It would be good to have a common BB-design BUT
* the East needs BBs asap
* the East has EP

To get BBs asap, the first need to be built with weap14. To avoid the usual problems and pitfalls with using a mixup of range 2 and 3 weapons, I would rather go for a dedicated sapper design. Another advantage of this, 1 BB-design for each weap-level: 14, 15, 16


1) Mark the Blaster
=> needs weap 14
weight: 357 kt, battel speed: 2.25
cost (for JOAT): 757res, 200i, 305b, 145g



2) Sapped Advance
=> needs weap 15
weight: 337 kt, battel speed: 2.25
cost (for JOAT): 777res, 200i, 85b, 265g



3) Fear the Free
=> needs weap 16

a) Possible EP-design if a dedicated Sapper design will be used.
weight: 353 kt, battel speed: 2.25
cost (for JOAT): 937res, 200i, 405b, 169g


b) can be built by every IA-member
=> needs prop 12 or Trans-Gal which raises the costs significantly
weight: 345 kt, battel speed: 1.75
cost (for JOAT): 876res, 210i, 345b, 134g



Caps, jams, speed:
* If a battlespeed of 2.25 or higher can't be reached, I'd judge 1.75 a minimum for a laser-design.
* Jams are fine but if you use jams on your laser-design, you better use jams also on your missile-ships
* Jams are ONLY good vs missiles, they don't do anything vs enemy-laser-ships (VA has started to massbuilt a laser-design)
* Caps are ALWAYS of use
* chaff can be used vs missiles

Thus I usually rather go for caps instead of jams.

Curious to see other suggestions and designs.

Report message to a moderator

Report message to a moderator

Report message to a moderator

Altruist wrote on Sun, 10 June 2007 00:51

Skaffen wrote on Sat, 09 June 2007 21:31 -I´ll have En 14 in 2 turns, so at least the W16-design should be based on Gorillas since that´ll probably be the ship we build most of. If we can get en14 in time, great! But in terms of tech trading and time, it's a minimum of 4 turns to trade en14, 2-3 turns for weap16 and an unknown number of turns for prop-tech... before we can even START building BBs (well, at least a shared design). That's quite some time.

Keep in mind also elec9 needed for the EP, only Llort has that (or better) ATM. That's at least 5 more years, and we need the BBs 5 turns ago!

Altruist wrote on Sun, 10 June 2007 00:51

Skaffen wrote on Sat, 09 June 2007 21:31 -I´m against an A8 design, warp 10 jumps are just too important. My main CC-fleet has made 3 or so in a row and will do another one now and I´ve lost more CCs to warp damage than enemy fire. The A8 or Transgal is the only engine we ALL have access to. * Pak have no NRSE (no IS10) * Llort has no EP * Gaim, Spoo, Llort have NRSE (no scoops) If we are very lucky, Llort might pick up the EP during tech trading but such a chance is very low.

The Transgal is something I've never used; no warp10 same as AD8, twice the cost of the AD8 in resources, more iron, some bor while the AD8 cost none meaning higher attractiveness and less bor for weap ...
However it's true that in a clumped galaxy there is probably more need for warp10 jumps and limited gate usage means fuel usage gets more important (either more SFX or FX for the AD8) and warp speed as well ... Still not in favour of the Transgal we have the EP which offers *and* warp10 *and* better fuel usage (even scooping) and even slightly cheaper than the transgal ... (and obviously better than the very expensive IS10)

Quote:

Nevertheless, since 3 of us have the EP, it might be a good idea to agree on an EP-design nevertheless. There are enough other ships Llort can produce.

Exactly.

Quote:

Quote: -For the W16 design I´d suggest 6 caps and an SBC in the front slot, that way we gain init 3-4 more turns of tech trading to gain elec11. It all depends when we want to start building our first shared BB-design... at around 2500 or before?

Too late too late too late ...

Unless we go for a temp design now and weap16 later ... BTW I'm planning on not doing any research but only BB building until my minerals run out ...
After that there's con14-con16 to make BBs cheaper, or prop16 for terra ...

mch

Report message to a moderator

I looked into gatling designs but they miss the fire power in comparing them directly in battle. They obviously only start to pay off when 2 enemy fleets are in range ... which might not be the case since at least Ipsha and Hyak are building up a single fleet with combined ship designs.

