Bay 12 Games Forum

You also successfully converted some of your distillery into chemical plants, which should make smokeless powder complex this turn, and not complex the turn after.

I admit, that's the best outcome we could hope for. For reference, we can, in the next turn, issue:
- One modified Patriot Rifle per soldier, up from one per ten
- Enough field guns, up from enough for 1/10th
- Enough rotary cannons.
That's extremely awesome.

I'd prefer to revise the armed sloops to use rifled cannons and fix the artillery shells

Seconded.

As far as I can tell, 3_14159 is the only one who doesn't want design phase artillery. I want Shrapnel shells, while H4za4d seems to want HE fragmentation shells. 3_14159 wants to retrain our men for small squad tactics. Everyone is busy eating popcorn while we argue.

I was thinking more about packet movement, and moving away from line infantry since I figured a revision would be enough for our artillery. Using it as a design action, however, works.

Quote

Design action: Shrapnel shot for the "Breech" and domestic smokeless powder production.

Can we add HE shells? I.e.

Design action: Shrapnel shot and HE shell for the "Breech" and domestic smokeless powder production.

Or do you believe that to be too ambitious?

There is nothing such as "acceptable for a revision" or not. The main point is always "if there is any new idea/technology/principle in its creation" - don't expect you get something groundbreaking with revise.

Players - don't expect to get an advantage, or to railroad me into some outcome by asking questions on definitions, and whether such design is permissible by rules or not.

To reiterate, a design action means you can get something new from it; a revise action merely fixes problems or to adapt something you have invented in another situation. I expect some leeway, but there is some leeway in how wide the leeway is, and I hope I don't have to narrow it for you.

This serves as a last warning.

Apologies for that. I wanted to avoid you having to clarify something as not revision-worthy, delaying the turn. I'll try not to ask again.

Seconding somemildmanneredidiot's "Take all the time you need."
If there's anything we can do to help, just tell us.

I decline to properly answer. Both are possible, but note that revisions should involve no entirely new principles, only fixing problems. I don't think you guys have any understanding of stealth in combat - they are still line infantry I'm afraid.

Thank you.
Yes, this definitely suggests we should spend our design action on camouflage/new uniforms. The ship will have to wait a turn.

Quote from: 3_14159 on July 13, 2016, 06:52:36 am

Quote from: H4zardZ1 on July 13, 2016, 03:42:49 am

Do we have any arty?

We have. It is currently not as useful as it could be, because we only have a non-explosive armour-piercing round.

What is it?

Anyways, should we upgrade the old arty so it can shoot explosives, or make a new arty that can shoot explosives better?
Also, do we upgrade the AP shell into explosive AP shell or make a new explosive shell?

The Breech Field Cannon Downgrade.
I believe that new ammunition for it is just a revision action.

Urgh, Uranus isn't terrible, Jupiter is sort of meh though...

Agreed. Well, there'll be more gas giants. Exploration ho!

With the development of the company drop module I should like to have a request submitted to the design division for a heavy shuttle designed for range and speed. It would hopefully grant our forces a limited capacity to recover escape pods and seize crippled or surrendered vessels.

Definitely agree on designing a recovery shuttle. However, we won't be able to seize any enemy vessels until we have researched Marines, which I personally don't find that important.

Now, for a few ideas on what to design:
1) Survey Ships
    Two survey ships (one geo, one grav), built on the same general principles. They use as many already available designs as possible: The commercial Chevron 1 Heavy Ion Drive, one grav or geo survey sensor, and a deployment time of ten years. Both should mount the same (military) jump drive and a standard sensor package (1HS thermal and EM sensors).
    Required to develop: Jump Drive, 1HS thermal, 1HS EM

2) Commercial Ships
    This tender goes out to design a total of two different ships sharing the same basic structure: A colony ship and a freighter. The freighter is to have at least 25,000t of cargo space. The maximum size for both ships is dictated by the available shipyard size, and is not to be more than 60,000t. Small increases to weight are acceptable.
    Both are supposed to use our existing commercial Chevron 1 drive and mount a standard sensor package but no jump drive. Both are to be buildable from the same shipyard [1].
    Required to develop: 1HS thermal, 1HS EM (as in survey ships)

[1] To do so, design the colony ship first, with a multiple of 100,000 cryo berths. Then, copy the design, tick "Keep Excess Q", and replace the cryo berths with standard cargo holds. Check whether it's buildable in the DAC tab, then retool a shipyard to the colony ship design.

I am also thinking about the size of our ASMs. Personally, I'm a great believer in standardization, i.e. use size-1 for AMMs and another size for all ASMs. Currently, I have a preference for using armoured size-6 ASMs. They can fit a large, strength-9 warhead and 0.3 armour (for a 25% chance to ignore a hit by an AMM). What are your thoughts?

