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Posted by: bean
« on: February 16, 2017, 10:03:30 AM »

My solution to this problem was to go with fast size 1 missiles, staged for long range.  In fact, I think my standard AMM and ASM use the same engine.  (Actually, I have three or four ASMs, but the one that gets used as the final stage has the same engine as the AMM.)  I also have a decoy which is just a tiny bit faster, and has armor instead of warhead.  The advantage is that because of the way that the FC allocates defenses, it's going to soak up the first salvo of AMMs, and all the PD until the decoys are dead.  Seed one pod of decoys in with each salvo of real missiles to double the number of individual targets, which slows down the AMM firing rate.  And remember that adding FCs makes getting through PD easier if you can generate more individual targets than your opponent has FCs.
Also, laser heads have started working?  I may have to fire up a game and test them.  Last time I tried, they were completely useless compared to normal warheads.
Posted by: iceball3
« on: February 15, 2017, 03:44:01 PM »

It can also be noted that slower ships can mitigate somewhat the speed superiority using high speed turrets, a bit. Getting over the fire control range bands might be more difficult, though.
Posted by: Jorgen_CAB
« on: February 08, 2017, 06:07:42 PM »

Yes... it is true... but it does work if you have the numbers advantage.

It is also rare in, my experience, that one side have such a clear advantage that numbers don't count in this instance.

If you are two or more tech levels above an enemy in all fields and ships are updated to those standards then yes it will be difficult if not impossible at times.

I have played enough battles this way to know that inferior ships can win by attrition this way, formations do work but is a pain in the but to perform. I am talking about ships basically breaking up into individual groups of one ship each. It is near impossible to keep a unified battle line this way and ships will tend to go all places. If ships stay in larger formations  they can be closed by individual ships they are not chasing. If you break them up ships will soon be tangled up in what amounts to a brawl. Quite fun actually.

When sides also have different ships with different speeds and weapons such advantages are also not as clear. Even a slower enemy might have beam ship faster than some of your ships in said engagement or some ships with longer range weapons than others. Even if one side have the overall edge it might not be as clear cut.
Posted by: Iranon
« on: February 08, 2017, 11:29:09 AM »

@ Jorgen_CAB:

Encircling is a tricky job... a faster/longer-ranged force will still attempt to break out and pick enemy ships off from afar. Even if encircling works, they'll try to rush to one group, plinking away at it for as long as possible, then briefly accept close-quarters combat and break out as the rest approaches.
They may have local superiority even if the other side has more powerful weapons for close-range combat, and "speed is armour" in Aurora more than real life because it greatly affects hit chances.
Posted by: Jorgen_CAB
« on: February 08, 2017, 08:32:46 AM »

To counter PD, I'm rejigging my missile combat doctrine to use Size 1 antiship missiles.

This is my anti-ship missile design, designed for use by fighters and MIRV multistage missiles against difficult targets I can't or don't feel like penetrated with my bigger missiles. After learning some very harsh lessons from the school of combat, I realized I wanted a way to effectively turn my defensive AMM launchers to offensive purposes. The hit chance is tuned to be able to hit NPRs I'm currently fighting.

Missile Size: 1 MSP  (0.05 HS)     Warhead: 4    Armour: 0     Manoeuvre Rating: 15
Speed: 57500 km/s    Engine Endurance: 8 minutes   Range: 26.4m km
Cost Per Missile: 1.8089
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 862.5%   3k km/s 285%   5k km/s 172.5%   10k km/s 86.2%
Materials Required:    1x Tritanium   0.8089x Gallicite   Fuel x209.25

Development Cost for Project: 181RP

This is my anti-missile missile.

Missile Size: 1 MSP  (0.05 HS)     Warhead: 1    Armour: 0     Manoeuvre Rating: 42
Speed: 62500 km/s    Engine Endurance: 0 minutes   Range: 1.7m km
Cost Per Missile: 1.6613
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 2625%   3k km/s 840%   5k km/s 525%   10k km/s 262.5%
Materials Required:    0.25x Tritanium   1.4113x Gallicite   Fuel x15.5

Development Cost for Project: 166RP

(my tech level is fairly high-10 damage per warhead point, 80 agility per agility point, T7 (magnetic fusion, post internal) propulsion.)

A back-of-the-envelope estimate says that it would take about two antimissiles to take down a single antiship missile, the same as you. The difference is that my antiship missiles are almost as cheap as my antimissile missiles.

In my experience during multi-national campaigns fighters releasing their payload as close as 30m km at that tech level would be suicide. 100m or more would be necessary and you would still need to deal with screening forces first.

