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Just finished reading through the entire thread and I wanted to say bgreman, and everyone else who has contributed, what a fantastic LP this is and how it was well worth the week spent reading it. Further to that, could I possibly be put on the list of people awaiting Naval officers please? Also, if I may make a general observation regarding the proposed agreement to extend our hold of the Saturnian mining operations, it might be sensible to ensure that the Feds are given a timetable to work with when it comes to when they expect their Jump Point stabilised. After all they may be expecting it straight away, or at least as soon as the second Jump Gate construction ship is complete, which would by necessity slow down our own efforts to stabilise JP3 to Ronoake. That being the case it might be advisable to stipulate that our own stabilisation efforts come first, with the Feds being granted the use of either the third Jump Gate construction ship we build or the first one we have free once work has begun on the Roanoke side of JP3. The added benefit to the above is we ensure that our own ability to colonise Roanoke is completed first, which will hopefully go some way towards making up for the fact that our ships will have to travel much farther to drop off their infrastructure and colonists, whilst also keeping the Feds happy. Or at least happier. BwenGun fucked around with this message at 09:03 on Dec 10, 2013 |
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Dec 10, 2013 08:48
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Ceebees posted:Just food for thought: Depends entirely on how close they are to getting a gate-builder up and ready. If they have to research the tech, tool a yard and then build the first hull then it may well still be economical for them to essentially hire the use of our third one. Though really it depends on how long it takes for us to build a Linelayer using pre-fabbed components. If it's six months or so then I'd hazard to guess that the Feds will still snap up the chance to get the use of one of ours in lieu of their own, likely to be a year and a half away. At the very least its worth haggling with them over it. Worst case scenario you could use our reluctance to give over the use of our second Linelayer to them to get some much better long term concessions out of them, for example transfer of industrial capacity or infrastructure which could then be shipped out to Roanoke.
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Dec 11, 2013 00:31
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Jimmy4400nav posted:If we want alpha ships, in the Skunkworks, there a ship called the Tengu, which could be useful come Ion era. Not a lot of staying power, but it has the capability of lobbing 40 missiles at something if we really want it dead. I'm never sure about pure Alpha Strike ships. They tend to be fairly limited in terms of utility, and really require a fleet in being mentality where you always expect them to be operating with a large logistical contingent to supply them with reloads. Which isn't a massive problem at the minute due to the relatively small size of the explored galaxy but will likely represent an increasing problem as time moves on. That being said its a problem that can be worked around and nothing beats a massive Alpha strike to ruin somebody elses day. The Tengu is quite nice for that, though it does have two problems. The first is it only has one fire control, which is a tactical limitation, though not a huge one. The other is that it uses regular launchers instead of box launchers, though admittedly that is likely due to a tech constraint. That being said Box launchers are incredibly useful as they save vast amounts of space, albeit for an added logistical headache when it comes to reloading. More importantly they're a first step towards viable fighters, which is where I'd argue we should be heading.
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Dec 23, 2013 22:02
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I'm with markus_cz, at least in part. I don't think outright denial of the linelayers is a good idea as if they are in fact a year or two away from building them it will significantly chill relations and if its longer then it might actually prompt an even more violent response. But I do think we should at least try to haggle for something more significant. Tech and Duranium if at all possible, and as much of it as we can possibly get. Doing otherwise wastes a perfectly good opportunity to actually get something worthwhile from the Feds as opposed to the usual result where the Feds tend to almost always come away significantly better off than we. Though actually another option might be to tell them that we'll build their Gate for them, but only if they agree to allow us to institute a toll for the passage of every ship that passes through. Payable in cold hard cash per tonnage of military and colony ships and as a percentage of the goods transited for transport ships. Even if just 2-5% that will provide a significant source of income as they expand their operations there due to the fact that their primary manufacturing base will likely remain on earth for a significant time. At the very least until they can design tugs capable of moving their shipyards.
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Dec 25, 2013 13:54
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FredMSloniker posted:Ooooooor, we could accept that, in an infinite universe, there's no reason we can't both grow and flourish. Who cares if they get bigger than we do? This isn't a game we win by getting more points than they do. It's not the pre-TNE situation where every square foot of land we get has to be taken from someone else. Once we've claimed the galaxy, maybe then we can start getting pissy, but for now, let's treat them as rivals at worst, not enemies, okay? Whilst the removal of a long term competition for resources does make the possibility of conflict between the UN and the Federation less likely would it not be a grave error to assume that this makes them less likely to be plotting the UNs downfall. After all whilst competition for resources is a longstanding motivation for war it is far from the only one. Indeed considering the political and cultural make-up of the Feds, especially when contrasted to the UN, I would hazard a guess that once their colonisation of other systems reaches the point where they're able to have moved the majority of their manufacturing and shipbuilding from Sol the chances of a war between the UN and the Federation will rise dramatically. Especially if by that point we have not also been able to move our Shipyards and manufacturing base out of system. After all under those circumstances the Federation would have a very real shot at destroying their single greatest long term threat with a single war, not to mention being able to claim the cradle of humanity for themselves alone. Obviously they may not, but the Federation has shown itself fundamentally able to plan ahead when it comes to identifying chances to eliminate the competition, it would be reckless to assume that they are not doing the same now and that as such every year we can delay their ability to migrate their production facilities from earth is a year to be cherished. And if we cannot gain those extra years, which seems likely, then it behooves us to gain the best possible deal we can extract from the Feds for the use of our linelayers. As the tech/resources which we can potentially gain from the renting of them may make all the difference if and when the Federation decides to unite humanity by force.
