Many Missile Salvos using single missile fire control?

[lennson (OP)]

It seem that different size missiles are split into different missile salvos even if they are fired by a single fire control.  I was wondering how this interacts with point defense fire control and whether it is possible to overwhelm point defense fire control using this.

E. g.  If a fighter with one missile fire control launches missiles of sizes 1,2,3,4 and 5 at a ship that has a single beam fire control on final fire point defense with 5 turreted beam weapons linked with 100% hit chance will it only shoot down 1 of the 5 inbound missiles? In contrast, if the fighter launched 5 missiles of size 3 they all would be in the same salvo and so all would be shot down.

[Sheb]

You might not even different sizes. What if you fire different models of the same size?

[ty55101]

E. g.  If a fighter with one missile fire control launches missiles of sizes 1,2,3,4 and 5 at a ship that has a single beam fire control on final fire point defense with 5 turreted beam weapons linked with 100% hit chance will it only shoot down 1 of the 5 inbound missiles? In contrast, if the fighter launched 5 missiles of size 3 they all would be in the same salvo and so all would be shot down.

I do not believe that is how it works. The missiles are grouped together because they are all travelling the same speed; I bet if you were to fire different size missiles at the exact same speed they would still be grouped together. Think of it like a task group, even though you have multiple ships they are all still listed on that one task group and only one of the ships can be targeted by a fire control at once. The same goes for missiles and if anything firing like you suggested would reduce the chance to hit. With the missiles more spread out the enemy has a bigger time frame to shoot them down. A better strategy would be to shoot a bunch of small missiles with low agility and strength with larger missiles more likely to hit so the enemy's defense is taken up by the useless missiles, like decoys.

[lennson (OP)]

I've tested this now and if multiple different size missiles are fired at the same speed each size of missile constitutes a missile salvo.  The effect is as I thought, the defending ship can only target one of the missile sizes making point defense much less effective. 

Different types of missiles but of the same size are grouped together if they are all traveling at the same speed.  This allows them all to be targeted unlike in the case they are different sizes.  Presumably, if the missile types have very slightly different speeds, so that they become different salvos but still reach the target in the same 5 second interval, it may also make point defense only able to target one of the missiles, but I haven't tried this.

[83athom]

The effect is as I thought, the defending ship can only target one of the missile sizes making point defense much less effective. 

Incorrect. Any competent ship will have defenses at final fire. These do not care for amount of salvos and will swat all missiles down anyway.

[lennson (OP)]

I did use final fire point defense and only 1 missile was destroyed using only 1 of the linked beam weapons.  The other beam weapons didn't fire.

Would final fire (self) make any difference? I only tried the normal final fire that covered the task force.

[83athom]

Any competent ship will have defenses at final fire.

[lennson (OP)]

I am not sure what you mean.  Isn't that the same as what I said I did?

What should the fire control look like in the Combat Assignments' Weapon and Fire Control Assignment Summary?


Below is similar to what I used.  Can you tell what is wrong here?

Fire Control S01 24-6000 #1 (Point Blank PD Mode 5):   No Target Assignment
10cm Railgun V1/C3 #1 (Ready To Fire)
10cm Railgun V1/C3 #2 (Ready To Fire)
10cm Railgun V1/C3 #3 (Ready To Fire)

[Sheb]

I am not sure what you mean.  Isn't that the same as what I said I did?

What should the fire control look like in the Combat Assignments' Weapon and Fire Control Assignment Summary?


Below is similar to what I used.  Can you tell what is wrong here?

Fire Control S01 24-6000 #1 (Point Blank PD Mode 5):   No Target Assignment
10cm Railgun V1/C3 #1 (Ready To Fire)
10cm Railgun V1/C3 #2 (Ready To Fire)
10cm Railgun V1/C3 #3 (Ready To Fire)

No, you're right, each FC can target a single salvo.

[MarcAFK]

Different types of missiles but of the same size are grouped together if they are all traveling at the same speed.  This allows them all to be targeted unlike in the case they are different sizes.  Presumably, if the missile types have very slightly different speeds, so that they become different salvos but still reach the target in the same 5 second interval, it may also make point defense only able to target one of the missiles, but I haven't tried this.

Is that with all being fired from the same fire control?
Because I always break my missiles up into multiple salvos from several different fire controls and assumed each salvo needed to be target seoerately.

[lennson (OP)]

Only 1 missile fire control is needed.

Using different missile types with same size but with slightly different speeds only works if the range is really short or the missiles are really fast.  This is because the minimum speed different of missiles appears to be 100 km/s and all of the missiles need to reach their target in the time increment to avoid the defender getting multiple opportunities to engage them.

Using missiles with different missiles sizes doesn't have this issues since they all can travel at the same speed and still get split into separate salvos because of the different sizes.

[Iranon]

You could get around that restriction with multistage missiles.
Size 1 dummy stages of extremely low and slightly different speeds, separating immediately after launch.

Differentiating by size is probably more appealing overall, but the option is there.