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

[blue emu]

We have finished tooling up for the new class of Survey vessels, and have laid down the first three keels.

EDIT: the wreckers have returned to the Sol system, and 4900 research points worth of data, gained while dismantling the wrecks, has been downloaded to our data banks... on topics including Laminate Composite Armor, Fuel Efficiency, Grave Sensor Sensitivity, Magazine Ejection Systems, ECM, Passive Thermal Sensors and ECCM. We should now decide which components to keep, and which to dismantle.

 

[Capt. Kiwi]

It also overestimates the enemey PD range, which is closer to 20 m-km, and their capacity to maintain fire, which is already proven as finite for ships. The fighters have their uses, but they shouldn't be thrown at full PD unless we're desperate to attract missile fire. In which case, we would be just as well off with one missile, but it may not add much to cut their size and takes away from their other uses.

I'd be interested to see a hypothetical two missile design, if only to see how fast it was. That would give some feel for how much the lite version are gaining and losing in trade offs.

 

[blue emu]

I'd be interested to see a hypothetical two missile design, if only to see how fast it was. That would give some feel for how much the lite version are gaining and losing in trade offs.

I'll check when we have a few other techs done. I want to see what our missile range is going to be like before designing the sensors... I always try to design the weapon before designing the platform to carry it. Should be within month or less.

Also: See my edit above.

 

[joebthegreat]

Maybe it's time to open another discussion.

Several of our Military Shipyards are reaching 20,000 tons capacity. Our largest current warship is 15,000 tons. With the increased capacity, we can either build a line of larger warships, or build small warships much faster (I think it goes by the something close to square of the difference, so a 20,000 ton Shipyard can construct a 5,000 ton warship almost twice as fast).

We should consider our current Navy, and decide what weaknesses it has which should be addressed by our new construction program.

I'll start:

At present, we have no real ability to detect or engage small vessels such as Fighters or Fast Attack Craft (no sensors with intermediate resolutions, in between 1 and 100), and we have no Fast Attack Craft of our own. We also have no purpose-built PD vessels, no Gun-Ships, and only one Ammunition Tender... in fact, we are generally rather short of support vessels.

I've brought it up before and I guess it's good to bring up again.

What's the feasibility, with our new techs, of creating purpose-built PD ships? As good as it is to have Rocks as a distraction, we've clearly seen the enemy target the main fleet behind the rocks once they came into visibility. Those were 23% the speed of light and at the time there was no way we could shoot those missiles down, but those fast size 1 missiles aren't the only missile the Prix use, and considering the size 24 missiles we've seen we want to be able to consistently prevent missiles from connecting with our fleet. Even if it won't be effective against size one missiles I think we need to put more focus into PD than into rocks.

---

We could definitely do with more Ammunition Tenders, considering how much ammunition we seem to blast through every engagement. My only concern is how you would effectively keep them protected.

---

And the last thing I'm going to talk about without fully knowing what I'm talking about is the fighters. I'd say the faster fighters is the best option, simply because of the 1 missile salvos. If it's 120 1 missile salvos or 80 2 missile salvos, consider that once 40 or more salvos are shot down then more of the 1 missile salvos are going to reach the enemy than the 2 missile salvos. You have to add to this how many of the fighters get shot down with the salvo not launched.

You have to ask yourself. Between launching the fighters and the alpha strike connecting with the enemy, are more or less than 40 fighters PLUS salvos going to be shot down? Consider that more fighters will be shot down before launching their salvo if it's a slower version (for reasons you've already explained), it appears larger fighters with more missiles only makes sense if you can guarantee their protection.

 

[Dewirix]

Maybe it's time to open another discussion.

Several of our Military Shipyards are reaching 20,000 tons capacity. Our largest current warship is 15,000 tons. With the increased capacity, we can either build a line of larger warships, or build small warships much faster (I think it goes by the something close to square of the difference, so a 20,000 ton Shipyard can construct a 5,000 ton warship almost twice as fast).

