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Post by AtomHeartDragon on May 8, 2018 18:19:01 GMT
This thread is for stuff that doesn't qualify for inclusion in Post your CORE designs here, but is nevertheless limited by the performance of some stock modules. Maybe you would like to go stock, but: - have some spiffy looking sloped radiators without which your ship just doesn't look nearly as good
- won't put up with wimpy stock propulsion - I mean you don't even have any workable RCS there unless you repurpose Hellfire's main motor and lug heavy LOx tanks everywhere! Bleurgh!
- Can't help thinking how much better this sniper coilgun would be if you coated the barrel with CVD diamond and tweaked the coil a bit.
- Absolutely need to put those 200kW railguns on turrets - they are destined to go on turrets! Just look at them! And maybe up the power a bit too...
- Are disgusted by stock missiles and drones. <1km/s delta-v on a huge 2Mt nuke? With HOOH monoprop? Drones that don't capitalize on having no crew modules and don't keep shooting after being turned into Swiss cheese? Dude, WTF? Honour demands it to be done better!
- Want to shoot nuclear shells at stuff without putting massive Michael Bay attractor on your ship.
- have your OCD scream internally when you try to put in propellant tanks that are not made out of VCS
Whatever is your reason, as long as some engineering-friendly modules (so basically propulsion, power generation or weaponry - tankage, radiators or command don't count) remain stock and are meaningfully impacting ship's performance (microgee MPD laserstar probably won't care all that much if it's propelled by stock xenon thrusters rather than super-optimized [AE] ones), your ship belongs here.
Incidentally most of my stuff that doesn't go into CORE designs thread belongs here, as I tend to stick to stock reactors. |
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Post by jtyotjotjipaefvj on May 9, 2018 2:34:19 GMT
I wanted to put the new build mechanics to good use, so I made a ship that uses armored propellant tanks as a second layer of armor between internal components and hull. This also gives you a very compact ship, since you won't have dozens of meters of length dedicated to fuel tanks, instead you'll just fatten the ship up by a couple of meters. The armored tanks do seem to protect internals fairly effectively, at least based on a couple of tests it takes a lot of armor penetrating hits to actually destroy the crew compartments or reactors. I wanted to have more railguns and lasers, but the compat hull size ended up limiting me to just two 13 MW reactors. Any more than that and the ship would be little else than radiator. I also designed some useful NTRs since all stock ones are really quite terrible. Final new custom module is the 4mm point-defence railgun. It's fairly close to the autofire railgun, except it gets rid of the stupidly expensive capacitor material, swaps out electric actuators for momentum wheels, and has a lighter projectile for a slight velocity increase. This makes it a good gun for shooting down missiles and laser mirrors, but it's not really good enough to make it through a Gunship's armor in a decent time. Here's screenies of the design as well as a blueprint: External view:  Internal view:  Design blueprint here: dl.dropbox.com/s/k9hr1b1o6scp0d9/Light%20Corvette.txt?dl=0Here's some screenshots of some combat testing in spoilers: Getting close enough to use cannons:  Gunship fireworks:  A few holes here and there but that's fine:  |
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Post by jtyotjotjipaefvj on May 9, 2018 23:54:48 GMT
I went for a longer-range ship this time. I designed a longer-range but a bit heavier and more expensive version of the stock 100 MW laser and built a ship around it. The laser ended up being not that useful in the end, but at least it can be used to destroy enemy lasers at a distance. The ridiculous amount of radiators required by 3x60 MW reactors made me go for a point-defence heavy design. I made a flak railgun that shoots 100-gram flak warheads at 4.6 km/s and fires 5 rounds per second, making it a very effective point-defence platform. 8 railguns per side, combined with 5 stock green lasers means that no flak missile out of a salvo of 30 makes it closer than 5 km from the ship, which means all those precious radiators are safe from their fragments. The flak railgun ended up being very effective at destroying any extremities on enemy ships too. A gunship can be quickly defanged using the steady stream of very lightweight fragments. It quickly removes all radiators and guns, although actually penetrating the armor seems to take more than a minute. The conventional guns can do the job more quickly despite their long travel time. Side view:  Front view. You can see I was running out of real estate on the hull due to all the radiators required by the reactors:  Designs and some combat screenies spoilered below. |
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Post by AtomHeartDragon on May 10, 2018 23:02:39 GMT
Some minor critique: - tight rows of turrets are problematic as they can be quickly taken out together
- armour is - surprisingly, given individual layers and their thickness - not that hard to penetrate both with high and low velocity munitions.
