Aurora - the 4X dwarf fortress

[Destroid]

I followed the instructions on the forum, just make sure you select a custom directory to install though, as aurora does something w7 doesn't like if you put it in the default directory.

 

[Ashery]

Anyone have any experience with beam armed fighters? Some posts on the official forums seemed to say they weren't viable but they were also rather old. Can't imagine space combat without fighter battles.

Most people tend to use fighters as a platform for box launchers and use the hanger to reload (This relies on oversaturating enemy PD in one massive barrage, even if the potential damage output is lower). I'll be experimenting with anti-missile fighters in my current game (miniaturized gauss cannons) as they seemed to be fairly effective against barrages designed to overwhelm PD (see the box fighters), but they're micro heavy and have yet to be used outside of an SM-enabled testing ground.

The problem with beam fighters is that their damage output will be fairly low due to their size restriction. A 15cm beam weapon is about as large as you can mount, and even then you're giving up a lot of their speed advantage. Mesons are another good choice, but generally speaking, if you're using them in a non-PD restricted role, mesons are something that should either be used as your primary weapon or not at all.

I'm actually planning on using meson fighters as my primary offense, so I'll post my experiences when the time comes.

And holy shit, eklektyk, that Delta's fucking massive. Doesn't look to be that effective, though, hehe.

 

[jiduthie]

Mesons are another good choice, but generally speaking, if you're using them in a non-PD restricted role, mesons are something that should either be used as your primary weapon or not at all.

I'm actually planning on using meson fighters as my primary offense, so I'll post my experiences when the time comes.

Mesons was kind of what I was thinking. I've played a bit but am just now considering my first real fleet doctrine.

I was wanting to actually combine meson fighters with staggered missile fire from strikefighters. The missiles would hopefully tie up enemy area defence to let the meson fighters do their thing with impunity.

The goal is to lessen the load on missiles due to their production and logistical requirements. It also gives all those lieutenant commanders something worthwhile to do and , again, I just like the idea of fighters.

Why do you say mesons ought to be the primary weapon? Anything about my plan sound unrealistic or grossly inefficient?

 

[eklektyk]

And holy shit, eklektyk, that Delta's fucking massive. Doesn't look to be that effective, though, hehe.

missiles to play tag with opposition and soften them up, score some hits, destroy engines and slow them down
then close in for the kill
and game over

but as all can se I went for ridiciulus redundancy in all systems - my first combat engagements ended mostly with me losing something important-not being able to shoot-and getting killed - so now even when the enevitable hit goes thru i still have punch to made

ps hes maybe masive bat home fleet bound = harrasment on the fringes is done by that smaller cracker

 

[Ashery]

@jiduthie

It's just that your mesons will be piercing all armor and shields, meaning that any other weapon you use will have to go through all of their defenses before dealing internal damage. I was originally planning on using a meson and microwave combo, but decided to just go pure mesons.

Not quite sure if it's a good idea for meson fighters to have a commander as I'm expecting massive casualties in my engagements. Quite the opposite is true for my AMFs, but those will rarely venture outside their anti-missile role.

That's not to say your combination won't work, I'm just giving you my thoughts after going through a similar process.

@eklektyk

Except your missiles will have a hard time overcoming even fairly light PD.

And I wouldn't send that thing up against anything that uses meson weapons as you'll take significant internal damage every round against even a fairly modest number.

Out of curiosity, what's the Internal HTK value for the Delta?

 

[Destroid]

Man I accidentally let a 3 slipway naval shipyard grow to 98,000t. I should make some xbox designs to take advantage of this fact.

 

[Ashery]

Couple of questions:

How, exactly, do shields regenerate? I'm asking because if they regenerate in the expected manner, a single low level shield module would have a disproportionately large level of protection. The key is that all damage is rounded down to the nearest integer. Meaning that, even if your shitty alpha shield only regenerates 1/72 strength over a five second interval, it would prevent a point of damage *every* round.

