How goes construction of our jump-gate building ships.
Retooling now.
As well, here is what I propose that destroyer escorts, light carriers, and cruisers compose the primary aspect of our battle fleet. There would be two kinds of destroyer escorts. One for using lasers for missile interception, the other to use missiles for missile interception/fighter interception. The cruisers will have a small laser battery for defense, and use anti-ship missiles for targeting hostile ships. Light carriers carry fighters.
I tend to use the following design philosophy for the main Battle Fleet.
While I do like to hang a few AMMs (Anti-Missile Missiles) on any ship that has tonnage to spare, I like to use specialized ships instead of loading each ship down with multiple roles.
The advantage of this policy is pretty straightforward.
A ship designed to be capable of AMM defense, AM-Laser defense, carry Anti-Ship missiles and also to illuminate its own targets will need to carry magazines and launchers for both types of missiles, two to four different types of missile fire controls (res-1, res-100 and perhaps res-16 vs FACs or res-5 vs Fighters), two to four different search sensors of varying resolution, AM-Beam weapons, Beam fire controls, and power plants to operate them. As a result of all this excess tonnage, the ship won't be able to do
anything very well... it will be second-best at everything, especially if it also needs to carry a Jump Drive.
Instead, I design a specialized ship class for Battle Management, carrying a large Jump Drive and all the sensors required by the fleet. Another ship class carries nothing but AM-Gauss Cannon and the required fire control; another carries nothing but AM-Beam weapons and the required fire control and power plants; another carries nothing but ASMs, AMMs, and the required fire controls and magazines; the Carrier carries only Fighters plus the required magazines and fuel tanks to service the air group... and so on.
This specialization doctrine increases the fleet's efficiency, because my ASM/AMM ships don't need to waste tonnage on power plants or Beam fire controls, my Beam defense ships don't need to carry magazines or missile fire controls, only one-third (or less) of my ships need to carry jump drives, and even fewer need to carry active sensors... so by specializing the mission roles, more tonnage on each ship can be devoted to mission-critical payload and to engines.
Naturally, I like to have a core of generalized multi-role ships as well, in case our Battle Management vessel gets hit, or some other "link in the chain" gets broken. Cruisers typically fill this role.
I find that the best anti-missile defense is a multi-layered defense, with AMMs engaging the incoming salvos at a few million km range, Lasers taking them on as the approach within a few tens of thousands of km, Gauss PD opening up at 10,000 km... and for high-value targets like our Battle Management vessel, a final layer in the form of a CIWS (Close-In Weapons System).
