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[Dorsidwarf]

Made first contact. Got exploded. Is it a good idea to create a sacrificial sensor ship? I don't like that my first Ayyy contact ever is hostile.

If you don't want to see it ever again, build as many sensor fighters as there are planets, jump in with a carrier, launch, and jump the carrier out again, leaving the pilots with only one option: Science.

[Erkki]

I need an enemy. Now scouting further and installing listening stations in nearby systems.

Spoiler: The fleet, they dont fit the page... (click to show/hide)

[coleslaw35]

Gaaaaaaah, I'm so bothered! My five day turns are literally taking about two and a half minutes to complete! I really don't want to have to start another game just because of the slow turns, but it looks like I may have to! The ABSOLUTELY MASSIVE friendly fleet from the People's Republic of Zuckerman is certainly not helping either! uuuuuuuugh!

It is probablytemporary, you could likely set it to autskip turns and then walk away for an hour, you might get slaughtered in the meantime, but meh...

It's definitely not temporary. It's been like this for a while now.

[Felius]

Haven't played Aurora in quite a while so refresh my memory: NPRs and Precursors can run out of missiles like the player's ships can, right? I was musing about a "missile catcher" "civilian" design to jump in before any combat fleets and was wondering if it was actually viable (if nearly certainly extremely wasteful and inefficient) or if they would just keep firing as if they had unlimited ammo?

[coleslaw35]

Haven't played Aurora in quite a while so refresh my memory: NPRs and Precursors can run out of missiles like the player's ships can, right? I was musing about a "missile catcher" "civilian" design to jump in before any combat fleets and was wondering if it was actually viable (if nearly certainly extremely wasteful and inefficient) or if they would just keep firing as if they had unlimited ammo?

Yeah, NPRs and Precursors run out of missiles. So yeah, you COULD throw a heavily armored commercial vessel into a dangerous system as a means of diverting missile fire, but you'll have to be wary of.. well.. the vessel being exploded. After all, it's getting shot at by missiles. Also, even if a ship's armor absorbs all of a missile's damage, the ship can still sustain some damage due to the force of the explosion.

[Karlito]

Precursor systems typically have a few small colonies with a missile stockpile that their ships reload from.

[Crashmaster]

I like this game.

The United Provinces of Canada is 55 years into a conventional start. About 4 years ago;

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Apologies for our trespasses were issued and the commercial ion-engine'd Endeavour 007 continued at best speed away from the center of the system as if nothing was wrong.
Apparently something was.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The brave crew of the Endeavour 007 maintained stations and performed damage control until supplies were exhausted. Long enough for the sensors to estimate the enemy craft's class's top speed to be 3020km.
They abandoned ship and were left to die in their life pods. Unable to rescue the crew of the ship that escorted them into the system, the now stuck gravitational survey ships completed their work before skirting around the center of the system to wait for another Endeavour class to jump them back out.
No further travel to Struve 2398.

Originally I was bottle-necked on mercassium but with 1.8mil on Io It didn't seem an issue. Now at magneto-plasma drives I've fumbled together an initial pair of warship designs in the 40kton range and have run into a question; I designed a simple size 3 ASM

Code: [Select]

Missile Size: 3 MSP  (0.15 HS)     Warhead: 9    Armour: 0     Manoeuvre Rating: 18
Speed: 26700 km/s    Engine Endurance: 45 minutes   Range: 71.6m km
Cost Per Missile: 3.73
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 480.6%   3k km/s 144%   5k km/s 96.1%   10k km/s 48.1%
Materials Required:    2.25x Tritanium   1.48x Gallicite   Fuel x1250

Development Cost for Project: 373RP
Yet when I have industry build them they cost;

Code: [Select]

Cost 3.73, size 3
1400 x uridium
Fuel required 1250

They show up as having an "Active 1400" in the sensors column of the missile loadout tab in the ship design window. I don't think I could have accidentally clicked a 1000MSP sensor onto the missile design and not have it affect the size?

Main problem is that I made somewhere around 30 missile before realizing this and am right out of uridium. I understand I could SM fix this somehow but I'm not sure what the problem was or if there was a bug. Thanks in advance if any of this made sense. I'm not so sure it does.

edit; I would appreciate any flaws in my first two warship classes pointed out as well. I've started thinking they are too big.