- could use better nose shape, preferably stuffed with some extra propellant - this one is fugly and prone to peripheral penetrations
Any useful insight regarding material and thickness of good armoured tanks? I often do wrap more sensitive modules in tankage, but this relies more on putting *something* (extra distance, plus some sacrificial matter) between module and damage source on top of utilizing some otherwise dead space, than any actual armouring. This one is quite nice. A bit similar philosophy to my "Wyvern" destroyer (I need to make non-stock variant...), distinctive looks, the flak railguns are actually surprisingly effective (took out entire wave of my lighter missiles, "better devastators" I made out of Devastator's warhead, Lancer's propulsion stack with two additional engines and some improved armour had better luck) - I've never managed to make an effective flak PD. Some shared criticisms with your Light Corvette (armour, vulnerable gun clusters) and one new - aluminium radiators get flashed off rather easily. |
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Post by jtyotjotjipaefvj on May 11, 2018 0:38:46 GMT
Some minor critique: - tight rows of turrets are problematic as they can be quickly taken out together
- armour is - surprisingly, given individual layers and their thickness - not that hard to penetrate both with high and low velocity munitions.
- could use better nose shape, preferably stuffed with some extra propellant - this one is fugly and prone to peripheral penetrations
-the tight grouping is less of an issue when using broadside, or at least slightly angled orientation. I did notice a whole row getting blown off with a single shot but on the other hand there's plenty of spares so it's not a huge deal. They're mainly grouped because it looks so nice. -the armor is pretty light so it's not surprising it's not too durable. You either need more than 5 cm of VCS or a really sharply angled nose to really survive for a long time. Besides, you don't get to test that tank armor if the hull is bulletproof  -The nose is a disgrace yeah, I gave up on making it look good at that point. I just wanted to run some combat tests. I used some aluminum alloy (gamma titanium Al I think?) while keeping a decent mass ratio, around 7, on the tanks. The reasoning is that it adds two more fairly sturdy whipple layers, which may be a good idea if the propellant acts like armor too. I don't really know how propellant tanks getting shot works though, and I didn't really do any testing so I'm not sure if it's even a good idea. I always keep forgetting that nukes exist, so I barely test anything against them. I guess swapping the Al radiators to something better wouldn't really cost anything so I don't see why not fix it tho. I'm also not really happy with how weird it looks. The fat rear and ridiculous amount of radiators don't really look that great. I guess making the hull longer might help with both issues. |
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Post by AtomHeartDragon on May 12, 2018 14:04:50 GMT
-the tight grouping is less of an issue when using broadside, or at least slightly angled orientation. I did notice a whole row getting blown off with a single shot but on the other hand there's plenty of spares so it's not a huge deal. They're mainly grouped because it looks so nice. I have seen 3 laser turret and bunch of conventional guns taken out by a single shot/burst, and even when broadsiding this means that the enemy can retarget very quickly or that point of impact drifting back during evasive manoeuvres will quickly strip an entire row of guns. We must be using different definitions of "pretty light" here. Your ship has similar armour mass fraction as freaking Gunship. My gunship-sized, direct combat ships have around half of that and smaller ones even less. Sharp-angled nose - ok, that's more of my type of game. From what I have seen, you might be having some spalling problems - less spally backstop before liner and surface hardening on top of whipple shield? Can't argue with that. You could try plugging the front with one of those stubby tanks you wrap around reactors and moving the lasers outwards, then stuffing them under armour somewhere you don't want crevices. Me neither. Is spalling accounted for with tanks (TiAls aren't very ductile) and do penetrated tanks continue providing protection? You could try distributing the reactors around the vessel. That will get rid of fat rear. |
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Post by AtomHeartDragon on May 13, 2018 14:02:49 GMT
jtyotjotjipaefvj Have you checked if making VCS your backstop (just outside the spall liner) and RCC your outer bulk layer instead of other way around performs better? Also, if you want a name for your laser cruiser, I would suggest "Kraken" class - because it looks a lot like one.
