Laser ships will be interesting. Could you have a close range laser broadside? Would that even work?
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I'm doing that already. In addition to our nine 15,000-ton Quality class Light Carriers (currently refitting to Quality II class), we also have nine 10,000-ton Hangars, a military design that has everything the Light Carrier has (Hangars, Magazines, Aviation Fuel, etc) except that is is equipped with only a single low-power (400 kps) thruster instead of enough engines to travel at fleet speed (4,000 kps for Quality, 5,300 kps for Quality II). The Hangars are towed by commercial Tugs. They can be used for any assignment that does not require fleet speed... for example, servicing our Shark class BL-Monitors in the planetary bombardment role, or carrying Boarding Shuttles to board and capture damaged enemy vessels.
I usually build just enough to fill out the squadrons, and if we take losses I consolidate the damaged squadrons into fewer but full-strength units while building more. We will still have our Corsairs deployed on Airbase PDCs to guard our colonies, so they can be loaded aboard the Carriers or Hangars if needed.
Yes... Lasers are extremely short-ranged weapons (always less than 1.5 m-km and often much less). Laser combat is always a point-blank shoot-out, when compared to missile or Carrier warfare.
Why would anyone develop beam ships then? Do missile counter measures get so effective at some point to render missile swarms useless?
That's one reason... sufficiently dense PD defenses are nearly impossible to overcome. Consider the lengths we had to go to in order to hammer our way through the rather leaky PD defenses at Saint George.
The other reason is that Lasers need no ammo (unlike missile launchers) and that they do a LOT of damage at high tech levels. It's not unusual to have a Beam ship that can dish out over one hundred points of damage per firing-cycle. Our current "best" missile does four points, and our latest new-model missile (not yet used in combat) does nine.
For lasers, depends on the range of engagement, since their damage attenuates. Each beam type has different characteristics - gauss is extremely short range but small and fires multiple shots per cycle, particle beams do low-medium damage at long range, rail guns higher damage at shorter ranges, plasma carronades extreme damage at short range, quantum minimum damage but ignoring shields and armour.
We've just finished researching Laser 20 cm aperture, and our most powerful wavelength is Near-Ultraviolet. Our Capacitor tech is C-4.
Putting all that together, we could construct a Laser capable of putting out 10 points of damage per barrel per 15 seconds, to a maximum range of 300,000 km. Ten points of damage may not sound like much, but with two Quad (four-barreled) turrets mounted on the ship, that's 80 points per shot.
... but Lasers are heavily attenuated at long range, so our effective range (and our effective damage) would be quite a bit less than that, even if we had the Beam Fire control techs to shoot that far (which we don't).
We'll need more research in Laser aperture, Laser wavelength, Beam Fire Control range, Beam Fire Control tracking speed, Turret tracking speed and Capacitor through-put technology before we can design really effective Laser warships... and of course they will also require fast engines (to charge in to point blank range) and heavy armor (to survive long enough to get in close).
Captain Bjering's Exploration Vessel ESNS Kon-Tiki is roughly one-third of the way across the 94 b-km gap to the outer binary star in the Dragon system.
The construction order for our new-model Fighters has been completed... six squadrons of 23 Sabres, and three squadrons of 20 Sabre-AS. The first squadron of Sabre-AS has finished their fleet training.
Our fleet refits are proceeding. We now have three Quality-II class Light Carriers, three Storm-II class Gauss PD Frigates, two Tribal-II class Laser PD Frigates and five Shark-II class BL-Monitors out of refit.
Our fleet refits are proceeding. We now have three Quality-II class Light Carriers, three Storm-II class Gauss PD Frigates, two Tribal-II class Laser PD Frigates and five Shark-II class BL-Monitors out of refit.
This is actually the reason why beam weapons are very good for crippling your enemy - if you can dictate the engagement range you can pretty much pick and choose how much damage you want a single shot to do. As long as you don't enter *their* beam range, at least ;-)
Also, Beam damage is applied immediately... unlike missile damage, which might not be applied until twenty minutes or half an hour after the salvo is fired.
