Self-Guided Missiles?

[Girlinhat (OP)]

So I've got some idea for strange missile platforms, but they all ultimately boil down to self-guided missiles being fired from a ship that has no fire control, or has a very poor one.  For instance, one idea is to set a box launcher with minimal crew and no support, and drop it somewhere.  Then, another ship can locate a target, and the far-off box launcher can fire some supporting missiles from unexpected angles.  But I'm not quite sure how to get a ship to fire a blind missile.

[Brian Neumann]

The problem with this idea is in the missile tracking systems currently available.  When you fire a missile without a fire control lockon it will fly to the waypoint you designate.  It has to have sensors of its own to detect a target.  These can be either active or passive, but they need to be on the missile.  With the long flight times of the missiles (20-40 minutes)  your target will quite possibly have moved far enough from where your missiles are that the missiles will not see any targets.  In this case the missiles will remain at the original target untill they run out of fuel.  A simple example with Internal confinement engine tech.  Ships move 5000km/s so in 30 minutes can have moved 9 million kilometres.  For a missile to be able to see a target that far away it would need either an active sensor with a huge resolution and a couple of missile space points, or a much larger passive sensor.  A 1msp active sensor with a resolution of 200 would let you see a 10,000 ton ship up to 2.8mkm.  For a  active sensor to see a target at 7mkm you would either need 3 msp, or a resolution of 2000.  Niether of these works all that well as you need the sensors on every missile you are going to shoot this way.  If however you put a firecontrol that will handle the range and then fire at your target the missile only needs a smaller sensor, usually passive em works well.  This sensor on the missile is only to give final course correction if the original target is destroyed or moves beyond sensor range.  You will need at least 1 ship with an active sensor showing your targets for this to work, but it does not need to be the firing ship for this to work.  The reason I suggest a passive sensor is that as soon as you fire a missile with an active sensor it starts working, potentially letting your target know that missiles are inbound, and from where.

Brian

[Girlinhat (OP)]

A big point of this strategy, obviously, is surprise.  It would be a rather tactically limited idea, but I feel it could be used to harass ships that are defending a warp point or sitting on a colony (though then there's the colony's defenses in the mix).  It would be overall rather difficult to use in a main line battle, but I feel it could be used in certain situations and work cheaper than full sized ships.

Either way, it sounds like I need to fire missiles at a waypoint and let the missile's sensors finish the final approach?  If fired towards a planet, would they hit the planet or would they retarget on nearby ships?

I think this could also be used as a cheap, quirky scout idea.  Fire a few probing missiles at suspected planets or jump points, and see if it hits anything.  True, it's taking up a launcher slot and some ordinance, but with so much depending on visibility I think it might help...

[UnLimiTeD]

You should read Steve's latest AAR about Nato and Soviets, it shows how active Sensors on missiles can go horribly wrong in a surprise attack.
As for scouting a Planet, try drones with passives.
They will show thermal and em-Sigs of planets, nearby ships, and if you want to check for hostiles, something will shoot at it.
Having a dedicated Launcher for that in a fleet isn#t too much of an investment, you can outfit scout ships with that equipment.
In a pinch, you can load it with a mirv for self-defense.
Or if you use large enough missiles, just use a standard launcher.
As for that task, your not using box launchers anyways, you could just switch out the ammo depending on the need.
Also, if you detect enemy emmisions on passives, you could fire missiles ahead of them, to a waypoint you suspect them to be at in 30 Minutes, and then light them up to confirm hostile short before arrival.

[Girlinhat (OP)]

That's not a terrible idea...  I often see little civilian ships running around at something like 1750 km/s and can't be bothered to hunt down ANOTHER cryogenics ship.  A ruler and some guesswork, and I could probably judge their destination and send some interceptor missiles.

Either way, it sounds like I can do what I wanted, if I do it carefully.  My plan for this is to make a large drone with a passive sensor and fuel tank, with a secondary ordinance of a regular missile with a tiny sensor.  Once an enemy is spotted, something stationary like jump point defenders or such, then missiles could be fired from virtually any range.

