Recon Drones & Missiles v Fighters.

[jRides (OP)]

Hi, I'm still learning the ins and outs of this game, but I'm getting there - and loving every minute - Great game. So far I'm fine with the economic side (got my thriving solar system up and running), and as I am about to start exploring the galaxy I figured some sort of navy might be called for. I have been playing around in the SM replicating Steve's designs from the NATO vs Soviet Union Campaign AAR. Namely the NATO carrier group which Steve also listed here in the Bureau of Ship Design. It's helping in that I'm getting to grips with whats needed, how to design all the bits and pieces that go into the whole - like engines, (and a separate jump engine D'oh!) missiles the CIWS and so on, but I have a couple questions I just can't find answers for:

The RLN-6As and RLN-7Aa confuse me - what I think is that they are Drones where the 6A has points in Active and the 7A has points in EM - is this right? I initially thought once you designed these drones you could fit a sensor on them (I think thats Space Empires influencing me tho as thats the way drones worked there) but I can't see any way to do that, I gather that is the ability built in during missile design, and I will see what my missiles see.

I can see the benefits if thats so, in the AAR Steve launched them at planets but they died before detecting anything, although their deaths in a hail of fire was detection in itself right enough.

[waresky]

First ,u r Welcome here.:roll:

ive changed entirely my Naval "Missile" doctrine.
ive ONLY Anti--missile ships now..and am build a strong "DeckGun" armed (AND heavily Armored-fast) battleships.(from gunboat to BB).

Missile are very wastage resource thing..

See ya.

[UnLimiTeD]

You can only fire one missile from a Launcher at once, so, no, a Size 4 Box launcher can fire only one size 1 missle, not 4.
Missiles are a system reliant and a variety of various techs, and they'll become much more capable with higher tech levels.
As for the Warhead strength, keep in mind the penetration.

The Crater of a Missile is always shaped like a Pyramid, so the root of your warhead strength is how many layers you can penetrate with a single hit.
So, WH 4 penetrates 2 layers, WH 9 penetrates 3, WH 16 penetrates 4, and so on, it's always squares.
But WH 6 will penetrate 2 layers as well, and WH 15 will penetrate 3 layers.
This is of course only important if you intend to quickly strike down a target.
If the enemy has 20 levels or Armor and you want to sandpaper it, everything above Strength 4 will generally prove to be useful over time.

[Vanigo]

First ,u r Welcome here.:roll:

ive changed entirely my Naval "Missile" doctrine.
ive ONLY Anti--missile ships now..and am build a strong "DeckGun" armed (AND heavily Armored-fast) battleships.(from gunboat to BB).

Missile are very wastage resource thing..

See ya.

This can work, but you saw how well it worked for the Chinese. If you go this route, keep two things in mind:
Your ships must be faster than any enemy they engage. If they're not faster than the enemy, your missile-armed opponents can and will disengage at will before you can get a shot off.
Between armor, shields, and point defense, your ships must be able to survive every last missile an enemy fleet carries. Unless you can sneak up on an enemy fleet (which is very difficult unless they're guarding a planet), closing with them will take much longer than the enemy shooting their magazines dry. That said, if you do get in range undetected (which you'll need damn good thermal reduction for), things should get ugly for the targets pretty fast.

[Andrew]

I don't know what to expect from the NPRs (never left my home system) so I think I'd be better off with a balanced force of interceptors and anti-shipping - at least initially. The armaments for interceptors I'm stuck on, I have a bunch of questions:

I've been concentrating on missile tech as per the NATO fighters, but I wonder for an anti-fighter role if gauss/lasers/meson cannons might the obvious anti-fighter weapon, are missiles viable against fighters or am I expecting too much from them?

NPR's don't use fighters, however unless the attackign fighters/FACS/Ships use beam weapons themselves they will not come within range of your beam weapons unless you are fast eenougth to force them. So missiles are probably better A weapons as most fighters carry missiles

My intention is the main Strikefighter toting size 4 missiles (WH7+, the 30-40k speed range) will also be used against fighters - but I can't help but think this is overkill, and a waste of an expensive missile better used against shipping.

Fighters can carry armour if a fighter has 2 or 3 pts of armour you will need a big missile to crack the armour with one shot (9 or more warhead) anythign else will take multiple hits which is ok vs a fighter as the hits will usually stack

Steves interceptors from the AAR have size 1 missiles and he states their intended anti-fighter role, alongside adding anti-missile defence. Would it not be better designing a slightly bigger missile for an antifighter role WH2 at least, I can make a very fast small missile with decent range and over 1000% 1km/s which seems pretty much a guarenteed hit to whoever fires first?

A bigger warhead is better but he is using 1 missile for 2 roles which means he has more of them.  Fighters do not move at 1kms so your hit chance vs that is irrelevant look at your hit chance as fast moving targets that is what counts

While I can certainly do it in the design screen, can I give a size 4 fighter boxlauncher 4 x size 1 missiles and have them all fire as one, or rippled (like a rocked pod) - or will I still only get to fire 1 of them as it states "no internal reload"? Steve's NATO Interceptor design has 8 size 1 launchers I notice tho so I expect 1 shot only.

All missiles in box launchers can fire at the same moment. The no internal relaod means that there is no point carrying a magazine internally for reloading the box launchers they need a maintenance facility or hanger to reload

[SteveAlt]

The RLN-6As and RLN-7Aa confuse me - what I think is that they are Drones where the 6A has points in Active and the 7A has points in EM - is this right? I initially thought once you designed these drones you could fit a sensor on them (I think thats Space Empires influencing me tho as thats the way drones worked there) but I can't see any way to do that, I gather that is the ability built in during missile design, and I will see what my missiles see.

They are missiles, rather than drones, with points assigned to Active and EM rather than to warhead.

Steve

[jRides (OP)]

Thanks for the replies there folks, thats cleared up a lot. Andrew, cheers - I looked harder at those to hit stats and I've dropped the interceptor model in my carrier design, for a slightly bigger awacs and beefing up the strikefighter numbers a touch. "More armour on higher tech" - lol it just never occurred to me - I just got so obsessed with looking at my numbers that I lost sight of the enemy.