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

[Cromelex]

I personally favor a specialized carrier that maximizes hangar space and speed (enough speed to keep up with our escorts).

Holding such a large number of fighters (that are already armed) more than makes up for the lack of in-house rearmament supplies, but a dedicated auxiliary vessel would more than make up for that (and could probably double as a PD platform directly next to the carrier if its tonnage were increased).

I think the other carrier commanders would agree.

Agreed. Maybe make them take a bit more ammo.
They would always be escorted, so we might as well leave the PD task to dedicated ships.

The most important thing really is hangar space. The more fighters, the better. Lots of small, blazing fast fighters swarming the enemy... this is, in my view, what we should aim for.

The PD/ammo mixed ship seems like an interesting idea.

(And again, keep in mind that the "firepower" contained in carriers can be easily upgraded... building new fighters is easy, reffiting a ship, not so much).

 

[GaiusC]

But it would be cool to have a way of altering a planet's albedo. I found one which is the third rock from its sun, has a gravity of ~1g, an atmosphere with a density of ~1atm, composed of 77% Nitrogen, 21% Oxygen and a smidgen of Carbon Dioxide... and a surface temperature of -100C because of its albedo of 0.7.

Does it have ice? Because in this case, if you warm it enough to get to roughly -20C, ice will melt and the albedo will immediately increase, warming the planet even more - possibly up to positive temperature.


About carriers, the reasoning is interesting. Yet we should keep in mind that the situation is slighlty different, still. We're not talking about each side of the battle having not-too-different tech levels and mostly similar ships, here.

 

[Gwalcmai]

Another point worth mentioning is that this debate is not unique to the game. Back in World War II there were two schools of thought on Carrier design. The British opted for well-protected, armored Carriers; while the Americans and Japanese opted for unarmored Carriers... basically, floating hangars. Naturally, the British designs could only carry about half the air-group that an American or Japanese Carrier could hold.

The British point of view was similar to yours. The American and Japanese point of view was that the Carriers main defense was its Air Group... by seeking out and destroying the enemy before he could wreck your Carrier, you could render the question of armor moot. American Carriers relied on the other ships in the same Task Group for much of the anti-aircraft fire to keep them safe... just as the above design relies on GPD frigates and AMM-fire from neighbouring ships.

Of course, the British approach was much better adapted to operations in the ETO (never too far from land and land-based air), while the other approach was better for slugging matches out in the middle of the Pacific.

And the Pacific is a puddle compared to the scale of the environment these carriers have to work in.

The "hangar in an eggshell" philosophy of carrier design shouldn't pose too many problems. Especially as the remainder of the fleet should be putting out enough emissions to make the enemy fire at them instead of the carrier.

(the idea of "hot berthing" the fighters if you lose a carrier in battle, OTOH, will probably be a major pain in the neck when you have to cross warp points )

 

[blue emu]

Maybe make them take a bit more ammo.

I would if I could. Where should the extra tonnage come from? Less fuel? They'll need some extra fuel for the Fighters, though, since high-performance Fighter engines burn fuel ten times faster than a ship's engine, and there's 45 of them. Figure a total of 225,000 litres per Fighter strike, plus the Carrier's own fuel. Drop the CIWS system? The ships are already quite vulnerable, if the enemy manages to get a salvo through our PD screen. Not sure where I could save displacement in order to expand the magazines. Any extended operation will require an Ammo Tender anyway... these designs will just require one on almost every operation.

 

[Gwalcmai]

I would if I could. Where should the extra tonnage come from? Less fuel? They'll need some extra fuel for the Fighters, though, since high-performance Fighter engines burn fuel ten times faster than a ship's engine, and there's 45 of them. Drop the CIWS system? The ships are already quite vulnerable, if the enemy manages to get a salvo through our PD screen. Not sure where I could save displacement in order to expand the magazines. Any extended operation will require an Ammo Tender anyway... these designs will just require one on almost every operation.

You could drop some hangar space and still have a much larger air(space?) wing than you have in your current model.

 

[blue emu]

You could drop some hangar space and still have a much larger air(space?) wing than you have in your current model.

Yes, I could. But then we're moving towards a "balanced" design... and I'm not sure a balanced design would be more effective than an "all-or-nothing" design.

 

[Cromelex]

I would if I could. Where should the extra tonnage come from? Less fuel? They'll need some extra fuel for the Fighters, though, since high-performance Fighter engines burn fuel ten times faster than a ship's engine, and there's 45 of them. Drop the CIWS system? The ships are already quite vulnerable, if the enemy manages to get a salvo through our PD screen. Not sure where I could save displacement in order to expand the magazines. Any extended operation will require an Ammo Tender anyway... these designs will just require one on almost every operation.

