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[Metalax]

4. All active sensors are military systems. 

Just to correct this, active sensors of 1 hull space(50 tons) or smaller are not classed as military systems. I routinely put a size 1 thermal, EM and active sensor on each of my designs to provide basic capability, and so that if a commercial ship gets ambushed somewhere I can hopefully gather some data on the threat before the ship dies.

5 working on SS is pretty much an unintended feature.

Huh, I thought Steve had disabled capture of SS by boarders for precisely that reason a while back. I do recall building a giant hangar ship to hold the SS Queen I went hunting for once, as otherwise it pretty much starts falling apart immediately after capture due to lack of maintenance.

[Flying Dice]

He might have -- I haven't bothered with that since a long time ago when I nabbed a Queen to look at.

[LoSboccacc]

I do recall building a giant hangar ship to hold the SS Queen I went hunting for once

well, that's the reason I love bay12, right there.

[Culise]

4. All active sensors are military systems. 

Just to correct this, active sensors of 1 hull space(50 tons) or smaller are not classed as military systems. I routinely put a size 1 thermal, EM and active sensor on each of my designs to provide basic capability, and so that if a commercial ship gets ambushed somewhere I can hopefully gather some data on the threat before the ship dies.

Thank you; I did not know that, and have revised my post.  I always did the passive sensors (for RP as well as any hope of getting sensor data), but I had no idea about commercial active sensors, so knowing about them as well will help in future games. ^_^

[AlleeCat]

So, I just started the game, and I'm already confused. The getting started wiki page shows a lot of stuff I don't have on my game, and when I try to figure it out myself, I get stuck because there are no "default races" and I can't create one, but I apparently need one to do anything whatsoever.

[Defacto]

So, I just started the game, and I'm already confused. The getting started wiki page shows a lot of stuff I don't have on my game, and when I try to figure it out myself, I get stuck because there are no "default races" and I can't create one, but I apparently need one to do anything whatsoever.

Did you choose the ''start in Sol system'' or ''generate Sol system'' (I forget the name) option? I think that it sets you up with a race as default, which you then can edit.

[Atrushan]

Ok, so, I'm fairly new to Aurora, having only discovered it in the past month. So far, I think I've got a fairly good grasp on the basics, but I have a few specific questions:

First and most importantly, on average, how long does it take to have your Aurora forum account activated? Because it's been a couple of weeks now, and I'm tired of entering a captcha every time I need to search for the forums for something not on the wiki. It may not be the most active community, but I'm sure they can help almost as well as you guys can. Also I'd really like to obtain the designer password, because I don't like being hamstrung by things I have absolutely no control over, such as wars on the other side of the galaxy.

Second, is there any peaceful way of discouraging neutral NPR ships from following my civie freighters around? Because there's a cluster of four of them in Alpha Centauri basically just following freighter traffic and causing one minute intervals. Turning off sensors in the system helps a bit, but I don't want to leave them off for too long, and whenever I turn them back on I get maybe a month before they're following another freighter around. I'd rather not go to war, because one of their worlds shares a system with another NPR that wants to trade with me, and I'm trying to get it to where I can trade with both of them.

Third, and this is more of an opinion question than anything, but when designing ships, what weight do you typically shoot for, in regards to class names? Such as cruisers, battleships, and so on. Because I've got 3kT point defense frigates, 6kT area defense destroyers, 10kT beam cruisers, and 35kT beam battleships. I realize it doesn't really make a difference what class name you assign to a ship, but I'd still like to see what might be considered "standard" weight/class assignments. I'm thinking mine may be a bit too lightweight...
Also, the reason I prefer beams to missiles is because for any ship that flings missiles at me, I've usually got more than enough point defense and shielding to exhaust their stores before they can do too much damage_{and also i cant design missiles to save my life}.

I think that's it for now. If I have any more questions later, well... I know I can count on you guys!

[Karlito]

First and most importantly, on average, how long does it take to have your Aurora forum account activated? Because it's been a couple of weeks now, and I'm tired of entering a captcha every time I need to search for the forums for something not on the wiki. It may not be the most active community, but I'm sure they can help almost as well as you guys can. Also I'd really like to obtain the designer password, because I don't like being hamstrung by things I have absolutely no control over, such as wars on the other side of the galaxy.

"A couple weeks" is too long. I think I was approved within 24 hours (but that was a few years ago). Is there a way you can message the admin over there?
I'll pm you the designer password, though. I think people mostly just get a bunch of bad attitude when they ask on the Aurora boards.

Third, and this is more of an opinion question than anything, but when designing ships, what weight do you typically shoot for, in regards to class names? Such as cruisers, battleships, and so on. Because I've got 3kT point defense frigates, 6kT area defense destroyers, 10kT beam cruisers, and 35kT beam battleships. I realize it doesn't really make a difference what class name you assign to a ship, but I'd still like to see what might be considered "standard" weight/class assignments. I'm thinking mine may be a bit too lightweight...

