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Another rather specialized ship that we might consider... sort of a one-trick-pony, but it`s a pretty good trick... is a Military Freighter. A ship with Military engines, fleet speed, with armor and shields, but instead of weapons it has five cargo holds. The idea would be to carry five Deep Space Tracking Stations into battle, and drop then off on some handy planet or asteroid, to make a Listening Post that would reveal all enemy ships within a billion km or so. Naturally, this trick would only work in certain situations, so pre-battle recon by Blinks would be a must.
 
About 2.5 b-km against a 2700-T target. The idea doesn`t seem to be practical, though, at our tech level. I tried designing one... and if we want fleet speed (around 5600 kps), it requires a ship of about 44,000 tons. Our biggest Military slipway is 20,000 tons.

And that`s with no armor or shields. Just five cargo holds, life support for the crew, fuel tankage and some engineering sections.

EDIT:

Hmmmm... with only three cargo holds, we can get it down to 28,000 tons. That`s nearly feasible. Still no armor or shields, though.
 
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Would it have to be military? How much bigger would a civilian freighter have to be to travel at fleet speed? We're already using Rocks as auxilliairies.
 
Would it have to be military? How much bigger would a civilian freighter have to be to travel at fleet speed? We're already using Rocks as auxilliairies.

I`ll check.
 
Armored Freighter class Freighter 90,100 tons 1254 Crew 6257.6 BP TCS 1802 TH 3542 EM 0
5615 km/s Armour 9-179 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 1 PPV 0
Maint Capacity 43 MSP Max Repair 96 MSP
Cargo 25000 Cargo Handling Multiplier 10

Magneto-plasma Drive E0.84 (46) Power 220 Fuel Use 8.4% Signature 77 Armour 0 Exp 2%
Fuel Capacity 300,000 Litres Range 71.3 billion km (147 days at full power)

This design is classed as a Commercial Vessel for maintenance purposes

We could actually BUILD that... our commercial slipways go up to 98,000 tons.

What do you think? It's freaking expensive... 6258 minerals. Our Battlecruisers don't cost THAT much.

EDIT: Of course, one could argue that it doesn't really need nine layers of armor. I might have gotten a bit carried away.
 
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ehh wait until we can get it smaller, seems like it's too expensive and situational. To borrow a concept form SC2, you can build lot's of situational unit's be really effective but if they affect is not great or immediate your opponent is going to have more stuff to KILL YOU. In this case building more tradition ships will net you a larger navy which in the end is what matters.
 
That would be a bit too expensive. Maybe try less armour and thus less engines? It does need to be able to take a few hits, but right now it can take three or four nukes in the exact same spot. With its size, they're not likely to hit the same place either.

The idea would be that the Blinks would let us evaluate the system, if there's a suitable unprotected planet it can run in with the fleet and drop stuff off, then get out while the fleet goes to battle. The rest of the time it can act as a fast freighter.
 
That would be a bit too expensive. Maybe try less armour and thus less engines? It does need to be able to take a few hits, but right now it can take three or four nukes in the exact same spot. With its size, they're not likely to hit the same place either.

The idea would be that the Blinks would let us evaluate the system, if there's a suitable unprotected planet it can run in with the fleet and drop stuff off, then get out while the fleet goes to battle. The rest of the time it can act as a fast freighter.

Dropping the armor from nine to five layers allows us to pull off a few engines and reduces the displacement to 80,500 tons and the cost to marginally less than a Battlecruiser.

Armored Freighter class Cruiser 80,500 tons 1123 Crew 4981.4 BP TCS 1610 TH 3157 EM 0
5602 km/s Armour 5-166 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 1 PPV 0
Maint Capacity 39 MSP Max Repair 96 MSP
Cargo 25000 Cargo Handling Multiplier 10

Magneto-plasma Drive E0.84 (41) Power 220 Fuel Use 8.4% Signature 77 Armour 0 Exp 2%
Fuel Capacity 250,000 Litres Range 66.5 billion km (137 days at full power)

This design is classed as a Commercial Vessel for maintenance purposes

I dragged an Asteroid Miner out to Epsilon Eridani to park it on the best asteroid we've found... and found a Charlie mining colony already there. Bugger! Not sure if I should just leave it there and mine the asteroid along-side him anyway, or go somewhere else. I think I'll just concede that asteroid to him... it's not as if asteroids are rare.
 
What the heck are "Advanced Lasers"? We just discovered another research lab on El Dorado, and a free tech: Advanced Laser 10 cm Focal Length.

We also found a cache of 92 shields... R300/17.5, which is almost as good as the ones that we're already using (R250/17.5).

Our Geology team is up to +326 bonus... that's an average of over +64% per member, with the most skilled characters having +69%.
 
Advanced lasers must be another unique tech, like compressed fuel tanks. They're certainly not part of the normal tech tree.

The new fleet freighter design seems a bit more reasonable. It should take three Prix ASM hits in the same place to penetrate, which given the size seems unlikely - especially with our much improved PD. Up to you whether you think we can build some given our resources.
 
