PD Fighter Analysis

[Iceranger]

Yes. Active sensors were engaged.

For the sake of pedantry, were the guns assigned to the PD FC?

Yes. Though no targets were assigned as all potential targets were outside of the firing range of the applicable guns and the game throws an annoying interrupt error in this situation. I was running on 5 second increments all the same as I had beam fighters and boarding craft closing on the hostile fleet.

Final PD does not need manual targeting or setting BFC to open fire though.

[SpikeTheHobbitMage]

Yes. Active sensors were engaged.

For the sake of pedantry, were the guns assigned to the PD FC?

Yes. Though no targets were assigned as all potential targets were outside of the firing range of the applicable guns and the game throws an annoying interrupt error in this situation. I was running on 5 second increments all the same as I had beam fighters and boarding craft closing on the hostile fleet.

PD modes shouldn't need targets assigned.  Is the PD FC set to open fire?

[Ulzgoroth]

PD modes shouldn't need targets assigned.  Is the PD FC set to open fire?

It doesn't need that either for final defensive fire.

[SpikeTheHobbitMage]

PD modes shouldn't need targets assigned.  Is the PD FC set to open fire?

It doesn't need that either for final defensive fire.

It shouldn't need that, but there have been bug reports about it.

[Droll]

PD modes shouldn't need targets assigned.  Is the PD FC set to open fire?

It doesn't need that either for final defensive fire.

It shouldn't need that, but there have been bug reports about it.

Final Defensive Fire used to not work properly but it has been fixed.

[liveware]

I figured out my problem with some help from others in another thread. In my case I had CIWS and gauss on the same ship. CIWS ALWAYS FIRES FIRST! My CIWS was so effective that my gauss turrets never needed to fire.

[Droll]

I figured out my problem with some help from others in another thread. In my case I had CIWS and gauss on the same ship. CIWS ALWAYS FIRES FIRST! My CIWS was so effective that my gauss turrets never needed to fire.

To add to this, the point defence weapons on the targetted ships also fire before the other ships in the fleet. If the target of the missiles can fend for itself completely then the rest of the fleet wont get to shoot. If it can't then a random friendly ship with gauss weapons are picked and only when that ship runs out of weapons does the next ship in the fleet come in to assist.

Also I find CIWS and gauss co-existing on the same ship an interesting choice. What is the benefit of the mix?

[Zincat]

I figured out my problem with some help from others in another thread. In my case I had CIWS and gauss on the same ship. CIWS ALWAYS FIRES FIRST! My CIWS was so effective that my gauss turrets never needed to fire.

To add to this, the point defence weapons on the targetted ships also fire before the other ships in the fleet. If the target of the missiles can fend for itself completely then the rest of the fleet wont get to shoot. If it can't then a random friendly ship with gauss weapons are picked and only when that ship runs out of weapons does the next ship in the fleet come in to assist.

Also I find CIWS and gauss co-existing on the same ship an interesting choice. What is the benefit of the mix?

Gauss cannons are always better in any fleet situation. Period. Because all the gauss cannons of the fleet will defend the targeted ships, and their number adds up.

There is no benefit in normal situations IF the ship already has sensors and fire controls anyway.
A CIWS is literally a gauss cannon with self contained sensor and BFC. As such, if you already have a sensor in the fleet and a BFC on the ship, there's no reason to put CIWS.

And yes, the targeting rules of for incoming missile volleys have changed, but that does not even matter. Assuming you have multiple ships with PD anyway, say 3 ships with 600 tons each, 600 tons of CIWS will always be inferior to 1800 tons of gauss across the three ships.

Of course you can use CIWS for RP, but that's an entirely different matter. CIWS in a fleet have no mathematical justification. And the more ships you have, the more having CIWS on multiple ships will be a waste. After all CIWS can only defend their own ship, and the enemy will not target all the ships at once, so a lot of the CIWS will end up unused. Space which you could have used for more gauss cannons.
CIWS make sense for lone ships or civilians or orbital platforms.

EDIT: to clarify, I use CIWS on important capital ships because I am an RP guy. To me RP stands above all. But if the question is: Does it make mathematical sense in a fleet. Then the answer is no.

[liveware]

I figured out my problem with some help from others in another thread. In my case I had CIWS and gauss on the same ship. CIWS ALWAYS FIRES FIRST! My CIWS was so effective that my gauss turrets never needed to fire.

To add to this, the point defence weapons on the targetted ships also fire before the other ships in the fleet. If the target of the missiles can fend for itself completely then the rest of the fleet wont get to shoot. If it can't then a random friendly ship with gauss weapons are picked and only when that ship runs out of weapons does the next ship in the fleet come in to assist.

Also I find CIWS and gauss co-existing on the same ship an interesting choice. What is the benefit of the mix?

It was an experiment to determine the relative effectiveness of each system. Unfortunately I got the firing sequence backwards so my gauss turrets remain untested and the experiment did not quite work as planned.

[liveware]

I figured out my problem with some help from others in another thread. In my case I had CIWS and gauss on the same ship. CIWS ALWAYS FIRES FIRST! My CIWS was so effective that my gauss turrets never needed to fire.

