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On the note of maximizing the number of giant doom lasers, I'm going to put forward my suggestion for a missile cruiser with beam secondaries. While primarily missile armed, it has a healthy punch with a spinal laser and two secondaries, enough to remain dangerous even after expending all of its missiles.code:Also the first time an enemy encounters them they might assume they're just a slow missile ship until they close to point blank range for the giant doom laser. Bremen fucked around with this message at 02:30 on Sep 20, 2017 |
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Sep 20, 2017 02:22
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Nick Esasky posted:My opinion continues to be that ships with the majority of their tonnage devoted to not-beam related things have absolutely no buissness wanting to get involved in beam fights. The 1400 tons i see devoted to the lasers, reactor, and fire control on that design could much better devoted to such pursuits as doubling the magazine size from the currently pitiful 11 volleys along with fixing the ROF on the launchers so its 30 seconds per volley instead of 60. I simply do not see any benefit in halving our long range firepower per ship simply to throw some weak additions into a beam fight they could contribute to much better by blowing up the combatants beforehand. The fire rate is a personal preference; I find larger and slower salvos more effective. Nor does 1400 tons of beams get magically more effective if you put it on a different hull. For what it's worth, it has about 65% the launchers and magazine of a dedicated missile ship, and about 50% the beam firepower of the beam ship posted earlier. The advantage comes from the armor; it might have 50% of the beam firepower of a dedicated beam ship, but it has about the same health, so two would outlast a single beam ship, while having more missiles than a single missile ship.
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Sep 20, 2017 03:35
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For what it's worth, we ran a sim in the Discord chat of 1 Lucifer and 3 Lowells vs 2 Lucifers and 2 specialized missile ships, and the hybrid approach won pretty handily. Both sides took heavy damage, but the hybrids got off to a slightly better start since both fleets lost a cruiser in the missile engagement, which cost the specialized ships half their launchers but the hybrids only a third, and then got anther boost since the missile ships were effectively "dead" once they ran out of missiles. Ended up with 2 Lowells surviving and all the specialized ships dead. Basically, I maintain that the hybrid design approach is far superior. Another lesson from the sim: Don't underestimate the 15cm lasers, they killed two of the lucifers by hitting holes in their armor left by missile combat. The giant spinal doom laser is great against undamaged ships, though. Also, it's probably a good idea to hold fire with the spinal until 50,000 km or so. That 90 second recharge is huge.
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Sep 20, 2017 07:34
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Size 2s having half the hit rate means they'll probably inflict considerably less damage unless large numbers of missiles are being shot down. They're really only practical if we're expecting to face heavy point defense for our missiles where like half of the volleys are being shot down. Size 4s main advantage is it's easier to fit a sensor suite onto them, making it so the missiles can potentially lock onto new targets if their target (or the ship that launched them) is destroyed.
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Sep 21, 2017 02:57
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LLSix posted:I still prefer hybrid designs. Not having ships become target dummies when we inevitably run out of missiles seems like a good idea. Yep. In Discord we also had a great idea to give the hybrids one or two additional salvos of short range torpedoes, keeping the launchers relevant in a beam fight.
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Sep 21, 2017 21:49
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Zaodai posted:How much damage (in practice) do those Size 8 torps do? 14 damage, and they're essentially uninterceptable at 120,000 km or less. However, the reloading time makes those spinal doom lasers look rapid fire :p
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Sep 21, 2017 22:36
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I'm sure it will surprise no one that I'm in favor of 1B. How much tonnage we want to devote to beams is up in the air, but even having a few beams behind a thousand tons of armor makes for a significant threat (especially with the addition of a salvo of torpedoes). It also avoids possible disasters where a bunch of missile cruisers with empty magazines get bushwhacked by a destroyer or a few fighters while their beam escorts are off fighting the obvious enemy. In the previous war we had hybrid battlecruisers to provide that kind of coverage, but we're looking at cruisers as our largest jump classes so I think we should have at least some hybrids there. For missile size I'm much more ambivalent. After playing around with possible designs, I favor 2B but only just; size 3 missiles without sensors are extremely capable, and still doable with sensors. S4 makes sensors a no brainer and has more versatility for alternate ammunition types like torpedoes.
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Sep 22, 2017 01:14
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Yep. It's worth noting that the long range sensor and fire control for a missile setup is much larger than the firecontrol for beam weapons, so it doesn't make a lot of sense to strap a few missile launchers onto a dedicate beam ship (which can't run out of ammo anyways). I'll also note that most beam cruiser designs have a backup firecontrol anyways for redundancy, so having a missile fire control and a beam fire control isn't even that big a loss in efficiency compared to jamming all the beams into one hull.
