Naval Battle League 2016-2018

[HeroBrian_333]

17 minutes ago, ShadowGoat said:

Looks cool, but I-beams won’t do jack s*** against most seriously armored targets. If my craft can survive being dropped from orbit I think it can survive a few I beams. Also ramming is disallowed.

One, watch your language.

Two, I-beams phase through armor and are currently the best weapon.

[SG Aero]

Not really. Also I said ssss and censored myself. What did you think I said? I beams actually don’t really do that much. They have honestly never phased once for me.

[HeroBrian_333]

54 minutes ago, ShadowGoat said:

Not really. Also I said ssss and censored myself. What did you think I said? I beams actually don’t really do that much. They have honestly never phased once for me.

What do you use then?

[SG Aero]

I use dual thump powered triple warhead missiles. Guided missiles are far superior, as instead of firing a blind swarm of missiles and hoping for critical damage, one good shot with a guided heavy weapon can completely disable a ship.

[panzer1b]

5 hours ago, HeroBrian_333 said:

I-beams phase through armor and are currently the best weapon.

Small ibeams are bad, unless you are shooting at fighters, i never use small ibeams as they wont do any damage phased or not.  Long ibeams (what @ShadowGoat said isnt entirely accurate), do work well indeed, but only against certain styles of armor, and you have to have a way to manually aim them on target (i usually use a forward facing bridge that i can aim with).  That and you need to specifically focus the fire on a vulnurable section, namely engines or weapons, shooting center of mass against any well made ship is futile.

 

That said, Shadow does have a point, ibeams arent the best weapon on here, they are just insanely effective (and very efficient on weight, a single ibeam is ~.5t, and if it gets a killshot thats a ship dead for free) against certain targets.  Also, ibeams are the only weapon that makes sense to use on smaller vessels like fighters, they can be crammed in a rather small area, and they dont require a huge weight investment so the whole ship with fuel, engines, and even a kerbal pod can be under 10t and still be sorta capable of killing a capital ship.  That said, my recomendation is to have multiple different weapons on all of your larger craft, something all my competitive warships have.  Most of them are armed with 6+ SRMs (long ibeam+2-4 sepatron), 2 RT-5 torps, and 2 1.2m torps of some variety (current best is G7a, but i have better weapons in development).  Ive found that combo to work the best since every target is gonna have some weapon it fails against, so yeah, pack a couple of each style and something will eventually kill the target.

Edited March 22, 2018 by panzer1b

[SG Aero]

Guys! I developed an ultra light, almost indestructible low part armor! Oh and take two just announced that they are going make all the DLC free! April fools.

[panzer1b]

On 4/1/2018 at 7:04 AM, ShadowGoat said:

Guys! I developed an ultra light, almost indestructible low part armor! Oh and take two just announced that they are going make all the DLC free! April fools.

A bit off topic, but ive actually decided to pass on the DLC entirely.  I tried it on a friend's machine and all i can say is bugs bugs bugs, not to mention that the only thing even remotely useful for my playstyle are the triangular panels, but given as they are way too small to make anything large with, no point at all.  Mission builder is pointless when i have the imagination to make up my own missions/scenarios/goals/limitations all in sandbox mode.  The new launchpads cant be easily (as in a cfg edit or so) added to other worlds in sandbox mode (all we get is womera and thats it, no duna launchpad, no laythe launchpad, at least outside of mission builder that is) making them useless (why would i care about a launchpad on kerbin when 90% of my gameplay in KSP is away from kerbin these days). 

That and 90% of the new parts are already doable in stock, service bays and engine plates can be done via fairings just take a teeny bit more work to get there, and with regards to engine plates, ive yet to come across a reason to cluster engines, if its a launch vehicle i use the largest 3.75m engine 99% of the time, anything heavy in space is nukes or aerospikes or 909s (ive yet to create a ship so heavy that 6 nukes isnt adequate for if i plan my burns correctly and everything else has terrible ISP for interplanetary work and is used for interdictors or landing capable dropships or sometimes starfighters).  The 1.8m parts are interesting, but again, not really necessary since they are way too small for launchers, and way too big for capital ship internals (i only use 1.2m tanks since they can be compactly stored under armor and dont require ships the size of minmus).  5m would be interesting, had i actually had issues launching stuff with 3.75m hardware.  I have a rocket that is 7 3.75m dual tank stacks with 1 quad engine below, and that will launch 90% of anything ive ever created (with the notable exception of stuff too big to fit in a fairing atop it which requires custom built side boosters) to jool.  Finally, im not really big on "replicating" real life tech, and its not like the pack contains non circular cross sectional parts (one thing id actually pay for, good quality capital ship hull parts that dont force me to custom make em from panels/wings or whatnot).