No mention of a design with less weap ... which is more or less the way to go for an IS; cheaper ships and more of them making them better in defense.
When setting bor as limiting factor and not looking at resources this might be a good way to go ...
I'll send the BeamFireEvaluationIX.xls per mail, that's an excel sheet made by one of my usual teammates ... I think it's pretty clear how it works, see "Instructions&Legend". In "ShipsDB" you insert your ship design (costs, hull, number of items, ...). In "ShipsBattleEval" you insert the designs and the numbers and let them "fight it out". <g> Keep in mind this is pure token vs token, without battle positions so the range2 ships although with higher init will have not the first shot because being out off range.

In the first column you can set a number which will show how much a token of that size will cost you in minerals and resources, that way you can compare what you can build with in mind a limit in bor or resources or ...
The friendly designs I tried should be pretty obvious reading the sheet. The cost are IS exact costs with the needed tech levels and nothing more.
The enemy design: "enemy weap16+sappers" has a rough guess of costs to compare.

Without the advantage of being in range2 and having the first shot we'll need a lot of ships ...
For example 136 EP weap14 with full weap win against 67 enemy BBs but with 58 left. 198 EP weap14 with only 6+6 weap (equal bor cost as the full BBs) would win with 163 left ...

And please remember I suck at math. I've teammates that normally handle these excel files and such!

mch

• Attachment: ep_weap14.gif
  (Size: 36.71KB, Downloaded 214 times)

[Updated on: Sat, 09 June 2007 21:18]

Report message to a moderator

Report message to a moderator

Report message to a moderator

OK, I didn´t use Micha´s fancy spreadsheet, just my own which I was more familiar with.

First question to be asked: what´s the limiting factor?

Current stockpiles for Gaim are approx. 50,000 I, 60,000 B, 40,000 G with almost equal mining rates >5,500 k/y. For building power I assumed 30,000 effective res.

As ships I compard the following designs, all using EPs and Gorilla shields using RS values. Assumed tech was 14/14/13/13/11/7 with W16 for the Heavy-Blaster version.

I threw in CCs as well which would guarantee the last move plus offer more shielding capability.

-BB 12 Mark IV, 7 caps: 208 / 265 / 154 / 729
-BB 16 Mark IV, 7 caps: 208 / 324 / 154 / 805
-BB 16 Heavy Blaster, 4 sappers, 6 caps, 1 BC: 208 / 485 / 187 / 1073
-CC 4 Mark IV, 4 gorillas, 2 caps: 78 / 94 / 65 / 279
-CC 6 Mark IV, 4 gorillas: 78 / 124 / 53 / 309

Conclusion 1: B is the limiting factor

I have to admit this surprised me, didn´t expect that. Of course if we build a substantial missile wing, then I iron will quickly become more important! If 30K res are used for building minerals would run out in 6 years of building (without further mining of course, stretching the supplies to approx. 10 years but support ships, sappers and some missile power also have to be built)

With this I get the following max. number of ships to be built, disregarding that minerals are still mined since mining rates are the same for all minerals so no fundamental shift to another design will be seen, only overall higher numbers.

BB 12 Mark IV: 225 -> 450,000 armor, 441,000 shields, 346,500 beams
BB 16 Mark IV: 184 -> 360,000 armor, 360,640 shields, 378,300 beams
BB 16 Heavy Blaster: 123 (!!!) -> 246,00 armor, 241,000 shields, 230,000 beams (+ 184,000 sapper)
CC 4 Mark IV: 637: -> 445,900 armor, 624,260 shields, 202,500 beams
CC 6 Mark IV: 483: -> 338,100 armor, 474,400 shields, 191,200 beams

The W16 version comes out a bit too badly since for equivalent sapping power another 22 sapper BBs would have to be built. These are low on B and need mostly G though so would fit more or less within the limit.

CCs can hold their own, they have the same amount of armor with almost twice the number of shields, unfortunately also at almost half the firepower. But since high sapping power is cheap and battle field crowing makes it easier to assure that even range 2 BBs are in firing range I´d say BBs are the way to go.

Also using only 12 weapon slots is beneficial for IS: for 10% less firepower you get 20% more armor and shields so 40% more defensive power alltogether. Plus: it´s another 8 kt less weight to make closing in easier.

