Missile Design Guide Desired

[Hawkeye]

The single AMM launcher realy is ineficient use of mass, because you need a missile fire control system (your Awl MCS) which takes mass. Add to this the mass of the launcher and you are at, what, 150 or 200t? for the ability to launch a single AMM each 10 seconds. If you put, say, 5 launchers on this ship, the mass only doubles (assuming the MCS masses 150t) from 200t to 400t, but you can launch 5 times as many AMMs.
I´d probably downgrade the passives, leaving the task of detecting the enemy to a dedicated fleetscout and use the saved mass for the additonal AMM launchers.
On second thought, I´d probably get rid of the AMMs alltogether and build a dedicated attack platform and another dedicated escort platform

I see you are using two CIWS. I´d probably switch those out for a single PD-turret. While this weakens the anti-missile defense, if the ship is on its own, I realy, realy don´t recomend sending single ships against an enemy. In a squadron, each turret will defend any ship in the squadron. If you have 4 of those cruiser in a squadron, this immediately doubles your last-ditch PD (4 turrets vs. 2 CIWS). If you can squeeze in a tripple turret (unlikely), it only gets better.

[Arwyn]

It was a bit of a trade off really. The Turret and associated fire control simply weighed too much to include. I should just strip the AMM out. I have a dedicated cruiser design for Area defense that packs in several AMM launchers and a huge magazines. I do have some lighter weight escorts, but what I saw happen was that the AMM ammo goes dry fast on the smaller ships, and to provide them with enough ammo for extended egagements (extended for missile combat at least) cranked up the mass of the ship to the point that it was better to just build a newer design.

Thanks for the input though, its all good info!  

[Brian Neumann]

If your gauss cannon rate of fire is high enough (4+) you might want to build a ciws system instead for point defense.

Brian

[AtomikKrab]

I prefer to have a 1-1 rate for amm launchers since they deal with potentially storms of missiles

[WCG]

The upside, at least in simulation, is that it clobbers the NPRs current classes.

This discussion is very useful for a newbie like me, but what do you mean by "at least in simulation"? Is there something (else) I'm missing here?

Thanks,

Bill

[Arwyn]

The upside, at least in simulation, is that it clobbers the NPRs current classes.

This discussion is very useful for a newbie like me, but what do you mean by "at least in simulation"? Is there something (else) I'm missing here?

Thanks,

Bill

No, your not missing anything. You can simulate this via some quick game juggling. I have a backup copy of my game, just in case something gets corrupted. I copied the backup game, then opened it up, used SM powers to insta build and drop a small squadron of my new ships into a system with the bad guys in it. Fight breaks out and you get a quick validation of your design, in a semi-real world situation.

In the "real" game, the first test of the design didnt go so well. The NPR ambushed me at the jump point with several 7800 ton destroyers armed with seven VERY advanced lasers. My brand new shiny cruisers never got a volley off.  

[Vanigo]

I have a semi-related question. Is there any difference between drones and missiles, other than the slower, more efficient engine and the fixed engine size and manuverability? Also, is there any way to deliberately slow down your drones? Seems to me like it'd be handy to have drones moving at the same speed as the launching ship, so you could stack up a single gigantic salvo of cluster missiles.

[Father Tim]

I have a semi-related question. Is there any difference between drones and missiles, other than the slower, more efficient engine and the fixed engine size and manuverability? Also, is there any way to deliberately slow down your drones? Seems to me like it'd be handy to have drones moving at the same speed as the launching ship, so you could stack up a single gigantic salvo of cluster missiles.

The only difference is the engine - and possibly some obscure corner of the code where Steve hasn't yet accounted for drones.

Speed equals engine power divided by object mass (min 1km/s), so the only way to slow down your drones is to put more stuff on them or use less powerful engines (Nuclear Thermal instead of Nuclear Pulse, or engines with minus power/explosion, plus fuel efficiency tech).  And yes, the giant salvo is handy - so handy that using it 'broke' earlier versions of the game.

[Steve Walmsley]

I have a semi-related question. Is there any difference between drones and missiles, other than the slower, more efficient engine and the fixed engine size and manuverability? Also, is there any way to deliberately slow down your drones? Seems to me like it'd be handy to have drones moving at the same speed as the launching ship, so you could stack up a single gigantic salvo of cluster missiles.

The difference is the engine. As you mentioned it has a lower power-to-weight ratio and is much more fuel efficient. It is also a fixed size, like a fighter engine or ship engine.

Steve

[Venec]

Do drones work in newest Aurora? I read somewhere that their code is broken.