Maybee if the devs had released it without so many bugs id have bought it purely to support devs, but as it stands, im starting to believe that modders are doing a better job at making stuff for KSP, so why would i support further development of the base game when its clear its bugged and now ran by a company that cares more about deadlines and money then actually providing a quality product.  Nothing against the devs themselves, but pushing content out before it was truly ready just to get it out before an investor meeting really is a bad move that makes me doubt the company even cares about anything but money.  Until the day that whoever is behind the games development proves to me they know what they are doing and actually care about quality, im not giving them a penny.

 

 

Anyways, as to armor development, ive made 2 new ships which are fairly good, SK-V cruiser is almost complete (not a huge fan of the part count necessary to make it look good, but its very hard to do anything serious to), and i have a newly upgraded SK-II corvette which is not super armored, but well, more then enough for what its meant to do, escort larger vessels and engage the fighters or other soft targets harassing the main ships flanks.  All things said, i havent really made too much progress in that regard, both of them are heavily based on the SK-IV frigate hull which has proven to be very very good when considering the part counts and weight involved.

Edited April 6, 2018 by panzer1b

[SG Aero]

Yeah I completely agree. The DLC is garbage. Literally none of the parts are useful.

[Chaotic Protocol]

So is this dead?

[HeroBrian_333]

If you want to do a battle, I can slap together a fleet. Do you have the DLC?

[Chaotic Protocol]

Well I have a discord for design discussions and battles. Take a stop by y'all!

https://discord.gg/2wsEjdc

[Chaotic Protocol]

Fun fact. Anybody else having issues with combat and the new physics engine?

[Joseph Kerman]

I'll have a hand with shipbuilding again, but the lack of flair and life in this thread led me to abandon it. Anyone willing to fight?

[SG Aero]

Maybe. I lost my main battleship file somehow though.

[panzer1b]

I made 2 new ships that im actually happy with which brings my total of half decent vessels to 3.  I dont really have enough time in my life to do a super serious competitive battle unless you are willing to possibly wait a few days every turn then id be able to do one.

 

As for my half decent ships that i dont dislike because of some fatal flaws or so:

First is my rather old but constantly overhauled SK-IV Nebula class frigate which is the defenition of efficiency.  It has very good armor and firepower for its weight/part count (~60t, 240 parts) and comes with above average dV of ~2800.  Really the only downside of said ship is the fact that it doesnt have a focused role like most of my other craft, and is more of a versatility above specialization (which lets it engage anything but keeps it from dominating any particular fight).

After that is the SK-V Galaxy class cruiser which is the first ever cruiser that ive made which im happy with, and it has a good combo of survivability and firepower with a crazy 3150 dV at ~90t.  Its also got a really nice fully decked out interior command deck (all ships i make that are cruiser or larger come with interiors as standard).  The only real issue is the somewhat high part count of ~320, but considering what it has onboard (interior, tons of weapons, struts everywhere as i dont touch autostrut), its not THAT terrible in this regard.

Its only real issue is the fact that it is not very efficient unlike the workhorse SK-IV.  It has the exact same weapons (4 more RT-5s, 1 less G5a torp, less and weaker aux weapons), its armor is a tad better, but it also weighs 1.5 times as much so those gains dont really help that much.  Finally, the bridge is a massive weakspot which can cripple the ship if someone is sadistic enough to wanna target it and murder the poor exposed crew.  It looks stellar, works nice as i can aim the guns from the 2 cockpits, but serves no real combat purpose otherwise (not to mention being a actual armor weakness) and just eats part count.  Maybee ill make a combat version of this by replacing the upper deck with another weapons barrel giving it the equivalent firepower of 2 SK-IVs in ammo capacity, but then itd look meh.

