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[Alastar]

That's a very sturdy escort ship, mine are a lot flimsier:

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Flower class Destroyer Escort    8 500 tons     237 Crew     1265 BP      TCS 170  TH 1360  EM 0
8000 km/s     Armour 2-37     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 4     PPV 36
Maint Life 1.21 Years     MSP 372    AFR 144%    IFR 2%    1YR 262    5YR 3935    Max Repair 289 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 10 months    Spare Berths 2   

680 EP Magneto-plasma Drive (2)    Power 680    Fuel Use 19.98%    Signature 680    Exp 8%
Fuel Capacity 165 000 Litres    Range 17.5 billion km   (25 days at full power)

10cm C3 Ultraviolet Laser (1)    Range 120 000km     TS: 8000 km/s     Power 3-3     RM 4    ROF 5        3 3 3 3 2 2 1 1 1 1
10cm Railgun V4/C3 (11x4)    Range 40 000km     TS: 8000 km/s     Power 3-3     RM 4    ROF 5        1 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0
Fire Control S02 64-8000 (1)    Max Range: 128 000 km   TS: 8000 km/s     92 84 77 69 61 53 45 37 30 22
Stellarator Fusion Reactor Technology PB-1 (6)     Total Power Output 36    Armour 0    Exp 5%

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes

[Bremen]

That's a dangerous spinal laser. Did you ever manage to use it?

Not that I recall, unfortunately. Actually come to think of it I think I probably did, but never in an actual slugfest; just mopping up actions after big missile engagements, where it dealt with damaged or ammoless ships.

[Rolepgeek]

Hell, when I used Railgun PD, I basically just used fighters and FAC with max power engines. Pulled double duty for anti-missile defense on fleets with carriers and could sally out and attack too, since I usually had them alongside a min-res sensor equipped flight leader.

[Flying Dice]

Hell, when I used Railgun PD, I basically just used fighters and FAC with max power engines. Pulled double duty for anti-missile defense on fleets with carriers and could sally out and attack too, since I usually had them alongside a min-res sensor equipped flight leader.

If I was going to use them, this is what I'd do. Anything else is dangerously vulnerable to higher-tech missiles in a way that turreted PD with 20-25km/s tracking speed isn't.

Granted if you don't start with extant NPRs you're probably not going to run in to anything like that once you surpass the Precursors.

[Rolepgeek]

Alternatively, simply load up on purely tiny railguns on all of your ships, give good shields, decent armor, and speed, and sandblast stuff to death.

[Flying Dice]

The thing is, you don't really see much of an uptick in speed as you progress up the tech tree unless you intentionally build flimsy ships and don't increase their ordinance much. You still run into the dichotomy of "Are they fast enough to close the gap?" vs. "Are they well-protected enough to survive doing so?" with the added bonus of "Can they do appreciable damage when they get there?" Here's what I'm using at the moment as a dedicated beam skirmisher with self-defense capability (it's mainly for killing Swarm), and my newish carrier PD escort.

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Anthalos  class Light Cruiser    12,800 tons     392 Crew     11570 BP      TCS 256  TH 256  EM 0
12500 km/s     Armour 8-48     Shields 0-0     Sensors 32/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 36     PPV 73.12
Maint Life 1.78 Years     MSP 3390    AFR 218%    IFR 3%    1YR 1323    5YR 19845    Max Repair 1100 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 60 months    Spare Berths 0   

800 EP Solid Core AM Drive (4)    Power 800    Fuel Use 20%    Signature 64    Exp 10%
Fuel Capacity 1,000,000 Litres    Range 70.3 billion km   (65 days at full power)

Twin Karkasy-Tahril 15cm C10 Extreme X-ray Laser Turret (6x2)    Range 480,000km     TS: 20000 km/s     Power 12-20     RM 9    ROF 5        6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 5
Orion Megacorp 52cm C10 Extreme X-ray Laser (1)    Range 480,000km     TS: 12500 km/s     Power 71-10     RM 9    ROF 40        71 71 71 71 71 71 71 71 71 63
Astaroth Incorporated Fire Control S04 240-20000 (3)    Max Range: 480,000 km   TS: 20000 km/s     98 96 94 92 90 88 85 83 81 79
Kyras-Vandis Engines Limited S-C A-M Power Plant (13)     Total Power Output 130    Armour 0    Exp 20%

Ectelion-Ekimus Active Search Sensor MR25-R1 (1)     GPS 80     Range 25.6m km    MCR 2.8m km    Resolution 1
Darius & Temetor Thermal Sensor TH1-32 (1)     Sensitivity 32     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  32m km

ECCM-5 (1)         ECM 50


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Guardian class Escort Cruiser    31,250 tons     567 Crew     7828 BP      TCS 625  TH 5000  EM 0
8000 km/s     Armour 10-88     Shields 0-0     Sensors 320/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 40     PPV 218.79
Maint Life 1.06 Years     MSP 2566    AFR 781%    IFR 10.9%    1YR 2284    5YR 34264    Max Repair 1600 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 60 months    Spare Berths 0   
Cryogenic Berths 200   

