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I'm wondering whether a multi-stage is better for an AAM? It needs range, speed and punch but not at the same time, after all. Other than that I like it.
 
I'm wondering whether a multi-stage is better for an AAM?

Possibly... for an aFTR missile, we wouldn't need to worry about penetrating PD defenses. One bonus of the missile design offered above is that it doubles as a multi-role long-range missile, so if we carry bunches of them in our ammo tenders and start running short of size-6 strength-9 missiles, we can start firing these as LR-ASMs.
 
Possibly... for an aFTR missile, we wouldn't need to worry about penetrating PD defenses. One bonus of the missile design offered above is that it doubles as a multi-role long-range missile, so if we carry bunches of them in our ammo tenders and start running short of size-6 strength-9 missiles, we can start firing these as LR-ASMs.

While that's true, we do need to be able to hit a FAC of unknown speed reasonably reliably. If we get genuinely swarmed, we'd be firing two missiles each at twelve seperate targets every 45s. I'd prefer if they had a good chance of hitting, because it seems unlikely one missile would kill a fighter let alone a FAC, short of a lucky hit.

It would help if we knew what speed to expect, I guess I could work it out from the power output of a magnetic confinement FAC engine but it's 1am here :)
 
Well, we've got plenty of time to adjust both the ship and missile designs. My slips will be tied up for some time yet.

Another point... regarding the "why do we need anti-Fighter capability anyway?" debate... is that Cloaking Devices reduce a ship's signature vs active sensors, so that they are detected as if they were considerably smaller ships. This design will spot them.
 
Is it possible to launch a missle at a target even if it's out of range at the moment the missle is fired?
If not, then the 59 m km range of your missles is a little bit to short to intercept an incoming fighter with 15000 kps and 42 m km firing range.
 
Is it possible to launch a missle at a target even if it's out of range at the moment the missle is fired?
If not, then the 59 m km range of your missles is a little bit to short to intercept an incoming fighter with 15000 kps and 42 m km firing range.

As long as it's painted and within FC range, you can launch, yes.

Iamwinterborn said:
Are there any summary pages since then? Also, what are your biggest colonies, and can you do a screenshot of their summary pages (and Earth's)?

Earth:
G100_Earth.jpg


Mars, now a class-0 world:
G101_Mars.jpg


Dravar XV, currently being terraformed to class-0:
G102_DravarXV.jpg


The Nexus:
G103_TheNexus.jpg


Remagen, a newly-established colony:
G105_Remagen.jpg


Draco, overflowing with loot from El Dorado which needs to be redistributed elsewhere:
G104_Draco.jpg


El Dorado, still under interdict until the Robots are all dismantled:
G107_ElDorado.jpg


Moria, our mining center:
G106_Moria.jpg


Some of the worlds have junk on them that really belongs elsewhere... the huge piles of loot on Draco, and the automated mines on Earth, for example... but even with over 50 Freighters running, I haven't yet had time to straighten out the mess. Once the excavations on El Dorado finish, things will get back to normal... until we find another huge Archeological site.
 
How will the extreme tectonics of Moria (and the high of for instance remagen), affect those planets? is there any risk of eartquakes destroying our automated mines? If that works as a percentage, we could lose a hundred mines in a single event. Also, the mass driver capacity of Moria seems to be way below the numbers you give as its minin output. But where exactly are they shooting the minerals?
 
Salvage of the Yuan wreck has given us another super-long-range Fire Control, identical to the one we used to make the Culverin Monitor. We could make another, if it would be useful to us.

How will the extreme tectonics of Moria (and the high of for instance remagen), affect those planets? is there any risk of eartquakes destroying our automated mines? If that works as a percentage, we could lose a hundred mines in a single event. Also, the mass driver capacity of Moria seems to be way below the numbers you give as its minin output. But where exactly are they shooting the minerals?

AFAIK, tectonics only affects initial mineral distribution... no in-game effect after system generation.

The Mass Drivers on Moria are just to supply the neighbouring world of Dravar XV with minerals. The main output of the Moria mines is picked up by a dedicated Freighter, set on "repeat orders".
 
So the infrastructure units are useless once a world reaches class 0?

Correct. I would move all that Infrastructure off of Mars and put it somewhere useful... but all of my Freighters are busy full-time.
 