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Post by The Astronomer on May 13, 2018 17:09:20 GMT
jtyotjotjipaefvj Have you checked if making VCS your backstop (just outside the spall liner) and RCC your outer bulk layer instead of other way around performs better? Also, if you want a name for your laser cruiser, I would suggest "Kraken" class - because it looks a lot like one. Has 5% chance to instantly tear an enemy ship apart upon entering combat mode. |
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Post by AtomHeartDragon on May 14, 2018 18:00:28 GMT
jtyotjotjipaefvj Have you checked if making VCS your backstop (just outside the spall liner) and RCC your outer bulk layer instead of other way around performs better? Also, if you want a name for your laser cruiser, I would suggest "Kraken" class - because it looks a lot like one. Has 5% chance to instantly tear an enemy ship apart upon entering combat mode. I already use continuous rods for that. |
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Post by anotherfirefox on Aug 18, 2018 15:02:25 GMT
 After some tons of tries to beat Vesta Overkill with stock only, I came up with this one, named PCC Zweihander (Patrol Combat Cannon) Armed with 18 Autofire railgun which is slightly modified to be non-extrude turret not to be fragile  and this one for the fleet defense, named PEO Handsaw (Patrol Escort Optical), armed with 18 13MW laser and tons of laser mounts which isn't extrude turret  and this one, a modified gunskiff, now stuffed with 10 200KW rail guns as a cheap midrange firesupport. Named PKC Hourglass (Patrol Killer Cannon) The first two broadsiders were grown up versions of this early tiny patrol ships  PEO Buckler, the very first ship I made  PKC Handaxe, a direct derivative of the Buckler Being free from overhead cost was nice: I would have 2 Buckler and 2 Handaxe, which were turned into 1 Handsaw and 1 Zweihander which equivalent 3 of each. The Hourglass has degraded into an unpury modded one  The PKC Hourglass is turned into this tiny drone with even moar dakka, named DKC Sprinkler, thanks to some tiny tiny 1MW reactors and 1MN NTR from AE... (It had hard time became crewed hilarious looking stuffed one you've seen before)  Carried by this small carrier, named PMD Firetruck (Patrol Mothership Drone) which carries 40 Sprinkler AND moar air defense than PEO Buckler, still cheaper than Buckler. |
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Post by AtomHeartDragon on Aug 18, 2018 21:44:17 GMT
After some tons of tries to beat Vesta Overkill with stock only, I came up with this one, named PCC Zweihander (Patrol Combat Cannon) Armed with 18 Autofire railgun which is slightly modified to be non-extrude turret not to be fragile Eh, beating Vesta (and the entire customizable part of the campaign) is perfectly doable with not only just stock parts (pretty much any my stock workshop designs that can be fitted in the budget can do Vesta), but with stock combustion cannons alone (granted I was quite stumped trying to beat it for the very first time). Of course, you can also beat it with default fleet, but where's the fun in that? I also don't quite follow this sentence featuring "autofire railgun" and "fragile" together. I appreciate keeping your designs very in-spirit of this thread, BTW. |
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Post by anotherfirefox on Aug 18, 2018 22:32:11 GMT
After some tons of tries to beat Vesta Overkill with stock only, I came up with this one, named PCC Zweihander (Patrol Combat Cannon) Armed with 18 Autofire railgun which is slightly modified to be non-extrude turret not to be fragile Eh, beating Vesta (and the entire customizable part of the campaign) is perfectly doable with not only just stock parts (pretty much any my stock workshop designs that can be fitted in the budget can do Vesta), but with stock combustion cannons alone (granted I was quite stumped trying to beat it for the very first time). Of course, you can also beat it with default fleet, but where's the fun in that? I also don't quite follow this sentence featuring "autofire railgun" and "fragile" together. I appreciate keeping your designs very in-spirit of this thread, BTW. yeah, it was more of tactical incompetence of me, like not able to use missiles to intercept drones(which lead to PEOs), not able to overcome Cutter cut my 200 missiles all(which lead to infighting PCCs and PKCs, not used salvo effectively(was the main reason I got trouble), etc. ._. At list it gave me some chance to fiddle with ship designing before adapting super efficient duper usermade modules. 1drv.ms/t/s!AhdgoU1srtTOkdUWhGk6FozouQgR-g Plz gimme some critique! I know there's a vast room for optimization! |
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Post by AtomHeartDragon on Aug 18, 2018 23:20:26 GMT
Eh, beating Vesta (and the entire customizable part of the campaign) is perfectly doable with not only just stock parts (pretty much any my stock workshop designs that can be fitted in the budget can do Vesta), but with stock combustion cannons alone (granted I was quite stumped trying to beat it for the very first time). Of course, you can also beat it with default fleet, but where's the fun in that? I also don't quite follow this sentence featuring "autofire railgun" and "fragile" together. I appreciate keeping your designs very in-spirit of this thread, BTW. yeah, it was more of tactical incompetence of me, like not able to use missiles to intercept drones(which lead to PEOs), not able to overcome Cutter cut my 200 missiles all, not used salvo effectively, etc. ._. You can make 100% stock ship(s) that don't even need to use missiles or drones, just sit there and wait for intercepts (and I mean general purpose stuff with mission envelope at least on par with stock designs, not one-off, mission specific things with nearly no delta-v).