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Sep 22, 2017 20:48
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Nick Esasky posted:TBH, the examples of usage given to me by Bremen on Discord involved sacking all of our missile ships for hybrids and then sacking half the dedicated beam ships as well to theoretically maintain the same missile throw weight. That did not sit very well with me. That was a theoretical example that if we made 1/3rd beam 2/3rd missile ships, we could replace a 2:2 beam:missile squadron with 1:3 beam:hybrid to get the same number of launchers but much greater staying power in a beam fight. The actual specifics of a hybrid ship haven't really been nailed down; I've been experimenting with a hybrid with only two light beams and more missile launchers (more practical with the addition of torpedoes), but I'm waiting to see what missile size we settle on.
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Sep 22, 2017 22:11
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mossyfisk posted:How much meaningful difference is there between strapping a giant laser on a missile cruiser, and just sticking a few dozen torpedoes in its magazine? For what it's worth, here's the tonnages involved at our current tech: 10cm laser (+power plant): 180 tons 15cm laser (+power plant): 230 tons 30cm laser (+power plant): 480 tons 45cm laser (+power plant): 730 tons 17 extra Size 4 missiles: 100 tons On the surface torpedoes do look pretty good, though they suffer pretty low fire rate after the first salvo. There's also a small but real chance that missiles will explode in a ship if it takes internal damage, Battletech style. Also, if you have the missiles for multiple salvos of torpedoes, you start to wonder why you don't just load them with missiles and hit them before beam range.
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Sep 23, 2017 04:44
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Pharnakes posted:I'm sure that would be good but that's a size 9 missile isn't it? People are talking about size 3 or 4 launchers, I don't think torpedoes are a good idea if they require dedicated tubes, only if they can be carried by our standard missile ships for a bit of extra punch up close. Here's the S4 torpedo design I came up with: code:
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Sep 23, 2017 17:31
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Saros posted:One thing is for bigger ships instead of a hybrid I'd accept is towed missile pods which can be dropped after firing. Ideally the ships maintain the 4k fleet speed while towing though. Comedy option: code:code:
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Sep 26, 2017 21:20
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Looks like it's time for fleet proposals. I favor dividing ships up into jump capable squadrons, which basically means a jumpship and 4 combat ships of the appropriate tonnages, with extra non-combat ships not counting. Until and unless we develop dedicated jump point assault ships, our best chance of a jump point assault will be to send every combat ship we have through at once. I also think this means we should have some versatility in squadrons; while it would be nice to have at least one cruiser squadron, one destroyer squadron, and one frigate squadron in every fight, we can't count on it. For frigate (3000 ton) squadrons, I figure an emphasis on scouting is ideal, though it should still have some weapons just in case it wanders into a small fight. No one's made a missile frigate, and I don't think they're really that practical anyways, so this probably means beams and maybe some PD. Combat squadron: 1 Seer class Frigate Leader (Jumpship) 2 Ersatz Schiaparelli class Destroyer (Beam Frigate) (Suggested Rename: Schiaparelli II class Frigate) 2 Stalwart class Escort Frigate code:1 Gale class Scout (Sensor ship) 1 Wraith class Stealth scout (Cloaked spy ship) code:For destroyers, as cool as the CVE idea is I don't think 1000 tons of hangar space is practical. I envision destroyers as a quick strike force; get in, do some damage, and then run away if faced with anything too big to fight, while also being able to contribute firepower to a cruiser squadron. Combat Squadron: 1 Glorious Leader class Destroyer Leader (Jumpship) code:code:code:1+ Shiva class Ammunition Transport code:Cruiser squadrons are going to be the heaviest jump capable warships we have, and so I feel they should be designed as the fleet backbone, and include at least one carrier. 1x Burroughs class Jump Cruiser (Jump Cruiser) code:1x Ersatz Cassini class Cruiser (Beam Cruiser) (Suggested Rename: Cassini II class Heavy Cruiser) 2x Lowell class Heavy Cruiser code:1 Locklear mk.III class Light Carrier (Carrier) 2+ Shiva class Ammunition Transports Commercial fuel tanker Solo, a frigate squadron uses its stealth and advanced sensors to avoid any enemy fleets while being able to attack commercial shipping or isolated warships (worth noting that the gauss on the Stalwart also works as a short range anti-ship weapon). Together with cruisers or destroyers, the Stalwarts provide point defense coverage and the Schiaparellis can help in a beam fight or escort detached forces like a carrier or FSV, while the scout frigates let the fleet know where the enemy is. Solo, a destroyer squadron can launch a bunch of missiles at any vulnerable targets and then retreat back to its ammo collier (possibly in another system) to rearm. If it cripples a ship, the Revolution can finish it off before help arrives. When working with cruisers, the missile destroyers contribute to the missile barrage (with nearly as many tubes as a cruiser division, though shallower magazines) then the Revolution joins in on the beam fight. Bremen fucked around with this message at 00:13 on Oct 2, 2017 |
