Draco: Real or Fake News? Discuss...

[The Fremen]

AP is basically the total thrust of all maneuver drives designed into a ship / by the tonnage of that ship. 

In Andromeda the min is 2 and the max useable is 999 although a ship could have a much higher number. 

In Draco the min is 1 and the max is 8

take a starting pathfinder in Draco as an example

this design has 180 Mk I Nuclear Engines which each have 400 thrust rating  

180 x 400 is 72000/36000 (tonnage of Pathfinder) is 2 AP  

 

 

 

[The Fremen]

355000 is the thrust output of a a top of the line maneuver drive in Andromeda. 

I believe the same engine in Draco will produce around 1600. Thrust has been significantly reduced in Draco  which mean that fast ships in Draco will use a much larger % of their tonnage for maneuver engines leaving lots less for important stuff like weapons and armor. Warships in Draco will be VERY slow if they want to be warships. ?

[Sandarbian]

Well I can see I am not going for 2AP anytime soon except for the smallest of a specialized ship. 

So does one just slap a single thrust engine or is better maneuverability highly desirable in combat. I know in Draco maneuverability will not affect missiles, but I assume (be it ever so dreaded) that it still has an effect on fighters and drones. Does maneuverability have any effect against beam or point blank weapons?   Is there a formula for this? 

Damn, I ask alot of questions. But last time I played I never got a handle on shipbuilding and/or design and never had any combat experience, space or ground. Not looking to get into battles or war but would like decent designs that can at least stand toe-to-toe with an attacker's ship. 

Thanks all for the advice and information I've gotten and will ask about in the future. 

[Sandarbian]

I, the new ending font of questions, have another.

In the Exploration part of the rules:

Quote

Perhaps an alien ship crashed in the vicinity of the ground battle, and some of the components of that ship survived intact. Your teams will load those Items onto their Fleet as long as there is sufficient Cargo space to handle them. It is therefore a good idea to always have Cargo Holds set aside when you send your Fleets out to perform Exploration missions. If you don’t have enough Cargo space to handle discovered Items, they are lost. They are not stored on the planet for later pickup, but instead are discarded (lost forever).

Any suggestions as to how many cargo bays I should carry on a ship dedicated to planetary surveys? What's the largest haul anyone has found on a world using the EXPL order? 

[The Fremen]

7 hours ago, Sandarbian said:

Well I can see I am not going for 2AP anytime soon except for the smallest of a specialized ship. 

So does one just slap a single thrust engine or is better maneuverability highly desirable in combat. I know in Draco maneuverability will not affect missiles, but I assume (be it ever so dreaded) that it still has an effect on fighters and drones. Does maneuverability have any effect against beam or point blank weapons?   Is there a formula for this? 

Damn, I ask alot of questions. But last time I played I never got a handle on shipbuilding and/or design and never had any combat experience, space or ground. Not looking to get into battles or war but would like decent designs that can at least stand toe-to-toe with an attacker's ship. 

Thanks all for the advice and information I've gotten and will ask about in the future. 

In Draco manuver in combat does not help against drones or fighters or missiles. This has made these weapons exceptionally powerful in Draco and by default made CIDS extremely important. Don’t research some CIDS and your begging to get squished like a bug( no offense to the bug races of the galaxy) in combat.  In fact the only thing that speed seems to have any effect on in combat is the ability drones/fighters have to avoid enemy CIDS fire with pulse engine tech. 

There are combat formulas for everything in Andromeda and Draco but to date no one has come up with anything.

Combat is a simple matter of using your strengths against the weaknesses of your enemy just like it always will be everywhere but In my personal opinion the best way to approach combat is to generate the most firepower you can in the shortest amount of time no matter what weapon it is. Against opponents like the DMX who can be quite predictable in ship types and weapons this is easy. Against a human opponent well ... that’s much of the fun!! 

[The Fremen]

6 hours ago, Sandarbian said:

I, the new ending font of questions, have another.

In the Exploration part of the rules:

Any suggestions as to how many cargo bays I should carry on a ship dedicated to planetary surveys? What's the largest haul anyone has found on a world using the EXPL order? 

The absolute bare minimum is 25000 tons. The reason for this number is that transwarp drives of any variety are always 25000 tons.  There are some weapon systems that are larger then this but not many and in the 15 years of playing I personally have never found a single weapon system larger then this. In fact the best weapon I ever found was in Draco! ( found 2 Gen 6 weapons on my HW in some hidden vault). they were 8000 tons a piece.  It’s also a good idea to add items to your explorer ship to help with its exploration chances. Things like sensors of any type, tractor beams, stun beams, magnetic grapples, science labs, universal translators, survey landers and then add an explorer type leader with a martial artist backup. 

[Guest]

In all it still the same math for draco or Andromeda . It just a example is all

[The Fremen]

1 hour ago, Nym-2185 said:

In all it still the same math for draco or Andromeda . It just a example is all

Most of it is the same but some of it has changed drastically 

[Sandarbian]

Short, medium and long range sensors. Do you need some of each? Or just whatever gets you the best amount of sensor strength?

[Guest]

it all depends on what you going to use them for

[The Fremen]

They all work in a similar fashion. The only difference is their sensor strength which in the game is used to defend vs mines and also to assist with exploration 

[The Fremen]

Also researching the long range sensors is required for some of the more advanced sensor types 

[Sandarbian]

An anti-assumption Question.

You have many ships in your fleet in several different deployment zones. Does the CIDS weapons on a single ship attack JUST the fighters/drones/missiles/etc attacking  it? OR are all the CIDS in the fleet use collectively as a Fleet Point Defense Umbrella over the entire fleet and attack the whole of the enemy [fighters/drones/missiles/etc] force? So even if one ship design has no CIDS it is defended by the FPDU...

Ignorant, confused old folks wanta know...

 

[Anti-assumption Question = A question posed so neither you nor I end up looking like the North End of a South-bound Mule. Assume, be it ever so dreaded]

[The Fremen]

CIDS in a fleet are added together to give you a fleet wide umbrella but the CIDS on an individual ship will protect that ship as well.  At least that’s the way I understand it. I could be wrong though?

[RTGPete]

CIDS on a ship will indeed contribute to the CIDS total for their side for purposes of destroying enemy fighters, drones and gunboats.  For defensive purposes (reducing incoming damage), they apply only to their own ship.  Fighters, drones and gunboats that happen to have a CIDS rating divide that over their side's ships, adding to each ship's individual CIDS rating--effectively providing mobile umbrella coverage by providing some protection to all of them.