The KSP Naval Academy

[camulus777]

The KSP Naval Academy

Welcome Cadets

I have decided to post a new thread about KSP space tactics related to the Macey Dean youtube series and the rules of engagement he posted during his famed episode The Battle for Laythe.

Fleet Engagements: Battles are conducted by exchanging the KSP save files immediately after a player's 'turn' ends allowing his opponent to then retaliate in sequence.

1. Each fleet admiral takes it in turns to move one ship and engage one target, before handing the save file back. All all available ordinance may be fired at a single target, but a second target will have to wait for the next turn.

2. Ships move in order of tonnage (fighters first, destroyers and frigates next, and capitol ships last). Once the three game 'phases' are completed the process is then repeated until all ships are destroyed, or one side withdraws.

These rules are based on the exact wording posted in the episode and if you did not see the episode i would recommend watching it.

I've watched the video many times studying the tactical advantages of each ship class and type. I've even designed my ships specifically to avoid some of the problems encountered by both sides. One of these problems I've discovered is the reliability of the standard torpedo. They are a hit and miss when it comes to penetration especially when the target is armored. I have found that grouping these torps in sets of at least three makes then far more reliable and close together. They act like a weapon several times more massive.

A tactic i would have also taken that may have even prevented the destruction of the Spirit of Kerbin would have been to keep her at a much higher orbit or even near another moon and launch fighters from there. Carriers are not front line fighting platforms they are designed to stay back and support their fighters from a distance. As a rule of thumb if its not armed don't put it in combat. Keep in mind I'm not rebuking Macey by any means. If his opponent was not suicidal he would have been on top the entire time and considering he was seriously out gunned that is very impressive.

I will be using actual examples of tactics in naval history listing the uses of these scenarios and how to prevent disaster in your fleet. Also any commentary is welcome even critique and healthy respectful debate.

Lastly though I have mentioned Macey's show and his battles I am not directly affiliated with his page, and i do not represent his views or beliefs on any subject.

I would however like to discuss some amendments to the combat rules seeing as they will now include the possibility of several different admirals at the same time. I enjoy coming up with gaming mechanics and hold to the standards of the simplest solution tends to be the correct one in most cases. Macey agn this is not an attack on your process but there are a few sections that should be debated a bit including the use of smart missiles, weather initiative should be counted by mass or speed, and should there be special ramming rules to prevent the meaningless loss of Kerbal life? These are just a few of the questions i have encountered in the forums.

Edited October 30, 2013 by camulus777

[zekes]

I think ramming should be banned except in Unmanned ships.

[Valley]

I am not sure I like ramming at all - what happens if a carrier has a load of unmanned drone fighters? They fire their torpedo or missile or what not and than slam into a ship - they could do more damage than the weapons they carry. Heck - a fleet could be all unmanned ships. There has to be rules about tonnage vs. number of crew or something.

Also if you have noticed the SpiritWolf/Hanland thread tonnage seems to be all over the place (as does the naming of ships - what I think of as a frigate some people think of as a over-sized fighter). There might be more than one phase!

But I like the idea of developing tactics... for example, my testing with my own military craft show that the smallest missile should be able to hit a target from more than 300 meters away, easily, if properly designed and aimed. At that distance the warhead picks up so much speed that a single layer of armor, if too close to the hull, is pretty much useless. Many a pilot died to give me this information. In other words, I think the SpiritWolf and Hanland ships are going to be firing from farther away in future episodes. Otherwise they leave themselves open to a counter attack by the very ship they fired at. Of course, some of the bigger missiles will have the range of a 1 km or more. So....

Edited August 6, 2013 by Valley

[rowns]

How do you even built those ships? just want to know im interrested. but im still a noobie with ksp.

[Valley]

How do you even built those ships? just want to know im interrested. but im still a noobie with ksp.

Well, there are two ways to learn. One is to watch the video on You Tube that explains how to make the weapons - there are a few but the best is:

Also I would suggest downloading a ship, launching it, and trying it out. Pick a target get, within 500 meters and blast away!

