Fleet-Wide Targeting data sharing

[Mint Keyphase (OP)]

Maybe some sort of target data coordination centre that allows fire control data to be shared would be nice, so a ship can be sent further forward and have a target lock, which is shared with the entire fleet. Maybe even allow a parasite ship to direct fire from a defense array a couple million km away. Gives a good competitor to missiles.

[Andrew]

Some of this you can do with fleet formations to have picket ships still part of the formation out some distance from the main body I believe, although I have never messed with it.  The idea of directing long range beam fire largely fails on real and game physics, the beam weapons shots move at light speed or slower and so the range limits are because it is impossible to hit a maneuvering target at longer ranges as it will move to far

[Mint Keyphase (OP)]

In-game, the beam shots are calculated as instant hit/miss. Also, you can argue that FFD IRL doesn't work because the enemy can maneuver before the shots are even fired, yet it actually works IRL.

[Steve Walmsley]

Energy weapons are limited to 1.5m km because that is how far light can travel in a 5 second increment. Otherwise, beam shots would have to be tracked over multiple increments. Also, given the speed of most ships, it would be impossible to hit at that range anyway.

Even the current fire control ranges are very generous. Consider that at 300,000 km, a target moving at 6000 km could be in anywhere in a sphere the size of the Earth by the time the shot arrives.

[superstrijder15]

I think for beam weapons this makes no sense, because over longer distances dodging starts having too much effect. But for missiles I think this idea makes sense. You could have a stealthy ship nearer an enemy fleet take over targetting when missiles get close to the enemy ship, with more accurate data that the outer range of your missile boat sensors. This could then be used to extend that maximum range of your missiles.

For missile defence, this already kind of works in that the time a different ship is tracking a salvo counts towards the tracking time bonus

[Mint Keyphase (OP)]

If it is for missiles, maybe even have an arsenal ship/defense array kind of vessel with only launchers, and have the escorts send targeting data back with some sort of multi-ship FC module

[Steve Walmsley]

I won't be adding any kind of hand-off fire control, because it would require a lot of code changes and checks for a minimal gain in gameplay.

Your fire control emissions are not detected, so you can already launch on contacts detected by a different ship and potentially remain undetected. You can also give missiles their own sensors to detect targets and launch them at a waypoint

[Ultimoos]

I'm always trying to reduce my micro, not increase it. If a raider ship pops in my detection network, I just select 6 of my two stage long range missiles, send them and go on with life.