The AMM Question

[tastythighs (OP)]

The Problem:
For a beam fleet engaging a missile fleet, including but not limited to precursors, the greatest threat by a considerable margin is not the anti-ship missiles, but the anti-missile missiles.  This is because they are more numerous, faster and fire faster, which in turns makes intercepting them more difficult by every metric while defensively, there is no tool which is better at engaging greater numbers of small, rapidly-firing missiles than it is at engaging larger, more high-tech missiles. 
 
I consider this an issue because it seems to me completely back-to-front logic that one should be more worried about the enemy's defences than their purpose-built ship-killing weapons.

The Proposed Solution:
Barring a rework of EWAR to the effect that greater tonnage allocated to EWAR would give greater capability, the way to address the issue would be to balance existing defensive tools to be more effective against AMMs.  I can think of three ways to achieve this.

1) Make ship decoys/decoy launchers considerably less massive for a given signature.  However, this would make decoys more effective against AShMs unless some method of limiting simultaneously launched decoy tonnage/signature were introduced alongside it. 

2) Make decoys reusable or introduce a reusable decoy-like system, perhaps requiring power from a reactor or requiring some form of towing system akin to a modern surface warship's towed acoustic decoy.

3) Add a tech akin to the tracking time bonus tech that provides a significant tracking or CTH bonus against missiles that were detected at launch (or whose launch was detected within a certain range dependent on tech, i. e.  launches detected within 2/4/6/8/etc million km), giving an advantage to more long-legged missiles over short-ranged missiles like AMMs.

I have attached to this post an image displaying my approximate emotions on the subject.

[captainwolfer]

The best counter to AMMs is Gauss or Railgun PD combined with ECM.

Example:
- I have a 60,000 ton ion tech battlecruiser with a speed of 6,250 km/s, 16 gauss turrets, missile ECM 2, 10 atmor layers and shields (and 30 particle beams)
- Turret tracking speed is 16,000 km/s
- Assuming enemy AMMs are 60,000 km/s
- hit chance for gauss is thus 12,000 / 60,000 = ~26.7%, fires 48 shots, ~12 expected hits
- Missile hit chance: (60,000 / 6,250) X 0.1 = 96% hit chance X ECM 2 = 57.6% actual missile hit chance
- So my battlecruiser can shoot down 12 AMMs every 5 seconds just by itself, and almost half the remaining AMMs will miss, and it only devotes about 7,000 tons to that purpose.

Edit: Also I'm not accounting for the tracking speed bonus you can research or CIC tactical bonus

[nuclearslurpee]

The Duranium Legion can also confirm that railguns work against AMMs in sufficient numbers. 

There are also other ways to handle AMMs. For example, you can simply take some damage from them and handle it with heavy armor and/or shields (shields have the benefit in some cases of recharge fast enough that AMM damage is mostly recovered between wave impacts). It is quite feasible to defeat AMMs as well by expending your decoys on the first several waves, and by the time that you run out of decoys you are much closer to the enemy and they have that many fewer AMM volleys to destroy a ship. Of course ECM helps a lot as well.

Another option is to fire missiles at them, which should attract the attention of the enemy AMM gunners and allow your ships to close relatively unhindered.

I do think part of the fear of AMMs is a bit overblown, if you were facing an opponent armed with beam weapons for example you would expect to take damage and even lost some ships unless you had both the range and speed advantage (which, at least against Precursors, you probably do not in many cases). So in part I think we are worrying about AMMs much more than we should, especially since with new options for ASMs they are tricker to defend against than they used to be. We are a lot closer to a balance between small missiles which deal damage by massive wave sizes and large missiles which deal damage by being hard to hit, compared to the pre-2.2 days.

[Ulzgoroth]

The big 2.2 missile update changed that field considerably:
- Optimized AMMs are useless at damaging ships, since they will use fractional warheads. The 1 MSP 1 WH missile is now a multirole compromise missile. Doesn't really help the beam fleet, of course, which doesn't care about the defects of the enemy missile defense.
- ECM missile jamming can be murderous, and an AMM will very rarely want to carry ECCM.
- AMM hit chance will typically be lower than before.

Notably the point defense side of the equation may have gotten worse - without agility to invest in, AMMs are likely even faster.

...So yeah overall while PD is helpful, the promoted countermeasure seems to be more than ever meeting their inadequate damage output with your ability to shrug off damage. Shields, ECM, speed, and just take a walk through the rain.

Throwing some sacrificial return missiles might be an effective if cheesy counterplay. Would the AI try to intercept a 1 MSP light ASM with several of their own missiles? Getting them to try to shoot down your missiles would be a much better exchange than trying to shoot down theirs with yours.

