[Spaceships] Designing the best possible fleet on a billion-dollar budget

[Michael Thayne]

Here's a ship I cooked up specifically to counter weby's design. A billion-dollar budget should pay for 30 of them. Haven't actually tested it yet:

Drone Sweeper
SM+7 unstreamlined hull

Front Hull
[1] Nanocomposite Armor (Hardened; 15 dDR) ($3M)
[2-5] Advanced Metallic Laminate Armor (Hardened; 40 dDR) ($4.8M total)
[6!] Major Battery (fixed mount 100MJ UV laser) ($1.5M)
[core] Fuel Cell ($150K)

[1-2] Nanocomposite Armor (Hardened; 30 dDR) ($6M)
[3] Smaller Systems (three at SM+6): one Nanocomposite Armor (Hardened; 5 dDR); one Fuel Cell (one small Power Point for Secondary Battery); one Secondary Battery (10 turrets with 30KJ very rapid fire improved lasers) [!] ($1.65M)
[4-5] Advanced Metallic Laminate Armor (Hardened; 20 dDR) ($2.4M total)
[6] Smaller Systems (three at SM+6): one Control Room (C7, comm/sensor 5, two control stations); one Habitat; one Secondary Battery (10 turrets with 16cm launchers). ($900K)

Rear Hull
[1] Nanocomposite Armor (Hardened; 15 dDR) ($3M)
[2-5] Advanced Metallic Laminate Armor (Hardened; 40 dDR) ($4.8M total)
[6] Smaller Systems (three at SM+6): one Fusion Rocket (using hydrogen; provides 0.00167G acceleration); one Fuel Tank (5 tons hydrogen provides 20 mps delta-V); one Cargo Hold. ($1.03M)
[core] Engine Room ($100K)

Empty Cost: $29.33M
Ammo cost: $3.334M
Fuel cost: $10K
Crew 2 bioroids: $400K

[Michael Thayne]

Note: I may try some fights with 3 minute rounds / standard scale. 10 minute rounds + standard scale makes sense if you're using fusion pulse for capital ships and antimatter thermal for drones, really no need for it if ships are either incapable of tactical maneuvering (fusion rocket) or using 2G+ drives.

[Michael Thayne]

Update—so my drone sweeper design doesn't work, not if the commander controlling weby's fleet is smart. I initially designed it on the assumption that the missile drones would unload all their nukes in one salvo, but if they do one nuke per 10-minute round, statistically the sweepers' point-defense capabilities will fail eventually.

Within the parameters I initially gave, the way to defeat weby's fleet is with a very similar fleet that has fewer drones optimized for point defense and killing capital ships, and more drones optimized for killing drones. But SM+4 drones totally dominate, I'm pretty sure. This is not actually the result I expected when I started this thread, and I need to thank weby for helping make that clear.

[AlexanderHowl]

Ideally, you would want 1/4 of the drones being used for point-defense (using beam weapons), 1/4 of the drones being used for anti-ship (using missile weapons), 1/4 of the drones being used for anti-drone (using conventional guns), and 1/4 of the drones being used for boarding (using android soldiers). A SM+10 drone carrier could easily carry 240 SM+4 drones, giving them 60 SM+4 drones for each task. In battle, the point-defense drones would deploy first, the anti-drone drones second, the boarding drones third, and the anti-ship drones last. Each side will want to board and capture the ships of the other side rather than destroying the ships of the other side, though destroying the ships of the other side though would likely be an acceptable second option.

[weby]

Originally Posted by Michael Thayne

Update—so my drone sweeper design doesn't work, not if the commander controlling weby's fleet is smart. I initially designed it on the assumption that the missile drones would unload all their nukes in one salvo, but if they do one nuke per 10-minute round, statistically the sweepers' point-defense capabilities will fail eventually.

Yes, the design idea is to fire 750 missiles/round for the first three rounds and then the rest of the nukes fourth round and if needed there is still the 1000+ drones for a massed ramming attack.

Within the parameters I initially gave, the way to defeat weby's fleet is with a very similar fleet that has fewer drones optimized for point defense and killing capital ships, and more drones optimized for killing drones. But SM+4 drones totally dominate, I'm pretty sure. This is not actually the result I expected when I started this thread, and I need to thank weby for helping make that clear.

The dominance of drones is the expected result given the design constraints specified by you and by the spaceships system combined with GURPS automatic fire rules making massed attacks from a single battery pretty useless for missiles compared to many more batteries.

The primary thing from your side is making nuclear missiles the primary weapon system for hurting things by removing super science, using the basic combat system and limiting automated gunnery system skill levels.

There are four main scenarios where nukes do not dominate spaceships combat:
1)Nuke dampers. This is the easy super science solution.
2)Really tough ships. requires really large ships and force fields.
3)Using tactical combat and super acceleration or ability to FTL "instantly". to dodge massed missile salvos. And even then this is risky.
4)insane amounts of point defense with insane skill levels. This is is easiest achievable by automated gunnery systems with insane levels of skill in gunnery.

The thing making drones the desired delivery platform are:
1)A hit by a nuke does not hurt a large part of the fleet capability.
2)You can carry most 16 cm missiles/gun by using smaller ships, 16cm being the lowest with nuclear capability.
3)The drones can also be used for ramming attacks, forcing the opposing force to have enough weapons that are large enough to reliably destroy the drones on hit too, nut just missiles.

Maximum size usable ship is SM +8, as larger than that cannot carry 16cm tubes, but anything above minimum size(SM +4) risks being taken out by a single nuke hit, so is iffy because of that.

[weby]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Ideally, you would want 1/4 of the drones being used for point-defense (using beam weapons), 1/4 of the drones being used for anti-ship (using missile weapons), 1/4 of the drones being used for anti-drone (using conventional guns), and 1/4 of the drones being used for boarding (using android soldiers). A SM+10 drone carrier could easily carry 240 SM+4 drones, giving them 60 SM+4 drones for each task. In battle, the point-defense drones would deploy first, the anti-drone drones second, the boarding drones third, and the anti-ship drones last. Each side will want to board and capture the ships of the other side rather than destroying the ships of the other side, though destroying the ships of the other side though would likely be an acceptable second option.

Note that my fleet has 240 drone killer drones capable of defeating any TL 10 drone armor along with 240 that can damage most drones and 750 that can can damage most drones from non front directions and if there are no capital ship targets can use the nukes on them instead..

And thus your fleet of 240 drones each has a drone killer drone assigned for killing it, of if your drones come in waves of 60 your 60 anti-drone drones are heavily outnumbered in the drone vs drone part.