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There seems to be a lot of uncertainty about ship design, what to put in T.F.s, and basic tactics.
IMHO MOO3 does a pretty decent job of modeling surface naval tactics, with that in mind it's not that difficult to predict what will do well and anecdotal evidence seems to suggest that this theory is indeed accurate. Listed below are a few general points taken from modern surface naval tactics.
1. Three things are key, detection, range and damage. Always. True in modern naval combat dispersion is also a key concept but this is because of nukes not conventional weapons and there is no nuke equivalent present in MOO3’s tactical combat simulator.
2. Concentration of fire is an important point to remember in all types of combat, it is better to destroy one T.F. than to wound 10 T.F.s.
3. Missiles and Fighters are superior to beam weapons in that they have longer range and do more damage if fire is sufficiently concentrated to over-saturate point defense. This is not terribly difficult to do, especially since missiles and fighters are “smart” and will search for another target if their first target is already destroyed. Further more missiles and fighter sear for addition targets in a rational manner i.e. they go for the closest next T.F.
4. Cloaking is generally not a good idea. ECM takes up twice as much space as ECCM and in general detection arrays seem to combat cloaking arrays pretty well. Also cloaking is based on ship size so for well-cloaked ships you need smaller ships, which of course carry fewer weapons, and have less “armor.” So big picket ships with a moderate amount of ECCM and detection gear have more seeing power than the small stealthy ships will have stealthy power, AND the detection oriented T.F. will probably has more hull space devoted to weapons, greater damage potential, more armor and a good chance of detecting an equally well tech’d cloaking T.F. Meaning of course the cloaking T.F. gets eaten. MOO3 does not simulate sub’s well, or for that matter even at all.
5. Point defense is important, every ship should have some. Generally speaking it is better to have a give hull space of auto-fire medium damage (or much lower hull space low damage) PD weapons than it is to have a few high damage PD weapons. This helps prevent over-saturation of PD in 1 on 1 (T.F.) situation and helps damage control in 10 on 10 (T.F.).
6. In the same way that concentration of firepower is important so is concentration of forces, this allows multiple PD ships from multiple T.F.s to all shoot at the same salvo of missiles helping them to survive.
7. Missiles are not superior to fighters and fighters are not superior to missiles. Fighters are very good at saturating PD weapons. Missiles are very good at doing damage. They work best together. Experiment with Carrier T.F.s that include a few missile boats, but remember general point # 5.
8. Interceptors (IC) are far superior to Space Superiority Fighters (SSF). IC’s do 1/3 less damage and take up ½ the space of the same weapon type of SSF. Giving you more damage per unit of hull space. (10x2 > 5x3).
9. Missiles chassis past light missile are a little absurd, it is far better to have 10 missiles that each do 100 damage than it is to have one that does 1000. See general point #3 (saturation of PD).
10. Concentration of fire is important, in a perfect world 2 Carrier/I.F. T.F.s should fire at the same target, but because of the nature of the tactical combat and because the missiles and fighters are relatively smart all T.F.s firing at one is not really a problem. This helps achieve the aim of general point #3. (and is basically the same thing written again, but it is important enough to list twice).
IMHO MOO3 does a pretty decent job of modeling surface naval tactics, with that in mind it's not that difficult to predict what will do well and anecdotal evidence seems to suggest that this theory is indeed accurate. Listed below are a few general points taken from modern surface naval tactics.
1. Three things are key, detection, range and damage. Always. True in modern naval combat dispersion is also a key concept but this is because of nukes not conventional weapons and there is no nuke equivalent present in MOO3’s tactical combat simulator.
2. Concentration of fire is an important point to remember in all types of combat, it is better to destroy one T.F. than to wound 10 T.F.s.
3. Missiles and Fighters are superior to beam weapons in that they have longer range and do more damage if fire is sufficiently concentrated to over-saturate point defense. This is not terribly difficult to do, especially since missiles and fighters are “smart” and will search for another target if their first target is already destroyed. Further more missiles and fighter sear for addition targets in a rational manner i.e. they go for the closest next T.F.
4. Cloaking is generally not a good idea. ECM takes up twice as much space as ECCM and in general detection arrays seem to combat cloaking arrays pretty well. Also cloaking is based on ship size so for well-cloaked ships you need smaller ships, which of course carry fewer weapons, and have less “armor.” So big picket ships with a moderate amount of ECCM and detection gear have more seeing power than the small stealthy ships will have stealthy power, AND the detection oriented T.F. will probably has more hull space devoted to weapons, greater damage potential, more armor and a good chance of detecting an equally well tech’d cloaking T.F. Meaning of course the cloaking T.F. gets eaten. MOO3 does not simulate sub’s well, or for that matter even at all.
5. Point defense is important, every ship should have some. Generally speaking it is better to have a give hull space of auto-fire medium damage (or much lower hull space low damage) PD weapons than it is to have a few high damage PD weapons. This helps prevent over-saturation of PD in 1 on 1 (T.F.) situation and helps damage control in 10 on 10 (T.F.).
6. In the same way that concentration of firepower is important so is concentration of forces, this allows multiple PD ships from multiple T.F.s to all shoot at the same salvo of missiles helping them to survive.
7. Missiles are not superior to fighters and fighters are not superior to missiles. Fighters are very good at saturating PD weapons. Missiles are very good at doing damage. They work best together. Experiment with Carrier T.F.s that include a few missile boats, but remember general point # 5.
8. Interceptors (IC) are far superior to Space Superiority Fighters (SSF). IC’s do 1/3 less damage and take up ½ the space of the same weapon type of SSF. Giving you more damage per unit of hull space. (10x2 > 5x3).
9. Missiles chassis past light missile are a little absurd, it is far better to have 10 missiles that each do 100 damage than it is to have one that does 1000. See general point #3 (saturation of PD).
10. Concentration of fire is important, in a perfect world 2 Carrier/I.F. T.F.s should fire at the same target, but because of the nature of the tactical combat and because the missiles and fighters are relatively smart all T.F.s firing at one is not really a problem. This helps achieve the aim of general point #3. (and is basically the same thing written again, but it is important enough to list twice).
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