Ad Astra! ... an Aurora Forum Game, run by blue emu

[Capt. Kiwi]

Yeah, 10,000 kps is essentially just faster than the opponent.

I agree we need a lot of redundancy to survive PD, but I think that 120 simply isn't sufficient given the punishing Khan took, something like 300 points of damage. Add in more opponents, PD losses or misses and we just don't have enough lethality, we might only take out one ship. It's hard to know in advance what to expect, but an exact repeat of Wolf 294 with 50 taken out would see 6x15x2 > 6x20x1 > 6x12x3 in terms of payload on target.

But all that is moot if a 2 launcher design is far, far slower. We need to be able to pursue a fleeing ship, or escape a chaser, but beyond that I don't think the benefits are sufficient.

 

[blue emu]

Salvage of the Khan wreck has given us a second 38 m-km range PD Fire Control, and another 10 PD launchers (now a total of 38), plus a powerful 1-HS Thermal sensor (sensitivity 18, which requires 3-HS at our tech level).

 

[Capt. Kiwi]

Salvage of the Khan wreck has given us a second 38 m-km range PD Fire Control, and another 10 PD launchers (now a total of 38), plus a powerful 1-HS Thermal sensor (sensitivity 18, which requires 3-HS at our tech level).

Perhaps the command ships should be adapted to have comprehensive xenotech PD systems?

 

[TheLoneGunman]

Salvage of the Khan wreck has given us a second 38 m-km range PD Fire Control, and another 10 PD launchers (now a total of 38), plus a powerful 1-HS Thermal sensor (sensitivity 18, which requires 3-HS at our tech level).

I'd like us to convert some of that into Research Points.

 

[blue emu]

Two twin Gauss Cannon turrets recovered from the wrecked Yesu PDC, as well as an ECM-4.

We are now up to a total of 4160 research points of recovered tech data (not counting the components themselves), just from dismantling the wrecks. The city itself should provide much more.

 

[blue emu]

Perhaps the command ships should be adapted to have comprehensive xenotech PD systems?

Since you can hot-plug your missile tubes into your different FCs as required... even in the middle of a battle... one possibility is to give a PD ship a dozen PD tubes and one long-range Xenotech res-1 FC plus three of our own shorter-ranged res-1 FCs. Then the ship could operate in two different modes, as required... it could act as a 4 x 3-missile PD ship, shooting down incoming missiles; or it could slave all twelve tubes into the long-range Xenotech FC and fire salvos of twelve missiles at a time from 38 m-km away.

 

[blue emu]

Our large-scale terraforming project on Mars has reached another milestone:

 

[TheLoneGunman]

Our large-scale terraforming project on Mars has reached another milestone:

A nice warm -24.3 degrees celcius!

 

[blue emu]

A nice warm -24.3 degrees celcius!

Well, it was -48 when we arrived there 13 years ago.

 

[Count Lake]

A veritable paradise! What are the temperature/atmospheres like for our other colonized planets if you don't mind me asking?

 

[blue emu]

A veritable paradise! What are the temperature/atmospheres like for our other colonized planets if you don't mind me asking?

None are more habitable than Mars. El Dorado has a trace of Oxygen. I don't have the game loaded right now, because of the thunderstorm. I'll have to check later.

 

[fnt]

Against the Prix, the only quality the figthers can bring into battle is quantity.
Speed and size doesn't matter, because Prix sensors, FC and missles are so much superior.

 

[blue emu]

Speed and size doesn't matter...

Speed always matters. There's a big difference between a formation of 120 Fighters being exposed to forty shots before it reaches attack range, and being exposed to eighty shots before getting their salvo off. In that case, twice the speed means twice as many Fighters survive long enough to launch the attack.

In a strongly-opposed operation, speed can translate directly to quantity.

 

[unmerged(105596)]

A nice warm -24.3 degrees celcius!

A perfectly normal Finnish winter day!

 

[Tuominen]

A perfectly normal Finnish winter day!

Ooh.. I can imagine those finnish related colonits warming up sauna and having a beer after long day out at work

 

[blue emu]

A veritable paradise! What are the temperature/atmospheres like for our other colonized planets if you don't mind me asking?

Dravar VX (Procyon system): Nitrogen 79%, Oxygen 21%, Atmosphere 270% as thick as Earth's, -29 C
Sigma Draconis: Nitrogen 81%, Oxygen 21%, Atmosphere 22% as thick as Earth's, -43.5 C
The Nexus (Struve 2398 system): Nitrogen 88%, Oxygen 9.25%, Atmosphere 71% as thick as Earth's, 3.9 C

A perfectly normal Finnish winter day!

Yup... here in Northern New Brunswick, when it's -24 C, people walk around with their noses peeling, complaining about the heat.

 

[fnt]

Speed always matters. There's a big difference between a formation of 120 Fighters being exposed to forty shots before it reaches attack range, and being exposed to eighty shots before getting their salvo off. In that case, twice the speed means twice as many Fighters survive long enough to launch the attack.

In a strongly-opposed operation, speed can translate directly to quantity.

That's true, but given the current tech the figthers speed and numbers aren't high enough to survive.

Example:

fighter's speed 10000 km/s
Prix ship speed 10000 km/s

-> close in speed 20000 km/s or 100000 km per pd salvo (pd rof 5)

figther's firing range 17,000,000 km (based on max missle range)
prix firing range 38,000,000 km (based on the fc on the wrecks)

-> distance the fighter's need to close in 21,000,000 km

-> 21,000,000/100000=210 salvos fired

speed of prix pd missles 70000 km/s

close in speed of missles 70000 km/s + 10000 km/s = 80000 km/s -> 400000 km per 5 sec

-> missle salvos that doesn't reach the fighter's before they fire 17,000,000/400,000=42,5

-> salvos that probably destroy a fighter 210-43=167

 

[Jos de trol]

At this point I'd say the speedier fighter deserves a chance... with the increase in quantity and quality of the big giant spaceships the firepower of the fighters is less significant compared to their "take one for the team" ability and speed. This allows not only to close in fast in the opening stages of battle to draw away attention of more important targets, but also to zoom back and rearm and to swiftly persue a fleeing enemy if needed. 13k speed is nothing to sneeze at!

 

[blue emu]

Maybe it's time to open another discussion.

Several of our Military Shipyards are reaching 20,000 tons capacity. Our largest current warship is 15,000 tons. With the increased capacity, we can either build a line of larger warships, or build small warships much faster (I think it goes by the something close to square of the difference, so a 20,000 ton Shipyard can construct a 5,000 ton warship almost twice as fast).

We should consider our current Navy, and decide what weaknesses it has which should be addressed by our new construction program.

I'll start:

At present, we have no real ability to detect or engage small vessels such as Fighters or Fast Attack Craft (no sensors with intermediate resolutions, in between 1 and 100), and we have no Fast Attack Craft of our own. We also have no purpose-built PD vessels, no Gun-Ships, and only one Ammunition Tender... in fact, we are generally rather short of support vessels.

 

[blue emu]

Example:

But your example is based on our previous generation of missiles and Fire Controls. We will have new, Magneto-Plasma missile engines researched in less than a month. Our FC tech is also improving rapidly... our Gnat's FC's are already a generation behind, and we have gained more tech points from the second batch of wrecks towards yet another generation of FC tech.

Also, your example used 10,000 kps as the Fighter's speed, while the design on offer is over 13,000 kps.