Missile ships using early-game tech, looking for critique

[TT]

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.

Well, that is true. I have actually been a victim of this. I had a NPR chew up one of my patrol fleets after I had missle defenses for about 85% of their salvos. I had just enough armor for most of my fleet to survive after the NPR kept shifting their target.

I hate to waste missles though and find one big infrequent salvo least offends my irratioal desire to not waste pretend missles. If only I was so careful with my time.

[Drgong]

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?

No, but it can be smart when you know you are attacking a planet with tons of AMMs is to build cheap long range missiles and fire them at the thermals of a planet.  Even if they are slow.  They will eat up the AMM for the real weapons later. 

[Kytuzian]

Well, that is true. I have actually been a victim of this. I had a NPR chew up one of my patrol fleets after I had missle defenses for about 85% of their salvos. I had just enough armor for most of my fleet to survive after the NPR kept shifting their target.

I hate to waste missles though and find one big infrequent salvo least offends my irratioal desire to not waste pretend missles. If only I was so careful with my time.

You could put small sensors on the missiles so they can seek new targets if the first target is destroyed. Since ships are often on the exact same point, you don't need very powerful sensors.

[Andrew]

I hate to waste missles though and find one big infrequent salvo least offends my irratioal desire to not waste pretend missles. If only I was so careful with my time.

In practice small missile salvo's waste more missiles as you end up having more missiles shot down from many small salvo's.  It is a false economy you think you are saving missiles but I suspect my large missile salvo's are more efficient (except when I accidentally link 300 box launchers to 1 FC and salvo 300 missiles at 1 FAC when I meant to fire 3)

[TT]

You could put small sensors on the missiles so they can seek new targets if the first target is destroyed. Since ships are often on the exact same point, you don't need very powerful sensors.

I usually do once I get to a high enough tech. I find I don't mind losing individual missles, but I'd hate to have three or four full salvos in the air when their target is destroyed.  All those minerals and fuel lost just bothers me.   

In practice small missile salvo's waste more missiles as you end up having more missiles shot down from many small salvo's.  It is a false economy you think you are saving missiles but I suspect my large missile salvo's are more efficient (except when I accidentally link 300 box launchers to 1 FC and salvo 300 missiles at 1 FAC when I meant to fire 3)

The old, 'I didn't mean to fire those missles issue'.  I laugh when I try to imagine the captain writing that report "You see, ensign Smith though I said 300 missles . . . "

I think you misunderstood my approach.  I usually go for the largest missile salvos short of box launchers to overwhelm my opponents in one wave for the very reasons you mention above.  I also specialize my ships so that I have a small number of Fac/Fighter missles able to fire pretty rapidly if I need to deal with smaller craft and the sensor suite to see them from far enough out to deal with them.  I usually depend mostly on guass turrets to deal with enemy missiles and sortie in fleets large enough to handle my opponents.  It doesn't always work out that way but that is usually the plan.

[Iranon]

The best thing in the world (resulting in crushing your enemies, seeing them driven before you, hear the lamentation of their spouses...) is large volleys consisting of single missile salvos.
Examples are fighter (on 8k techs + Ion Drive and Box launcher), but the concepts work for full-size warships too.

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Quasimodo class Fighter-bomber    300 tons     5 Crew     51.2 BP      TCS 6  TH 14  EM 0
2333 km/s     Armour 1-3     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 0     PPV 1.8
Maint Life 8.89 Years     MSP 11    AFR 7%    IFR 0.1%    1YR 0    5YR 4    Max Repair 21 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 15 months    Spare Berths 1   
Magazine 12   

7.2 EP Ion Drive (2)    Power 7.2    Fuel Use 16.57%    Signature 7.2    Exp 6%
Fuel Capacity 15 000 Litres    Range 54.3 billion km   (269 days at full power)

Size 3 Box Launcher (1)    Missile Size 3    Hangar Reload 22.5 minutes    MF Reload 3.7 hours
Size 4 Box Launcher (1)    Missile Size 4    Hangar Reload 30 minutes    MF Reload 5 hours
Size 5 Box Launcher (1)    Missile Size 5    Hangar Reload 37.5 minutes    MF Reload 6.2 hours
Missile Fire Control FC75-R120 (1)     Range 75.9m km    Resolution 120
ASM-3 (1)  Speed: 22 600 km/s   End: 57.9m    Range: 78.5m km   WH: 4    Size: 3    TH: 158/95/47
ASM-4 (1)  Speed: 22 600 km/s   End: 57.9m    Range: 78.5m km   WH: 6    Size: 4    TH: 150/90/45
ASM-5 (1)  Speed: 22 600 km/s   End: 56.6m    Range: 76.7m km   WH: 9    Size: 5    TH: 128/76/38

