Post by madscientist on Oct 10, 2016 19:45:45 GMT
Behold! Not 1! Not 2! Not even 3! but a whole fleet consisting of 10 ship designs. Vaguely inspired by real-world naval ship classifications, these beauties have been rigorously designed and optimised, ranging from affordable gunboats up to carrier flagships.
At the low end we have the Avon and the Snowdon. A pair of light patrol ships which can bulk out a fleet's numbers without costing the world. The Snowdon is modelled as a light torpedo boat while the Avon is a simple gunboat.
Moving up in weight class we have the Dauntless and the Edinburgh. The Dauntless is a light, general purpose frigate while the the Edinburgh is predominately a Destroyer/Escort. It's heavy laser batteries are very effective at dealing with all but the most armoured inbound missiles and drones, while it mounts enough kinetic kill vehicle launchers and heavily armoured 260Mt nuclear torpedo launchers. A strike with one of the torpedoes has shown itself to be not so much a ship-killer as a fleet-killer.
In a similar weight/cost class we have the Illustrious and the Sheffield. The illustrious is a light support carrier capable of launching Wasp and Coleoptera drones:
Swarms of Coleopters can offer similar anti-missile support as dedicated laser batteries (hence why the Sheffield carries it's own small anti-drone wing), while we all know how deadly light cannon fire from drones can be.
What's that, you want to see even bigger ships?
The Astute is a dedicated laser/missile cruiser. Using the finest and most optimised 750Mw lasers, an astute can destroy even the most ludicrous inbound missile salvo. I have found from experience that any salvo big enough to overwhelm an Astute is also enough to make my FPS chug. It even takes down well armoured silica aerogel missiles at over 200Km range! If it needs to fight back, it also mounts multiple kinds of kinetic, explosive and nuclear guided ordnance.
However, if it's big guns you like, then the Sovereign class battleship rules them all. It's two nuclear coil-guns can throw out an absurd number of miniaturised 4.36kt shells, while it's flak batteries can lay down a withering barrage of shrapnel:
When A Sovereign's guns light up at once you can guarantee two things - firstly, whatever it aimed at is now dead. Secondly, so is your frame-rate.
Finally, the largest of large ships. A true monster of the void:
Costing over half a billion space-monies, and at 386m long, the Ark Royal is a true Super-carrier. Even the wealthiest of factions could probably only afford to field a handful of Ark-Royal class ships as the centre-piece of carrier strike groups. With multiple wings of Coleopteras and Wasps, it also boasts two new heavy drones:
The Hornet is a dedicated capital-ship killer. If the enemy has too much vanadium-chrome steel armour to fall pray to Wasps, then the Hornet can leave them a glowing wreck with it's nuclear cannon. Meanwhile, the Botfly is a dedicated laser-killer. With an internal magazine of 50 KKVs, a small number of Botflies can quickly spit out so many targets that even an Astute will struggle to take them all down in time. And if that's not enough, while the enemy focuses on the vast number of kinetic missiles, the Botfly can finish the job by suiciding into them with it's on-board nuclear payload.
All of these ships have proven effective against more expensive and more massive fleets of stock ships. I would love to see how they fair against some of the other creations detailed in this thread.
At the low end we have the Avon and the Snowdon. A pair of light patrol ships which can bulk out a fleet's numbers without costing the world. The Snowdon is modelled as a light torpedo boat while the Avon is a simple gunboat.
Moving up in weight class we have the Dauntless and the Edinburgh. The Dauntless is a light, general purpose frigate while the the Edinburgh is predominately a Destroyer/Escort. It's heavy laser batteries are very effective at dealing with all but the most armoured inbound missiles and drones, while it mounts enough kinetic kill vehicle launchers and heavily armoured 260Mt nuclear torpedo launchers. A strike with one of the torpedoes has shown itself to be not so much a ship-killer as a fleet-killer.
In a similar weight/cost class we have the Illustrious and the Sheffield. The illustrious is a light support carrier capable of launching Wasp and Coleoptera drones:
Swarms of Coleopters can offer similar anti-missile support as dedicated laser batteries (hence why the Sheffield carries it's own small anti-drone wing), while we all know how deadly light cannon fire from drones can be.
What's that, you want to see even bigger ships?
The Astute is a dedicated laser/missile cruiser. Using the finest and most optimised 750Mw lasers, an astute can destroy even the most ludicrous inbound missile salvo. I have found from experience that any salvo big enough to overwhelm an Astute is also enough to make my FPS chug. It even takes down well armoured silica aerogel missiles at over 200Km range! If it needs to fight back, it also mounts multiple kinds of kinetic, explosive and nuclear guided ordnance.
However, if it's big guns you like, then the Sovereign class battleship rules them all. It's two nuclear coil-guns can throw out an absurd number of miniaturised 4.36kt shells, while it's flak batteries can lay down a withering barrage of shrapnel:
When A Sovereign's guns light up at once you can guarantee two things - firstly, whatever it aimed at is now dead. Secondly, so is your frame-rate.
Finally, the largest of large ships. A true monster of the void:
Costing over half a billion space-monies, and at 386m long, the Ark Royal is a true Super-carrier. Even the wealthiest of factions could probably only afford to field a handful of Ark-Royal class ships as the centre-piece of carrier strike groups. With multiple wings of Coleopteras and Wasps, it also boasts two new heavy drones:
The Hornet is a dedicated capital-ship killer. If the enemy has too much vanadium-chrome steel armour to fall pray to Wasps, then the Hornet can leave them a glowing wreck with it's nuclear cannon. Meanwhile, the Botfly is a dedicated laser-killer. With an internal magazine of 50 KKVs, a small number of Botflies can quickly spit out so many targets that even an Astute will struggle to take them all down in time. And if that's not enough, while the enemy focuses on the vast number of kinetic missiles, the Botfly can finish the job by suiciding into them with it's on-board nuclear payload.
All of these ships have proven effective against more expensive and more massive fleets of stock ships. I would love to see how they fair against some of the other creations detailed in this thread.
