How to Compose a Sci-Fi Space Fleet

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Spacedock delves into fleet composition in sci-fi navies.
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[@Spacedock]

Wishlist Sins of a Solar Empire II and Support Spacedock: steam.gs/l/157jf/Spacedock

[@TheTrueAdept]

As someone that has been doing the beta testing of SoaSE2, it's what it needs to be but vastly improved. Like you've got *_ACTUAL TURRETS AND PD_* now!

[@doggo6517]

I played the original back in my high school days - actually psyched to see an ad for the sequel now

[@jtjames79]

Let's just assume UFOs are real. Like find saucers, tic tacs etc. One thing that has been consistent about UFO, UAP. Whatever you want to call it, is how inconsistent they are. If the future is additive manufacturing, and rugged individualism, you only make things when you need them. Also explains why they crash once in awhile. Perfection is the enemy of good. And your enemy never knows what to expect.

[@IIIJG52]

Great choice of sponsor !

[@Marinealver]

I already got all the 1st game and expansions on Steam I'm not getting EGS just to get the 2nd one.

[@sparkieT88]

Naval strategy is build strategy. You will fight a war with what was built years ago

[@Ushio01]

You start a war with what you have you win the war with what you build during the war.

[@Tuning3434]

​@@Ushio01hmm, may I remind you that even the USN had already ordered and laid down almost all capital ships that pop up in 1944. Even the industry powerhouse that is the US cancelled many of the larger ships that where laid down during entry in WW2 (e.g Iowa 5 / 6, Montana's, etc)

[@Ushio01]

@@Tuning3434 The US cancelled those ships because carrier based aircraft had replaced the battleship as the main form of long range strike. Range was everything and carrier aircraft were reaching the point they could carry weapon loads comparable to a battleship shell. The Douglas SBD Dauntless only had it's first flight in 1940 the same year the Iowa's were laid down and the same year the Essex class were ordered. The Dauntless started being replaced before the end of the war! For speed of construction look at the Fletcher class of destroyers or Cleveland class of cruisers. 175 Fletchers built between 1941-1945 and 20 or so Cleveland class. Battleships really are the exception to the rule and were of little use in the actual conflict.

[@3Rayfire]

Also keep in mind a common military fallacy...fighting the last war instead of the current one. Which is how you end up with the Battleship Yamato while the Americans are fielding ever more Aircraft Carriers.

[@Ushio01]

@@3Rayfire Japan started building the Yamato and Musashi in 1937 and 1938 the same as the US with the 2 North Carolina class. The US then went on to build 6 more battleships and loads of carriers. Japan's problem is that they just didn't have the industry to build ships especially such large ones so quickly. In 1937/8 the USN carriers were still flying biplane bombers the monoplane bombers didn't enter service for 3 years after Yamato was laid down. From 1918-1937 aircraft development was pretty predictable and slow then in 1937 onwards it went supercharged thanks to new engines allowing much faster and larger aircraft. Take the USAAF P-1 top speed 154mph in 1923 in 1933 the P-26 could do 234mph that's 80 miles faster in a decade. Then you have the P-40 300mph in 1939 and was 420mph in 1944 just 5 years later and was slow compared to newer planes already flying!

[@isaackim7675]

Kuat Drive Yards, “How many pizzas would you like to order, my Lord?” Sidious, “Yes! Dew it!”

[@Sakeretsu]

No i'm imagining 6 ISDs voltroning into a Death Saucer.

[@isaackim7675]

@@Sakeretsu They’re not just a Star Destroyer. They’re Transformers!

[@MonkeyJedi99]

@@Sakeretsu Is it six that make a circle? I guestimates 8 or 9. - Okay. Using data on the ISD1 from Wookiepedia, I come up with an angle for the ISD of 33.382 degrees, which means it takes 18.25 ISD1s to make what would roughly be a triacontakaihexagon (because the back of the ISD is not straight across).

[@Uzarran]

@@isaackim7675 If they can't transform into mega-maids, I don't want it.

[@thatHARVguy]

*Darth Baras the Wide intensifies*

[@be-noble3393]

Miranda Class: “I didn’t hear no bell!”

[@Tetsujinhanmaa]

Me: (Remembers the Sea-Tac and the Majestic) Also Me: Say what now?

[@Uzarran]

Defiant Class: "That's cause your hearing-aid needs new batteries!"

[@anidiot2284]

@@Uzarranthe Gagarin and the Crossfield will sit this one out

[@logicplague]

Oberth: "I did, I absolutely did!"

[@MrHws5mp]

Random thoughts: 1. One reason to have "battleships" is if they can carry unique weapons denied to smaller vessels by their sheer size. For example, in the Traveller RPG, Capital Ships have "spinal mount" weapons built into the structure of the ship itself and aimed by pointing the entire vessel. They're either particle accelerators or meson guns. These both need a long distance to accelerate their subatomic "projectiles" so it's simply impossible to build small ones. 2. Another reason for ships to get hacked abou... _modified_ is treaties. The interwar period of naval treaties is the classic case in point. Several nations had huge battlecruisers in build which were then rendered illegal by the 1922 Washington Naval Treaty. However this treaty did allow for them to be converted to other uses, and it just so happened to give the signatories a carrier allowance too. Many of the battlecruisers were therefore converted into carriers, since they had both the speed and the size neccessary for the role. Those navies that chose to cancel or scrap their big battlecruisers then had to make do with conversions of slower or smaller ships, while waiting for all-new designs to be finished. These differences in turn influenced the tactical thinking of the navies in question, depending on what kind of carriers they ended up with. 3. Ships can last a VERY long time in service with several navies. A number of US Navy destroyers built at the end of WWII made it into the 21st century, in some cases with their third owners. Needless to say, they'd been refitted and refitted over and over, first of all by the USN and later by their new owners to keep them relevent. 4. You can end up with a hodge-podge of modified second-hand ships by being a lower-tier power with no shipbuilding capability. You have no choice but to buy ships on the open market or get gifted them, with inevitable political strings attached, by a big power "patron". In both cases, the ability to customize the ships to your needs will be limited. If you then change horses and leave the patronage of one great power for another, you may end up with a bizarre mixture of legacy systems and new ones, all on the same vessel. For example, after being dropped by the Soviets following the Yom Kippur war, Egypt had to turn to the west for arms. They ended up with Soviet-supplied Komar class missile boats, re-equipped with Italian missles, British radars, and british-produced, Swiss-designed guns. India wasn't dropped by anybody but didn't want to be over-dependent on anybody either, so they ended up with locally-built, British-designed frigate hulls and steam plants, equipped with Dutch radars, and British, Russian and Swedish weapons. On later ships, Israeli missiles entered the mix.

[@Dreamfox-df6bg]

To 3. An extreme example in fiction comes from the longest running science fiction series in the world, 'Perry Rhodan'. One ship. the SOL, has been around for a little over 2,100 years. Sometimes lost, taken over by an enemy, constantly upgraded when she makes it home once more, but also sometimes upgraded by the enemy if they have superior technology. By now there it's doubtful that even one bolt from her original construction is left and her refit is practically tradition. Even the ship's computer, SENECA, has evolved over time with the upgrades.

[@ryuukeisscifiproductions1818]

One of the main reasons to use battleships, and one of the big reasons why they where once used, was battleships can also carry the longest ranged weapons available. In fact this was probably their scariest advantage in the dreadnought era, was a battleships guns could reach out and hit target accurately form distances much greater than anything else until aircraft carriers came along. sci fi seems to like to make battleships close range brawlers for some reason even though this is completely contrary to everything battleships where expected to do. But the different properties of space means carriers aren't likely to get anywhere near as much of a range, advantage, if at all. a Space battleship can benefit from having the largest and most powerful sensor array of a fleer, thus enabling it to target and fire at other ships from much greater distances, even in cases where primary weapons are missiles. Spinal mounted fixed weapons really aren't great weapons for this though, because in order to accurately aim the things over any kind of distance, you have to have an insanely precise reaction control system that in all likeliness, just isn't very practical. Spinal mounts only make any kind of sense if they have a mechanism at the muzzle that allows for some kind of off bore shooting. otherwise they are a bit of a dead end technology.