Edit: Also, we have 8400CP per year. Personally, I'd like to one or two more military academy (+10/+20 leaders per year, i.e. a higher chance to get a CP scientist) and research labs. You mentioned wanting to build another 400 CFs. We should also expand the maintenance facilities in time to handle a 20kton carrier.
Building a research lab takes about 4.5 months, as does a military academy. The maintenance facilities will  take another 0.75 years, and we can build about 400 CFs every five years - all at maximum industry.
I'd therefore propose we task half of our industry with industrial expansion. The other 50% build two military academies (finished in about 1.2y) and 5 research labs (finished after about four years), then build maintenance facilities until reaching 20ktons. That should be in time for any carrier.

So, a few more things I noticed:
1) Military Training Level: Set it to 5. Fewer graduates, but of a higher quality.

Questions for Vivalas:
1) Which scientists do we have?
2) Have you posted the shipyards? I can't find them.
3) We do have jump point knowledge and jump points discovered, right?
4) What is our current geo and grav-survey status of Sol?
5) Do we have Max Squadron Jump Radius researched?

Getting some specifics out for discussion purposes...

Research:
(labs)
(2)fuel efficiency
(2)Active sensors
(1)Missile warheads
(1)smaller fuel tanks
(1)armour
(1)research rate
(2)shipyard efficiency
(10)theoretical engine technology.
No specific designs from me, I would like to try to skip an engine technology if we can get away with it...

Agreed on trying to skip an engine level. On the other hand, I'd like to concentrate our labs on relevant tech (depending on the scientists we get).

Interesting (or nice-to-have) tech, in my opinion, is the following:

Point Defense
    1) Turret Tracking Speed 2000 - 1kRP
    2) Turret Tracking Speed 3000 - 2kRP
    3k RP

Gauss Cannon PD
    1) Gauss Cannon RoF 2 - 3k RP
    2) Gauss Cannon RoF 3 - 8k RP
    Total: 11k RP


Meson PD
    1) Capacitor Recharge Rate 2 - 2k RP
    2) Capacitor Recharge Rate 3 - 4k RP
    Total: 6k RP

Fighters
    1) Engineering Section (Small) - 2k RP
    2) Engineering Section (Tiny) - 4k RP
    3) Reduced-Size Launchers 0.25 size - 6k RP
    4) Box Launchers - 10k RP
    Total: 22k RP

Engine
    1) Fuel Consumption 0.8 - 2k RP
    2) Fuel Consumption 0.7 - 4k RP
    3) Fuel Consumption 0.6 - 8k RP
    4) maximum engine power mod 1.5 - 2k RP
    5) maximum engine power mod 1.75 - 4 RP
    6) maximum engine power mod 2 - 8 RP
    7) Stellarator Fusion Reactor - 12k RP
    8 ) Magneto-Plasma Engine - 20k
    Total: 60k RP

Sensors:
    1) EM Sensitivity 6 - 2k RP
    2) EM Sensitivity 8 - 4k RP
    3) Active Grav 16 - 4k RP
    Total: 10k RP

Edit: Also, we can think about researching jump gates.

We get 4800 RP per year without scientist boni. So, I guess our research priorities depend on the scientists. That being said, the Magneto-Plasma Engine, at a total of 32k RP, looks very tempting. It will, however, not be finished in the next five-year turn.
In the meantime, we can continue to rely on our PDCs, or we can design a stopgap fighter and put it into the Beta PDC. An example design I've whipped up has a speed of 4.5kkm/s, three size-4 missile launchers, and a firing range of 12.7mkm. It costs 76BP, and we'd need to design about 400RP worth of components. A complementary sensor fighter would cost 102BP, and 360RP to design.

Ship Design: Berg-class exploration. Hamlet with Grav sensors instead of geo...

I'd definitely like to refit the Hamlet into a Grav survey vessel. Grav survey's military anyways. Refitting would cost 250BP. On the other hand, a fair amount of the cost is made up by the giant sensor array the Hamlet has. We can design a cheaper and longer-ranged grav and geo-survey vessel.
A civilian geo-survey vessel (3.5kton, civilian engine, one geo sensors, 212bkm range, 10 years deployment time, jump capable) costs only 365 BP. That's cheaper than a refitted Hamlet, and requires much less fuel and no maintenance.
A military geo-survey vessel built along the same lines (though with less fuel and only 90 months deployment time) costs 380.5  BP. They can even use the same jump engine - as I noticed, a military jump engine doesn't make them military.
And, besides - in ten years we'll scrap them anyway.

An alternative would be to use jump ships and survey fighters.

Fleet: Umm, maintain an EM-exclusion-zone around Mars? Would 20 million work?

Sounds good. We should probably announce that.

It'd be nice to get a task-force for protecting civilians... We could split the fleet command into a strategic division that holds specific locations and a response division that escorts vulnerable convoys, makes sure that there is always someone listening if a distress call goes out, and responds to hostile developments away from secured locations?

Agreed. Well, later, once we actually have multiple locations :-)

Oh, and we need to build up some military to stop our peoples from going crazy, unless Mars is immune to unrest because Homeworld?

A homeworld always is.

Economics:
 Imma ask for 1000 total construction factories, maybe even 1200... So double them!

And more research labs.

I want another Hamlet and a Berg. Also shipyard expansion...

I'd rather use the cheaper ships mentioned above.

