Missile - Armor and HTK

[ChubbyPitbull (OP)]

One of the things that bothers me about Aurora (or maybe I'm just playing wrong), but it seems like the mechanics heavily favor small missiles, or for longer ranges a large missile with small sub-munitions. For example, a size 20 missile only takes 1 damage to kill, while 20 size 1 missiles will *each* take 1 damage to kill. Also, adding 1 armor point requires +1 to the missile size, and never really seems to be worth it. Size 1 missiles become less-effective size 2 missiles, and while this impact is lesser on larger missiles, the increased size means you're penalized in the form of amount of ordinance carried as well as firing rate.

Here were the suggestions I was thinking of:

1.) Missile Armor gained per 1 MSP scales with your Armor technology. Rather than always being 1 MSP for 1 Armor, Armor MSP usage scales, like how "Reactor Power per MSP" scales with your Reactor technology. Since (I believe) armor points need to stay as integers for use in the damage mechanics, when a user is designing a new missile they would specify the amount of armor they want, instead of the amount of MSP to use for armor. For example, with the most basic armor adding 1 armor point to the missile would take 1 MSP, but at higher tech level 1 armor point may only add 0.5 or .75 MSP.

2.) Missiles use a weaker version of the HTK system based on size. Similarly to how larger ships take more damage to kill if for no other reason than that they have more components to destroy, and gain armor columns based on size, missiles should also have a defensive benefit based on size beyond being more powerful. Rather than adding straight armor, I thought something like the HTK system for components would work well. As I understand HTK, when a component receives damage it has a (damage / HTK ) * 100% chance to be destroyed, and a (1 - (damage / HTK)) * 100% chance to take zero damage. I thought this would work well for missiles, with the only change being that if a missile is not destroyed after receiving damage, that missile loses the amount of damage dealt from it's HTK.

For Example:

Let's say at missile size 10+ a missile has 2 HTK. A size 10 missile with no other armor gets hit by a Gauss Turret for 1 damage. This 1 damage has a ( 1 / 2 ) * 100% = 50% chance to destroy the missile outright. In this case, the damage is superficial and the missile survives. However, the missile's HTK is lowered by 1, and now only has 1 HTK. The next 1 damage+ hit will destroy it.

In another example, let's say at size 30+  a missile has 4 HTK. A size 30 missile with 1 armor gets hit by a 10cm Laser turret for 3 damage. The armor takes 1 damage from the hit and his destroyed, with 2 damage continuing through to the missile itself. The 2 damage has a ( 2 / 4) * 100% = 50% chance to destroy the missile outright. Again, the damage hits non-critical parts of the missile and the missile survives. The missile's HTK is lowered by 2, and now only has 2 HTK and no armor. A 1 damage hit would now have a 50% chance to destroy the missile, or another 2+ damage would have a 100% chance.

[Vandermeer]

I would also like to see the first point to play a role, not only to raise viability of larger missiles, but also because it breaks coherence if the technology makes halt before that.(throw in magazine armor and I believe turret armor as well)
Currently, miniaturization just has these two overwhelming promoters, reload rate, and "to hit" in some sense as chance of dense salvos getting through, which is actually so powerful of an advantage that missile size got a lower limit of 1 MSP so the tininess doesn't spread further.
What speaks against that so far? Range advantage reaches maximum for missile size 8-12. Same with extras like ecm and sensors mostly. Only a slim damage penetration advantage remains beyond that point, but is not worth it at all compared to the numerous negatives.
Not sure if I'd want massive missiles to be generally beneficial though, because it definitely makes sense for realism to have smaller ones hold the advantages of total damage/mass through the defense penetration. ...Just something to at least give the long ranged ones a chance as a tactical asset. If a 12 MSP missile could afford 2 extra armor points at some point without sacrificing its entire warhead, that would really make them worth something, without causing the hierarchy to turn irrational on the spot.

With the HTK I don't agree. The current HTK system provides basically one health point per 50 tons of structure, and a missile is a rather fragile and small object. Even if you take a massive 100 MSP torpedo, which would technically have 5 HS, I think it would just be too easily be disturbed, as there is really nothing on that compact object that can be lost redundantly without causing complete collapse to the rest of the machine. A ship can live with some loses, but missiles are single, unmodular objects. One piece or none piece.