This of course uses up quite a bit more I and G. The 12 Mark IV fleet uses about 20k more I and 10k more G than the W16 one. So roughly 20 juggernaut BBs more could be built at the costs of 100 beamer BBs. For Dooms or Armas I´d say: close call, in the W16 age the beamers should still have the upper hand, especially since chaff is in wide usage and battlefield crowding could put the missile ships in immediate beamer range.

I assume that Llort and Pak mineral stockpiles are more or less similar, please check against your numbers if things differ a lot.

Since 3 of us 5 are IS and the Drakh cannot contribute significantly to the fleet size because of their low overall resources I´d suggest that IS econ and increased weapon costs should dominate the overall design considerations.

Conclusion 2: on pure production numbers W14 beamers with only 12 slots used seem to be the way to go. Now some in-game benchmarking should be done to see how they really fare with their range 2 beams against range 3 fleets.

Another design consideration: since BBs have a lot of firepower compared to their defenses maybe a beam deflector instead of a 7th cap would be better. I leave that to the benchmarkers to decide...

As for Bears / Gorillas: Clearly Gorillas would be much better, you have to check the situation in the East on whether you need a stopgap design or not and how things can be sped up by buying some tech levels out of field of specialization. I´ll certainly do that after En 14. If we really go Bears we need a serious combined offensive plan to make it worth downgrading for the Gaim / delaying 2-3 more years.

[Updated on: Sun, 10 June 2007 11:09]

Report message to a moderator

Skaffen wrote on Sun, 10 June 2007 16:07

OK, I didn´t use Micha´s fancy spreadsheet, just my own which I was more familiar with.

Not "mine".

Quote:

Conclusion 1: B is the limiting factor

<g> Well, I haven't checked my mineral stocks yet but I already assumed bor would be the limiting factor, seemed logical, as said 25% weap cost hurts ...

Quote:

I have to admit this surprised me, didn´t expect that. Of course if we build a substantial missile wing, then I iron will quickly become more important!

IS building missile ships hurts them even more, in general you'd want as much missiles per computer ... Missile ships are not supposed to suck up fire ... chaff and beamers should ... and gathering the stack without gates would also take longer.
(I have however used that, arma BBs with only 12 missiles but that was as IT where I could use them (also) for defensive play because of gating them around ... being IT takes away the time to gather the stack)

Quote:

The W16 version comes out a bit too badly since for equivalent sapping power another 22 sapper BBs would have to be built. These are low on B and need mostly G though so would fit more or less within the limit.

Right, forgot to clearly mention the sheet also does not take into account other fleets, but like Skaffen says the sapper BBs don't use much bor ...

Quote:

Also using only 12 weapon slots is beneficial for IS: for 10% less firepower you get 20% more armor and shields so 40% more defensive power alltogether.

Exactly what I was trying to say.

Quote:

Plus: it´s another 8 kt less weight to make closing in easier.

Does not matter, weight diffence has to be at least 15 or 20%, we can't make that unless going FM or some other light engine (WM can do that).

Quote:

This of course uses up quite a bit more I and G. The 12 Mark IV fleet uses about 20k more I and 10k more G than the W16 one. So roughly 20 juggernaut BBs more could be built at the costs of 100 beamer BBs. For Dooms or Armas I´d say: close call, in the W16 age the beamers should still have the upper hand, especially since chaff is in wide usage and battlefield crowding could put the missile ships in immediate beamer range.

Just as a note: we should have "some" missile ships ...

Quote:

I assume that Llort and Pak mineral stockpiles are more or less similar, please check against your numbers if things differ a lot.

Checking later ...

Quote:

Since 3 of us 5 are IS and the Drakh cannot contribute significantly to the fleet size because of their low overall resources I´d suggest that IS econ and increased weapon costs should dominate the overall design considerations. Conclusion 2: on pure production numbers W14 beamers with only 12 slots used seem to be the way to go. Now some in-game benchmarking should be done to see how they really fare with their range 2 beams against range 3 fleets.

"Easy" to say: without good battle crowding the weap14 will have it harder because the range3 gives some free shots. With good crowding the weap14 have equal firepower vs an equal stack and with first shot that means a win ...