We should consider our current Navy, and decide what weaknesses it has which should be addressed by our new construction program.

I'll start:

At present, we have no real ability to detect or engage small vessels such as Fighters or Fast Attack Craft (no sensors with intermediate resolutions, in between 1 and 100), and we have no Fast Attack Craft of our own. We also have no purpose-built PD vessels, no Gun-Ships, and only one Ammunition Tender... in fact, we are generally rather short of support vessels.

Ooh, a Strategic Defence Review! I vote for scrapping every carrier in the fleet and then declaring war on the Chix. Wait, only an mind-bogglingly incompetent bureaucracy would do that.

Assuming that we're going to continue operations against the Prix we'll need better point defence, to allow our fighters to do something other than act as decoys, and better ability to cut through enemy point defence fire to bombard planets and destroy PDCs.

The creation of a dedicated PD destroyer or cruiser seems sensible. Doesn't need to be jump capable either, so that allows more room for missile tubes and fire control. If they can quickly reload from the Cornucopias that would mean the magazine space could be smaller too, allowing for even more tubes and fire control systems.

Bombarding a planet seems to be a trickier problem. We now know that swamping a Prix PDC is possible, but it seems very costly in terms of missiles expended.

 

[blue emu]

What's the feasibility, with our new techs, of creating purpose-built PD ships?

Now that we've got a strong force of multi-role warships... Destroyers and Light and Heavy Cruisers... it's a good time to start producing specialist warships, and PD defense vessels are near the top of the list. All they really require are Engines, Armor, Shields, Magazines, Fire control systems, and three layers of PD (missiles, guns and CIWS) with a strong emphasis on AMMs.

OK: here's the full list of the new loot from those ten wrecks:

3 x Magazines
2 x 38 m-km res-1 FCs
38 x size-1 missile launchers (fast reload)
1 x high-tech Thermal sensor
1 x ECM-4
2 x Twin Gauss Cannon Turrets

I'm inclined to keep the two PD Fire Controls, and pull everything else to bits for tech info.

Opinions?

 

[Capt. Kiwi]

Our PD has performed well against everything except their size 1 missiles so far. While improvements are always good, I don't think we need any completely new ships, unless it's to provide a short range beam layer to the defence. It takes an awful lot of research before beam fire controls are up to much though, unless you're not firing till they're 10,000 km away. Turrets will also be bulky until we get to higher tech. A dedicated beam PD ship(s) would probably make sense, but you're not going to fit missiles too unless it's massive at this stage in the game.

joeb does make a good point about the difference between missile count and salvo count, though. If we've already exhausted their PD, it's missile count that matters. But if we haven't, they may change their fire strategy so that they target all the missiles in a salvo with a single missile, rather than three on one. If that's the case, 90 salvos x 2 missiles would actually have less penetration than 120 x 1, if they have a decent hit percentage.

 

[ForzaA]

Maybe it's time to open another discussion.

Several of our Military Shipyards are reaching 20,000 tons capacity. Our largest current warship is 15,000 tons. With the increased capacity, we can either build a line of larger warships, or build small warships much faster (I think it goes by the something close to square of the difference, so a 20,000 ton Shipyard can construct a 5,000 ton warship almost twice as fast).

We should consider our current Navy, and decide what weaknesses it has which should be addressed by our new construction program.

I'll start:

At present, we have no real ability to detect or engage small vessels such as Fighters or Fast Attack Craft (no sensors with intermediate resolutions, in between 1 and 100), and we have no Fast Attack Craft of our own. We also have no purpose-built PD vessels, no Gun-Ships, and only one Ammunition Tender... in fact, we are generally rather short of support vessels.

We should also consider the SORT of engagements we intend to fight.

So far, ALL our engagements, you have done your utmost to maintain range for missiles, and even though the Prix have a significant tech lead, they were unable to close to beam distance (if by a hairsbreadth)

Any ship relying on beams to deal damage, as such, has no place in our current fleet.