That looks pretty similar to where I design my ships, though I typically just fill 10000 tons up with as many missile launchers as it can hold and call it a "cruiser".

[Lord Shonus]

Third, and this is more of an opinion question than anything, but when designing ships, what weight do you typically shoot for, in regards to class names? Such as cruisers, battleships, and so on. Because I've got 3kT point defense frigates, 6kT area defense destroyers, 10kT beam cruisers, and 35kT beam battleships. I realize it doesn't really make a difference what class name you assign to a ship, but I'd still like to see what might be considered "standard" weight/class assignments. I'm thinking mine may be a bit too lightweight...
Also, the reason I prefer beams to missiles is because for any ship that flings missiles at me, I've usually got more than enough point defense and shielding to exhaust their stores before they can do too much damage_{and also i cant design missiles to save my life}.

I think that's it for now. If I have any more questions later, well... I know I can count on you guys!

I base my weight classifications (aside from attrition units such as FACs and fighters, which have built-in limits) on shipyard capacity (possibly after a few quick tonnage upgrades to get things into a nicer number). If, for example, I start with my best naval shipyard at 12 kiloton capacity, my CA will clock in at 12 kiltons. From there, the weights are relative - CLs are at 2/3 CA (8000 in this example), DDs are at 1/3 (4000) and FFs at 1/6 (2000, at this stage not worth using). For bigger units, I scale upward, accepting that it will be awhile before I can build them - a Battle Cruiser is 2x CA weight (24000), a Battleship is 4x (48000), Dreadnooghts are 8x, and Superdreadnoughts would be 16x. These sizes are flexible - as engine technology (my main limiter, I cannot abide slow warships) progresses, class tonnages go up.

As for missiles, ignoring them is suicide - even the best point defenses (and beam PD is far from the best) will leak fairly soon - you're probably running into NPRs that are spraying you with their countermissiles - if they were using proper shipkillers even one or two hits on most ships is serious damage. Fortunately, missile design is fairly easy as long as you coordinate search sensor ranges, fire control ranges, and missile ranges (for best results, you should provide just enough fuel on your missile to come close to your fire control range, and your fire control range should be less than your search sensor range). Devote 1/3 of the missile to engine (this is not a hard-and-fast rule, you can use more if you want a faster missile, although if you mix different kinds of shipkillers they should all move at close to the same speed), enough fuel for your desired range (the best way to work this out is put in your engine, pad to your desired missile size with warhead, then move MSP from warhead to fuel (remember that you can use decimal amounts, my missiles tend to have around .7 fuel) until you get the desired range. With engine and fuel fixed, work out your warhead/agility/sensor (note that sensors or electronic warfare will add a power generator that takes up space) ratio until you're happy with it. Missiles generally have  10000% or more the range of energy weapons, and often do more single-hit damage (although beam weapons win the damage contest due to space efficiency and high fire rate) as well, making it quite possible to knock out or cripple several enemy ships before you enter beam range, then use a few beam warships to clean up.

[Atrushan]

Thank you, both of you. Karlito, I'll try to use designer mode as sparingly as possible, plus I typically keep a backup of the database anyways.
Lord Shonus, thanks for the quick tutorial on missiles. I think I may have designed a halfway decent countermissile? It's got 0.13 warhead, 0.02 fuel, and 0.35 agility, with a 0.5 size, 1.4 EP engine. Turns out like this:

Code: [Select]

Missile Size: 1 MSP  (0.05 HS)     Warhead: 1    Armour: 0     Manoeuvre Rating: 38
Speed: 28000 km/s    Engine Endurance: 8 minutes   Range: 13.0m km
Cost Per Missile: 1.16
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 1064%   3k km/s 342%   5k km/s 212.8%   10k km/s 106.4%
Materials Required:    0.25x Tritanium   0.91x Gallicite   Fuel x50

Development Cost for Project: 116RP

In regard to point defense, I haven't actually gone to war with an NPR yet. Had to clear out some annoying problems from Alpha Centauri, though, and (apart from the first volley out of a large time increment, which didn't even make it all the way through one battleship's armor) I don't think their missiles even touched me. The laser turrets picked off a few of them, with the mesons and gauss turrets taking out the rest. I take it NPRs are a bit more competent with their missiles?

I'm not overly concerned with offensive missiles for the time being. As long as I can swat aside the majority of incoming missiles, the heavy laser turrets should do quite a bit of damage, not to mention the advanced spinal mounted one.

Speaking of missiles, in your opinion, which would be more effective for shipkillers: several normal missile launchers with a reasonable reload time, accompanied by a fairly sizable magazine, or an equivalent weight in box launchers?