Quote:

Another design consideration: since BBs have a lot of firepower compared to their defenses maybe a beam deflector instead of a 7th cap would be better. I leave that to the benchmarkers to decide...

Doubt if a defs enemy-reduction makes up for the loss in own improvement ... And as Altruist said: "Caps are ALWAYS of use", facing missile ships defs don't help ...

Quote:

As for Bears / Gorillas: Clearly Gorillas would be much better, you have to check the situation in the East on whether you need a stopgap design or not and how things can be sped up by buying some tech levels out of field of specialization. I´ll certainly do that after En 14. If we really go Bears we need a serious combined offensive plan to make it worth downgrading for the Gaim / delaying 2-3 more years.

I really doubt Pak can wait another +5 years to start producing ships ... My four centre planets were given up 20 years ago, I can not risk losing Jupiter since that means my HW and surrounding planets will be comprimised as well, and they are my core, beyond them I'm more scattered and planets are not mature yet, some still even very young ...

mch

Report message to a moderator

Report message to a moderator

[Updated on: Mon, 11 June 2007 00:24]

Report message to a moderator

Report message to a moderator

Minerals 2485, overview



* Pak's mineral on surface are better than shown in this table, there is quite an amount in orbit (what a nasty IS-trick to confuse us poor JOATs)
* East is shortest on germ which is irrelevant for beamer production and then, unfortunately, rather short on bora.
* West has a surprisingly amount of germ and the biggest heap of bora.

[Updated on: Mon, 11 June 2007 07:50]

Report message to a moderator

Altruist wrote on Mon, 11 June 2007 13:46

* Pak's mineral on surface are better than shown in this table, there is quite an amount in orbit (what a nasty IS-trick to confuse us poor JOATs) * East is shortest on germ which is irrelevant for beamer production and then, unfortunately, rather short on bora. * West has a surprisingly amount of germ and the biggest heap of bora.

Most recent .x file sent without orgy MM yet, which means all minerals dropped, so you'll see I've got at least 44k iron.
I mostly use iron to fill up the orgies (in order to let pop breed in space and let that same pop breed a second time in the same turn on the ground I love those IS rabbits!).
Germ on surface is showing wrong, as said in mail around 10k flying around and heavy germ usage for 4 turns (1 done, 3 to go) ...
Bor is low because of meeting some MTs and low bor concentration on several of my strongest primary planets ...

mch

Report message to a moderator

Altruist wrote on Mon, 11 June 2007 01:34

One thing I am confused about: Why is the speed of our EP-BB only 2.25? It should be 1.75 + 4x0.25

You guys are not playing Stars! long enough!

mch

James McGuigan wrote on 7 okt 2000, 09:00 in rec.games.computer.stars

Subject: Re: Mystery Trader "Heikki Poso" <h...@rock.helsinki.fi> wrote in message news:ovr95sbp60.fsf@rock.helsinki.fi... > "James McGuigan" <James....@ntlworld.com> writes: > > Enigma Pulsar (Warp 10 rammscoop engine, free travel at warp 5, 10% cloaking + 1/4 movement in > > battle) > Actually, it is +1/8 movement in battle per engine, rounded up to the next 1/4 > movement (for example, Nubian and BB both get +1/2 movement). The part info says +1/4 movement, but I tried using the enigmar pulsar on an empty hull and taking weight into account, found that you are correct. The Enigma Pulsar adds 1/8 movement rounded up. 1 or 2 engines = +1/4 3 or 4 engines = +1/2 5 engines = +3/4 I did this by comparing movement value when changing between the EP and IS-10 engines but kept the weight the same. The strange thing is I never noticed this before. -- Rules are written for those who lack the ability to truly reason, But for those who can, the rules become nothing more than guidelines, And live their lives governed not by rules but by reason. - James McGuigan

Report message to a moderator

Skaffen wrote on Mon, 11 June 2007 06:20

Micha wrote on Mon, 11 June 2007 00:35 Skaffen wrote on Sun, 10 June 2007 16:07 Plus: it´s another 8 kt less weight to make closing in easier. Does not matter, weight diffence has to be at least 15 or 20%, we can't make that unless going FM or some other light engine (WM can do that). It matters, of course it doesn´t guarantee last movement but it helps improve the odds.