I have fired on a target from 1.5 k away and hit but...here seems to be no damage. Hmmm....

[camulus777]

You have to be careful when you fire at a distance cause the physics can just fart and the projectile goes through the target doing no damage. As far as building large ships its a matter of knowing what they are going to be used for. I may even go as far as to assign tonnage for ship classes and see if Macey likes the idea. That way he can say ok your corp can have this much tonnage worth of ships so this many light fighters, that many corvettes, this many cruisers, etc... because on my save i have 26 capitol ships in orbit with 50 fighter craft and more support craft than i know what to do with. I will not want to deal with much crap and i doubt Macey would too. So I'm gona make a list starting with fighters and bombers.

Light fighters < 8.1t

Medium fighters 8.1 - 13t

Heavy fighters 13.1 - 27t

bombers 27.1 - 35t

Attacker 35.1 - 40t

Corvette 40.1 - 50t

Frigate 50.1 - 65t

Destroyer 65.1 - 80t

Cruiser 80.1 - 100t

Battle Cruiser 100.1t - 150t

Battleship 150.1 - 200t

Dreadnaught 200.1 <

Carriers

Light < 50.1t

Medium 50.1 - 100t

Heavy 100.1 - 150t

Super Heavy 150.1 <

Hows that look. That's just a rough estimation.

I revised this approach so that people can classify the ship as whatever they want.

Ultra Light= 0-30

Light= 30-75

Medium= 75-150

Capitol Ship= 150-250

Super Heavy Capitol Ship= 250+

Edited October 30, 2013 by camulus777
A revission of the size classes

[Valley]

May I make a few suggestions?

A save for each theater of operations? A save file for battles around Duna. A save file for Kerbin. And so on...

Also from a fleet point of view. Do we need carriers? During the World Wars, as the danger of aircraft hit many navies over the head with a hammer they were forced, sometimes against their will, to build carriers. BUT they also tried to extend the life of their older ships by trying to place small platforms on them to launch or land small fighters. Could capital ships also have a fighter or two attached to them for use against other small strike craft? The carrier the Spirit of Kerbin only carried a few fighters. That number could easily be carried by a few capital ships and launched before combat.

[Spartwo]

I am a terrible tactician 'Just go for the biggest thing in the area' he said 'It won't be plate armored' he said.

Two tips I can give

1:Spin stabilization greatly increases the accuracy of projectiles(hitting a delta wing from 1100m with a dumb missile)

2:both angle and strength add to the capibility of armor.

Edited August 7, 2013 by Spartwo

[stallion x1]

I think this thread is a great idea due to things like my ship which ime developing to be able to shoot from 50km+ and then SLOWING down the projectile before it hits so the physics doesn't decide to mess with it unfortunatly with the current rules of naval combat we have (eg the navy batttle thread (which is AWESOME:)))i would have to put it within range of other ships and ruin its advantage but otherwise it could just completly decimate an entire fleet very quickly

[Valley]

Funny how we have to try to slow down the missiles and such to get them to hit. Makes me feel like I am watching DUNE. The slow blade penetrates the shield and all. I've hit a target from as far as 1.5 k with a dumb missile (and it exploded) but there was no damage to the ship's armor. I think that has to do more with the design of the ship but I have more tests planned.

[zekes]

lol just built this as a "fighter", it's 86 tons...

[stallion x1]

Funny how we have to try to slow down the missiles and such to get them to hit. Makes me feel like I am watching DUNE. The slow blade penetrates the shield and all. I've hit a target from as far as 1.5 k with a dumb missile (and it exploded) but there was no damage to the ship's armor. I think that has to do more with the design of the ship but I have more tests planned.

Yeah its kinda weird when ive been doing my tests it almost looks the missile tries to sneak up on the ship by going slowly its kinda funny but REALLY annoying

[stallion x1]

lol just built this as a "fighter", it's 86 tons...