[tastythighs (OP)]

I feel slightly misunderstood.  My point is not that AMMs are too strong, or uncounterable, but rather that they are as or more dangerous to face than anti-ship missiles for a beam fleet, that (almost) everything you can do to defend against them is as or more effective when employed against anti-ship missiles.  I consider this to be an undesirable dynamic, mostly for reasons of verisimilitude. 

I'm well aware that this is a matter of personal preference rather than essential game balance.   

[nuclearslurpee]

I feel slightly misunderstood.  My point is not that AMMs are too strong, or uncounterable, but rather that they are as or more dangerous to face than anti-ship missiles for a beam fleet, that (almost) everything you can do to defend against them is as or more effective when employed against anti-ship missiles.  I consider this to be an undesirable dynamic, mostly for reasons of verisimilitude. 

I'm well aware that this is a matter of personal preference rather than essential game balance.   

I think I tried to say this, but part of my point was that they're not actually more dangerous, they just feel more dangerous because they have a higher chance to do some damage rather by sheer volume of fire, but the damage is usually mush less threatening than what would result if your fleet failed to handle an ASM wave or for that matter beam weapons.

I would also note that the statement:

(almost) everything you can do to defend against them is as or more effective when employed against anti-ship missiles.

is not really true. Admittedly it does hold true if the enemy uses full-size ASM launchers or in any other situation where simple beam PD is enough to comfortably defeat every missile in the wave, but in situations where this is not the case and AMMs become necessary as part of the counter-missile strategy, then things get more interesting as the design of AMMs to counter larger ASMs will not be so effective against AMM spam. Now that NPRs can use reduced-size missile launchers as well as all the new EW capabilities this is even more true than in the past.

[Ulzgoroth]

I feel slightly misunderstood.  My point is not that AMMs are too strong, or uncounterable, but rather that they are as or more dangerous to face than anti-ship missiles for a beam fleet, that (almost) everything you can do to defend against them is as or more effective when employed against anti-ship missiles.  I consider this to be an undesirable dynamic, mostly for reasons of verisimilitude. 

I think this is not really true? It's just that the 1.5 most interactive things you can do against them are more effective against antiship missiles.

AMMs and point defense beams (including CIWS) are more useful against large ASM than small ones generally. (Decoys can cut that a little, but are unlikely to reverse it.)

Increasing ship speed to make yourself a harder target winds up equal between them.

But ECM is much more effective against small missiles (because they're unlikely to afford ECCM) to the point of threatening to shut them out entirely at higher tech, simple durability should be more effective (because a smaller missile won't have more warhead per MSP), and while not available to a beam fleet trying to attack countering the missiles by range control should be more effective against small missiles with less efficient propulsion.

[BardicNerd]

I feel slightly misunderstood.   My point is not that AMMs are too strong, or uncounterable, but rather that they are as or more dangerous to face than anti-ship missiles for a beam fleet

I very much disagree.   Leaving aside 'true' AMMs that rely on fractional damage to kill missiles and can't actually damage ships, size 1 multi-purpose missiles, while more likely to get some through point defenses, are not as big a danger -- you'll take some damage from them, yes, but it shouldn't be enough to seriously threaten ships.   An actual ASM getting through can cripple or kill a ship, potentially in a single hit.

Let's put some numbers into this.   Let's take the size 7 missiles I use as my primary ship-mounted missile, the size 14 missiles I also have, and the size 1 multi-purpose missiles I also have.

While I don't actually employ size 1 missiles on my ships currently, if I did, I'd probably put them in full size launchers so they could fire every 5 seconds.   But for the sake of maximizing volley size, let's put them in . 75 size launchers, as this gives me a bigger volley while still retaining 15 second reload.   My other missiles will go in size . 3 launchers.   So, assuming equal hull space devoted to launchers, that is very roughly 3 size 1 missiles per size 7 or 6 size 1 per size 14.

Now, my best fire control has a 14% to hit my size 1 missiles, a 28% chance to hit my size 7s, and a 32% chance to hit my size 14s.   However, since my ASMs have decoys, it the chances that they hit the actual missile and not the decoy are somewhat lower.   On average, it will take 2 hits to take out the size 7s and 5 to take out the size 14.   So it takes roughly the same amount of PD to take out one of my size 7s as it does to take out a size 1, and almost twice as much PD to take out a size 14 as it does a size 1.   The smaller volley size does mean that a larger percentage of the volley of larger missiles will be intercepted, though.