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Dec 26, 2013 02:52
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Coolguye posted:I would very much prefer we finish jobs we start instead of doing a lot of task switching. Particularly with the mammoth if painfully inefficient bounty we've found in Haka so far. I concur, though can't we use a Geological Survey Team to potentially up the access of those deposits a fair bit? I dimly recall something about Geo Teams having a higher chance to increase access to already existing minerals than they do to find entirely new deposits. Of course this may just be me misremembering things. markus_cz posted:[Amazing map] Wow, that is both beautiful and incredibly informative! On a personal note, as the commander of the UNS Didyma I'd just like to say that its an honour to be amongst the first human ships sent to greet one of humanities new neighbours. After the Cape Towns
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Jan 13, 2014 23:56
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Sorry if this is me being dense, but a quick question on our fleet. Are the Samar IIb's intended to be our primary escort/missile defence ship until Ion causes a flurry of redesigns? And if so are the sensors it mounts actually up to the task? For example just looking at the wiki it seems like the resolution on its active sensor and fire control seems to be set far too high in order to identify and lock on to incoming missiles at the extreme range of our current generation of counter missiles, or am I misinterpreting the resolutions? Also, secondary question to those in the know with Aurora (I've not played it for about three years and have forgotten an awful lot) can you fire missiles at your own ships? And if so, could we test out our Escorts in their missile defence role (as well as testing our own missiles ability to punch through a counter-missile screen) by firing live missiles at a task group of Samars/Suriagos but deactivate the missiles before they actually hit their intended targets.
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Jan 14, 2014 22:31
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Thanks for answering my questions everyone, pity about not being able to engage in live fire exercises with your own fleet. But on the bright side at least that avoids "accidents" caused by Fed spies. Anyway so I downloaded 5.6 and have been playing about with designing ships again after a long absence. In this case I’ve been thinking about our Area Defence Escorts after whats been said about the first, none too successful, generation of escorts. More specifically I’ve been playing about with the techs we have currently researching (Plus the Ion Missile Engine) and I’ve come up with a pair of designs which I think might be a stab in the right direction. Though I freely admit that I’m rusty at this and that advise and criticism is thus thoroughly welcome! code:Here is the missile itself: code:code:Three additional things to think about : 1) You can indeed increase the range of AMMs, but this comes at the expense of their accuracy. But more importantly it adds to the size of the Fire controls and Active Sensors needed in order to detect and hit the hostile missiles at the edge of that extended range. 2) Upping our sensor tech really does help with this, especially when having to deal with relatively small hull sizes. Though with both the active sensor and fire control the Research costs are still high. 3) I’ve got both ships hovering around 5,000 km/s in speed in the above designs. This isn’t entirely necessary. Back when I played regularly I tended to hover around 4-4500 km/s when building first generation Ion Engines, with faster designs tending to use more powerful but less efficient engines in order to save on hull space. In the end it comes down to a decision as to whether we want faster or better armed/armoured/equipped ships.