That is not a fighter I mean that thing looks like its a meduim sized frigate but then i have to remeber the your capitol ships make this thing look like an ant for example the London which is a Wales class and it weighs in at ~900 tons so to you this is a figter becuase to have someting smaller would look really odd if you parked it next to one of your capitol ships

[Valley]

I don't know...small fighters would make his capital ships look even bigger. Now, if he made small fighters, small by our standards, I am sure he could fill a carrier with them.

[SuperWeegee4000]

I always want to get into Macey's videos, but for some reason his voice is just hard to listen to....

[Gauss H2K]

What about SSTOs? Due to the weight restrictions my SSTOs can only really carry as much armament, as a medium-heavy fighter, however due to the added weight of the wings and etc, that allow them to function in atmo, their tonnange puts them into the bomber-attacker range. However they are using their wings mainly as light armor, so I'm sure if they went against other vessels of the same tonnage, they would be wiped out. I then tried to make one of them have angular surfaces in an effort to make it have stealth, but for obvious reasons (like thermal generation), that alone won't make it hard to detect on "radar"/"sensors". I had already made another SSTO, that had some stealth characteristics, but was mainly for exploring other worlds, and I reasoned it could carry electronic jamming equipment to boost the stealth capabilities of the other fighter. Then I thought, this combo is nice but you know what would be just as nice? A fighter that combines the advantages of both, and is lighter, but has some of the disadvantages as both and is lighter.

One wall of text later and a tl;dr My SSTO's are pretty heavy for the medium-heavy fighter class, yet I consider them to be within this range. And in an effort to try to increase their survivability since they're pretty weak, I designated them as "stealth" vessels meant for sneaky ambushes (where all ambush ships get a "surprise" round before the other vessels can respond) rather than open engagements as otherwise they're just pretty looking targets.

I thought up some rules on "stealth" vessels for justification that would not make them OP against other creations. In case that route wishes to be explored.

And alas what type of person would I be if I didn't show pictures of the offending vessels

25 ton "medium fighter"

30 ton "reconnaissance/medium fighter"

42 ton "heavy [stealth] fighter"

[camulus777]

Put small docking ports on your ssto and make a modular weapons system that can dock with it. Thats how i solved my problem and armed my interceptor is 25t but if i were to put a fully outfitted Mk IV it would be a bomber too. But consider a modern bomber. Its just a fighter with bigger bombs. So when i classify bomber that's what i had in mind. As far as ssto's having a separate category, that might be something to consider.

[camulus777]

Should we even have carriers? Hmmm, it's tough to see the future of warfare or how Macey will want to deal with scouting and contact and combat range, but for me the carrier is still a must. Just think of it as a mobile resupply base, that's what carriers are. Once you get it out to where you want it you can launch a wave of attacks on a distant target without putting an expensive 100t (or 140t in the case of the Spirit of Kerbin) target in a direct line of fire. Designing a carrier is a daunting task and though the Spirit of Kerbin is cool its only one of the first designs. There may be a way to maximize a carriers potential so that it is more of a carrier. A few more docking ports on the exterior and you can support some larger fighter craft. A few smaller docking ports and you can put defensive drones to protect against attacks on your carrier. Battleships hare heavily armored and armed and should be maneuverable enough to get a good lock on their target. Carriers in theory don't even need RCS and can maneuver with a few advanced SAS and gimble. You don't need to dock them with enough transports and tankers you can use them as the station and just dock things to them. The main reason I separated the carrier sizes is because unlike other ships carriers a tonnage should not include its docked ships. Its got a standard weight that should be observed not including all the fighters and drones and sats attached to it. This should give the carrier an advantage over the larger capitol ships like a real carrier. If you put weapons on the carrier, not including storeable ordnance, those weapons are counted in the base weight.

