Naval architects needed to defeat enemy fighters!

[arcador]

I was wondering if there was a ship build which can withstand a superior fighter attack. The hypothetical engagement is with the following conditions:

(edited for clarifications;2)

- TL15 - all tech is allowed, except the High Technology chapter
- ship and engagement force should be in the same budget (keep in mind fighters need a carrier which costs further) - Assume 4600 MCr
- the ship needs to have Jump-4 capability and some way to refuel (gas giants)
- The enemy fighters are optimized for such engagements - look here: http://forum.mongoosepublishing.com/viewtopic.php?f=89&t=119159&hilit=modular+fighter#p901993 (courtesy of @AnotherDilbert).
- For simplicity - enemy fighters will be: 1)Particle + Fuel modules if the ship has little missile armament OR 2)PD module (1) + Fuel module if the enemy has overwhelming missile firepower.
- The 4600 MCr makes 49 fighters and a carrier.
- Fighters are not in a squadron. Their strategy is to close in and engage in a dogfight where they have a superior advantage.
- As mentioned, all is pumped up, so net skills of the fighters is 6 (2 skill + 1 stat + 1 skill mod + 1 stat mod + 1 expert (assume neural link)). You can use the same pumped crew for the ship.

The effective thrust rating of the fighters is 9 + 16 = 25 which the fighter can keep for ~1,2 hour; after the fuel is exhausted, they remain with thrust 9. The fighters will use dodges (3) each when fired upon.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

- For simplicity - enemy fighters will be: 1)Fusion + Fuel modules if ...

Fusion fighters are easily negated by enough Dampers, better use Particle weapons instead, they have no easily exploitable weakness (that I know of).

 

[AnotherDilbert]

a ship build which can withstand a superior fighter attack.

A minimum jump and refuelling capability should probably be stated, say Jump-4 and gas giant refuelling?

Edit: And must jump with the fuel tanks...

 

[AnotherDilbert]

This is technically a ship with J-1 and M-1.

At 9000 Dt it has 8 large missile bays and some fixed mounts launching 1100 missiles per round (24 battery rounds included). That should handle 50 fighters in a round or two...

Total cost below MCr 4500.

At least is shows why we should specify a usable jump capacity...

 

[arcador]

Are the crew numbers ok? Operating Large bay required 4 people per station (or something like that).

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Large Ships
The number of crew required to effectively operate a ship increases hugely with the size of the vessel, but large ships do have efficient centralisation of systems.

For ships of more than 5,000 tons, the referee can opt to reduce the required crew by two thirds.

Each large bay requires 4 gunners, for a total of 32. Divided by 3 (rounded up) for large ship that ends up as 11 gunners.

I find that reasonable to bring the vast number of engineers and gunners in line with earlier editions.

 

[arcador]

I see.

The ship has M-Drive 1. Even if we ignore the Jump-4 requirement I am not sure how much time to fire the ship will have.
Of course, it can finish off the rest with a missile spree in the dogfight.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

It's a lousy warship, but it fulfils the original requirements.

Having basically no drives it is just a hull (to get hardpoints) and weapons. Low M-drive is a choice (probably bad) that basically necessitates killing the fighters in a single round. Having a real jump drive will probably make that less attractive.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

We always have the breakaway option. This is a 6000 Dt breakaway ship with 60 small breakaway sections with a hardpoint mounting a barbette each. They can shoot at the incoming fighters at long range, and then dogfight the remaining fighters...

Ship:

Breakaway Section:

 

[Condottiere]

Breakaways need two percent volume allocation, per breakaway.

My personal view is that you need a hundred tonnes dedicated per hardpoint, otherwise it remains a firmpoint.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Breakaways need two percent volume allocation, per breakaway.

No, the entire ship ship needs this, not each section:

Each section must have an appropriate bridge and power plant to operate it. Manoeuvre drive, jump drive, sensors, weapons, screens and so forth are all options that can (and, under normal circumstances, should) be included in each section.
...
This whole process consumes 2% of the combined hull tonnage for the extra bulkheads and connections needed, and costs an additional MCr2 per ton consumed.

My personal view is that you need a hundred tonnes dedicated per hardpoint, otherwise it remains a firmpoint.

That would be reasonable, but not RAW, as far as I can see. The entire ship is a 6000 Dt, it has no firmpoints. Breakaway sections are not ships, just parts of one.

Using hardpoint/firmpoint allocation per breakaway section would be just as exploitable, we could breakaway the ship into ~170 sections of 35 Dt, each with two firmpoints and a barbette...

 

[arcador]

Here is a moment of strategy, that can be argued.

The fighters have Thrust 9 + 16 = 25.
The ship moves away from the fighters to gain time. It has Thrust 9.

The difference is 16. The fighters can reserve 3 for dodging and will have 13 remaining. With 13 remaining they can cover the Very long range in two rounds.

And here comes the interesting part,

The ship's master engineer can attempt to override the M-drive. Assuming he is as skilled as his crewmates, the net skill result is +6. He has to roll 4+ for the first round, and 6+ for the second round to succeed.
If he manages to do it (91% first roll, 72% second roll), then the net difference of the fighters will be Thrust 12.

In this scenario, the fighters have a few options:

- they see the enemy's speed increasing, and guess what is going on. They can commision one of their gunner crew to override their M-drive. He will have lower skill since the fighter doesn't have an onboard dedicated engineer. Also, while the gunner is doing this action, he won't be able to utilize PD. The biggest problem is - if a fighter fails with the operation, it will be left behind, possibly unable to enter combine it's PD or receive from its squadron mates (might argue how it will be left from the rest of the group). Entering a dogfight with reduced numbers will reduce the efficiency of the attack.
- Decrease to 3 rounds in very long range. Basic calculations show this decision will most likely result in a complete wipeout of the squadron. It's not an option.
- Attempt to override the m-drives, and for those who fail, reduce the dodge # by 1 for the round so they can keep up.

