2E fleets

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jygro
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2E fleets

Post by jygro »

I was looking over the CSCR and I was wondering if there was any chance that we could get a couple of ship designs with the new 2E stats so we might have some concrete ships to fight some battles with the new system.

-Bren
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Post by Charles Lewis »

Once we have settled on unit design system, we could probably do that. Should hopefully have something along those lines fairly soon (in the next week or two).
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Post by Tyrel Lohr »

Bren, here are a few quick ship designs that I just threw together for you based on the current tech model. It is extremely late here (and I should probably be in bed already!), but I wanted to get some of this VBAM backlog taken care of.

Anyway, on to the stats. All of these units are built assuming all equipment technologies are currently at TL 3. Mass costs are included in brackets after each rating.


Destroyer
Construction Cost: 5, Maintenance Cost: 0.28, Completion Time: 4
SIZ 3, Mass 465/500, Command Cost: 1

Structural: 2 Defense [33]
Propulsion: 3 Engines [119], 1 FTL [60]
Electronics: 3 Command [80], 1 Sensor [27]
Weapons: 2 Anti-Ship [33], 2 Anti-Fighter [33]
Basing: None
Support: 2 Endurance [80]


Light Cruiser
Construction Cost: 7, Maintenance Cost: 0.40, Completion Time: 6
SIZ 4, Mass 695/700, Command Cost: 2

Structural: 3 Defense [99]
Propulsion: 2 Engines [106], 1 FTL [80]
Electronics: 4 Command [106]
Weapons: 3 Anti-Ship [99], 3 Anti-Fighter [99]
Basing: None
Support: 2 Endurance [106]


Heavy Cruiser
Construction Cost: 12, Maintenance Cost: 0.58, Completion Time: 9
SIZ 6, Mass 1145/1200, Command Cost: 3

Structural: 6 Defense [198]
Propulsion: 2 Engines [159], 2 FTL [238]
Electronics: 6 Command [159]
Weapons: 6 Anti-Ship [198], 3 Anti-Fighter [99]
Basing: 1 Shuttlebay [14]
Support: 1 Endurance [80]


As you can see, the Heavy Cruiser is a much more economical value than the Light Cruiser or Destroyer, offering better bang for the buck as far as longevity or firepower are concerned. However, they also take 9 campaign turns to build, and each CA requires twice the number of docks to build compared to the DD. In other words, if you had 6 Orbital Shipyards (OSY) available, you could build 4 DDs in the same amount of time it takes you to build a single CA. The DD flotilla will have a higher total Construction and Maintenance Cost, however, so again -- from a purely economics view -- the CA is still a better buy. Unfortunately, some navies will just not have the luxury of waiting for a large warship to be built.

And neither of these three ships are very large. For comparison purposes, here is a rough approximation of a TL 3 superdreadnought (the largest of the capital ships):


Superdreadnought
Construction Cost: 23, Maintenance Cost: 0.95, Completion Time: 17
SIZ 10, Mass 2269/2400, Command Cost: 5

Structural: 15 Defense [494]
Propulsion: 1 Engines [132], 2 FTL [396]
Electronics: 10 Command [264]
Weapons: 15 Anti-Ship [494], 10 Anti-Fighter [330]
Basing: 2 Shuttlebays [27]
Support: 1 Endurance [132]


The SD is a true behemoth, and a true ship of the line. It is easily better than its cost in cruisers, and that is the point -- light warships and cruisers have no business going toe-to-toe with a capital ship of a similar tech level. Now, the TL 3 CA is probably more than a match for a TL 1 SD... but it would be tricky sending 2 CA against this single SD.

Now, these designs aren't really optimized in any way, and you could easily remove some of the systems if you wanted to. The Shuttlebays, for instance, or wholly thematic and probably wouldn't add much more than morale support to the fleet (a few light recon shuttles, maybe). The FTL cost is probably higher than what the final cost is going to be, but should give you an idea for what you can shove onto a hull and make stick.

How the game works, too, larger ships will always be materially better than smaller ships, but they will be extremely space, time, and money intensive. That SD will monopolize 10 shipyards for 17 turns -- at the current maintenance cost for orbital yards, that will amount to an additional 34 EP cost to build the ship, increasing the ship's effective cost to 57 EP (!). The CA, by comparison, has an effective cost of 23 EP, and CL 12 EP, and the DD 8 EP.

What this really means is that the smaller ships can and will still be valuable, but building and fielding capital ships will be a very prestigious goal for most empires. If your empire's economy is sufficient to support that kind of ship building, then your navy will have some major force projection capabilities. Of course, that lone SD isn't going to be worth a lick of salt if it doesn't have escorts; an unescorted capital ship is dead meat without its escorts around to absorb damage and increase its squadron's formation level.

-Tyrel
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Post by Gareth_Perkins »

Tyrel Lohr wrote:How the game works, too, larger ships will always be materially better than smaller ships, but they will be extremely space, time, and money intensive.
I approve,

Big ships should have "economy of scale" over smaller ships, making them better (otherwise there really is no point in building smaller craft - their advantage should largely be flexibility (you can't deploy your SD to six different systems at the same time!) and possibly some other odd useful "special abilities" (like enhanced scouting or whatever)),

That said, in some genres it might be appropriate for one, more or all factions to prefer smaller vessels - is/will it be possible to tweak the system in this direction if desired (or is it simply a case of retarding their "hull size" tech field?)
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Post by Tyrel Lohr »

Gareth_Perkins wrote:Big ships should have "economy of scale" over smaller ships, making them better (otherwise there really is no point in building smaller craft - their advantage should largely be flexibility (you can't deploy your SD to six different systems at the same time!) and possibly some other odd useful "special abilities" (like enhanced scouting or whatever)),
The intent is to give players a reason to invest in building the larger warships, if they can, but not making it a strict requirement. You could still field a swarm fleet of destroyers and frigates, and such a fleet would be capable of excellent formation use, but they would die in droves when confronted with a full capital ship.

I envision most players initially relying on light warships and cruisers during the early game, and then graduating up to capital ships as their economic and industrial base expands and they have the luxury of waiting a campaign year for the larger ships to be laid down and constructed.
That said, in some genres it might be appropriate for one, more or all factions to prefer smaller vessels - is/will it be possible to tweak the system in this direction if desired (or is it simply a case of retarding their "hull size" tech field?)
The best tweak to make this work would probably involve adjusting the Completion Time statistics so that larger ships take even longer to build -- maybe even to the point of having Completion Time equal Construction Cost.

Another option would be to adjust the amount of shipyards required to build a ship, adjusting it upward by 50% (round down). That would make it more practical to build smaller ships, with a DD taking 4, CL taking 6, CP taking 7, and a CA taking 9. That modifier would create a gulf between the light warships and cruisers, and also make the capital ships unattainable.

-Tyrel
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