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Oct 1, 2017 22:17
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Jack2142 posted:Well that is where I disagree, if you only have to options for your squadrons for example the destroyer squadron, if it gets jumped by fighters it has no protection and probably isn't fast enough to outrun... so it dies. It can fire all its missiles, but if the enemy has the same missile range... then it has to sit an eat a full enemy salvo's before it can withdraw (so the targets aren't lost) if the ships aren't destroyed. If you want to bring PD cover and more beams you either need to deploy a frigate squadron... so now your small force is 10 ships instead of 5 to have the same flexibility. I'm not sure the first is a fair comparison; I mean, you can pick rock paper scissors for anything. Sure, my destroyer squadron would probably take some hits from a fighter strike before withdrawing, and you can call that a weakness, but I could also point out that Fray's destroyer squadron would have trouble dealing with an all beam force since it only has one missile ship (alternately, that to chase anything down the beam destroyers have to leave behind their escorts, which I consider a large weakness). Doesn't mean either of them are bad, just both have strengths and weaknesses. Though your claim that it can't use its speed to get a one sided salvo against equal range missiles is incorrect, when you consider that missiles expend fuel "chasing" a moving target (the destroyers could also bait out the salvos first by moving in and out of range). For the second... well, first off, that's why a destroyer squadron has an attached ammo transport. But the second is that the doctrine is designed for detached operations like that; if you need to know if the enemy has any ships in an adjacent system, you can send a frigate squadron in to do the scouting. If you want some fast skirmishers to test the enemy, you can send destroyers. Fray's fleet concept is based on larger but more rounded formations rather than a lot of small ones, is all, which gives it fewer weaknesses but less adaptability. Though it's not a hard rule; if we have 3 colonies to cover and 2 line divisions, there's no real reason they couldn't be split up, it's just not designed that way straight up. The real advantage I think my fleet has is jump point assaults. Since it's built around jump squadrons and each squadron is designed to operate independently, it can always jump in every combat ship (Fray's line fleet would either have to leave behind 2 DDEs plus any Stalwarts if those get worked in, or send in an unarmored auxiliary). Beyond that it isn't really that different from Fray's except that it's formed of smaller parts.
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Oct 2, 2017 04:00
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Saros posted:Bremen & Fray please feel free to write a summary of why your proposal should be picked for those those who don't want to wade through the minutae of each design. Shipyards in Aurora have a size and number of slipways, and can build that number of ships at up to that size at a time. We were given the shipyard sizes of 3k, 4.5k, and 9.9k as targets, so having my formations based around those sizes means shipyards never have to be idle. Having formations require a certain number of ships of each size means our ability to produce new formations will be throttled at the slowest rate (probably 9.9k since in Fray's fleet that includes both cruisers and the various support ships). Also my fleet design includes more than double the number of giant doom lasers. I rest my case. Bremen fucked around with this message at 16:18 on Oct 2, 2017 |
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Oct 2, 2017 16:15
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Fray posted:So there's clearly a lot of demand for the 45cm laser. How would you all feel about modifying the DD in my post to use it? At that point the two plans would use them in equal amounts. This is true, and in all honesty I meant the line about more death lasers as a joke. I admit I meta-gamed my design a bit; being faster than your opponent is a huge deal in beam combat, but I assumed our primary opponent well be the UT who we believe to be fairly slow, so I went with a slower speed and more guns. This could backfire if we run into an enemy faster than my designs but slower than the fast beam DDs. Bremen fucked around with this message at 19:49 on Oct 2, 2017 |
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Oct 2, 2017 19:41
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Additionally, size 4 lets us make a fun little present for anything that gets too close to our missile ships:code:Every missile ship that also has beams can keep a salvo or two of these in its magazines, then when it closes to 120,000 km or closer it lets lose with these and turns each launcher into a powerful melee weapon.
