While I agree that a change in how fire-control works in general would be interesting we have to understand there is only one person doing the changes so perhaps it will see some change down the line. I know that Steve have acknowledge that the system do have their flaws and that it could be better. He has done a few things for C# to improve point-defence as in you no longer need multiple fire-controls for each salvo anymore.

Aurora is strongly suggested to use role-play to make it play the way you like. Personally I never abuse box launcher and but physical limitations on my self how they can be utilised.

If I would improve the system I would certainly tie it into a way of controlling missiles and targets. The sensor need to be broken down into a sensor link and target acquisition part. How many missiles and targets can the sensor track and how many missiles can it guide at the same time. Then you can have technology that can improve those capabilities and I also would want an electronic sensor and communication module for all missiles as well.

In terms of launchers then box launchers needs to have a few more realistic disadvantages. It should be quite difficult to launch and guide too many missiles at the same time on targets. There also should be a bonus of engaging targets that are "close" to each other as that is actually easier in the real world as well even if distances might be larger in Aurora they are not very different in terms of tracking. ECM also should be stronger on larger rather than smaller salvos. This is why in the real world you want missiles to attack from multiple vectors as that makes it harder for both sensors and weapons to engage incoming missiles.

In general I think that perhaps making missiles hit harder but we shoot less of them in general would be good if the mechanic supported it. We already have the issue with AMM spam before beam combat as well. It obviously is not unrealistic to use AMM against ships, this is done in real life as well as many AMM can target surface targets as well as air targets.

In general electronic warfare perhaps also could be a bit more evolved as well which would both help and hurt missile warfare.

Obviously if you can overwhelm the enemy missile defences that is the point... If you shoot at the enemy and missiles are trickling in they will not do any damage. I just think that in the current mechanic there are just two things that matter (more or less) and that is missile speed and launcher density. Point defences are just too expensive against anything but AMM spam, but if you use box launched missiles you don't need to worry much about that anyway as you destroy the enemy with missiles anyway long before you get that close (or you get destroyed if you did not bring enough missiles).

There certainly don't need to be any direct balance between beam weapons and missiles but it would be even more fun if the salvo mechanic, missiles and both AMM and beam PD had more options from a mechanical standpoint.

In my games I, for example, require all missiles to carry at least some bare minimum of electronics... that also includes AMM missiles. Missiles designated as AMM (or anti fighter) require at least 0.25 MSP electronics and every other types of missiles 0.5 MSP. That can be thermal, EM, ECM or ECCM or whatever... just something. In terms of box launchers I just design the ships more sensibly so they can't be abused too much in general.

In terms of ship design I also include allot of soft design decisions that are more political than military in general, that is a factor the game leave entirely up to the player.

There is nothing wrong with putting limits on how you use the game to make it a bit more challenging or fun. Trying to find ways to exploit the mechanics in order to "win" will eventually just end up making you frustrated, at least that is my experience.

The problem is balance but in my opinion also reality... in real life there are rarely such a thing as 0 and 1 mechanics as this is. For example it is nearly impossible to make launchers of this type to expend all the ordnance at the same time... the more launchers on any one platform the less likely it is they can all be launched at the same time for many different reasons... be it physical or electronic reasons. It just are quite unrealistic that you ever could launch 50 missiles at the same time from the same smallish platform even under the best of circumstances with all the complications it would make even if we talk about sci-fi there will be limitations and that is the problem with the mechanic as it is unbalanced without them.

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The main issue with missile warfare is one of balance in relation to fire-controls and the salvo mechanics. If this was redesigned then box launchers could become a more reasonable weapons and you would only use box launchers on smaller platforms where they make more sense. Not even Harpoon launchers on naval warship can be considered a box launcher as they can be reloaded at sea. The mark 41 VLS could be reloaded at sea if they had been designed for it but I don't think they can currently. Any way... no ship would be able to launch all their missiles at the same time (or within 5s time frame)... not even close.

It seems like an interesting and reasonable "fix" would be to make fire controls (of both types, if we're being honest) have an upper limit to how many weapons they can control at once. A bit of a crude fix that certainly can't capture the detail of real naval missile combat but it would certainly have an effect. Ideally with a tonnage requirement that increases nonlinearly so that the overall cost per weapon of a BFC goes up as the number of weapons increases, but not so quickly at small numbers of weapons that the optimal becomes one FC per weapon.

