Active Sensor Design

[Jorgen_CAB]

OK, I did some more checking and Laser PD ships are not that much more expensive than Gauss. The laser cannons are actually slightly cheaper but becomes slightly more expensive when you add the power generator they become slightly more expensive, but not by much. The fire control of a laser PD system will become bigger and more expensive but in general you would put more cannons on each so the net effect might become the same.

When I spoke about more or less salvoes I was referring to penetrating heavy beam defences. This is obviously less of a concern for you if you are not up against particularly good beam defences.

The absolutely biggest problem that I see with the MIRV are still the separation range. Having a small force of small frigates at 20m km vanguard duty is not a big deal (I do it almost all the time), neither is an early warning craft even further out 30-60m km. With the latest changes to the missile rules most MIRVs are extremely slow before they deploy their munition. Even most beam fighters could take them out with relative ease as you can see below with a size four MIRV.

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Missile Size: 4 MSP  (0.2 HS)     Warhead: 0    Armour: 0     Manoeuvre Rating: 10
Speed: 7200 km/s    Engine Endurance: 131 minutes   Range: 56.5m km
Cost Per Missile: 2.94
Second Stage: Size 1 ASM MIRV munition x3
Second Stage Separation Range: 20,000,000 km
Overall Endurance: 2 hours   Overall Range: 81.5m km
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 72%   3k km/s 20%   5k km/s 14.4%   10k km/s 7.2%
Materials Required:    1.5x Tritanium   1.44x Gallicite   Fuel x1495
Size 1 ASM MIRV munition

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Missile Size: 1 MSP  (0.05 HS)     Warhead: 2    Armour: 0     Manoeuvre Rating: 10
Speed: 28800 km/s    Engine Endurance: 14 minutes   Range: 24.9m km
Cost Per Missile: 0.86
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 288%   3k km/s 90%   5k km/s 57.6%   10k km/s 28.8%
Materials Required:    0.5x Tritanium   0.36x Gallicite   Fuel x165
I'm not saying that MIRV is useless, but if I would rely on them exclusively they would be countered quite easily.

Some other things to consider regarding missiles and economy is that armoured missiles in contrary what you said are much cheaper than none armoured missiles. The economy to use armoured missiles is really astounding actually when I looked at the numbers.

Below are a few examples of missiles. I have taken some example missiles that could be used and in fact are missiles I actually use (all of them).

Size 8 (short ranged, high yield missile)

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Missile Size: 8 MSP  (0.4 HS)     Warhead: 15    Armour: 1     Manoeuvre Rating: 10
Speed: 24000 km/s    Engine Endurance: 5 minutes   Range: 86m km
Cost Per Missile: 6.4 (0.8 cost per MSP)
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 240%   3k km/s 80%   5k km/s 48%   10k km/s 24%
Materials Required:    4x Tritanium   2.4x Gallicite   Fuel x1250
Size 8 (long ranged, medium yield missile)

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Missile Size: 8 MSP  (0.4 HS)     Warhead: 12    Armour: 1     Manoeuvre Rating: 10
Speed: 24000 km/s    Engine Endurance: 10 minutes   Range: 173m km
Cost Per Missile: 5.65 (0.70 cost per MSP)
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 240%   3k km/s 80%   5k km/s 48%   10k km/s 24%
Materials Required:    3.25x Tritanium   2.4x Gallicite   Fuel x2500
Size 8 (long range, low yield, armoured missile)

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Missile Size: 8 MSP  (0.4 HS)     Warhead: 6    Armour: 2     Manoeuvre Rating: 10
Speed: 24000 km/s    Engine Endurance: 10 minutes   Range: 173m km
Cost Per Missile: 4.4 (0.55 cost per MSP)
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 240%   3k km/s 80%   5k km/s 48%   10k km/s 24%
Materials Required:    2x Tritanium   2.4x Gallicite   Fuel x2500
Size 4 (medium range, medium yield, fast missile)

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Missile Size: 4 MSP  (0.2 HS)     Warhead: 6    Armour: 0     Manoeuvre Rating: 10
Speed: 30000 km/s    Engine Endurance: 8 minutes   Range: 106m km
Cost Per Missile: 3 (0.75 cost per MSP)
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 300%   3k km/s 100%   5k km/s 60%   10k km/s 30%
Materials Required:    1.5x Tritanium   1.5x Gallicite   Fuel x1250
Size 1 AMM

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Missile Size: 1 MSP  (0.05 HS)     Warhead: 1    Armour: 0     Manoeuvre Rating: 24
Speed: 28800 km/s    Engine Endurance: 1 minutes   Range: 1.6m km
Cost Per Missile: 0.8903 (0.89 cost per MSP)
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 691.2%   3k km/s 216%   5k km/s 138.2%   10k km/s 69.1%
Materials Required:    0.25x Tritanium   0.6403x Gallicite   Fuel x35
Now if I take my own AMM and fire it against my own missiles I will get the following results at both efficiency and economy...

Note: Crew grade is not calculated into the intercept chances of missiles below, but they should effect all economy more or less the same anyway

Size 8 (long range, medium yield)
With an armour value of 1 the AMM will have an intercept chance of 14.4% and so it will take 6.94 missiles to shoot one missile down.
The economy is 6.94*0.89=6.18 build cost to produce the AMM while the ASM cost 5.65 in build cost. Efficiency factor of 1.2

Size 4 (medium range, medium yield)
With high speed the intercept chance of this missile is 23% and so it will take 4.35 missiles to shoot one missile down.
The economy is 4.35*0.89=3.86 build cost to produce the AMM while the ASM cost 3 in build cost. Efficiency factor of 1.3

Size 8 (long range, low yield)
With an armour value of 2 the AMM will have an intercept chance of 9.6% and so it will take 10.42 missiles to shoot one missile down.
The economy is 10.42*0.89=9.28 build cost to produce the AMM while the ASM cost 4.4 in build cost. Efficiency factor of 2.1

To be honest I had no idea that armoured missiles were so much cheaper to build. This last one I actually have been using before and it has really worked great. Even if it has a lower yield it can NOT be ignored and AMM struggle badly to fight them.

The missiles above are used in different areas. The size 4 are usually carried by smaller frigates to fight faster ships, the size 8 is a capital missile use to fight standard capital ships that has a standard speed of around 3000km/s.


The tech used for all the above missiles are...

Ion Engine Technology
Warhead Strength per MSP:  6
Missile Agility per MSP:  64
Fuel Consumption per EPH:  0.7
Maximum Engine Power Level: x4

In general I see uses for both larger and small missiles for efficiency reasons as well as tactical reasons. Large missiles generally carry larger warheads and thus dig a deeper whole in the enemy armour and start doing damage much sooner than low yield missiles, they also can be fired at longer ranges since their engines has a much better fuel efficiency.

Smaller missiles are better designed for high speeds with no armour and can use agility much more efficiently. I'm pretty reluctant to use agility on missiles bigger than size 4.

Although... I think we have veered a little too off topic here so perhaps we should start this up in another thread...

[Zatsuza]

I've used size 50s in PDCs and also in my first ship design-- a 39kt beast.

That's changed now though-- my current destroyers are about 1/5th the cost, although they feel very light in the weapons department-- that's primarily due to the low tech level though, I managed to squeeze it all in under 9kt. Primarily from removing 50HS sensors and making a specialized design, instead of a generalized one. 5 of these ships could easily take my 39kt previous design. Ah, the things we learn.

I've toyed with the idea of sticking them in my command ships and carriers though, Good intel > No intel-- and if it comes to that I'll probably slap a few in my jumpships to pad them out if need be.