So I’m preping for a new campaign and I wanted to try a different type of doctrine i’m cooking and preparing was curious what other people have tried.
So a new Doctrine for me is i’m going to try make Navel ships under 10k tonnage to see how far I could get. I want to try and keep these small as I want to try and setup small forward ship yards with Earth and Mars Building the components and then me sending them to forward sites. The idea being is these forward shipyards can build up a little quicker and in wartime this should allow me to keep up a stable fleet and also power project with using smaller crews and parts. Also it would force me to have to use more tankers, more supply ships and in general just try some freaky designs.
Another reason for this is in my games I roll a civil war chance and if my break away colonies then use the stolen designs they can rapidly build up and strike at earth and giving them a better chance.
So theres my insanity but would love to see what people have cooked up. Thanks in advance friends
That’s one of the smallest combatants from my current compaign, “normalized” for the vanilla game (I do use a slightly modified one, so do not post desingns from it to not confuse anyone).
Intended as system defense ship primarily - to intercept raiders and recons as quick as possible and so prevent civillian losses, provide police functions (RP), yet in a case of large invasion it’s possible to collect these from the sector or entire inhabited space and throw them in pack to support dreadnoughts or instead of them.
Needs a dense net of refueling stations (which is a defining trait of my current campaign and may suit well for you too). A the lower engine boost techs the range would be much less limited.
8FF class Lance Frigate 3,511 tons 130 Crew 3,247.7 BP TCS 70 TH 2,250 EM 2,760
32045 km/s Armour 1-20 Shields 92-368 HTK 19 Sensors 4/4/0/0 DCR 0-0 PPV 12
Maint Life 0.37 Years MSP 1,215 AFR 493% IFR 6.8% 1YR 3,310 5YR 49,650 Max Repair 1,125 MSP
Magazine 0 / 5
Lieutenant-Commander Control Rating 1 BRG
Intended Deployment Time: 1.5 months CDE 68% Morale Check Required
RD/MU-770.1500 Bladerunner Engine (1) Power 2250.0 Fuel Use 270.00% Signature 2250.00 Exp 30%
Fuel Capacity 100,000 Litres Range 1.9 billion km (16 hours at full power)
SG-77.750 Shield Generator (1) Recharge 368 seconds (0.3 per second)
PL-678 Particle Lance (1) Range 400,000km TS 32,045 km/s Power 75-8 ROF 50
DFC/LRUVs-7755.200 Axial Director (1) Range 480,000 km TS 32,000 km/s ECCM-5
PR-9F.8 Power Plant (1) Total Power Output 8.3 Exp 50%
MkI Decoy Launcher (1) Decoy Size: 5 Hangar Reload 111 minutes MF Reload 18 hours
T5 Towed Decoy (1) Signature 1000 tons ECM-6 Size 5
ASR/U-7755.5 Radar (1) GPS 5 Range 6.1m km MCR 545k km RES 1 ECCM-5 EH-90
EMS/C-70.10 Sensor Suit (1) Sensitivity 4.8 Detect 1000: 17.3m km
TS/C-70.10 Sensor Suit (1) Sensitivity 4.8 Detect 1000: 17.3m km
There’s still a space for compactification - you can get rid of the decoy launcher (added more for RP reasons) and the sensor set is not obligate for a squadron ship (I do use these lancers as semi-independent ships, so need the full set).
There’s a saying about design in general, something along the lines of design being great “not when there’s nothing to add, but when there’s nothing left to remove”.
I love small ships. You design them by optimizing. By removing everything you don’t need. It makes you think - what do you really, really need?
I figured, as many of you, that you need 1) firepower 2) speed. I tried similar designs with a spinal weapon. Lasers are great, lances too. MSP may be a problem due to failures.
I once sent a small squadron of 4 or 6 small frigates into the rear areas of an enemy NPR. They did so much damage, completely out of proportion to their tonnage. All they had was a spinal laser and 1 heavy ASM each (they did not use). Don’t have the design on hand unfortunately, it was on the old forums.