Code: [Select]

Calgary class Cruiser    39,750 tons     897 Crew     8687.4 BP      TCS 795  TH 768  EM 0
4025 km/s     Armour 13-103     Shields 0-0     Sensors 60/60/0/0     Damage Control Rating 60     PPV 98.04
Maint Life 3.91 Years     MSP 6830    AFR 252%    IFR 3.5%    1YR 708    5YR 10614    Max Repair 800 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 120 months    Spare Berths 0   
Magazine 2040   

Mason & Lambert 800 EP Magneto-plasma Drive (4)    Power 800    Fuel Use 25%    Signature 192    Exp 10%
Fuel Capacity 2,000,000 Litres    Range 36.2 billion km   (104 days at full power)

Twin Newman-Powell 20cm C4 Far Ultraviolet Laser Turret (2x2)    Range 120,000km     TS: 10000 km/s     Power 20-8     RM 5    ROF 15        10 10 10 10 10 8 7 6 5 5
Harvey-Gibson CIWS-160 (6x6)    Range 1000 km     TS: 16000 km/s     ROF 5       Base 50% To Hit
Stanley Megacorp Fire Control S03 60-16000 H50 (1)    Max Range: 120,000 km   TS: 16000 km/s     92 83 75 67 58 50 42 33 25 17
West-Dyer Stellarator Fusion Reactor Technology PB-1 (1)     Total Power Output 18    Armour 0    Exp 5%

Allen Ordnance Size 3 Missile Launcher (20)    Missile Size 3    Rate of Fire 20
Porter-Jenkins Missile Fire Control FC116-R40 (50%) (2)     Range 116.9m km    Resolution 40
Size 3 Anti-ship Missile (680)  Speed: 26,700 km/s   End: 44.7m    Range: 71.6m km   WH: 9    Size: 3    TH: 160/96/48

Newman-Powell Active Search Sensor MR154-R100 (50%) (1)     GPS 14000     Range 154.0m km    Resolution 100
Rowe-Duffy Aerospace Thermal Sensor TH10-60 (70%) (1)     Sensitivity 60     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  60m km
Rowe-Duffy Aerospace EM Detection Sensor EM10-60 (70%) (1)     Sensitivity 60     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  60m km

Missile to hit chances are vs targets moving at 3000 km/s, 5000 km/s and 10,000 km/s

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes


Code: [Select]

Saskatoon class Destroyer    39,850 tons     777 Crew     9830.8 BP      TCS 797  TH 960  EM 0
5018 km/s     Armour 21-103     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 60     PPV 149.88
Maint Life 2.87 Years     MSP 7709    AFR 254%    IFR 3.5%    1YR 1375    5YR 20630    Max Repair 802 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 3 months    Spare Berths 3   

Mason & Lambert 800 EP Magneto-plasma Drive (5)    Power 800    Fuel Use 25%    Signature 192    Exp 10%
Fuel Capacity 2,500,000 Litres    Range 45.2 billion km   (104 days at full power)

Triple Stanley Megacorp 25cm C4 Far Ultraviolet Laser Turret (2x3)    Range 120,000km     TS: 16000 km/s     Power 48-12     RM 5    ROF 20        16 16 16 16 16 13 11 10 8 8
Harvey-Gibson CIWS-160 (8x6)    Range 1000 km     TS: 16000 km/s     ROF 5       Base 50% To Hit
Stanley Megacorp Fire Control S03 60-16000 H50 (2)    Max Range: 120,000 km   TS: 16000 km/s     92 83 75 67 58 50 42 33 25 17
Sutton-Baldwin Stellarator Fusion Reactor Technology PB-1 (2)     Total Power Output 120    Armour 0    Exp 5%

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes


[EuchreJack]

Haven't played Aurora in quite a while so refresh my memory: NPRs and Precursors can run out of missiles like the player's ships can, right? I was musing about a "missile catcher" "civilian" design to jump in before any combat fleets and was wondering if it was actually viable (if nearly certainly extremely wasteful and inefficient) or if they would just keep firing as if they had unlimited ammo?

Yeah, NPRs and Precursors run out of missiles. So yeah, you COULD throw a heavily armored commercial vessel into a dangerous system as a means of diverting missile fire, but you'll have to be wary of.. well.. the vessel being exploded. After all, it's getting shot at by missiles. Also, even if a ship's armor absorbs all of a missile's damage, the ship can still sustain some damage due to the force of the explosion.

Not only is it viable, but it has already been mentioned on both this forum and the Aurora one as an effective tactic.  And if the ship doesn't die, you can repeat it!  Civy ship with only engines and armor, and maybe a few other systems as damage sinks (tons of tiny Engineering/Fuel, despite the efficiency of one large one?).

I generally don't mention it, as I think of it as rather exploity.  Hence why I always suggest the Huge Sensor-Engine Military Scout Cocooned with Armor.  The Military designation, in my simple mind, makes it not-exploity.