Orcus-Morax Research Inc 1000 EP AM-S-C (5)    Power 1000    Fuel Use 2.21%    Signature 1000    Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 1,000,000 Litres    Range 260.6 billion km   (377 days at full power)

Triple Fabian Weapon Systems Gauss Cannon R5-100 Turret (9x15)    Range 50,000km     TS: 20000 km/s     Power 0-0     RM 5    ROF 5        1 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0
Endanor-Cain Sensor Systems Fire Control S01 60-20000 (3)    Max Range: 120,000 km   TS: 20000 km/s     92 83 75 67 58 50 42 33 25 17

Tahril-Balian Active Search Sensor MR512-R1 (1)     GPS 1600     Range 512.0m km    MCR 55.8m km    Resolution 1
Sanguinius-Pertinax Syndicate Thermal Sensor TH10-320 (1)     Sensitivity 320     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  320m km

ECM 50
Still on my CV-heavy campaign so I don't get much use even out of PD ships since most of my combat takes place several billion km away from my task groups. That Anthalos is actually the largest, best-protected warship I have, most of the others are either missile skirmishers or dedicated support ships. I'm still relying on fighters for exactly the reason I outlined above: they're fast, hard to hit, and ultimately disposable.

[ZetaX]

Unfortunately physics just proved recently (2003?) that gravity doesn't work faster than light which a lot of HH plot works around (and maybe the starfire books?).
Pity... I hate it when science gets in the way of a good plot.

That's not a recent result. We knew since general relativity that gravity should move at the speed of light, and very definitely not faster; it  should not be slower, but that causes way less quirks than being faster: loss of causality.

[MarcAFK]

The change log for 6.50 just keeps getting better.

[Drakale]

Yeah, I'll probably start a new game when he release. The reduced number of jump points sound like a good change, I like the idea of a more constrained expansion and fewer immediately close systems to your home worlds. Hopefully it will make it easier to have actually defended borders instead of pickets everywhere. 

[Culise]

Aye.  I can't even start a new game right now, I'm looking forward to the new version's changes so much.  Of course, since there's never an ETA, that may well be a while.  ^_^

[Bremen]

I actually had an idea for an Aurora thread, but I kind of set it aside after the last project (a ship design competition) got virtually no influence.

I've done Aurora LPs before, but they all kind of faded away. I blame my innate bad luck with ever finding actual opponents to fight; there's only so much peaceful expansion you can do before it gets kind of boring. Instead, I was thinking about one that started with an already developed empire that makes contact with a hostile race; basically, recreating In Death Ground in the Aurora engine. I'd be playing both, since I wouldn't really trust the AI to present a threat, and it would probably start with a setup phase where the audience would get to vote on or submit ship designs and how to use them. The more audience participation the better, since it would make it less me playing chess with myself.

The recent posts on ship design, as well as Steve's new campaign, all reminded me of this. I might give it a go, but I wanted to see if there would be any interest before I invest the effort in setting up the save.

[Sheb]

Well, I had an attempt at an LP with two human-controlled side. Don't remember how it died.

But you could give it a try. You could even name the two factions Moksburg and Arstotzka. :p

[Rolepgeek]

Unfortunately physics just proved recently (2003?) that gravity doesn't work faster than light which a lot of HH plot works around (and maybe the starfire books?).
Pity... I hate it when science gets in the way of a good plot.

That's not a recent result. We knew since general relativity that gravity should move at the speed of light, and very definitely not faster; it  should not be slower, but that causes way less quirks than being faster: loss of causality.

Eh, in sci fi, if you're not going for a 'this is what will happen in our future if/unless X then you can always just say they're in a universe where the laws of physics are slightly different.

Though with the way the speed of light functions as a hard limit on basically everything, which implies that light moves as fast as is possible, period, except through some substances, it does give a bit more credence to the 'we're in a simulation' school of thought. As does the way matter starts to act 'weird' once you get too close to absolute zero, like you're going outside the bounds of the game engine.

In any case, I've been wanting to do a multiplayer Aurora thing, or a campaigned version with much slower engines on everything(like half power for all engines, modded or the like), but the problem is getting back into it. Takes a lot of time to play an Aurora game, particularly since I like trying to do conventional starts.

On a different topic, I forget, how is it explained that the TN materials move with the stars in the solar system(since the solar system itself is moving through the galaxy and all)?

[Bremen]

Well, I had an attempt at an LP with two human-controlled side. Don't remember how it died.

But you could give it a try. You could even name the two factions Moksburg and Arstotzka. :p

I don't think an LP where the audience plays the sides is doable. You're just not going to get people putting in that much effort consistently.

This would be more a choose your own adventure style, except with the backdrop of interstellar war between the humans and the bugs.

[Sheb]

Why not? Look at the Moksburg thread!