Using similar tech levels then 60m km would be fighter to fighter missile distances. 120m km would be the distance that cloaked escort frigates could engage fighter squadrons with relative ease. Multi-Stage missiles would be blown out of the sky long before they can release their payload by cloaked escort ships and/or fighter screens.

The AI can only reasonably defend against full size missile launcher strikes using reasonably large missiles size 4-6 if you have roughly the same tech levels.
Posted by: Jorgen_CAB
« on: February 08, 2017, 07:54:06 AM »

Lazer heads have been working for the entirety of version 6. I think they may have been broken back in 5 but every time I've tested they have worked well. They're excellent as standoff weapons to get damage past something with excessive but short ranged point defence.

Great!!

I actually never used them.



Oh... and regarding missiles. Even if I think that armour on missiles could be implemented better... at least improved with armour technology it is a viable way to protect missiles. I also think that agility should be as important as speed for a missiles ability to evade AMM. In reality missiles use both speed and agility to evade AMM.

If enemy missiles already have a high hit chance then increasing speed is pointless... it is much better to reduce speed add armour (and agility if necessary), This will make anti-ship missiles cheaper and able to withstand AMM better even if they have 100% hit chance. If you also use a combination of fast and slow missiles it will be harder for the enemy to tailor their AMM to a certain type of anti-ship missiles.

In multi-national campaigns I find it very important to use multiple type of ammunitions, attack forms and strategies since being predictable is NOT a good strategy, simply too easy to counter.

I also find that, in most cases... it is the scouting element that determine who win an engagement. Full on engagement between fleets are only happening when the stakes are really high. That is if you role-play the political reasons why you fight and the need to preserve forces in most situation. Very few battles will be to the last ship, even in beam combat.
Posted by: MarcAFK
« on: February 08, 2017, 06:21:12 AM »

Lazer heads have been working for the entirety of version 6. I think they may have been broken back in 5 but every time I've tested they have worked well. They're excellent as standoff weapons to get damage past something with excessive but short ranged point defence.
Posted by: Jorgen_CAB
« on: February 08, 2017, 03:24:33 AM »

About beam combat... have you actually tried formations and how that will impact beam combat?

I have played several multi side campaigns and I have found that superior numbers actually can overcome speed and range if formations and maneuverings are done properly. Ships are basically set to follow a single "stack" and if you have many "stacks" and they are spread out you can actually trap and close with a faster enemy unless they decide to disengage from the fight.

The side with superior numbers need to spread out so the faster less numerous side cant use their speed and range advantage to great effect. When fighting at extreme range shields will mitigate damage effectively enough that other ships can easily maneuver around enemy formations and close to more effective firing ranges.

There are no rule that force ships to stay in ONE close group and I see no reason why anyone would fight like that during beam combat.

If I have ten ships and you have five and each operate in its own formation there is a very little chance for any of your ships to actually be able to keep distance from ALL of my ships at the same time. I will actually have very high chance to close with ALL of my ships against MOST of your ships given how the game rules work. IF I move my ships in a circular pattern around your formation.

Try it.. it requires some logistical work during battles but I house rule some restriction on maneuvering time. So ships cant do course correction or target switching more than once per minute to keep me sane.

I also find it rare that one side will have total superiority in all areas of a fight AND been able to upgrade ALL their ships to high standard at the same time. Even if beam weapons can be superior missiles are still lethal in close quarter combat too and they are pretty hard to outrage and shoot down that close. Ships always keep some close range missiles around for just such encounters.

One question... do laser head missiles actually work in the game... I was under impression these were not fully functional?
Posted by: NuclearStudent
« on: January 28, 2017, 01:18:26 AM »

Fuel reserves may suffer however.

Not really? To make 5000 of them, I only need a million liters of fuel.
Posted by: MarcAFK
« on: January 27, 2017, 10:17:02 PM »

Fuel reserves may suffer however.
Posted by: NuclearStudent
« on: January 27, 2017, 05:43:18 AM »

To counter PD, I'm rejigging my missile combat doctrine to use Size 1 antiship missiles.

This is my anti-ship missile design, designed for use by fighters and MIRV multistage missiles against difficult targets I can't or don't feel like penetrated with my bigger missiles. After learning some very harsh lessons from the school of combat, I realized I wanted a way to effectively turn my defensive AMM launchers to offensive purposes. The hit chance is tuned to be able to hit NPRs I'm currently fighting.

Missile Size: 1 MSP  (0.05 HS)     Warhead: 4    Armour: 0     Manoeuvre Rating: 15
Speed: 57500 km/s    Engine Endurance: 8 minutes   Range: 26.4m km
Cost Per Missile: 1.8089
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 862.5%   3k km/s 285%   5k km/s 172.5%   10k km/s 86.2%
Materials Required:    1x Tritanium   0.8089x Gallicite   Fuel x209.25

Development Cost for Project: 181RP

This is my anti-missile missile.