[@Tetsujinhanmaa]

To point 1): it depends on the setting. In Honor Harrington, the Super Dreadnought is the final word in ship class because (due to science of the setting) it carries the most broadside weaponry. Government would love to throw money into churning them out. Later on in the setting the 'Meta' changes drastically so that lasers and grasers become secondary but the Super Dreadnought still reigns. 3) Ship age also varies by setting. I've read books where the hero ship is top of the line but in one case over 120 years old or in another uses tech that cannot be replicated making it a one off super ship. I've also read series where over the course of a decades the MC gets several ships due to combat loss, promotion and other incidents.

[@shijo427]

@@ryuukeisscifiproductions1818 For spinal mounted fixed weapons it depends on the settings. Massive objects have a ton of inertia, which helps with stability and sustained fire. Precision reaction control systems that take advantage of rotational inertia do exist and are in use in current satellites.

[@dakaodo]

@@Dreamfox-df6bg Theseus called and wants to know where his ship is. XD

[@mitwhitgaming7722]

This just made me remember, I would love a new Empire at War for the Space battles alone. I would always get 1 Star Destroyer, 2 Victory class, 1 Interdictor, and 4 or 5 Tarkin cruisers for fighter screening.

[@addisonchow9798]

How are you going to supply your fleet?

[@mitwhitgaming7722]

@@addisonchow9798 Star Wars isn't really known for resupply ships. The Empire seems to like using cargo shuttles for the role, though.

[@templarw20]

@@mitwhitgaming7722 The X-Wing games have a number of missions around re-supply efforts. Tend to be large haulers and storage/distribution node stations.

[@Fishrokk]

FYI, you can still get and play the old Empire at War.

[@mitwhitgaming7722]

@@Fishrokk I know, I have over 200 hours in the game on Steam.

[@Global-yt]

my WiFi has forced me to listen to 'Sins of a Solar Empire' 5 times now

[@thall4322]

Genius marketing strategy

[@nathaniellazo5912]

I feel sorry, but I am laughing my ass off on the inside 😅

[@GoldenMinotaur]

Could be worse, could have been an ad read for literally every other game advertised. This one actually caught my attention

[@brandonwarner8442]

It is gonna be a great game tho 😂

[@filipmaly6603]

Your Wi-Fi wants you to buy Sins of th Solar Empire. Obey your Wi-Fi.

[@thedabblingwarlock]

If you haven't ever looked at it, I highly recommend looking at the how to build a navy page on Atomic Rockets. The article it's based on was written by Chris Weuve, who is a naval analyst and used to work for the USN's Center for Naval Analysis. It gives you all of the steps that, ideally, you should take to design and build out your fleet. Some of it was touched on here, but I don't think it gets across how your assumptions and resources affect what kind of fleet you wind up with.

[@xveers]

I'll agree with this 100%.

[@Ally5141]

Military procurement videos by Perun are also a great source to learn how this stuff works.

[@xveers]

@@Ally5141 Perun's videos are a great way to get a feel for some of the real world challenges, agreed. But Weuve's article is where one ought to start. Does no good to understand the challenges of painting a room when you don't know where to put up the walls :D

[@cosmictreason2242]

What is the actual article title because search sucks

[@addisonchow9798]

Video suggestion: top 10 sci fi factions with the best logistics.

[@glynrh8892]

Battlestar Galactica wins out here big time, it’s the only setting that bothers to think about it on screen

[@TheTrueAdept]

@@glynrh8892 ... is Legends of the Galactic Heroes a joke to you? Most of the time, it's the MCs having entire *_EPISODES_* working on the logistics of a major campaign in the original OVA and it is semi-constantly referenced in the new OVA.

[@southcoastinventors6583]

Borg because it easier to recruit people and take technology when you can just infect people.

[@battleoid2411]

@@TheTrueAdept Not to mention the sheer scale of the logistics in that show, the giant haulers are easily 5 times the size of even the largest capital ships in the series, and with the massive fleets of warships being tossed around those things travel in convoys of hundreds of ships

[@AlexTekle]

@@TheTrueAdept yeah, and a couple of characters manage to end major invasions simply through cutting supply lines and letting the occupation collapse

[@nuclearsimian3281]

One note on Trek is that the Excelsior class was initially designed as a ship that was easy to modify due to the idea that it would be an ongoing testbed for new technologies. It was the first ship that Starfleet attempted to build with a transwarp engine, which while the initial design did not live up to expectations in even the slightest way, it was still regarded as the most flexible ship in Starfleet at the time and came into ubiquity throughout the Federation. That's why it was able to last just so incredibly long.

[@casbot71]

It was also heavily overengineered to cope with the expected stresses of Transwarp, which meant that the basics of the hull were very rugged and tough. It was a solid ship. It's telling that a century later, the Lakota upgrade was still a fearsome warship that could hold its own against the Defiant. What if Starfleet had made that refit universal amongst the Excelsior class.....?

[@SuperGamefreak18]

In some circles it’s thought that transwarp didn’t fail hence the new warp scale since well we only saw if fail because a legendary engineer sabotaged the ship.

[@Zacho5]

The TNG tech book goes into this more that under the hull plating of ships there made so whole rooms/systems could be pulled out and replaced as time goes on. Irc the bridge for most ships could be pulled off and replaced as well.

[@retluoc]

I've always mentioned that the Excelsior was a class built way ahead of its time. That's why it survived so long. It was built to replace the Constitution Class with war in mind. It was also the first Starfleet ship with bubble shields (shields not up against the hull).

[@SuperGamefreak18]

@@retluoc I also always had the head cannon that the excelsior was the most efficient federation design, and that every truly long lasting federation design has design limits similar to the excelsior. A reason why I always thought the sovereign was designed to work off the excelsior success

[@pyroslev]

Look at the MCRN. They had a diversified fleet but every ship was able to stand on it's own. Maybe not long but it works. The Donnanger carried smaller ships while flying with others at its side. The UNSC was built on Frigates. That was smart enough of an idea. B5 used a good fleet variety. Whitestars in a swarm were lethal as it got. Trek does rely on old ships but they're a peace time society. Makes sense a good ship would last a while.

[@randomusernameCallin]

The mission of the fleet change the make up of the fleet. A deep space patrol will have more ships that can build and repair the fleet while a boarder watch fleet need less ship to repair itself and even less speed.

[@zoe700ify]

Also, doctrine - is your fleet a nimble expeditionary strike force meant to smash an enemy and leave, or grind down a defender with superior tanking?

[@39KHall]

Yes. Before one starts to think about "What ship types should I have in my fleet," one has to decide, "Why do I want to have a fleet? What is my fleet supposed to do?"

[@J_n..]

A fleet doesn't just exists, it serves a purpose. This purpose defines the ship types included. If the purpose of the fleet changes over time, the ship types of the fleet will change to.

[@Larogg]

Contractually obligated to mention the Honor Harrington universe as a fantastic example of a universe that goes heavily into logistical and fleet composition issues and touches on practically every point in this vid

[@patrickdusablon2789]

Like the missile shortage after the Mesans bushwhack all of the Manticoran and Grayson main military industrial nodes, or just ships running out of ammunition. And, my favourite, the RMN and Graysons really investing in automation as to reduce crew sizes because they don't have the population base to supply "conventional" crews for an extended war.

[@Thamian]

Also worth mentioning how detailed the break down of all of that can get, especially in House Of Steel, where every class in service in the RMN and GSN gets looked at - production dates, service lives, operational histories and so on.

[@MrQuantumInc]

A modular ship design could allow for ships with the same main hull to perform a variety of roles. Space makes modular designs a lot more practical, since you don't need any particular overall shape (as long as you can protect the connection points).

[@psilynt1]

If we ever do get into space, this is how we'll do it. Getting things built, working and in the right place is a hurdle. It's just too expensive for something to go through all of that and then have to replace it simply because it no longer fits where you need it. Once you start modular, that will remain true and it's really hard to change once things already have a standard.

[@Yora21]

I don't think modular has ever worked out for any military vehicle. At most, you might have a few standardized hulls with matching propulsion and life support systems but different configurations of mission-specific equipment. But that would be permanently integrated and not be able to switched out without a complete refit. Ships would look very similar from the outside, but with different capabilities.

