Point Defense Brain Dump - Area Defense vs Final Fire

[Jorgen_CAB]

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.

[Potat999 (OP)]

Jumping back to the math and point defense efficiency again, maybe throwing gun tonnage and range at area defense is actually not the optimal solution.  The efficiency is very dependent on the relative speed of the vessel/missile - both for tracking speed and for engagement time.

If you know you are going to face a big burp of missiles, it might be most efficient to send your beams out to the missiles, rather than letting the missiles come to your beams.

If you could design a light craft that was basically all engine with one gauss, such that it can keep pace with a barrage and ride it in sitting at 10km astern, you could potentially blatt down the whole barrage over the course of a few million km following it in AD mode.  Say 2000-4000 tons of max boost engine and one or two 10mm rails or reduced size gauss and a BFC.  You would not even need a turret for such a high velocity craft.

Of course, I'm not sure if that is actually workable in practice, since missile boost can be higher than ship boost.  It might require a significant tech advantage to pull off.  Fortunately for my play through, I have the tech... bwahhaah. 

You would still need sufficient detection range to see the incoming FAC wave and send your own spoiler ships out to meet them before they launch.  You may also need lots of pickets to detect inbound missiles if the FAC launch is at too long a range.  Long range missiles may be better for you tho if you can detect them, since more fuel = more weight = less missiles or slower missiles. 

Edit: Oof that engine costs a lot to research xD     

Oh god what have I done this thing feels wrong:

Alcibiades class Corvette (P)      3 884 tons       221 Crew       1 584.2 BP       TCS 78    TH 2 880    EM 0
37081 km/s      Armour 1-22       Shields 0-0       HTK 20      Sensors 0/0/0/0      DCR 1      PPV 9
Maint Life 0.38 Years     MSP 254    AFR 121%    IFR 1.7%    1YR 671    5YR 10 058    Max Repair 720.00 MSP
Adept    Control Rating 1   BRG   
Intended Deployment Time: 3 days    Morale Check Required   

Magneto-plasma Drive  EP1440.00 (2)    Power 2880.0    Fuel Use 450.00%    Signature 1440.00    Explosion 30%
Fuel Capacity 100 000 Litres    Range 1.03 billion km (7 hours at full power)

10cm Railgun V10/C3 (3x4)    Range 10 000km     TS: 37 081 km/s     Power 3-3     RM 10 000 km    ROF 5        1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Beam Fire Control R48-TS20000 (1)     Max Range: 48 000 km   TS: 20 000 km/s     43 32 20 9 0 0 0 0 0 0

Active Search Sensor AS4-R1 (1)     GPS 4     Range 4m km    MCR 360.5k km    Resolution 1

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes

To hit is vs 37000km/s missile

(yeah I forgot a power plant but you get the idea xD)

Of course this could be countered by not launching until close range since this thing has no armor and can't actually tangle with a beam FAC escort but at least you'd force some sort of beam fighter engagement in that case I suppose.  Also, they could switch to a faster lower payload missile a lot easier than you could speed this monster up, but at least you'd sort of have accomplished your mission of lessening the volley size in that case. 

Hmm yeah but it looks like at similar tech I can make a 40-50k missile pretty easily so... poo, lol.  You can continue to strap more engines on this thing but it starts to get a bit absurd - 3 and 4 engines are basically the same speed (40kkm/s) because the engines are just pushing more engines at that point, haha.  Removing fuel or guns will buy you a bit more but not too much. 

I suppose if the missiles are just one or two kkm/s faster you could switch to lasers and still get a large number of shots off, but for a bigger speed differential it isn't really worthwhile.  Also they could just, you know, shoot you in that case, but I guess that also would draw some of the volley off target after a fashion xD.  Lasers would potentially let you snipe down the launching FACs tho, which is an interesting twist.