Precursor systems typically have a few small colonies with a missile stockpile that their ships reload from.

While that is true, if your ships are faster than the Precursor ships, you may destroy them before they reload from their missile depot.  Precursor ships also ram when they run out of ammo/don't have weapons.

[Flying Dice]

Re: What caused the missile SNAFU: no clue. Never seen any bug like that before. Here's how to fix it:

1. Figure out how many you made. Multiply that by the resource cost. Then, follow this menu path:
A) Main game bar: Spacemaster -> Spacemaster On
B) Main game bar/System display window/whatever: Open Economics window (F2) -> First tab (Summary), select Earth (this should be selected by default, but just in case) -> SM Mods button (bottom-right) -> Go to each of the relevant boxes for the missing minerals. Add the missing total to whatever sum is already there. That's your total mined stockpile on Earth, so once you've added the appropriate minerals back you're good to go on that front.

2. Design a completely new missile. Maybe you did add the sensor accidentally, maybe the design bugged out somehow, it doesn't really matter. Use the Instant RST button in the Research tab to research it instantly instead of starting a new project to research it; it's only fair, given that you've already spent time and wealth researching the design once.

3. Build a test run of the new missile, make sure it's set up properly.

4. Go to your stockpiles (Stockpiles button, upper-right of Industry tab), scrap the missiles. It'll give you extra resources back, but you can consider that payment for the waste of time. Or just let them sit there forever being an eyesore. :V

Re: the ships:

Calgary:
-The beam FCs have 60% tracking speed over the turrets. Unless you just have disproportionately high FC tracking speed tech, you're either wasting volume (by not matching them to the turrets) or TS (by not making the turrets as fast as the FCs).
-One reactor is kinda chancy. All it takes is one unfortunate hit to put your lasers out of action. Same deal here as with fuel tanks and drives: it's almost always better to have multiple smaller ones rather than one big one, so that taking damage to them just reduces your capabilities instead of ruining them.
-The active sensor resolution is way too high if you're not going to always operate these alongside dedicated sensor ships. >=5000t at max range is okay for high-tech warships which have maximum active ranges in excess of 500+m km (and thus a much wider buffer for the >=1000t range), but not for this. FACs will be able to get pretty close before you see them, and depending on the size of the missiles you run into you might not see them at all (though you're using CIWS as your main PD, so that's less of an issue).

Saskatoon:
-Deployment time is still set to 3 months.
-It looks like those reactors provide five times the power that you need to keep up your maximum rate of fire.
-No active sensor at all. If your sensor ships go down, these are useless.

Both:
-Heavily limited range. They'll do fine for defending Sol, but anything more than one system away and you're not going to have the fuel to get out, maneuver in combat, and make it back.

I'd also question relying on CIWS for PD. That's pretty much only appropriate for commercial vessels, ships which will spend the vast majority of their time operating alone, and as supplementary defense for capital ships. This is because CIWS, unlike all other types of PD, can only defend the ship it's mounted on. Generally even using the same tonnage for gauss turrets, FCs, and res-1 actives is going to be more effective for groups.

For the Calgary, I'd recommend trimming the magazine space down to ~20 salvos worth of missiles and using the tonnage for a better active sensor, more fuel, as well as swapping out the CIWS for laser or gauss PD.

For the Saskatoon, I'd recommend fixing the deployment time, adding an active sensor for the main turrets, swapping the CIWS for laser or gauss PD, adding an anti-missile active, and adding more fuel. This one can afford to take on some extra tonnage anyways, since it's ~1k km/s faster than the Calgary; you're never going to use that extra speed unless all the missile boats die.

[Crashmaster]

Many thanks!

That'll take me some time to fully understand but I really appreciate the level of detail.

[Man of Paper]

Alright, made my first combat ship, experimenting with sensor sizes and the like and synergies between equipments, turning out okay. Well at least my CIWS is working pretty well. Anyhows, got some good info on two different contacts. First is the ship that blew up my geological survey vessel carrying a team into brand new territory with no warning whatsoever. Since I'm illiterate with these numbers and their meaning at this point, how screwed am I?

Note: The crew of the Sanctis Legate, my first ever combat ship, performed admirably under pressure. I also learned that getting your reactors blown out with the first few strikes really, really sucks. They're also using outdated sensor tech and whatever equipment I had available, so perhaps a little more diligence by myself would have netted more positive results, Anyway here we go!