[@psilynt1]

@@Yora21 Sure it has. It's not for all components in all places, but we have an absurd level of standards to make things compatible. At the very least, ammunition, tires, track plates for treads, etc.

[@AdmiralStoicRum]

Keep in mind the stresses of inertia on the ship,this includes twisting, last thing you need is it popping like legos

[@alonedoughnut]

Oh man, I didn't know Sins of a Solar Empire was getting another game! I am here for that!

[@TheArklyte]

1)Drop Homeworld player into the archive of ships from all available sci-fi; 2)watch what they end up stealing. Jokes aside, I feel like only BSG ever raises a question of fleet logistics. What if FTL stops working and your fleet gets stuck? Suddenly you need capability to resupply and exist within local resources. Which might be new star system or it might be Garden of Kadesh ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯

[@BaritoneMonkey]

“This is the Garden of Kadesh. […] There is no withdrawal from the Garden.”

[@henrycooper3431]

​@@BaritoneMonkey*proceeds to withdraw their entire frigate fleet like its a bank*

[@tba113]

Some day, many years from now, Spacedock will acknowledge the fact that the Homeworld setting exists.

[@henrycooper3431]

@@tba113 they did like 2 videos on Homeworld series no?

[@TheArklyte]

@@henrycooper3431 it helps to roleplay the fact that you didn't destroy most of them, just replaced captains on their ships, I guess?

[@dogloversrule8476]

You forgot to mention the fact that not all navies need large capital ships. The kinds of ships needed depend on the navy’s mission.

[@scott-richards]

most navies need at least one capital ship to command from, carry limited restocks, provide support and possible ground troops. be very few occasions to not need one.

[@patrickdusablon2789]

And also the particular star nation's economic base. A poor, single-system polity might have nothing that qualifies as a capital ship, and their flagship could very well be a middling or even fairly small ship in a first-rate fleet, as they can't afford to build and maintain true capital ships, or have the population base to properly crew them.

[@Marinealver]

Here's an idea for a video concept. WHAT CONSTITUTES A DESTOYED SHIP We expect ships that are "Destroyed' to just go boom and disappear in a fiery explosion. Heck in games the destroyed ship is often just REMOVED from its former location after it has been destroyed to leave EMPTY SPACE. But is that going to be the case? What about ships that are adrift?

[@filanfyretracker]

if a ship runs on AM I suspect the moment the containment loses power there is a big boom and no more ship. However I suspect you would have lots of hulks sitting around with ships running on more conventional fusion and that would be a new hazard for ships still operating in a combat zone. Especially if say that 2km long carrier got its eng sections cored out, well now its a 2km structure moving through the combat zone in what ever direction it was last accelerated in. Added fun if in orbit of a planet and a ship was moving to a lower orbit when its engineering section went boom you could now have a hulk that may deorbit. Do you have to deal with wildcat salvagers after a fight.

[@achimdemus-holzhaeuser1233]

@@filanfyretracker Yeah, that is interesting. Especially if you get into the shipsizes to rival the Asteroid that killed the Dinosaurs. Because they might crash faster and space-alloys are a lot more durable than just Rock and Stone. ( Source : Book Series First Contact )

[@patrickdusablon2789]

@@achimdemus-holzhaeuser1233 hell, an example of that would be in the Honorverse with the Mesans' Operation Oyster Bay. Chunks of ship and space station massing hundreds of thousands of tons de-orbiting out of control, causing massive damage.

[@patrickdusablon2789]

@@filanfyretracker I love the idea. Hard kill that leaves a broken hulk (or rapidly expanding debris/plasma), soft kills that remove the ability to fight, mobility kills that remove their ability to maneuver or strand them in a given star system. And that opens up other notions, like videos about rules of warfare and the treatment of prisoners and rescuing the crews of defeated ships, salvage, and if necessary, orbital clean-up jobs.

[@Rexotec]

Interesting plot point that came up in my RPG Campaign - a highly advanced 'Clarktech' civilisation that intentionally fields outdated ships not just because they're easier to maintain, but lack key technologies that could be stolen and reverse-engineered should the vessel come under enemy hands.

[@molybdaen11]

That's a cool idea. Like the brotherhood of Nod - a high tech core with highly talented people sorounded by many old but reliable tech and ordinary followers. If you catch one of them - good for you. But if one of your core techs got stolen, you go predator style and get it back or destroy it.

[@Kronosfobi]

Im so glad this channel exists to quench my Sci-Fi thirst every now and then.

[@hamishsewell5990]

A unique flagship, destroyers, dreadnoughts, corvettes, frigates, dedicated carriers, all for perfect balance, dedicated electronic warfare and spy vessels too. And I can also fully appreciate a clean, purpose built vessel and a ship that’s been cobbled together

[@jacara1981]

A couple of the advantages of Starfleet is ships are built at dozens of different star systems (for real world costs of production we only see Earth and Mars shipyards) but with all the model lines and various ships the largest advantage is they all use compatible tech, and hauls. You can actually take a Galaxy warp nacelle and attach it to a Intrepid class ship. Now its not great, but will let you limp home. Theres a book (sorry I don't remember the name) that involves the survivors of Wolf 359. Its about 100 people and the cobble together a ship from a intact warp drive, a single nacelle, and various other parts they find and make it to the nearest starbase.

[@molybdaen11]

„We call it» the badtard« because it's as ugly as durable.” 😅

[@mawkishdave]

Manufacturing ships would be a very important one. You can't just head back to port or order a new thingabob, you need a ship that can get the resources (recycled or new) and have the equipment and skilled labor to make a new one. That might be a bigger target than the carrier or big battleships.

[@stormbirdgaming]

Starsector referenced! That game is the best space strategy game I have ever played.

[@42meep13]

Another fun thing you can do, particularly for large star nations, is have slightly different aesthetics for different regions. The far-flung frontier is probably not going to be getting the brand-new flagship deployed there after all. Instead, it's likely going to be given a hodgepodge of the dregs of the fleet. Old ships, perhaps the last of their class cludged together with that frontier mechanical black magic the only thing keeping them working. And then some crisis happens and an actually modern ship shows up and its a huge deal. Like imagine a Star Trek story where they're out in the middle of nowhere with Constitutions and Mirandas and other TOS ships but then something big happens and suddenly a Galaxy class is sent by Starfleet. (which then of course is immediately destroyed because the big shot "important" commander with his shiny new ship has an ego the size of Olympus mons and refuses to listen to the advice and warnings of the local officers who actually understand what's going on and local dangers and runs face first into an ambush because that's how these kinds of stories work)

[@AlexTekle]

I find the geometric fleet formations in LOGH very aesthetically pleasing. It’s a simple way to make out the ludicrous amount of ships amidst the natural backdrop of space.

[@MrNicoJac]

What's LOGH? :)

[@Mecha82]

@@MrNicoJac Legend of the Galactic Heroes.

[@MrNicoJac]

@@Mecha82 Thanks!

[@Techno_Idioto]

@@MrNicoJac I suggest the reboot Die Neue These. It's basically the storyline with updated looks and a hotter Yang Wen-li and Reinhard.

[@xveers]

@@Techno_Idioto I'm... torn about the Neue These. Art style is nominally better (and much more coherent), and it technically follows the novels more closely... but it's nowhere near complete, and I think the decision to abandon using classical music for the battles was a VERY bad decision.

[@damongraham1398]

I like the idea of Behemoths protecting choke points and solar systems. Cruiser and below used for fast strikes.

[@GoodOldGamer]

I like the united fleets that you can build through treaties in Mass Effect 3. A dozen different species coming together against a seemingly impossible threat.

[@RorikH]

It's an awesome moment, but I hate that they never show the Geth Fleet, they just say it showed up but then never show it onscreen.

[@darwinxavier3516]

If you haven't yet, watch Babylon 5.

[@lillyanneserrelio2187]

​@@darwinxavier3516 its on my list once i finish watch Babylon 1-4

[@Arashmickey]

Hodge podge shines in games: the mechanics keep things consistent and organized while lore explains the variety. Single player games in junkyard space operas are a match made in heaven (ayy). Explanations for how each Galaxy-class is modified may end feeling confined, not so in Star Wars or 40k. Put a pirate fleet manager or X-COM in those settings and you have plenty of lore ready to adapt or contrive with, from the top strategic layer - eg. managing one or multiple capital ships out of which you operate - down to the small details of weapon mods and character traits for your boots/cephalopod lmbs on the ground. Tabletop is a close second, but it's hard to beat the sheer density you can stuff into a digital game.

