Missiles and missile combat are changing considerably in v2.6. I have looked at missile sizes and missile design and realised there were a lot of inconsistencies compared to the rest of the game system. As internal consistency is one of my main design drivers for Aurora, that has led to a redesign of missiles so they fit with the rest of the game.
The changes are as follows:
Missiles have never really had a specified size compared to ship or fighters. For detection purposes, each point of missile size was treated as 1/10th of a hull space in v2.5. However, for magazine storage a point of missile size was more like 1/100th of a hull space. The ratio of launcher size compared to the missile size was never really specified. Therefore in v2.6, a Missile Size Point (MSP) is equal to 1/20th of a hull space. So a Size 4 missile would be 4/20ths or 1/5th of a hull space. That makes a standard launcher 20x missile size, the smallest slow-reload launcher is 5x missile size and a Box Launcher is 3x missile size.
The current types of engine are as follows:
Ship Engine: Power x1, Fuel Use x1
FAC Engine: Power x2, Fuel Use x10
Fighter Engine: Power x3, Fuel Use x100
Missile engines will follow the same progression but skip a level. They are therefore Power x5, Fuel Use x 10,000. In v2.5 they had four times the power of ship engines so this will increase their engine power by 25%. However, this will be shown a little differently on the missile design window because in the past missile engine power was separate from ship engine power. The engine power is still based on the number of MSP devoted to engines but the amount of that power takes into account the actual size of the engine in hull space terms. So a basic Nuclear Thermal Missile Drive will provide just 1 power per MSP while a Magneto-plasma Missile Drive will provide 3.2 power per MSP. Missiles are a lot smaller than ships though so that power goes a long way.
The Missile Fuel Cell Capacity tech line has been eliminated. Instead missiles can devote a section of their mass to a fuel tank, just like a ship or fighter. Each MSP can hold 2500 litres of fuel, as a single HS holds 50,000 and 1 MSP is 1/20th of a hull space. Missiles now use fuel in the same way as ships, using up the fuel as they travel. However, as a missile is never going to refuel, the fuel is added to the missile when it is built and for game purposes that provides an endurance in seconds based on the same calculation as the range for ships and fighters, including the racial fuel efficiency level. Although the fuel use of missiles sounds a lot at 10,000x normal and 2500 litres per MSP doesn?t sound like a lot, the range of missiles is probably going to increase by a factor of about 100. Once I started to examine them, the old missile ranges seemed seriously unrealistic.
Because missiles are now much larger in terms of magazine space, warhead strength has been doubled per MSP.
Based on the above, here are a couple of basic size 4 missiles. The first uses 1 MSP for the warhead and 1.5 MSP each for fuel and engines. As you can see the range is almost a hundred million kilometers and the missile will be in flight for almost two hours. The second missile devotes 2 MSP to the warhead, 1.25 MSP to the engine and only 0.75 MSP for fuel. It has a powerful strength-10 warhead and a forty-eight million kilometre range.
Longsword Anti-ship Missile
Missile Size: 4 MSP (0.2 HS) Warhead: 5 Armour: 0 Manoeuvre Rating: 10
Speed: 15000 km/s Endurance: 107 minutes Range: 96.4m km
Cost Per Missile: 2.9375
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 150% 3k km/s 50% 5k km/s 30% 10k km/s 15%
Materials Required: 2.1875x Tritanium 0.75x Gallicite
Development Cost for Project: 294 RPHalberd Anti-ship Missile
Missile Size: 4 MSP (0.2 HS) Warhead: 10 Armour: 0 Manoeuvre Rating: 10
Speed: 12500 km/s Endurance: 64 minutes Range: 48.2m km
Cost Per Missile: 3.5938
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 125% 3k km/s 40% 5k km/s 25% 10k km/s 12.5%
Materials Required: 2.9688x Tritanium 0.625x Gallicite
Development Cost for Project: 359RPThere are now four magazine types for Aurora. Magazines average only a quarter of their previous capacity but are generally cheaper per HS than before. The larger magazines are a little more efficient at storage than the smaller ones. In addition, all missile launchers now include on-mount magazine capacity equal to one missile
Large Magazine: 10 HS, 50 BP, 180 MSP
Standard Magazine: 3 HS, 15 BP, 50 MSP
Small Magazine: 1 HS, 5 BP, 15 MSP
Tiny Magazine: 0.2 HS 1 BP, 3 MSP
Missile Fire Control systems have been replaced by a variant of Active Sensors. When you design an active sensor, you have the option to designate it as a missile fire control system. This removes any general search capability but increases the range by a factor of 3. This type of sensor zeroes in on existing targets with an extremely narrow beam, using its power to increase range rather than searching a wide area. Missile Fire Controls can target any active sensor contact within range that is of sufficient size to be picked up by the fire control?s resolution, any population or any waypoint within range. If a target moves outside the range of a missile fire control system, that fire control system will lose lock-on to the target immediately following the movement phase. Missile Fire Controls designed for anti-ship use will need to be long range and therefore will likely have a high resolution while those designed to shoot at fighters or missiles will need a low resolution and will therefore probably be shorter ranged. Missile Fire Controls are now shown on the same section of the Ctrl-F7 View Tech window as Active Sensors.