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Oct 3, 2017 00:08
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Hessi posted:Voting Fray, the difference between 45cm lasers and 30 cm lasers on the dests is do i want to do 24 (penetrating 7 layers or armor) damage every 40 seconds or do i want to do 53 (penetrating 9 or 10?) every 90 seconds. If you look at our own ship designs, 95% of all ships and 100% of all ships a dest squadron should engage alone will be penetrated by either weapon. If it is able to tow a missile pod at fleet speed, that is another bonus, giving it a one time huge damage spike. Internal damage isn't binary on or off; there's a big difference between a 24 damage laser doing 2 damage through 6 layers of armor and maybe knocking out a weapon or fuel tank, and a spinal laser doing 15 damage and taking out a quarter of the internal components on a cruiser. It also carves a 5 wide crater for followup hits instead of 3 wide on the 30cm, which our rapidly firing 15cms can easily exploit. I've got a strong suspicion that with either fleet doctrine our battles will mostly come down to softening up the enemy with missiles and then finishing it with a beam fight, and the spinal is just much more devastating at that than anything else, even once you factor in the recharge time. It's Fray's choice, but I'd be much more confident in his fleet if he had decided to switch. Bremen fucked around with this message at 01:43 on Oct 3, 2017 |
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Oct 3, 2017 01:41
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Affi posted:What are the hit rates on these hilariously slow to fire weapons? (How badly are we loving ourselves) Beam hit rates are based on range and target speed. With our current designs, the big lasers would have an 84% chance to hit anything 5000 km/s or slower at 50,000km (ideal range for laser damage) rising up to 97% at point blank range.
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Oct 3, 2017 04:56
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People complained there wasn't enough crazy in our fleet doctrines. I'll show them crazy! Bremen's not at all insane Pod based fleet Every ship is capable of towing a pod while maintaining 4000 km/s. Pods fill many rolls instead of just missiles, meaning that a destroyer squadron could be missile based or launch fighters depending on loadout. Destroyers: There is only a jump destroyer and a beam destroyer. Versatility is achieved by attaching different pods. code:code:Of course you probably don't care about any of that, so here's the pods: code:code:code:code:code:code:The fleet still revolves around squadrons (1 jump ship and 4 destroyers/cruisers), just with every ship towing a pod. The firepower and versatility adds up; a destroyer squadron can supplement its 4 beam ships with 15 fighters, or a cruiser squadron can double its missile throw weight. When not in use, extra pods can be left in orbit of colonies as defense platforms. (Please don't actually vote on this unless Saros gives it the okay; attaching and detaching a bunch of pods could get tedious) Bremen fucked around with this message at 07:06 on Oct 3, 2017 |
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Oct 3, 2017 06:54
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Argue from the position of legal originalism; that what matters with the Lunar agreement is the intent of the signers, not the letter, and that means that possession of a jump point also includes possession of the system it leads to. Also accept that we will never get that. You ask for a billion and settle for a million. Instead our negotiators should aim at getting the following: A) Mars receives a new jump point to make up for the one that is no longer exclusive, either a third in Sol or an unexplored one in Ragni. B) Alien ruins belong to all humanity and no government can prevent another government from accessing them (try not to snicker when we suggest this) Then once they agree we reveal Facility and say he wants to talk.
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Oct 3, 2017 17:37
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sniper4625 posted:What if...we made friends with Earth? Crazy idea, but... I think the combination of Facility, the fight over these ruins, both sides being frightened by what's going on with jump tech, and our added bit about cooperating against alien threats gives us an interesting opportunity. We could propose that in light of the proof that we are not alone and that space is dangerous, all exploration be done by fleets mixing both Martian and Terran vessels (maybe even leave the door open to the IC and TFS in the future). Once a system has been explored, then it can be opened to civilian colonization (read: Government landgrabs) based on some sort of draft system (with shared access to ruins) so that everyone gets something. I make this suggestion mainly based on the feeling that it would be a shame if this LP ends because we trigger MAD days after developing jump tech.
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Oct 3, 2017 20:31
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Inglonias posted:Load an unmanned jump ship with as many TNE-nukes as we can spare and have it detonate them on that planet as soon as we possibly can. The good old "I have no idea what this is, let's poke it with a stick" approach to science.
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Oct 4, 2017 19:30
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Nevets posted:OK, in the interests of not killing 97% of the human race, here is my proposed counter offer: I Support Nevets' Proposal. Maybe either state or imply that we're looking for a fair colony or jump point we can ask for in exchange for losing exclusivity on this one. Also point out that we really ought to try to find out what destroyed a far more advanced spacefaring species before we go about making long term plans. Maybe make it 6 months? Our most optimistic plan for even getting settlers into Ranganui is 6 months. Worst comes to worst, we'll probably be in a better position to go up against Earth in a year than we are now.