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Jan 15, 2014 03:26
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Gnooble posted:Fine designs, although I have a few notes. I especially like that you designed to 5000 kps, I like fast warships. I had completely forgotten the house rule with regards to magazine reloads, that being the case I do heartily concur it really does need a much larger magazine. Regarding armour I do see your point, I always seem to forget the stuff when designing. Playing around with an escort that can both fire at and detect incoming enemy missiles I do have to say that they get very large, very quickly. Indeed the only way I can see to get them both on the same ship at or under 3000 tons is to essentially halve the detection and fire range of both sensors as you've done above. Which is a sensible enough approach, but which does rather limit their effectiveness, especially with their relatively slow fire rate. I also suspect that in terms of raw tonnage a two ship system is more effective at getting a maximum number of AMMs on target against hostile missiles. Saros posted:What jumps out to me is the lack of armor and magazine space as well as the 75 resolution on the escorts sensor. Also the missile needs to use agility (assume at least 1 level better agility tech) as it does a much better job increasing to-hit than raw speed. For the missile agility I must plead tiredness, I'd forgotten to apply the changes of Ion missile drives to the rest of the spreadsheet I'm using to work out the best missile intercept rates. As for the Navigation sensor, really I just chucked one on that would give a decent cross-section so that the ships wouldn't fly into things whilst navigating between squadron postings. Admittedly I haven't designed a ship in a while though so I'm not certain it gives the best coverage. I suppose dropping it down to 50 resolution might be better considering the average size of the enemy ships. BwenGun fucked around with this message at 13:11 on Jan 15, 2014 |
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Jan 15, 2014 11:32
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Aethernet posted:Aurora is practically designed to ensure that you forget stuff when designing. I remember far too many games in which the inability of my warships to actually fire baffled me until I realised I'd installed the wrong size of fire control. Oh how I do know that embarrassment! Nothing quite like building your brand new beam cruiser and finding out you forgot to put any reactors on the thing.  Anyway I went back to my ship drawing board this morning with all the advice given and here are the results. Sorry in advance if this is quite a long post, I got as bit engrossed. code:Followed by the Leander code:Now to this I have to add that I rather badly miscalculated the number of salvos the Tribals can get off against incoming enemy missile salvoes travelling at 30,000km/s. Instead of 3 it was, in point of fact, 4. Which means that each salvo of six Sprints a Tribal fires has a 0.95 chance to hit, so with four salvos fired before impact each Tribal can effectively deal with an estimated 3.8 incoming enemy missiles. Now assuming a squadron configuration of 6 Tribals, and 1 Leander, that means that they can handle an estimated 22.8 missiles at 30,000km/s. The relevance of the above stems chiefly from the question as to whether we should aim to have both Active and Fire Control sensors on the same ships. Using Gnoobles all inclusive design there is only a chance to fire 2 salvos at an incoming wave of enemy missiles before they impact. A squadron of seven of those Tribals would only be able to shoot down 13.3 incoming enemy missiles compared to 22.8 for a similar tonnage of a mixed squadron. Obviously that isn’t the whole story as the utility of the dual-purpose design is a lot higher, not to mention there’s less chance that a rogue missile will knock out the squadrons ability to even detect the incoming missiles. But personally I am still of the mind that separate ships are better for the time being. At least until we can increase ancillary techs in order to bring down the size of the sensors and also improve missile reload speed and agility. Though to be honest I’d wait a bit longer so we can put together something like this: code:As to the actual number crunching side of things the County is a lot more effective, each one being able to stop 6.5 missiles travelling at 30,000km/s prior to impact with a Squadron of six of them able to stop 45 hostile missiles for roughly the same tonnage as 6 of the Tribal IIs and Leander. But that then has to measure up to new designs for the Tribal and Leander Pairing. code:code:In terms of missile interception six Tribal IVs and a Leander III can stop 52 incoming hostile missiles prior to impact which is about a ten percent increase over the County class despite having 1500 less tonnage.
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Jan 15, 2014 14:29
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Sorry I should have made that clearer. For the Tribal and Leander's I to II I'm limiting myself to what we currently have plus: Ion Drives Ion Missile Drive EM Sensor Sensitivity 8 Composite Armour Levitated-Pit Implosion Warhead: Strength: 4 x MSP Which are all already either researching or will doubtless be researched soon. For the Tribal IV, Leander III and County I'm using the above plus: Active Grav Sensor Strength 16 Missile Agility 32 per MSP Missile Launcher Reload Rate 3 Power Efficiency - -10% Power Increase 5%, Exp 7% Magazine Efficiency - 80% The above was more a list of things I'd like, though looking at your list it seems to be mostly there, minus the Power Efficiency anyway and with added Small Crew Quarters.
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Jan 15, 2014 16:26
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Saros posted:Well I do like your designs, keep up the good work! Can I ask what % of hullspace you are assigning to engines to get those speeds in excess of 5Kkps? Thanks! And it hovers around 42% of the total hull space. Which is a lot, but it does provide us with a very fast fleet, which if we're schlepping it to Roanoke and back frequently will be a plus. Personally I'd happily go down to a speed of 4-4,500kmps as it will free up 5-9% of the hull space, but that's really for the Director of the Navy to make a decision on. If we wanted to we could probably produce a dedicated 5,000kt military sensor ship with both an Anti-missile Sensor and an Long Range Ship Sensor, we could probably also fit on some rather effective passive sensors as well to allow it to lurk with its taskgroup. Though that does make the problems arising from its destruction much, much worse. Whilst we're talking about expanding the size of the escorts though, a thought occurs to me. Would the use of cargo handling systems in both our fleet Coliers and actual ships speed up the reload process, and if so would it make much of a difference? Saros posted:I feel like more use would be gotten out of an Em or thermal passive rather than an active sensor. I agree, plus having the only sensor on a survey ship be an active one is just asking for an alien to blow them the hell up.