... ok, it matters if you like "odds". Personally I don't. Either you go for guaranteed last move or you don't. And if you don't: always test worst case scenario ...
Same goes for init, if you can't guarantee init than test battles only looking at the results of the ones in which you fire second ...

I'm not saying you should never take the risk, if the price is worth it or if the situation is desperate, well ...

mch

Report message to a moderator

Altruist wrote on Mon, 11 June 2007 13:28

Skaffen wrote on Mon, 11 June 2007 06:20 Quote: I really doubt Pak can wait another +5 years to start producing ships ... My four centre planets were given up 20 years ago, I can not risk losing Jupiter since that means my HW and surrounding planets will be comprimised as well, and they are my core, beyond them I'm more scattered and planets are not mature yet, some still even very young ... Of course, but would you be able to contribute significantly to a combined attack fleet in the foreseeable future as hard-pressed as you are now? If not and if you don´t just want to give up your space for an all-or-nothing attack then you can easily start with the bears and upgrade to Gorilla designs later. The large combined fleet is needed mostly for shield coverage, killing power is already very high. With Gorillas giving 40% more shields do you think you could improve the overall fleet size by 40% if we go bears? Let's phrase it this way: IF the East can somehow fence off this new VA-attack, the surviving BBs will be a major part of our contribution to a combined force. If the East can't fence off the VA-attack... well, we do not need to worry that much about combined designs afterwards.

... exactly ...

mch

Report message to a moderator

Micha wrote on Mon, 11 June 2007 00:35

... ok, it matters if you like "odds". Personally I don't. Either you go for guaranteed last move or you don't. And if you don't: always test worst case scenario ... Same goes for init, if you can't guarantee init than test battles only looking at the results of the ones in which you fire second ... I'm not saying you should never take the risk, if the price is worth it or if the situation is desperate, well ... mch

Generally speaking I have the same philosophy but if our fleet defeats theirs in, say, 67% of cases & our fleet also costs a lot less we will do very well indeed. Of course, if we have the option we should use a fleet big enough to guarantee victory but I would be quite happy to accept those odds!

Report message to a moderator

[Updated on: Mon, 18 June 2007 07:46] by Moderator

Report message to a moderator

Report message to a moderator

Report message to a moderator

AlexTheGreat wrote on Wed, 13 June 2007 01:49

12 MkIVs is a poor choice because such a ship has a higher attractiveness than a Phased Sapper design using 20 weapons (since a stack of those accompanying the MkIV stack is relatively small they are easily killed if more attractive).

First: hm, isn't it a *good* thing if the 12*weap14 is more attractive than the shield sapper? The 12*weap14 BB will form the largest stack, so they can take some hits on their shields and if damaged be repaired. The sappers will *die* even fired upon with a small stack of enemy BBs. They are suicide ships but if less attractive that would be a good thing since they won't die and won't need to be replaced for every battle! This is opposite of what you are saying?

Second: attractiveness also seems to dependd on stack size. A small stack of unattractive ships will be shot and killed with a large stack of more attractive ships sitting in range as well. (Kinda would defeat my first point. )

Third: attractiveness can change fast, get a level of extra weap and it might already turn around.

Fourth: the 12*weap14 is more attractive to who? The enemy beamer? To enemy sap weapons? The enemy jugger missile ship? The next-gen weap20 missile ship? You have a different attractiveness % for each of these ...

mch

Report message to a moderator

Micha wrote on Wed, 13 June 2007 07:05

AlexTheGreat wrote on Wed, 13 June 2007 01:49 12 MkIVs is a poor choice because such a ship has a higher attractiveness than a Phased Sapper design using 20 weapons (since a stack of those accompanying the MkIV stack is relatively small they are easily killed if more attractive). First: hm, isn't it a *good* thing if the 12*weap14 is more attractive than the shield sapper? The 12*weap14 BB will form the largest stack, so they can take some hits on their shields and if damaged be repaired. The sappers will *die* even fired upon with a small stack of enemy BBs. They are suicide ships but if less attractive that would be a good thing since they won't die and won't need to be replaced for every battle! This is opposite of what you are saying?

