Home World Forum
Stars! AutoHost web forums

Jump to Stars! AutoHost


 
 
Home » Primary Racial Traits » IS » SuperFreighter design?
SuperFreighter design? Sun, 12 August 2007 14:15 Go to next message
gwellman is currently offline gwellman

 
Petty Officer 1st Class

Messages: 66
Registered: January 2007
Location: Seattle, WA

Assuming IFE, RS and no NRSE, and con cheaper than prop:
What sort of SuperFreighter designs are useful?

There may be a long period before Warp10 is available, so would you use the Mizer or the Prop9 ram until the Prop16 ram becomes available?

I can't imagine using armor in the shield/armor slot, but any shield better than Bear will be a waste compared to the base armor. (Yeah, Langston Shell seems the obvious best choice if one has it.)

The electrical and elec/scan/mech? Jamming seems like a good idea to reduce the attractiveness to and damage from torps and missles. Cloaking seems useless as the empty ship isn't heavy enough for the cloak to help much when loaded. Any fuel pods added would be a drop in the bucket. Cargo pods would be stupid - except I suppose that if one has the Multi Cargo Pod the added armor might be helpful (a way to add non-halved armor, like the Langston Shell would). Finally, what about man jets for quick battle withdrawal? Without them, a fully loaded superfreighter might not have any battle speed at all. (I think that answers the question about Mizer vs P9 ram.)

Having said all the above, I'm thinking depending on tech levels, the following are reasonable:
5 Wolve, 5 jammer10s
5 Bears, 5 jammer20s
5 Bears, 2 jammer30s, 3 Overthrusters

Ultimate design (subject to availability)
5 Langston Shell, 2 jammer50s, 3 Overthrusters

Report message to a moderator

Re: SuperFreighter design? Sun, 12 August 2007 15:11 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Skaffen is currently offline Skaffen

 
Senior Chief Petty Officer

Messages: 90
Registered: December 2006
Location: Germany
Interesting question. Iīd suggest:

-use the prop 9 scoop

-5 crobies (added armor can make it mine-proof, the added weight is irrelevant compared to load carried and itīs highly improbable that you have better than bear available at that time. Even with RS Iīd say croby is the better bet than bear).

-2 jammers (10 or 20 depending on availability).

-1 colonizing module (Yes, yes, waste of slots...)

Iīve found that the presence of colonizers everywhere give a strategic advantage and freedom and from my babylon experience I can tell you that IS are hard pressed for ship slots (speed trap layers, leftover fuel exports, smaller freighters for keeping reds overpopped etc...). A dedicated colonizer hurts.

For defense if someone really wants to shoot down your orgy or invasion pop I donīt think 5 instead of 2 jammers will make the big difference. Letīs look at the numbers: Assuming a high-init BB with all comps to get the killing shot in early:

7 BC with jihads/dooms against 2 jammers 10: 68.02% accuracy
7 BC / 5 jammers 10: 50.46%
7 BC / 2 jammers 20: 54.42%
7 BC / 5 jammers 20: 29.44%

7 SBC / 2 jammers 10: 78,21%
7 SBC / 5 jammers 10: 60,65%
7 SBC / 2 jammers 20: 64,61%
7 SBC / 5 jammers 20: 39,63%

Ouch... A stack of 4 BBs with juggs will get instant kills even against the 5 jammer version. Against a croby design, without crobies much earlier of course. I donīt think that 25% difference in damage is worth the extra jammers against a colonizing module.

And even with 3 OTs the fully loaded freighter will have minimal movement (check it with Stars! calculator)

So OTs are ineffective, 5 jammers not that useful, scanners a total waste, you might as well slap the colonizer on and get the added freedom and the ship slot saved.

Special case: if playing against PP or a race that has been using packets in the past cloaks might make sense, that way even 2 normal stealth cloaks at 55% cloaking do a good job of hiding an empty freighter in orbit parked for lifting pop. Of course then the colonizing module is a must.


So how do you get a very fast defensive ship for invasions? A galleon with 5 OTs, 4 crobies, 2 jammers and a gattling can have battlespeed 2.5 even fully loaded and since itīs armed it canīt be targeted as a freighter. Just donīt forget to give it withdraw orders... Wink Itīs expensive and takes an extra slot but has a very high survivability. Not what youīd want for your major orgies of course...

