Ship designs?

[wmslone]

So I've played this game rather a lot to this point, but I keep starting over around 2030 or so after learning some new and critical thing that makes me want to have a fresh go of it. Anyway, I'm at about 2033 now in my current game, dominant on Earth, and dominant on Mars so I have a lot of resources, and and a couple of shipyards finally set up. But this is my first time actually designing ships and it's overwhelming, I have so many options and don't know what I should be going for.

I know I'm designing defensive fleets right now, so dv isn't a huge concern (I think), but what amount of dv is too little even for in system defense? And as for propellant tanks, I notice I can just add more and more and there doesn't seem to be a downside other than cost and wet mass, so should I just max these out or am I missing something? As far as weapons I'm focusing on lots of viper missiles, might make a separate design for a torpedo boat, and maybe one big battleship with rail guns. As far as the drives go, the options are so many that I'm not sure what is optimal yet for system defense, or what the best stats are that I should be looking for, but my instinct is to use my best solid fission drive because I have utility slots that enhance that and I have a ton of water/hydrogen. Anyway, just trying to see if I can get some advice. I looked around for a guide on steam but didn't find anything useful, if anyone knows of a good ship and space combat guide please point me to it! I'm down to get into the weeds and do some learning about it, but I just don't even know where to start or what source material to reference for this kind of thing.

What should my mass considerations be?
What's a good amount of armor, what's necessary and unnecessary?
Propellant tanks, how many? Does it matter?
Drives, which is best for what, and what does adding more than 1 to a ship do? What's are my main considerations for this so I can optimize designs for different tasks?
What amount of dv is too little for say an Earth or Mars defense fleet, what amount is "enough"?

Yeah, I don't even know where to start here, and feel like I have option paralysis at this point with too much to choose from haha.

[CG]

one thing currently in shipbuilding is wonky and its that build time is hull dependant not weight dependant...

this makes room for some 26000 tons monitor class designs with an attackrating of 2000, more than my titans, but are build and maintained in a fraction of time/resources.

in short, designs one, build 10 ships and see how they perform.

what you are basically looking for in "classes" are 3 basics

- colony ships with hub/platform/mobile science lab so you can get to these juicy juicy asteroids and build a foothold. youll soon see that mars is just a distraction :D

- 1 way tactical nuke bomber with long range for destroying alien infrastructure.. did you see the (very) old movie called "darkstar"? i got reminded when i destroyed a base with that name... :D (warning! this will make the game too easy if you go ham on all alien hab bases bc they need to rebuild them.)

- a lot of ships in a place acts as "defender" and the aliens just starts to ignore your assets with one in place. to have attack + defend fleets is just expensive so just build your attack fleets instead.
start with low DV ships for local support until you can deal with the incursions and science your way to the endgame stuff and gradually revisit your designs with better engines/weapons

[adobo]

I'd say you need at least 20 DV at the minimum for a defense fleet. It takes a lot of DV to move up an orbital layer unless you have no plans to move it out of LEO.

[wmslone]

Originally posted by CG:

...

First off, thanks for your feedback, and I love Darkstar haha, classic film.

So far I don't know how to get high dv ships without sacrificing on so much else or just spamming propellant tanks (which might be a good idea? I don't really know). Maybe I just haven't gone far enough down the drive tech but I already have like a dozen and a half options to choose from. Even my defense fleets that I'm designing rn have very low (red) dv with minimal armor, but I'm loading them out fully with the best weapons I can give them.

I've so far played the game very carefully as far as alien threat levels go, so I'm not a threat yet even though I own virtually all of Mars and its moons. I skipped the moon completely and just saved up a lot of boost to book it to mars, didn't want to wast the mc on lunar bases. I have control of global research but have held off on "mission to the asteroids" because I didn't want the ai grabbing up key asteroids before me, and I'm trying to watch my mc carefully so I don't go over the threat threshold. My plan was to make a few defensive platforms around mars and earth, and get a couple defensive fleets up, and then move into the belt to get more resources, once I'm in a secure position.

Naturally I'll be looking for longer range ships down the line, so that I can take the fight to them, but my past experience with this game (70 hours in and just now getting to the space phase in earnest) has taught me to be exceedingly cautious, slow, controlled, and steady with my growth.

[wmslone]

Originally posted by majikero:

I'd say you need at least 20 DV at the minimum for a defense fleet. It takes a lot of DV to move up an orbital layer unless you have no plans to move it out of LEO.

Okay then the ships I'm designing currently are obsolete and need to be cancelled haha. Thanks for that, that's critical info.
I did put my shipyards in extreme earth/mars orbit for this reason, but still the ships i was designing are nowhere near 20 dv.