Well considering the vast different in range I would hardly count that as an advantage, at 40'000 km/s missile designs move 200'000km per 5 sec turn which is longer then it's practical to fire lasers.
The advantage would rather be that lasers can't be intercepted and shot down, so once in range you foe is normally dead unless he carries more short range firepower/armor.
The biggest disadvantage to beam weapons that I've found in Aurora is the games quirky movement calculation when advancing time alot. Iv'e managed to get hit by at least 5 salvos normally separated by 25sec in the same time update and Point Defence only fired once, not fun!
It's my experience that beam weapon combat tends to seriously favor even slight technological advantages in a way missiles don't. If your ships do 8,000KM/s against an enemy that does 8,800KM/s you simply cannot close the range in a stern chase. If your enemy isn't game, there's just no battle. If however, he is game, and his weapons outrange yours, then the battle is over before it began. Say your FCs can only paint targets at 180,000KM, while he can paint out to 200,000KM and his lasers fire to 240,000KM. He's got a 20,000KM cushion in which to ream you and a 10% speed advantage to stay out of your range.
I've done this myself, outranging swarm in a nebula. I forgot the specifics but essentially if I didn't move for one increment the swarm would catch up and hit me with their meson cannon (which, frankly, is OP in a nebula since all combat takes place in beam range), but remaining a mere increment - maybe as little as 3,000KM and surely not more than 10,000KM - ahead of them I was able to annihilate all the gunboats they had without a single hit on my ships. I didn't even have a speed advantage, I did the same speed as the Swarm, but that worked because once they closed into my gun range I just continued running away at max speed and they'd never catch me. If you outrange the enemy at all, and can hold the range open, you simply win the beam battle like that.
It's also possible to win a beam battle quite handily even without being able to hold the range open, if you have sufficiently powerful weapons. Say your ships do 6,000KM/s and the enemy does 8,000KM/s, while you use lasers that strike out to 180,000KM and he's using railguns that are capped at 60,000KM. You're using tech 3 focal size, tech 3 wavelength, and tech 3 capacitors for a 15CM Near UV Laser with a 10 second RoF, reaching out to 180,000KM and doing base damage of 6. Your opponent is using tech 3 railgun size, tech 2 velocity, and tech 3 capacity for a 15CM railgun with 60,000KM range that does 12 damage in 4 shots per 10 second recharge. These are very similar weapons in terms of required RP, it's a slight tech advantage in your favor, and let's say it's outweighed by the opponent's engine tech advances hence his greater speed.
A laser as described is 200t so let's whack it in a turret for the current max tracking speed and say it's 250t. For a 10,000t vessel we could easily fit 6 aboard and I've frequently had 10kt DDs with 8 of them. Say 6 per ship and 10 ships, that's 60 shots per 10 seconds. The enemy is closing at 2,000KM/s assuming you run to keep the range open. Now laser damage at range is dependent on the FC (apparently) as well as the focal size and wavelength, but let's say you've got 50% accuracy at 180,000KM and do 1 point of damage at that range. So that's 15 damage taken in the first 10 seconds, and he'll have covered 20,000KM, so he's still 100,000KM out of range. He has to weather another five rounds of this before reaching firing range. If the accuracy goes up to 50% and damage to 2, that's 60 damage per 10 seconds, and at 75% and 3 damage it's 135 damage per 10 seconds. If for simplicity's sake it's 15, 15, 60, 60, 135, 135 that's a total of 420 points of damage. For a 10kt ship with 4 layers of armor against the "stabbing" profile of lasers I'd expect that 200 points of damage would be a definite kill, so based on this we're looking at a minimum of 2 dead ships. In the next increment the enemy gets to fire with minimum accuracy at his lowest damage value - going with the fact that the railgun is bigger even without being in a turret (since you can't turret railguns) if we said he gets 50 railguns over 10 ships, now down to 40 railguns, and again let us say 25% accuracy and minimum damage his 40*0.25*4 would be 40 damage on one of your ships. Same time even if you remain at the 135 damage rather than going up as is likely, you still probably pasted a third ship of his and his sandpaper railguns are unlikely to seriously damage any of your vessels. Worst case I'd expect it to be 5-0 victory from fleets that began with 100,000t apiece and similar tech.