Assuming not all missiles are intercepted, they then have to actually hit the ship.   Assuming no ECM, the size 1s have an advantage -- but in the case of the missiles I currently use, only against ships travelling faster than 10k km/s.   Let's assume the target is travelling at 20k km/s for this.   The size 1s will have about a 80% chance to hit, the size 7s about 60%, and the size 14s about 55%.   If there is ECM, the advantage of the size 1s will very quickly drop off.   The larger missiles have ECCM, though, so will not suffer as much, if at all.

The final damage depends entirely on the volley size versus how much PD you have.   There will almost certainly be size 1 missiles that make it through, bit since these will be size 1 explosions they should not do a lot of internal damage.   While smaller numbers of size 7s and size 14s make it through, their warheads would pose a much greater threat.   The smaller missiles can repeat their attack sooner than the large missiles, but since they are not penetrating armor, their attacks will not be as efficient as the larger missiles.

that (almost) everything you can do to defend against them is as or more effective when employed against anti-ship missiles.

At low tech levels, this may be true.   At higher tech levels, it is definitely not.

[tastythighs (OP)]

I would also note that the statement:

(almost) everything you can do to defend against them is as or more effective when employed against anti-ship missiles.

is not really true. Admittedly it does hold true if the enemy uses full-size ASM launchers or in any other situation where simple beam PD is enough to comfortably defeat every missile in the wave, but in situations where this is not the case and AMMs become necessary as part of the counter-missile strategy, then things get more interesting as the design of AMMs to counter larger ASMs will not be so effective against AMM spam. Now that NPRs can use reduced-size missile launchers as well as all the new EW capabilities this is even more true than in the past.

I would contend that it's considerably easier to design AMMs to defeat AShMs, especially since you can launch more volleys at a slower target, but this scenario is specifically about beam fleets.

Beam PD, shield regeneration, tracking time bonus and ship decoys are all as or more effective against AShMs than they are against AMMs. This much is undeniable.
And I also contend that AMMs *are* more dangerous, because while failing to intercept AShMs has worse consequences, it's also easier. Even if only 20 AMMs got through every 10 seconds, that's still ~600 damage if you were attempting to close 2 mil km with a 6000km/s speed advantage.

At low tech levels, this may be true.   At higher tech levels, it is definitely not.

Many people, including myself, play on =<25% research rate, since that gives much more time to enjoy a single generation of ships.
"Low" tech levels can last for 80 years or more.

[BardicNerd]

Since I was curious how I could better optimize my missiles, I ran some more numbers.   I didn't fully optimize everything, and only really ran the numbers using the tech I currently use.   So this is not perfect information.   But observations I made that seem like they may be generally applicable:

Size 1 missiles with a single strength 1 warhead are okay against both ships and other missiles, but not amazing against either.   I think the best use of them is probably as an anti-fighter weapon, but I haven't really looked into this.

Assuming full size launchers and equal amounts of tonnage devoted to missile launchers and PD, and no ECM, size 1 missiles will result in the highest DPS.   They will, however, apply this rather inefficiently.   Depending upon the variables, they may have the highest damage per volley, but much of it will be wasted on armor compared to missiles with bigger warheads.

Assuming full size launchers and equal amounts of tonnage devoted to missile launchers and PD, there is a fairly reasonable chance that at least one missile from every volley will make it through, at least with the variables that I was using.   Obviously the variables will differ wildly based on the encounter.

In most situations, if the enemy has halfway effective PD, you really want to use reduced size launchers.   In one case, it turned an average of 1 hit per volley into an average on 9 hits per volley, using . 3 size launchers.

Overall, midsized missiles in reduced size launchers seem to be most effective, though there are other good options.   Each situation will be different, of course.

Beam PD, shield regeneration, tracking time bonus and ship decoys are all as or more effective against AShMs than they are against AMMs.  This much is undeniable.

I'm not sure that ship decoys are actually more effective, though.   I think it's the other way around, actually: ships decoys are less effective against missiles that have ECCM, which typically means larger missiles.   Smaller missiles are probably more likely to trigger ship decoys to deploy, since a greater total MSP of them is likely to get past PD, but bigger missiles do more damage per MSP typically (so not as much needs to leak to be dangerous).   This does mean that small missiles will go through ship decoys much quicker, but the decoys will (I think) be more effective per tonnage against the small missiles than against the larger missiles.

Beam PD will not stop as large a percentage of small missiles as it will larger missiles.   The entire point of using size 1 missiles against ships is to saturate PD.   But to remain somewhat effective against other missiles these small missiles have to make compromises that mean they aren't as effective against ships as they could be, allowing your other defenses to make them much less of a threat.   ECM in particular will be very effective, but they will also be rendered far less effective with armor.

