Ship Design Guidelines (Full Version)

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CaptainZero -> Ship Design Guidelines (7/3/2014 4:43:41 AM)

I was designing my first carrier and made a pretty big mistake. When adding engines I looked at the sprint speed and thought, "well, its a little low but its not like I am going to be running anyone down with a carrier. Most of this guy's movement will be in hyperdrive anyway. When he gets the the battle, he will most likely just sit there and use the range of the fighters and bombers."

It all worked out well, until it came time to refuel. Remember how the sprint speed was low? I used engines with more power at sprint at the expense of cruise (acceleros I think. This meant that by cruise speed was super slow, plus I ran one of my new carriers out of fuel so it was halved. After waiting what seemed like months for this guy to catch the fuel station and refuel, I made a mental note of focusing on cruise speed when designing carriers and capital ships.

This leads me to my question, what general guidelines do you use when designing your own ships?

1. What cruise and sprint speed to you shoot for on your ships?

2. What mix of shield/armor do you use? I have been using 100:25 shield:armor by tonnage. Too little armor?

3. Long range vs short range. I saw a guide that recommended 2:1 short vs long on small ships and 1:2 short vs long on large ships, but I have had good luck when all long range on by capital ships.

Thanks for any responses



Aeson -> RE: Ship Design Guidelines (7/3/2014 5:43:19 AM)

quote:

1. What cruise and sprint speed to you shoot for on your ships?

I personally like my ships to have a cruise speed somewhere around 20. I occasionally make faster ships with cruise speeds somewhere around 30. I can't say I care that much about how high the sprint speed is because sprint speed is hardly ever used. Cruise speed should probably be kept above a minimum of twelve or so, because that's roughly the point at which an out of fuel ship becomes unable to catch up with a planet to obtain fuel from it or an orbiting station.

quote:

2. What mix of shield/armor do you use? I have been using 100:25 shield:armor by tonnage. Too little armor?

I don't have a set mix of shields and armor. Armor is typically the last thing I add to a design, and I usually end up with 5 to 10 plates of it on any given ship, though particularly small warships can end up with less (though there should be at least one armor plate on any design after you develop the armor technology, because of railguns). For heavier warships, I may up that to perhaps 20 armor plates, but probably not much more than that. Bases get as much as I feel like adding, which is typically a multiple of 5 because that's the easiest way to add armor. As far as shielding goes, I prefer that to be my primary defense, though again the number of generators is variable. A small early-game ship might only have 1 shield generator; a later-game ship designed with the same objective might have five. A late-game heavy capital ship could have twenty or more shield generators, while a civilian freighter would probably only be given one.

quote:

3. Long range vs short range. I saw a guide that recommended 2:1 short vs long on small ships and 1:2 short vs long on large ships, but I have had good luck when all long range on by capital ships.

Depends on what I want the ship to do and how fast it is relative to what I expect to engage with it. The bigger a ship is, the more likely the ship is to be slow, and so the more necessary long-range weapons become if you want to effectively engage non-station targets. Big ships also tend to have a lot of staying power even if something with higher DPS weapons gets in close. If I'm looking for a base-buster, I probably only want long-range weapons on the design. If I'm looking for a general purpose combatant, then I'd go with something like the ratio you gave. If I'm looking for an escort to just mass produce and automate, I might go for 100% short-range railguns or graviton beams and keep them fast, with the goal being to quickly get into railgun range and start damaging the hull, which will probably cause the enemy ship to flee for repairs. If I'm looking for a ship to use to capture stuff, then I'll probably want something that can quickly take down shields while being close enough to launch a boarding pod that'll reach the target quickly, so blasters are a decent choice there, though missiles have the advantage of being less capable of damaging an armored hull after the shields go down.



Keston -> RE: Ship Design Guidelines (7/3/2014 8:30:37 AM)

SPEED:

I pay substantial attention to sprint - right or wrong. I believe Sprint is important for things like - escape enemy (e.g., merchants, transports etc.), catch enemy (e.g., escorts or frigates chasing lone pirates), or bypass enemy (e.g., hot landings on a planet under enemy base or ship fire).

