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[coleslaw35]

I can't believe that I don't know this, but is it possible to mass-driver fuel?

Nope.

EDIT: Off topic, but is anyone else having issues with profile pictures? I checked and for some reason my profile picture turned into the old YouTube person shape icon and now I am unable to set that beautiful container of 'slaw as my profile picture.

[Alastar]

Regarding stealth and active sensors:
Depends on what your aim is. Stealth won't help you avoid detection if you have a powerful, noisy active sensor*.
But it'll still make it harder for enemy active sensors and fire controls to lock on. So if you have a stealthed sensor ship escorted by stealthy missile ships or fighters**, you should get to strike first.


* Because how grav pulse strength scales, you can reduce sensor footprint by building oversized Resolution-1 sensors. At the same EM sensitivity tech, a R100 active of any size will be detected at its maximum range by a size-1 passive EM sensor. A R1 active will be detected at its maximum range by a size-10 passive.

** I consider stealth tech only for packages that can't be split up, like one large sensor. Otherwise, I simply distribute the capability over multiple FACs/fighters. Cloaking tech and possibly reduced-signature engines are too expensive if there are other options.

[Detros]

Eh, two questions:

1: Does a stealthy ship have any place in a combat situation? Like can they pew someone without giving away their position?

2: How stealthy is this ship? It's meant to go into other areas and drop off a fighter to watch the area, while it moves on and plops a second down somewhere else and also watches itself. I know it's rather slow but even if caught it's rather replaceable. Will probably be setting up some shipyards on mars for it, might even move all my civilian shipyards to it and focus on military at Earth. I still haven't found an NPR or... Anything, yet. I put it to have 3 NPR's in the beginning, hoping this finds some.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Punic class Stealth Scout    8 000 tons     227 Crew     1802.4 BP      TCS 32  TH 69.12  EM 0
1800 km/s    JR 3-50     Armour 1-35     Shields 0-0     Sensors 48/36/0/0     Damage Control Rating 1     PPV 0
Maint Life 0.09 Years     MSP 141    AFR 512%    IFR 7.1%    1YR 1545    5YR 23180    Max Repair 800 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 12 months    Flight Crew Berths 0   
Hangar Deck Capacity 1000 tons     

J8000(3-50) Military Jump Drive     Max Ship Size 8000 tons    Distance 50k km     Squadron Size 3
288 EP Internal Fusion Drive Stealth (1)    Power 288    Fuel Use 32.86%    Signature 69.12    Exp 8%
Fuel Capacity 550 000 Litres    Range 37.7 billion km   (242 days at full power)

Active Search Sensor MR290-R300 (1)     GPS 63000     Range 291.0m km    Resolution 300
Thermal Sensor TH6-48 (1)     Sensitivity 48     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  48m km
EM Detection Sensor EM6-36 (1)     Sensitivity 36     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  36m km
Cloaking Device: Class cross-section reduced to 20% of normal

Strike Group
2x Stiletto Fighter-Scout   Speed: 3500 km/s    Size: 10

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes

Quite hidden when only using passive sensors, it can see itself at less than 4M km.
On the other hand it can be seen with anything with just about any EM sensors (or a tracking station) over half of system the moment it uses that big active one.

[Alastar]

While it may work, that ship is a fairly wasteful design. In one package, there is a respectable sensor suite, a hangar for 2 parasites, and a jump drive.

If you don't need this to jump other ships, split it up into multiple craft (probably FACs), and you are stealthier without using any stealth tech. Maybe use the saved space for lower-power engines, for better range and fuel efficiency at the same speed.
Can't tell for sure without details, but you can probably eliminate the parasites and simply run another sensor vessel.

[Flying Dice]

The main use of cloaking devices is running long-duration passive scouts. I make stealth cruisers with large passives and 5+ year deployment time to drop into occupied systems to try to get a read on local forces before I send a fleet group in. They're too tonnage-intensive for practical use on warships, it's marginal benefit gained in exchange for what could have been more weapons/armor/drives. Make sure to use them in conjunction with reduced sig drives.

Missiles can have their own active sensors? So they can be used by a ship that lacks such things? Or at least a spotter fighter could work...

I think that the real question is what class will be named "Pyrrhic"...

Not practically. You'd need to set waypoints on passive traces and fire at the WPs, then pray that the contact doesn't move at all. Missile sensors are for redirecting strays and spares onto new targets.

