Decoy missiles

[mobotium (OP)]

So, Ive got this NPR witha thing for anti missile defences.  He seems to use more anti-missile-missiles, turrets and other anti missile components than anything else, wich kinda hurts me considering my main atack power comes from my long range high speed missiles.  At this point, I could either try branching out my designs or develop super armoured missiles.  Then another idea ocurred when I was testing designs for armored missiles. 

I would create a unarmoured drone which would have the mission of droping extremely slow and relatively big armoured missiles at long range, hopefuly making the enemy waste away a big part of his ammo on these decoys.  I haven't tried it yet, and was just posting to ask if this plan would work with the following designs:

The carrier drone:

Missile Size: 22 MSP  (1. 1 HS)     Warhead: 0    Armour: 0     Manoeuvre Rating: 5
Speed: 14500 km/s    Endurance: 937 minutes   Range: 815. 6m km
Cost Per Missile: 8. 375
Second Stage: Size 12 Compressed Decoy Fireball x1
Second Stage Separation Range: 44,000,000 km
Overall Endurance: 19 hours   Overall Range: 856. 1m km
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 72. 5%   3k km/s 20%   5k km/s 14. 5%   10k km/s 7. 2%
Materials Required:    2. 5x Tritanium   5. 5x Gallicite   Fuel x12500

Development Cost for Project: 826RP

The Decoys:

Missile Size: 12 MSP  (0. 6 HS)     Warhead: 0    Armour: 10     Manoeuvre Rating: 10
Speed: 3300 km/s    Endurance: 225 minutes   Range: 44. 6m km
Cost Per Missile: 3. 1667
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 33%   3k km/s 10%   5k km/s 6. 6%   10k km/s 3. 3%
Materials Required:    2. 5x Tritanium   0. 4167x Gallicite   Fuel x3750

Development Cost for Project: 317RP

[Brian Neumann]

Your decoy is to slow.  It needs to be at least twice as fast as the ships you are shooting at or it will probably never even get shot at.  I have seen the computer have the ships turn around and run from larger missile swarms.  If it does that then your missiles will keep falling behind and not get shot at.  I would actually go for two size 6 missiles each with three to four points of armour.  The chance to kill one of your big missiles is about 9% assuming a one point warhead.  At the slow speed you are going at they could instead use shipkiller missile which would probably have a big enough warhead for a 50% kill.  If you use the smaller missiles they would be faster, and that would make the shipkillers no where near as effective.  The amm would have about a 20% kill rate against the smaller missiles which is not much different from where your single large missile is.  You will also get twice as many missiles fired on the first anti missile counter launch as there are twice as many targets. 

One tactic I have used was to take my standard missile design and replace the warhead with armour like you have done.  Then have some of your ships fire those missile 5 seconds before you fire the rest of your shots using the standard missiles.  Keep them firing on this pattern and what happens is that they use up most of the anti-missile missiles on your decoys allowing the rest of the salvo into close range.  They will still have all of their final defensive fire to use, but it still makes a difference.

Brian

[mobotium (OP)]

Thanks, I wasn't even aware the AI would run from the missiles. . .

Though I dont believe they would begin striking at the with anti-ship missiles, dont they need lower resolution fire controls for that?

[Erik L]

Thanks, I wasn't even aware the AI would run from the missiles. . .

Though I dont believe they would begin striking at the with anti-ship missiles, dont they need lower resolution fire controls for that?

You can link your offensive missile launchers to defensive fire controls.

[mobotium (OP)]

True, but that would only work if they used a single ship for two difrent purposes at once, wich Im just not sure if its what happens.  Maybe it is.

[Brian Neumann]

True, but that would only work if they used a single ship for two difrent purposes at once, wich Im just not sure if its what happens.  Maybe it is.

You can however have a anti-missile fire control on an anti-ship armed ship.  Against a size 1 target their range is not to bad, and it gives a backup that lets you target fighters/fac's ect.

Brian

[Thiosk]

could you fire the big boys at their planet? 

I bet they'd respond to that

[chrislocke2000]

how about some size 1 or 2 missiles with no warheads, build them to match the speed and range of your proper missiles and fire them in swarms with them. If its all AMM he will be using 3 to 1 against yur own missiles so for even a size 2 dcoy he will burn through his reserves faster than you

[ardem]

I use the tactic of sending my decoys in with actual missiles with warheads. 1/4 actual 3/4 decoy. all flying the same speed. instead of bleeding them dry and my missile bays dry you can get lucky and take out there sensors or point defense. I normally have warhead with atleast 1 explosive power on the decoys, atleast to take some armour out.

Those bases tend to have more stock then a fleet, so you best to overwhelm them and hope lady lucky give you a hand.

[jseah]

You could punch in a drone doesn't have missiles.  Replace all the missiles in the drone with armour.  A size 20 drone with all armour could take one heck of alot of beating. 

You could even stuff a size 1 WH in it.  Not like that would be too much of a waste and would give it some teeth they have to respect.  Shoot a planet or AMM pdcs with it. 

[Laurence]

I have occasionally built 25-30kton cruisers with ~400 size 8 box launchers on them.  This has always been to deal with a planet that's got massive anti-missile defenses that just soak up my normal fleet's entire magazine capacity.  It's extremely expensive and time consuming to do but 8-10 of those things have always been able to beat down a swarm of anti-missile PDCs on alien homeworlds.

Also don't like to do it because the missiles that do get through also tend to wreck the planet, but it does work.

Laurence