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[Dutchling]

I don't know if it's Chromium issue or just me, but I can't properly see forum code inside of spoilers so I'm just going to make this post so I can see your design :v

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Ramilies - Logistic Section class Starfort    150,000,000 tons     646395 Crew     4871863 BP      TCS 3000000  TH 19125000  EM 0
6375 km/s     Armour 12-25148     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/50     Damage Control Rating 26     PPV 0
MSP 528    Max Repair 500 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 60 months    Spare Berths 10   
Cargo 44250000    Cryogenic Berths 30000000    Passengers 482500    Cargo Handling Multiplier 120000    Tractor Beam     
Recreational Facilities
Fuel Harvester: 15330 modules producing 2146200000 litres per annum
Terraformer: 456 module(s) producing 3.648 atm per annum

1250 EP Commercial Photonic Drive (15300)    Power 1250    Fuel Use 0.16%    Signature 1250    Exp 2%
Fuel Capacity 2,141,700,000 Litres    Range 1606.3 billion km   (2916 days at full power)

CIWS-1000 (100x16)    Range 1000 km     TS: 100000 km/s     ROF 5       Base 50% To Hit
Phased Geological Sensors (10)   50 Survey Points Per Hour

This design is classed as a Commercial Vessel for colonization and resupply purposes

[Metalax]

So a thought came to mind...what about creating a mothership that is capable of transporting a decent chunk of population and industry...then I started to look at the cost 

The mothership idea is a fairly common one, you should find plenty of designs by digging back through this thread or over on the aurora board. Quite often used as a start point for a game if you want something different from the normal planetary start.

But it does bring up an interesting question in my mind...can multiple tugs pull a single object if they are in the same task group?

No, only one tractor link can normally be established to a ship. (It is possible to set up tractor trains, but the change in speed is not propagated down the chain, so you can't actually increase speed by using further tugs.)

Different question...can you send 2 ships after an enemy ship, one with a tractor beam to slow the ship down and the other with a boarding party?

Tractors can only target your own ships+your civilian ships, so no slowing down enemies in that fashion. For successful boarding you need your boarding ship to be much faster than the target, optimally at least 20 times as fast so no casualties occur simply from the boarding attempt before fighting starts. For this reason most boarding is done via shuttles consisting of the combat drop module, a small amount of fuel and the most powerful engine that can be fitted.

I thought gauss was point defence only o.O

At least, if you're actually intend to use them.

Technically yes. Dicking around in is a major past time for the players though, so making super gauss ships isn't that uncommon. Besides, with full guass ships you'll have nothing to fear from missiles.

Gauss focused warships are like chainsaws, if you are slower than your enemy they are useless, but if you are faster then they are going to suffer, greatly.

[LoSboccacc]

faster and with more initiative

don't overlook the last aspect as the combat is turn based - if they move before you, you're never getting at close range unless your range is greater than their speed.

anyway

how/where do you check the civilian freighter design?

[Metalax]

faster and with more initiative

don't overlook the last aspect as the combat is turn based - if they move before you, you're never getting at close range unless your range is greater than their speed.

True, although that is generally true for any beam warship to reach their desired separation. It is also why it is a good idea to throw in at least a few levels of the gauss velocity tech-line to give you some leeway in range.

how/where do you check the civilian freighter design?

In the class design page there should be a checkbox for show civilian designs. Check that and the civilian designs should then appear in the class dropdown.

[etgfrog]

faster and with more initiative

don't overlook the last aspect as the combat is turn based - if they move before you, you're never getting at close range unless your range is greater than their speed.

anyway

how/where do you check the civilian freighter design?

So if your faster then them and are trying to stay ontop of them, set initiative down to very low?

Different question...is it worth it to task force train fighters?

On another thought, is this roughly what you meant by survey fighter?

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Dadiat E class Geosurvey Ship    500 tons     15 Crew     137.6 BP      TCS 10  TH 1.5  EM 0
300 km/s    JR 1-50     Armour 1-5     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/1/0     Damage Control Rating 0     PPV 0
Maint Life 0 Years     MSP 0    AFR 100%    IFR 1.4%    1YR 35    5YR 525    Max Repair 100 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 3 months    Spare Berths 2   

J600(1-50) Military Jump Drive     Max Ship Size 600 tons    Distance 50k km     Squadron Size 1
3 EP Ion Drive (1)    Power 3    Fuel Use 2.16%    Signature 1.5    Exp 2%
Fuel Capacity 40,000 Litres    Range 666.7 billion km   (25720 days at full power)

Gravitational Survey Sensors (1)   1 Survey Points Per Hour

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

[Flying Dice]

faster and with more initiative

don't overlook the last aspect as the combat is turn based - if they move before you, you're never getting at close range unless your range is greater than their speed.

anyway

how/where do you check the civilian freighter design?

So if your faster then them and are trying to stay ontop of them, set initiative down to very low?

Different question...is it worth it to task force train fighters?

You don't really "set" initiative, per se. Rather, combat plays out in a particular way because of the way the game processes turns. If an enemy ship is fast enough to travel more than your weapon range in a single 5-second tick, they'll be able to kite you because every tick they'll move out of range before you can fire, repeat ad nausem. On a similar note (at least until the next update), intercept courses are plotted based on where the target was, rather than where it will be. This is especially problematic because of the very short range of gauss weapons.

[EuchreJack]

Is there a way to change military shipyards to civilian commercial and vice versa?

I'd just like to point out that military shipyards can produce commercial craft.  I'm avoiding the use "civilian" as that typically means ships used by the trade companies and completely out of player control.

[Hanzoku]

Re: fighters, if they are docked in hanger modules on a task force in training, I believe they also gain training. So you don't need to specifically set the fighters to train.

