Seeking missile

[Nibelung44 (OP)]

Hi,

As all the ships of a single fleet are considered to occupy the same position (kind like a singularity sort of thing if you think about that!!), will a missile with an active sensor range of 80.000 km be quite enough to redirect missiles that find their target destroyed on arrival?

If they are launched on the same wave, they also occupy the same position, so theoretically even a range of 1 km would be enough, no?

secondary question, I guess that their active sensor is always active, I don't have anything to do, right?

Also, why use thermal sensors which are weaker in this case, for missiles?

[Steve Walmsley]

Don't forget that the target fleet is moving. If a missile loses its target and it has onboard sensors it will move toward the last known target location while it looks for new targets. That means that if the missile is some distance away when its target is destroyed, the rest of the enemy fleet will have changed position by the time the missile arrived. The sensor range you need is the difference between where the enemy fleet was when the original target was destroyed and where it will be when the missile arrives at that location. Obviously that number will vary considerably depending on the situation.

Missile active sensors are always on, although that may change in the future.

Thermal sensors are passive so they don't give away the location of the missile.

Steve

[UnLimiTeD]

Thermal and EM sensors also have higher range on high techlevels when the enemy has his 50k ton battleship with 40 engines blasting heat into space.
Or against fighters with strong engines, but small size. Generally, 80k range sounds reasonable, it'll be enough to find an enemy approaching you, and prevent overkill.

[Hawkeye]

Also remember that you can create formations, where the ships from one Task Group are NOT in a single spot.

Task Group Window (F12), 2nd Tab "Special Orders/Organization"

First select a ship in the task group you want to split off, usually this is a DE or CE, then hit the "Escort" button.
This will create a subordinate task group with only this ship in it.
You can now set the threat axis, the task group to protect, the distance and the bearing the ship is supposed to take

Example:
   A destroyer escort is split off from a mostely missile armed taskgroup
   It is ordered to preceed the TG 120.000km towards the TGs destination and 30° clockwise
   A second DE might be ordered to preceede the main TG 120.000km and 30° counterclockwise

This would produce the following formation:
      
              TG Moving
               that way
                
                    ^
          DE                   DE

                    


                    TG

Edited because this text should have been here, not inside the fleet formation

Once you are finished, hit "Save Escorts" and then "Recall Escorts"
That last order will give each of your specified escorts a "Join Main Task Group" order.
After that, whenever you hit "Deploy Escorts" all specified escorts will be splitt off with the orders you gave them re. position relative to the main TG.

[Nibelung44 (OP)]

great stuff! This kind of info should find its way in the wiki one day

[Erik L]

great stuff! This kind of info should find its way in the wiki one day

Go ahead and add it