[wmslone]

Okay answered one of my own questions, multiple drives increases in combat acceleration while adding mass and decreasing dv slightly.

Secondly, for what I have available, it looks like the pulsar drive is a great bet, lots of dv from it compared to other solid fission drives available. I hadn't tried it yet but now my dv is way higher than the previous ships I was designing. I was just judging by thrust which made the Dumbo and Heavy Dumbo look good, but the dv on those is terrible comparatively.

Picking this apart as a I go. This feedback is helpful though for helping me know what to avoid and what to aim for, thanks the continued help folks!

[Whiterain1000]

Originally posted by CG:

one thing currently in shipbuilding is wonky and its that build time is hull dependant not weight dependant...

this makes room for some 26000 tons monitor class designs with an attackrating of 2000, more than my titans, but are build and maintained in a fraction of time/resources.

in short, designs one, build 10 ships and see how they perform.

what you are basically looking for in "classes" are 3 basics

- colony ships with hub/platform/mobile science lab so you can get to these juicy juicy asteroids and build a foothold. youll soon see that mars is just a distraction :D

- 1 way tactical nuke bomber with long range for destroying alien infrastructure.. did you see the (very) old movie called "darkstar"? i got reminded when i destroyed a base with that name... :D (warning! this will make the game too easy if you go ham on all alien hab bases bc they need to rebuild them.)

- a lot of ships in a place acts as "defender" and the aliens just starts to ignore your assets with one in place. to have attack + defend fleets is just expensive so just build your attack fleets instead.
start with low DV ships for local support until you can deal with the incursions and science your way to the endgame stuff and gradually revisit your designs with better engines/weapons

you got a build design for the bomber?

and how do you engage the enemy fleets? They just keep running away... have more delta v and run them into the ground?

[CG]

Originally posted by wmslone:

Originally posted by CG:

...

First off, thanks for your feedback, and I love Darkstar haha, classic film.

...

:D

ok when you hold mars and want to build a fleet youll come close to the alien thread level of total war. prepare for that (nuke bomber and 4 * layered defense at each station/hub + construction yard to rebuild the base if needed).
aliens love whack a mole so let them destroy your base to lower the threat and rebuild it from your low orbit station..

also in short, dont hold of in the tech.
mars is good to get the resorces for the early game but you want to scout the other asteroids for ones with all resources and preferable a lot of fissure material.
you can click on 1 and see the rough minimal estimate before sending colony ship there.
also dont be afraid of factions targeting resources in space. theres a lot of aseroids and the ai is not that smart.
also if you stay stricktly under your mc cap no random "faction took over" event will happen.
wich means they need to put their counselor/marines on a ship and fly to your base to take it over.. gl with that :D

DV of 25/30k for local force is enough (moon to earth and back + fight) but you should have a refuel station at both to mitigate that.
dont forget that each celestrial body has gravity when disigning/building them or else they wont get off that planet :D
better in a long run is a dedicated and defended shipyard at earth/moon lagrange points.

[Chicago Ted]

I'd say throw some designs together and test 'em in skirmish. You can import designs from saves, so it's a good way to test your ships in combat without sinking time and resources into actually building the things in a save game. That doesn't cover strategic considerations like delta-v, but it helps. For short-range defense fleets, I tend to settle around 20-40~, rising as the game progresses, shaving off tanks as I get better engines/modules to keep the same 40 delta-v but gain more acceleration. Fiddling with designs, you really have to keep an eye on the Ship Performance Data box as you change things.

When it comes to tanks, you're right in that there is a cost in resources and mass. There also isn't a hard upper limit to how many you can toss on. But I wouldn't 'max it out', you can very quickly turn an agile fighter into a lumbering behemoth with barely any benefit. Especially early game, you can accidentally cripple your ships and economy by tossing too much fuel on when you should just get a better engine/lighter load. When you're fiddling with the tanks, pay attention to the Cruise and Combat acceleration, the cruise delta-v, and the turn rate. The specific numbers may not mean much, but you'll get a feel for what you consider acceptable performance over time. I'm a bit impatient, so I tend to prioritize thrust, but if you've the patience of a saint you might favor the stamina large delta-v brings. If you're just sitting docked to stations to defend them, you might not feel the need for high acceleration, but god it feels awful taking forever transferring station to station.

As for armor, I can't really give you hard numbers, because I haven't figured out what to shoot for myself, but better armor techs are lighter for the same protection, so you can pile more armor as you go on. Or keep whatever number you've settled on and reap benefits in accceleration/delta-v. Early game you basically can't put on enough armor to not get your booty blasted out of the sky by aliums while still being able to move, so I wouldn't really worry about too much armor early on unless you've got to deal with other human fleets.

