Some details regarding final defensive fire

[baconholic (OP)]

I am in the process of revising my fleet doctrine to use Railgun fighters for final PD rather than the current Guass destroyers.  I have a question regarding the details of the Final Defensive Fire mode.  Will Final Defensive Fire of a fighter group provide fire coverage for the carrier group in same position or do they need to be in the same fleet? The Railgun fighters will be set to PD Mode 1.

Here's the railgun fighter design:

Code: [Select]

X-SFR-SCAD class Fighter    300 tons     3 Crew     376.2 BP      TCS 6  TH 28.8  EM 0
40000 km/s     Armour 1-3     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 0     PPV 3
Maint Life 0 Years     MSP 0    AFR 60%    IFR 0.8%    1YR 24    5YR 365    Max Repair 150 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 0.1 months    Spare Berths 7   

SCAD ME0120 300x25 TR12 (2)    Power 120    Fuel Use 385.82%    Signature 14.4    Exp 30%
Fuel Capacity 15 000 Litres    Range 2.3 billion km   (16 hours at full power)

10cm Railgun V4/C3 (1x4)    Range 40 000km     TS: 40000 km/s     Power 3-3     RM 4    ROF 5        1 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0
BFC(FTR) 48x10-24x40 (1)    Max Range: 48 000 km   TS: 40000 km/s     79 58 38 17 0 0 0 0 0 0
SCAD 3.2P-10 (1)     Total Power Output 3.2    Armour 0    Exp 5%

This design is classed as a Fighter for production, combat and maintenance purposes


[AL]

I'm going to say final defensive fire will cover all ships in the same location, but you might want to wait for a couple others to agree/disagree with me before taking it to heart.

[TheDeadlyShoe]

they cover every allied ship in the same location

[Charlie Beeler]

All Allied ships within the set range.

[AL]

All Allied ships within the set range.

Doesn't that range setting only apply for the area defense mode? Final fire only engages missiles in the increment they intercept their target, ie at point blank range.

[Charlie Beeler]

While FDF does attempt to engage missiles in the increment that they intercept it is not restricted to targeting at point blank range.  It will target the closest salvo within the range setting.

[sublight]

While FDF does attempt to engage missiles in the increment that they intercept it is not restricted to targeting at point blank range.  It will target the closest salvo within the range setting.

In theory. It may have been a coincidence with one of the random point-defenses-did-not-fire-bug, but the last time I tried a fleet formation the final defense fire was same location only. Has anyone observed proximity based final defense fire in game recently?

[TheDeadlyShoe]

No; afaik FDF only works same-location.  PD Mode range is an anachronism imo.

[Rich.h]

Yup FDF only works at the missile target location rather than actually the PD ship location. FDF only activates in the increment that the missile will intercept it's target. So if you have a PD ship set on FDF and the ship being targeted by the missile moves even 10k away it will be classed as a different location, thus when that "final" moment before impact takes place the PD will now be in a different location and thus FDF will not activate.

Area point defence will fire at any missile that is in range of both the weapon/fire control of the ship/hardpoint running the area PD mode, but any heavy PD ship running FDF is only ever effective if it piggy packs along with the ships you want defended, ideally in the same TG to prevent unpleasant mistakes as I exampled above.

[Paul M]

The range of Final Defensive Fire is 10K km from the target of the missiles.  Any ship within that range with a PD weapon and a fire control set to Final Defensive Fire will contribute.  You can see it if you look in my AAR on OP Ivanhoe.  My ships were spread out and so it clearly works as multiple ships engaged (fruitlessly in general) the inbound SSs of Magics.

Area defence requires the missile stop moving inside that range.  So a ship with Area Defence Mode6 will engage any missile that ends that turns movement within 60,000 km of the ship mounting the point defence set to that mode.  It is only useful when the missiles don't "teleport" the last move distance.

There isn't really any point I can see to Final Defensive Fire (Self Only) unless you want to reserve point defence systems just to protect the mounting ship.

I do wish that final defensive fire was limited to the range of the mounting ships weapon system though.  It would make ship handling easier to not have to crowd all the ships together in a confined location.