See my workshop collection (only stock stuff so far, to avoid dependency hell) for examples:
"Dragon" class should comfortably solo Vesta, so should a pair of "Gryphons", the recent "Basilisk" (effectively my take on unfucking the Hiveship) seems capable as well, though wasn't tested exhaustively, while "Werewolf" class is actually a direct descendant of combustion gun only design I used to beat the whole campaign in the challenge thread (it's a small ship usually meant to be deployed in numbers, but with a bit of skill and a lot of luck - or vice versa - you should be able to beat campaign with those without incurring any losses).
Of course, my first successful attempt involved sticking several remotes on a frigate I designed (mixed into half of the default fleet), and then managing to barely win the day using badly shot up ghost ship controlled from mobility killed missile schooner (in other words: suckage, but it was fun).
Edit: I have no experience with dedicated broadsiders, but the main issue with yours seems to be dramatically low acceleration - broadsiders are less optimized for tanking enemy fire than steeply sloped needleships - polygonal, high aspect armour helps here, but their main asset is axis of thrust perpendicular to the combat facing.
Other than that you can see how my designs are made and experiment with what works and what doesn't, maybe pick up a few tricks. I don't claim to be an expert and my designs do offer a lot of room for improvement. They are nevertheless excessively powerful compared to their stock counterparts.
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Post by doctorsquared on Aug 19, 2018 0:07:13 GMT
 After AtonHeartDragon's challenge to build a better Hiveship I decided that the Nuke Turreted Cannon isn't all that bad, it just has a few flaws that needed to be corrected: - Switched to an extruded turret for 95° arc of rotation instead of 87°
- Replaced maraging steel momentum wheels with cheaper, lighter selenium ones.
- Raised loader power to 4MW to improve reload speed and accommodate more power-hungry reaction wheels.
- Switched to a thicker layer of PTFE armor for better anti-laser performance (results so far are mixed)
- Adopted a detached ammo bay to prevent magazine detonation if the turret is destroyed.
The end result is a cannon that...makes the surface of ships uncomfortably hot. You'd think that exposure from hard radiation and the intense heat of getting blasted dozens of times by nukes would make the Nuke Cannon unbeatable but it just degrades armor through ablation and doesn't really destroy any modules. |
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Post by AtomHeartDragon on Aug 19, 2018 8:20:52 GMT
The end result is a cannon that...makes the surface of ships uncomfortably hot. You'd think that exposure from hard radiation and the intense heat of getting blasted dozens of times by nukes would make the Nuke Cannon unbeatable but it just degrades armor through ablation and doesn't really destroy any modules. Nuke cannon sometimes (rarely) hits directly making big holes in the armour (nuke makes an awfully heavy shell after all), combined with nukes going off all around it can be quite devastating. Of course you get better results putting dedicated kinetic components (blast launched) on your nuke, specifically to make large gaps in the enemy armour to let some of your artificial sunshine through. Such a nuke gun also makes a splendid PD weapon, as it doesn't get overwhelmed by huge swarms of missiles/drones. Also, your turret is still huge. |
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