Pre-SysNES2: Beta-testing and Submission

Ugh, I've been tallying Linear Catapult's costs wrong for refinement. Ignore all these fleets for cost, although the designs are workable.

I like the idea of defense stations, though I prefer this one:

Megatron class Defense Platform

1 Stationary Orbiter
88 Metal Capacitors (Refined)
1 Command Deck
1 Command Staff
7 Computer Module
1 Scanners
70 Jammers (Refined)
1 EW Broadcasters
1 Algorithmic Interlocks
1 Security Teams
3 Linear Catapult (Refined) [1x TRI-COUPLED]
24 Coilgun (Refined) [2x HEXA-COUPLED, 12x UNCOUPLED]
1 Lubricants
1 Autoloaders
1 Barrel Casings
5 Plasma Shield
5 Titanium Armor
86 Carbon Armor (Refined)
1 Heavy Cladding

Cost: Cost: 669e (301e) / 355m / 155v / 0a / 4t / 186s
Size: 299 / Mass: 299 / HP: 314 / Power: 487 / Heat: -10
IS Rating: 0 / IP Speed: 0 / Range (years): 0
Init: 7 / Dodge: -100 / Avoid: 26 / Armor: 225 / Shield: 347
Refine: 1158e / 290s

Extra Particle Ammo: 3
Projectile Gun Total Damage: 48 (2 x 72D @ A0/S0, 12 x 12D @ A0/S0)
Catapult Total Damage: 144 (1 x 144D @ A#/S0)

Init Bonus to Fleet: 3
Mass of Pushed Ship: 269 (5+)
EW Score: 88
EW Vulnerability: 0
Jammer Init Debuff: 81C / 30L
Ship-to-Ship: 27

Component Refine Costs: 2000e / 750s

Notes: the main gun will one-shot almost all unshielded ships, cripple ones with 100 or less Shields, and two-shot ones with 150 or less Shields, through CON5. It can soak a shot from its own gun with no damage, is invulnerable to Particle and Missile, and can soak all reasonable Lasers for the time. It would take a quad-coupled Linear Catapult to do appreciable damage, as even a 1,000L Laser does 14D. It would take a 17,916D Laser to one shot it at 315D.

For more fun, double the number of Catapults, it only costs 14e, 24m, and 24v more.

e: Switched to the patched builder, noticed costs went down; updated stats. (The CON indicator is broken on loading, R5 just says "=#VALUE!", simple fix to "=MAX(TT!O2:O239)".)

Symphony D. said:

e: Switched to the patched builder, noticed costs went down; updated stats. (The CON indicator is broken on loading, R5 just says "=#VALUE!", simple fix to "=MAX(TT!O2:O239)".)

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I think the con indicator has finally beaten excel 2003 - that replacement term will give you the con tech for components but not for ship size/mass.

It's just as well, I was getting ready to actually upgrade to Office 2010 anyway.

Incidently, large defensive stations is where ship-to-ship boarding comes into its own:

Viking
2 x Deuterium Drive (Ref)
1 x Pulse Drive (Ref)
1 x Intrusion Unit (Ref)
4 x Space Marines (Ref)
1 x Grapples (Ref)
1 x Jetpacks (Ref)

Since the station station can't resist them coming to boarding range, you need 31 to insure one gets through to the Megatron, but once in that station is going down. Though it takes CON5, if you roll in a couple of fast shield array packages you can neutralize the small guns and require much few vikings.

Since I like the idea of that, I'm going to say jamming doesn't int debuff during S2S boarding.

The simple solution would be a lot more coupled Coilguns and Security Teams. Even if you increase the price to say 800 or 900e by packing stuff on, the station will probably require more economic input to kill or capture than it takes to build, which makes it a pretty good deterrent, especially if it's then backed up by a few token defense ships to neutralize boarders.

It wouldn't be a good investment for every single planet, but if you have one key, core world, and you don't want jerks rolling in on it (as happened very often in SysNES1!) then it's probably a sound investment.