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Jan 16, 2014 22:33
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Foxfire_ posted:Ships/Corny shipyard deal Well I'm assuming that BC Void will be used for a Missile Defence Ship. Mostly because if it needs to have its search sensor as well as the actual launchers and fire controls it will need to be 3,500 tons at a bare minimum. Though if it can stretch to 4,000 before all the components are researched (which is a possibility given how damned expensive sensors are to research) that would be rather awesome. markus_cz posted:I, for one, would like to suggest a beam-armed warship. We do indeed need a beam warfare ship. But I'd wait for the time being. Not because its outside our reach, but because getting a long range striking force up and ready is more important in the short term. Though I would suggest a feasibility study be carried out to determine precisely what technologies we will need to research in order to get a basic vessel like that up and running. That way it can be put in the queue or left with a couple of labs to slowly bubble away until ready a couple of years down the line. I'd also like to recommend that we think about getting the relevant techs in order to equip our ships with CIWS systems as I've found that they can be real lifesavers at taking out enemy missiles that bleed through your AMM screen. Not to mention that they'd take us down the first steps towards potentially having a close-in Gauss anti-missile ship for final area missile defence. But again, that's a want and not a necessity. Salvage ships are a very good idea though, especially when we blow alien vessels out of the void. After all it would be embarrassing if we killed something and then someone else salvaged it and got all the goodies. Though the list of wanted techs and ships really does make me wish we had more Research Labs operational. Or at the very least some way of knowing roughly how many Labs the Feds have in order to at least give us the comfort of knowing that the Feds must be making the same decisions if they have a similar number of research labs operational.
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Jan 24, 2014 11:05
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Whilst I'm fully behind the emotional want to kill the Feddie douchebag I cannot help but echo the concern that this is likely a trap. Not that I don't trust in the professionalism of Snark and his team, but the track record when it comes to espionage and the Feds is such that I think it would be wise to assume that if we know he's there that they want us to know he's there. Presumably so if we capture him he can feed us a load of poo poo, again. Or if we kill him so the blame can be placed on us and they can, for example, seize one of our linelayers for their own use without having to pay a dime. Or just to lure our espionage team into a trap so they can be killed or, worse, captured and then efficiently tortured until they either confess every secret they hold or else are let go under the cover of a daring escape so they can function as double agents within the UN intelligence network. Foxfire_ posted:This Doesn't that design lack any fuel capacity? As to its effectiveness as a point blank PD ship I'm not convinced. Mostly because if it gets 10% per shot, and only fires 12 shots that means that each salvo will only kill 1 incoming enemy missile for certain, no? Given that it can only fire once on any incoming enemy missile salvo due to its range and rate of fire it seems to me, at least, that it could probably do with being deployed on a much smaller hull.
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Jan 25, 2014 17:27
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Coolguye posted:It doesn't have to fire all its shots at one missile, and honestly compared to the % intercept on AMMs a 30-odd percent chance to intercept on a shot is freaking stellar. Well the AMMs we have on the drawing board for when we get Ion up and running have a 15% chance to hit compared to each Railguns 10% chance to hit, and can get off multiple salvos. The one advantage of the railgun is it doesn't require ammunition. The downside is that it has an incredibly short range at that tech level, which limits its usability a fair bit. Though having said that they're still capable at standing on top of Jump Points and hosing down anything that sticks its nose out when uninvited.
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Jan 25, 2014 18:04
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Well the all in one Future AMM Destroyer I posited was thus:code:The rear end: code:code:
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Jan 25, 2014 18:59
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What version of Aurora are you using? Because with 5.6 at current (or currently researching) tech levels I get a size 15 rear end sensor with the following:code:As to the sheer size of the thing, yes, it is huge. That's why, for the record, I'm still slightly in favour of having AMM Escorts operate in squadrons, with a number of missile armed ships being backed by a sensor ship carrying the rear end in order to keep overall size down and allow more launchers. The downside to which is that if their Squadron leader gets killed the squadron effectively becomes blind. Which is not good. Coolguye posted:I'm mostly continuing the conversation because I do not understand the defensive portion of combat really well at all. I understand the doctrine behind most of the offensive portions and I get why shields aren't useful at this point in time, stuff like that. But I don't understand how to defend from attacks and I'm sort of in charge of a navy now so that's probably something I should at least have an idea of. The Aurora wiki is a good place to start: http://aurorawiki.pentarch.org/index.php?title=Main_Page Some of it isn't relevant due to the differences between the current aurora version and the one that we're using, but a lot of it isn't up to date or still has relevance even with 5.6.