Advanced lasers must be another unique tech, like compressed fuel tanks. They're certainly not part of the normal tech tree.

The new fleet freighter design seems a bit more reasonable. It should take three Prix ASM hits in the same place to penetrate, which given the size seems unlikely - especially with our much improved PD. Up to you whether you think we can build some given our resources.

HOLY FRACK! It IS a unique tech. According to the tech tree, it's not in the Human tech path. Cool!

The discovery has put me onto that alien tech path, too... I'm now researching the next level of Advanced Lasers.

I don't think I'll build any of those puppies yet... they will become a lot more reasonable with another engine tech.
 
Bugger, bugger, BUGGER! :mad:

Another scout jumped by the Prix, in a system which we had almost completely surveyed. It was the 10 Tauri system, with that beautiful Earth-like world. Three Prix missile-ships. They killed the scout, of course.

I think it's almost time to try out our new GPD escorts, in another deprixification campaign.

EDIT:

If we wait about eleven months, we'll have our first two Blink high-speed recce vessels. If we wait an additional six months, we'll also have our first three Constellation Fleet Carriers and our first three Battle-II Heavy Cruisers. That's a year and a half from now.

Should we hold off until then?
 
I say wait till the Blinks are ready, send them scouting, then wait the extra six months for the new ships before actually doing anything with our intel. It's not like the Prix are going anywhere, so it won't hurt to scout a bit in advance.

That said, will we be able to take the Constitutions without a Hero class ship to jump them?
 
Bugger, bugger, BUGGER! :mad:

Another scout jumped by the Prix, in a system which we had almost completely surveyed. It was the 10 Tauri system, with that beautiful Earth-like world. Three Prix missile-ships. They killed the scout, of course.

I think it's almost time to try out our new GPD escorts, in another deprixification campaign.

EDIT:

If we wait about eleven months, we'll have our first two Blink high-speed recce vessels. If we wait an additional six months, we'll also have our first three Constellation Fleet Carriers and our first three Battle-II Heavy Cruisers. That's a year and a half from now.

Should we hold off until then?

At this point, I don't think it's so much "bugger!" as it is "Cool, more Prix wrecks to create and scavage!"

And yes, wait a year and a half. There is absolutely no reason to rush at this point.


Also...

We need a Pony class...
 
I say wait till the Blinks are ready, send them scouting, then wait the extra six months for the new ships before actually doing anything with our intel. It's not like the Prix are going anywhere, so it won't hurt to scout a bit in advance.

That said, will we be able to take the Constitutions without a Hero class ship to jump them?

Arrrrgh! You're right. It'll be nearly another year before we're even retooled for the Heros, and probably three more years before they're finished. Well... we can take these clowns out with Mountains.

I'd rather do the recon immediately before entering the system with our fleet... in other words, I want the fleet sitting in the adjacent system, on the jump point, when we send in the recon. Why? Because if the recon finds the Prix and they chase him, he can't LEAVE without showing them where the jump point is. I'd rather he just led them around in circles while the fleet moved in to kill them.
 
Arrrrgh! You're right. It'll be nearly another year before we're even retooled for the Heros, and probably three more years before they're finished. Well... we can take these clowns out with Mountains.

I'd rather do the recon immediately before entering the system with our fleet... in other words, I want the fleet sitting in the adjacent system, on the jump point, when we send in the recon. Why? Because if the recon finds the Prix and they chase him, he can't LEAVE without showing them where the jump point is. I'd rather he just led them around in circles while the fleet moved in to kill them.

That's true, assuming the Prix are within cooee of the jump point (or have enough DSTs). If they're not, a Blink should have enough warning of approaching ships to turn off its sensor and run. By the time the Prix arrive at the last place they saw it, it should be gone. Probably better not to risk it if they can get it on a DST or surprise it, though.

If we can't take the Constellations we may as well get started as soon as the scouts are ready, assuming we have enough Battles and Streaks ready.
 
That's true, assuming the Prix are within cooee of the jump point (or have enough DSTs). If they're not, a Blink should have enough warning of approaching ships to turn off its sensor and run. By the time the Prix arrive at the last place they saw it, it should be gone. Probably better not to risk it if they can get it on a DST or surprise it, though.

If we can't take the Constellations we may as well get started as soon as the scouts are ready, assuming we have enough Battles and Streaks ready.

Half of the Battles are being upgraded to Battle-II (and an extra one built)... so I would like to wait an extra six months and launch the op with three Battle-IIs instead of with two Battles.
 
Is it possible reassing my PC there? As it was my other line of work I was looking for.. running colonies :)

and to be honest.. to be stuck in shield research lab.. is pain ... :)

Do you mean... give your scientist PC an NPC name (Fred Farkle, for instance) and rename the governor of Moria to Tuominen? I can do that. What I cannot do is send your scientist out as Governor. Only Administrators can be made Governors, not Scientists, Naval Officers or Ground Forces Officers.