The overall effect will be that the ship can score a few more hits from range (either with missiles? or v. long ranged beams), most likely will take out 1-2 fighters per round more.

The weakest moment in this strategy is that we don't know how many left-over Thrust from Distant range the figthers have. Even 2 points negate this strategy.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

It's not quite that simple...

The ship probably wants to use Aid Gunners (giving task chain DM to all attacks). It slows the ship down but increases damage to the fighters.

The fighters want to Dodge (Evasive Action) as much as possible. Each Dodged attack is basically wasted. Spending an extra round at Very Long range with more available Dodges might be a good thing. The disadvantage is that we only have a few rounds of fuel for the reaction drives (12 rounds for this fighter).

Counterintuitively it's probably best to react to the ship speeding up by slowing down and Dodge more:

Here we see three scenarios: The basic 25 G and -9 G, the ship's overloaded so 25 G and -10 G, and finally fighter slowed down so 24 G and -10 G.

The rounds at Distant range are just wasting fuel, no-one can fire (except missiles), we just have to burn through the distance. If the ship is predominantly missile armed they become vital.

In the first scenario we spend one round at Very Long, one round at Long, then dogfight, but the fighters can't Dodge.

In the second scenario the ship overload to 10 G, we get an extra round at Short, which is very bad news for the fighters since the ship gets to attack an extra round with positive range DM instead of negative.

In the third scenario the fighters react by slowing down to 24 G and a Dodge; they turn the extra round from Short to Very Long reducing damage, and have a Dodge every round further reducing damage. Ships action counteracted.


If we do the math we realise that the fighters really want to Dodge and the ship really want to Aid Gunners. For a more realistic scenario we get something like this:

The fighters accelerate fully until they get to Very Long and the ship can shoot, then they slow down to 19 G and Dodge. At the same time the ship slows down to 8 G and uses Aid Gunners. In this scenario we spend two rounds at Very Long and a single round at Long before dogfight.

Note that the fighters have the acceleration advantage and controls the distance. If the ship overloads the M-Drive a round it will only cost the fighters a Dodge or two.


The side with the Initiative declares acceleration first, so the other side can always instantly react to that. Hence we don't want the initiative...

If the ship manages to lose the initiative it can stop accelerating round 6 and change the round at Long to Short, getting better attacks and killing more fighters that round.

If the fighters manage to lose the initiative they can fine tune the distance each round and get a few more dodges.

 

[arcador]

Nice! Really thorough analysis!

(I am enjoying this way too much)

 

[Condottiere]

The rocket and the thrusters are separate systems; you could overclock both separately.

 

[phavoc]

I don't think you should be allowed to do that with reaction thrusters. That would be heaping wrongness on an already broken concept.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

A slightly more serious attempt:

6000 Dt, J-4, 9 G, Armour 15, Hull 2640
60 modules of 5Dt that can carry any barbette or turret, here configured with particle barbettes. The idea is that you can configure it with particle barbettes against fighters, laser turrets against missiles, or missile barbettes.
Carries 22 medium fighters in external clamps (2 of them in full hangars).

It's not a complete warship, everything not contributing to killing fighters removed.

Over budget at MCr ~5750 (incl. fighters) so we have to increase the number of opposing fighters, say 49 × 5750 / 4600 ≈ 61 fighters.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

To evaluate the design we will try to shoot down some fighters.

As the scenario a few posts ago we spend two round at Very Long and one round at Long before dogfight.
Assume Particle barbettes with Intense Focus. Accelerating at 19 G the fighters can dodge six times per round.

Very Long range:
+6[gunner] +3[AdvFireCntl] +1[aid gunner] -4[range] -2[evade] -6[dodge] = -2, hit 10+. Average damage 0.4.
When the fighter cannot dodge anymore:
+6[gunner] +3[AdvFireCntl] +1[aid gunner] -4[range] -2[evade] = +4, hit 4+. Average damage 4.27 and 16% critical.

With six dodges we can kill a fighter with 9 attacks, so we can kill 60 / 9 ≈ 6.7 fighters. In two rounds we kill ~13 fighters.

Long range:
+6[gunner] +3[AdvFireCntl] +1[aid gunner] -2[range] -2[evade] -6[dodge] = 0. Average damage 1.21.
When the fighter cannot dodge anymore:
+6[gunner] +3[AdvFireCntl] +1[aid gunner] -2[range] -2[evade] = +6. Average damage 6.13 and 41% critical.

With six dodges we can almost kill a fighter with 7 attacks, so we can kill 60 / 7 ≈ 8.6 fighters.

Totally we kill ~22 fighters before dogfight, leaving 39 enemy fighters to dogfight our 22 fighters. The ship lose...

 

[Condottiere]

Rockets aren't mentioned, so that would be ambiguous.

Just as ambiguous with lifters and whatever we'd term the hundred planetary orbits.

You'd be wicked fast circling a planet.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Based on the questionable assumption that reaction drives can use the same fuel as jump drives, based on that both use "Fuel" we can build something like this:

6000 Dt, J-4, 9 G, 8 G reaction drive (uses the jump fuel tanks for reaction fuel), Armour 15, Hull 2640
60 Particle barbettes.

With a reaction drive the ship the ship can keep the distance to the fighters longer, forcing the fighters to dodge less:

Or with three dodges:

We get many more turns, with fewer dodges, to kill the fighters.

Ship: