Problem with mid-late game ships desgin

[UG]

I'm having problems with ship design and I'm not able to make ships fast enough and with enough power. I have completed UV and plasma research up to level 2. As a drive I have neutron flux torch. What advice or what ship designs do you recommend?

[Pawleus]

Publicado originalmente por LorDC:

Did you file a bug report about ISRU and NFT refueling. Because there is just no way a 0.38 fissiles/month can refuel hundreds if not thousands of fissiles in a 10 day timespan.

Yes, I did - just not in the context of NFT and not just this issue alone (there are more of them and ISRU now looks like a placeholder).

Publicado originalmente por LorDC:

Publicado originalmente por Pawleus:

2. PiT is not too expensive for small ships. Examples of practical uses (small ships with over 1g cruise acceleration and thousands km/s DV) :
- fast councilor transport
- fast colonizer (I used it in that role in my recent game with 10 units (gram?) of antimatter created per month)
- fast reaction force (small highly maneuverable very fast fleet) for emergencies (however, there is still a bug with shortest ETA possible that limits usefulness of such a force)

All those scenarios you describe:
a) Extremely niche. Like, you need councilor transport zero to one time per game. And using Pion Torch just saves you two months, which equals to a minute of waiting.
b) Do not fall into scope of original post (mid-late game combat ship design).
c) Are about "I won the game, let me win harder" scenario.

I would suggest you to look at the original post again - there is no mention of combat ships.

Publicado originalmente por LorDC:

I am always playing on validation patch. AI never tries to bring in any kind of threatening missile spam. So, there is just no reason to talk about "what would you do against gazillion missile 'vettes?" because that will never happen in current patch.

I was not talking about "missile spam" but about better utilization of missiles - when relative speed of missiles is sufficiently large and they are coming almost simultaneously there is not enough time for PD to destroy them. I was under impression that AI is substantially better at launching missiles - your observations show that they are sadly still not good enough (using only the static wall of PD is not an intended behavior).

Publicado originalmente por LorDC:

Practical difference in survivability and build times are negligible. But heavy wall formations have one unbeatable advantage: zero control required. Which saves absolutely ungodly amount of time and effort.

The difference in survivability is indeed negligible currently in the late game (it's substantial in mid and especially in the early game) but in build times it's enormous - you can parallelly build small ships several times faster than large ones.

You have to understand: "zero control required" in manual combat won't last and it will be removed as soon as more QoL features will be introduced to combat. It already won't save much time and effort if you use QoL already present there and it certainly is boring - this is why I already wouldn't recommend it.

[UG]

Publicado originalmente por Pawleus:

Publicado originalmente por UG:

In my case, NFT was too expensive. I made a good fleet but after the first supply I ran out of fissiles.

This is why you should arrange things as to be able to resupply by ISRU.

Publicado originalmente por UG:

Now I'm trying with Helion Drive but the ships don't have good stats.

With this drive I would strongly suggest to build Corvettes - with it or Zeta Boron they were actually my favorite combat ship (with Coil Cannon and 60cm phaser) and I built them over 300 in my recent game. They can still have good armor while having 4g combat acceleration, over 1500 km/s DV and very good turning rates - so you need highly maneuverable tactic for them but 20 of them can be not just a very effective screen for larger ships (I used 5 pure Coil Destroyers in Great Wall-tight-rear-large-ships formation with them) but they alone can in formation defeat practically any fleet unless they run out of projectiles (that's why they sometimes need Destroyers).

Publicado originalmente por gimmethegepgun:

Antimatter units are the same as the others. So one unit is 1 dekaton (10,000 kg).
The units listed for natural antimatter collection are NOT that though. If you mouse over it it'll tell you, and iirc it's micrograms per year.

This is certainly not true - all antimatter is in the same units (just sometimes piko-units, nano-units, micro-units etc) and this unit is probably not as large as 1 dekaton. I spoke with @johnnylump about it in the past, I just don't remember if these units are grams (very probable).

Edit: Unless you mean the amount of antimatter present within an orbit - this might be indeed in different units (I currently have no access to my computer to check). The amount of natural antimatter trapped there is in the same units as artificially created.

Publicado originalmente por gimmethegepgun:

Pion Torch. The one that uses ungodly amounts of antimatter.

And have ungodly parameters... 2g cruise acceleration of my colonizer - I was even wondering whether or not I should bug-report it :)

Publicado originalmente por noobermenschen:

Just learned tonight that my Triton Pulse ships will not upgrade to Zeta Helion even though both are Z-Pinch. That was disappointing.

There will be some changes to refits in 0.3.77 so perhaps it will be possible, then.

I have already seen what the insu is. If I understand correctly I have to go to a base to produce this material (I understand that it has to have a hangar) and it is filled with them for free?

With what power plant and with how many tanks and drives in each ship? I can't get good speeds maybe I have to improve the power plant

[gimmethegepgun]

Publicado originalmente por Pawleus:

Publicado originalmente por gimmethegepgun:

Antimatter units are the same as the others. So one unit is 1 dekaton (10,000 kg).
The units listed for natural antimatter collection are NOT that though. If you mouse over it it'll tell you, and iirc it's micrograms per year.

This is certainly not true - all antimatter is in the same units (just sometimes piko-units, nano-units, micro-units etc) and this unit is probably not as large as 1 dekaton. I spoke with @johnnylump about it in the past, I just don't remember if these units are grams (very probable).

Each propellant tank is 100 tons (10 units). Pion Torch propellant tanks are 5 units of Water and 5 units of Antimatter. Ergo, 5 units of Antimatter is 50 tons, so 1 is 1 dekaton.

[gimmethegepgun]

Publicado originalmente por UG:

I have already seen what the insu is. If I understand correctly I have to go to a base to produce this material (I understand that it has to have a hangar) and it is filled with them for free?

No. You need to land at an empty site that has all of the resources used in the ship's propellant (or anywhere, in the case of Anything drives).

[UG]

Publicado originalmente por UG:

Publicado originalmente por Pawleus:

This is why you should arrange things as to be able to resupply by ISRU.


With this drive I would strongly suggest to build Corvettes - with it or Zeta Boron they were actually my favorite combat ship (with Coil Cannon and 60cm phaser) and I built them over 300 in my recent game. They can still have good armor while having 4g combat acceleration, over 1500 km/s DV and very good turning rates - so you need highly maneuverable tactic for them but 20 of them can be not just a very effective screen for larger ships (I used 5 pure Coil Destroyers in Great Wall-tight-rear-large-ships formation with them) but they alone can in formation defeat practically any fleet unless they run out of projectiles (that's why they sometimes need Destroyers).



This is certainly not true - all antimatter is in the same units (just sometimes piko-units, nano-units, micro-units etc) and this unit is probably not as large as 1 dekaton. I spoke with @johnnylump about it in the past, I just don't remember if these units are grams (very probable).

Edit: Unless you mean the amount of antimatter present within an orbit - this might be indeed in different units (I currently have no access to my computer to check). The amount of natural antimatter trapped there is in the same units as artificially created.


And have ungodly parameters... 2g cruise acceleration of my colonizer - I was even wondering whether or not I should bug-report it :)


There will be some changes to refits in 0.3.77 so perhaps it will be possible, then.

I have already seen what the insu is. If I understand correctly I have to go to a base to produce this material (I understand that it has to have a hangar) and it is filled with them for free?

With what power plant and with how many tanks and drives in each ship? I can't get good speeds maybe I have to improve the power plant

Can you share your corvette design?

[Sir Kekus Gnoygraham]

Publicado originalmente por Pawleus:

You have to understand: "zero control required" in manual combat won't last and it will be removed as soon as more QoL features will be introduced to combat. It already won't save much time and effort if you use QoL already present there and it certainly is boring - this is why I already wouldn't recommend it.

You also have to understand that people play this way because they find current combat boring and time-consuming. And when the opportunity to play like that is removed combat certainly becomes even more boring and tedious.
Personally, when i played on the release of EA at some point during my ridiculously long run i stopped bothering with combat altogether and built my fleets around auto resolve - the pace of the game changed in a good way for me.

[Pawleus]

Publicado originalmente por gimmethegepgun:

Each propellant tank is 100 tons (10 units). Pion Torch propellant tanks are 5 units of Water and 5 units of Antimatter. Ergo, 5 units of Antimatter is 50 tons, so 1 is 1 dekaton.