No, a small stack of attractive ships will be killed in most battles & that means that the sappers have to replaced. Because the weap14 stack is larger they can take more beam fire before ships are destroyed - if we lose a battle we will lose all, if we win a battle then, in most cases, we lose relatively few ships. The difference between a marginal loss & marginal win is substantial in ship loss terms (see TipOver sheet in CostPerEnemy S/S in which, for a given ship design, "Our Lost" in green shows a marginal win & in orange shows a marginal loss (-n = n enemy ships survive). Results are very accurate. It takes only a small increase in our fleet size to achieve a decisive victory.

Quote:

Second: attractiveness also seems to dependd on stack size. A small stack of unattractive ships will be shot and killed with a large stack of more attractive ships sitting in range as well. (Kinda would defeat my first point. )

I haven't really checked that out but that may be correct. My testing used fleet where the sapper ships comprised 17-25% in ship terms & around 25% in weapons terms. The more attractive ships were attacked first in all cases.

Quote:

Third: attractiveness can change fast, get a level of extra weap and it might already turn around.

If attractiveness is reasonably close then I agree that the comparison could change. Maybe it's best to use 14 weap14 weapons to increase the difference a bit & so reduce the chances of that happening.

Quote:

Fourth: the 12*weap14 is more attractive to who? The enemy beamer? To enemy sap weapons? The enemy jugger missile ship? The next-gen weap20 missile ship? You have a different attractiveness % for each of these ...

The relativity remains the same regardless of whether the enemy weapon is beam, sapper, missile or torp (accuracy for missile/torp checked for 0.1% to 99.9%). I checked that - see the "target" S/S I distributed where all relative ships are shown. Just change the enemy weapon as you wish. The 1st sheet shows IS with RS, the 2nd shows IS without RS (sorry Patrick, I shoulda had a 3rd sheet showing Joat RS).

Report message to a moderator

AlexTheGreat wrote on Wed, 13 June 2007 17:15

Micha wrote on Wed, 13 June 2007 07:05 AlexTheGreat wrote on Wed, 13 June 2007 01:49 12 MkIVs is a poor choice because such a ship has a higher attractiveness than a Phased Sapper design using 20 weapons (since a stack of those accompanying the MkIV stack is relatively small they are easily killed if more attractive). First: hm, isn't it a *good* thing if the 12*weap14 is more attractive than the shield sapper? The 12*weap14 BB will form the largest stack, so they can take some hits on their shields and if damaged be repaired. The sappers will *die* even fired upon with a small stack of enemy BBs. They are suicide ships but if less attractive that would be a good thing since they won't die and won't need to be replaced for every battle! This is opposite of what you are saying? No, a small stack of attractive ships will be killed in most battles & that means that the sappers have to replaced. Because the weap14 stack is larger they can take more beam fire before ships are destroyed - if we lose a battle we will lose all, if we win a battle then, in most cases, we lose relatively few ships. The difference between a marginal loss & marginal win is substantial in ship loss terms (see TipOver sheet in CostPerEnemy S/S in which, for a given ship design, "Our Lost" in green shows a marginal win & in orange shows a marginal loss (-n = n enemy ships survive). Results are very accurate. It takes only a small increase in our fleet size to achieve a decisive victory.

(partial and quick reply since I'm at my mums dial up, and can't open the files you sent)
... so you are actually saying:

"12 MkIVs is a poor choice because such a ship has a *LOWER* attractiveness than a Phased Sapper design using 20 weapons"

(which would more sense since you "solve" the problem by adding bor/resources to the 12*weap14 BB) ...
(and that's what I meant with my comment "This is opposite of what you are saying? " and we are in fact agreeing already )

mch

Report message to a moderator

Micha wrote on Wed, 13 June 2007 11:40

... so you are actually saying: "12 MkIVs is a poor choice because such a ship has a *LOWER* attractiveness than a Phased Sapper design using 20 weapons" (which would more sense since you "solve" the problem by adding bor/resources to the 12*weap14 BB) ... (and that's what I meant with my comment "This is opposite of what you are saying? " and we are in fact agreeing already ) mch

Ahh, sorry - that is correct, I did indeed mean that. A reread of my own original post shows that I said that the 12xMkIV design had a higher attractiveness when I meant to say lower! So we want the sapper fleet to be less attractive than MkIV main fleet & that means 13+ MkIVs are netter (but lets go for 14xMkIVs for a better margin to cover tech changes in the future).

Beg pardon

Report message to a moderator