> 1a) AMM (Anti-missile missile). Size 1. They have high speed (preferably >12000 km/s), low fuel/range, warhead of strength 1, more is not needed.
indeed, but as already stated, agility is a major factor for AMMs. My AMMs are often slowers than my ASMs
> 1b) ASM (Anti-ship missile). Size 5-6. They carry warhead, which should be 50% of missile. Rest is fuel/engine. Depending on enemy these can be long range/slower missiles or short range/faster missiles.
I am quite fond of large salvoes of size 4/WH4 ASMs - but I'm still using a pre-shock damage version. The WH is only 1/4 of the size of the missile however. For ASM, it is better to focus more on speed than on raw interception rate - as speed will reduce the attrition from ennemies defences.
Note that some size of WH are usually considered "better" than others : 4, 9, 16, 25... This is due to the "damage profile" of the missiles - a triangular shaped explosion. For example, a size 8 missile will break 2 layers of armor, while a size 9 will make 1 damage to the next layer. If the target only have 2 layers of armor, then the later will do internal damage right away.
> 1c) Missiles for PDC Missile complexes. Size 10+. Since missiles are not influenced by atmosphere, they are good for planet defense. Usually larger than ship missiles.
I use the same kind of missiles as usual to reduce the logistical issues. Most, if not all, of my missiles-PDCs are anti-missiles defence bases.
As usual, it is a matter of taste
> 1d) Anti planetary missiles. Might be ship sized missiles or PDC sized missiles, they are used to destroy enemy population. Basically have lower engines/fuel, since they will be dropped from orbit, bigger warhead or even special warhead for their purpose.
Sorry, but the use of anti-population warhead is forbidden by Federal Parliament Resolution 2054-02-21.12
(Matter of taste - I like my future imperial colonies clean from nasty radiations, thanks you)
> 1e) Special 2 stage missiles, like "scout" missiles with sensors on them, mines, buoys etc.
You can also use single stage buoys. Some size-4 active sensor buoys makes for very cost efficient jump-point sentries.
> 2a) Missile magazine to store missiles. How much missile storage do I want on 8000t destroyer?
Matter of taste as well. 8000t is starting to be a large ship, so i'ld say at least enough for 4-5 reloads for assault ships, and 9-10 for area defence ships. It is easy to abort an assault and get back to the nearest collier for reloading if you run out of ASMs, a bit less easy to stop defending against enemy missiles if you run out of AMMs...
> 2b) Missile launcher. Usually 2 types per ship, 1size launcher for AMM and 5-6 size launcher for standard missiles.
I am more on the specialized ship side. Either pure attack ship (with maybe a couple of CIWS for defense) or pure area defence ships with AMMs and beam defenses.
> 2c) Missile fire control. Should be synced to launcher. Ideal ratio 1 missile fire control to 1 launcher.
I find that 1 MFC per 2-4 launchers is usually enough. NEVER put only one MFC on a significantly-sized ship - one unlucky/lucky hit (depending of the point of view) and your 8000t ship is now useless for the time to repair the MFC...
> 3) Intriguing option: Missile sensor
Useless on AMMs, but a very useful option for ASMs if you aim for the "overwhelming salvo" method. My ASMs have roughly 0.5 MSP dedicated to sensors, either active of thermal. Note that you don't need a very large sensor radius for those - your missile only have to detect the rest of the fleet that should be 5s away (10000 km range for low tech, 20000/30000 km range is usually far enough)
Furthermore, it open some funny options... (Keeping your sensors down, shooting such missiles at a waypoint where your targets lurks and delete the WP once the missiles are close - A bit difficult but very funny to perform)
> 4) Intriguing option 2: Armor
Never used it. you need at least a whole MSP dedicated to armor for it to be just taken into account (0.99 armor is the same as 0)
> 5) Colliers must be build to solve logistic problems of missile warfare.
Indeed. By default, Colliers are military ships - but you can still use civilian engines to reduce the fuel use. Using reduced thermal emission engines might also be a good idea if you want them to go in the contested system...
> 6) Missile engines.
> What approach to choose? Fuel-hungy engines (power efficiency *2,5) with larger tanks? OR standard engines (*1. 0) with normal tanks but more engines?
For AMMs, this is a no brainer : the largest multiplier you can get, as you will get far enough range with less than 0.1 MSP of fuel.
For ASMs, better to err on the large multiplier size as well - but you should consider reducing this multiplier depending of the range you want.
> 7a) What is standard range of average anti-ship missile?
Matter of taste once again. I'm usually fine with my standardized 50M Km range. My advise would be to find a range you are confortable with and keeping it when upgrading missiles and MFCs
> 7b) What is standard speed of average anti-ship missile?
Depend of technology. You need at least Ion tech for decent missiles however.
For information, at MFD tech, my ASMs flies at 42000 km/s (with a 4.35 multiplier)
> 7c) What is standard range of AMM?
640kb and 5M km should be enough for anyone. you can settle for less, but there's little need to go for more...
> 7d) What is standard speed of AMM?
Depend of technology again. Might be slower than the same technology ASMs however. (At MFD tech, my AMMs runs at 40000 km/s)
7e) Is reduced sized launcher a good idea?
For me, hell yes!
I mostly use the 3 extremes of the spectrum :
- Box launchers are great for small parasite ships.
- 0.25 size /100x reload are perfect for non-time critical special operations (Scout probes, mine laying, ...), but I've used them early on as the poor guy box launcher : A wolf pack of medium range 1000t FACs and a collier lurking in the edge of the system, just shot all the missiles and then go reload at the collier (assuming the pack is not followed)
- 0.75 size / 4x reload are good to save some room for more launchers - ergo bigger salvo - while still having a decent enough reloading time for ASMs. You should seriously consider this option for AMMs as well once your reloading tech is high enough to negate the reduced loading time.