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Jan 25, 2014 19:45
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Alchenar posted:And that still need to be balanced against just building more missile ships so that we win fights before running out of ammo. Also worth noting that the more ships we have capable of firing similar size offensive missiles the greater the number of salvos our fleets will be able to fire in unison, more salvos means more targets for enemy PD to try and take down. Which in turn means more potential hits. One of the reasons fighters are one of the best offensive weapons in the game, once you have the necessary tech and shipyard capacity to produce carriers, is because they can produce a huge Alpha Strike, enabling you to overwhelm an enemies defences in the first volley and thus degrading their defences for each successive volley that is required to finish them off.
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Jan 25, 2014 19:55
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Coolguye posted:Oh that's our problem. You're positing an Active Search with that design, my design was a missile guidance sensor. Ah, my apologies, this is the future AMM fire control I've been working from, bearing in mind that EM 8 is already under research and AGS 16 is next on the list: code:
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Jan 25, 2014 23:05
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Saros posted:One thing coming up is those AMM ships need way way more mag capacity. The one which could theoretically fire 30+ missiles at each salvo only carried 140 missiles total. You never have enough magspace on your AMM ships. It is an issue. But unfortunately its not an easy one to rectify as there's a limit to how much space is left after the engines, armour, life support, fuel, missile launchers, fire controls and sensors. The easiest one to change in order to get more magazine space is the speed of the ships. Second to that is dropping the number of armour belts. It's also why I prefer the dual ship approach (spotter and shooters) as without the active sensor the smaller ships have a lot more room for magazine space. For example this is a beefier version of the Tribals (an AMM boat without an active sensor) I showed earlier. code:BwenGun fucked around with this message at 23:47 on Jan 25, 2014 |
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Jan 25, 2014 23:31
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I'm actually sort of assuming/hoping that by the time all the relevant techs are completed that British Columbia Void will have expanded to 3,500/3,750. Thus allowing escorts of that size to be built. If not I can always drop two launchers, one armour belt and some magazine space in order to get it down to 3,000 tons. Though to be honest I've completely forgotten the formula used to work out how quickly a yard expands so at this precise moment I really am just operating on my gut feeling. 
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Jan 25, 2014 23:53
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My personal preference is for a size four missile, for two reasons. The first is that it means we can fire the newer missiles from our current Capetowns, even if they'd be firing at a much reduced range. It might even be possible to refit the Capetowns with just a new fire control, thus allowing them to fire the newer missiles at their full range. Either way it allows us to retain a large portion of our current fleet as a fall-back or defensive force. The second is down to the size of the launchers as you can squeeze more size 4 launchers onto each ship, this is especially important if we're maintaining a minimum speed of 5k km/s as it means that smaller ships can still effectively hold a few size four launchers. Tying into that is the fact that more launchers, from more launch platforms, will make it much harder for enemy Point Defence to effectively knock out our missiles before they impact. Thirdly there is the future-planning aspect, sooner or later we're going to have a shipyard large enough to build a decent sized escort carrier (12,000 tons is the minimum in my experience, and 15,000 is usually better) and if and when we then research the necessary fighter techs a size four missile is perfect for fighters, especially if used in box launcher form. The downside to all that comes in the form of warhead size, especially for long range missiles. But, better three small warheads that get through than one large one that doesn't. By the by, talking of shipyard size I did a quick simulation of how our Shipyards will expand over the next year and a half.  That being tracked from 23rd March 2036. As to the Aventine, it's a nice idea. Though to be honest wouldn't it just make more sense to build a 1500 ton scout that doesn't require a hangar and save the tonnage on the cruiser? Especially seeing as the FAC would need to be built in a shipyard anyway. Also why is its fire control Res 50 and its Active Sensor Res 100?