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Oct 6, 2017 03:03
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pthighs posted:Move everything we have into ranganui. Then sit by the jump points and blast them as they come in. We can't. The gate isn't up, and our jump ships can only take ships up to like 3000 tons.
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Oct 6, 2017 06:39
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Synthbuttrange posted:3 million dead sounds bad. For UT, it's a Tuesday.
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Dec 13, 2017 02:54
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LLSix posted:You can capture PDCs with ground troops. Doing so causes no collateral damage. Ground combat actually does inflict collateral damage (maybe not the PDC part, but the actual fighting between ground units). Not nearly as much as orbital bombardment, but still casualties in the hundreds of thousands to millions range.
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Dec 14, 2017 04:58
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Meson weapons also ignore missile armor, and maybe we can backwards engineer them after encountering the Crabs using them.
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Dec 18, 2017 19:37
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I propose that we backwards engineer better engines, start building better ships with them, and once those ships are ready we send all the old, obsolete warships through the Crab wormhole to check its defenses while keeping the new better ones safe. This proposal has nothing to do with the fact that I'm still on the waiting list for a ship command slot.
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Dec 18, 2017 22:16
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mossyfisk posted:Could we just dump all our missiles into their troop transports, and not engage the rest? What, on the grounds that destroying unarmed ships with tens of thousands of people aboard is the nicer way to resolve this conflict?
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Jan 16, 2018 03:29
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SavageGentleman posted:Lol Terrans are bringing EVE Online levels of massed ships to the fight. This is going to be very, very painful. Even if we blow them up without losses, that's so many ships that could have been securing the border with the crabs. If we lose the crab war because of this I'm going to laugh.
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Jan 17, 2018 22:29
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Mukaikubo posted:Holy poo poo, dude, what's up? Yeah, honestly this is why I pretty much flee the thread during the politics parts and just join in for the combat and strategic portions.
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Jan 18, 2018 01:36
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"The belief in the possibility of a short decisive war appears to be one of the most ancient and dangerous of human illusions"
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Jan 19, 2018 00:40
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Crazyeyes24 posted:To be fair, we are in an almost full scale war with a rogue Navy that is currently at war with Terra. On the other hand, the civilian government probably hates us even more than the rogue navy. They just aren't shooting at us (yet). Friend Commuter posted:I'm absolutely certain that someone, somewhere will still celebrate Christmas by the time this war is over. Well, unless the Krabs come in once we've both exhausted our militaries and raze the entire system with their genocide bombs.
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Jan 19, 2018 00:46
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scavy131 posted:These tech upgrades are like using fighter jets against prop planes. I'm pretty sure since we only used 4 out of our 14 salvoes, we could almost completely combat incap the Ceres fleet before we get into laser range. Keep in mind, the fleet we sent to Ceres masses 148,000 tons with our newest tech, compared to maybe 93,000 for the Terrans' obsolete Ceres garrison fleet (including the carrier). Crushing them would be easy even without the tech advantage. We're looking at nearly 300,000 tons of reinforcements, though, including 175,000 tons equipped with what appears to be our drives and also, based on the rumors we heard, potentially some sort of xenotech. Blasting the Ceres garrison fleet is just going to be the warmup.
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Jan 19, 2018 05:49
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Innocent_Bystander posted:We'll just kick the door in, they said. It is! On our heads.
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Jan 20, 2018 00:43
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Cathode Raymond posted:Counterpoint: this might be our last, brief window to make Mars the dominant power in Sol before we’re all genocided by unstoppable galactic super powers, ancient super tech AI beings, horrific Elder Gods, or some combination of these. I made this awhile ago, but it is now relevant again! 
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Feb 2, 2018 04:49
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pun pundit posted:Reminder: Earth found several inactive Collaboration fighter drones. They "didn't seem to realise what they had," which is a pretty fantastic thing right now. How can we leverage the current situation in Sol to get our hands on those? If they didn't figure it out yet, they will as soon as they get logs from the Internationale.
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Feb 4, 2018 09:03
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Reality is a harsh mistress. Sorry to see this LP coming to an end, but I know how that goes.
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Jun 13, 2018 18:44
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LLSix posted:link please? Completely not self-aggrandizing link I make no promises it will be anything like this one; I'm not much of a writer, just someone who likes playing Aurora, and some people on the Discord were interested in a chance for goon-piloted ships to get blown up.
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Jun 13, 2018 20:36
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