2084 Campaign Part 3: Alea iacta est

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

The 10-damage fighter missiles seem awfully powerful.  Since the ships in Aurora and Starfire are relatively equivalent in ability to take damage, it is the equivalent of fighters firing long range HBMs.  I have trouble accepting fighters carrying three missiles that are each twice as powerful as shipboard  ones.

Although Aurora obviously has influences from 3rdR, it's a very different game and much more like modern naval warfare. A modern fighter can easily take out a destroyer if it gets solid hits so I am not that concerned about fighters having powerful missiles. However, a couple of points to consider.

With the new armour system, Aurora warships will get much tougher, although commercial shipping will get weaker, so the three strength-10 missiles from an Oceanian fighter may not even penetrate the armour of even a fairly small warship.

The reason the Falchion missiles on the fighters have larger warheads than the shipboard Katanas is that the Falchions are a third larger but shorter-ranged and have 33% less chance to hit. They are designed to be ship-killers so much more of their mass is in the warhead. The Tribals are specifically designed to combat Fast Attack Craft so their missiles are more accurate but with smaller warheads and their sensors and fire control systems can track small targets.

Steve

[Strega]

Since ship weapons cannot target fighters at even 2/3 normal missile range, the reduced range of fighter missiles is irrelevant.  The fighters can easily close to missile range against any non-fighter-equipped ship and salvo their missiles, which are crushingly powerful.  

That's water under the bridge given the incoming armor rules, though.  However, if you want to keep a 21st century feel, bear in mind that only a very large warship can carry enough armor to stave off even a medium sized RL antiship missile, and there are currently zero such warships in service worldwide.

[Charlie Beeler]

Since ship weapons cannot target fighters at even 2/3 normal missile range, the reduced range of fighter missiles is irrelevant.  The fighters can easily close to missile range against any non-fighter-equipped ship and salvo their missiles, which are crushingly powerful.  

That's water under the bridge given the incoming armor rules, though.  However, if you want to keep a 21st century feel, bear in mind that only a very large warship can carry enough armor to stave off even a medium sized RL antiship missile, and there are currently zero such warships in service worldwide.

The fighter detection range is a function of how you design your active sensors and the underlying tech of the sensor components.  In 2.5 I regularly build active sensors that can see fighters at 500k and others that can engage missiles at 400k for area defense.  From Steve's descriptions this will need to continue and expand/refine if a fleet ever hopes to deal with fighters.  Smart analysis of how a system is being employed will reveal at least one weakness that can be exploited.  It may take some agressive tech resesarch but can be done.

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

Since ship weapons cannot target fighters at even 2/3 normal missile range, the reduced range of fighter missiles is irrelevant.  The fighters can easily close to missile range against any non-fighter-equipped ship and salvo their missiles, which are crushingly powerful.  

A very good anti-fighter weapon is a missile so the range of fighter missiles is important compared to ship-launched anti-fighter missiles. Fighters are also a lot easier to detect in v2.6 because they are going to be size 2-5.

That's water under the bridge given the incoming armor rules, though.  However, if you want to keep a 21st century feel, bear in mind that only a very large warship can carry enough armor to stave off even a medium sized RL antiship missile, and there are currently zero such warships in service worldwide.

Yes, although the missiles and detection are modern naval, the lasers, torpedoes and now the armour are strictly sci-fi.

Steve

[MWadwell]

Matt,

There are 2 major factors in why the Eurasian escort cruiser faired so poorly.  

The first being that the lasers only ranged to 60k km thus only had a single shot at the incoming missiles.  Higher wave length lasers can address this short coming.

The problem with this, is that at the moment, both sides are of comparable tech, and if one side puts it's R&D into higher wavelengths, and the other puts it into faster missiles, the balance between the two is unchanged.

And the beam-armed race also needs to upgrade their power and capacitor R&D as well, so that I wouldn't expect the anti-missile beam weapons to get better faster than missiles do.

The second is the differential between the fire control and turret tracking speed (12.8k kps) and the speed of the incoming missiles (17.8k kps).  This one is expensive but can be overcome over time.  The counter for the missile user is to keep missile velocities up.

To be honest, this isn't such a big thing - as Steve pointed out that the Oceania missiles are faster than they should have been (they should be going 14 240 km/s rather than 17 800 km/s).

A third solution is to build ships that have armor that will shrug off expected warhead sizes.  It's an expensive solution in terms of hull space usage and a bit "cheesy" while being the quickest response.  Of course the missile race just deploys missiles with larger warheads...

But missiles do a LOT more damage than lasers - especially at long range (where beam weapons only do a single point of damage) - so ship armour actually makes missiles better (as it weakens beam weapons).

However, I know that this has changed with Steve introducing the new armour rules.

[Charlie Beeler]

Matt,

There are 2 major factors in why the Eurasian escort cruiser faired so poorly.  

The first being that the lasers only ranged to 60k km thus only had a single shot at the incoming missiles.  Higher wave length lasers can address this short coming.

The problem with this, is that at the moment, both sides are of comparable tech, and if one side puts it's R&D into higher wavelengths, and the other puts it into faster missiles, the balance between the two is unchanged.

And the beam-armed race also needs to upgrade their power and capacitor R&D as well, so that I wouldn't expect the anti-missile beam weapons to get better faster than missiles do.

In a game where the laser race didn't do agressive initial tech for things like wave length, beam fire control range, and targeting speed your correct...to a degree.  On the other hand if they did, but didn't build initial systems correctly the disparity isn't so great.  

I routinely start laser races with 40k-48k beam FC range, tracking of 4k/kps,capacitor 3's, and far ultra violet lasers.  Build beam fire controls at 4x/4x (yes is mass expensive) and turreted 10cm fuv lasers (again mass expensive) and also spend the mass for an active sensor that can see size 4 missiles out to 160k you have a pd suite that engage incoming missiles in the starting game effectively 3 times in the detection envelope.  This assumes that starting missiles most likely aren't going tobe faster than 12K/kps, which at least in most of my starting games isn't unreasonable.(starting research points of 300k per race)  I am talking about v2.5 and it does look like some of this may change with v2.6

The second is the differential between the fire control and turret tracking speed (12.8k kps) and the speed of the incoming missiles (17.8k kps).  This one is expensive but can be overcome over time.  The counter for the missile user is to keep missile velocities up.

To be honest, this isn't such a big thing - as Steve pointed out that the Oceania missiles are faster than they should have been (they should be going 14 240 km/s rather than 17 800 km/s).

Agreed, but still is some degridation of accuracy for the defender.

A third solution is to build ships that have armor that will shrug off expected warhead sizes.  It's an expensive solution in terms of hull space usage and a bit "cheesy" while being the quickest response.  Of course the missile race just deploys missiles with larger warheads...

But missiles do a LOT more damage than lasers - especially at long range (where beam weapons only do a single point of damage) - so ship armour actually makes missiles better (as it weakens beam weapons).

It's a trade off.  Size 10 warheads do make up armoring prohibative in early games.  That's what a fleet with good point defense suites will be much better.

I still don't see missiles as game dominating.  Then again I didn't in Starfire either.  It's a matter of what your willing to build and how your willing to build it.

However, I know that this has changed with Steve introducing the new armour rules.

Yep.  The new armor makes up armoring as I described basicly moot.  Which is fine by me since I considered what I was doing a bit of a cheat.