How do your fighter survie the size1 missle spam?

[Jaz010 (OP)]

I was thinking of having 2 models, when slow and heavy armored with no weapon to soak most of the damage, and a model that will carry the weapons. of course the 1st model will be manned by conscripts released from my prison system.

but seriously, how does fighters manage to fight the missile spam at tech level below 20k.

[Andrew]

I don't.
Missile fighters fire from beyond AMM range , and unless I have enough beam fighters that they can shoot down the AMM's I don't send them against AMM armed ships

[Jorgen_CAB]

I was thinking of having 2 models, when slow and heavy armored with no weapon to soak most of the damage, and a model that will carry the weapons. of course the 1st model will be manned by conscripts released from my prison system.

but seriously, how does fighters manage to fight the missile spam at tech level below 20k.

At what range does your bombers fire their missiles?

It should be quite easy to fire missiles outside of enemy AMM range at any tech level.

It probably is easier to suggest some changes if you show some of the designs that you use and the range of the enemy AMM.

[Jaz010 (OP)]

I have beam fighters

[Jorgen_CAB]

I have beam fighters

Beam fighters are sub optimal going up against fleet ships to begin with and require a significant technological advantage or you just will have to accept huge losses and simply overwhelm the opponent with superior numbers and lots of railgun fighters to intercept some of the incoming missiles.

There are some gamey ways you can dart in and out of their max AMM range so they waste their AMM on you and once they are out you attack them, you just have to find out what their outer limit is. But this is basically taking advantage on the fact the NPR is just a scripted AI so not something I would personally do.

[smoelf]

One way to go about it is to accompany your offensive ships with PD fighters in massive numbers. I'm doing something similar in my current game and just managed to deal with a small fleet using the designs posted here: http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=12788.0. However, the major challenge is that it is an all-or-nothing situation. If you have enough PD, you can comfortably sit within AMM-range and take them apart. If you don't have enough, then you will quickly lose your beam ships and/or fighters just trying to get close enough to start shooting.

[nuclearslurpee]

In and of themselves, beam fighters can come out ahead against AMM spam.

Roughly, a typical NPR AMM ship of about 15,000 tons will mount 20x size 1 launchers plus deep magazines for 70ish salvos. A single 500t railgun fighter at the highest achievable speed (up to 4x racial tracking, of course) is usually going to be able to shoot down one equal-tech AMM in 3-4 shots, so 20x fighters or 10,000 tons will be able to match this 15,000-ton escort cruiser design.

The complication comes from the fact that these fighters usually are operating from a carrier, so for 10,000 tons of railgun fighters you can nominally assume 30,000 tons of carrier as a first estimate, plus the usual selection of carrier escorts. On the other hand, rarely is an NPR fleet made up principally of escort cruisers, so the tonnages are likely to roughly balance out depending on the details of the fleets involved.

The bigger challenge is likely going to be any beam escorts in the enemy fleet which can probably deal a lot of damage to a fighter swarm even if they suffer from poor targeting. 10cm railguns do not penetrate armor effectively at all so you will be doing a lot of sandpapering while enemy beamships can probably take out a fighter with a single hit and will be limited mainly by number of BFCs.

[Froggiest1982]

During WWII the Russians had not enough weapons for every men because they had many men. The firepower of the German was impressive yet finite and clogged by long supply lines.

Bottom line: if you can afford it, send more fighters. Many will die so make sure your first wave has its Leonidas to deliver the nice speech:  “Spartans! Ready your breakfast and eat hearty… For tonight, we dine in hell!"

The fireworks are going to be glorious and probably the best part of your playthrough.

Evantually, remember the poor bastard by naming the next line of fighters after him.

[xenoscepter]

The Short Answer: They don't.

The Long-er Answer: Ya gotta shoot down the AMMs, fire from outside of AMM range, or put like... at layers 3 layers of armor. And even with 3 or more layers of armor you should expect plenty of casualties.

[Blogaugis]

Some folks mentioned that gauss is only effective when at high enough tech levels.
Still, gauss is probably one of, if not the best Point-Defense weapon.
So you could try putting them on fighters.

[Jorgen_CAB]

Some folks mentioned that gauss is only effective when at high enough tech levels.
Still, gauss is probably one of, if not the best Point-Defense weapon.
So you could try putting them on fighters.

Railguns are more space efficient than Gauss for PD on a fighter as you don't use or need turrets. Railguns also require far less research to be effective in this regard. Gauss only become better if you fire six or more shots with them if memory serves me well.

[Garfunkel]

Yeah, for fighters which are always going to be fast as you can make them, railguns remain the superior choice. Gauss turrets can be more effective at high enough tech levels but they are also big and with fighters you lose their main advantage - turret tracking speed being separate from ship speed.

To OP, all the answers have already been given. I'd just point out that the easiest solution is that you don't, as was also mentioned. AMM spam is literally the rock against the scissors of beam fighters.

If you absolutely must fight your enemy with beam fighters, and you don't have time to design and build PD-fighters to accompany them, then use your commercial ships - transport, colony ships, tankers - as emergency "tanks" to absorb the AMMs. Send them in first to deplete the enemy missile stocks and send your fighters after them. It's extremely wasteful but better than getting your home world nuked from the orbit.

[nuclearslurpee]

Some folks mentioned that gauss is only effective when at high enough tech levels.
Still, gauss is probably one of, if not the best Point-Defense weapon.
So you could try putting them on fighters.

Railguns are more space efficient than Gauss for PD on a fighter as you don't use or need turrets. Railguns also require far less research to be effective in this regard. Gauss only become better if you fire six or more shots with them if memory serves me well.

Actually a bit worse for Gauss as ROF 8 tech is required to break even. At ROF 6 it is very close but usually it is possible to build a R3 reactor for the railgun which is <1 HS in size by the time you reach any tech level remotely close to Gauss ROF 6.

[Michael Sandy]

If you know the location of the launching ship, and you know the range of their AMMs, and your fighters are faster than the target ship then it isn't really a problem.

You simply have your fighters enter enemy AMM range, and withdraw out of range.  Over and over until the enemy runs out of AMMs.

The trick is finding out what the maximum range of those AMMs, and ensuring the enemy launches when your fighters can get out of that range.

Or build some over-engined scouts, with more endurance than your strike fighters, which go ahead of your strike fighters to bait out AMMs.

A lot of my campaigns are scouting forays with the intent of finding out the specific ranges of enemy weapons, sensors, ship speeds, etc.  These scouting expeditions may take significant casualties, but if they get accurate information they can lead to very efficient victories.

[Jorgen_CAB]

If you know the location of the launching ship, and you know the range of their AMMs, and your fighters are faster than the target ship then it isn't really a problem.

You simply have your fighters enter enemy AMM range, and withdraw out of range.  Over and over until the enemy runs out of AMMs.

The trick is finding out what the maximum range of those AMMs, and ensuring the enemy launches when your fighters can get out of that range.

Or build some over-engined scouts, with more endurance than your strike fighters, which go ahead of your strike fighters to bait out AMMs.

A lot of my campaigns are scouting forays with the intent of finding out the specific ranges of enemy weapons, sensors, ship speeds, etc.  These scouting expeditions may take significant casualties, but if they get accurate information they can lead to very efficient victories.

While it is effective to taunt the AI to waste missiles like you suggest it is a bit gamey to do so as a smart opponent would wait and fire at the point of not return, the NPR don't really have that logic coded as far as I know.

You could do the same with enemy ASM missiles too... build some 500kt commercial ship filled with just armour and CIWS system and send them up against the enemy and have them shoot themselves dry on them too... but what is the fun in that... ?!?