Posted by: Thanatos
« on: September 02, 2016, 07:42:38 AM »For missile defense, I prefer to use railguns when I have them researched fairly high- capacitor tech is the big stop-gap here, as you need it quite a bit high to get even the most basic use out of the railguns, when they do not function as PD. The other problem is, you cannot turret railguns. So you need fast ships. In the end this means that for it to be effective, you need crazy fast ships, with decent railguns- and four of those can function like a fully dedicated 30k ton PD ship, while having the offensive capability of... well, just about anything else you could think of. I often liken these ships to sharks. They absolutely devour enemies and rarely seem to get hit by missiles.
The other advantage is lasers, but they require investment into PP as well, and sometimes getting the ideal range is hard. Lasers you always need to upgrade, as they need to be as bleeding edge as you could possibly manage them, but otherwise function the same as railguns, except they can be turreted but you trade speed, and they can also engage missiles farther away.
My favorite method however is mesons. Mesons will one shot missiles at any tech level, and they will obliterate ships with no problem. Their range is short, compared to lasers, turreting them is also a requirement, which will increase your ship mass, and they will need some epic power plants to get it to work, as you need quite a few of them to make a good impact against large ships.
The other advantage is lasers, but they require investment into PP as well, and sometimes getting the ideal range is hard. Lasers you always need to upgrade, as they need to be as bleeding edge as you could possibly manage them, but otherwise function the same as railguns, except they can be turreted but you trade speed, and they can also engage missiles farther away.
My favorite method however is mesons. Mesons will one shot missiles at any tech level, and they will obliterate ships with no problem. Their range is short, compared to lasers, turreting them is also a requirement, which will increase your ship mass, and they will need some epic power plants to get it to work, as you need quite a few of them to make a good impact against large ships.