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Post by Enderminion on Aug 23, 2017 2:11:14 GMT
space pirate ninjas, great, at least it's specific...
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Post by ironclad6 on Aug 25, 2017 17:46:10 GMT
I use some mods and a modified version of limits.txt to more faithfully simulate reality. I am mainly using this game to inform the writing of a novel. Engagements routinely start all the way out at fifty thousand kilometers. As such my fleet is based around two types of weapons. Unguided kinetic energy weapons have pretty much no nope of scoring hits at a long enough range against maneuvering targets and as such are omitted. My fleet is based around shipborne long range (Therefore quite large) laser arrays and drones acting as the first stage for hypervelocity missile busses. The overriding tactical consideration I have discovered is to intercept enemy drones before they can discharge their KKVs. This necessarily pushes engagements out to the limits of our technical capabilities and forces us to balance having enough laser emitters to engage a relatively large number of potential targets with having large enough lasers to be effective at very long range. Two sizes of laser are therefore employed with the larger size reserved for the Crater class Drone Tenders which form the centerpiece of most Systems Commonwealth fleets. At the moment the fleet is principally constructed around three types of ship. The Crater Class Drone Tender is a large, expensive and heavy hitting ship extravagantly equipped with Whisker III drones and 77nm lasers. This is the main damage dealer of the fleet. The Composer class escorts are equipped with lightweight lasers and a lighter complement of Whisker III drones. Their main role being to thicken the defences of the Crater class capital ships.
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Post by bigbombr on Aug 25, 2017 18:06:36 GMT
I use some mods and a modified version of limits.txt to more faithfully simulate reality. I am mainly using this game to inform the writing of a novel. Engagements routinely start all the way out at fifty thousand kilometers. As such my fleet is based around two types of weapons. Unguided kinetic energy weapons have pretty much no nope of scoring hits at a long enough range against maneuvering targets and as such are omitted. My fleet is based around shipborne long range (Therefore quite large) laser arrays and drones acting as the first stage for hypervelocity missile busses. The overriding tactical consideration I have discovered is to intercept enemy drones before they can discharge their KKVs. This necessarily pushes engagements out to the limits of our technical capabilities and forces us to balance having enough laser emitters to engage a relatively large number of potential targets with having large enough lasers to be effective at very long range. Two sizes of laser are therefore employed with the larger size reserved for the Crater class Drone Tenders which form the centerpiece of most Systems Commonwealth fleets. At the moment the fleet is principally constructed around three types of ship. The Crater Class Drone Tender is a large, expensive and heavy hitting ship extravagantly equipped with Whisker III drones and 77nm lasers. This is the main damage dealer of the fleet. The Composer class escorts are equipped with lightweight lasers and a lighter complement of Whisker III drones. Their main role being to thicken the defences of the Crater class capital ships. Then you discover free-electron lasers which can produce very short wavelengths (optics are your limiting factor), are 65% efficient and can be pulsed in femtosecond pulses.
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Post by ironclad6 on Aug 25, 2017 18:10:49 GMT
I'm using crudely modeled free electron lasers now. 77nm is the lowest wavelength I could go to without the game getting horribly buggy. This is why 50 thousand kilometers is considered knife fight range.
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Post by bigbombr on Aug 25, 2017 18:35:23 GMT
I'm using crudely modeled free electron lasers now. 77nm is the lowest wavelength I could go to without the game getting horribly buggy. This is why 50 thousand kilometers is considered knife fight range. Really? I messed around a little with bogus materials and managed 25 nm (without frequency doublers, there is no need with FEL's to use those). If you mod in non-existent materials, you can pick whatever wavelength you like. Since we don't have dielectric mirrors, optics are probably the limiting factor.
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Post by ironclad6 on Aug 25, 2017 19:11:41 GMT
In any case, the lasers I am using are potent enough to render EM guns irrelevant.
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Post by Rocket Witch on Aug 1, 2018 0:50:03 GMT
1. What is the composition of your fleet? Please list all classes/roles of spacecrafts of your preferred fleet. My fleet has a doctrine of area control using large numbers of small deployables. In theory it could park in orbit (initially achieving this may be difficult due to the weak carrier ships, so there is a minimal provision of 'proper' warships to accompany them), deploy everything and make demands or attacks from the defensive bubble, while new ships come in and make the bubble bigger until a small planetoid of hundreds of thousands of networked units is assembled. The fleet is theoretically strongest at defending low orbits of Moon+ sized bodies and weakest in a deep-space or asteroid engagement.