And I also contest that AMMs *are* more dangerous, because while failing to intercept AShMs has worse consequences, it's also easier.  Even if only 20 AMMs got through every 10 seconds, that's still ~600 damage if you were attempting to close 2 mil km with a 6000km/s speed advantage.

They could probably actually use that space much more efficiently with larger missiles using reduced size launchers and far fewer reloads.   It wouldn't be hard to have the same volley size, doing much more damage in total, except in infrequent spikes, by using dedicated ASMs in reduced size launchers.

So, yes, it sounds like in this situation, the size 1 missiles are more dangerous, simply because they are overusing them.   The problem is not size 1 missiles, though, it's the design of the ships you're facing.

Many people, including myself, play on =<25% research rate, since that gives much more time to enjoy a single generation of ships.
"Low" tech levels can last for 80 years or more.

Even so, it shouldn't take that long to research and deploy anti-missile ECM, which you should do if you are facing a foe that overuses size 1 missiles.

[joshuawood]

If we are talking about PVP this goes out the window BUT

Against AI, every level of missile jammers reduces the number of AMMs hitting you by 20%. Meaning at Missile Jammer 5 makes you completely immune to all AI AMM Fire.

I'm currently at Missile Jammer 3 in a 25% research game, at 100% research rate i would be at 4 with 5 pretty soon.

I got Jammer 3 at ~70years in.

That is HUGE against AMMs

[paolot]

... at Missile Jammer 5 makes you completely immune to all AI AMM Fire

So, we should concentrate in researching jammers, and leave missiles research apart.
Can I suggest to Steve to change this behaviour of the effectiveness of the jammers with an asymptotic one? I.e., each level of the jammers research increases their effects a bit less than the previous step, choosing a rather high last level (e.g. 30) to reach let's say 98% (or even less) effectiveness.
Maybe it could be also considered an increasing small probability of malfunction of the jammers, starting let's say after level 10, and capped at 10-15%.

[Ulzgoroth]

... at Missile Jammer 5 makes you completely immune to all AI AMM Fire

So, we should concentrate in researching jammers, and leave missiles research apart.

Missile jammer doesn't make missiles useless. It makes missiles without ECCM useless against ships.

(Proper current AMMs are already useless against ships due to fractional warheads as has been repeatedly raised.)

Multirole 1 MSP missiles are unlikely to carry ECCM because doing so costs 0.25 MSP and has very limited usefulness for AMM purposes.

Any serious antiship missile will definitely want ECCM by the time the tech waterline on EWAR reaches 2, never mind 5.


Of course, this necessitates researching ECCM, but beam fire control jamming does the same thing to beam accuracy that missile jamming does to missile accuracy, so ECCM is mandatory as EWAR develops for any offensive strategy. Except maybe exclusively boarding-based offense, in theory?

[joshuawood]

... at Missile Jammer 5 makes you completely immune to all AI AMM Fire

So, we should concentrate in researching jammers, and leave missiles research apart.

Missile jammer doesn't make missiles useless. It makes missiles without ECCM useless against ships.

(Proper current AMMs are already useless against ships due to fractional warheads as has been repeatedly raised.)

Multirole 1 MSP missiles are unlikely to carry ECCM because doing so costs 0.25 MSP and has very limited usefulness for AMM purposes.

Any serious antiship missile will definitely want ECCM by the time the tech waterline on EWAR reaches 2, never mind 5.


Of course, this necessitates researching ECCM, but beam fire control jamming does the same thing to beam accuracy that missile jamming does to missile accuracy, so ECCM is mandatory as EWAR develops for any offensive strategy. Except maybe exclusively boarding-based offense, in theory?

If you can board without active sensor lock then i guess it isn't needed but if you need active sensors then even boarding needs ECCM

[Ulzgoroth]

... at Missile Jammer 5 makes you completely immune to all AI AMM Fire

So, we should concentrate in researching jammers, and leave missiles research apart.

Missile jammer doesn't make missiles useless. It makes missiles without ECCM useless against ships.

(Proper current AMMs are already useless against ships due to fractional warheads as has been repeatedly raised.)

Multirole 1 MSP missiles are unlikely to carry ECCM because doing so costs 0.25 MSP and has very limited usefulness for AMM purposes.

Any serious antiship missile will definitely want ECCM by the time the tech waterline on EWAR reaches 2, never mind 5.


Of course, this necessitates researching ECCM, but beam fire control jamming does the same thing to beam accuracy that missile jamming does to missile accuracy, so ECCM is mandatory as EWAR develops for any offensive strategy. Except maybe exclusively boarding-based offense, in theory?

If you can board without active sensor lock then i guess it isn't needed but if you need active sensors then even boarding needs ECCM

True! I'm not sure myself.