Bases, stations and orbitals can't run, so attack vessels or defense monitors etc. can be fairly slow to make room for defense and attack boosts. Otherwise, cruise depends a lot on who you are fighting - you can have different variants for different opponents, and in some cases need to. Being faster lets you close with close range weapons or get away, but another tack is not to chase them but use long range weapons to engage early and keep them from using standoff where you can't reply.

I have been using Concussion Missiles a lot recently to redue resource component shortages as well as accepting that the 3 adversaries have comparable or faster speeds and I want the range advantage. They like to get away, so range and HyperDeny are useful to finish off or capture damaged craft.

Something to think about is whether you want a common cruise speed so ships can maintain formation rather than straggle. With a variety of captured as well as domestic ships, I am not worried about it right now. When tech advances, I will.

ARMOR and SHIELDS: I've been using 10-20% armor/shield strength. So say 4-8 basic armor for 4 basic Corvidian Shields. Armor is more useful facing anything that bypasses the shields, so it depends on the enemy. I tend to have more shields than the opposition (one consideration for me is that damaged ships take more management). Later there are tradeoffs between shield strength and regeneration speed, where I think a high initial number makes sense for a limited engagement period (such as an invasion run) while regen will matter more in sustained combat (though I don't understand the details of regen, the results are apparent). I tend to use armor to fill in the last few points remaining before more HAB and LIFE modules would be required.

RANGE: I agree. I find missile standoff destroyers and missile cruisers to be useful fire support ships and good for chasing off enemy. Graviton on a very fast escort can dent pirates enough to send them to repair, rather than sortie again immeediately.

DESIGN TEMPLATES: Some guidance on how to create, manage, share and use the customization files would be useful.



Spidey -> RE: Ship Design Guidelines (7/3/2014 10:12:37 AM)

quote:

1. What cruise and sprint speed to you shoot for on your ships?


Depends a bit on the stage of the game, really. Early game I take what I can get but once I get the vital techs out of the way, I research some ways into engines and make my combat ships hit a cruise speed of at least 30. As a general principle, I'd like them to have a cruise speed approaching 35. That way they can stay out of range of annoying capital ships and they can close in really fast when necessary.

With civilian ships the speed is less critical but since they don't need to carry weapons around anyway and thus won't ever become all that big, I tend to make them pretty fast anyway. A cruise speed of at least 35 means pirates and space monsters will have a damned hard time catching them.

For construction ships and colony ships, I'm plenty satisfied with a speed above 20. 22-24'ish is pretty nice. They don't strictly speaking need to be that fast but I really do hate watching them slowly snail that last bit of way towards a planet.

quote:

2. What mix of shield/armor do you use? I have been using 100:25 shield:armor by tonnage. Too little armor?


Depends a bit on the armor tech available but generally I put 5-10 armor plates on light stuff and early to mid combat ships and maybe 15-20 on mid to late game combat ships. As for shields, I tend to settle for 2-4 on civilian and exploration ships, construction ships, and so on, while my general purpose destroyers typically have 5-8 shields on them. Maybe more during the late game but about a thousand shield or so is really enough when you're throwing around fleets with a dozen ships in them.

quote:

3. Long range vs short range. I saw a guide that recommended 2:1 short vs long on small ships and 1:2 short vs long on large ships, but I have had good luck when all long range on by capital ships.

I tend to be all torp all the time. Some people advocate a blend but personally I beeline for velocity shards, then eventually upgrade to the torp ultimate, and then I start working on getting the troop techs sorted, armor, fighters, assault pods, point defense, ion cannons, and tractor beams. Diverting to research short range weapons to any kind of depth is a distraction I don't need for a long, long time.

Oh, and I go all torp regardless of ship size, though i don't tend to build military ships smaller than size 300, and even then it's a stretch. I much prefer to get to size 400 before I start doing any serious ship building, and at size 400 it's quite easy to fit 6-8 torp launchers onto ships. VeloShard 2s are size 11 and do 20 damage before range penalty. 8 of those per ship is 160 damage per volley. 12 of those in a fleet adds up to a really nice amount of damage, even when hovering well outside of opposition range.