To add to this, the point defence weapons on the targetted ships also fire before the other ships in the fleet. If the target of the missiles can fend for itself completely then the rest of the fleet wont get to shoot. If it can't then a random friendly ship with gauss weapons are picked and only when that ship runs out of weapons does the next ship in the fleet come in to assist.

Also I find CIWS and gauss co-existing on the same ship an interesting choice. What is the benefit of the mix?

Gauss cannons are always better in any fleet situation. Period. Because all the gauss cannons of the fleet will defend the targeted ships, and their number adds up.

There is no benefit in normal situations IF the ship already has sensors and fire controls anyway.
A CIWS is literally a gauss cannon with self contained sensor and BFC. As such, if you already have a sensor in the fleet and a BFC on the ship, there's no reason to put CIWS.

And yes, the targeting rules of for incoming missile volleys have changed, but that does not even matter. Assuming you have multiple ships with PD anyway, say 3 ships with 600 tons each, 600 tons of CIWS will always be inferior to 1800 tons of gauss across the three ships.

Of course you can use CIWS for RP, but that's an entirely different matter. CIWS in a fleet have no mathematical justification. And the more ships you have, the more having CIWS on multiple ships will be a waste. After all CIWS can only defend their own ship, and the enemy will not target all the ships at once, so a lot of the CIWS will end up unused. Space which you could have used for more gauss cannons.
CIWS make sense for lone ships or civilians or orbital platforms.

EDIT: to clarify, I use CIWS on important capital ships because I am an RP guy. To me RP stands above all. But if the question is: Does it make mathematical sense in a fleet. Then the answer is no.

I believe there is an argument to be made for sticking a CIWS on a commercial ship as a commercial ship cannot mount a gauss turret. So in this edge case CIWS is the superiors system because there is no viable alternative. However, I don't ever do this because I try avoid situations where my commercial ships would be fired upon at all.

[Landris]

Jump shock is another situation where CIWS is valuable, since I think it is unaffected (correct me if I'm wrong, haven't tried it myself).

[Froggiest1982]

You can calculate the efficiency of your point defense like this. First get the base accuracy of your fire control at 10k km against the missiles using the box on the right hand side of the ship design window. For example you could set this 35000 km/s to see the fire control accuracy against missiles traveling that speed. These are the numbers beside your fire control.

Then you can figure it out like this:

Railgun = 4 shots @ 87% accuracy = 4 * 0.87 = 3.48 expected hits

Gauss Turrets = 48 shots (3x16) @ 8% of 87% accuracy = 48 * 0.87 * 0.08 = 3.34 expected hits

So in this case even if your turret tracking speed was the same as the fighter speed the rail gun would still be better. I suspect that's because you're wasting some tonnage on turret mounts. At RoF8 Railguns and Gauss should have the same performance per HS.

U know I am really glad I am rereading this post, I never really quite understood/used that box on the right.

I knew it would need at something otherwise Steve would have not placed it there, but let's be honest: how many things are there but we still confortably using calculators or spread sheets?

[Jorgen_CAB]

CIWS is actually mainly intended as a defensive weapon for commercial designs as CIWS is not a military component.

The only really positive effect of CIWS on a military vessel are breaching ships during a jump point attack and ships that often act on their own.

Other than that then regular Gauss turrets are always going to be preferable as you rarely move fleets with only one ship.

If you want to militarise your survey ships then adding some CIWS and box launched AMM can actually save them from being destroyed. Although, from a resource perspective it probably is more expensive to do that than have the occasional surveyor destroyed, but Aurora is not about min/max in that sense my opinion. YOU decide what is acceptable and how important the lives of the crew and officers are valued in your society.

[Borealis4x]

Hijacking this thread to ask whether escort PD fighters do any good against size 1 AMMs that keep getting spammed at my bombers whenever they get in close.

[xenoscepter]

Railgun Fighters do well against those, give 'em 10cm Railguns with Capacitor 3, Railgun Launch Velocity 20,000 km or better and pair them with an FCS that has at least 20,000 km range... and that is the bare minimum.

30,000 km Launch Velocity and 60,000 km FCS Max Range is much more comfortable, while 20,000 km Launch Velocity and 40,000 km FCS Max Range is cost-effective. Make sure that the FCS tracking speed is matched to the fighter's own top speed if that speed exceeds your base FCS Tracking Speed, i.e. the Tracking Speed that your Beam FCS has before changing the Tracking Speed in the Component Design window.

Also, make sure all of your PD Fighters have at least a small Res 1 Active Sensor. An additional fighter dedicated to sensors is very helpful, but it is wise to ensure that it's destruction does not result in a mission kill for the entire escort formation. Of note, you could also create a bomber with AMM "Canisters" by adding some extra Box Launchers dedicated to holding a missile stage comprised of nothing but AMMs set to deploy immediately upon launch. A 20 Ton Res 1 Active Sensor and a 5 Ton Res 1 Missile FCS make a good pairing for each bomber, so when you detect the missiles, you can launch the AMMs.

Consider using 2-3 layers of armor, depending on your tech; it makes them that much harder to shoot down. A Small Craft ECM 1 module is nice to have as well, gives you a 10% evasion against missiles that lack ECCM, which is a common trait of typical AMMs as they tend to work best as cheap, high speed, high agility spam missiles.