Compare this with missiles where even at a fairly big tech disadvantage you have a good chance to splash the enemy if you mass your firepower. Even if the enemy can do 12,000KM/s and you only 8,000KM/s, if you have sufficiently long-range sensors and missiles you can still hit him. Let's say the enemy sees to 60M-km, if you get to 61M-km and then paint him with a sensor and have sufficiently long ranged missiles, he's done. 6.2 apparently makes it feasible to use two-stage missiles that crawl a long way before launching a high-speed terminal stage, so even if you only bring a few dozen of those to the fight you might wing your enemy enough to use standard missiles. In a similar way even if your missiles are woeful compared to his PD, say that he can knock down 10 of your missiles per increment from one PD vessel, even then a 1000 missiles could overwhelm him. Beams are far less able to use numbers to overwhelm the enemy.
Of course the converse to that is, if you have even just a little better beam tech than your enemy, in a beam battle you'll mash him. Beams can also be supremely powerful against missiles; a friend of mine uses railguns almost exclusively in point-blank fire and has found that he can brute-force his way through even very large missile strikes unscathed as his railguns pour out hundreds of projectiles per increment.
I've done this myself, outranging swarm in a nebula. I forgot the specifics but essentially if I didn't move for one increment the swarm would catch up and hit me with their meson cannon (which, frankly, is OP in a nebula since all combat takes place in beam range), but remaining a mere increment - maybe as little as 3,000KM and surely not more than 10,000KM - ahead of them I was able to annihilate all the gunboats they had without a single hit on my ships. I didn't even have a speed advantage, I did the same speed as the Swarm, but that worked because once they closed into my gun range I just continued running away at max speed and they'd never catch me. If you outrange the enemy at all, and can hold the range open, you simply win the beam battle like that.
It's also possible to win a beam battle quite handily even without being able to hold the range open, if you have sufficiently powerful weapons. Say your ships do 6,000KM/s and the enemy does 8,000KM/s, while you use lasers that strike out to 180,000KM and he's using railguns that are capped at 60,000KM. You're using tech 3 focal size, tech 3 wavelength, and tech 3 capacitors for a 15CM Near UV Laser with a 10 second RoF, reaching out to 180,000KM and doing base damage of 6. Your opponent is using tech 3 railgun size, tech 2 velocity, and tech 3 capacity for a 15CM railgun with 60,000KM range that does 12 damage in 4 shots per 10 second recharge. These are very similar weapons in terms of required RP, it's a slight tech advantage in your favor, and let's say it's outweighed by the opponent's engine tech advances hence his greater speed.
A laser as described is 200t so let's whack it in a turret for the current max tracking speed and say it's 250t. For a 10,000t vessel we could easily fit 6 aboard and I've frequently had 10kt DDs with 8 of them. Say 6 per ship and 10 ships, that's 60 shots per 10 seconds. The enemy is closing at 2,000KM/s assuming you run to keep the range open. Now laser damage at range is dependent on the FC (apparently) as well as the focal size and wavelength, but let's say you've got 50% accuracy at 180,000KM and do 1 point of damage at that range. So that's 15 damage taken in the first 10 seconds, and he'll have covered 20,000KM, so he's still 100,000KM out of range. He has to weather another five rounds of this before reaching firing range. If the accuracy goes up to 50% and damage to 2, that's 60 damage per 10 seconds, and at 75% and 3 damage it's 135 damage per 10 seconds. If for simplicity's sake it's 15, 15, 60, 60, 135, 135 that's a total of 420 points of damage. For a 10kt ship with 4 layers of armor against the "stabbing" profile of lasers I'd expect that 200 points of damage would be a definite kill, so based on this we're looking at a minimum of 2 dead ships. In the next increment the enemy gets to fire with minimum accuracy at his lowest damage value - going with the fact that the railgun is bigger even without being in a turret (since you can't turret railguns) if we said he gets 50 railguns over 10 ships, now down to 40 railguns, and again let us say 25% accuracy and minimum damage his 40*0.25*4 would be 40 damage on one of your ships. Same time even if you remain at the 135 damage rather than going up as is likely, you still probably pasted a third ship of his and his sandpaper railguns are unlikely to seriously damage any of your vessels. Worst case I'd expect it to be 5-0 victory from fleets that began with 100,000t apiece and similar tech.
