This is my go-to beam cruiser in my current game. On ships this size I start including an HPM and a marine contingent to enable boarding and capture of damaged enemy ships. The marine contingent can also help defend against being boarded, if that were to occur. It carries 5x jump gate probes for checking for ambushes on the other side of jump gates. Depending on the mission I sometimes swap out a few of the jump probes for an in-system scout or, if facing an opponent who favors ASMs, a forward picket scout who sits ahead of the fleet to start the clock on missile detection accuracy bonus earlier.
I probably should carry slightly more MSP and squeeze in another engineering bay or two to raise the maintenance life and provide more staying power in an extended fight.
I intentionally have two engines in this ship and 8 fuel tanks, for more graceful degradation of combat performance if/when it starts taking damage. If you only have one fuel tank and it takes a hit, even if you can repair it, it’s now empty.
Note on nomenclature. Mk 3 indicates it’s the third major iteration of the class. Mk is rolled when it becomes economically unreasonable to refit, usually due to changes in armor or engine tech. The letter after the Mk number (in this case f) indicates minor iterations within the Mk number that can be upgraded to without significant economic cost (usually but not always without retooling the original shipyard).
I don’t normally turret lasers on my cruisers, I just make them as fast or faster than other major combatant classes of NPCs. For defense from fighters or FACs, I bring along one or more escort destroyers in the fleet with turreted 10 or 12cm lasers, as well as escort destroyers with AMM, ASM, and what I call AFM (anti-fighter missile) launchers as well as additional gauss turrets to supplement missile defense.
Ships which are used in fleet engagements usually have between 15 and 20B km of range. If the system they’re being sent to is reasonably close (30 to 40B km) I’ll use a tug to bring along fuel/MSP/ordinance pod(s). If it’s further, I’ll sometimes use tugs to tow the actual combat ships in the fleet to save on fuel, and since each ship has it’s own tug, they just use that tug’s onboard fuel/MSP reserves for logistics while deployed.
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Island Mk3f class Cruiser 29,072 tons 963 Crew 6,964.1 BP TCS 581 TH 5,920 EM 5,100
10181 km/s Armour 8-84 Shields 170-510 HTK 158 Sensors 44/16/0/0 DCR 88-30 PPV 133.68
Maint Life 0.73 Years MSP 3,697 AFR 845% IFR 11.7% 1YR 5,063 5YR 75,944 Max Repair 1,480 MSP
Hangar Deck Capacity 250 tons Troop Capacity 500 tons Boarding Capable
Quintus Control Rating 3 BRG AUX CIC
Intended Deployment Time: 12 months Flight Crew Berths 5 CDE 40% Morale Check Required
Engine-M7.5-5000t-2960p (2) Power 5920 Fuel Use 73.60% Signature 2960 Exp 18%
Fuel Capacity 2,000,000 Litres Range 16.8 billion km (19 days at full power)
Shield, Mk 5.4, 1000t (2) Recharge 510 seconds (0.3 per second)
Laser, 31cm, 30s, 1040km (1) Range 256,000km TS 10,181 km/s Power 26-5 ROF 30
Laser, 20cm, 10s, 0400km (12) Range 256,000km TS 10,181 km/s Power 10-5 ROF 10
Laser, 12cm, 05s, 0200km (4) Range 200,000km TS 10,181 km/s Power 4-4 ROF 5
Quad Gauss Cannon, 4s, 50% (2x16) Range 20,000km TS 20000 km/s Power 0-0 ROF 5
HPM, 040km, 05s (1) Range 40,000km TS 10,181 km/s Power 4-4 ROF 5
DFC Mk4.5.1.3.M-0256k-10km/s (2) Range 256,000 km TS 10,000 km/s ECCM-3
DFC Mk4.5.1.3.M-0128k-20km/s (1) Range 128,000 km TS 20,000 km/s ECCM-3
Powerplant Mk6, 020p, 0108t (5) Total Power Output 100.9 Exp 5%
MS-Mk4.4-0150t-1167t (1) GPS 48 Range 13m km MCR 1.2m km RES 1 ECCM-2
EM-Mk08-0100t (1) Sensitivity 16 Detect 1000: 31.6m km
TH-Mk11-0200t (1) Sensitivity 44 Detect 1000: 52.4m km
Electronic Warfare Jammers: Sensor 2 Fire Control 3 Missile 4
Strike Group / Ground Forces
5x Jumpgate Probe Jump Scout Speed: 6401 km/s Size: 1
1x Marine Contingent
This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
This design is classed as a Warship for auto-assignment purposes