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Jan 27, 2014 16:04
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bgreman posted:I've created a spreadsheet that can help with this kind of thing. Orange cells are input cells, blue cells are result cells. That does indeed look like a very useful little spreadsheet, thanks! It also very much shows how vitally important the Shipbuilding Rate techs are, for example if we researched the Shipbuilding Rate 560 BP tech it would only take 3 years for Mitsubishi to reach 15,000 tons, as opposed to five years otherwise. And to get it to 20,000 tons would only take 4.7 years. Future Fleet White Paper So with Gnoobles guidelines for our Ion fleet now more or less completely laid out I thought I’d try my hand at drawing up a white paper containing all the various options we possess within that framework. My aim isn’t to make a definitive decision on any of this, just present the best designs that I can come up with in the hopes that the discussion that stems from it will be constructive and ensure we build the best ships possible when the time comes. On the tech front, all of the designs assume that we will be getting Magazine Feed Efficiency 80%, Fuel Efficiency 0.8 and Missile Reload 3 Future Missile Designs Anti-Ship Missiles So with Gnoobles guidelines I figured I’d have a go at designing some missiles. (Note all of these missiles utilise the Fuel efficiency 80% tech.) Specifically I’ve designed six missiles divided equally into two missile series. The first is the Ares Missile Series, with each one being named after one of Ares children. Below are the three missiles in this series, the first has a range of 50 million kilometres, the second has a range of 45 million and the third and final one has a range of just 20 million. The reason for the final range is because it will provide all our current Cape Town Destroyers with a missile that their current fire controls can utilise with maximum efficiency, whilst at the same time giving us a short range missile that can be utilised by task forces to batter enemies without sufficient long range firepower in a much swifter fashion due to the very high speed that halving the range is able to achieve. SSM-13A Phobos Anti-ship Missile  code: code: code: Of course this does not come without a price, the Mars class missiles are slower by roughly 3,000km/s. SSM-14A Gradivus Anti-ship Missile  code: code: code:SIM-12A Apollo Interceptor Missile  code: code:Future Component Designs Active Search Sensors For the active sensors there are two primary types. The one is for long range target acquisition of enemy ships. The other is for the acquisition of incoming enemy missiles. Each of these two types is subdivided once more, for the first it is to differentiate between the two potential ASM ranges, 50 and 45 million, for the second it is between a 1 million kilometre and 2 million kilometre detection range against incoming enemy missiles. Also, worth noting when it comes to ship detection and fire control for the ASMs is that I’ve posited a resolution between 70 and 80. Partly this was to ensure that the shorter ranged ASSs and Fire Controls would actually have a noticeable difference in terms of tonnage whilst retaining to ability to see any theoretical new Federation Escorts we might encounter (assuming a size range of between 3,000 and 4,500 tons for their escorts) near the limit of our missiles range, whilst at the same time allowing us to see their Moskvas well before they enter Meson range. code:code:code:code:code:code:code:code:At present I am only concerning myself with three principal hulls for consideration. I am also making the assumption that it will be at least one year and two months before all the necessary techs and components have been researched and thus that the ships can have their keels laid down. The first hull is a 9,600 ton Heavy Cruiser to be built at EADS-Astrium Shipyards. The second is a 3,600 ton Escort Destroyer to be built at British Columbia Void. The third is a 3,000 ton Missile Destroyer to be built at Volvo-Saab. The First is the Exeter Heavy Cruiser series, the first of which utilises the 50 million kilometre Gradivus missiles. One thing to note is that with prefabricated components the build time on an Exeter V1 is a little under six months. code:code:The first Daring example utilises the 2 million kilometre AMMs. Personally I believe this is the worst of the lot on its own. It doesn’t have anywhere near enough missile tubes. And with only 29 reloads it will be empty after 2.9 minutes of continuous fire. The upside to the design is quite simply that it doubles the length of time an incoming enemy missile salvos can be engaged. Which means that 4 size 1 tubes on this design are roughly twice as effective as 8 tubes on a design geared for a 1 million kilometre interception radius. With prefabbing one can be built in roughly 3 months. code:code:In terms of RPs, however, the V2 is the clear winner as it uses half the amount to produce a ship that is only 25% less effective whilst having 34% more ammunition. We will, however, probably need to deploy four or five Darings for each Exeter class we put into service to gain ever middling Anti-Missile coverage against an enemy force of a similar size and throw weight. The Third ship is the Battle Class Destroyer. This 3000 ton hull is designed principally as a small combatant to add additional weight to the throwing power of the Exeters. Though they also have the operational life and fuel capacity to also serve on independent patrols. With prefabrication it takes 3 months and 24 days to build. code:code:Right, this got rather large rather quickly. In terms of Anti-Ship missiles I think, overall, that I prefer the warhead 4, 45m km ranged missiles. The saving in RP is substantial when added all together, and the additional armour belt on the Exeter and Battle classes is almost certainly going to be vital. For the Anti-Missile escort the 1m km ranged Daring V2 is the winner in my mind, but its still not a great design. Part of that is simply down to the size limitations of the hull, which, when combined with the need for a 5,000km/s speed, means that the number of launchers and, perhaps more critically, the magazine space is low. However given the RP savings and the number and size of military Shipyards we now have I think it, or a similar design, will very likely suffice for the time being. Though it is, of course, possible that advances to engine power (via decreasing efficiency), magazine efficiency and missile fire rate will turn the basic hull into a better ship as time goes on.
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Jan 28, 2014 01:00
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Jimmy4400nav posted:BwenGUN, how would this look if we striped out my sensor and fire control and installed yours? It saves roughly 150 tons, as far as I can tell. Though to add to the design I'd suggest throwing in an additional fire control for another 70 tons as dividing the missiles into two salvos will make it harder for the enemy point defence to target them. The other issue with the Aventine is that its a little too big for us to be able to build within the next year and a half. Indeed if my calculations are correct it will take the EADS yard almost 23 months to expand to that size.
