Also, that is a pretty long-ranged AMM. Spoilers don't tend to have amm ranges past 3m! Not saying that it's wrong to have a long ranged amm, mind you, but as Erik mentioned, you're not getting anywhere near max range from your MFCs. With res one fire controls, there are three ranges at the bottom for size 4-6-8 missiles that you might not have noticed. Try matching at least the size 8 missile range to your amm range(if you want to keep that range; personally, I go for shorter ranged amms)
Yes, I am new to rocket science, and I don't have much combat experience in this game. 10 m km seems like a big range, but when you check it out on the map, it is frighteningly small.
How do you figure out what is the optimum range?
This is actually two questions, one on doctrine, and one on the technicalities. What is the optimum range for shooting down incoming missiles? In Harpoon, if the enemy sent a wave of long-range missiles your way, it was a good tactic to shoot them down with whatever you got nearby, if only it was equipped with air-to-air weaponry, whatever the range. Missiles form Vladivostok to London was taken out over Denmark at the latest, iirc. What is wrong with this tactic now in this game? Okay, as I am a newbie I am prepared to follow your doctrinal advice to see where it takes me, but please enlighten me.
So if short range is best, how do I compute the optimum distance? From what you all are writing, I take it it is the spot where I have just got time left for firing exactly one volley before being hit. Ie. it depends on the velocity of both his and of my missile. I know both of these figures, at least I know how fast his missiles flew last time I met him. (Also, if I am in a game where I haven't met him yet, I can use my own stats in the hope that he is not too advanced compared to me).
Is there a formula for this?
It's 6-8-12 not 4-6-8, The smallest size that anything will be detected at is missile size 6 even if the actual missile is smaller. Building your res 1 missile sensor to pick up size 6 missiles at 2-3 million km means it can also double for detecting anything else at 20-30 million km's possibly saving you the need to carry a seperate sensor for larger targets.
I cannot get my brain around this one. Does it mean that my fire control can begin to see a size 1 missile at the same range as it could a size 6 missile? That all sizes gets detected at that range?
I get it that a short-range resolution-1 sensor/FC can see bigger targets farther away. Which is nice.
But what does those three figures for size 6-8-12 tell me about optimum range? When designing AMM FCs, it seems we can use the size-6 figures and ignore the others, even ignore the "overall" missile range (the one that is printed in the finished weapons' spec sheet)?
And then there is the question of overhead, enemy AMMs are always closing, so we will need some extra range in our fire controls to compensate for the distance that the enemy missiles travel in the time period from when we detect them to when we hit them. How much is this adding to our optimum FC range?
I found the formula for computing agility values in blue emu's thread, but so far I haven't seen any formulas on this problem. Not that I care too much about having formulas for everything, but I find they are a great help in formulating broad rules of thumb.
Your range is probably chopped due to your fire control.
I made an adjustment to the missile before creating it, and forgot to take a note on what I did. My bad.