Drives: Pay attention to the ratings. Essentially, more thrust means more acceleration, and more Exhaust velocity means more efficiency and thus more delta-v. Adding more engines means more thrust at the cost of more mass/power requirement, lowering delta-v. Generally, lower thrust high efficiency drives are better for traveling long distances, and higher-thrust lower efficiency drives are better for things like combat, local transfers. Things with both high acceleration and efficiency don't come until late game, so you'll need to find a balance you deem acceptable for each role. You can, for example, send a slow but high efficiency ship off to some far off planet, have it deploy a station, and then build high-acceleration combat ships to serve as a local combat force.

As for weapons, they've all got their trade offs. Missiles are solid, I got a lot of success with a primarily missile based fleet mid game, using mostly the cheaper, more numerous missiles to soak up point defence and let the nuclear-tipped torpedoes slip past and delete whatever they touched. But, of course, if you don't have the proper weight of fire, you get shut down completely by PD, and you struggle against lighter, more agile ships, and you don't have the magazine depth for a dragged out engagement.
Lasers are good, 100% accurate, lots of endurance, solid range, can act as point defense, but they lack the punch needed to deal with heavier alien ships.
Railguns can't hit anything at range, and get eaten by PD, but are solid close up.
You'll probably want a mix of weapons throughtout a fleet to capitalize on each categories strengths and cover their weaknesses.

[CG]

Originally posted by Whiterain1000:

you got a build design for the bomber?

and how do you engage the enemy fleets? They just keep running away... have more delta v and run them into the ground?

for the first question yes i do.

cheap version is escort class "attack bomber"
2 * Nukes (1 would be enough but when you have the space.... it wont fight in a spacebattle anyway)
1 * magazine (not does it need it :D bc 1 nuke is enough for a base)
1/1/1 armor of the lightest material bc weight reduces range
1 engine with decent cruise acceleration and propellant for around 500+ to 1k kps cruise DV to reach everywhere in a timely manner.

second question is simple but my be absolete in future patches as they already said to address that.

basically u need 2 fleets of similiar strength that attack at the same time. whys that? well..
you need the first fleet to "catch" the enemy. it needs to be strong enough for them to flee at which point you chase them for a fraction of DV (like 1k or so, just a tiny bit)
the second fleet will catch them and they cant run a´way again. (this is on a timer but i cant say how many minutes/hours)
so at your first fleet they either run away and your second gets them or they start a fight with the first one anyway..
if they beat it you need more/better ships. just a matter of adaption.

[adobo]

Originally posted by wmslone:

Okay then the ships I'm designing currently are obsolete and need to be cancelled haha. Thanks for that, that's critical info.
I did put my shipyards in extreme earth/mars orbit for this reason, but still the ships i was designing are nowhere near 20 dv.

You can get away with 15 dv if there's a fuel depot per layer. Less if you plan to fight everything at LEO and just have your shipyard at the lowest layer.

[wmslone]

Originally posted by Chicago Ted:

I'd say throw some designs together and test 'em in skirmish. You can import designs from saves, so it's a good way to test your ships in combat without sinking time and resources into actually building the things in a save game. That doesn't cover strategic considerations like delta-v, but it helps. For short-range defense fleets, I tend to settle around 20-40~, rising as the game progresses, shaving off tanks as I get better engines/modules to keep the same 40 delta-v but gain more acceleration. Fiddling with designs, you really have to keep an eye on the Ship Performance Data box as you change things.

This is a great idea I hadn't considered, I'll give it a try, thanks!

Originally posted by Chicago Ted:

When it comes to tanks, you're right in that there is a cost in resources and mass. There also isn't a hard upper limit to how many you can toss on. But I wouldn't 'max it out', you can very quickly turn an agile fighter into a lumbering behemoth with barely any benefit. Especially early game, you can accidentally cripple your ships and economy by tossing too much fuel on when you should just get a better engine/lighter load. When you're fiddling with the tanks, pay attention to the Cruise and Combat acceleration, the cruise delta-v, and the turn rate. The specific numbers may not mean much, but you'll get a feel for what you consider acceptable performance over time. I'm a bit impatient, so I tend to prioritize thrust, but if you've the patience of a saint you might favor the stamina large delta-v brings. If you're just sitting docked to stations to defend them, you might not feel the need for high acceleration, but god it feels awful taking forever transferring station to station.

