Carrier Designs

[Roey_Michaeli]

This thread is dedicated towards Carrier designs and carrier fleet doctrines.

I’ll start.

Fifth iteration of the Light Carrier, main change through the series being heavier and faster than the last - a larger percentage of the hull dedicated towards engines. Additional change was dedicating less weight towards Maintenance Storage Bays, and more towards Missile Magazines - 6 salvos of ASM for every fighter, 5 salvos for AMM for every interceptor.

With a 20k ton ship to 4k ton hangar - ratio of 5 tons of ship per ton of hangar.
Long deployment and maintenance time, this ship is a system control and patrol vessel. With a jump engine, it is a flag ship of a patrol fleet, consisting of missile corvettes, pd vessels and a sensor platform. With the sensor platform’s 366m active radar, this fleet is capable of exerting influence covering significant percentage of a system.

Falcons are bombers, Hawks are interceptors, Owls are AWACS. LR versions are capable of deploying for at least a month. Owl LR can stay for 9 months, and with two per carrier, is capable of watching a location 24/7 taking turns.

I have another carrier here, a larger variant:

I am less happy with this one.
Not enough fuel, not enough magazine space, not enough armour, no jump engine…
Though with a 60 to 24 - 2.5 tons of ship for every ton of hangar, this one is quite cost effective.

This carrier is extremely cheap, maintenance wise. A lot of its weight was dedicated towards engineering space, 16.7%. This leaves it without a lot of space towards other consumables, requiring a dedicated commercial support fleet. Though since they are commercial, and thus, maintenance free, this design is still cheap to maintain, thus, to stockpile for eventualities.

Seahawks are boarding shuttles, btw.

[Nori]

What’s your sensor platform look like?

[Roey_Michaeli]

Thinking of expanding the passive sensors as well, since they are underwhelming for their purpose.

[paolot]

Why did you use so much MSP quantity? 10 years of maint life maybe are too many.
How many times can you refuel and reload you fighters, from both the classes?
I cannot see the missile template of the Leopard class.
You said you use some fighters as anti-missile escort, do you? Personally, I would prefer some final barricade, like CIWS or turreted guns.

[Roey_Michaeli]

Here are the fighters:

Fighter Designs

Thank you for the review! With the collapse of the Previous Forum, information and best practices are hard to come by. Regarding deployment times, these deployments are optimized to add the least weight, while giving the most time. Adding even 0.001 more would increase the weight of Crew Quarters by 2 tons. Regarding missile range, these are carefully optimized size 6s, used globally through every size 6 ASM. Regarding fighter speed, these were the technological limits at the time. Even now …

Missiles:

Fighter Designs

Interesting. [image] [image]

I use 10 years as a baseline, because I’m lazy, and I dislike having my ships overhaul every year. I rationalize it by saying they’re cheaper this way, and such. But laziness is the main reason.

Jaguar can reload its fighters 6 times for ASM, and 5 for AMM.

Leopard? Barely once. this one needs a dedicated collier in the fleet, as well as a dedicated tanker and jumpship, for the fleet to be viable. The idea is for many carriers to share these dedicated support vessels.

The leopard has the same missiles. I just didn’t setup the ordnance template yet.
I personally prefer spamming amm. with 40 amm launchers per Hawk II, I can afford to increase my pd envelope in an extremely efficient manner, as well as utilize them to support other nearby fleets.

[BlueEmu]

My typical design strategy is to avoid trying to build a ship that does everything. A ship that does everything will do everything poorly. Instead, my ships will try to be very good at their role, and typically poor at everything else.

For a Fleet Carrier (note: a FLEET Carrier), the designated role is to launch, recover, re-arm and re-fuel Fighters. That requires a big Hangar Deck, large Magazines and plenty of fuel tankage. The Carrier must also be fast enough to keep up with the fleet. And that’s just about all it requires.

My Fleet Carrier does NOT need a jump engine (the fleet’s Jump Tender will handle that), nor powerful sensors (the fleet’s AWACS will deal with it), nor any weapons (its Fighters are its weapons), nor thick armor (if somebody is shooting at my Carriers then I’m doing something wrong and I have bigger worries than the fate of a single warship).

As a concession to any mistakes I might make, I typically give my Fleet Carriers two or three layers of armor, and larger Carriers receive a Shield and a quad-barreled Gauss PD Turret.

Naturally, other types of Carriers will be configured differently depending on their role.

[Roey_Michaeli]

Removed a bunch of stuff, added 2 Hangars, for a total ratio of 3.333 tons of ship per ton of Hangar.