I could see a separate detachment working on closing to beam distance, with a new, larger, lead ship for that detachment - but size is generally counterproductive when it comes to closing the distance (a LOT of engines will be needed to provide sufficient speed to close against an oponent who wishes to maintain distance. Big ships are hard to hide)
Like the battleships of Earth's blue water navies, I would think that large, short-range weapons platforms have no place in your space navy; if you "must" use the size; Either do so as large PD platforms - but then, the question is, would this role not be much better fullfilled by a few smaller PD platforms? Issues of fire control might give the leg up to large platforms, but I wouldn't think so. OR use the size for large missile cruisers or carriers.

More ammunition ships would probably be a good addition, but I doubt the extra size would be needed there (and indeed, might just make them more of a target)

With regards to defense against fighters, small attack crafts - that's what you have CAP for, right?

 

[Capt. Kiwi]

With regards to defense against fighters, small attack crafts - that's what you have CAP for, right?

Our fighters would be helpless against interceptors IIRC; their fire control wouldn't gain a lock till they see the whites of the enemy fighter pilot's eyes.

Edit: Roles I see in our fleet:

Finding the enemy:
AWACS: Long range and high resolution salvaged sensors putting us on an even footing with the Prix in terms of intel, while letting the rest of the fleet run silent.
Recon fighters/drones: Can scout our flanks or suspected hostile planets without being too valuable to lose, and provide sensor data for fighter strikes

Stopping the enemy from getting us:
AMM ships: All our current missile ships have size 1 launchers, and it doesn't hurt too much to equip them that way. I don't think there's any reason to split this from ASM roles, as the interlocking system for defence and missile transfer on attack is proven.
Beam PD: Currently completely absent. Would have to be dedicated to this role or massive if you want to take on a score of 70000 kps stingers.

Hurting the enemy:
Carriers: Long range fighter strikes have use when pursuing a broken enemy, though they're too fragile to do much against an enemy fleet with PD active. Unless that's the plan...
ASM ships: Heavy cruisers provide this on a big scale, but light cruisers and destroyers should have some capability too to provide extra weight to the fleet's salvo and allow transferring of missiles and planetary bombardments.
Bombardment ships, mine layers: Differing speed size 8s have proven promising for planetary bombardment, while minelayers can carry special munitions.

Also: Missile tenders, rocks

I think we're best off avoiding closing to beam range, unless we've made big breakthroughs. Beam fire control research is expensive, and we're just going to get massacred if we're not comparable in tech - we'd have to close several hundred thousand km while under heavy fire. It'd make the charge of the light brigade look like child's play.

Weaknesses: We have no way to get through comprehensive beam PD. None at all, short of complete saturation.

 

[blue emu]

With regards to defense against fighters, small attack crafts - that's what you have CAP for, right?

Yes and no. Mostly no.

NONE of our vessels has an appropriate Active Sensor or Fire Control system for engaging very small targets at medium ranges. The sensitivity of sensors, outside their designed range of target sizes, obeys the inverse-square rule.

Example:

Suppose my sensor is designed to pick up size-100 (5000 ton) targets, as nearly all of our main-armament sensors are. A group of 300-ton Fighters approach to launch missiles. They are size-6 targets, so our sensor's sensitivity is reduced (relative to them) by (6/100)squared. A sensor designed to pick up warships at 50 million km could only detect those Fighters at 180,000 km. Naturally, that's about a thousand times closer than they need to come in order to launch missiles at us.

 

[Nabobalis]

I would say disassemble as many components as you can.

Keep the current fleet as it is. If small parts can be upgraded then do so i.e FC or Tubes.

New fleet in my head:

CV: 20,000 tons - carries fighters and could double up as collier, if space allows be the jump tender of the fleet.
CA: 20,000 tons - primary role would be anti-ship/maybe long range bombardment.
CL: 15,000 tons - good mix of anti-missile and anti-ship roles
DD: 10,000 tons - primary role would be anti-missile/anti-fighters

Generally I always create a AWACS type ship that has big sensors while the other ships carry smaller active sensors and small passives.