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Jan 28, 2014 02:06
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Foxfire_ posted:Small crew The Small Crew one is, in my opinion, worth pursuing simply because it can be used to get your crew complement up to the required level without spending a full 50 tons on the design. Given the way Aurora handles components below 50 tons in the design stage this can be vital towards saving space for other, more important, things like additional magazines. As for Missile Agility, my experience is that it adds a solid percentage boost to your to hit rates, especially when it comes to AMMs. Here's a spreadsheet I've been using to gauge the best distribution of of points for interceptors. The first sheet has the rates with the Missile Agility 32 researched, the second sheet is without. FoxFire_ posted:Shipyard allotment This is rather awesome! The only downside is the size of the Colliers Magazine. But then again the Oceania Yard will likely have grown by between two hundred and four hundred tons between now and whenever we have the techs ready to start building these, which will hopefully mean slightly larger designs.
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Jan 28, 2014 02:35
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Cheatum the Evil Midget posted:Their is literally no way showing a picture of our homeworld with its features and albedo could narrow down their search. What else can we give away for free? FROM: The cramped crew quarters of Commander BwenGun Captain, UNS Didyma TO: Cheatum the Evil Midget RE: Appeasing potentially angry gods Well I've got Ensign Bennet already here, he's reasonably presentable, housetrained and probably the worst navigator in the history of the Academy so there's very little risk of them ever finding their way back to earth from their mental probing. I mean it will mean I'll have to get one of the enlisted sailors to make my morning coffee but its a sacrifice I'm willing to bear if it means that we don't start an interplanetary war when I'm in command of an unarmed sensor boat.
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Jan 31, 2014 15:41
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FredMSloniker posted:Also, how quickly does the galaxy rotate? I.e., what kind of time are we dealing with here? IIRC it takes 225 million years for our sun to completely orbit the galaxy. Which would mean they haven't found anyone new species capable of interstellar travel in roughly 28 million years. And the Mind, such as it is, has supposedly existed now for 675 million years. Which is a scarily long time.
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Feb 3, 2014 22:02
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Added Space posted:Their requirements aren't onerous at all. I think we should flatly agree to them. By time we're even ready to expand beyond a small area we'll have caught up with the tech they're using and can re-negotiate terms as we see fit then. Unless they deliberately use low-tech (to them) ships in their line-laying operations in order to immediately gauge the nature of newly encountered species by how they react to them. It could be we'll rapidly advance technologically, try to strong-arm them and then they'll simply turn up with Photonic level fleets and blockade us into Sol.
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Feb 3, 2014 22:31
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Dr. Snark posted:I doubt that; remember that we're the first species they've seen in millions of years. If they were expecting hostilities, then I would be worried. You're quite possibly right. Though the fact that they've existed for so long a period might argue that their long term planning skills are somewhat better and more robust than humanity's. After all just because they've not met any new species in a while doesn't mean they would assume they never would, or that they shouldn't be prepared to deal with any new species that cropped up.
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Feb 3, 2014 22:43
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markus_cz posted:I just wonder how you will explain to Mr. Kofi Annan that the nice friendly diplomat, who has just asked a perfectly normal question, suddenly disappeared and will be replaced by a completely different person a couple of weeks from now. The problem is that we need to rectify the lie in question and inform the Kaavi about the Federation. Otherwise when they do eventually find out about them, and they almost certainly will, we'll be cast as liars and thus inherently untrustworthy. Which will ironically make it more likely that the Federation will gain the Uplift benefits the Kaavi may offer whilst the UN is left scraping around on our own. If we were to say, "Well this one guy lied, but he was acting alone and without orders or the collective assent of the UN, sorry. Oh and he's sticking around to help with the ongoing discussion, hope that's ok." Then it would leave open the possibility for Kaavi Anan to interpret your continued presence as proof that the UN privately sanctioned the lie in some form or another.
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Feb 20, 2014 12:21
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I shall throw my vote in for Kommando.
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Mar 13, 2014 01:26
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Alchenar posted:I, Alchenar, of the 'how to un-gently caress the UN's fleet composition for this tech level' plan and general 'can we actually be sure our plans go somewhere and don't just end in mumble mumble good things'-ness hereby set out my candidacy for the position of the UN Executive Whip. I like the cut of your jib sir!
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Mar 15, 2014 16:26
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I'm almost tempted to suggest we ask the Feds whether they'd be willing to carry out a joint Exercise around Asteroid 151, simulating an incursion of a hostile alien ship or fleet into the Sol System via the K2 jump point. Just because that way we can be the bigger men, diplomatically speaking, by attempting to publicly foster a greater degree of trust and cooperation in the face of mutual threats and challenges. Plus it's a subtle reminder that we aren't exactly toothless when it comes to Naval Operations. Of course if said display of trust and cooperation were to take place it might also serve as a useful starting point for the conversation that we need to eventually have with the Feds regarding the Community.