Now, if I were to build a late game ship then of course I'd throw in some titan beams too, just because, but by then it rarely ever matters, since I raw numbers alone are enough to win conflicts. Generally speaking, I also don't usually bother with cruisers and capital ships. I like the flexibility of "smaller" destroyers a lot more than I like the lumbering projection of doom from really slow capital ships that just aren't as quick to get to the enemy and deliver a world of hurt.



Kilravock -> RE: Ship Design Guidelines (7/3/2014 6:21:14 PM)

The other posters basically summed up what I do. A good guideline that applies for any tech level is to find a balance between mobility, defense & offense. It's the same concept that is used for designing tanks and warships. You find a balance by deciding what the ship's role is and what it is expected to experience.

For this game long range is King so it tends to influence my designs.

For example a faster ship can speed tank a slower ship if it has longer range weapons. So take a frigate and make it fast with a lot of engines and a small size. Armed it with missiles so it will deal long range damage all day long. Sacrifice armor and shielding by using a minimal amount. You now have a good pirate ship & creature hunter that the AI uses very well when it is fully automated. It's not as deadly as a ship armed with close to mid range weapons, but it has a high survival rate and will destroy or chase off pirates.

An example for a mainline fleet cruiser is to have it favor firepower and defense. For firepower, make it a good long range hitter with some mid range weapons (or just use torps but that gets boring.) A warp inhibitor is good too since it will allow you to annihilate the enemy fleet instead of having to chase it around. Favor strong shielding and some armor (about 5-10) with an auto repair bot.

Speed is not as important in a fleet battle or in base busting. Fleet battles turn into general melees where you can't really speed tank and the enemy will focus on a single or a few ships, causing a lot damage that is hard to tank. The ships need to last long enough so you can use the combined firepower of the fleet on your targets. Long range firepower with semi stationary (20+ cruise) ships allow you to do this quickly, with a good defense being used to buy time to win the battle. Base busting is all about staying outside of the range of ports and defense bases while you hit them at stand off ranges.

Try experimenting by using the editor. Use different designs without a warp drive and use them against other empire designs. You can also try your own designs against each other by giving the 'red team' ships to a pirate faction and have them fight.



Keston -> RE: Ship Design Guidelines (7/3/2014 8:48:16 PM)

Battles do tend to be more of a melee than they probably should be for ships to take advantage of friends. Speed matters in a big battle when ships try to get away or pursue. Blocking hyper is important. For basic combat composition, I have the Keskudon destroyers specializing in catching and Hyper-Denying enemy ships (plus they have boarding pods), supported by standoff long range missile cruisers, standoff fighter cruisers (don't have Dedicated Carriers yet), and close-range attack cruisers with lots of boarding capability.

The ancient battleships and battle cruisers (which I don't want destroyed too often) are in separate squadrons with a few support cruisers and destroyers mainly for boarding and fast hyper-deny capability. Heavily-shielded Marine assault transports have their own small squadrons.

Frigates are handled by the AI or used with fleets to catch and capture fleeing ships. Escorts are fast and generally left to the AI to manage.




Kilravock -> RE: Ship Design Guidelines (7/4/2014 1:08:44 AM)

Yeah I do recommend to use the different class ships for different specialized roles to create a flexible fleet. The frigate and cruiser examples are my main bread and butter ships for AI solo and fleet use. They are what I build the most of. Other classes fill different needs.

The destroyer being used as a fast mid/close range assault ship that chases down fleeing ships works very well for both fleets and as a solo anti pirate AI ship. Especially if it has a hyper deny.

I use capitals as flagships and have them fitted with the fleet support gear. I also make them favor defense at the expensive of speed.

I use 1-2 carriers per fleet and purposely set them up to be the slowest fleet ship with capital ship level defense and token firepower. The fighters are great at chasing down small fast ships and finishing off fleeing damage ships. They are slow because I can't seem to make the fast fleet carrier work in this game. The smaller ships just chase them down.

I also add one explorer with a long range sensor, a single weapon, and evade orders. These act as the 'eyes' of the fleet.

I am currently using escorts as long range escort carriers. They have 1 weapon (missile or grav beam) a fighter bay, lots of fuel and try to make it small and cheap. I let the AI use them to chase private sector ships around even into other empires. They do a good job in supporting other ships and bases in killing pirates.



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