[Khan Boyzitbig]

So I decided to give this game a shot, not got much idea what I'm doing but still.
How does this look for a small ship?

Code: [Select]

Ark Royal class Destroyer    3 500 tons     73 Crew     434.6 BP      TCS 70  TH 300  EM 0
4285 km/s     Armour 5-20     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 1     PPV 8
Maint Life 2.41 Years     MSP 78    AFR 98%    IFR 1.4%    1YR 18    5YR 276    Max Repair 40 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 6 months    Spare Berths 1   

Daly & Blackburn 60 EP Ion Drive (5)    Power 60    Fuel Use 85.5%    Signature 60    Exp 10%
Fuel Capacity 500 000 Litres    Range 30.1 billion km   (81 days at full power)

Williamson Orbital Systems 12cm C2 Visible Light Laser (2)    Range 80 000km     TS: 4285 km/s     Power 4-2     RM 2    ROF 10        4 4 2 2 1 1 1 1 0 0
Fire Control S02 64-2000 (1)    Max Range: 128 000 km   TS: 2000 km/s     92 84 77 69 61 53 45 37 30 22
Nixon-Anderson Aerospace Industries Gas-Cooled Fast Reactor Technology PB-1 (1)     Total Power Output 13.5    Armour 0    Exp 5%

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes

And yes I have just noticed my fire control outranges those lasers, Didn't expect that.

[Mini]

Laser range vs fire control range is pretty soft. If you have excess in one it's still useful, since lasers have reduced damage over range and beam fire controls have reduced chance to hit over range. It's nothing like missiles where if you don't match the ranges you're wasting space (or future-proofing if you want to be generous). I believe the range listed when you are designing a beam fire control is the 50% accuracy range as well, so there's even a little mental hurdle there to match ranges.

[Khan Boyzitbig]

So I have this little problem. I have built a ship but it won't move, it has fuel and engines and orders but it just sits at earth and does nothing while supposedly going at full speed. If it has the order to survey next planet/moon/whatever it still sits there and interrupts everything.

[Sirus]

Did you remove it from the Shipyard TG? That's about the only thing I can think of.

[Khan Boyzitbig]

Its assigned to the survey TG. This is the ship in question:

Code: [Select]

Victory class Exploration Ship 1300 tons     35 Crew     307.8 BP      TCS 26  TH 60  EM 0
2307 km/s     Armour 1-10     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/1/1     Damage Control 1     PPV 0
Annual Failure Rate: 0%    IFR: 0%    Maintenance Capacity 148 MSP
Spare Berths 2   

Daly & Blackburn 60 EP Ion Drive (1)    Power 60    Fuel Use 85.5%    Armour 0    Exp 10%
Fuel Capacity 250 000 Litres    Range 40.5 billion km   (203 days at full power)

Gravitational Survey Sensors (1)   1 Survey Points
Geological Survey Sensors (1)   1 Survey Points
This design is classed as a military vessel for maintenance purposes
Did I miss something on it?

[Madman198237]

You have both types of sensors on one ship, that really messes things up badly. Don't do that---you need a geosurvey vessel and a gravsurvey vessel, not a combination.

[Khan Boyzitbig]

Right, I'll try and fix that then.

[Shooer]

Remove it from the default TG.  If you have shipyards building ships into a TG any orders you give to that TG are ignored until the shipyards finish.

Also on separating grav and geo sensors.  Some people stick both on the same ship.  I don't, specifically because Geo counts and commercial and Grav counts as Mil.  I make my grav ships usualy 6k in size with a FTL drive and my geo ships are a commercial engine, geo sensor, and fuel.

[Khan Boyzitbig]

Well the ship moves now, created two subdesigns and refit the shipyard because the ships would not move with both geo and grav survey equipment. Now I'm mining luna for its considerable Duranium and Corundium deposits (nearly 2.5mil each)

[Culise]

You have both types of sensors on one ship, that really messes things up badly. Don't do that---you need a geosurvey vessel and a gravsurvey vessel, not a combination.

Interesting.  I've never had an issue stemming from that when I built dual-purpose ships; it's rather inefficient, but it doesn't actually break stuff to my knowledge.  The only time I ran into the issue Khan saw is the one Shooer pointed out: if a shipyard is building a ship for a TG, any orders that TG (and any ships in the TG) have will be suppressed until the shipyard is finished.