Author Topic: Some more questions...box launcher and sensors...  (Read 1429 times)

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Offline wodin (OP)

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Some more questions...box launcher and sensors...
« on: March 31, 2011, 05:00:39 PM »
1. What are these box launchers? Are they just normal launchers that people have named box launchers?

2. I was looking at Steve's game and I notice that many ships don't have thermal or em sensors and some don't have active sensors...so how come ships say a FAC manage to engage the enemy without an active sensor? Do they just need the missile\beam fire control? Also should I just have a few ships with my active sensors in the fleet and the rest leave them off?  Thanks.
 

Offline Shadow

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Re: Some more questions...box launcher and sensors...
« Reply #1 on: March 31, 2011, 05:08:21 PM »
1. Box launchers are the smallest kind of missile launchers, but can't self-reload. Think of a fighter jet's missile hardpoints.

2. Those ships probably rely on other vessels for sensor support. Saves space. When a ship has its active sensors on, it becomes more visible to EM detection, so whether or not it's convenient to have one ship or all ships with actives on depends on the tactical situation.
 

Offline Brian Neumann

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Re: Some more questions...box launcher and sensors...
« Reply #2 on: March 31, 2011, 05:25:39 PM »
The main reason that a lot of smaller ships do not have passives is that at the lower techs you need a large passive sensor to do you much good.  As this is both expensive in terms of money and space there is no real advantage to mounting them on the smaller ships.  Having a few dedicated scouts with big passive sensors works much better, and you get more overall combat power.  The drawback of course is if the sensor ship is taken out then you are really hurting to detect anything on passives. 
I do the same thing on my early combat ships.  The only real exeption is I put a 1/2 hull space em and thermal on my system scouts.  Their job is to poke their heads into new systems and approach possible inhabited planets.  Their little passives work just fine to tell me if this is a npr homeworld at a good range, and I have not put much resources into building them.  A small jump drive, the small passives and a really large resolution size 1 active sensor.  Usually about a resolution of 500.  This is big enough to see most shipyards at a good long range and give me a decent idea as to the capabilities of a npr.  It can also be a totally commercial design which cuts down on maintaning them.

Brian
 

Offline Ziusudra

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Re: Some more questions...box launcher and sensors...
« Reply #3 on: March 31, 2011, 05:30:12 PM »
Just to clarify, the box launchers are the result of researching the reduced-size launcher techs.
 

Offline sloanjh

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Re: Some more questions...box launcher and sensors...
« Reply #4 on: March 31, 2011, 08:03:11 PM »
2. I was looking at Steve's game and I notice that many ships don't have thermal or em sensors and some don't have active sensors...so how come ships say a FAC manage to engage the enemy without an active sensor? Do they just need the missile\beam fire control? Also should I just have a few ships with my active sensors in the fleet and the rest leave them off?  Thanks.

And to answer a question you didn't (quite) ask: the shooting platform does NOT need to have active sensors, but it DOES need fire control.  There DOES, however, need to be an active sensor somewhere detecting the target in order to be able to target it (unless you're shooting at e.g. a waypoint, of course).

John
 

Offline Canek

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Re: Some more questions...box launcher and sensors...
« Reply #5 on: April 01, 2011, 12:19:22 AM »
Quote from: sloanjh link=topic=3418. msg33011#msg33011 date=1301619791
And to answer a question you didn't (quite) ask: the shooting platform does NOT need to have active sensors, but it DOES need fire control.   There DOES, however, need to be an active sensor somewhere detecting the target in order to be able to target it (unless you're shooting at e. g.  a waypoint, of course).

John

Ah. . .  I wish I had this explanation a year ago -_-