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Mar 28, 2014 13:56
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Coolguye posted:Should I write up a 1000ish word summary of the important stuff thus far to ease people into this? It strikes me that reading the entire thread would be rather daunting. It would be rather useful. Especially for new readers who want to participate in the current discussions but haven't yet read through the entirety of the thread yet. If someone has a lot of free time it might even be a good idea to go through and do a broad time-line with links to important events so that it's easier for people to refer back to things without wading through the entire thread in search of a single post. Though I'll stress that it really should be only attempted if said person really, really wants to as the level of work involved in such a thing would be pretty immense as it would effectively require re-reading the entire thread and summarising all the official posts and a small percentage of background chatter in case it's relevant.
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Mar 30, 2014 15:52
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TildeATH posted:Are you kidding, it obviously drives the recipient to insanity. Which is why you surgically implant a micro-explosive in their skull and give them regular psychiatric screenings. Then the minute they start acting erratically you retire them, if they refuse all it takes is a little pop in the skull and the death certificate states they died of an unfortunate but unavoidable brain aneurysm caused by brain-machine interface. Then the suit gets cleaned out and a new soldiers gets put inside, lured by the promises of excitement, power and absurd danger pay. BwenGun fucked around with this message at 00:45 on Apr 6, 2014 |
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Apr 6, 2014 00:29
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Dr. Snark posted:So in a shocking plot twist, the Feds are claiming Allen. What a surprise. Strategically it makes a lot of sense. Presumably the Feds still don't know that there are much wider and incomparably more important things at work in the rest of the Galaxy. To them the competition over resources in Sol and it's surrounding systems is paramount. Allen, in that light, is perfect for a number of reasons. First it allows them a valid excuse to spy on us. Second it also serves as a perfect position to attack any Task Force returning from K2 if it is significantly weakened. After all in the minds of Fed Naval planners there could hardly be a better time to land a knock-out blow against the UN, a quick fight at short ranges against a potentially battle-damaged UN fleet probably low on ammunition would almost certainly seal Federation ascendancy. And even if they don't attack they'll have a first hand look at the Task Force that exits K2, and a look at how it looked as it entered. Needless to say that information could be very useful to them. For example if the Zhongguo line hasn't worked out as well as they were hoping past the initial great system, if for example they themselves have run into K2-like aliens who are blocking their expansion and exploration routes, then the K2 system would represent a huge prize if they could claim it after our own fleet was in no position to seriously contest their seizure of the Jump Point and then newly cleared system, along with, presumably, all the destroyed alien ships for them to salvage for new technology. Also I noticed in your and Roast Beef's wonderful narrative that Somman mentioned Fed plans to undermine some of the neutral governments to get them on the Fed side, which reminded me, what are we actually doing about the Independents at the minute? Aside from the Sahara Terraforming initiative?
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Apr 9, 2014 09:29
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Aethernet posted:Except that they've just allowed us to place a DSTS on Allen too, meaning we'll be able to see any Fed fleets lying in wait and can ensure that our victorious fleet is met at the jump point with fresh missiles and reinforcements - an 'honour guard' if you will. My view is that this is just the Feds being paranoid about the random acts of an occasionally irrational aggressor - we're already spying on their jump point for much the same reason. Not that we shouldn't be careful, though. We may be able to see them coming, but if, for example, our fleet is two days from returning to K2 and we detect a Fed fleet that will have reached the Jump Point in 1 Day and 23 Hours then we still lose. Not to mention I wouldn't put it past them to secretly build a PDC on the asteroid with the deliberate intention of firing on any ammunition tenders we have waiting for our returning fleet. After all if memory serves we wouldn't be able to detect such an installation until it turned on its active sensors and fire controls. (Though it's been months since I played a proper game of Aurora so I'm not 100% on that). Not to mention that having ammunition is only half the battle, if we get back, re-arm and yet have still lost half our fleet and sustained significant battle damage to certain ships engines, weapon systems or PD then whilst not easy a Federation victory would become far more likely in any Naval engagement. Which again might not even be their true aim, going by past events I'd say some sort of brinkmanship is rather likely, the threat of war whilst our fleet is substantially weakened would to the Feds be a perfect way to extort yet more from the UN.
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Apr 9, 2014 09:56
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Aethernet posted:It's a long way from civilisation and in the short term it'll only be useful as a penal colony. I suggest Australia. Counter-suggestion; New Space Wales.
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Apr 13, 2014 20:28
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Gnooble posted:Also - ION ENGINES!!!! Is there anything in the United Nations Code of Conduct that forbids Officers from expressing joy by going "Squeee!", or is that considered unacceptable for bringing the image and professionalism of the Service into disrepute?
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Apr 15, 2014 14:27
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| # ¿ Apr 28, 2024 18:38 |
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Far from Sol the Bridge Crew of the UNS Didyma are briefly amused as their Commander gives a full throated "Squee!" of delighted upon opening a new message from Fleet-Com. 
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Apr 15, 2014 14:58
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