[Gauss H2K]

My SSTOs do have small docking ports, 4 on the heavier class, and 2 on the smallest one. I still just consider them fighters, because they don't have room for bigger bombs. However I can see them not being anything smaller than medium fighters. As many vessels have their own roles, I would assume your interceptor is meant to reach target coordinates fast and fully armed, whereas these are more of a reconnaissance force more than anything. They each have around 4-4.5 km/s delta v, but their nuclear engines only give slightly above .5 TWR, they can use their radial engines as "afterburners" that put their TWR ~1.1 at the cost of severely reduced delta v, but combat is combat. I also didn't put ordinance on my SSTOs because the more effective torpedoes I made started to weigh too much to carry from the runway. Also I thought that it takes like half an hour real time, so a quick interception where speed is important, and there is no time to arm the vessel in orbit would be pointless if it takes that long to reach orbit. This is why I equipped my vessels with nuclear engines, so they could have the delta v after LKO refueling to potentially go to Duna/Laythe, and have more than enough delta v to perform reconnaissance missions.

Edited August 8, 2013 by Gauss H2K

[Gauss H2K]

I would build a central command hub that would be akin to a Supper Carrier/ Refueling Vessel, that would be a forward base, but removed far enough from combat, and be protected by a battlegroup, so that direct attacks from anything less than another carrier battlegroup would be futile. What I would then focus on are smaller "assault" type carriers that aren't as big, or carry as much as the Spirit of Kerbin, but you can deploy more, they have more offensive armaments than just fighters, and a major part of your fleet isn't lost if you lose one.

[camulus777]

A sound tactic. I can see a single carrier group in orbit over Jool or hiding near a moon sending out scout drones and ships finding targets in the Jool system and sending the appropriate force to deal with that target. Smaller carriers should have more armor i would think because they are going to be closer to the fight.

Your right about my interceptor the OF-57 Phoenix Mk VI is my newest design and comes with only two missiles but can be outfitted with my standard torpedo and it can reach orbit in like 7 min with fuel to spare. it has 2 larger docking ports for modules and weapons. It replaces my Mk I witch had the same armament on takeoff but cant be rearmed with torpedoes and has no extra docking ports for added modules. It makes a great planetary defense vehicle but would be hard pressed to take out anything with heavy armor. Its cost is low made mostly of wings and smaller inexpensive parts. The new Mk V i am most proud of it is a jet VTOL that can reach orbit, it has 4 smaller docking hardpoints and 2 larger ones with a variety of modules and weapons load-outs. The Mk V only weighs .3 tons more than the Mk IV and Mk VI I got rid of the tail fins that the Mk I's - III's had reducing the part count and wight and not hindering its stability at all. Makes the new fighters look more sleek. I will be putting 2 Mk IV's on my new carriers as attack bombers giving me 2 attack bombers, 8 light fighters, 6 defense drone fighters, 2 maintenance drones and, 4 scout drones. Part count is a bit nuts but that's only because of all the fighter craft. I wish the part count wasn't such a big limitation.

Edited August 8, 2013 by camulus777

[camulus777]

Gauss H2K your SSTO's are very cool. I love the smaller one its gota F-22 look to it.

[zekes]

Funny how we have to try to slow down the missiles and such to get them to hit. Makes me feel like I am watching DUNE. The slow blade penetrates the shield and all. I've hit a target from as far as 1.5 k with a dumb missile (and it exploded) but there was no damage to the ship's armor. I think that has to do more with the design of the ship but I have more tests planned.

what are you talking about? I can hit a target with a missile going 250 m/s on the first try... and causes massive damage. I don't see your problem.

Well, wait. Your missiles are light as heck. My lightest one is 2.5 tons. Weight is everything. i cannot say it enough.

[camulus777]

lol 2.5 tons is a lot of missile. I guess you are right though, when it comes to kinetic weapons mass and speed are everything.

[IcarusBen]

IMHO, ramming with a manned ship should only be a last case scenario. Like that intro scene from Star Trek between the Narada and Kelvin. Kirk's dad takes his ship and runs into Nero's.