Author Topic: large vs small missiles  (Read 5021 times)

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Offline Michael Sandy (OP)

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large vs small missiles
« on: January 04, 2017, 04:23:10 PM »
Fair warning, I am prejudiced against size 1 missiles swarms.  Just against the aesthetic of building attacking missiles so cheaply that it costs the defender too much to try to shoot them down.

But how do they really compare?

At high levels of boost, the fuel efficiency of large missiles means they can be much longer ranged.  As agility increases accuracy per msp, larger missiles can afford more agility.  And sensors as well.  And even armor may be a competitive counter to AMMs at higher levels, compared to simply having lots of small missiles.

Larger missiles take longer to load, but for fighter loadouts that is less of a consideration.  Sure, a size 12 missile takes an hour and a half to load in a hangar, but the fighter is likely flying out and back for several hours.

Size 12 is about the largest missile I would expect to see, as beyond that are no further gains in fuel efficiency and therefore range.

But large missiles have another drawback, especially early in a campaign.  It costs a lot more research points to keep large missile designs up to date.  It is almost trivial to keep the AMM designs up to date.

The thing is, switching one's standard missile size is expensive.  You basically have to scrap or drastically refit your entire missile fleet, plus missile stores.  So if you pick size 4 launchers in the beginning, you are likely stuck with that size for most of the campaign.

In favor of large missiles, especially late in the campaign, the ability to deal shock damage.  A size 36 warhead is very likely indeed to inflict shock damage, even if it won't take down the shields.  This is especially important for fighter missions, as the huge amount of time between strikes means that shields would likely have been completely regenerated between strikes.  And the chance of a Golden BB hit, that causes secondary explosions (say of boosted engines) is a worthy consideration.

So, many sizes of missiles do you have in your fleet?  size 1 for AMMs, size 2 or 3 for anti-fighter, anti-LAC, and size 4-6 for long ranged missiles?  What is the largest sized missile you have developed and actually used and been happy with?

 

Offline Jorgen_CAB

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Re: large vs small missiles
« Reply #1 on: January 04, 2017, 06:36:26 PM »
Size one missiles for anti-ship duty are something I avoid because from a game mechanic perspective it is a bit abusive. There are a few tricks you can do with missiles that are quite abusive and it is up to you if you feel they are or not. You set your own rules in your own game.

The smallest missile I usually create are size 3, sometimes size 2 for interceptor crafts later on. I think that overall missile sizes tend to shrink some over time but it does not have to.

You also need to consider using armour. With an armoured missile you can often sacrifice some speed as long as you have a high chance to hit whatever it is you are trying to hit then doing so is OK. Armoured missiles are cheaper to make so they will not strain your economy as much and can be harder to shoot down.

Testing that I have done indicate though that you need to use at least one FULL point of armour or it does not work at all. Why this is I don't know.

Other than this I usually use size 3-4 for anti-fighter/FAC duty and size 6-12 for anti-ship duty. There obviously are a problem with changing the size so that is only done on a few occasions to meet a new standard of sorts, usually when ships are redesigned on a larger scale.
« Last Edit: January 05, 2017, 05:16:09 AM by Jorgen_CAB »
 

Offline Michael Sandy (OP)

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Re: large vs small missiles
« Reply #2 on: January 04, 2017, 06:49:38 PM »
You actually built and used size 12 missiles?  I could see using them for recon drones, and deploying mines.  Or Armored AMM bait, but that seems like gaming the system.  Do you use them in anything other than box launchers?  Cause the rate of fire issue suggests that you need box launchers to get a decent volume of fire with them.  I suppose they can work for planetary launchers, where outranging the opposition is so critical.  Forces attackers to always have active antimissile sensors up, which makes them easier to spot with EM, right?
 

Offline Jorgen_CAB

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Re: large vs small missiles
« Reply #3 on: January 04, 2017, 07:22:06 PM »
That would usually be with reduced sized launchers, usually 25%. I like to have a few reloads on each ship so I never use box launchers on ships that can't dock in hangars or is stationed near maintenance facilities. It will take hours to reload them but I would only carry a few reloads, usually three total rounds of fire.

But my most common anti-cap ship missiles are size 8 for cruisers and size 6 for fighters/FAC.
 

Offline TheDeadlyShoe

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Re: large vs small missiles
« Reply #4 on: January 04, 2017, 07:53:26 PM »
Shock damage doesn't penetrate shields,  iirc.