[Roey_Michaeli]

New Leopard design, removed 4 Hangars, and a bunch of stuff.
Added Magazine depth and Fuel storage.
New ratio of 60/20 = 3 Ship tons per Hangar ton.
New Salvo depth of 4. Removed Hawk II (interceptor). Planned dedicated carriers of interceptors.

Planned strike group option 1:
5 x LR Bombers (25 x size 6 ASM)

1 x LR AWACS (24m-R10)

1 x Tanker (257k)

Estimated range: 9.3b km

Planned strike group option 2:
6 x LR Bombers (30 x size 6 ASM)

1 x LR AWACS (24m-R10)

Estimated range: 6.6b km

Is the added range worth it for 5 missile tubes per SG?
1.5 times the range, for 5/6 the alpha strike.

[BlueEmu]

Can you show us some of the Fighters?

Or are they even Fighters? FACs?

A 20,000 ton Hangar Deck can re-fuel and re-arm Box Launcher equipped Light Cruisers up to 20,000 tons. Perhaps a pair of 10,000 tonners.

Something like this would use about 15,000 tons of Hangar space for a pair of them, leaving room in the Hangar for scouts, AWACS, etc.

…

Halifax class Bombardment Cruiser 7,486 tons 88 Crew 3,152.7 BP TCS 150 TH 3,000 EM 0
20037 km/s Armour 3-34 Shields 0-0 HTK 24 Sensors 0/0/0/0 DCR 4-5 PPV 72
Maint Life 2.08 Years MSP 1,552 AFR 112% IFR 1.6% 1YR 478 5YR 7,164 Max Repair 1500 MSP
Magazine 480 / 0
Captain Control Rating 2 BRG CIC
Intended Deployment Time: 1 months Morale Check Required

2041 Plasma Core AM Drive EP3000.00 HS-40 B-150 (1) Power 3000 Fuel Use 22.05% Signature 3000 Explosion 15%
Fuel Capacity 300,000 Litres Range 32.7 billion km (18 days at full power)

Size 6.00 Box Launcher 1973 (80) Missile Size: 6 Hangar Reload 122 minutes MF Reload 20 hours
Missile Fire Control FC177-R100 (5%) 2034 (4) Range 177.8m km Resolution 100 ECCM-6
Equalizer IV 2041 9-96k-214m-220th (80) Speed: 96,867 km/s End: 37.4m Range: 217.5m km WH: 0 Size: 6 TH: 322/193/96

Active Search Sensor AS172-R100 (1) GPS 13500 Range 172.1m km Resolution 100

Electronic Warfare Jammers: Sensor 6 Fire Control 6 Missile 7

Missile to hit chances are vs targets moving at 3000 km/s, 5000 km/s and 10,000 km/s

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
This design is classed as a Warship for auto-assignment purposes

…

Note that it doesn’t have much fuel, life support or maintenance endurance. It gets carried to the site of the battle inside the Tender. 20,000 kps. Full ECM and ECCM suite.

[nuclearslurpee]

@BlueEmu

A ship that does everything will do everything poorly.

I have a counterargument:

Because if you’re not playing Warhammer 40K, are you really playing Aurora?

Emperor class Battleship      124,000 tons       2,767 Crew       16,831.9 BP       TCS 2,480    TH 9,300    EM 8,520
3750 km/s    JR 3-50      Armour 5-221       Shields 284-426       HTK 679      Sensors 30/30/0/0      DCR 160-12      PPV 193.6
Maint Life 3.75 Years     MSP 19,574    AFR 769%    IFR 10.7%    1YR 2,175    5YR 32,619    Max Repair 1,550 MSP
Hangar Deck Capacity 25,000 tons     Magazine 2,400 / 0    
Commodore    Control Rating 3   BRG   AUX   FLG   
Intended Deployment Time: 24 months    Flight Crew Berths 500    Morale Check Required    

Nova Pattern Class 8.5 Warp Drive     Max Ship Size 124000 tons    Distance 50k km     Squadron Size 3
Saturnine Pattern Class 12.4 Plasma Drive (8)    Power 9300.0    Fuel Use 19.67%    Signature 1162.5    Exp 10%
Fuel Capacity 9,472,000 Litres    Range 69.9 billion km (215 days at full power)
Delta Pattern Mark IV Void Shield Generator (4)     Recharge 426 seconds (0.7 per second)

Mars Pattern Mark IV Macrocannon (16x4)    Range 160,000km     TS 4,000 km/s     Power 12-4     ROF 15       
Mark III Twin Defence Turret (5x6)    Range 30,000km     TS 16000 km/s     Power 0-0    ROF 5       
Trajan Systems Mark IV Battery Fire Control (4)     Range 256,000 km   TS 4,000 km/s    ECCM-0    
Trajan Systems Mark IV Turret Fire Control (2)     Range 64,000 km   TS 16,000 km/s    ECCM-0    
Vulcan Pattern Mark VI Plasma Reactor R16 (4)     Total Power Output 65.3    Exp 5%

