Confused about turrets + FC

[Zook (OP)]

I'm designing my first PD ships, and I'm hopelessly confused about tracking speed.   I can build a beam FC with a tracking of 8,000 km/s when I max it out (my first AS missile has a speed of 10,000, however, so I'd even have trouble defending against my own low-tech ships, not to speak of alien baddies).   If the FC can track targets with a speed of up to 8,000, why do I need a turret? And why has the turret its own tracking speed?

BTW, I want the ship to defend the fleet, not only itself.   I have a 10cm C2 laser and 24,000-range FC that I could triple in size to bring it up to 72,000.   Laser range is 90,000, max tracking range would be 144,000, so if I were attacked by 10,000 km/s missiles, I could fire 9 times (or 4 times when accounting for recharging time).   With a bigger 12cm laser (range 120,000) I could fire 12 times (6 incl.   recharging) Right?

edit: OK, OK, apparently it's km per second, not per 5-second turn.  So the range-90,000 laser would fire once, the other one twice.  Correct?

[Nathan_]

I'm designing my first PD ships, and I'm hopelessly confused about tracking speed.   I can build a beam FC with a tracking of 8,000 km/s when I max it out (my first AS missile has a speed of 10,000, however, so I'd even have trouble defending against my own low-tech ships, not to speak of alien baddies).   If the FC can track targets with a speed of up to 8,000, why do I need a turret? And why has the turret its own tracking speed?

unturreted beam weapons are mounted along the spinal axis of the ship that they are built on, and can only turn as fast as the ship itself can turn(or your base line Fire control tech). Turrets allow for faster target tracking than your ship's speed will allow. Firecontrols themselves are the electronic portion of the issue, what your software and hardware can deal with tracking, atleast at 100% accuracy.

Your 8000km/s tracking speed still has a fairly decent shot of intercepting your missile, it just won't be 100%.

BTW, I want the ship to defend the fleet, not only itself.

As long as a ship is in the same location as other ships, and is set to final defensive fire it will attempt to intercept attacks against any ship there.

I have a 10cm C2 laser and 24,000-range FC that I could triple in size to bring it up to 72,000.   Laser range is 90,000, max tracking range would be 144,000, so if I were attacked by 10,000 km/s missiles, I could fire 9 times (or 4 times when accounting for recharging time).   With a bigger 12cm laser (range 120,000) I could fire 12 times (6 incl.   recharging) Right?

edit: OK, OK, apparently it's km per second, not per 5-second turn.  So the range-90,000 laser would fire once, the other one twice.  Correct?

At low accuracy, the 24,000 range figure is for 50% accuracy base, before any other modifiers are put into play. you really only get one chance to intercept an enemy missile with beams until you get crazy good technology, but you can force the issue via the combat assignments page(f8) if you want.

[metalax]

I'm designing my first PD ships, and I'm hopelessly confused about tracking speed.   I can build a beam FC with a tracking of 8,000 km/s when I max it out (my first AS missile has a speed of 10,000, however, so I'd even have trouble defending against my own low-tech ships, not to speak of alien baddies).   If the FC can track targets with a speed of up to 8,000, why do I need a turret? And why has the turret its own tracking speed?

The confusion is because the term tracking speed is being applied to two different things. The tracking speed of the firecontrol represents your computers ability to maintain a target lock on your enemy. The tracking speed of a weapon however is refering to the speed at which the weapon can physically move to point at the target.

For a weapon mounted directly on a ship this tracking speed is the higher of the racial base tracking speed technology or the speed of the ship the weapon is mounted on. This will usually be significantly less than the speed that you can engineer your firecontrols to be able to handle. Turrets allow you to give your weapons an arbritary tracking speed that can match the top speeds of your firecontrol, that is not dependant on the ship it is mounted on, at the expense of additional space being taken for the tracking gear in the turret.

BTW, I want the ship to defend the fleet, not only itself.   I have a 10cm C2 laser and 24,000-range FC that I could triple in size to bring it up to 72,000.   Laser range is 90,000, max tracking range would be 144,000, so if I were attacked by 10,000 km/s missiles, I could fire 9 times (or 4 times when accounting for recharging time).   With a bigger 12cm laser (range 120,000) I could fire 12 times (6 incl.   recharging) Right?

edit: OK, OK, apparently it's km per second, not per 5-second turn.  So the range-90,000 laser would fire once, the other one twice.  Correct?

Essentially yes. You could potentially get additional shots by having your ship move in the direction of a waypoint in the opposite direction that the missiles are approaching from. On the other hand if you are trying to close with the ship firing the missiles, you may get less shots as the distance the missile has to cover is closed by your own movement.

[Havear]

While the fire control can track that fast, the gun itself, while unturreted, can only track as fast as the ship is. A turret lets you decouple gun tracking speed from the ship's.

It's... highly doubtful you'll ever find a missile that slow. For now, it'd be best to stick with Final Fire (NOT Self Only). That'll fire the guns against incoming salvos at minimum range giving the best to-hit chances. If you try setting them to area-defense right now, and for the sake of argument, are facing ASMs similar in capabilities to your own, it's unlikely they'll fire twice anyway. At that range you're going to have a reduced accuracy on top of the tracking speed inaccuracy, so your guns will just wait until they actually have a chance to hit, and eventually fire with accuracy lower than if you'd set them to Final Fire.

Blast, ninja'd.

[Zook (OP)]

Thanks guys! Off to the drawing board then.