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 Fighter for production, combat and maintenance purposes

3 box launchers of different sizes launching missiles of identical speed means that we get 3 single-missile salvos traveling together from a single fire control.
This particular deisgn sacrifices performance for endurance and ability to operate independently of carriers.

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Tortoise class Interceptor    400 tons     7 Crew     90.8 BP      TCS 8  TH 96  EM 0
12000 km/s     Armour 1-4     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 0     PPV 1
Maint Life 0 Years     MSP 0    AFR 80%    IFR 1.1%    1YR 7    5YR 104    Max Repair 21 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 0.3 months    Spare Berths 0   
Magazine 19   

24 EP Ion Drive (4)    Power 24    Fuel Use 336.02%    Signature 24    Exp 20%
Fuel Capacity 15 000 Litres    Range 2.0 billion km   (46 hours at full power)

Size 1 Missile Launcher (1)    Missile Size 1    Rate of Fire 10
Missile Fire Control FC75-R120 (1)     Range 75.9m km    Resolution 120
ASM-1s (19)  Speed: 12 000 km/s   End: 100.6m    Range: 72.4m km   WH: 2    Size: 1    TH: 80/48/24

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 Fighter for production, combat and maintenance purposes

This fighter can keep up with the (slow, high-yield) missiles it fires, the result being 19 1-missile salvos traveling in a single clump (on the condition that we fire as we approach the target at top speed). Unlike the design above, this can make us of collier variants to give us a very respectable amount of ordnance on limited tonnage.
This one is hangar-based, the high performance required simply isn't practical on a standalone craft.
With larger ships, we can circumvent the need for extreme ship speed by using two-stage missiles... the firing ship just needs to keep up with the slow cruising stage.

[83athom]

But that does not work on final fire point defenses (like CIWS).

[Iranon]

That appears to be a persistent myth:
http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8767.msg93033#msg93033

[DaMachinator]

The best thing in the world (resulting in crushing your enemies, seeing them driven before you, hear the lamentation of their spouses...) is large volleys consisting of single missile salvos.
-snip-

I may have to borrow some ideas from this, although it's exploity as hell.

[Jorgen_CAB]

Against the AI you can easily abuse the fact that Box launchers simply overwhelm them. Against the AI I tend not to use Box launcher on main ships because it makes it too easy and it also make point defense weapons pretty worthless as well... at least in the hands of AI designs.

Although a good layered defense can make full size launchers pointless too since you can shoot down each smaller salvos a bit too easy with fewer resources than it takes to fire the missiles.

Box launchers kind of work for fighters because they are inefficient for the space they take up on a ship in favor of flexible attack range and position warfare.

I'm also of the opinion that combining both AMM and ASM missile launchers on one ship is efficient because you can easily tool your ships for either offensive or defensive missions based on the missile load out on the ships. This works best for destroyer/cruiser sized ships and larger at about 9000t or more. It also make upgrades and production logistics easier/cheaper in general.
In one mission the ship are configured with a small number of medium ranged ASM and a heavy AMM load out and in another with a large complement of long range ASM and a smaller load out of AMM.

In general I try to make as few ship designs as I possibly can and rely on smaller ships to carry out my specialized tasks. I never put hugely strong active sensors on larger ships, I always use recon and scout ships who are much faster and smaller and who don't reveal my main ships at any point. These smaller ships can also safely dock and be maintained on the larger ships hangar decks. I never field a larger cruiser without a 1000t hangar deck for miscellaneous craft purposes or at least a 250t hangar on a destroyer sized ship. This makes it very easy to equip a task-force with whatever recon and/or scout craft that it needs. Cruisers can even act as minor carriers with small bomber or interceptor squadrons if that is what is required of the task-force mission.

Main ships only carry shorter ranged low resolution active sensors for self defense purposes, their missiles and fire controls usually out range ship sensors with quite the margins.