Is there any point in taking Fleet Int bonus's anymore? I mean all the Fleet int stacks up to 6 bonus int, whilst Jammers keep going and going and going...I can build a good missile fleet around a few jammer ships that you send in to close Range Instances with things which allows your missile ships to blow them away at long range (admittedly does not work on Symphonys Station Orbiter monster! The size differential really kills)

Disenfrancised said:

Incidently, large defensive stations is where ship-to-ship boarding comes into its own:

Viking
2 x Deuterium Drive (Ref)
1 x Pulse Drive (Ref)
1 x Intrusion Unit (Ref)
4 x Space Marines (Ref)
1 x Grapples (Ref)
1 x Jetpacks (Ref)

Since the station station can't resist them coming to boarding range, you need 31 to insure one gets through to the Megatron, but once in that station is going down. Though it takes CON5, if you roll in a couple of fast shield array packages you can neutralize the small guns and require much few vikings.

Since I like the idea of that, I'm going to say jamming doesn't int debuff during S2S boarding.

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The problem is that your boarding crafts can't compete with the satellite in a ship-to-ship-score arms race because they need to stay cheaper and faster than fighters. While the satellite can (and should) just throw in a few space marines with no ill effect, you can't.

Also, security teams seem too pricey for what they do. Even unupgraded space marines are more e-effective, not to mention v-effective and mass-effective.

And there's a bug in the Battle Calculator, on the Stats page: cells G160 to P169 add the boarding score (last term) when I'm fairly sure they should subtract it. Right now it's saying that it's easier to board a ship with 100 score than one with -100 score.

I might nerf jammers a bit, and have it so the jammer debuff can't take an opponents int below the starting base int.

I know about the S2S bug in the battle calc.

Disenfrancised said:

have it so the jammer debuff can't take an opponents int below the starting base int.

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This is probably enough. Presumably if you turn Jammers off you get the Fleet Init bonus as well... does turning them on and off count as a EW turn-action?

It'd probably be good to know if the EMP debuff (and particle EMP debuff) is a permanent affair or temporary. Also, I sorta had questions/bug reports on the previous page.

Thlayli said:

It'd probably be good to know if the EMP debuff (and particle EMP debuff) is a permanent affair or temporary. Also, I sorta had questions/bug reports on the previous page.

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Lasts the rest of the battle, but fire control teams remove the debuff at a set rate per turn.

Thlayli said:

I'm veeeeery interested in learning how Maneuvering Jets will help larger ships get off planet. Particularly since I'm considering teching Propulsion anyways (since I did that in the last game). And yes, the Maneuvering Jet lobby DID give me a six-figure check last year, what of it?

Possible minor bug: The size of external pods goes up when refined.

Also, some of the red-green panels that say whether you can build components seem to be malfunctioning on various non-standard tech-level arrangements.

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That's something I forgot to implement - the first maneuvering jet will add +5 to the size/mass limit (for a net +3 since it has size and mass itself), the second +4 (+2) and so on.

Not a bug

I can't reproduce this myself, what do you mean?

On the tech arrangement:

BIO - 1 COM - 2 CON - 3 ERG - 2 MTR - 3 MAT - 2 SOC - 2 PRO - 3 WEP - 3

A couple problems crop up. Burst Drives are colored red, despite being able to use them, and Recyclers are colored green, despite not being able to use them. Excel flags both as having a formula error.

CSS Outrider Mk VI

15x Burst Drive
5x Deuterium Drive
2x Pulse Drive
1x Habitat Section
2x Computational Module
1x Scanners
2x Ion Cannon (refined)
3x Titanium Armor (refined)

Cost: 79e (36e) / 39m / 29v / 0a / 0t / 33s
Size: 73 / Mass: 53 / HP: 66 / Power: 0 / Heat: -10
IS: 1 / IP: 3 / Range: 2
Init: 3 / Dodge: -15 / Avoid: 0 / Armor: 18 / Shield: 0
Refine: 112e / 28s

Thlayli said:

On the tech arrangement:

BIO - 1 COM - 2 CON - 3 ERG - 2 MTR - 3 MAT - 2 SOC - 2 PRO - 3 WEP - 3

A couple problems crop up. Burst Drives are colored red, despite being able to use them, and Recyclers are colored green, despite not being able to use them. Excel flags both as having a formula error.

