the HODGEPODGE GRAND

[Warhead]

I believe Natalya's right.

In wet navies small ships were used, like destroyers armed to the teeth with Anti Aircraft weapons but not much else. They were designated DD-E (DD for Destroyer and E for Escort). I think near the end of WWII they even used Cruisers in this way at the height of Aircraft Carrier and Fighter Warfare.

[Strana]

i know thats why i have the rabid class gunboat, but at best thats going to take out 2-3 swarmers/turn

[Warhead]

That's a very low exchange rate. Can't you enhance it's targeting and give it more specialist rapid fire laser clusters or something. An Anti Fighter Escort should be deadly, especially to the eggshell thin hulls of these expendable swarmers, it's what it's made for. Perhaps even a ECM suit to disrupt the swarmers co-coordinating their attacks on mass? Such a thing should eat up the ships hull space however and reduce it's armour and/or armaments.

[Strana]

welll a rabid class is nominally armed with 3 twin class III guns and one class IV gun so 19d6 per turn assuming swarmers to be sl2 and at 3 inches ok it should be able to kill 4 per turn if the fighters get in close enough it can use cluster munitions of which it has 12 of for a one shot of 12d10 in which case it can wipe up to another 2 swarmers. space torpedoes have a better chance at wiping a huge amount of swarmers out of the sky if they don't die by the time they detonate say about the squadron from detonation point to 17" out 2 or more health from each swarmer. so rabid can wipe 6/turn once then 4/ turn afterwards or a torpedoe can destroy a variable number of swarmers in an area of 227 sq.inches. i really built the rabid to handle the larger actual fighters rather than a true swarmer nock down vessel, the hardest thing is going to be having range on a squadron of swarmers which typically will have a MkII gun

a rabid class gunboat is 336 cp thats SL 4 armor class IV shield class III and fastest ship movement of 30" a turn.

a swarmer costs 94 cp being a Sl 2 size 2 speed 30" with 2 class II guns.

so a rabid will nock out say 6 swarmers or more before dying or 564 cp to every 336 cp about a 130 cp return not terrible and that gives other ships one more turn to ready for combat

[Warhead]

That's assuming the swarmers don't ignore their losses and go after the less prepared capital ships regardless, which probably would be their intended target. Still, thanks for the math, it makes more sense now.

[tahthing]

swarmers would have very low armor, give lots of small guns, if needed you can have two guns fire at the same turret, or give your turrets spread so that they hit more swarms each time.
or use a large rocket battery with like 50 rockets, your opponent is unlikely to have more than 50 swarmers.