Also, I remembered another question I had. When it comes to NPRs, does attempting to board one of their ships count as an act of war? I'm assuming it does, but I just wanted to make sure. And can you board non-NPR ships?

[Lord Shonus]

Code: [Select]

Missile Size: 1 MSP  (0.05 HS)     Warhead: 1    Armour: 0     Manoeuvre Rating: 38
Speed: 28000 km/s    Engine Endurance: 8 minutes   Range: 13.0m km
Cost Per Missile: 1.16
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 1064%   3k km/s 342%   5k km/s 212.8%   10k km/s 106.4%
Materials Required:    0.25x Tritanium   0.91x Gallicite   Fuel x50

Development Cost for Project: 116RP


Range is way too long - you're going to have a hard time tracking most missiles much farther than 1 million kilometers away, so strip your fuel down to what you need for that and either put the rest into agility or have a missile smaller than 1 (which will go faster).

In regard to point defense, I haven't actually gone to war with an NPR yet. Had to clear out some annoying problems from Alpha Centauri, though, and (apart from the first volley out of a large time increment, which didn't even make it all the way through one battleship's armor) I don't think their missiles even touched me. The laser turrets picked off a few of them, with the mesons and gauss turrets taking out the rest. I take it NPRs are a bit more competent with their missiles?

I'm not overly concerned with offensive missiles for the time being. As long as I can swat aside the majority of incoming missiles, the heavy laser turrets should do quite a bit of damage, not to mention the advanced spinal mounted one.

It's based on tech level. Low tech NPR races don't have very good missiles. Even then, however, you'll have to get past hundreds of missiles before you get into beam range, because you're outranged so badly; and if they're using actual shipkilling missiles, it only takes a few solid hits - one size 7 missile can cripple a 12 megaton cruiser.

Speaking of missiles, in your opinion, which would be more effective for shipkillers: several normal missile launchers with a reasonable reload time, accompanied by a fairly sizable magazine, or an equivalent weight in box launchers?

First, don't use box launchers on ships - they're single-shot. Reduced-size launchers can work quite well - my preference is for a large number of reduced-sized heavy missile lauchers and a small number of full-size lighter ones - using the heavy launchers to target the biggest threats while the lighter ones keep up sustained fire. I try to fix my magazines to have about thirty minutes worth of sustained combat capability, as I can't fit in more without sacrificing launchers or

[Bremen]

Actually, if you do the math you don't lose all that much in terms of total missiles with box launchers compared to a normal missile launcher; IIRC box launchers are basically magazines at about 75% magazine efficiency in addition to being launchers. Making your ships box launchers isn't a horrible choice if you want a heavy weight of fire to get through point defense. They kind of lose out on versatility though, and remove the option to use ammo colliers.

[Rince Wind]

I tend to fill up the last couple tons with box launchers, so I get a nice, round number.

[Atrushan]

So I went and did some math on the missile launchers. At my current tech level, size 5 launchers have a forty second reload time, and five launchers plus a magazine for each of them with thirty minutes worth of missiles comes out to 95HS. For very slightly less HS, I can fit 126 size 5 box launchers. Each magazine holds 45 missiles, times five magazines, means 225 missiles total.

Assuming 9dmg missiles, the standard launchers will put out a total of 2025 damage over the thirty minutes, or 67.5dmg every minute. In comparison, the 126 box launchers can deal out 1134dmg in one launch, which I'm assuming would be more than enough to wipe most things off the map.

HOWEVER. These figures are against a target sitting perfectly still with no point defense. In reality, more than a few missiles will either miss or be shot down. Worst case scenario, every single one of the five missile volleys is taken out. In this case, the box launchers have a clear advantage with sheer, overwhelming firepower.

HOWEVER. I would not design the same types of missiles for standard and box launchers. If I'm planning a full-on Macross, I'm going to give the box launcher missiles active sensors, which lowers the warhead. That's why I calculated using 9dmg warheads. The standard launchers don't really need sensors, so they get 18dmg warheads instead. Suddenly, their total damage output doubles to 4050 total damage, or 135 damage a minute. In addition, if I'm using missile ships, I'm not just going to use one of them. Let's assume I build five ships. That's five volleys of five missiles each, which have greatly decreased chances of all getting shot down. Of course, five box launcher ships would put out five volleys of 126 missiles in the same time frame.

HOWEVER. Very few ships should need such overwhelming firepower directed at them. In that case, I'm just wasting missiles with the box launchers. Considering that, it's much more economical to use the standard launchers instead, as long as I intend to actually keep the ships in service for any length of time.

In conclusion, the way I figure it, while a ship full of box launchers is certainly more effective in battle, that same ship with an equivalent weight in standard launchers and magazines is probably much cheaper in the long run.

[IWishIWereSarah]

I think you can use box launcher on small ships and use bigger ships to rearm them, can't you ?