Another side note: if you have have very high levels of con early (say through an ally who has it cheap while you do W... Wink ) it might even make sense to build super freighters very early in the game before decent prop is available. You can actually do a design with the FM that stays below 200kt that can be built at docks! It canīt do more than 2 jumps at warp 9 but the FM is cheap enough to build SFX or use partly loaded super freighters.

Report message to a moderator

Re: SuperFreighter design? Sun, 12 August 2007 21:38 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Dogthinkers is currently offline Dogthinkers

 
Commander

Messages: 1316
Registered: August 2003
Location: Hiding from Meklar
For the superfrieghters pre-warp10.... I'd go for the cheapest design I can, to free up resources and minerals for warships. I'd maybe add just enough sheilds to match the armour, no more. I'd probably use the FM for cheapness, but the warp9 ramscoop IS tempting, and it's not that big a cost. Superfreighters have a lot of fuel though, and often don't spent much time moving (or are happy to do it at slower speeds.) If I'm near a PP, I'll probably put coloniser on. If not, I'll make do with seperate colonisers.

As mentioned, a fast Galleon design is interesting for assaults/front line duty.

Once I have warp 10, then I'll build a more expensive design, for use on the front line. By this time resources shouldn't be so big an issue.

A few jammers isn't a bad idea (on more expensive designs.) Use just enough to make sure your cheapest possible freighter chaff design becomes more attractive to missiles.


[Updated on: Sun, 12 August 2007 21:39]

Report message to a moderator

Re: SuperFreighter design? Mon, 13 August 2007 02:23 Go to previous messageGo to next message
gwellman is currently offline gwellman

 
Petty Officer 1st Class

Messages: 66
Registered: January 2007
Location: Seattle, WA

Thanks - that's the kind of analysis I needed. Also I learned that I didn't understand the math of how man jets/overthrusters work when cargo is involved.

Report message to a moderator

Re: SuperFreighter design? Tue, 14 August 2007 00:57 Go to previous messageGo to next message
LEit is currently offline LEit

 
Lt. Commander

Messages: 879
Registered: April 2003
Location: CT
I like to cloak super freighters.
Although the cloaking isn't great, and when loaded is pretty poor, a lot of your freighters are going to be in orbit most of the time, and there, a little cloaking can make a big difference.

Also, there isn't much else worth putting in the elec slot anyway, jammers don't help enough if you get shot at by a stack of BBs.

I'd use the p9 ram, the fuel usage for a fully loaded freighter with FMs will get expensive fast. P12 ram would be better if you can get that soon, you'll want p12 for the overthruster anyway.

And, as others have said, get enough shields/croby to take a mine hit while in a fleet.



- LEit

Report message to a moderator

Re: SuperFreighter design? Thu, 27 September 2007 01:01 Go to previous message
Soobie

 
Officer Cadet 3rd Year

Messages: 270
Registered: May 2007
Location: Australia
Very recently had an experience in a 'friendly' where I was a bit short on space stations but had a couple of spare ship slots just as I hit superfreighter tech and needed/wanted the SF freighter capacity. Went with something like:

Super Freighter + Fuel Mizer + 2xBear Shield + 1xJammer10 + 2xstealth cloak

(... that may have been only 1 stealth cloak?? - I don't have stars on this PC to check - will update the entry tonight if I'm wrong).

Not the greatest design in the world, but it was cheap and came in at 200kT so I wasn't using up my space station build capacity and it seemed to be enough cloaking to balls up his penscanner readings for a while. The jammer and shields were mainly a 'gut call' on attractiveness - may have been a mistake, but it made me happy. Could have got more on it with QJ5 and would have liked better El tech at the time, but meh.

Maybe there is something wrong with the way I play because I don't instantly scrap all my LFs and I tend to put the colonisation module on my LF design. I find I have a lot of those LFs floating around by the time I get to SF, so they act as my coloniser rather than the SF.

Cheers, S.

Report message to a moderator

Previous Topic: How to survive with 16% growth
Next Topic: minigun frigate chaff
Goto Forum:
  


Current Time: Fri Mar 29 10:38:36 EDT 2024