Is there anywhere else in the Solar system worth colonising? It's a shame to be sitting on all that infra on mars, and an in-system hop to transfer it should be fairly short...Same for the terraforming stuff.
 
Is there anywhere else in the Solar system worth colonising? It's a shame to be sitting on all that infra on mars, and an in-system hop to transfer it should be fairly short...Same for the terraforming stuff.

He has a valid point. Shorter distances mean shorter times to move the stuff, which means it gets done faster.
 
If possible, I would like to transfer to a Blink while waiting for a passive-sensor stealth ship design to be available. If thematic with their class names I'd like the ship to be named Flash.
 
Here's another try at the Star-II => Star-III DE conversion. Removed the CIWS and one layer of armor. Increased speed and magazine space. Designed a size-6 strength-4 AFTR missile. Increased sensor and fire control ranges.
In connection to this and an earlier suggestion (apologies for not having a proper reference.. But with catching up ca.20 pages, I'm not going back) - limiting the number of designs would be a good idea for reasons of refitting, shipyard retooling, needing more ships quickly. Assuming retooling time (etc.) scales with ship / yard size, the larger the ship, the more general-purpose it should be; also makes sense in that there's more room for "duplicate" systems (that is to say FC, scanners for different weapons systems)

Ie. A battlefleet based on;
Missile Destroyers (Storm type) and "Torpedo boat" Destroyers (what you call DE's) both at 8000tons (or a similar value, not looking back through the thread)
Ideally - design them with the exact same auxilliary systems (number of engines, fuel and ammunition storage etc.) if that doesn't affect speed &c. extremely (with the slower at least at main fleet speed)
Jump capability unnecessary.

Carriers - clearly your long range weapon; personally in favour of the armoured flight deck doctrine, although the most recent engagement suggests you might well get away without that. Keep them at a constant size until there's a significant overcapacity on the slips (say, double the displacement the current carrier generation has)
Jump capability unnecessary (see below)

Cruisers - the most multipurpose of all.
* Getting the fleet (carriers and destroyers) to location.
* provide credible firepower while fighter strikes are unavailable.
* 'long' range missile defense [although with sufficient MDs, possibly can be phased out]
Size consideration as the carriers.
> Possibility of "lone ranger" version Cruiser that can fight skirmishes on it's own should be considered; the Battlecruiser philosophy of the interbellum and WW2 - faster than ships it can't outfight, better armed and armoured than the rest; might not even need to be a separate design. But you need to have something beyond "the fleet" to maintain presence and respond to crises.



Re: Rocks and other auxilliary vessels

The Blink vessels proved rather effective in painting the targets; a third "Destroyer" type? I'd personally rather rely on redundant "cheap" destroyers to paint the enemy than on larger vessels that are then less numerous.

The Rocks did what they were intended for - soak missiles - but was it necessary? How close did the Juans get to the *fleet* (and not the Rocks, that I assume were again picketing), how close would they/it have gotten if there were no Rocks around? What sort of damage would you likely have sustained on the "worst case" vessels (least armor, CIWS, lowest speed) if it had engaged the main fleet?
I do realise that their being civilian (or did that change?) makes it rather less important that they not compete for specialised shipyard space, but still...

Shipyard philosophy;
If you keep the displacements constant within a class; shipyards function as dedicated destroyer / capital shipyards. When/if increasing capacity, the capital shipyards will eventually reach "supercapital" size, but with the destroyer shipyards following expansion, they can then take over the role of capital shipyards.
Meanwhile, new yards will start at the bottom of the ladder as destroyer yards.
-----

I realise this is largely the philosophy you're following anyway, but just would like to add my two cents and reinforce the theoretical front ;)
 
Is there anywhere else in the Solar system worth colonising? It's a shame to be sitting on all that infra on mars, and an in-system hop to transfer it should be fairly short...Same for the terraforming stuff.

Not really, no. Titan is technically able to support a colony, but it will be out of minerals soon and can never reach class-0 status because of the limits on maximum Greenhouse Pressure. Not sure what a colony on Titan would be useful for.
 
If possible, I would like to transfer to a Blink while waiting for a passive-sensor stealth ship design to be available. If thematic with their class names I'd like the ship to be named Flash.