Finally my fleet's filler ship, the SK-III Nova class micro-corvette which is the only AKS ship im actually happy with that is based around conventional armor layout (its so small that there is no point of doing anything else).  Being conventional (and not MK-2 based like all the other ships i have) makes it very weak to anything larger then a small ibeam, but considering it has a SINGLE engine which is pretty much guaranteed to go if anything hits it near the back, why bother spending mass and part count to armor the bugger, instead deploy 5 of them for every cruiser and call it a day.  Pretty much based it around the oversized guns strapped to a single engine principle, it has the best firepower per tonnage and part count of the 3, but has no survivability to speak of and doesnt have the ammo capacity to guarantee a kill in of itself not to mention lacks any form of guided weaponry which makes it rely on getting up to the target.  At least it also has plenty of fuel at 2800dV so i can move it around as needed.  Prolly will arm it with at least 1 guided weapon in addition to its stack of RT-5s.

Also the armor makes me wanna rename it the "kamikaze cannon fodder", given that thats what its used for right now in a fleet wide engagement since its armor is really really non-existent.

 

 

 

So yeah, i might be able to fight someone, after i finish my assault carrier (always wanted to make a good carrier, but nothing ive yet to try has really worked with that regard, too many parts, bad armor, no firepower, ect).

[panzer1b]

On 8/30/2018 at 5:50 AM, ShadowGoat said:

Maybe. I lost my main battleship file somehow though.

If its the void, then i believe i have a file of it somewhere (i tend to collect people's ships to use as test platforms for various weapons when designing my own ships and weapons).  Ill upload it if thats the ship u want...

[Joseph Kerman]

Just a little fickle... why are all my ships weak...

[panzer1b]

8 hours ago, Joseph Kerman said:

Just a little fickle... why are all my ships weak...

Well there are a few ways to make good ships, but id start with your armor layout.  The first thing to do is understand what makes armor work in KSP.

Now there are many ways to make ships, but the general consensus is that every vessel's core structure (skeleton that its built around) has to be made entirely of 80m/s impact tolerance parts, almost always your choice of girders or ibeams since those are the only stock elements that have the required impact tolerance and are long enough to make a ship out of easily.  Then there are 2 philosophies that ive found to work, "single core", and "lengthwise spine". 

These are both rather simple to understand, the former being a single critical component that everything your ship has branches off of (most of my ships are made using this style), so its very hard to cut the ship in half, and the critical section can be well protected inside thge ship and hard to hit in the 1st place.  The downside of this approach is that when that part goes the entire ship is kaput, meaning you have little redundancy and if that part does indeed go you will be turned into a cloud of debris.  I prefer this style because the odds of being split in half are very low, and 75% of the time a ship that is split in half is for all intents and purposes out of the battle even if its technically "alive".

The latter style relies upon a long spine that runs down the entire ship from front to back.  Ship components are then attached to that spine and solong as the spine remains intact, this ship can take a rather extensive beating and keep on going.  The trick is to not loose the spine, which is obviously easier said then done.  Another benefit of this style is that is provides much more useable surface area to attach weapons to it, and is much easier to make viable without quite as much experience as its more or less super simple, make a length of 3+ girders, then build out radially from those girders and place weapons and engines and fuelon the branches or directly onto the spine depending on how valuable the component is (usually command pods and probe cores get directly attached, fuel and such does not).

Anyways, my chibi star destroyer is an example of the first style of construction, and as you can see with most of the superficial crap removed, everything in the ship branches off of that one component and is attached to the branches.  As long as that part doesnt get hit and explode, the ship will at worst case loose a few engines or weapons to every direct hit, but will remain combat capable to some extent (unless you manage to destroy all 7 engines or knock off like 10 different weapon hardpoints).  Technically its a bit of a hybrid though, since it has a root part but it also has multiple spines running lengthwise so i can have something to attach the front to, but since it has 1 component that will result in loss of the entire ship, id put it into style 1.

This ship is an example of style 2, it has 3 girders one behind the other, off of which everything branches off and is attached to.

 

As for armor, the simplest solution is to use girders as branches and then attach plates to them to cover the outside (the 2nd ship is a very good example of this even if its got a few weaknesses of its own).  anything with 80m/s impact tolerance will do for armor, but some people find it better to use fuel tanks as sacrificial armor (which works pretty well from my experience but isnt quite my style so i stay away from that).  Then make sure to tie everything together using struts, and AVOID autostrut like the plague unless the ship is so high on parts you literally have to in order to not crash when the ship loads.  Autostruts are super buggy, and ive had very mixed results with some use being helpful but other use breaking a otherwise solid ship and making it the equivalent of unarmored freighter in survivability.  Finally, wings are good as low-grade armor of cosmetic filler.  Dont underestimate wings as they can and will deflect high velocity rounds, but they offer little if any stopping power so most rounds might change direction a bit when they hit wing, but wont explode completely or stop moving and are likely to hit something behind the wing.