[@gabrieldarcy9067]

Step 1: Build 3000 sovereign classes.

[@colinkennedy1718]

The 3000 Black Sovereigns of Picard!

[@gabrielho1874]

Where are you going to get the budget?

[@yodaslovetoy]

6000 defiants

[@335chr]

No

[@austinguthrie5528]

Thought you meant Mass Effect sovereign classes. Was to stay "you harvest 3000 species" 😅

[@lc1138]

Babe I know it's 5AM but the thumbnail had a pic from Starsector ! I knew you would understand babe. Love you.

[@hesthatguy]

I can't say this enough. Thank you for including a source for all of your clips. There's so much good shit in there that I have missed over the years.

[@KBraid]

6:11 everything you say during this pan of the enterprise being assembled had me busting a gut as it's exactly what one of my friends does while playing Ultimate Admiral Dreadnoughts every time

[@ВладиславВладислав-и4ю]

Wow, someone know UAD also

[@dariustiapula]

A fleet off Dahak attack moons. Go for overkill is my motto.

[@isaacm1929]

There is no overkill, only dead enemies, and counter attack capable enemies.

[@sosogo4real]

There is no overkill. There is only open fire and reload.

[@sumukhvmrsat6347]

There is always a bigger fish - Qui gon jinn That is no moon - Obi wan kenobi

[@LordCastigator]

MOAR DAKKA!! NEEDS MORE DAKKA!! - 40K Orks...

[@patrickdusablon2789]

Are you even trying if your ships aren't big enough to affect the tides on the planet below?

[@katherineberger6329]

Star Trek's incredible array of starship types for the Federation falls into the Slop Zone. I get it that people don't like the huge Inquiry-class fleet from the end of Picard Season 1, but it makes a LOT of sense for the Federation to have a Standard type cruiser that they can build a LOT of - it allows them to work out the bugs of ONE design and produce it widely rather than having dozens of designs with unique outfits.

[@mahatmarandy5977]

I like the 1975 Tech manual explanation of Starfleet: there are several mass produced units that can be mixed and matched in a variety of combinations. Honestly, that’s pretty ideal and I am surprised they started doing wildly divergent ship, designs that clearly do not have many interchangeable parts. it avoids the slap zone, but still gives a great deal of variety, and still allows a recognizable design style that you can immediately identify as being a federation

[@Tetsujinhanmaa]

My problem with the Inquiry class was that nothing in ST ever gave the impression that they could do that. EVER. I would have bought it if there were like 30 of them and a mix of Akira, Steam Runners and three Prometheus class ship. That would have been way more believable considering what they fielded during the Dominion War.

[@jacara1981]

Rather than rewriting, i'll just copy/paste my response I wrote: A couple of the advantages of Starfleet is ships are built at dozens of different star systems (for real world costs of production we only see Earth and Mars shipyards) but with all the model lines and various ships the largest advantage is they all use compatible tech, and hauls. You can actually take a Galaxy warp nacelle and attach it to a Intrepid class ship. Now its not great, but will let you limp home. Theres a book (sorry I don't remember the name) that involves the survivors of Wolf 359. Its about 100 people and the cobble together a ship from a intact warp drive, a single nacelle, and various other parts they find and make it to the nearest starbase.

[@MDE_never_dies]

@@TetsujinhanmaaThe Dominion War forced Star Fleet to throw whatever it could into battle, strapping whatever guns it had available onto whatever aging space frames it had left out of desperation. Resulting in the hodgepodge we got on screen. Starfleet only really had enough resources to develop a few new types during the war like the Prometheus prototype, but likely only a handful were ever produced during the war, Starfleet lacked the resources to churn out vast amounts of these new state of the art ships. Everything else was a throw together from it’s previous assets on hand. The Explorer focused Galaxies were repurposed into battleships. Nebulas became Heavy Cruisers or functioned in fleet support roles with their advanced sensor packages. Akiras became Frigates. Some of the Post-359 ships like the Defiant obviously found heavy action, and if anything The Federation owes it’s survival to the borg for giving them the wakeup to build shjps like these with a war-focus, because I don’t think the federation would have lasted a month with the fleet it was fielding prior. The Sovereign was a rare sight in the dominion war because it was an expensive ship for what it could do, far to valuable to throw to waste on the front, and likely only functioned as a command ship or sent on specialised missions. The Nova was useless in the dominion war, too lightly armed for battle, too slow to function as a scout, at best it could function as light support in a scanning role but had no place in the vanguard. The Intrepid was actually ideally suited as a recon scout due to it’s speed, and it could hold it’s own reasonably in battle, but again as an expense it would be wasted in that role, it was far more valuable in specialty assignments, or ferrying high ranking officials at high warp across enemy lines, as we saw in DS9 in one occasion. Using an intrepid in battle would be like sending commandos to the trenches. If Starfleet had years to prepare for the Dominion War I have no doubt it’s fleet would looked completely different.

[@AnubisX1]

The problem with the inquiry fleet was that actual ship model was unfinished, the scene was also setup poorly. VFX artists on the show have confirmed this, that they ran out of time and had to cobble something together. Which is why it looks bad.

[@cashcleaner]

A sci-fi universe I once work on had a pretty interesting (and I'd plausible) take on combat. As the power and resources needed to transit in and out of hyperspace was so great, expeditionary fleets were typically built around massive "Gateships" which had little in the way of offensive weaponry but armoured/shielded like no tomorrow and bristling with defensive armaments. They didn't even serve as Command and Control vessels - all that would be handled by other ships - but were still vitally important to maintain a supply line and communications link to the home system. Actual combat operations would then be carried out by much smaller cruisers, destroyers, frigates, assault carriers, etc - ideally as far away from the Gateship as possible.

[@rystiya7262]

The role of different types of ships might depend on what types of technologies are available to you. For example, in an era where weapons struggle to overcome armor, heavily armored battleships might serve as meatshield or the only type of ship that does the heavy lifting, while smaller ships serve in fire support, scouting, or other secondary roles. In an era where armor struggle to protect against weapons, however, larger ships might serve as artillery or sensor platforms, while it's the smaller vessels that do most of the fighting.

[@mryellow6918]

Also if you think about it. Reactor technology gets more efficient and powerful the larger they are. You you'd imagine that stuff like force fields require alot of energy that smaller ships won't have access too. Also allowing them to sustain hits that would make a large ship crumble. And also being able to have a large arsenal of missiles the perfect space combat weapon

[@rystiya7262]

​@@mryellow6918 Yeh. However if weapons are extremely powerful and/or your weapons/reactors/fuel/ammo are extremely volatile, a large ship might be more vulnerable than several smaller ships that cost the same. Larger ships are also easier to hit.

[@mryellow6918]

@@rystiya7262 id have to disagree with them being easier to hit, at the distances involved, it wont matter. the ship that has the better anti missle defence is gonna win.

[@rystiya7262]

@@mryellow6918 If the predominant weapons are rail-guns firing unguided projectiles, larger size does make a ship easier to hit. And yeh if we are talking about missiles, then it’s a different story. As I said, it really depends on what kind of technologies are out there.

[@molybdaen11]

​@@rystiya7262Today's rail guns have around 3 km/s. If we assume that it's a very advanced rail gun and have maybe 20 km/s or even 50 - it would still give the target a few seconds warning time, especially in a war when they are closely watching you and your energy radiation. And even if the ship is just to big to evade in time, they could just shoot something towards the expected shell, like a debris field or something.

[@Seryhf]

It's funny to see the Brazilian monitor Parnaíba shown. She's so old she originally had a reciprocating engine that was replaced with a diesel engine when she was modernized.