Yeah, "max out" is bad terminology on my part, what I really mean is should you just add more and more tanks until you have the desirable delta-v? Like what's a normal or healthy number generally? Of course I can just throw on 100 tanks or more to have efficient dv, but I don't know if that's excessive or not enough for some designs, there doesn't seem to be any clear figure you should be aiming for, it's just what you can afford and what you want the ship to do. Which leads into another of my questions which was mass considerations, these seem a bit out of whack rn where I can make any class as massive as I want, but with no clear indication of what's optimal or what I should be aiming for. I actually wish we were a bit more limited in this way, it seems odd you can throw on 100+ tanks on a little gunboat with no downside other than cost basically. Obviously I know this becomes cost prohibitive at a certain point, but I guess I'm just wondering if there's a sweet spot, like x amount of tanks per 1 type of drive added to a ship, or something like that, even just broadly speaking.

[wmslone]

And with mass considerations, like what masses do peoples ships usually end up being? For instance, what's a roughly "normal" mass for a Monitor, or a Battleship. This is an open ended question because I know there is no "normal" at this phase of the game, without there being any real limits it seems to me that it's just a "player meta" of what works best, but I have no idea what that might be. So I think it'd be interesting and worthwhile to see what other people are working with on their designs, what masses their different classes tend to hover around, and how that mass is divided up between components and propellant for instance. At that point we might at least start to understand a viable meta for the game, without there being any actual firm balancing from the devs on it (such as limiting classes to certain mass expenditures with reasonable variability in drives and power supplies, or something like that).

[Chicago Ted]

Originally posted by wmslone:

Yeah, "max out" is bad terminology on my part, what I really mean is should you just add more and more tanks until you have the desirable delta-v? Like what's a normal or healthy number generally? Of course I can just throw on 100 tanks or more to have efficient dv, but I don't know if that's excessive or not enough for some designs, there doesn't seem to be any clear figure you should be aiming for, it's just what you can afford and what you want the ship to do. Which leads into another of my questions which was mass considerations, these seem a bit out of whack rn where I can make any class as massive as I want, but with no clear indication of what's optimal or what I should be aiming for. I actually wish we were a bit more limited in this way, it seems odd you can throw on 100+ tanks on a little gunboat with no downside other than cost basically. Obviously I know this becomes cost prohibitive at a certain point, but I guess I'm just wondering if there's a sweet spot, like x amount of tanks per 1 type of drive added to a ship, or something like that, even just broadly speaking.

I dunno if it should be done, but that's what I do, Toss on/remove tanks until I have a certain delta-v, 40 for my short range ships and like 1k for my long range efficient engines.Still, gotta watch the stats, because besides the material cost of the propellant, there's the fact that each one is 100 tons, and early game this will eat into your tiny acceleration quickly for barely any delta-v. You can literally cripple ships and make it impossible (or extremely slow, like two years slow) for them to go from certain orbits to certain orbits if you've only got like 0.01 milligees of accel because you tried to squeeze too much mass onto the front of a weedy engine. It's an option, though, if you really want to do it.

[Tequila Sunset]

I'm actually liking this free form builder more. Because it comes down to players to approach to design however they want within their own reason. Want to have 10k tonnes escort, if you think you can work with it why not? But with the numbers as you change equipment, I think it's clear to see a range which is reasonable. If you want floating fortresses and trust your firepower you should try it and if things don't work you change your designs.

[wmslone]

Originally posted by Chicago Ted:

I dunno if it should be done, but that's what I do, Toss on/remove tanks until I have a certain delta-v, 40 for my short range ships and like 1k for my long range efficient engines.Still, gotta watch the stats, because besides the material cost of the propellant, there's the fact that each one is 100 tons, and early game this will eat into your tiny acceleration quickly for barely any delta-v. You can literally cripple ships and make it impossible (or extremely slow, like two years slow) for them to go from certain orbits to certain orbits if you've only got like 0.01 milligees of accel because you tried to squeeze too much mass onto the front of a weedy engine. It's an option, though, if you really want to do it.

Thanks, that helps. So I just threw 100 propellant tanks onto a Monitor design using 4 Pulsar Drives, and got the following stats:

162 Combat Stat
16,590 tons
53 Crew
4.4 Cruise Acceleration
177.0 Combat Acceleration
32.5 Cruise Delta-V (the stat I'm most concerned with rn, but sounds like it should be good enough for system defense)
1.2 deg/sec^2 Turn Rate
1800 Gj Heat Sink capacity (no idea what this does yet)
80 Gj Battery Capacity (pretty unclear on what this is used for as well)

I don't know if I've designed an overwrought Monitor or not, but its stats seem reasonable so I might give it a go. But any further elucidation on what some of these stats mean or if this design is in the realm of normal would be great.