2. What are the propellants consumed by your fleet? Thermal rocket & MPDT: Carbon dioxide Chemical rocket: Carbon monoxide & oxygen
3. What are your fleet primary/secondary weapon types, their ammunition types, and their ammo consumption? Primary weapons are coilguns of 1, 5 or 15MW and large numbers of small lasers with a minimum intensity of 1MW/m2 @ 100km. Secondarily used in a purely defensive role are massed chemical guns mounted on 'deployable turrets'. Terminal defence is provided by nuclear missiles in the yield range of hundreds of tons, fired at inbound threats in bursts of at least 50. Actual attack capabilties are basic, with two types of fragmentation missiles (one general purpose, another anti-laser/armour). A project for a MPDT-driven 'cruise missile' was started before staging became available and has yet to be resumed.
4. What are your doctrine in ship design? For example: multiple small ships or few large ships, narrow angled frontal engagement ships or broadsiders, micro drones or capital drones, ETC. Ships and drones are small and numerous to decentralise the fleet as much as possible. Power and heat outputs are generally very low by most standards. Every unit is designed for expendability and interoperability, with a limited selection of common modules. Capital ships have designated surface areas for propellant tankage addons. Reactors are not used on drones out of realism/complexity/crew requirement concerns.
5. Any other special logistic demand. Drone power requirements necessitate a large supply of high-power short-lived radionuclides to be producible on demand. Cobalt-60 is especially attractive for this, making unidirectional gamma shielding on every unit necessary for its use. Facilities for the recycling of damaged drones would be a nice possibility, as most of them are not intended to stray far from the capitals.
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Post by treptoplax on Aug 1, 2018 16:55:14 GMT
I kept not having time to clean this up and rework some things, so I suppose I'll go ahead and post what I have for now:
1. What is the composition of your fleet? Please list all classes/roles of spacecrafts of your preferred fleet.
As our offensive doctrine is heavily based on small attack drones, we’ll include those in specified ships for clarity, as our terminology for size may not match common usage:
Ultralight missiles: Under 5Kg / 100c (often much under) with 1-4Km/s dV, HF engines, these are used liberally as interceptors or to distract/overload enemy point defense. Often kinetic only, but small nuclear and flak warheads are also used. Ultralight drones: 5-50 Kg, used as submunitions, typically with 10mm cannon.
Medium missiles: 50-100Kg, 100-200c, large flak or small nuclear warheads, generally with droptanks and >4Km/s dV.
Light drones: 50-100Kg without droptanks, HF engines, 4+ Km/s dV with droptanks, 16mm cannon, 20cm diameter, 2Kc. These are the primary offensive weapon of the fleet; their small diameter allows them to get within gunrange of most targets. Light railguns (7Km/s, 1g) and decane NTRs at slightly higher cost (3Kc) is a common variant that has improved range and magazine capacity but more difficulty penetrating heavy armor.
Heavy attack drones: Similar in size and cost to the classic ‘Stinger’ drone, this has around 6 Km/s dV from a decane NTR (before droptanks), a 22mm cannon firing low-velocity (<1Km/s) high mass (35g) rounds, and 100 ultralight missiles to distract point defense.
Light carrier drones: Multiple classes; they typically have decane NTR, 4-10Km/s dV, and carry 10-30 light drones (alternately, ultralight drones or medium missiles). Most types carry 100-1000 ultralight missiles in addition, and some have medium to large nuclear warheads.
Ok, with that clarified, let’s detail the primary manned ships:
Attack skiff (Reepicheep class): An ultralight vessel massing under 350Kt and costing under 1Mc; it has minimal redundancy and armor and about 5Km/s from a NTR with >1G acceleration. They’ll have a couple of medium chemguns or light railguns, and one of: 100-150 light missiles 10-20 light drones 1 primary railgun (50+ Km/s) 1 100Mw laser (AE standard model). Used for operations on ultra-limited budgets, or as escort craft in small fleets.
Patrol Carrier/Carrier Corvette/Fast Attack Carrier: This is the backbone of the fleet, and there are many variants but the basics are the same. 1Kt, 3-10Mc, 0.5-3Mc worth of light attack drones (anywhere from a few dozen to a few hundred), and typically a few thousand ultralight missiles. Stuffed Whipple shields and decane NTR with >500mG acceleration and around 5Km/s dV, these run broadside and launch drones if ship-to-ship engagement somehow occurs. Point defense is either high rate of fire conventional guns or a single 100Mw laser. Variants may carry 5-50 heavier drones instead of the light ones.
