Missile ships using early-game tech, looking for critique

[PSI (OP)]

After discovering wrecks in Alpha Centauri (one jump away from Sol), I created some plans to produce a task group to protect ships from any threats in the area. These class plans are the Eagle (sensor ship, only one for the task group), the Bulldog (ASM ship, planning on having 2 of them) and the Alligator (AMM ship, also planning on having 2 of them).

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Eagle class Surveillance Frigate    9,100 tons     187 Crew     2083.6 BP      TCS 182  TH 624  EM 0
3428 km/s     Armour 10-38     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 4     PPV 0
Maint Life 1.97 Years     MSP 1572    AFR 165%    IFR 2.3%    1YR 533    5YR 8001    Max Repair 840 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 12 months    Spare Berths 0   

312 EP Magneto-plasma Drive (2)    Power 312    Fuel Use 11.92%    Signature 312    Exp 6%
Fuel Capacity 500,000 Litres    Range 83.0 billion km   (280 days at full power)

Active Ship Sensor MR478-R60 (1)     GPS 26460     Range 478.2m km    Resolution 60
Active Missile Sensor MR117-R1 (1)     GPS 840     Range 117.6m km    MCR 12.8m km    Resolution 1

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes

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Bulldog class Missile Frigate    7,750 tons     130 Crew     988.8 BP      TCS 155  TH 624  EM 0
4025 km/s     Armour 5-34     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 3     PPV 12
Maint Life 1.21 Years     MSP 239    AFR 160%    IFR 2.2%    1YR 168    5YR 2515    Max Repair 168 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 12 months    Spare Berths 1   
Magazine 692   

312 EP Magneto-plasma Drive (2)    Power 312    Fuel Use 11.92%    Signature 312    Exp 6%
Fuel Capacity 500,000 Litres    Range 97.4 billion km   (280 days at full power)

Size 6 Missile Launcher (2)    Missile Size 6    Rate of Fire 45
ASM Fire Control FC446-R40 (1)     Range 446.3m km    Resolution 40
Poppy Six I (115)  Speed: 23,300 km/s   End: 237.9m    Range: 332.7m km   WH: 9    Size: 6    TH: 132/79/39

Missile to hit chances are vs targets moving at 3000 km/s, 5000 km/s and 10,000 km/s

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes

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Alligator class Escort    7,750 tons     124 Crew     1100.8 BP      TCS 155  TH 624  EM 0
4025 km/s     Armour 5-34     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 4     PPV 3
Maint Life 1.34 Years     MSP 355    AFR 120%    IFR 1.7%    1YR 210    5YR 3153    Max Repair 336 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 12 months    Spare Berths 0   
Magazine 683   

312 EP Magneto-plasma Drive (2)    Power 312    Fuel Use 11.92%    Signature 312    Exp 6%
Fuel Capacity 500,000 Litres    Range 97.4 billion km   (280 days at full power)

Size 1 Missile Launcher (3)    Missile Size 1    Rate of Fire 10
AMM Fire Control FC141-R1 (1)     Range 141.1m km    Resolution 1
Earthworm I (683)  Speed: 24,000 km/s   End: 8.6m    Range: 12.5m km   WH: 1    Size: 1    TH: 240/144/72

Missile to hit chances are vs targets moving at 3000 km/s, 5000 km/s and 10,000 km/s

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
Although this is only early-game, any advice or criticisms that you have would be greatly appreciated!

[MarcAFK]

Your ships have extremely powerful sensors and fire controls, but very low firepower considering their size and cost. You could also optimise fire controls and sensors more to make more room for launchers.
For instance while a whopping great missile sensor let's you see what's coming it doesn't help you get out more missiles. But you at least are taking advantage of the fire controls missile detection by having missiles with the same range, the extra 120 million kilometers of the missile firecontrol is rather wasted though.
Also there's a resolution difference between your spotter and your ASM ship.
This means your fire control can target size 40 ships your active sensor can't even see, it's a small blind spot only affective ships under size 60, but making the firecontrol res 60 as well would save weight. In fact if you halved fire control range across the board you would get more launchers, if you did similar weight reduction across the board you could have far more firepower.
Maybe reduce active sensor range to being similar to what's needed to target and fire at ships then fill the extra space with a large thermal sensor. You'll still detect ships at high range but do It without alerting them to your presence.

[Herodotus4]

Cut the fuel to a third or quarter, you will never go 80,000,000 km in these ships. Also, I would usually go for at least 10 missiles per attack salvo, maybe use the tonnage freed up by removal of the extraneous fuel to up your salvo size per ship to at least 5, same thing with the AMM ships; less fuel more launchers, 10 per ship would work well.

[Drgong]

If it was me, I would cut the range (fleet tankers are easy civilian support craft) and use that size savings to increase the firepower. 

[TT]

I like the ships, You've overdone the range by quite a bit and your offensive ships need more firepower, but these could be a lot worse. In addition to the already good advice of cutting your fuel tanks and reducing your sensor package a bit, I'd cut your magazine size and include a collier with your fleet.  Use reduced size launchers too. Also, include a electronic passive sensor on one of the ships. It doesn't have to be big, just enough to spot the bad guys when they light up their sensors.