I typically use size 5-9 for antiship work, and never fire size 1s at ships.  Often I house-rule a minimum of 1 armor on missiles, representing avionics etc.  and making small antiship missiles unviable.  For missiles with different roles - like anti-FAC or anti-Fighter or long-range - I still usually stick to the standard size.   

I only sporadically use Large (size 20+) missile launchers.  They are good for close assault ships, and can be used for specialty missiles like mines, survey probes, and detection buoys.  For this reason I usually use a 0.25x launcher rather than a box...  this is good for antifighter work. If you know the direction a strike is coming from, you can seed the path with detection buoys, letting you detect an incoming strike without risking assets that the fighters can themselves attack.  Or just seed the path with actual mines. 

 

Offline NuclearStudent

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Re: large vs small missiles
« Reply #5 on: January 04, 2017, 10:23:48 PM »
I've been trying ultra-long range MIRV missiles recently. ie. billion km range.

I have a Size 8 launcher, and in all my MIRVs, I have one size one stage reserved exclusively for carrying the missile bus (the warheads) a few billion km. The break-even point for when it makes sense to use multiple stages seems to be if you want a range further than about a third of a billion km.

 At my tech level, I can choose between a 7 S1 missile pack that do 4 damage each for a total of 28, or one S7 warhead that does 36 damage and about 6 shock for good to-hit on the kind of targets I'm fighting.

 So, the S7 warhead choice is almost twice as good in pure damage, but the 7S1 choice is 7 times less vulnerable to CIWS, AMMs, etc. Personally I don't know what to decide, but I'm going with larger warheads just because.
« Last Edit: January 04, 2017, 10:26:59 PM by NuclearStudent »
 

Offline 83athom

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Re: large vs small missiles
« Reply #6 on: January 05, 2017, 06:45:35 AM »
General Anti-ship work is done by size 6 missiles. However I also use size 12 and size 18 torpedoes for a special "wall of skill" to send at groups of enemies. I also create even larger missile designs for select use, such as mines and MIRVs, that can reach anywhere between 20 and 50. One game, I even created some sets of size 100 designs just to see if I could... some worked well while others just didn't.
Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set fire to him and he's warm for the rest of his life.
 

Offline El Pip

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Re: large vs small missiles
« Reply #7 on: January 05, 2017, 04:13:19 PM »
I experimented with Size 18 'torpedoes', shortish range (20/30m km) but fast and large warheads.

They were terribly inefficient, the salvoes were too small (even with box launchers), the torpedo bombers spent ages getting rearmed and could only just haul 1 missile each, the research costs were large, missiles were slow and expensive to build, etc, etc. But when I managed to sneak a couple through the enemy's PD they were ship killers, even the armoured versions could still mount massive warheads and if the initial blast didn't kill them, the shock damage would.

I recommend trying it, I found it a fun game, but it's not an efficient way to go
 

Offline Noble713

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Re: large vs small missiles
« Reply #8 on: January 06, 2017, 04:24:58 AM »
I use Size-6 ASMs and when my tech gets higher (Mag-Fusion era) I diversify with cruisers or heavy destroyers packing Size-12 ASMs (with warheads doing 20-25 damage). I've experimented with MIRVs, but not for super-long range: I was trying to saturate enemy point defenses. I was disappointed, largely by some bugs (the 2nd stages were triggering way beyond their fuel range even though I have them set to trigger closer).
 

Offline Mastik

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Re: large vs small missiles
« Reply #9 on: January 06, 2017, 07:42:10 AM »
Generally i go with:

Size 3 for fighter/bombers
Size 6 For general purpose anti ship
Size 10-20 for a torpedo
Size 20-30 for anti ship mines
 

Iranon

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Re: large vs small missiles
« Reply #10 on: January 06, 2017, 08:55:22 AM »
Depends on details.

Getting through point defence is one of the highest priorities in successful missile design.
Point defence is either limited by "numbers of missiles and speed" or by "number of fire controls".

Since large missiles have some advantages in range, shock damage and armour penetration and may fit sensors to avoid overkill, they are attractive if you circumvent PD by giving them too many salvos to engage.
I generally like size-1 general purpose missiles from full-size ships, large-ish missiles from a single box launcher on fighters.
 

Offline Jorgen_CAB

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Re: large vs small missiles
« Reply #11 on: January 06, 2017, 12:51:27 PM »
Often I house-rule a minimum of 1 armor on missiles, representing avionics etc.  and making small antiship missiles unviable.  For missiles with different roles - like anti-FAC or anti-Fighter or long-range - I still usually stick to the standard size.   

Pretty good house rule... I will steal that one for anti-ship missiles.