There is already some precedent in the single-weapon BFCs Steve is adding for 1.13 so this is a rational extension I think.

This would allow box launcher fighters/FACs to remain viable but greatly reduce the efficiency of mounting dozens or hundreds of box launchers on a full-size warship hull significantly. However, there is one problem right now which is that MFCs are very, very cheap tonnage-wise at only 1/4 the cost of equivalent active sensors, so the actual tonnage impact may be quite minimal unless this is changed.

No, but that might be an interesting idea to balance them!

I still insist that box launchers are not some kind of 'loophole', it makes logical sense that any device capable of being able to massively front load firepower that would otherwise get intercepted would have an advantage, and box launchers are that sort of device.

I also think it should probably be possible to do something similar on the beam PD side, but the missiles being useful in their own right is in no way a loophole because it stands to reason that they would work that way.

The problem is balance but in my opinion also reality... in real life there are rarely such a thing as 0 and 1 mechanics as this is. For example it is nearly impossible to make launchers of this type to expend all the ordnance at the same time... the more launchers on any one platform the less likely it is they can all be launched at the same time for many different reasons... be it physical or electronic reasons. It just are quite unrealistic that you ever could launch 50 missiles at the same time from the same smallish platform even under the best of circumstances with all the complications it would make even if we talk about sci-fi there will be limitations and that is the problem with the mechanic as it is unbalanced without them.

In reality when military talk about being able to overload enemy point defences in naval warfare it is nothing like in Aurora. You want to have missiles coming in through as many vectors as possible and in as many tight waves as possible. The more vectors it becomes increasingly difficult for weapons systems to target and defeat incoming threats. This is both a mechanical and electronic or sensor issue.

The main issue with missile warfare is one of balance in relation to fire-controls and the salvo mechanics. If this was redesigned then box launchers could become a more reasonable weapons and you would only use box launchers on smaller platforms where they make more sense. Not even Harpoon launchers on naval warship can be considered a box launcher as they can be reloaded at sea. The mark 41 VLS could be reloaded at sea if they had been designed for it but I don't think they can currently. Any way... no ship would be able to launch all their missiles at the same time (or within 5s time frame)... not even close.

Steve have many times said that it is up to us if we want to abuse it... I'm fairly sure that he intended box launchers to mainly be used on ether small platforms or in at least limited fashion. He has at least hinted at that many times.

There really are no real defence against abusive box launched attacks using glass cannon fleets other than another similar fleet that fire just a bit further or with faster missiles... more or less.

I still insist that box launchers are not some kind of 'loophole', it makes logical sense that any device capable of being able to massively front load firepower that would otherwise get intercepted would have an advantage, and box launchers are that sort of device.

I also think it should probably be possible to do something similar on the beam PD side, but the missiles being useful in their own right is in no way a loophole because it stands to reason that they would work that way.

Lasers are a pretty good DP weapons because say a 15cm lasers is effective at all types if beam combat not just PD in final fire mode but also at area PD and pure beam combat. Small railguns are decent PD but not very effective in beam combat. Medium caliber railguns might still be decent PD but still not that good in beam combat.

There is a reason why we usually recommend lasers as you weapon if choice if you only want to invest in one weapon system. Railguns is a good choice too though... a bit better in PD but lack in powerful beam fight in comparison, even if railguns have more DPS than lasers.

No beam PD are really good at mass box launched salvos. At some point you need role-play to balance the game. The game have too many mechanical loopholes for min/max play.

I appreciate you trying to quantify it with math.  And I so find it interesting, but, this game really is more about RP.  I'd encourage any new players reading this to really just pick one or two beams to use and use them and don't worry about what is most efficient.  If you do that you really take the fun out of the game.

Eh, games can be about both RP and min-maxing with math, if that's what floats your boat.  I'm playing with two PRs so if I thrash the AI too hard with my munchkining I can always fight myself.  One of my PRs went full box launcher madness so the other kinda needs to figure out how PD works STAT . 

Also I may or may not have turned on all the spoilers not knowing what they did... so I might need to minmax a bit.