[@mahatmarandy5977]

I like that you mentioned how some ships may be too expensive or crucial to risk, so they spend most of their time in Port. In the real world, the United States built only 20 B2 bombers. While there actual cost is closely guarded secret it is generally estimated that each one cost about $1 billion at the time, which is a hell of a lot of money. As such they haven’t been used all that much because if there is any other aircraft capable of doing the job that needs to be done, it’s much better to risk that than a very limited and very expensive production run vehicle. If the job cannot be done by any other aircraft, if it specifically needs the capabilities of a B2, then they send in the B2, but they do not use it unless absolutely necessary

[@martinjrgensen8234]

Had the Soviet Union not collapsed, the US would have built a lot more

[@Plaprad]

Not really. B-2's are used a lot more than people realize. The limiting factor for them is simply numbers. We didn't buy enough, so now there's not enough for them to be the star. In that case, it's up to the B-1's and B-52's, both of which are well past their prime. Strangely, that also applies to the B-2. The thing is nearly 40 years old. Hopefully we won't make the same mistakes with the B-21 that we made with so many other MDS in the past few decades.

[@Tetsujinhanmaa]

The B2 is a terrible example. Use the Seawolf-class submarine. Or, as we submariners call them "Pier Puppies". These were state of the art hunter-killers made to end the Soviet Navy. Everything was so cutting edge, that they launched without a torpedo for their class. They have oversized tubes for a projectile that passed the drawing board...because the Cold War ended. They cost more, in todays dollars, than the newer and more capable Virginia Class.

[@Plaprad]

@@Tetsujinhanmaa Had a buddy who served on the Jimmy Carter. He couldn't tell us much other than going back to a 688 was something he considered a big enough downgrade that he got out instead.

[@battleoid2411]

@@Tetsujinhanmaa And funny enough, the navy proceeded to do a very similar thing with the zumwalt porgram as well, building what on paper should be a very capable ship without any contemporary examples, and then deciding at the last second they dont want to foot the bill, cancelling any armament for them, and just leaving them to soak up maintenance money for no real use

[@padawanmage71]

I love in Babylon 5 we see the Nova class ships and then later on the Omega Class Destoyers, and you can clearly see the evolution of adding the rotating sections (as well as seeing the Leonov from '2010'). :D

[@Ushio01]

The Omega class was to replace the Hyperion class and make a ship more comparable to what the Minbari were using (a couple of big guns with a large compliment of fighters for every ship) the Nova was a 'how many guns can we fit on the largest ship we can build quickly at this time' ship that it worked was luck even with it's numerous flaws.

[@padawanmage71]

@@Ushio01 I get that. It's just from an architectural or ship design POV, you can see they may have stripped down the Nova and built it up from there to the Omega. After the devastating War with the Minbari, EA probably needed to rush something out of the shipyards asap to build up their forces.

[@TheOneWhoMightBe]

@@padawanmage71 It's been retconned due to a CGI mistake, but the Omegas were in development during the E-M War. The Nova-X ( a Nova with a rotating section) were hurridly built and deployed late in the war, and was much more capable than the Hyperions although it didn't make a difference in the end. Although given the expected lifetime of the ships they could probably have skipped the rotating section altogether and just done the weapons/sensor upgrades.

[@SuwinTzi]

I think a big part that gets neglected is the strategic situation of the faction that has a fleet being built. If the faction is limited to a single or couple of systems, a large capital ship fleet wouldn't make as much sense as smaller craft. If there's a war economy and it's a large interstellar conflict going on, then parity with the rival faction is required. The strategic position of a faction/nation/country determines the military mindset, that directs military procurement. Consider pre-WW2 US, to Vietnam and post Cold War, how drastic the military changed.

[@anon_y_mousse]

Awesome that one of the games you included footage from was DS9: The Fallen. That's one of my favorite games and I still play it on occasion.

[@VigilanteAgumon]

When in doubt, use a modern carrier/expeditionary strike group as a reference: One flagship (carrier, battleship, assault ship) 1-2 cruisers 3-4 destroyers 2 picket ships (frigates/submarines) 1 supply ship

[@bluemanewolf2574]

I've been working on a story myself and have been working out a system for the main good guys of the story. I've settled on using ships of the line system for it, now the fun part is making the set standard group size or fleet composition ratio for added realism. Such as for every 7 to 12 destroyers you will get a cruiser and a carrier/battleship. Sometimes both. Because they are akin to the Federation but as the central powerhouse of the galaxy. I've been following for a few years now and I keep coming, even revisiting old videos, to see how I can make things even better. I've even totally revamped the fleets of multiple factions in the over all story to help with them and their place in the story's setting better. Such as ballistic and "primitive" lazor weapons on newer to space travel civilizations. This has helped me figure out how to do an unspoken express the advanced level a faction may be at. Through a shorter description of the ships and weapons in use. Maybe I should make this story idea into a game lol

[@Tetsujinhanmaa]

Don't forget to assign roles to your classes. Cruisers shouldn't be doing commerce patrols.

[@bluemanewolf2574]

That's something thats been part of the reworking and due to the way the good guys are set up they actually could do such, but I've been noticing that it's not going to help the setting in what's going on. But I have other ideas for that to be shown at some point later on

[@cjtaylor1977]

It would be good to have a side by side comparison of different fleet types across their own universes. Adding some why it is like that and tactical advantages/disadvantages of each.

[@nobody8717]

I love how it's sponsored by one game, but you use Starsector in the thumbnail. it's almost as if the themes between the advertiser and subject don't see eye-to-eye.

[@disregardthat]

5:38 RIP Nebulous, after today's announcement, it's basically never going to be more than it currently is EDIT: interesting, he released the abandoned prototype for conquest mode

[@Sephiroth144]

Wait, what announcement

[@tinatpasselepoivre]

steam news June update :/

[@disregardthat]

@@Sephiroth144 development ceased on the conquest mode, basically it's just gonna stay a skirmish game. they're just planning on adding new ships, it seems

[@Sephiroth144]

@@disregardthat Ooooph; yeah, that sucks.

[@Zacho5]

@@disregardthat It was paused, he will go back to it, but its going to need more work.

[@allinairhanson6886]

Ight, interesting idea for fleet dynamics and the consequences Main idea is that there is FTL drives for ships, but the ships half to be built around them and give up plenty in other capacities So that leads to a really interesting application for flagships not being in the middle but the first thing that jumps in, and having their own phasegate to set up and protect to get the rest of the fleet through. Or smaller strike groups, which could either support a flagship or capture an occupied phase gate, or just go on smaller missions This can also lead to plenty of interesting story interactions, a long range vessel could reasonably run from police-force vessels, or you could have a desperate, timed battle to either survive until the main bulk of the fleet can be brought in, or a desperate rush to destroy the flagship before the main fleet can be brought in.

[@nateharder2286]

New name for the messy disorganized fleet type, the yee haw fleet.

[@GeekyMagpie]

I like when you see mixed species fleets like me3 battle of earth or the nx1/andorian cruiser tram ups. It can add some variety without seeming ridiculous

[@Varko-Farsight]

RAAAAAA STARSECTOR IN THE THUMBNAIL🚀🚀🚀🚀WTF IS A [REDACTED]🚀🚀🚀

[@335chr]

Its redacted

[@nickcher7071]

SUPER ALABASTER INCOMING

[@nobody8717]

If you don't know, then you've not been [REDACTED]. After you have [REDACTED] your [REDACTED] plus a few. It's really cool.