[Yonder]

That's not a terrible idea...  I often see little civilian ships running around at something like 1750 km/s and can't be bothered to hunt down ANOTHER cryogenics ship.  A ruler and some guesswork, and I could probably judge their destination and send some interceptor missiles.

That's how submarines hunted ships in world war II.

Either way, it sounds like I can do what I wanted, if I do it carefully.  My plan for this is to make a large drone with a passive sensor and fuel tank, with a secondary ordinance of a regular missile with a tiny sensor.  Once an enemy is spotted, something stationary like jump point defenders or such, then missiles could be fired from virtually any range.

That would probably work pretty well, while you still wouldn't be able to get as much damage with ship based fire controls/active sensors (since the drone's passive sensor could probably be another two or three small missiles) but it would let you give a waypoint that would get the big drone close enough to get its missiles with a reasonable margin of error. Let us know how it goes.

[Girlinhat (OP)]

Actually I'm running into trouble.  I designed a ship with two size 15 tubes (at 25% size they take 12 hours to reload, oops) and fit them with drones that fire 5 "sandblaster" style of missiles.  The range I get is something like 600m on the drone and 50m on the second stage size 1 missile.  I drastically overshot my desired range, I believe, but that's not a huge issue.  I believe at this range I could have fit active sensors on the missiles and the pure range would still make my ships invisible.

Regardless, the ships are equipped with engines, jump drives, cloaks, and weapons, netting 50HS total for some surprisingly light and cheap ships that can out-range pretty much anything.  Another ship is equipped with large passive sensors and no weapons, to act as a spotter, and just for fun I made a size 20 box that's entirely a pair of missile tubes and some ammo, to be dropped via mothership and provide some distant fire support.

The issue is, I can't seem to fire the weapons at all.  With no fire control or sensors, my missile boats keep reporting "cannot fire, suffering the effects of transit" whenever I try to use the individual ship list "Msl Launch" button.  What am I doing wrong here?

[LoSboccacc]

I've noticed that too. set a waypoint near you  and fire the missiles at the waypoint from the F12 screen:
there is a flag show waypoints, check that
select the waypoint
select the 'fire missile' at action

[UnLimiTeD]

With no fire control or sensors

Wait, you got no firecontrol?
No Firecontrol, no missiles.
Use one with a very high resolution, so you can target points far away, you don't actually need to see any target.
Also keep in mind the submunitions need to be able to see your target, so if they don't have useful passives, it's kinda pointless, just as their range isn't that satisfying if they're not going anywhere.

[Girlinhat (OP)]

The "Msl Launch" button said "fire missiles without linking them to fire control, useful for buoys or self-guided missiles".  Under that assumption, I figured "this says I can blind fire a missile, therefore I should be able to blind fire a missile" so I didn't include any fire control.  The original idea involved 1WH minimissiles loaded onto a drone, firing 10 cluster bombs from one size 15 drone at a range of some 600m km.  Both the drone and the minimissiles had a tiny passive sensor, working under the assumption that their target would be stationary and thus only need sensors for tiny en-route adjustments.  This was primarily a proof-of-concept undertaking, but since I haven't managed to get it working...

[UnLimiTeD]

Hmm, it's been a lot of versions since I tried that myself, so I suppose I'm not the person to ask about this specific issue.
Mines make sense, but a missile?
How can you launch a missile somewhere without a firecontrol?
I mean, I suppose you can't, but are you meant to be able to?
I don't really have an idea there.

[Girlinhat (OP)]

That's what it said.  I assumed it would let me pick a target or waypoint or such.  Instead it just throws an error, so the tooltip is either wrong or a function is broken.

[Hawkeye]

As far as I remember, the "fire at waypoint" command doesn´t mean you will be firing from where your ship is, at the waypoint over there, but order your ship to _move_ to the waypoint over there and then launch a missile. This was how I deployed my mines back when I used them.
As I have never build a ship with missile launchers but _without_ a firecon, I can´t comment on that.

[Marc420]

I think I saw in another thread that with a fire control, you can fire at a waypoint that's outside the range of the fire control.  Thus, making a small fc and adding 1 50 ton fc to your designs might solve this problem.

[blue emu]

I think I saw in another thread that with a fire control, you can fire at a waypoint that's outside the range of the fire control. 

Yes. Tested.