules were that useful, until I realized that you need 5m workers in the manufactoring sector on the planet if you want to use the buildable ones.

[Tarran]

You also have to consider that terraforming ships negate the need to occupy your freighters.

Terraforming installations are also very large. You'd need 5 times as much ship room for shipping installations than a module takes up. That also means you'd have to spend multiple times as much fuel as the terraforming ships would have to if you use the same engines.

Heck, compared to 300 Dur and Bor for installations, they cost 250 Dur and Bor, so they're actually cheaper!

So yes, modules have a lot of things going for them. Especially on closer inspection.

[Flying Dice]

Also of note is that if you use terraforming modules you can fill the ships with terraforming bonus officers.

[Tarran]

You can use governors instead, though, if you use installations. And instead of multiple officers for each ship, you only need one for each planet.

[Sirus]

But you can only have one Governor per planet, while you can have multiple officers on a ship all contributing a terraforming bonus.
Right?