Missile Size: 1 MSP  (0.05 HS)     Warhead: 1    Armour: 0     Manoeuvre Rating: 42
Speed: 62500 km/s    Engine Endurance: 0 minutes   Range: 1.7m km
Cost Per Missile: 1.6613
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 2625%   3k km/s 840%   5k km/s 525%   10k km/s 262.5%
Materials Required:    0.25x Tritanium   1.4113x Gallicite   Fuel x15.5

Development Cost for Project: 166RP

(my tech level is fairly high-10 damage per warhead point, 80 agility per agility point, T7 (magnetic fusion, post internal) propulsion.)

A back-of-the-envelope estimate says that it would take about two antimissiles to take down a single antiship missile, the same as you. The difference is that my antiship missiles are almost as cheap as my antimissile missiles.

Posted by: iceball3
« on: January 18, 2017, 02:05:17 AM »

Another quicktip for defending against massively oppressively fast enemy missile fire: fighters with gauss turrets, very small engines (needn't be faster than the defended TG), and with both the 4x tracking speed multiplier and the Fighter Only tracking speed multiplier.
You will be able to actually take a dent out of missile salvos that have a significant tech advantage over you utilizing final fire.
Posted by: Michael Sandy
« on: January 17, 2017, 08:23:22 PM »

A tech level in one field gives somewhere between a 20% and 30% advantage.  Having a tech level advantage in speed, armor and firepower means an edge of between 70% and 120% or so.  So your "outnumbered" force that had an advantage in speed, range sensors and armor was effectively significantly more powerful than the force that merely outweighed it.

There are missions where the force that has the tech advantage won't have as much of an advantage.  Freighter escort, for example.  Speed of the warships isn't going to save the freighters if the enemy gets in range of them.  A large but technically inferior force of commerce raiders could impose difficulties, simply by being able to put hulls in more places.
Posted by: Iranon
« on: January 17, 2017, 12:51:08 PM »

@ lennson - the problem with low-quality missiles is that they still need to be faster than their their targets, and if the speed difference isn't great beam PD in area defence mode will be tremendously effective.

Many "normal practices" would break down if Aurora was a symmetrical competitive multiplayer game.
Most regular missile doctrines can be rendered economically unfeasible simply by making your ships cheaper than the missiles needed to destroy them, then give them nominal PD on top of that.  Base-tech railguns have a cost of 1, low-power engines are also dirt-cheap.
Against AMMs no matter how accurate, can at least use size-1 ASMs and remain slightly ahead in terms of attrition.
Posted by: 83athom
« on: January 17, 2017, 07:15:05 AM »

You are right, I did miss it. By the same token however in most cases my fights involve at least a dozen warships on each side, and if they all focus their fire, no shield can keep up with the regeneration.
I've built ships that could easily withstand a few dozen points of damage every increment without loosing shield integrity, with a total of several hundred. If one ship is taking too much focus fire, you pull it back while moving another one farther forward to take the agro. And he wasn't talking about "standard" ship doctrines where capital ships are 40k tons or so, he was talking about doctrines where cruisers are in the 100k ton range.
It really is. In my current campaign I had a situation when technologically superior force comprised exclusively beam armed frigates and a couple of cruisers for support. Against them ware four carrier groups with 30% superiority in tonnage and of course numerous missiles. The first force had interceptors which had very high hit chances in that situation, they had higher speed and they had ECM. They didn't even had superior beam range. They won, big time. They lost a couple of ships and destroyed a total of forty six. In terms of tonnage I think they destroyed about then times as much as they lost, and they were only a generation ahead in most technologies. For me that's a cheap victory.
Lets show a real world example of why this is working as intended. Against Saddam Hussein's tank force of several hundred cold war tanks, we fielded only 100 of the new Abrams tanks. Those 100 Abrams destroyed every single enemy tank without loosing a single tank crewman.

The scale doesn't matter. The problem is that with interception chances as high as those in the late game, if you have a bunch of antimissiles that cost X and take Y space and the enemy is using size 3 shipkillers, you can defend against missiles which cost 2.5X and take 3Y space. That equation is not depended on scale, it's depended solely on interception chances.
But the point is to keep up with enemy progress in that area, you need to develop in anti-missile technology and methods to take out waves of missiles like that. Whether that be in massive box launched amm waves, oversized speed tracking turrets, or other, there are plenty of ways to deal with missiles even given a technology disadvantage.