I'm also stuck debating on what meson setup I should use on my escort. The initial plan was to use 2x quad 15cm and 2x 25cm, but I'm wondering if I should simply drop the quad turrets down to 10cm as their range difference is marginal (Most missiles that will be a threat will cross the entire range of the 15cm in a single round) or if I should go for a 2x quad 20cm and sacrifice a chunk of my range (The chunk that I'm least accurate on) for better area defense. The primary downside of the latter is that the capacitors required to get those 20cm mesons down to a five second rate of fire are fairly expensive (125000). There's also the problem of the 20cm turrets requiring a 16HS fire control to reach their full potential, while the other two selections would likely use 6+4.

 

[Destroid]

Don't know how shields work exactly, but I'd be very surprised if it was like that.

With the turrets, don't you still get your terminal shot, regardless of how fast the missile travels?

 

[eklektyk]

@eklektyk

Except your missiles will have a hard time overcoming even fairly light PD.

And I wouldn't send that thing up against anything that uses meson weapons as you'll take significant internal damage every round against even a fairly modest number.

Out of curiosity, what's the Internal HTK value for the Delta?

not sure what HTK i have [diffrent comp now here so cant chesk]

as to meson FAC I tried killing them with light crusiers/destroyers and got raped
tried using FACs and got shafted....
now im using missile cruser 12kt showed earlier witk those fast missiles and they dont even get to shoot defence fire[im guesing tracking finaly gave out on them coz earlier all my missilec were shot down]
so now 3 misille crusers and command/sensor ship are grinding their FACs 40-60 a visit...
[forgot to build fucking colier and have to travel for munitions all the time ]

as to Delta in home system there will be 3 of them and also now i have wing of FACs [16x2500t-missile box plus laser mount] and brand new fighter wing [16x140t box missile equiped] but as this only my second game i predict geting stoppmed as in the first eventualy

 

[DwarvenFood]

Would it be totally inane to compare this game to Star Ruler ? PS Cassidy I love all the names you picked

 

[Ashery]

With the turrets, don't you still get your terminal shot, regardless of how fast the missile travels?

Yup, which is why I'm wondering how useful the 15cm ones will be.

Haven't tried Star Ruler yet, so I can't comment (But I got the demo downloaded).

 

[eklektyk]

finally conquered contested system with those meson FACs

kiled 183x800t FACs some 18x6000t and one big ass 60000t

big one probably got crit hited cos went out in the middle of my missle barage

so for clean up I build troop carier and some dropships and went boarding

captured me some Swarm Worker [two of them]
one was repaired in time the second suffered critical engine malfunction and went BOOM taking with it my brave 554st Assault Marine Company

so what can be done with one Swarm Worker?

ps.: HTK of Delta are lowest on sensors [mostly 2s] magazines got 10 and the rest is redundant system[no 1 power plant but multiple small ones]

 

[Elim]

This Game is so fucking great.
Dwarf Fortress and Aurora...i don't need any other Games.

 

[eklektyk]

my Recon Combat Task Force got raped yesterday

JumpShip and escorts siting peacefully on JP and 3 grav survey ships minding their bissnes

and one got attacked bypasing armor with 1 pts hits
so I saw nobody[jumpship got big ass sensors and nothing]
all 3 grav survey ships got blown one by one after big jucy target with big sensors escaped
and no one saw anything :/

is it posible to mount meson cannons on invisible missiles???

ps. barely escapet with my jumpship hevily damaged[thank god for high HTKs on jumpdrive]

 

[Destroid]

Sounds like you need smaller res sensors eh (or some decent thermals as backup).

 

[Trash]

my Recon Combat Task Force got raped yesterday

JumpShip and escorts siting peacefully on JP and 3 grav survey ships minding their bissnes

and one got attacked bypasing armor with 1 pts hits
so I saw nobody[jumpship got big ass sensors and nothing]
all 3 grav survey ships got blown one by one after big jucy target with big sensors escaped
and no one saw anything :/

is it posible to mount meson cannons on invisible missiles???

ps. barely escapet with my jumpship hevily damaged[thank god for high HTKs on jumpdrive]

Reminds me of Passage at Arms. Guess they climbed.