I was speaking generally, in terms of our doctrine of carrier design.
I didn't mean that for this specific design... I haven't had the chance to play a game of my own, so I'm not very familiar with the ship design process.

This specific design looks good, IMHO.

 

[blue emu]

Mineral production on Moria now up to 33,284 minerals per year, and increasing steadily.

EDIT:

Found another Genetic Modification Center, and another free tech, which allows us to breed a mutant strain of colonists who are optimized to temperatures three degrees lower than normal.

 

[Gwalcmai]

Yes, I could. But then we're moving towards a "balanced" design... and I'm not sure a balanced design would be more effective than an "all-or-nothing" design.

Well, you ship the fighters in the hangars with their launchers already loaded (that's 45 missiles), slap another 45 in the magazine instead of the 60 you have in the "preferred load", and something like 25+ salvos of PD missiles... Should be enough for a normal engagement (given the 30 minute reload time of the box launcher).

You need to call in the collier after each battle, but other than that the available magazine capacity should be fine in this design.

 

[blue emu]

Just lost another scout to the Prix, in an unexplored system, Lutyen's 347-14.

 

[stamasd]

Venus is extremely difficult to terraform, you need to remove almost all of the existing atmosphere, which is 100 times thicker than Earths. For Mercury you just need to add enough anti-greenhouse gas to cool it (0.65 atm of it IIRC) and then enough oxygen to breathe.

I read on the Aurora forums that in the current version of the game Venus is practically impossible to terraform.

 

[TheLoneGunman]

Damn Prix.

Do we have plans for another campaign against this menace yet?

 

[stamasd]

Lasers are extremely short-ranged. Missiles can be fired over 100 million km, but lasers are limited to about 1.5 million km. Why? Because the game operates in five-second turns, and light can only travel 1.5 million km in five seconds. And if the game had to track a long-range laser shot across the map, turn by turn... in what way is it different from a missile?

Perhaps a new research topic "faster-than-light lasers"...?

(that's not even such a preposterous idea. I like the sound of "tachyon laser")

 

[Darkrenown]

Another reason laster will be ranged limited is that in 5 seconds a Prix ship would be 50,000KM away from where you fired at, you'd need to prdict where it'd be, and I assume they can jink around a bit while flying.

With larger "Fleet" carriers, perhaps we could carry a few PD/Anti-fighter fighters per CV?

 

[TheLoneGunman]

Another reason laster will be ranged limited is that in 5 seconds a Prix ship would be 50,000KM away from where you fired at, you'd need to prdict where it'd be, and I assume they can jink around a bit while flying.

With larger "Fleet" carriers, perhaps we could carry a few PD/Anti-fighter fighters per CV?

I think we could allow the smaller carriers to carry such fighters if we build some fleet carriers.

 

[blue emu]

I think we could allow the smaller carriers to carry such fighters if we build some fleet carriers.

I was thinking that some purpose-built FAC would make excellent Air Superiority Fighters.

 

[Forgiven]

Hmn, after doing some math, I think these carriers of yours would beat my latest DD design on equal tonnage, (excluding the fact that they have no sensor and could not operate solo, but well...) since I could not get anything shot at them...
So I'll have to approve the designs for fighters and carrier both.

 

[blue emu]

Scientist Elise Mueller has completed Grav Sensor Strength 28. A quick change to the Streak Fighter's Fire Control system, just before putting them into production... and now they can lock onto an ECM-4 Prix warship at a range of 36 m-km. Remember when we had to close to 9 m-km before we could get a lock-on?

EDIT: Another thought has struck me...

We usually build six ships of each class... six Star class Destroyers, six Attitude class Light Cruisers, six Mountain class Carriers.

If we build six Constellation class Carriers, and operate them together with the Mountain class Light Carriers, all loaded with Streaks... we can send an alpha-strike of 402 Fighters against our opponents. That should be enough to kill or cripple anywhere from four to eight enemy ships.

 

[Gwalcmai]

Just lost another scout to the Prix, in an unexplored system, Lutyen's 347-14.

Can't you design a cloaked scout? Might increase the life expectancy of the pilots (and end up saving some money on ships).

 

[blue emu]

Can't you design a cloaked scout? Might increase the life expectancy of the pilots (and end up saving some money on ships).

Cloaking equipment is MASSIVE at our tech level. Not sure that I want to build 12,000-ton scout ships. I might only lose one-quarter as many... but each loss would cost six times as much!