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They were jilted one out of order due to planetary and orbital, will be fixed in next version.

Apologies for not being present recently. I'll get back into the swing of things soon enough!

VVVVV Please name it the Cargo Whale. :<

Damn you EW Vulnerability! Ruining all my super-stacked EW broadcoaster ships...

CSS Ne'er Do Well

3x Manifold Drive
3x Fission Rocket
2x Deuterium Drive
1x Habitat Section
4x Internal Hangars
2x Cargo Bay
1x Computer Module
1x Scanners
1x Radiators
1x Kinetic Lances
1x Maneuvering Jets

Cost: 114e (51e) / 17m / 30v / 0a / 0t / 44s
Size: 46 / Mass: 35 / HP: 48 / Power: 0 / Heat: 7
IS: 1 / IP: 2 / Range: 2
Init: 1 / Dodge: -11 / Avoid: 0 / Armor: -20 / Shield: 0
Refine: 165e / 41s
Missile Damage: 6

Description: An all purpose ship that can (barely) be built on the planetary surface of a standard gravity airless world without expensive orbital infrastructure. It can explore and trade and defend itself against lower-speed enemies long enough to try to escape. Without escorts it's probably screwed though.

If I could make a template version for different configurations of Cargo Bays and Hangars, that would be useful...but I don't really know how templates work.

Abbreviated Confederate Military and Civil Rankings

Civil Planetary Government

Provisioner-General (planetary executive for major planets, appointed by the fleet, mostly security role as commander of planetary army)
Advocate-General (popularly elected planetary judicial chief, sits on Provisioner-General's cabinet, mediates disputes between Wards)
Ward Marshal (popularly elected, partially-autonomous regional governors over continent-sized Wards, much leeway for determining local laws, no term limits but subject to popular referendum)
Marshal Plenipotentiary (appointed governor for a remote area or a small offworld colony)
Deputy Marshal (represents the Ward Marshal in large Wards, in charge of regional law-enforcement)
Warden (elected mayor of local communities and cities, more of a judge and less of an executive)
Sheriff (local law enforcement and rural conflict resolution)

Fleet Structure

Commodore-in-Chief (rotating position among the senior officers of the military; traditionally selected from the space fleet)
Commodore (in charge of an entire fleet, and typically a star-system's aerospace)
Captain Commander (lead captain of a squadron, elected by junior officers)
Captain (in charge of a larger ship)
Commander (in charge of a smaller ship)
First Commandant (deputy ship captain, in command when the senior officer is off duty or incapacitated)
Commandant (officer in charge of a duty roster, such as engineering, communications, weapons systems, life support, etc.)
Adjunct (junior officer, subdivided into First, Second, Third Grade)
Voidsman (enlisted man)

Thlayli said:

Description: An all purpose ship that can (barely) be built on the planetary surface of a standard gravity airless world without expensive orbital infrastructure.

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What "expensive orbital infrastructure?" A Space Frame costs 20e, 10m, and 10v, and a Spaceport costs 20e and 5m. That's 40e, 15m, and 10v to build stuff in space. That's not expensive.

Also that ship has too much useless junk on it (like Maneuvering Jets), is too poorly armored, and is too expensive to be good at what it does. You're trying to do way too much at once and so you wind up with something that's just crap at everything. It'd be a way better use of money (and probably cheaper!) to build separate, smaller, specialized ships.

The Maneuvering Jets were a late addition so that I could get a Computational Module in and still be able to build on a planetary surface. And I'm hoping that in later versions/prop tech levels Maneuvering Jets won't be "useless junk" as they currently are.

40e, 15m, and 10v might not be a lot of resources in your core, but in your colonial periphery it very well could be. And a ton of cheaper, specialized ships also take up a ton of design slots. The ship definitely has weaknesses, but I'm gambling it's a good buy.

Dis, I realize that Commlinks are supposed to increase your EW Vulnerability, but a -10 to your EW score on top of that seems a little high.