[MarcAFK]

I would like to see armour size scale with technology, also for magazines which get the same armour/space ratio no matter what the tech, but oddly you can still select what type of armour to use.

[letsdance]

the advantage of larger missles should be that you can add optional features, which size is independent from missile size. this way they are cheaper in terms of total cost percentage on large missiles than on small ones. sensors for example. i never used them and i don't even remember if their size and cost is independent from missile size, but they should be.

such features exist. if no one uses them (i think i never did), they should be better balanced, which would make larger missiles more useful (if sensors had half cost you probably still wouldn't use them on small missiles but maybe on large ones).

[Jorgen_CAB]

I think all missiles should reserve space for guidance and sensors no matter what which in term also would govern their maximum range in a similar way that fuel does. That would also make larger missiles more effective since some part of this always have to be present no matter what and if you want to shoot your missiles further you need to use bigger missiles or there will be little room for the warhead.

I already simulate this in my games and that certainly makes an impact on the usability of small missiles since their range is quite limited that way.

On another note I also think the game could benefit from some rule system on how many missiles can be targeted at one target at any one time. This module could be based on the active senso technology for how efficient it is.

Also.. is it really realistic you would fire 100 missiles in a single volley at the same target?
There are too many variable in here that could potentially interfere with them, not to mention the nuclear explosions and plasma clouds they each will create from the physical matter in the missile (not from the nuclear explosion) if and when they explode or when an AAM explode near them. Just make ASM harder more difficult to hit but able to hit multiple missiles in the same salvo and super large salvos will go away very quickly... also make it so that if missiles in a salvo hit they also have a chance to destroy missiles in the same salvo before they impact the target. This is quite realistic...

Add passive and active countermeasures... these would work better on salvos but have a longer recharge rate than most PD weapons.

[alex_brunius]

also make it so that if missiles in a salvo hit they also have a chance to destroy missiles in the same salvo before they impact the target. This is quite realistic...

I don't think it's realistic, remember that we have warships a few 100m in size that thanks to TN materials can be protected from direct nuclear blast impacts, so we have to assume that the missiles have at least as advanced shell to protect them.

If a salvo of ASM travel at 20,000km/s they can cover 100,000km in each 5 sec increment, so let's assume that the salvo will spread out the missiles in a volume roughly representing a sphere with 50,000km diameter ( all missiles will impact within 2.5 seconds). That sphere covers 60 times as much volume as the entire planet Earth does.

I doubt the missile hull needs to be very thick to survive a minimum size yield warhead so far away.

Collateral damage to ships in formation in same fleet would be a bigger concern IMO before this is since they are bigger targets and they may have other reasons for staying in closer formation then missiles do ( such as transferring fuel/ammo/crew/data )

[Vandermeer]

Excellent analysis.

Also I think that limiting maximum missiles per target to sensor tech is a "game rule" type of solution, which means it might be a balancing mechanic, but it does not appear to be very realistic. If there would be some sort of maximum that can be controlled per fire-control, now that I could accept if it was there.

[Jorgen_CAB]

As far as I understand it is not just the blast that is the problem... a bigger problem can actually come from the debris that will form a sizable plasma gas cloud. This cloud will linger for quite a while, even part of a second is a long time here. Any missile that impact this cloud will instantly be destroyed. In fact... it might even be possible to create a protective shield of plasma gas in the direction of a missile attack at an angle... this could destroy several missiles in a salvo.  It will be even worse for missiles that detonate close to a ship, the material in the missile itself can be a big problem for other missiles.

I also assume that missiles will not be spread out that much since they will maneuver as little as possible and/or you can also argue that missiles actually need to stay close to be controlled by the fire/control as a salvo in the first place, so they can't be spread out that much. This would make them vulnerable to area of effect weapons.

Otherwise I agree that the distance between missiles can be pretty great so that is not the issue

[sneer]

at this moment you need same size missile fire control to shoot and direct 1 missile salvo and 100 missle salvo
while you can find justification it doesn't seem best idea for a game
beside role play reasons everything tends toward having biggest single salvos vs enemy task force  to overwhelm any kind on active defence
( I once have hade nice 2200 missiles within one salvo that made enemy 30+ ships to dust )

[NihilRex]

In fact... it might even be possible to create a protective shield of plasma gas in the direction of a missile attack at an angle... this could destroy several missiles in a salvo.

Plasma Carronades...