what is a minimum effective energy weapon PD set up

[chrislocke2000 (OP)]

Hi all

In my current game I've been having a lot of success in the use of AMM set ups however these things are burning through my missile stocks like crazy and hence I'd like to move to a more layered defence with fleet ships having some beam AM in place as well.

I have some basic research done in gauss cannons and lasers and have turrent gear of 5000km, base fire control range of I think 24k and base tracking speed of 4000km. I think I have ROF 3 and launch speed 3 for the Gauss but having had a look at some designs these things seem woefully short of range. Lasers are up to 15, capacitor 3 and near ultra-violet.

My first few goes at building a turreted defence system to cover the fleet look horrible. My best fire control at four times size is well under the range covered by most incomming missiles on a 5 second tick and is almost as big as the turrets themselves.

So the question is, given the above tech what would people see as a reasonably effective PD system and what tech should I be focusing on if this needs more upgrading ahead of building any of this?

Thanks in advance for the help.

[Tarran]

I haven't really done a lot of combat so most of what I say is either what I believe I heard or complete guesses. However, I'm pretty sure I'm right, but if I'm not I'm sure someone else will come and correct me.

I have some basic research done in gauss cannons and lasers and have turrent gear of 5000km, base fire control range of I think 24k and base tracking speed of 4000km. I think I have ROF 3 and launch speed 3 for the Gauss but having had a look at some designs these things seem woefully short of range. Lasers are up to 15, capacitor 3 and near ultra-violet.

Gauss has it's ups and downs. See this old (but I'm pretty sure it's still up to date) thread. Mainly the bottom of the first post

My first few goes at building a turreted defence system to cover the fleet look horrible. My best fire control at four times size is well under the range covered by most incomming missiles on a 5 second tick and is almost as big as the turrets themselves.

Set them on Final Defensive Fire PD mode. This allows any beam weapon (including the extremely short ranged Gauss) to get a single volley at each group of missiles no matter how fast they are going. However, they will only shoot if the missiles are going to hit them, and thus will not cover an area and will not cover ships outside of their TG. Fortunately, they will still cover other ships in their own TG.

[Brian Neumann]

There are a total of four options for beam point defense (bpd)  The two main catagories are area defense where your beam weapons fire in the normal sequence and final defense mode where they fire when a target crosses a range that you set, commonly 10,000km.  Both of these also have the option of only shooting at missile targeted on the ship mounting the beam weapons.  I almost never use this option.  If a fleet has all of its bpd set for final defensive fire then it will work fairly well regardless of the short range of the weapons you are mounting.  Final defensive fire takes place when the missile hits the boundry range you set and normally fires during the missiles movement so it will get to go before the missile hits your ships.  If your ships are concentrated then even gauss weapons will work for this.  Also note that CIWS systems only protect the ship they are mounted on.  This means in any decent sized fleet you will get more defensive fire from standard laser turrets than from every ship mounting CIWS systems.  For example most ciws are around 7-8 hs in size which is the same as a single 10cm laser turret and fire control.  If you have two ciws per ship then you could also probably have either a twin 12-15cm turret or a tripple 10cm turret.  If you have four ships in a squadron this will give you 12 pd shots where with matching tech the 2 ciws will get 16 pd shots at a 50% chance to hit.  I would rather the 12 shots with the full chance to hit.  Double the fleet and you now get 24 shots while the ciws ships have the same 16 shots they did before.  I use ciws on high value civilian targets, ie troop transports, and ships like carriers that tend to be the primary targets of enemy missiles and do not have much space to work with for point defense in general.

Brian

[Charlie Beeler]

To expand on Brian's comments. 

Laser turrets are a superior choice for PD if you use a dispursed fleet (ie task groups set to escort a main TG) with fleet TG's set to be within mutual support ranges based on the Laser turrets range.  Set the PD mode to Final Defense(not Final Defense(self)) and the range to the escort offset range and they will try to intercept missiles that have technically 'hit' thier target...as long as your active sensors had already detected them in the prior cycle.

If you use a tight formation or single TG then Gauss Cannon turrets are the way to go.  PD mode is still Final Defense but range is set to 1 (10,000km).

Actually a mix of Laser turrets on escorts and smaller(singles or twins not reduced size) GC turrets works very well for a dispursed fleet.  Mix in your AMM's and you've got a functional multi-layer missile defense.

[Brian Neumann]

To expand on Brian's comments. 

Laser turrets are a superior choice for PD if you use a dispursed fleet (ie task groups set to escort a main TG) with fleet TG's set to be within mutual support ranges based on the Laser turrets range.  Set the PD mode to Final Defense(not Final Defense(self)) and the range to the escort offset range and they will try to intercept missiles that have technically 'hit' thier target...as long as your active sensors had already detected them in the prior cycle.

If you use a tight formation or single TG then Gauss Cannon turrets are the way to go.  PD mode is still Final Defense but range is set to 1 (10,000km).

Actually a mix of Laser turrets on escorts and smaller(singles or twins not reduced size) GC turrets works very well for a dispursed fleet.  Mix in your AMM's and you've got a functional multi-layer missile defense.

Good expansion on what I was saying.  The reason I like lasers or mesons for point defense over the gauss cannon is there longer range.  A gauss cannon is pretty much strictly a point defense weapon and will rarely get to fire offensivly.  While it is a better point defense weapon against missiles due to its high rate of fire, it does have problems with even minimally armoured missiles or plasma torpedo''s.  Lasers work better against these problems, also against beam armed fac/fighters as well.  Mesons are even better against the missiles and small craft but they are horrible against the other system.

Brian

[chrislocke2000 (OP)]

Thanks for all the responses this is a real help. I think in the first instance I'm going to get FOR 4 for my gauss guns then use some twin barrelled half size turrets of these for TG only PD with some far smaller fire controls then I was playing with. Then once I've got the fire control tech up a few notches will go for introdcing some lasers for a final layer of defence.

[Narmio]

One significant advantage of Gauss cannons is they are really cheap RP wise to get to an effective level if you're primarily investing in a missile-based offensive strategy.  You only really need Gauss RoF, beam tracking and turret tracking, all of which are pretty cheap techs. Of course if you later want to expand to using beams offensively as well you need to pick up a completely new weapon.