Compare this with missiles where even at a fairly big tech disadvantage you have a good chance to splash the enemy if you mass your firepower. Even if the enemy can do 12,000KM/s and you only 8,000KM/s, if you have sufficiently long-range sensors and missiles you can still hit him. Let's say the enemy sees to 60M-km, if you get to 61M-km and then paint him with a sensor and have sufficiently long ranged missiles, he's done. 6.2 apparently makes it feasible to use two-stage missiles that crawl a long way before launching a high-speed terminal stage, so even if you only bring a few dozen of those to the fight you might wing your enemy enough to use standard missiles. In a similar way even if your missiles are woeful compared to his PD, say that he can knock down 10 of your missiles per increment from one PD vessel, even then a 1000 missiles could overwhelm him. Beams are far less able to use numbers to overwhelm the enemy.
Of course the converse to that is, if you have even just a little better beam tech than your enemy, in a beam battle you'll mash him. Beams can also be supremely powerful against missiles; a friend of mine uses railguns almost exclusively in point-blank fire and has found that he can brute-force his way through even very large missile strikes unscathed as his railguns pour out hundreds of projectiles per increment.
If I have the right scientists at the beginning of the game I will research mesons early. They make good PD equipment, and the capacitor/reactor techs help later for real beam ships.
The start of the Terran Empire:
First, a quick survey of our home planet and colonies -
Sol system -
Earth : Class-0. Population 3,160 million. 12 shipyards, with 39 slipways. 20 DSTS.
The minerals on Earth are quickly running out. Eight of the eleven TN minerals are completely depleted, and Duranium (the most vital of the remaining three) will be gone next year. Stockpiles are still fairly large, however, and with the recent development of the Martian mines (see Mars) the Duranium supply appears to be secure for the foreseeable future. Neutronium and Boronide remain a concern. The industries on Earth are currently engaged in pre-fabbing PDCs to protect the colony worlds, and in building a few Orbital Habitats to claim star systems which are otherwise uninhabitable.
Mars : Class-0, terraformed. Population 821 million. 1,100+ mines. 20 Factories.
Mars has recently been developed as a major mining colony. It holds only Duranium (conc 0.6), Sorium (conc 0.5) and Gallicite (conc 0.4) in suitable concentrations and tonnages for mining, but given the depletion of the Earth's ores it is now our major Duranium mining site, capable of providing over 18,000 tons of Duranium per year for 44 more years. The Sorium and Gallicite is being extracted somewhat more slowly (over 15,000 tons per years and over 12,000 tons per year, respectively) but will last even longer. Plans are underway to further increase the number of mines on Mars, but securing some productive mining site for Neutronium and Boronide must take priority.
Ganymede : Class-2.88, terraforming in progress. Population 59 million. 20 Factories. 16 Orbital Terraforming Bases.
Ganymede holds a large reserve of Gallicite ore (4 million tons at 0.6 concentration) but no other valuable minerals. It is currently being terraformed to serve as a source of colonists for extra-Solar expansion.
Epsilon Eridani system -
Eridu : Class-2, terraforming planned. Population 60 million. 20 Factories. 10 DSTS.
No minerals. Eridu is guarded by three PDCs: a Radar station, a Missile base, and an Airfield (currently empty, but planned to hold a squadron of obsolete Fighters). The Epsilon Eridani system is almost devoid of minerals, with only the six Comets holding any worthwhile deposits. It serves mainly to outpost the Sol system's widdershins flank, and to serve as a link with the more profitable mining system of 40 Eridani.