[@kermitthefrog1176]

Your Omega Odyssey with full captain build after single handedly killing the largest hegemony ai inspection the sector ever saw without even taking damage. Refuses to elaborate further. Goes back to storage. 🗿 That thing is unstoppable. The only thing that comes close is the ziggy. But jokes aside the volatile particle driver is probably one of the best weapons omega has blessed us with. THREE THOUSAND kinetic dps is just insane. Perfect for odyssey since its a hit and run ship. Plasma burn in, dump 9k kinetic dmg on some poor sob, plasma burn out. With shield modulation, helmsmanship, sysex and ordnance expertise you are quite literally untouchable. I dont know why ppl sleep on the ody. Its literally one of if not the best capital. As fast as an eagle. Insane shields with a very deep flux pool and good dissipation. The only real competition it has is the nova, but that thing is miserable. The conquest doesnt even get close to the level of violence you can achieve with the true broadside battlecruiser. Man i fricking love that thing. Its my favorite thing ever, in the history of forever. I think about everyday, i think about this all night long, i stay away, not sleeping thinking about this thing. Closely followed by the non pirate eradicator

[@335chr]

@@nobody8717 the [REDACTED] have some of the best stuff

[@ilejovcevski79]

My go-to strategy in 4x games, since time immemorial, was to start of with a mashup of what can be built on demand in a hurry. As i never really start a game preparing for war from the early game, and instead i focus on building up my economy and research, the war usually finds me. Either from overly hostile neighbors or deep space menaces like space dragons, amoebas and the like. When such needs arise, i scrap a fleet in a jiffy, from what can do the most boom, in the shortest amount of time, for the least expenses possible. This usually involves as many gun-boat or missile/torpedo boat types, corvettes and the like, that can fire a couple of the best warheads they can carry and hope for the best. If the things are really dire, i may add a destroyer for every 4 or 5 corvettes, armed a bit more utilitarian, to serve and quasi-capital ships, and fleet backbones. In the most extreme circumstances, those corvettes may be designed to be as cheep as possible, so cheap in fact, that after they expended their ordnance, they make self-destruct runs at the enemy capital ships. Naturally, all of these aren't expect to survive that long, for to even care about refitting them. Only after i enter the early mid-game, and my tech and economy are somewhat stable, i can afford more long-term designs, and the oldest ships that may be included in refits, are some of those destroyers that still survived. Even then, they are quick to become obsolete, as by mid game, i tend to rely on cruisers for work horse activities, and battleships for capital ships.

[@corporategunner5972]

New United Nations Spacy: *"I CAST FIST!"*

[@ai-aniverse]

Sins of a Solar Empire is an awesome game.

[@Suzuki_Hiakura]

Loved all the starsector images and gameplay. Regrettably, I get to a point where I build a fleet of 2 dreadnoughts and a few destroyers, and then trade most my ships out for a battleship... always takes tons of fuel and supplies to run, so it usually is something I pull out for system defense... really hoping they update it with an option of supplying/donating ships to your system defense fleet, as that would save so much effort of going back to the planet they are on, rearranging the fleet to support them, and then countering an enemy just to immediately put them back in the dock...

[@Tyrgalon]

Mods. You can do this with Nexerellin if I remember correctly, the starsector modding scene is massive.

[@Suzuki_Hiakura]

@@Tyrgalon apologies for the late reply; I never got the notification of the response lol. That mod seems great, and last I played I had many running on my game, but could only find threads saying how what I wanted was not possible or not a thing. Thanks for pointing me to that mod :D

[@Tyrgalon]

@@Suzuki_Hiakura Np, nex is basically the basis that all other faction mods and thus most of the modding scene as a whole is based around due to how many features it adds and allows factions to come alive and be dynamic :)

[@avancenajoseph1131]

Well, if I were to make my own space sci fi game, my factions would usually start their navies as a mix of armed freighters with a handful of purpose built ships of war. As time passes and new technologies develop, each faction would eventually build up a more standardized navy with ships and capabilities unique to their culture, technology and battle doctrines.

[@henryhamilton4087]

Nebulous Fleet Command The game where your navy is built around Bulk carriers and shuttles

[@fidel-3470]

A very common theme in human military fleets with lots of old craft is because specialized craft are very difficult to get procured. Think of the A-10 thunderbolt - a dedicated ground attacker with a giant cannon. This is a specific niche role, and it takes a whole generation for a significant enough technological advancement to justify replacing the aircraft, then it might take another second generation for the imperative to really build up. The military and the people who approve the budget are at odds with each other, there's just always some other bigger priority than replacing some niche use aircraft, even if that aircraft is vital in very specific roles.

[@makky-kat3719]

It's probably not a super common thing to capture enemy warships intact, but I've always loved books that made that a plot point. What's your navy that's always short on modern ships going to do, just not use whatever you manage to capture or steal? That's something I'd expect to see more in Star Wars too, with how many ships the Rebels reportedly either converted or stole, there should be a lot more Imperial-built ships in Rebel service.

[@chrisk3127]

they used a bunch until the new republic was formed then the new republic scrapped them all because "bad guy ships"

[@solandri69]

Back in the 1970s, there was a pen and paper game set in the Traveller universe called Trillion Credit Squadron. You get a trillion credits to design a fleet, and pit it in combat against your friend's trillion credit fleet. As a promo, GDW (company who made the game) ran annual contests where people could create fleets in TCS, and pit them against each other for prize money. In one of the first instances of AI beating humans, someone wrote a program to generate the optimal fleet. When he submitted it to the contest, everyone laughed. The fleet was so stupid everyone thought there was no way it could win. It won. The next year, it won again. The third year, GDW told him that if he entered the fleet again, they would cancel the contest. So what did the fleet look like? It lacked pretty much everything mentioned in this video. Every ship, big or small, was identical. Same capabilities, same armor and weapons (relative to its size), same maneuverability. The result was that if you destroyed 20% of the ships, it would still operate at 80% effectiveness. In contrast, if your fleet was built around high-damage capital ships (what most players did), those ships became the primary target. And if the 20% of the ships first destroyed were mostly capital ships, the fleet would be knocked down to (say) 50% effectiveness. Basically the AI fleet had no weakenesses that other players could exploit. (Mathematically, the optimal outcome was a single type of ship because the rules were too simple. There was only one goal - win in combat. If there had been multiple goals (e.g. combat, cargo transport, miesweeping, hospitalization, colonization, etc), then multiple ship types may have performed better. It's still an interesting footnote in the analls of AI though.)

[@UpcycleShoesKai]

You're a Brave One, Showing the latest Mac Ross movie scene. Also, FUHarmonyGold

[@mateuszbanaszak4671]

When can we expect a video about Sci-Fi factions with best logistics?

[@AussieGriffin]

Me as a kid: We've got two bass boats and a dinghy? Looks like I'm a comador 64! My dad: Silence! A.G.

[@JustTooDamnHonest]

There is nothing that gets my blood pumping like seeing a massive space fleet.

[@Demopans5990]

B-R5RB

[@emilsinclair4190]

Fighters might be obsolete in space do to the low ammount of energy you can store on them.

[@tigersilberhannes9153]

On that i liked that the the fleet battles od late DS9 all those runabout and strikcraft types almost exclusively fire photon torpedos since their tiny phasers wont do much and they rather use all energy for shielding and perpulsion, while the torpedos are physically stored and fired and they even have a dialogue line telling us that surviving strikecraft move to the big cruiseres to be resupplied before attacking again.

[@emilsinclair4190]

@tigersilberhannes9153 and this kimda shows the big problem with small fighters. If I just use them as missile delivery platforms why not use an unmanned missile that carries some other missiles?

[@matthewkeeling886]

Fleets will be limited by three things: technology (if you can't penetrate shields on corvettes with fighter grade weapons you won't have fighters), the faction's astro-strategic situation (eg: a need to protect long trade lanes means lots of cruisers and escorts), and the faction's socio-political landscape (a divine empire will do things differently from a democratic commonwealth). You can easily use this to create a shorthand for what each faction in the work is (or was) like both socially and strategically. Since ships can last for a long time the discrepancies between old and new equipment can even show changes in a faction's status.

[@ArionRDAW]

I believe that in David Weber's Honorverse, battles between capital ships eventually evolved into glorified tug boats hauling vast quantities of missile pods and then firing them from over huge distances.

[@molybdaen11]

This is the final form of space war. You may not like it, but that's it. 😊

[@alasiadarthe001actual9]

In my personal setting, one of the factions has no capital ships just frigates since they specialize in surgical strikes ie. Deploying special forces. They created the smallest ship that could carry an FTL drive and made that the mainstay of the fleet. If confronted by enemies they just run away to FTL. No need for capital ships.

[@seanbigay1042]

Thanks for mentioning the fleet auxiliaries! As in ack Campbell's Lost Fleet saga they're often too slow and cumbersome to be allowed anywhere near the line of battle, but when the big tuff macho battlewagons get dinged up, run out of ammo, or are reduced to running on fumes somebody has to top 'em up and/or fix 'em up. If big and versatile enough a fleet auxiliary can even become a hero ship in its own right (like the USS da Vinci of Star Trek's SCE series) or at least the focus of its own story, like the Deep Space Repair ship Koskiusko from Elizabeth Moon's "Once a Hero," which is targeted by bloody-handed space pirates wanting to make her a mobile drydock for their pirate fleet.