The Garuda-class vessel has a Cross Section of 190, Estimated Tonnage of 9750, Thermal Signature of 1320, with an observed/estimated speed of 6769. They also have Sensor S252/R95 with a Max Range of 239.4m km. It is a missile ship, using Rifleman AS missiles that seem to do 18 damage unless multiple missiles are clustered for damage purposes.

The Sanctis Legate managed to fend off a majority of the assault, forcing the Garuda to flee to reload. However, the Sanctis was severely crippled. It had no reactors, no laser weaponry, and one engine. With retreat not an option they pursued the Garuda as well as they could until they were intercepted by two new vessels.

Designated Hodur, their numbers matched the Garuda perfectly, with one variation: an ECM rating of 50. It was also outfitted not with missiles, but with 6 Railguns with D 7, RoF 4, Range Mod. 6, and an observed range of 353200. They picked apart the Sanctis Legate with little issue.

Here's my first warship design. I've not learned the details of weapon or sensor design, so they are probably terrible. I also cranked it out quickly to test the waters. I learn best by doing. Any advice?

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Sanctis Legate class Destroyer    11 800 tons     301 Crew     2052.6 BP      TCS 236  TH 1200  EM 60
5084 km/s     Armour 10-46     Shields 2-500     Sensors 44/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 22     PPV 23
Maint Life 9.15 Years     MSP 2392    AFR 50%    IFR 0.7%    1YR 51    5YR 772    Max Repair 200 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 3 months    Spare Berths 0   

Cerros Warning & Control 400 EP Magneto-plasma Drive (3)    Power 400    Fuel Use 45%    Signature 400    Exp 10%
Fuel Capacity 650 000 Litres    Range 22.0 billion km   (50 days at full power)
Gitlin-Wernimont Delta R500/360 Shields (1)   Total Fuel Cost  15 Litres per hour  (360 per day)

Nusbaum Weapon Systems 25cm C3 Spinal Ultraviolet Laser (1)    Range 48 000km     TS: 5084 km/s     Power 16-3     RM 4    ROF 30        16 16 16 16 0 0 0 0 0 0
Swierk-Reeds Gauss Cannon R3-85 (3x3)    Range 30 000km     TS: 5084 km/s     Accuracy Modifier 85%     RM 3    ROF 5        1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Najarro-Zwilling CIWS-120 (2x6)    Range 1000 km     TS: 12000 km/s     ROF 5       Base 50% To Hit
Blasz & Hurford Fire Control S00.5 24-3000 (1)    Max Range: 48 000 km   TS: 3000 km/s     79 58 38 17 0 0 0 0 0 0
Bronw & Letterman Stellarator Fusion Reactor Technology PB-1.1 (2)     Total Power Output 66    Armour 0    Exp 10%

Moynihan Limited Active Search Sensor MR65-R60 (1)     GPS 6300     Range 65.1m km    Resolution 60
Yamazaki & Burzynski Thermal Sensor TH4-44 (1)     Sensitivity 44     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  44m km

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes

[Flying Dice]

Same problem as with Crashmaster's second design, you've left it at the default 3mo deployment time. Also has basically Sol+1 combat effective range. That can still work if you're going to park them on a colony and use them solely for system defense.

The single shield is pointless. Lots or none. You only have a single beam FC and the tracking speed is too slow even for the spinal laser, never mind the gauss turrets. Your reactors are giving you 22x the amount of power you need. The active sensor needs to either have better resolution or longer range.

[Insanegame27]

On that note doesn't a single point of shielding effectively stop a whole missie? If you have 22 missiles coming at you wouldnt the shield make only 21 hit you (Ignoring point defence)

[Rince Wind]

I think it only blocks damage.

[Alastar]

3 months deployment, 9 years maintenance life isn't necessarily wrong, but implies specific usage: operating around throwaway forward colonies and/or mobile whorehouses to keep fighting spirits up.
The disadvantage over balanced deployment/maintenance life is that you invest a fair bit of space and still don't get long periods of real independence,  the advantage is that morale is quick to reset without a logistics burden if you accept this limitation while overhaul is always a pain and you want to go long in between (or simply scrap obsolescent ships).

I'm actually fine with a tiny bit of shielding if you otherwise prefer armour - sure, it doesn't do much, but it also doesn't cost much. It's there to prevent nonthreatening attacks from scratching the paint.

I don't like the weapons much. Unturreted Gauss weapons are terrible compared to railguns (4 shots on less size including power plants, without an accuracy penalty) until  you reach absurd tech levels, and FC speed is holding back the turrets. I'm also not convinced about the spinal laser, it doesn't match up well with your capacitor tech and I'm not sure the benefits of its single-shot damage overcome the lack of continuous output compared to 10 or 15cm variants.