Renamed some installations, officer bonuses, trade goods, techs and tech fields just for my own SciFi tastes, changed some trade goods Pop Required levels according to my views on possible interstellar trade, capslocked the most important atmosphere gases to not misclick them every second time, changed CostMultipliers for GU Capabilities (reduced the Earth-centrism by lowering costs for Earth terrains adaptations), rised the higher sizes of ruins, changed system abundancies to make most systems depleted and some very few abundand (according to the fact that the galaxy in Aurora IS populated and so only the JP-isolated-until-recently systems have some chances to not be depleted), changed research costs of some techs.
Have to remind, that modifying DB is not prohibited, yet you may not post bug reports with these campaigns or share modifications anywhere to not confuse players and cause false bug reports.
Here’s one design from my current campaign, designed in the early fusion-era.
Kola P class Frigate 8,991 tons 291 Crew 2,486.4 BP TCS 180 TH 345 EM 0
5481 km/s JR 3-50 Armour 5-38 Shields 0-0 HTK 95 Sensors 8/8/0/0 DCR 45-50 PPV 46.68
Maint Life 3.05 Years MSP 1,164 AFR 129% IFR 1.8% 1YR 187 5YR 2,812 Max Repair 431.2 MSP
Magazine 48 / 42
Kapitan vtorogo ranga Control Rating 4 BRG AUX ENG CIC
Intended Deployment Time: 10 months CDE 50% Morale Check Required
KB-180 MET-022 FTL drive Max Ship Size 9000 tons Distance 50k km Squadron Size 3
RDU-MPD-457BM1 fusion rocket (2) Power 985.6 Fuel Use 62.54% Signature 172.480 Exp 14%
Fuel Capacity 400,000 Litres Range 12.8 billion km (27 days at full power)
2A157K Railgun (157mm) (3x4) Range 180,000km TS 6,250 km/s Power 9-5 ROF 10
AK-4100 Gaussturret (4x100mm) (4x16) Range 40,000km TS 20000 km/s Power 0-0 ROF 5
1G-040K fire-control radar (1) Range 40,000 km TS 20,000 km/s ECCM-1
1G-180K fire-control radar (1) Range 180,000 km TS 5,600 km/s ECCM-1
11R-15FBM Fusion reactor (1) Total Power Output 15.3 Exp 15%
Size 21 Decoy Launcher (2) Decoy Size: 21 Hangar Reload 229 minutes MF Reload 38 hours
S-8 VLS (6) Missile Size: 8 Hangar Reload 141 minutes MF Reload 23 hours
1G-113-КД missile guidance radar (1) Range 108.1m km RES 180 ECCM-1 EH-30
P-120 Basalt (6) Speed 15,300 km/s Range 111.6m km WH 0 Size 8 TH: 1,530 / 3,060 / 6,120. Sprint-phase: speed 30,010 km/s Range 3.4m km WH 12
MG-21 Chaff (2) Signature 4200 tons ECM-1 Size 21
GLONASS-2 navigation radar (1) GPS 1600 Range 29.6m km RES 100 ECCM-1
3R-150-P2 radar (1) GPS 4800 Range 51.3m km RES 100 ECCM-1 EH-30
Perimetr-1 Cep.01 early warning system (2) GPS 16 Range 6.4m km MCR 574.5k km RES 1 ECCM-1
3R-250-P3 radar (1) GPS 22400 Range 93.4m km RES 280 ECCM-1 EH-30
GOI-1063 IR sensor (1) Sensitivity 8 Detect 1000: 22.4m km
TPO-1053 radar warning receiver (1) Sensitivity 8 Detect 1000: 22.4m km
Electronic Warfare Jammers: Fire Control 1 Missile 1
The guidance radar was designed for a shorter range missile. Wasn’t retrofitted with a better one due to the entire class being rapidly phased out by new class of frigates with new fusion engine technology.
