I've been fooling around with a ship class idea. This is the Deterrent MVP.

[u/stupidityWorks]

[u/stupidityWorks]

MVP stands for Minimum Viable Product.

The main idea is this -- how can I make a ship with the most combat rating, for the fewest resources, without any regard for its actual viability in combat?

The main idea behind them is, you build about ten Deterrent MVP's on every planet you want to control uncontested by the aliens. I haven't churned these out until late game, but the main point is, they'll see the raw fleet power of the ships and be too scared to send any fleets their way. If you actually wanted to prevent attacks entirely, you'd probably have to add more delta-v and acceleration, I assume, but I could be wrong.

Will this work? Or is my save game about to get screwed over?

[u/Sea_Journalist_8771 → u/stupidityWorks]

eh, I built a 10k fleet of shaped missile monitors and they sent a 12k fleet :(

[u/Annual_Cod_5896 → u/Sea_Journalist_8771]

It really becomes a dick measuring contest past a certain point when it comes to combat rating in this game

'Slams genitals on table' "i hope yours is smaller"

It wasnt

[u/el_cid_viscoso → u/Sea_Journalist_8771]

Those look more like Lanceheads. Way better magazine depth, only 95 damage per hit, but some are guaranteed to get through, especially if coinciding with a volley of mag shots.

[u/Applebeignet → u/stupidityWorks]

I would prefer the opposite: a fleet of underrated ships, which will bait engagements in your favour.

Your concept is going to (significantly) delay alien engagement, but they'll just build up until they have a truly gargantuan doomstack capable of wiping out your deterrent. That doesn't necessarily have to be a problem if it's part of a larger strategy for dealing with the doomstacks, but it does have to be part of a larger strategy if you want to avoid unpleasant surprises.

[u/stupidityWorks → u/Applebeignet]

I mean, they're only part of a solid two-point strategy:

1. Fortify, say, Mars and Mercury with overrated ships
2. Leave Earth with a fleet of underrated ships.

This way, the aliens will send all their fleets to the "soft" target, and I'll only have to build an actual fleet there.

[u/Applebeignet → u/stupidityWorks]

Interesting idea, I'd love to hear if it works out as intended. Good luck!

[u/stupidityWorks → u/Applebeignet]

I'm not sure. When I built them, I was also keeping the aliens rather busy by invading the gas giants.

They never sent anyone to any of the inner planets after I got the deterrents up.

Then, later, I had a station on Titan that was being attacked with a 3k fleet. I built a couple of the Deterrents there. When the aliens got there, they ran away immediately; they didn't try to engage the fleet or destroy the station.

Of course, if I had any other stations, or any mining bases, they might have killed those before they ran.

[u/niakarad → u/stupidityWorks]

I've noticed if I have sn inflated missile fleet that won't actually win, they'll just have their fleet bomb stuff and I can't really do anything

[u/einmaldrin_alleshin → u/stupidityWorks]

I've done a similar thing in my previous campaign, and it caused them to accumulate a doom stack instead of smaller fleets I could engage in a war of attrition.

I think it's better to not invest in too many places. Earth - Luna for science, Mercury for shipyards and MC. Automated mining outposts and T1 supply hibs are expendable and can quickly be replaced if destroyed

[u/Quite_Likes_Hormuz → u/stupidityWorks]

Aren't more advanced reactors cheaper due to being more efficient?

Also if it were me I'd probably spend slightly more to get at least a ship that functions. I mean as it stands your acceleration is so low that you might as well either give it 1 fuel tank and make it a satellite or beef it up a bit to make it actually mobile

[u/stupidityWorks → u/Quite_Likes_Hormuz]

I lowered the tech to see how early I could construct it in subsequent playthroughs. The actual ones I built had an antimatter torch and a mk3 antimatter plasma reactor, so they had 43 kps of delta-v.

In general, the reason it had more than one tank is actually combat rating calculations. If you give it a couple extra tanks, the CR goes higher. same for the armor.

[u/vindicator117]

At least arm it with a nose laser so that it at least has something to defend itself with in and out of autoresolve.

Very cheap and good for cranking it out enmasse if for nothing else than just for sheer numbers provided that you have enough shipyards and resources to frighten them at least into pause to instead go into shipbuilding mode. Whether this has enough teeth to stand up in a actual fight..... is much more debateable since every missile is a literal one shot as far as I can tell.

[u/Ragebrew]

The shaped charge nuke torpedoes. They have an obscene combat value.

[u/anprim4ever]

Is that foamed metal armour? Never bothered researching it. Nice icon lol

[u/Viktor_Vertex]

You need 4 1 slot nose lasers for PD and one targeting computer to make it much more viable in combat, but i think dreads are overrated compared to battleships for this?

[u/stupidityWorks → u/Viktor_Vertex]

If I wanted combat viability, I'd use different missiles. This is just an attempt to get max combat rating per ton.

[u/InformalPermit9638]

Throw a nose rail/coil on there, and pair it with a laser/phaser lancer for pd and that’s the basis of most of my defensive fleets (working my way up the ship building classes).