We would have support in terms of tanker/supply ship and a collier ship.

 

[Bjering]

Is it possible to design a AMM that can be carried and launced from our fighters? Having the option of letting them double as an extra layer in our PD screen (much like F14s with Phoenix where intended) would be nice.

Second, I think we need strategic recon abilities, able to scout out enemy systems and act as picket ships, while we currently are fighting the formidable but strategically passive Prix we should try to have a good scanning ship capable of acting alone (ie with jump drive) so we could maintain presence on our front (or rather as it is currently, FIND the front...). Hopefully the prix ruins in El Dorado will let us know if anything like a "stealth" ship is possible, if so that would be ideal.

 

[Capt. Kiwi]

Is it possible to design a AMM that can be carried and launced from our fighters? Having the option of letting them double as an extra layer in our PD screen (much like F14s with Phoenix where intended) would be nice.

This would only work if they had res 1 (Edit: fire control), which would take a fair bit of space.

As for recon, we need intel, but I'm not sure we can build a ship with sensors big enough to cover enough area while being fast enough to avoid being squished if acting independently. We'd need multi AU scale range to make it work, but it would be useful if we could.

 

[Bjering]

This would only work if they had res 1 sensors.

They need it themselves? Can't it be painted by another ships? Or perhaps we could make a homing missile? Its a size-4 missile on the fighter and it only need a small warhead to kill a missile.

 

[ForzaA]

Yes and no. Mostly no.

NONE of our vessels has an appropriate Active Sensor or Fire Control system for engaging very small targets at medium ranges. The sensitivity of sensors, outside their designed range of target sizes, obeys the inverse-square rule.

Example:

Suppose my sensor is designed to pick up size-100 (5000 ton) targets, as nearly all of our main-armament sensors are. A group of 300-ton Fighters approach to launch missiles. They are size-6 targets, so our sensor's sensitivity is reduced (relative to them) by (6/100)squared. A sensor designed to pick up warships at 50 million km could only detect those Fighters at 180,000 km. Naturally, that's about a thousand times closer than they need to come in order to launch missiles at us.

Would a dedicated "CAP leader" (compare strike leader Gnat) fighter work?

You have these lovely flexible platforms (CVs), why not make use of that flexibility
I would imagine a new fighter can be designed and built ever so slightly faster than a dedicated anti-fighter ship.

 

[Capt. Kiwi]

They need it themselves? Can't it be painted by another ships? Or perhaps we could make a homing missile? Its a size-4 missile on the fighter and it only need a small warhead to kill a missile.

I meant FC. Sensors can be done by other shis, but not FC. We can do homing missiles, the trick is making them fast enough to hit a missile while having mass devoted to sensors.

 

[Nabobalis]

I do like the idea of faster fighters that could operate for a few days away from the fleet. But I guess current tech does not allow it.

 

[Bjering]

I meant FC. Sensors can be done by other shis, but not FC. We can do homing missiles, the trick is making them fast enough to hit a missile while having mass devoted to sensors.

Hmm, ok, so, how much speed/carrier deck space would it cost to fit a res-1 FC on the Gnat mk2?

 

[blue emu]

I broke up everything except those two res-1 FCs and a couple of dozen fast PD launchers. Including the data gained while disassebling the ten new wrecks, we've gained 9300 research points. For comparison, one Research Lab costs 2400 bucks and 2400 minerals (and also seems to cost a lot of bucks to support) and generates 280 research points per year... so the wreck plus salvaged components gave us about 33 lab-years worth of research.

 

[Capt. Kiwi]

Hmm, ok, so, how much speed/carrier deck space would it cost to fit a res-1 FC on the Gnat mk2?

If it were completely dedicated to intercepting, probably none. But that would leave it near useless for strike roles.

If we went with 2 missile launcher designs, we'd have enough space to sacrifice a missile launcher for a second FC. I'm not sure it would be worth it, to be honest.