[@AdmiralStoicRum]

And lets not forget the space repair docks in Halo which are gigantic discs that are easily able to function as literal shields, which thankfully the over engineering of human structures for durability makes them good for at least two volleys each.

[@Tuning3434]

Is ironic how the perspective can change overtime. For Star Wars, Star Trek and the UC Gundam series there was a pretty unified fleet for a majority of the franchise. Only just recently it became Slop Zone because every entry needs new ship designs.

[@Kestrel-ws3cg]

Wait how is the UC gundam timeline a slop zone for ships more often than not it is just old ships being refitted back into service

[@csudab]

Large water vessels are not just often faster because of their large power plants; also because the top speed of a watergoing vessel is capped by its length unless it’s so overpowered (like a speedboat, but NOT like the pictured aircraft carrier) it bounces along on top of the water rather than pushing the water out of the way

[@uberpinkwarrior]

I remember back in Stellaris, in the game I had that was super far in, I ended up in a stupidly good starting spot where I nabbed a good chunk of the galaxy with only a weak AI that asked for protectorate status and a devourer I knocked out to contest almost a quarter of the galaxy. Because of that, I was able to do some things for fun with fleets. I had 3 main fleets and then my anti-pirate forces. The anti-pirates were a carrier-style cruiser with missiles for long range, and then 2 corvettes designed to cover the cruiser. The corvettes would keep small stuff away while any bigger thing would get taken out by the bombers on the carrier. This was effective against all the small stuff, but against an actual fleet they'd likely die. On the other hand... Since I had a bunch of them (I had a *lot* of territory to defend, enough that pirates were a legit issue), in case of emergency I could press them all together and they could do the job of a decent fleet. They'd struggle against anything too big, but never discount a ton of bombers hitting you. My main fleets were all different, with different purposes, all centered around a titan. The defense fleet had a carrier titan with a good mix of corvettes for coverage, destroyers for hitting hard, battleships to brawl, etc. The other 2 were a brawler titan with a fleet designed to make sure anything it didn't want to deal with (say, carriers) were not going to be a problem, while it just took out anything that came too close. The last was a long-range sniper type, designed to open fire with a big gun at stupid ranges to force the enemy in close, where they'd get destroyed with brawler ships. Plenty of small stuff for coverage meant you either went hard, or you died hard. The big titan also had a lot of mid-range stuff, so if you got tied up in its mid-range, you'd get blasted to bits, and you likely wouldnt get much closer than mid thanks to brawler battleships. ...Yes I enjoy making my battleships into brawlers. Give em 1 big long range gun to scare the enemy close, then a lot of close range firepower to kill em if they fall for it. If they don't? They get blasted to bits by my long-range guns.

[@steemlenn8797]

I once had a game where the old empires where placed so that I basically had only one neighbor in my quarter of the disk because everyone else was blocked by the old ones. Was boring, being double the size than anyone else.

[@sonwig5186]

In my world the Ceres fleet fights a superior Corporate fleet. The Ceres fleet is made up of a dozen civilian ships retroiftted by adding a conical laser shield to the front and hundreds of missiles strapped to the sides, three similar corvettes that are made for anti-piracy and look like shuttles thanks to the engine cones on both sides, and the pride of the fleet which is the first and only battleship, which has a similar design but scaled up (it is massive and has space for factories inside). Only one of the retrofits has an offensive laser, and only the battleship has railguns. The corporate fleet is made up of six living battleships with fusion drives, who can accelerate so quickly that if they had humans inside they would be killed in seconds. Each basically looks like a silver needle, under the skin of which bristles hundreds of railguns and three extremely powerful lasers, along with biological msissiles. Each one has a slightly different design, ranging from the eldest brother who has plain mirror armour, to a middle sibling who has spiral grooves running up his flanks, to the youngest daughter who is almost gothic in her design. I think this illustrates the difference between the fleets well, since one is a cobbled together defence fleet from a fledgeling nation and the other is the pinnacle of technology from a much greater force who can have a uniform fleet of battleships, though due to their organic nature they are still slightly different from each other.

[@woarl]

Yay, Phrosphor! He's done loads of Nebulous videos (and I suspect, will be doing more).

[@Practitioner_of_Diogenes]

While a fantastical "age of sail" game, the Disney game "Treasure Planet: Battle at Procyon" features a repair tender auxiliary as a ship you get.

[@Potrimpo]

7:00 -- a minor correction, the scene with a Miranda class there was Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Khan (1982), and not Star Trek: Generations (1994).

[@Core-1948]

I’m working on making a full complement of ships, from fighters to a tactical carrier in space engineers. So far I have a light, medium, and heavy fighters, a light destroyer and the tactical carrier is about 50% done. And I’ve been taking all of the ideas I’ve seen from your vids for the weapons and systems. Mostly heavy shields and high mobility, with a lot of railguns and missiles. And a full cover of layered point defense on the larger ships.

[@Belligerent_Herald]

It’s a perennial mention on this channel but BSG: deadlock really did do a fantastic job with this. Enough distinct variety to cater to your play style (I favor slow, tight formation, wall of battle ), but restrained enough to not be overwhelming.

[@gonesnake2337]

Algorithmic engagement!

[@LordBloodraven]

Wow, I remember playing Sins in college. I loved playing as the TEC Loyalists, building 5 Space Stations around a Star and blockading the major jump lanes, securing trade routs and denying trade shipping lanes to my enemies.

[@molybdaen11]

„I call it» the toll collector«”.

[@williamhurley5496]

Can't help but think of the automated, autonomous drone carrier fleet encountered by the crew of the Destiny in S02 of Stargate: Universe.

[@ernest9868]

at exactly 9:42, a bunch of ships warp in and the title at the top left says Halo. which halo is this?

[@Phrosphor]

Thank you for the shoutout :) Great video.

[@theworkshopwhisperer.5902]

Speaking solely from star sector but it's interesting to try and other games as well is the "unique fleet doctrine." You can only have one of each kind of capital ship. On the one hand this is an arbitrary challenge limitation to make the star sector a little more difficult because if you find one capital ship blueprint you will just stuff your fleet with as many as you can fit but if you come across a fleet that happens to be modified in a way that counters that particular ship it can counter your entire fleet. If every ship is a different hull with different weapons they will all have different strengths and weaknesses. Then the workhorses will reveal themselves the ships that are always left standing at the end of every battle. In a setting with modular weaponry and upgrades a relatively benign fleet can up armour very quickly.

[@NaqrSeranvis]

TL;DR - a proper fleet composition entirely depends on the setting you find yourself in. What kind of composition is going to be the most effective against the kind of enemies you face. My idea for an example setting against enemy that relies on fleets composed around cruisers and destroyers, with sparse escorts and/or capitals. In that setting, escorts and caps ar primary point-defense providers so enemy fleet lacks in this capability: A few big, well-protected carrier/command ships with tons of... no, not weapons. Sensors, tracking systems, comms - in the end, focused around target acquisition and durability. Some smaller warships as escorts, strike craft primarily of the variety intended against heavier warships (sometimes known as bombers), just to keep enemies from being too cocky with striking the commands. And a separate detachment of another type of big ships, alone, beyond the battlefield. Preferably equipped with stealth systems. These carry large amounts of long range missiles, that they can launch in volleys of thousands. Just launch. Because it is the aforementioned command ships that guide those missiles to their targets. Also: 5:10 - that also means that maintenance of some of such ships is pointless in the long run. The most maintenance-heavy ones are going to become perfect candidates for use in _burning ship_ tactics, or in more modern terms, as ship-sized torpedoes. 6:31 - that is, unless your ships are designed to never be phased out, and instead to be perpetually retrofitted, because for example you have nanotechnology that allows you to completely restructure them, including the base frame, on the run. Then, they are out of commission only temporarily.

[@dimensionalchaos8422]

YOOOOO Starsector mentioned

[@koleoidea]

I would love it if you labeled your clips in the corner or something. It would make it a lot easier to find the original source for some of these cool clips!

[@irkenlord]

For anyone looking for some inspiration on fleet designs too I highly recommend Expeditionary Force (book) by Craig Alanson. It has the slow burn that Stargate does where humanity starts off at the bottom of the food chain in the galaxy with modern tech trying to adapt to a very massive universe. It also has a talking beer can that makes it a blast to chew through. Very Military Sci-fi that spends a LOT of time focusing on tactics and how light delay can factor into warfare.