Laser defense frigate: The captains of this class complain (quietly) that this is just a gigawatt of whatever Apophis Electrics had on sale that month arranged haphazardly on a corvette chassis. They’re not wrong. Usually has some sort of railgun or missile launcher added as an afterthought. Used as escorts for patrol carrier or cruisers.
Atlatl-class cruiser Coming in around 4Kt and 50-100Mc, this is about the largest vessel we expect to end up in direct combat. A someone less efficient but flexible older design that was the basis for the more cost-effective patrol carrier, it has all of those weapons plus two types of heavy attack drones or light carrier drones. Less maneuverable, it fights nose-first and has a heavy AC or VCS nose cap over the Whipple shield in front. Most will have one additional close-range weapon; often a large railgun, but missile-launching cannons are also seen.
YDIHYLC-class carrier: Yo Dawg, I heard you liked Carriers. Used for major offensive operations, this large carrier class carries a dozen or more ‘superheavy carrier drones’, which are essentially the Patrol Carrier class in a drone format. It has high-efficiency MPD drives and an extensive array of lasers as well as a few secondary weapons and smaller drones; depending on configuration, it will run 100-200Mc.
Bastion-class carrier: This is a comically upscaled version of the Patrol Carrier, roughly 3x the size in all dimensions and costing around 150Mc. It has relatively heavy armor and low acceleration and deltaV, with gigantic stores of light attack drones (10000+) and light missiles (100000+). Used primarily as a defensive station (if at all), it is capable of launching several drones and tens of missiles per second for hours.
2. What are the propellants consumed by your fleet?
Most capital ships and larger drones use decane NTRs; the smallest drones and missiles use HF. Decane tankers may be needed for major operations. In rare cases where cost or logistics suggest chemical drives for large ships Decane/LOX is used. The largest carriers should have sufficient dV for most operations as-is.
3. What are your fleet primary/secondary weapon types, their ammunition types, and their ammo consumption?
The omnipresent light conventional guns generally fire diamond or osmium slugs of 2-35 g in calibers of 10-50mm with octagen propellent. Light railguns use 1g AC projectiles. Ultralight nuclear warheads (standard 95t) are heavily used in small drones and missiles, which in general are expendable and will need replenishment after combat operations.
4. What are your doctrine in ship design? For example: multiple small ships or few large ships, narrow angled frontal engagement ships or broadsiders, micro drones or capital drones, ETC.
The tactical advantage we intend to exploit is straightforward; our drones are too small and too numerous for defenders to keep them out of gun range. We hope to avoid engagements with enemy capitals or drones by intercepting them; where unavoidable we either run broadside (small fast craft) or face them nose-on (larger, slower) while employing a screening force or drones and/or missiles.
Craft intended for direct combat (mostly drones) are kept as small as possible for the types of weapons they mount. Smaller manned ships are preferred in theory, but the massive crew requirements of fleets with numerous ships make extremely large fleets inefficient. Most fleets under 1 GC will consist of 3-10 ships, over half carriers, with the exact size and composition depending on the budget and mission.
5. Any other special logistic demand.
Decane tankers are often required. Given the heavy use of expendable drones/missiles, development of MPD-based Tender ships capable of drone launch in event of encounter is proposed.
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Post by doctorsquared on Aug 2, 2018 2:52:29 GMT
1. What is the composition of your fleet? Please list all classes/roles of spacecrafts of your preferred fleet.- Javelin-class Defense Boat - ~4 Mc, 860t, armed with 2x 250MW Flak Railguns. Made for medium to close range combat.
- Pilum-class Laser Boat - ~5 Mc, 1.04kt, armed with 3x 100MW Near-UV Lasers feeding into 6x turreted mounts. Made for interdiction of drones/missiles and precision removal of enemy modules.