[etgfrog]

Well...I looked it up
http://aurorawiki.pentarch.org/index.php?title=Task_Group_Initiative
surprised I didn't look it up before...but that does make initiative very useful

by the way, you can set your fleet's initative in the task groups window, its to the right of the survey points.

[Flying Dice]

Oh, right, that! Yeah, I never really made much use of it, because my fleet comps are pretty much always missile-centric, and the only reason you'd really need to fiddle with that is if you're pulling off some really close kiting. There's only one specific class of enemy I intentionally engage with energy weapons, and they move too slowly to be concerned with, at least if you've got the proper specialized type of ship for dealing with them.

That aside, E/KW engagements tend to be fairly one-sided if there's any sort of substantial tech difference, which is one of the reasons I stick to missiles early on: low-tech ships just plain don't have the armor to eat the sort of fire you'll take from energy engagements, and once you get to higher techs your E/KW sluggers are almost certainly going to be blobs of armor with guns strapped on. It's usually just simpler to charge in and smash faces, saving the kiting for missile ships. If you wanted to try your hand at it, though, yes, that's useful to tinker with.

I'm just a tad bit prejudiced towards a "reach out and touch someone" fleet comp, if I'm to be honest; my ships tend to be: LRM platforms with a range of upwards of 1b km, carrier groups servicing missile fighters (which at ~250t tend to be small enough to avoid detection even when they're only launching from 10-20m km), unarmed sensor ships of two types (a fast light cruiser carrying a single HS-50 16-res AS, and a cloaked frigate with large passive sensors), heavy battery ships with large numbers of shorter ranged ~250m km ASMs, and Macross-style frigates/FACs with mountains of box launchers. The only time I really build dedicated E/KW ships is for missile interception (groups of laser-armed ships set to area PD positioned between carrier groups and enemy ships, at least once I get decent laser range, and gauss-turret escorts), and heavy brawlers that are just fast enough to outrun Queens while blasting them with lasers from beyond meson range. That, and meson FACs if I'm being stupid and playing with Invaders on. :/

[LoSboccacc]

Where do you get that much missiles?

Long missile engagements tend to cripple my economy

[MarcAFK]

I always cripple my economy with fuel shortages. As said earlier about some other guys ships, I design mine like early 70's dodge muscle cars.

[EuchreJack]

I don't have much combat experience, but I'm fond of a combination gauss anti-missile/sensor ship.  Since the sensor ships tend to be targets (from what I read: I haven't been fortunate to ever face combat), combining them with the anti-missile role just seems to make sense.

[Flying Dice]

Where do you get that much missiles?

Long missile engagements tend to cripple my economy

Minemineminemine. Seriously, something like ~40-60% of my facilities and commercial shipping are devoted to resourcing. I also tend to avoid conflicts for as long as possible, so I don't actually start producing large numbers of missiles until tech progress is slow enough for them to not be obsolete a few years after production.

That, and practicing fire discipline. If you have all your ships launch full volleys at everything you face, you're going to run into logistics trouble. I typically test new enemy classes with a single half-volley to see what their defenses are like, and work out appropriate levels of fire for ones I've already encountered. The only time I ever find myself pulling a real Macross attack is when I'm drastically outclassed.

Take, for example, a typical Precursor-held system. Ballpark it at 8 FACs, 4 ships of 8k-12k tons, and a pair of stations. At TL4-5ish I'd probably expend no more than 400 ASMs, unless the enemy fleet comp specifically forced me to; if they were all missile-armed and my escorts took care of their fire, I'd probably cripple them with a volley or two and close to finish with secondaries.

What it ultimately comes down to for me is that replacing missile expenditures and the occasional fighter or <5kton vessel is much less expensive than repairing and replacing E/KW warships that get torn up in every fight. Unless I screw up, I can usually end a fight with minor damage, either through a hasty retreat or because I finished everything at long range. The inherent nature of the combat means that E/KW ships will in almost every situation have to close through enemy fire, which means that you have to spend more on point defense, armor, and possibly shields. It also means that they're pretty much guaranteed to take damage every time they fight something, which drives up repair costs as well as putting an inherent risk on them; it's why when I need a specialized E/KW vessel I usually make disposable FACs so that losses don't matter very much. :|

[MarcAFK]

In my recently started small galaxy game (12 systems, 2 NPRS) I've reached year 2, finally explored the second system; London, and found a binary with 4 nice blue planets, several other terrestrials, 7 gas giants, and at least 150 moons. However the B star orbits 900 billion kilometers from the A and it's sol jump point, and there's an awesome blue super Jovian I really want to survey. ATM I'm being reminded things I may have forgotten, my initial ships are 27kton cruisers with 2 year lifespan, but I started with maintenance facilities for less than half that, expansion will soon hit 18k tons which will match my second biggest jump engine, but I'm probably 5 years away from being able to afford more due to neutronium shortages, my starting commercial shipyard was tiny so I built 8kton military 1/5 hold freighters, needless to say they've drained all my fuel. However expansion is now enough for a 2/5 hold commercial freighter with a third the speed but a tenth the fuel use. The solar system is rather devoid of resources apart from the comets, there's less than 2 million sorium in the gas giants, and I'm not sure where to put my first colony. Im also rather impatient to reach the NPRs but I know they're only 2-3
 more jumps away,  sadly the jump point from sol is 6 billion kilometers from any in London and I believe the distance is too great for any incursions into my home system in the near future.
Edit: just discovered my first Alien installation on the blue terrestrial world of london A 1, the planet has colony cost of 2 and significant mercassium reserves at ACC.y6, as well as very high levels of .1 ACC sorium, uridium and corundium, I think i've found my first colony.