Mark V Krak Warhead Missile (960)    Speed 30,080 km/s    Range 20.2m km    WH 4    Size 2.5

Ultima Pattern X-60 Augur Array (1)     GPS 7200     Range 52.8m km    RES 120
Ultima Pattern W-60 Warning Array (1)     GPS 60     Range 10.7m km    MCR 963.4k km    RES 1
Ultima Pattern E-30 Passive EM Array (1)     Sensitivity 30     Detect 1000:  43.3m km
Ultima Pattern T-30 Passive Thermal Array (1)     Sensitivity 30     Detect 1000:  43.3m km

Strike Group
4x Aquila Lander   Speed: 6001 km/s    Size: 5
40x Fury Interceptor   Speed: 10001 km/s    Size: 6
24x Starhawk Bomber   Speed: 7500 km/s    Size: 10

[pillowfresco]

Currently running 2 types of carriers, an escort carrier that can keep up with the fleet, and then a full carrier mostly meant to ferry between bases or stage for a major battle.

They carry varying squadrons of these two corvettes, and sometimes a group of boarding pods. Urumi is the punch, Shotel is the eyes. So far they have been really good against raiders.

[BlueEmu]

We’re going to be trying out a hard-core Boarding Doctrine in our next battle with the Prix.

Naturally we’ve boarded enemy ships before. In the recently-concluded “Forever War” against the Modrons, we made a determined effort to capture, repair and then dismantle at least one of every class of ship that the Modrons used against us. Since they were well ahead of us in tech, this quickly caught us up to the Modron standard in weapons, armor and shields.

But this time - against the Prix (the Precurser machines) we’ll actually be attempting to take down their fleet entirely by boarding action. Just testing out a new tactical doctrine.

Our boarding shuttles move at nearly 88,000 kps, and the Marines are specially trained and equipped for boarding actions. That gives us a 100% chance of successful boarding against a 22,000 kps enemy target. Assuming their PD fire doesn’t kill us first.

What connection does this have to the thread topic, which is about Carriers?

We use Carriers to do it.

Our boarding shuttles pack 14 to a Hangar load (that’s an 8,000-ton capacity Hangar).

[Garfunkel]

The People’s Democratic Republic of Allied Earth Nations uses currently two carrier types, the aptly named Carrier class Carrier and the Juiser class Assault Carrier. Six of both are in service, the Carrier class ships forming Carrier-Divisions 1, 3 and 5 of the Battle Fleet, while the Juiser class ships form Carrier-Divisions 2, 4 and 6 of the Assault Fleet.

The Carrier class is meant for open battle in deep space and its strike group is capable of a multitude of missions. A major drawback of the design is that its magazine space is worryingly limited. However, Commissariat of Shipyards mandated that 80 kilotons was the absolute size limit for this class.

The Juiser is a slightly smaller design, meant for one task and one task only - jump into a hostile system, launch its heavy fighters, and draw fire. The heavy fighters then use their railguns to annihilate the JP defenders.

Be advised that any criticism of these designs can and will cause your local Mental Hygiene Officer to make a home visit for consultation and readjustment.

[Nori]

I get the idea for long deployment and maint, but 10 years is a long time. I usually did 1 year for primary combatant ships and 2-3 for longer term patrol ships where there isn’t some type of maintenance platform. 10 years is something I only reserved for weapons platforms that don’t have engines. I’d have to theorycraft to see how much space is being used for 10 years but I’d seriously consider trying to knock it down to 24-48 months.

[Eretic_KB]

@nuclearslurpee

Because if you’re not playing Warhammer 40K, are you really playing Aurora?

Yes, really. There is enough univerces for reference beyond WH40(41)K.

[Roey_Michaeli]

10 years is my global standard. All of my patrol vessels, pd escorts, sensor platforms, missile destroyers… everything except fighters.

[Roey_Michaeli]

Begrudgingly, halving the deployment time removed 6K tons, thus allowing another 4 hangars and 2K tons of magazines to be added.

[Welchbloke]

@nuclearslurpee

Because if you’re not playing Warhammer 40K, are you really playing Aurora?

I won’t post the designs because they are no longer valid in this version of Aurora but one if my previous games I had several Gloriana class battleships in the fleet. I say class, but each one was unique, the Stormsword had more engines, the Vengeful Spirit more drop capacity etc. That was a fun game