 

[eklektyk]

Sounds like you need smaller res sensors eh (or some decent thermals as backup).

standard res on my fleet : 1 16 100 and jumpship also got 500 for big ass range
plus all ships got thermal and em

and nobody saw nothing... it iz a mystary

 

[GarfunkeL]

Star Swarm uses mesons exclusively, you killed the Queen and lot of drones and some workers - which are pretty useless, AFAIK.

Sounds like you encountered a high-tech civilization - you sure you had your active sensors on? Cloaking tech and thermal reduction can be a nasty surprise as the sensor ranges drop significantly.

 

[Trash]

What, no biotech to leech from them?

 

[eklektyk]

Star Swarm uses mesons exclusively, you killed the Queen and lot of drones and some workers - which are pretty useless, AFAIK.

Sounds like you encountered a high-tech civilization - you sure you had your active sensors on? Cloaking tech and thermal reduction can be a nasty surprise as the sensor ranges drop significantly.

standard operating procedure for new system scouting: all sensors on
so if anything is there it can attack my survey and not my cargo ships

and all i got was a bunch of 1 dmg hits bypasing armor and shields

so beats me wat was that

 

[Ashery]

That's exactly how meson cannons operate: They bypass all shields and armor.

 

[GarfunkeL]

And they always cause only 1 point of damage. So maybe another swarm? Though you should see them, as mesons only have range of 60k km.

 

[Destroid]

You'll have to post your sensors exact properties for us to know if they are suitable to detect the swarm.

 

[Cassidy]

Did any of you try to survive and prevail in battles in this game with energy weapons/ballistics centered fleets? I know that late tech fire controls and beam weapons can get past 1 mi. km range, but that is too late to be effective anyway, but what about beam weapons doubling as PD, and using the research that would be otherwise invested in missiles to get much farther in propulsion, shields and armor? Suicide? I'm also asking this because in a few games you might have a strong base of scientists specialized in Energy Weapons but few Missiles and Kinectics specialists in comparison.

Also, fighters are too underpowered in this game and are totally forgettable for all roles besides boarding enemy spaceships. If their engines were even more inefficient at the trade off of being much more powerful and thus faster, and allowed them, to at equivalent tech levels, roughly match the maximum possible beam fire control speed rating(the one for fighter-only fire controls), then beam fighters would be viable as independent point defenses. As it is not, besides complementing missile barrages on their own, and even in that they are arguably underpowered compared to FACs, or delivering marine companies to board enemy ships through a drop module, they are quite useless.

 

[Destroid]

You can use research to make the engine more powerful and less efficient. I am running mine at +10% power -20% efficiency at the moment. FACs do have much higher speed potential though. As far as I can tell beam weapons are mostly good for camping jump gates, I don't know why the author decided to implement the 7-8 or so different beam weapons in the game, plasma carronades and particle beams seem pretty useless compared to plain old lasers.

Fighters do have an advantage in that they can get much closer to the enemy before they are detected, so you can fit them with close range high power missiles, and with box launchers have a very heavy high damage salvo. As an example, I use missile bombers for system defence:

Ferret class Fighter-bomber    405 tons     3 Crew     90.7 BP      TCS 8.1  TH 19.68  EM 0
10123 km/s     Armour 2-4     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 0     PPV 4.8
Maint Life 0 Years     MSP 0    AFR 81%    IFR 1.1%    1YR 6    5YR 96    Max Repair 28 MSP
Magazine 32    

MCF Fighter Drive (Enhanced Output) (1)    Power 82.5    Fuel Use 6000%    Signature 19.8    Armour 0    Exp 50%
Fuel Capacity 10,000 Litres    Range 0.7 billion km   (20 hours at full power)

Missile Tube/8 (4)    Missile Size 8    Hangar Reload 60 minutes    MF Reload 10 hours
MissileFC AF Mod77 (1)     Range 52.6m km    Resolution 20
Whiplash SRASM (4)  Speed: 46,900 km/s   End: 16m    Range: 45m km   WH: 16    Size: 8    TH: 312 / 187 / 93

Each individual fighter delivers a salvo nearly as powerful as my 8000t cruisers (64 vs 84, but with better penetration), and the missiles are armoured and carry ECM. It is kind of annoything that missile fire controls have so much more range for the size AND share research with your primary sensors, where beams must be researched separately.