40 Eridani system -
Susa : Class-2, terraforming planned. Population 7 million. 20 Factories. 10 DSTS.
The 40 Eridani system is much better mineralized than the intervening Epsilon Eridani system, and the inhabited world of Susa has workable deposits of Duranium (5.7 million tons at 0.9 concentration), Neutronium (3.3 million tons at 0.7 concentration), Uridium (8.7 million tons at 0.7 concentration) and Sorium (5.3 million tons at 0.4 concentration), as well as very low-grade deposits (millions of tons at 0.1 concentration) of nearly every other mineral. Our intention is to prioritize the planet Susa for terraforming, in order to turn it into a major source of Duranium, Neutronium and Uridium. It is currently guarded by a Radar PDC and a Missile Base PDC, with an Airbase PDC planned.
Wolf 359 system -
Wolf Station : Orbital Habitat. Population 50,000. 10 DSTS.
Wolf Station is the Orbital Hab deployed to validate Humanity's claim to the Wolf 359 mining system. Further expansion with additional Orbital Habs is planned, but not in the near-term. The Wolf 359 system currently contains 200 automated mines, with a mining focus on Duranium, Uridium and Tritanium. The system is not protected, but a set of PDCs is planned for future construction.
Barnard's Star system -
Barnard : Class-2, terraforming planned, Population 22.9 million. 20 Factories. 10 DSTS.
The planet Barnard holds recoverable deposits of Duranium and Tritanium, with very low-grade deposits of a few other ores. It is currently protected by a Radar PDC, with a Missile Base and an Airbase planned.
Dragon system -
Saint George : Class-2, terraforming planned. Population 8.75 million. 11 Factories. 11 DSTS.
Saint George is the first world that the Human race has taken by conquest, from the Space Dragons. When first occupied, it held the ruins of an ancient outpost, hundreds or perhaps thousands of years old. That outpost has by now been thoroughly analyzed and dismantled. The planet holds a major deposite of Boronide, as well as minor or trace deposits of most other minerals. It also holds a scattering of junk left by its previous owner... a Fue Refinery, a terraforming instalation, a genetic modification center, a few auto-mines, etc. There is currently no protection in the system except for the four-Battalion garrison on the planet itself.
============ ============= ========== ========== ============ ============
Note: Each inhabited planet holds a force of four Battalion-sized Garrison units, with the bulk of our ground forces posted in reserve on Earth.
First, a quick survey of our home planet and colonies -
Sol system -
Earth : Class-0. Population 3,160 million. 12 shipyards, with 39 slipways. 20 DSTS.
The minerals on Earth are quickly running out. Eight of the eleven TN minerals are completely depleted, and Duranium (the most vital of the remaining three) will be gone next year. Stockpiles are still fairly large, however, and with the recent development of the Martian mines (see Mars) the Duranium supply appears to be secure for the foreseeable future. Neutronium and Boronide remain a concern. The industries on Earth are currently engaged in pre-fabbing PDCs to protect the colony worlds, and in building a few Orbital Habitats to claim star systems which are otherwise uninhabitable.
Mars : Class-0, terraformed. Population 821 million. 1,100+ mines. 20 Factories.
Mars has recently been developed as a major mining colony. It holds only Duranium (conc 0.6), Sorium (conc 0.5) and Gallicite (conc 0.4) in suitable concentrations and tonnages for mining, but given the depletion of the Earth's ores it is now our major Duranium mining site, capable of providing over 18,000 tons of Duranium per year for 44 more years. The Sorium and Gallicite is being extracted somewhat more slowly (over 15,000 tons per years and over 12,000 tons per year, respectively) but will last even longer. Plans are underway to further increase the number of mines on Mars, but securing some productive mining site for Neutronium and Boronide must take priority.
Ganymede : Class-2.88, terraforming in progress. Population 59 million. 20 Factories. 16 Orbital Terraforming Bases.