[DaMachinator]

I like the ships, You've overdone the range by quite a bit and your offensive ships need more firepower, but these could be a lot worse. In addition to the already good advice of cutting your fuel tanks and reducing your sensor package a bit, I'd cut your magazine size and include a collier with your fleet.  Use reduced size launchers too. Also, include a electronic passive sensor on one of the ships. It doesn't have to be big, just enough to spot the bad guys when they light up their sensors.

Why would you use reduced size launchers? Unless you favor bigger salvos over more salvos, of course.

[Drgong]

Why would you use reduced size launchers? Unless you favor bigger salvos over more salvos, of course.

Stopping 30 missiles every 60 seconds is much harder then stopping 15 missiles every 30 seconds.   

[TT]

Drgong is correct. There are a couple of ways to win a missle fight. If your opponent is using missles to defend themselves, you can have more ASMs than they have AAMs. That will work but is expensive and isn't my approach. I like a few very big salvos to overwhelm my opponents defenses. If it takes me hours to reload, it doesn't really matter because I like to see the impact of each salvo before firing the next and the missles take awhile to get to the target.

That's my approach at least.

[Erik L]

Drgong is correct. There are a couple of ways to win a missle fight. If your opponent is using missles to defend themselves, you can have more ASMs than they have AAMs. That will work but is expensive and isn't my approach. I like a few very big salvos to overwhelm my opponents defenses. If it takes me hours to reload, it doesn't really matter because I like to see the impact of each salvo before firing the next and the missles take awhile to get to the target.

That's my approach at least.

The only issue I have here is that with a faster offensive RoF, you can have multiple waves incoming close to each other. If the defensive RoF is not high enough, your later waves will have less interception efforts made against them.

[DaMachinator]

The only issue I have here is that with a faster offensive RoF, you can have multiple waves incoming close to each other. If the defensive RoF is not high enough, your later waves will have less interception efforts made against them.

Does anyone make throwaway missiles that are just 1 MSP of engines and fuel fine-tuned to travel exactly as fast as your standard ASM's to use as decoys?

[Erik L]

Does anyone make throwaway missiles that are just 1 MSP of engines and fuel fine-tuned to travel exactly as fast as your standard ASM's to use as decoys?

Do rely on this as gospel, but I believe the targeting priorities are by size. So if you have a wave of size 6 mixed with size 1, the 6's get targeted first. But I may be wrong.

[Andrew]

I typically use Box launchers , I find I can fit nearly as many missiles in loaded in Box launchers as I would fit with launchers and magazines. My experience is that large salvo's are much better at overloading missile defenses than a series of small ones, this helps a lot against AMM's however even more important is the effect on Beam/CIWS defenses , in general a target will intercept reliably a number of missiles N per turn , if you fire salvo's of N or less then you are wasting minerals , money and magazine space, if you fire more than N you lose N missiles per salvo , so the more missile salvo's you fire the more you waste. The problem is avoiding Overkill but if your missiles have terminal guidance and there are multiple targets that helps.
Shields make the above problem worse by allowing the enemy to regenerate his protection between salvo's , I have yet to find a situation where sustained barrage with standard launchers is more effective than firing the same or often a smaller number of missiles in 1 wave from box launchers. (Unless you plan on overwhelming the number of defensive FC directors with lots of small salvo's )

I am experimenting with carrying AMM's in box launchers to see if that is a good counter for massive offensive salvo's from Box launchers

[DaMachinator]

Do rely on this as gospel, but I believe the targeting priorities are by size. So if you have a wave of size 6 mixed with size 1, the 6's get targeted first. But I may be wrong.

At this point you might as well just launch more missiles of the same kind.

[DaMachinator]

I typically use Box launchers , I find I can fit nearly as many missiles in loaded in Box launchers as I would fit with launchers and magazines. My experience is that large salvo's are much better at overloading missile defenses than a series of small ones, this helps a lot against AMM's however even more important is the effect on Beam/CIWS defenses , in general a target will intercept reliably a number of missiles N per turn , if you fire salvo's of N or less then you are wasting minerals , money and magazine space, if you fire more than N you lose N missiles per salvo , so the more missile salvo's you fire the more you waste. The problem is avoiding Overkill but if your missiles have terminal guidance and there are multiple targets that helps.
Shields make the above problem worse by allowing the enemy to regenerate his protection between salvo's , I have yet to find a situation where sustained barrage with standard launchers is more effective than firing the same or often a smaller number of missiles in 1 wave from box launchers. (Unless you plan on overwhelming the number of defensive FC directors with lots of small salvo's )

I am experimenting with carrying AMM's in box launchers to see if that is a good counter for massive offensive salvo's from Box launchers

It's unfortunate that HPM's have such cruddy range, since they get 4x dmg against shields.

[Sheb]

It would be neat if you could fit more single-use energy weapons on missiles.