Yes, you are right. I was somehow thinking in terms of containment utilities being most of the mass but in game terms it's probably all antimatter.

Publicado originalmente por gimmethegepgun:

Publicado originalmente por UG:

I have already seen what the insu is. If I understand correctly I have to go to a base to produce this material (I understand that it has to have a hangar) and it is filled with them for free?

No. You need to land at an empty site that has all of the resources used in the ship's propellant (or anywhere, in the case of Anything drives).

There is actually a bug introduced in some recent version that allows you to ISRU also at developed sites and prevents you from resupplying by other means there (if those ships have ISRU). Resupplying by ISRU is basically for free if you don't count time (always 10 days).

Edit: Just remember that only propellant is resupplied in this way.

Publicado originalmente por UG:

Can you share your corvette design?

Nothing mysterious, from memory: Zeta Helion (x number of drives for 4g acceleration - I don't remember how many, 3?), the best Z-Pinch reactor (Flow-Stabilized if you can have it), 50-5-10 Adamantine armor, tanks for up to 1500km/s DV, Coil Cannon III, Green or UV 60 cm phaser, Superconducting Coil Battery, Tin Droplet Radiator. With Zeta Boron it can be even better (80-5-10 and they can be refitted between each other) and Daedalus improves it more (much more improvement it gives Destroyers) but new ships have to be constructed in this case.

Publicado originalmente por Sir Kekus Gnoygraham:

Publicado originalmente por Pawleus:

You have to understand: "zero control required" in manual combat won't last and it will be removed as soon as more QoL features will be introduced to combat. It already won't save much time and effort if you use QoL already present there and it certainly is boring - this is why I already wouldn't recommend it.

You also have to understand that people play this way because they find current combat boring and time-consuming. And when the opportunity to play like that is removed combat certainly becomes even more boring and tedious.

And why did you think I didn't understand it when I said "as soon as more QoL features will be introduced to combat"?

Edit: Have you even tried combat QoL features that are already there?

Edit2: Eg. when I fight with my standard highly maneuvering late-game 20Corvettes/5Destroyers fleet using those QoL features already present I issue commands to at most 5 groups of ships (usually 1-2 groups, though) and this fleet can defeat any fleet in the game (unless the opponent has much more plasma weapons than fleets have, currently, and, what's even more important, fights in formation) - is it really already that much more work and time consuming for a player as to justify playing in a boring static way?

[gimmethegepgun]

Publicado originalmente por Pawleus:

Publicado originalmente por gimmethegepgun:

Each propellant tank is 100 tons (10 units). Pion Torch propellant tanks are 5 units of Water and 5 units of Antimatter. Ergo, 5 units of Antimatter is 50 tons, so 1 is 1 dekaton.

Yes, you are right. I was somehow thinking in terms of containment utilities being most of the mass but in game terms it's probably all antimatter.

It's a reaction product drive, meaning it isn't heating up a propellant, it's ejecting the results of its reaction directly. Which means that, as it's an antimatter annihilation reaction, it's going to use as much antimatter as it uses matter.
There's a reason it's so ludicrously strong. Hint: the Pion Torch x1 uses I think it was 9x as much power as all of humanity does today (my comparison based on annual energy consumption averaged over that time period)

[UG]

Publicado originalmente por Pawleus:

Publicado originalmente por UG:

Can you share your corvette design?

Nothing mysterious, from memory: Zeta Helion (x number of drives for 4g acceleration - I don't remember how many, 3?), the best Z-Pinch reactor (Flow-Stabilized if you can have it), 50-5-10 Adamantine armor, tanks for up to 1500km/s DV, Coil Cannon III, Green or UV 60 cm phaser, Superconducting Coil Battery, Tin Droplet Radiator. With Zeta Boron it can be even better (80-5-10 and they can be refitted between each other) and Daedalus improves it more (much more improvement it gives Destroyers) but new ships have to be constructed in this case.

I try with this design but is very slow i cant pursuit alien ships
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2963715934

[Pawleus]

Sorry, I forgot to mention you need Hydrogen Trap and Antimatter Spiker in the design. You also need to make it lighter: use lighter armor, Tin Droplet Radiator without any heat sink (such small ships with coils don't really need them), lighter battery and less tanks.