Done. You now command the ESNR Flash.
 
Not really, no. Titan is technically able to support a colony, but it will be out of minerals soon and can never reach class-0 status because of the limits on maximum Greenhouse Pressure. Not sure what a colony on Titan would be useful for.

How about Dravar XV? It's still fairly close to Sol, and has almost reached it's population limit.
Though since you're terraforming that place that also means you'll have to move the infra off that place at some point as well.
 
Eldorado has Deep Space Tracking strength 10 and Commercial Spaceport level 7? Wow.

It may be worth it to move those spaceports ASAP, since spaceports improve cargo handling times they may be better used on a place that is more of a hub in our economy.
That having been said, I bet that port is pretty busy with all those freighters carrying loot away.
 
Ie. A battlefleet based on;
Missile Destroyers (Storm type) and "Torpedo boat" Destroyers (what you call DE's) both at 8000tons (or a similar value, not looking back through the thread)
Ideally - design them with the exact same auxilliary systems (number of engines, fuel and ammunition storage etc.) if that doesn't affect speed &c. extremely (with the slower at least at main fleet speed)
Jump capability unnecessary.

Carriers - clearly your long range weapon; personally in favour of the armoured flight deck doctrine, although the most recent engagement suggests you might well get away without that. Keep them at a constant size until there's a significant overcapacity on the slips (say, double the displacement the current carrier generation has)
Jump capability unnecessary (see below)

Cruisers - the most multipurpose of all.
* Getting the fleet (carriers and destroyers) to location.
* provide credible firepower while fighter strikes are unavailable.
* 'long' range missile defense [although with sufficient MDs, possibly can be phased out]
Size consideration as the carriers.
> Possibility of "lone ranger" version Cruiser that can fight skirmishes on it's own should be considered; the Battlecruiser philosophy of the interbellum and WW2 - faster than ships it can't outfight, better armed and armoured than the rest; might not even need to be a separate design. But you need to have something beyond "the fleet" to maintain presence and respond to crises.

Yes, this is basically what we are moving towards... most of the differences seem to be in terminology (ie: "Missile Destroyers" in my lexicon refers to Destroyers armed with long-range missiles. Relatively small escort ships whose task is to defend against enemy missile strikes are called "Frigates" in my book).

Re: Rocks and other auxilliary vessels

The Blink vessels proved rather effective in painting the targets; a third "Destroyer" type? I'd personally rather rely on redundant "cheap" destroyers to paint the enemy than on larger vessels that are then less numerous.

Very long-range active sensors (like the 993 m-km sets in the Blinks) are terribly expensive in displacement... putting them in a Destroyer would cripple its functionality in nearly every other respect. It could than carry almost nothing in terms of armor, shields, weapons and fire control. In what sense would it still be a "Destroyer"? Best to keep Battle Management ships as a seperate class until we have the tech to make active sensors that are both very long range and quite compact.

The Rocks did what they were intended for - soak missiles - but was it necessary? How close did the Juans get to the *fleet* (and not the Rocks, that I assume were again picketing), how close would they/it have gotten if there were no Rocks around? What sort of damage would you likely have sustained on the "worst case" vessels (least armor, CIWS, lowest speed) if it had engaged the main fleet?
I do realise that their being civilian (or did that change?) makes it rather less important that they not compete for specialised shipyard space, but still...

The problem there is that there is only one way to find out what sort of damage we would have taken from an enemy missile salvo that gets past the Rocks. That's by actually taking the damage.

Again I must remind people that as long as the Prix move at double our movement rate, there is no such thing as a minor defeat... if we start losing a battle, we face total destruction of the entire fleet, since it is simply not possible for us to disengage from a losing battle.

When we can match or exceed the opponent's movement rate, THEN we can talk about retiring the Rocks.

Shipyard philosophy;
If you keep the displacements constant within a class; shipyards function as dedicated destroyer / capital shipyards. When/if increasing capacity, the capital shipyards will eventually reach "supercapital" size, but with the destroyer shipyards following expansion, they can then take over the role of capital shipyards.
Meanwhile, new yards will start at the bottom of the ladder as destroyer yards.

I am planning to differentiate our shipyards as they expand, and to build new ones, yes.