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[Khan Boyzitbig]

Multiple +10 rolls and 0 negative rolls. Although, this was a conventional start and I will need to focus tech on three areas to stand a chance and not overexert. Temporary frigate spam until I get real weapons and can reliably hit them. Probably make 500t or less gun pods with no engines just in case.

Swarm vs tech level 1 basically. Although counter swarming sounds fun. 1000t FACs with particle beams sounds good to me. Couple of carriers too. Else 3000t small ships with particle beams.

Won't be easy but I will not give up easily.

[Shooer]

It's not impossible to establish coms with the three spoilers.  It's just supposed to be.

[Khan Boyzitbig]

Well tech certainly improved in preparation for fighting those spoilers. the first warship I designed for the playthrough was this:

Code: [Select]

Victory class Frigate    1 000 tons     47 Crew     96 BP      TCS 20  TH 30  EM 0
1500 km/s     Armour 1-8     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 1     PPV 6
Maint Life 22.36 Years     MSP 60    AFR 8%    IFR 0.1%    1YR 0    5YR 3    Max Repair 6 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 3 months    Spare Berths 1   

5 EP Nuclear Thermal Engine (6)    Power 5    Fuel Use 99%    Signature 5    Exp 10%
Fuel Capacity 50 000 Litres    Range 9.1 billion km   (70 days at full power)

R1.5/C1 Meson Cannon (2)    Range 15 000km     TS: 5000 km/s     Power 3-1     RM 1.5    ROF 15        1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Fire Control S01 20-2000 (1)    Max Range: 40 000 km   TS: 2000 km/s     75 50 25 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Pressurised Water Reactor PB-1 (1)     Total Power Output 2    Armour 0    Exp 5%

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
(ignore the cannons having 5000 km/s they started with 2000 km/s)
and now its this:

Code: [Select]

Victory II class Frigate    1 000 tons     33 Crew     273.3 BP      TCS 20  TH 147  EM 0
7350 km/s     Armour 1-8     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 0     PPV 5
Maint Life 9.02 Years     MSP 87    AFR 16%    IFR 0.2%    1YR 2    5YR 29    Max Repair 90 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 1 months    Spare Berths 2   

21 EP Ion Drive (7)    Power 21    Fuel Use 320.86%    Signature 21    Exp 17%
Fuel Capacity 150 000 Litres    Range 8.4 billion km   (13 days at full power)

Particle Beam-3 (1)    Range 160 000km     TS: 7350 km/s     Power 5-3    ROF 10        3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3
Fire Control S01.5 80-7500 (1)    Max Range: 160 000 km   TS: 7500 km/s     94 88 81 75 69 62 56 50 44 38
Gas-Cooled Fast Reactor Technology PB-1 (1)     Total Power Output 4.5    Armour 0    Exp 5%

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes

Okay its fuel range isn't great. and refit costs are over 100% the normal build cost and the beam actually outranges the fire control but it also outranges the bugs. (or it should do)

Some of the planned cruisers will carry them into battle so deployment time is fighter-like. Highly unlikely that the fight will last 10 days once the two sides close in anyway. The bigger ships also have Stellarator reactors instead, might as well save the small cost difference for these guys.

[StagnantSoul]

Victory classes should properly be about 2/3 the size of your battleships...

[Khan Boyzitbig]

Yeah well its a random name. IIRC my destroyers are Resolution class (IRL Battleships) and the cruisers are Illustrious and Dreadnought classes (the latter carries these frigates while the former is a typical cruiser). Maybe one day I will get round to making them their namesakes but for now its name them something and then design what I need.

[StagnantSoul]

Ah I see. I usually have a naming pattern for each variants of things. Currently fighters are being named after mythical beasts: Minotaur, hydra, gorgon, duckbilled platypus, etc, cruisers after graveyard variants like sepulchers, and battleships after rivers, with frigates and destroyers getting siege weapons.

[90908]

Minotaur, hydra, gorgon, duckbilled platypus

Ah, yes, of course. The great duckbilled platypus. A scion of the lesser known diety Platius, who was thought to have represented being a indecisive fuck.

[Khan Boyzitbig]

Round one against the swarm goes badly. 20 little buggers against 10 heavy frigates (didn't think that they had any of those there, expected a lone worker, guess it called its mates). Killed 5 but found out that they are faster than I thought, 10kkm/s was more than expected, and double the expected range too (RM 12 rather than RM 6 on the other two classes). Still 0.5 KDR isn't too bad when outnumbered and fighting faster foes. Does mean I probably need missiles for my capitals to stand a chance, but I was working on those for anti-capital strikes so there is no issue there.

[Flying Dice]

Little tip: try building fast ships with a couple heavy lasers and a couple 10cm laser turrets. Abuse laser range to kite the Soldiers to death, then kite the Queen to death at your leisure. All you really need is enough speed to keep the former from closing too quickly and enough range to be able to whittle down the latter's shields from outside its own maximum range.

Lasers because you need turrets (especially at low tech) to get a good enough hitrate to kill the Soldiers before they kill you, and because they can also be spinal-mounted for an extra chunk of range against slow targets.

At least that's always been my go-to. You can theoretically kill the Queen with missiles at TL3-4ish, but you're going to burn through a hell of a lot, and there's nothing more disappointing than running dry before it's dead and watching that shield pop back up.

[Khan Boyzitbig]

Oh I outrange them alright. The problem was only that my ships were 7100~ km/s to their 10000 km/s. I got to fire first but not one hit in the opening volley.

I could grab lasers (and have little reason not to given my particle beams are now very expensive to improve) but the swarm isn't much of a threat if it goes for earth, okay only half the fleet is upgraded to be able to fight them but I did build a bunch of defence platforms (50 with beams, okay base accuracy would also be 50 but I do have numbers here) and I'm building more of a newer model and a lot of fast ships.

My fleet can kite the queen and my tankers can kite the workers (I think the much smaller and slower but still massive ship is a worker at any rate). My early warships can kite the worker its that slow, but cannot shoot it if they do.

[Flying Dice]

Yeah, for you the benefit of switching to lasers is more about being able to turret them for the better tracking speed. Well, that and better close-range damage if things go badly. Particle beams have always had more range than they know what to do with.

[Ehndras]

Don't swarm multiply though?

[Khan Boyzitbig]

Well they certainly went from one queen on its own to at least one smaller massive ship and 20 little guys since first contact. I on the other hand have built about 60 small ships plus 55 "gun pods" and four 10650t Cruiser/Carrier hybrids. Thats not counting everything in production nor the planned extra ships that cannot yet be built.

My FACs and Frigates might not need lasers in order to boost the tracking speed because I might be able to make them as fast as the swarm 750t FACs, the bigger ships will need something faster for anti FAC duty but thats being designed.

[Ehndras]

holy shit, that's more ships than I've ever built o.O

[Khan Boyzitbig]

Well I thought "Outswarm the Swarm". Enough Dakka and everything dies. 200000t Queens or 750t Swarmers if it bleeds we can kill it. If one ship falls 5 take its place, etc. etc.

Basically same principal as the Imperial Guard/Tyranids/Zerg/Orks an so on so forth.