Example Missile Fire Control
Active Sensor Strength: 36
Sensor Size: 3 Sensor HTK: 1
Resolution: 45 Maximum Range: 48,600,000 km
Chance of destruction by electronic damage: 100%
Cost: 36 Crew: 15
Materials Required: 9x Duranium 27x Uridium
Development Cost for Project: 360RPWhen you target a waypoint, the missiles head for a location rather than a specific object. This adds a lot of new possibilities for missile combat. For example, you could send the missiles toward a waypoint for several minutes on a different bearing than the intended target then change the fire control to point at the target. The missiles will then come in from an unexpected heading. You may want to send missiles a lot closer to a target before you illuminate it and possibly give away your position. Finally, if the missiles have their own sensors with a better resolution than your missile fire control, you might want to direct them to an area to search for targets by themselves.
Although it?s not coded yet, I am also considering some type of datalink system that allows a ship to link its missile launchers to fire control systems on a different ship. This would allow a type of Aegis ship with large sensors and fire control systems that could control the missile firepower of a task group.
The missile design window has a new slider called Active Sensor. The strength of the active sensor is based on the racial active sensor strength. Each MSP of active sensor will provide 1/20th of the racial active sensor strength. So 1 MSP of active sensor for a race with an active sensor strength of 12, will create a sensor for the missile with a strength of 0.6. As with ship-based sensors, you can select a resolution for the missile sensor and the range of the sensor will be sensor strength x resolution x 10,000 km.
The missile below has 1 MSP of warhead, 0.5 MSP of fuel storage, 1.25 MSP of engine and 1.25 MSP of active sensor (at a racial strength 0f 0.6 per MSP) with a resolution of 80. Its sensor will be able to detect 4000 ton ships within 600,000 km. One possible tactic here would be to send a missile toward a waypoint where you expected enemy ships to be in 30 minutes then shut down your ship-based sensor shortly after launch. With no instructions the missile will continue to its original target location but will be constantly scanning for targets with its onboard sensor. If it detects a target of 4000 tons or more, the missile?s internal guidance will take over and home on the target. The target will get no warning from your inactive shipboard sensor and will have to detect the missile or the missile?s active sensor. It may not even have any idea who attacked it.
Homer Anti-ship Missile
Missile Size: 4 MSP (0.2 HS) Warhead: 5 Armour: 0 Manoeuvre Rating: 10
Speed: 12500 km/s Endurance: 43 minutes Range: 32.1m km
Active Sensor Strength: 0.75 Resolution: 80 Maximum Range: 600,000 km
Cost Per Missile: 2.8333
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 125% 3k km/s 40% 5k km/s 25% 10k km/s 12.5%
Materials Required: 1.25x Tritanium 0.75x Uridium 0.8333x Gallicite Fuel x1250
Development Cost for Project: 219RP
The logic that the missile follows during flight is as follows. The missile will check the fire control to which its launcher was assigned at the time of launch. If that control is active the missile will head for the target on which the fire control is currently locked (which may or may not be the original target). If the fire control is inactive, the missile will use any onboard sensor to try and find a target. If it still has no target, it will home on the last known location of the previous target. Even after a missile has started looking for its own targets, if the ship-board fire control reactivates and selects a new target, the missile will switch back to ship-board control. When searching for its own targets, the missile is continually re-evaluating which is the closest acceptable target and may switch if another target moves closer to the missile. Unlike v2.5 the missile will not self-destruct if it loses all fire control and will instead continue to home on the last known target location. This sets up some interesting tactical options. Because of the potentially long flight times, I have added an endurance countdown to missile salvos on the system map.
I realise these are major changes to the game but I believe it adds a wide range of options that didn?t exist before and will make missile combat both challenging and very interesting. It also fits in far more with the game as a whole and improves internal consistency.
Steve