P.S.
 Ummm, I would like to try some missile-defence beam fighters... But basically, fighters to attack, to defend, gate-based jumping with a small fleet of brute-force jump-ferries that get dispatched to whatever theatre has the greatest need...

Assuming we build large-ish carriers for our fighters, this'll probably mean light carriers which are jump capable. Should work, though.

Since - assuming I'm reading the discussion time limit correctly - we are also allowed to discuss things, I wanted to get an overview of the opinions on our research and therefore design focus.

There are, in general, a few areas in which one might specialize. The offensive ones are:

• Beam weapons. Their biggest advantage is that they do not consume resources. This makes them strategically nice. On the other hand, their range is significantly limited (less than 1.5mkm, usually much less). They also fire regularly, and usually feature a much better armour penetration (missiles left; lasers right).
  Beam weapons require researching the weapons, power plants, beam fire control, and turrets. Beam ships have to be as fast as possible, while being well-armoured. Sensors are of secondary concern: If it's in weapons range, you can nearly always see it.
• Missiles. Their biggest advantage is range, usually reaching 50 to 100mkm. This makes them tactically superior, and easily able to destroy anything they outrange. When using box launchers (or miniaturized launchers in general), you trade a lower continuous for a higher initial throw weight, overwhelming their defenses. The cost is high, though: A full missile load might cost 50% of the vessel firing them. On the other hand, that is usually sufficient for killing several enemy spacecraft, recovering their cost.
  Missiles require researching engines, missile fire control, sensors, and either fire rate or miniaturized launchers. Missile-armed combattants are usually slower and lighter-armoured, but feature vulnerable magazines. Due to their range, giant sensors are common.
• Fighters. Fighters, one might say, are taking everything about missiles and exaggerating it: Much higher range, but also logistically even more expensive. They allow carriers to stay far, far back - someting like 500-1000mkm is possible. Fighters mount box launchers, and are reloaded on-board their carriers, meaning you can execute multiple alpha strikes. Fighters usually come closer than bigger missile-armed ships, and rely on their small size to avoid being targeted by missiles. There is a risk of interception, though. Oh, and there are beam-armed fighters, but you will almost never be able to survive closing with enemy ships.
  Fighters require researching everything of missiles, plus the fighters themselves. They are less useful without box launchers. Fighters are as small as possible - they mount life support for a few days, an engine, box launchers and a fire control. Variants mount sensors, or fuel tanks. Carriers themselves are even less armoured than missile-armed ships, and usually mount no weapons.

Then, there's thinking about defensive weaponry, i.e. to intercept enemy missiles. There are, ultimately, only two variants here:

• Beam weapons. Beam weapons cannot be run out of ammunition, and usually kill x missiles every five or ten seconds. They are good for a prolonged engagement, but can easily be overwhelmed.
• Anti-missiles. They have a longer engagement range, and fire off missile after missile to intercept the enemy's. This means they are less vulnerable against large strikes (but can still be overwhelmed). They are, on the other hand, far more vulnerable against magazine exhausted.

From my experience, I'd definively recommend getting either missiles or fighters as primary strike platforms. Beam spacecraft rely on having a higher speed and/or range; if both is denied, you're getting ripped to shreds by everything. Even if you are faster, you're going to take a beating from enemy missiles until closing - followed by taking more damage during beam engagement. There is one area where beam weapons excel, though: Jump point assaults. On the other hand, you can also use specialized jump fighters.
Generally, I'd suggest to concentrate on fighters; they share basically the same research focus as missiles (so it doesn't matter during the beginning), and are more flexible, since you can just yoink out an old strike group out of their hangars and add a new one. They also allow us to defend colonies using hangar planetary defense centres.
This also means we should focus on AMMs as primary missile defense. I'd still suggest developing some beam-based missile defense; those are pretty good for small-scale attacks and leakers. By developing a gauss-based beam-weapon defense system, we also upgrade the CIWS we can build. That's pretty useful.

Another thing we should think about is whether we want a fleet that's jump-capable (better mobility, requires tonnage, research and costs more) or bound by jump gates (no restriction on size, even worse at jump point assaults, more tonnage).

Lastly, home defense. Right now, there is the possibility of them building large-ish missiles, which can then be used to target our planet. A defense against that would be useful; or generally a defense against both invasions and missile/beam strikes. For this, I personally like meson-based PDCs. No beam weapon except mesons can penetrate an atmosphere. By building some meson PDCs (something like 30 turreted meson beams and 5 beam fire controls), we can ensure that any missile-based attack they launch is shot down. They can only challenge these PDCs by using missiles (which they defend against) and mesons (of which they mount more). This should make assaults onto our planets nearly impossible.

So, all in all:
1. Offensive weapons
    a) Beams
    b) Missiles
    c) Fighters

2. Defensive weapons
     a) Beams
     b) AMMs

3. Jump capable?
    a) Everything - including civilians
    b) Everything but civilians
    c) Specialized ships
    d) Nope

4. Home defense?

For me, I'm thinking 1c (Fighters), mostly 2b (AMMs), 3c (the large carriers aren't jump capable), 4 meson PDCs, later on hangar PDCs.