Anti Missile FC

[Traveler (OP)]

Don't forget that the range at which you detect a size 6 or below missile is approximately one ninth of the range of youbres one sensor so in the example you posted whilst you have a sensor range of 500k you won't spot the missile untill a little over 54k. Same applies for the fire control as well.

Oh, brain cramp.   Just when I thought I understood this.

[madpraxis]

...Not really...it has a handy row in the column of information...
Range to detect size 6 (or smaller): <enter digits here>
I think you are making this harder then it needs to be here
Here, this is what I do pretty much every game at the start.
Research teeny tiny overdriven to the max missile engine (Just for the AMM designs).
Stick that little engine in a missile.
Add just enough warhead to get 1 point of kabloom. You can go out, what, 4 digits? So start a .1 and go from there.
Then put on a piddling amount of fuel. This isn't a reach out and smack someone missile. start at around .05, see what that gets you.
Now, go from there. Max size 1. You never need more then that one point of damage in this design. Ever. NO MAS, K?
Feel free to pad it up with agility if you want up to 1, or more fuel, whatever floats your boat.
Now, take your range. Remember it, cherish it, love it.
Now go design a active sensor at the lowest resolution. Stare at that detect size 6 line and increase the size of the sensor until you go over the range somewhat (I like a little extra padding for some extra notice of little sharp pointy objects flying towards my face).
Design it!
Now, design a fire control, doing just the same.
FIN...sort of
Personally, I go for 8 launchers or so per FC. It all depends on the size ship I'm aiming for though. I range from 5 to 10 I'd say...
And don't forget magazines.
Important lessons: Don't lick bee's.
FIN

[Traveler (OP)]

Got it Mad.  Yeah, it's easy, after you understand it.

I guess for ASM you go for speed, big bang, range?

[madpraxis]

Ayup. Stick with square roots for warhead size due to the way the damage is applied to the targets armour for your ASM.
I would work up a bigger engine with not so high supercharging as your AMM, because your main goal isn't trying to hit a fast moving object, you just need to move faster then your target and hit it from a fair distance away.
Agility plays a big part in ship interception too, so pay attention to that. And with the way the math works, you can sometimes get a bigger rating from agility by going LOWER if you go out a few digits...for instance, you might find that .51 agility will do better then .6 (Pulling numbers out of my arse here).
My usual trend is to make a nice fatty active sensor (for some reason I prefer 60 resolution...love me them 3k ton enemies I guess) on a command ship with the squads jump engine.
That let's me stick a rather large FC on my designated missile ships. Reach out and kick someone.
To be honest, I don't really utilize ASM missiles that much, not ship launched ones. I like fighters and oodles of box launchers.
In that case, I use the the teeny supercharge engines for insane turns of speed with a square warhead and jack all for fuel since the closing will be done with the fighters carrying it. I've been doing 600k range fighter launched ASM (Can't check right now, so I may be wrong here) primarily because that is the range of the smallest FC possible. These missiles I usually aim for a size 2 missile so that way I can pile on the box launchers while keeping the weight low. Also, I tend to stick a rather small thermal sensor on these things on the basis of the targets buddies are still underway then they shall be making heat so better to have a chance of them passing the missiles detection range then just having the missile detonate due to target destruction.

[sloanjh]

My point could be summed up in that a Size 1 missile costs something like 50 RPs to develop while a resolution 1 fire control and/or sensor system costs ~100 RP*antenna_size (more or less) so in the early game you can end up paying say 1000 RP for a size 10 system that has any sort of range.  It is cheeper to change the missile then sensor.

The way this sentence is phrased raises the possibility that you might be confused about something, so this is to double-check.

The resolution of a fire control has nothing to do with the size of missiles which can be fired.

The reason that I'm pointing this out is that it sounds like you're saying that you need to use a res-1 firecontrol with very long range in order to use a size-1 missile in ASM mode against a ship that is very far away (in AMM engagement range terms).  This is not the case.  You could put e.g. a single reasonably size res-10 (or res-2 or res-3 if you want to target fighters) fire control on your AMM escort to allow ASM engagment at long range.  (The active sensor should be on a different platform).

John

[Paul M]

John,

I'm not saying that.  I am only saying that it costs less RP to make a new version of your missile (with less range) than a sensor capable of detecting an inbound missile at the max range of most early model counter missiles.

[sloanjh]

I'm not saying that.  I am only saying that it costs less RP to make a new version of your missile (with less range) than a sensor capable of detecting an inbound missile at the max range of most early model counter missiles.

Ah - ok.

And I was saying that there's a good reason (ASM secondary roll) for designing AMM's with a range that is an order of magnitude or more greater than the size-1 fire-control range.

John

[Paul M]

Yes, as far as I can see early game that come automatically.