Another ship using type-2 construction with MK-2 composite armor (lighter and simpler then panels, but alot harder to get right).

Now there are more advanced armor techniques that you can try, for example using MK-2/3 cargo bays which have some really funky hitboxes and tend to desintegrate some types of warheads.  Most of my modern ships (like the above nebula class) use this armor as its alot lighter for the same protection, but if its not done perfectly it really sucks (and by perfectly i mean everything is where it needs to be, put 1 strut in the wrong spot and trhe ship goes from insanely hard to kill to 1 shottable by ibeams).  that said, for starters i recommend sticking to the tried and true core of girders/ibeams with structural plates on the outside, but feel free to experiment with other styles to see what works for you, aslong as the core of teh ship is a ibeam or girder or some other 80m/s impact part, it should stand up to some weapons fire.  Another tip is to have redundancy regardless of the design, always have at least 2 command modules (cockpits, seats, droid cores, ect), and always have 2-3 engines so that someone cant just gently tap the ship's arss and knock it out of the game.

 

As for weapons, its remarkably simple but yet takes alot of testing to see what shapes work best.  For unguided weapons, the best choices are RT-5+structural part on the tip (either small structural plates, girders or ibeams), or ibeam/girder with 2-8 sepatrons pushing it depending on how far you are ok engaging at (2 will work if you are ok firing from 300-400m or so, 4 or 8 for shorter ranges).  For guided weapons, generally you want some combination of ibeams girders and panels.  Different people have results with different parts, but ive found the best choice for simpler weapons are AP solid shot warheads where the structureal parts are all attached to themselves.  The other choice is some sort of shrapnel rounds where the girders or ibeams attach to a fuel tank or other soft part, it breaks, and they scatter throughout teh ship.  Not as good with new physics as it was back in the really old days, but ist still a valid concept when targeting weaker internals after a hole has been punched through the armor itself.

There is alot of variety, and you will need to find what impact velocity works the best for you (i like 200-300m/s relative to target but it heavily depends on the target im shooting, thick targets need more, thin need less).  Propulsion isnt really very critical, solong as it can accelerate the round from whatever range you shoot at up to the desired velocity.  vernors are nice to help aim it precisely, but are weight that isnt essential if you can aim without them.

 

Anyways, GL with your shipbuilding, and if you want a example craft or 2 to play with ill upload something that doesnt actually suck.  Dont try and replicate my chibi star destroyer, its terrible and is purely used as a carrier/flagshipy thing that looks super cool but has lousy combat ability, the other ship isnt bad, but gets split every time it gets hit by my newer G5a torp from directly below it when hitting near the back.

[SG Aero]

It is indeed the void. I need to do an overhaul so when I get the file I’ll do that.

[Hummingbird Aerospace]

Please may I join this wonderful community?

 

btw @panzer1b your ships are cool as miracle berry tablets. I love your ship interiors. 

 

Edited September 22, 2018 by Hummingbird Aerospace

[AlexanderTeaH]

1 minute ago, Hummingbird Aerospace said:

Please may I join this wonderful community?

 

btw @panzer1b your ships are as miracle berry tablets. I love your ship interiors. 

 

Welcome!

[Hummingbird Aerospace]

Wow! That was fast! Thanks!

 

I have a few warships, my first and best one was destroyed in ignorance by deleting the save file that I built it on.

[AlexanderTeaH]

1 minute ago, Hummingbird Aerospace said:

Wow! That was fast! Thanks!

 

I have a few warships, my first and best one was destroyed in ignorance by deleting the save file that I built it on.

Awesome, any pics?

[Hummingbird Aerospace]

2 minutes ago, AlexanderTeaH said:

Awesome, any pics?

Wish i could show you, but im not at my computer right now. I wish you could just upload raw pictures instead of doing the whole imgur thing, and I gotta think up names. Later today im gonna make a craft repository in my link (because I have one but I cant be bothered to put it in my signiature and the only thing in it is a super-stooky stock orion replica).  Currently, I have a carrier and a destroyer, and i’m working on a fully-fledged dreadnought, which will be the flagship of my fleet.

[SG Aero]

I can fight you

Edit: if @panzer1b has my ship file.

Edited September 22, 2018 by ShadowGoat