Ganymede holds a large reserve of Gallicite ore (4 million tons at 0.6 concentration) but no other valuable minerals. It is currently being terraformed to serve as a source of colonists for extra-Solar expansion.
Epsilon Eridani system -
Eridu : Class-2, terraforming planned. Population 60 million. 20 Factories. 10 DSTS.
No minerals. Eridu is guarded by three PDCs: a Radar station, a Missile base, and an Airfield (currently empty, but planned to hold a squadron of obsolete Fighters). The Epsilon Eridani system is almost devoid of minerals, with only the six Comets holding any worthwhile deposits. It serves mainly to outpost the Sol system's widdershins flank, and to serve as a link with the more profitable mining system of 40 Eridani.
40 Eridani system -
Susa : Class-2, terraforming planned. Population 7 million. 20 Factories. 10 DSTS.
The 40 Eridani system is much better mineralized than the intervening Epsilon Eridani system, and the inhabited world of Susa has workable deposits of Duranium (5.7 million tons at 0.9 concentration), Neutronium (3.3 million tons at 0.7 concentration), Uridium (8.7 million tons at 0.7 concentration) and Sorium (5.3 million tons at 0.4 concentration), as well as very low-grade deposits (millions of tons at 0.1 concentration) of nearly every other mineral. Our intention is to prioritize the planet Susa for terraforming, in order to turn it into a major source of Duranium, Neutronium and Uridium. It is currently guarded by a Radar PDC and a Missile Base PDC, with an Airbase PDC planned.
Wolf 359 system -
Wolf Station : Orbital Habitat. Population 50,000. 10 DSTS.
Wolf Station is the Orbital Hab deployed to validate Humanity's claim to the Wolf 359 mining system. Further expansion with additional Orbital Habs is planned, but not in the near-term. The Wolf 359 system currently contains 200 automated mines, with a mining focus on Duranium, Uridium and Tritanium. The system is not protected, but a set of PDCs is planned for future construction.
Barnard's Star system -
Barnard : Class-2, terraforming planned, Population 22.9 million. 20 Factories. 10 DSTS.
The planet Barnard holds recoverable deposits of Duranium and Tritanium, with very low-grade deposits of a few other ores. It is currently protected by a Radar PDC, with a Missile Base and an Airbase planned.
Dragon system -
Saint George : Class-2, terraforming planned. Population 8.75 million. 11 Factories. 11 DSTS.
Saint George is the first world that the Human race has taken by conquest, from the Space Dragons. When first occupied, it held the ruins of an ancient outpost, hundreds or perhaps thousands of years old. That outpost has by now been thoroughly analyzed and dismantled. The planet holds a major deposite of Boronide, as well as minor or trace deposits of most other minerals. It also holds a scattering of junk left by its previous owner... a Fue Refinery, a terraforming instalation, a genetic modification center, a few auto-mines, etc. There is currently no protection in the system except for the four-Battalion garrison on the planet itself.
============ ============= ========== ========== ============ ============
Note: Each inhabited planet holds a force of four Battalion-sized Garrison units, with the bulk of our ground forces posted in reserve on Earth.
We now have two Tribal-IIs, six Storm-IIs, six Quality-IIs and nine Shark-IIs finished their refit, with another two Admirals, three Qualities, two Tribals, and three Storm Leaders currently in refit. The Admiral refits are going dreadfully slowly... if not for the two-years-plus that it takes to train them up to 100% fleet training, it would have been quicker to just prefab some components and build new ships. The shipyard that is currently engaged in the last of the Quality refits is now retooling to refit the Stars to Star-IIs.
Not in the near-term, no.
As a general rule, genetic modification for low-g tolerance will give us many more new colony sites than any other mod we could make... simply because there are so many more small bodies than large ones. On the other hand, there's a nice body in the otherwise-uninhabitable Wolf 359 system that could be colonized if we could stand the high gravity of 2.74 g's. Of course, we would also need to do something about the 1200-degree surface temperature...