Battle-Class Ships (BCS? FCS?) Again (Rob / 2026)

[Badenov]

Did you consider the effect configuration has on the odds of penetration (assuming you're using CT's HG, of course)? A wedge hull is fairly popular, and reduce the number of damaging hits from the J Meson to 1.6, the N Meson to 3.2, and the T Meson to 2.4, putting the J well behind.

I had not included the configuration in my calculation because I had planned for all the ships to have the same config, so in theory it wouldn't skew any results, but you are correct in your calculations and I agree with your conclusions. The bigger mesons are more able to make any Config roll more easily, but not enough to change the result from favoring the N meson.

The wedge is the most effective of the aerodynamic hulls, and one of the most effective of all the hulls. Distributed and Buffered Planetoid are more effective, but have overwhelming drawbacks. And the ability to field refuel adds a ton of tactical flexibility. I consider the wedge hull essential for any line of battle ship just for the ability to field refuel. That said, for capitol carriers and other ships that are not planning on sitting in the front line, Conf 6, Flattened Sphere, gives you all the perks of streamlining on the cheap. It's more vulnerable to Mesons (but realistically, the wedge doesn't buy you much protection, either), and if those ships are getting shot at, it's already gone into the toilet and you're pretty much screwed. The line-of-battle ships don't get a ton of protection against full power Meson Beams, but I'm expecting attacking mesons to be degraded as missile and particle hits spread out the damage.

All off-topic for this thread, though.

Well, the topic's drifted a bit, so yes. I wasn't clear on the purpose of the original thread, but I felt compelled to share because I have done the deep dive into the assertions made subsequently. .

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Tonnage	Qty in 60,000 tons	Hits vs Meson Screen 9
7500, J Meson	8	2.22
10000, N Meson	6	3.5
20000, T Meson	3	2.5

You are simplifying a little to far, I believe...

I get something like this:


The T gun is just too large.
The N gun is superior to the J gun, slightly ameliorated by having more J riders, hence damage resilience.

1MDt is 105 N Riders or 142 J Riders.
105 N Riders will kill 9.4 or 6.6% of the J Riders.
142 J Riders will kill 4.8 or 4.6% of the N Riders.
The N gun is still winning, but at a lower margin.

PA T riders will kill them all at an alarming rate, of course.


And shooting at a lower tech TL-14 target (Zho, Solo, etc.)


Against a lower TL enemy the Mes J is probably superior.
Who are you planning to fight, other Impies or Zhos?
Perhaps the frontier fleets have J guns and the Core fleets have N guns?

 

[whartung]

As is apparent, the difference is not huge

A 60% difference in effectiveness of the N gun over the J gun is huge.

Whether they cost out that way is a different story.

 

[Badenov]

You are simplifying a little to far, I believe...

I get something like this:
View attachment 7511

The T gun is just too large.
The N gun is superior to the J gun, slightly ameliorated by having more J riders, hence damage resilience.

1MDt is 105 N Riders or 142 J Riders.
105 N Riders will kill 9.4 or 6.6% of the J Riders.
142 J Riders will kill 4.8 or 4.6% of the N Riders.
The N gun is still winning, but at a lower margin.

PA T riders will kill them all at an alarming rate, of course.


And shooting at a lower tech TL-14 target (Zho, Solo, etc.)
View attachment 7510

Against a lower TL enemy the Mes J is probably superior.
Who are you planning to fight, other Impies or Zhos?
Perhaps the frontier fleets have J guns and the Core fleets have N guns?

I did simplify a lot. In my defense, my quick answer turns out to agree with your more complicated answer, though I didn't pick up a lot of the nuance you did. I also wasn't able to get the TL14 Mesons into the same hull tonnages that the TL15 versions fit into. The interesting thing was how lethal the PA ships are, and that's one of the reasons I bumped the N Meson riders to 10,000 D-Tons - they take one less size-based crit from the T PAs. At the 60,000 ton fleet size, my PAs slip in at 12,000 tons, so I get 5 in my fleet. If the PA SDBs hit on 6+ (TN: 0 + Agi 6), that's a 72% hit rate, and at 10,000T, Size K, only one crit, so 33% take-down crit rate, I get about a (5 x .73 x .33=) 1.2 ship take-down rate, much less than the Meson N take-down rate at that fleet size.

I reran my math at the Million D-Ton fleet size and got your numbers, so I have mathed wrong somewhere, but I'm not quite sure where or how, .

A 60% difference in effectiveness of the N gun over the J gun is huge.

Whether they cost out that way is a different story.

Sorry, I was thinking additively rather than multiplicatively, I blame the late hour. As I said, the costs are roughly proportional to the ship tonnage. The Meson N is 10,000T and 11,284 MCr. The Meson T is 19,999T and 18.049 MCr. The lower proportional cost is because I had to trim the armor down to 12 to get the T Meson down to under 20,000T.