- Slinger-class Assault Carrier ~5-6 Mc (based on loadout), carries SquareCo ER Flak Drones (1.25 kc, 362kg, 8mm Flak Chem Gun, 8.14 km/s Fluorine/Hydrogen with drop tanks), SquareCo MicroDrone ( 5.9kg, 49.2 c, 18mm Chem Gun, 5.59 km/s Fluorine/Hydrogen)
2. What are the propellants consumed by your fleet?Fluorine/Hydrogen for Drone combustion rockets, RP-1 for the NTRs used by the ship, the high-density of the fuel combined with hydrocarbon-cooled NTRs allows for more dV to be packed into a smaller ship. 3. What are your fleet primary/secondary weapon types, their ammunition types, and their ammo consumption?Primary is the 1.6g SquareCo MicroFlak (100g of Octogen, 500g Lead, 1g fuse module) fired from the SquareCo FlakMax 250MW railgun at 60 km/s or the drone-mounted SquareCo ChemFlak 8mm at 1.67 km/s. Secondary is the SquareCo 100 MW Near-UV Titanium:Sapphire Laser which is set to output 70.9 MW/m 2 at 100km. 4. What are your doctrine in ship design? For example: multiple small ships or few large ships, narrow angled frontal engagement ships or broadsiders , micro drones or capital drones, ETC.Ships are as cheap and low-mass as possible so that large numbers of them can be fielded to overwhelm the enemy with superior numbers. SquareCo craft lacks redundancy but make up for it in the sheer volume of vessels that can be fielded. All ships are designed to have as small a cross-section as possible with armored nosecones intended to face the enemy. Radiators and any non-weapon external system is intended to fit behind the nosecone and turning speed is prioritized so that the front of the ship can keep facing towards the enemy. Large swarms of micro-drones are used to soften up targets for larger flak-drones that mop up afterward, crewed ships only enter combat if the previous waves have not disabled the enemy.
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Post by anotherfirefox on Aug 15, 2018 8:15:00 GMT
1. My naming convention is consisted of 3 letters, like PEO-10 or PKC-21.
The first letter tells the category of the ship by dV: Patrol(<5km/s) for interbody, Frigate(<15km/s) for interlunar, Cruiser(>30km/s) for interplanetary.
The second letter tells the role of the ship: E(Escort) for fleet defense, K(Killer) for attack, S(Supply) for ammunition/life-support/fuel supply, C(Command) for fleet command and/or interplanetary mothership, etc.
The third letter tells the equipment of the ship: C(Cannon) for kinetic projectile, O(Optical) for laser, M(Missile) for missile or drone, A(Auxiliary) for non-combat utilities.
So if a ship is named PEO-10 Buckler you can tell it's a interbody patrol ship for fleet defense, equipped with laser.
2. Methane for interbody or tactical maneuver. Missiles and Interplanetary is under research.
3. Laser for fleet defense, missile and kinetic drones for strike.
4. Try to avoid ship-to-ship battle unless you have to, all-or-nothing armor scheme always; nose-first skeletal ship for most of ship to minimize cross section and let head armor to protect everything, flat-hexagonal broadside ship for some fleet defense or attack craft which have to face their opponent.
5. If you stick with your base planet, you can rely on your base for logistics. Interplanetary deployment is super hard and dangerous, costs monstrous budget, must be companied with Cruiser(s).
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Post by anotherfirefox on Aug 20, 2018 11:54:44 GMT
1. My naming convention is consisted of 3 letters, like PEO-10 or PKC-21. The first letter tells the category of the ship by dV: Patrol(<5km/s) for interbody, Frigate(<15km/s) for interlunar, Cruiser(>30km/s) for interplanetary. The second letter tells the role of the ship: E(Escort) for fleet defense, K(Killer) for attack, S(Supply) for ammunition/life-support/fuel supply, C(Command) for fleet command and/or interplanetary mothership, etc. The third letter tells the equipment of the ship: C(Cannon) for kinetic projectile, O(Optical) for laser, M(Missile) for missile or drone, A(Auxiliary) for non-combat utilities. So if a ship is named PEO-10 Buckler you can tell it's a interbody patrol ship for fleet defense, equipped with laser. 2. Methane for interbody or tactical maneuver. Missiles and Interplanetary is under research. 3. Laser for fleet defense, missile and kinetic drones for strike. 4. Try to avoid ship-to-ship battle unless you have to, all-or-nothing armor scheme always; nose-first skeletal ship for most of ship to minimize cross section and let head armor to protect everything, flat-hexagonal broadside ship for some fleet defense or attack craft which have to face their opponent. 5. If you stick with your base planet, you can rely on your base for logistics. Interplanetary deployment is super hard and dangerous, costs monstrous budget, must be companied with Cruiser(s). 2. Research done: Methane for the methane god
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