[@mroberts7117]

Just some notes I found years ago: A “Capitol” ship is a ship that: if the rest of the ships in a Task Unit are lost the Unit can still effectively complete the assigned task. If this ship is lost, the rest of the unit cannot effectively complete the assigned task. Squadron: A small number of vessels (Task Elements) includes capital ships, and other ship types; not to be confused with ground and air squadrons. Flotilla: A small number of vessels (Task Elements) with no capital ships, usually of the same or similar types. EG the Carrier in a Carrier Battle Group would be the Capitol ship, and in Squadron with its Oiler/Tender. The Offensive screen and Defensive screen ships would be their own flotillas.

[@cosmictreason2242]

I thought a capital ship was defined as a ship that can launch other boats, making everything down to a sloop-of-war a capital ship by technicality. Can you comment?

[@Lichemaster]

You should read Lost Fleet series. It is just great in terms of logical fleet composition, logistics, supply problems and realistic (ish) physics of space combat.

[@TeddyBear97201]

This isn't "How to Compose a Sci-Fi Space Fleet" so much as it is "Things to Consider when Composing Your Sci-Fi Space Fleet". 'How To' implies you are giving instruction.

[@killsode4760]

Honestly fair critique

[@UncleFester84]

Before composing a fleet there must be an idea of what each ship class does, for my fantasy scenario it is something like this: Fighters. Possibly divided in: Interceptors (very fast and light, used mostly as scramblers for defence), Superiority (good balance and multirole but doesnt excel in anything, often used as fighter-bombers or escorts for proper bombers), Bombers (big and heavy, not very agile but fast enough for bombing runs against big targets). Shuttles. Mostly used for transports of any kind, from cargo to personell, to marines boarding parties, some specialized variant may be used for early warning, ECM, and short range police duty. Corvettes (150m). Divided by specialty, a gunship corvette may be an excellent anti fighter ship, a wolfpack of torpedo corvette could threaten much larger capitals, other roles could be minelaying/minehunting, stealth infiltration, comm relays, etc. Typically used by local militias and dedicated planetary defence. Frigates (300m). Relatively long range, multirole ships that can both fend off fighters and become a worry for bigger ships, used mostly for system-wide patrols and are often the flagships of local security and mercenary groups. Smallest vessel that can support a hangar (2-4 fighters or 1-2 utility shuttles). Used in wings they can screen a fleet and harass enemy exposed lines. Destroyers (600m). Escort ships par excellence, very fast and with weaponry dedicated specifically to the destruction of vessels smaller than itself. Their great efficacy at that role comes at the price of a lack of versatility, sometimes partially mitigated by carrying a wing of bombers in their small hangar. Used to screen fleets, close-in escort to bigger capital ships and protect convoys. Some especially important planets or well funded militias can use them VERY effectively against big pirate gangs. Cruisers (1200m). Effectively a bigger version of frigates. Long range multirole ships perfectly capable of remaining in the void for extended periods. Depending on the situation they can be used for multi-system patrol, close-in escort, commerce raiding, and even battleline fights. Their hangar can house two full wings of fighters (or more often one wing + shuttles). Light Carriers (1200m). Based on cruiser hulls but with all their heavy weaponry removed to make space for hangars for several wings of fighters and shuttles, with a light escort of destroyers and frigates they can be used to patrol systems that can be too dangerous for a single cruiser to deal with. Also used in support of larger battlegroups and training duties. Assault Ship (1200m) A variant of light carriers that focuses on housing a full land invasion force and the fighter wing necessary to provide air support. Can be used to ferry also large amount of important cargo in its vast interior spaces. Battlecruiser (1500m) Based on cruiser hulls but with bigger engines and much bigger weapons. Very fast and with a strong punch but with a glass jaw. They are not very common as their favorite niche is to harass the rear lines of an enemy, engaging targets in hit and run tactics, or blasting away lightly protected objectives before running away as fast as they can, sometimes accompanied by one or two supporting destroyers. More often used instead for orbital bombardment. The extra space necessary for the enlarged systems means that the hangar had to be reduced to a single wing of fighters or shuttles. Battleship (2000m) Big armored ships that lose a bit of the speed of battlecruisers, but gain much more armor, making them the ideal ships of the line. Aside from their big weapons they also retain much of the lighter armament of cruisers, making them multirole ships also usable for escort, bombardment and raids. When not used to bolster the escort of a fleet carrier, they often set sail in the middle of a strike group of their own. Their only limiting factors are the small hangar space of two wings, and high cost of building and operations. Fleet Carrier (2200m) The core of many strike groups and the ultimate in power projection, fleet carriers have very limited armament, composed almost exclusively of short range self-defence weapons, but they make it up thanks to their speed, relatively heavy armor, and especially big hangars, housing many wings of both fighters and shuttles. Very expensive to buid and maintain, they enter the field in the middle of a thick multi-layered escort screen, from which they can send waves upon waves of fighters to destroy the enemy. Titan (aka battlecarrier, aka dreadnought) (5000+m) A one-ship fleet that fuses together a fleet carrier and a battleship. Ideally used to wreak havok in the rear lines of an enemy, who is then forced to divide their resources to deal with both the front line and the Titan, they are so few and so expensive that most of the times, when they enter battle, they do it from the centre of a massive formation of friendly ships. Alternatively they are frequently used for propaganda and big-stick diplomacy. Auxiliaries (100-5000m) Most common of these are the fast logistic ships used to replenish roaming battlegroups, other examples include hospital ships, transports, repair ships (the largest of which could be mobile drydocks), science vessels, and so on. Now if you're still reading, you can come up with the best fleet combination yourself, or if you're interested, i cold come up with mine.😃

[@guyman1570]

Bad naming conventions. You're still basing them all on Earth ocean vessel classes. Example: destroyers were actually originally termed as torpedo-boat destroyers but it got shortened to one word. Another example of bad naming in your post: what exactly did you think "frigate" originally was named as for and what happened to make it happen that way?

[@MacElMasMancoDeTodos]

Star Wars just prefers to have 3 ships blocking an entire planet and call it "an unpenetrable defense"

[@SilverStripe82]

Please, please PLEASE do a review on the Lost Fleet series of books by Jack Campbell . Love to hear your thoughts on the realistic aspects of the battles and possible CGI interpretations of those ships and tactics used.

[@BlindIo42]

Most people don't know this, but at the center of every Miranda class ship is a B-52 Stratofortress.

[@euansmith3699]

This is such a great channel. 👍

[@kineticdeath]

finishing up with a clip of the only 2 victory class destroyers known to exist. Ending in style!

[@samuelyoung1]

I like picturing super carriers as carrying small fleets within them. fleets of drones and/or fighters swarm out to help protect the larger ships coming out next(drone shields, or even just by making identification or targeting much more difficult) then out comes destroyers, cruisers, frigates, and other ships. if it's a big enough supercarrier, perhaps even regular Carriers are carried inside. I really like supercarriers when it's not out of sheer cool factor but there are actual reasons for them to exist like in dune with the spacing guilds ships (dunes the only one I know of) or others, where the FTL tech is unable to be powered by smaller ships, or even where perhaps the small ships even have FTL but there's two types, and the small ships have slow FTL(good for within a solar cluster, where with the FTL it takes at most a couple years to get between stars) and the big ships have fast FTL(where in the same time it takes slow FTL to cross between the most distant two stars in a solar cluster it can cross the entire milky way galaxy, and there have experiments with small ships having fast FTL, but every time they either go insane or just blow up)

[@Fishrokk]

Piloted single crew craft only make sense in the space fleet battlefield if they can carry weaponry that can deal meaningful damage to enemy capital ships at a safe distance from their carriers. Otherwise you're just wasting a lot of resources. And if you can do that, you can make a small crew gunboat with both more firepower and survivability than a snub fighter. Depending on your franchise, if craft in this size range can fit a viable FTL drives, capital ships might actually be a fleet liability. A space navy made up of many craft between the size of a Hammerhead or Gozanti cruiser and an average-sized Corellian YT class freighter or even something more the size of the Razor Crest would be able to chew up a snub fighter screen and tear into capital ships with a massive numbers advantage.