Mesons and Microwaves

[On_Target (OP)]

I've just wrapped up my game with a focus on heavy lasers and missiles, and plan to go a different tech route this next time (finally going to get patched past version 4.X).  Whereas before I had a combined arms method of fleets, each ship having a minimum speed and armor requirement plus whatever it could cram into the hull to fill its role (which worked very effectively, I might add), this next game I'm going to focus on stealth, mesons/microwaves, and fighter swarms.

I get that the Mesons do a single point of damage across their entire range and ignore armor/shields.  Why then, is there the research option for increasing their focal size in addition to increasing their focusing?   Do both projects simply increase the range of the beam, or is there another effect?  And are the answers for the questions about Mesons applicable to microwave beams, or do they work differently?  I did a search but couldn't find any real answers.

Finally, for those of you who have used stealth, how effective is it at fooling NPRs?  Does the AI take it into account, or do the ships find your cloaked and cold ships anyways?

[Brian Neumann]

The way that mesons work for range is that for any given size (focal size) and range multiplier the meson will have half the range of the comparable laser.  For instance a 10cm UV laser has a range of  120,000km and a 15cm UV laser has double the range (and damage).  A comparable 10cm meson with x4 range has a range of 60,000km and the 15cm has a range of 120,000km.  The 30cm laser would have a range of 960,000km while the meson would have 480,000km range.  In all cases the hull space and power requirements for the weapons would be identical.  For lasers there is a tradeoff between extra damage/range and the rate of fire.  For mesons the tradeoff is strictly between range and rate of fire as they all do the same amount of damage.  

I have played games where mesons were my primary beam weapon and it works quite well.  I usually don't bother reasearching beyond the 30cm size as I can usually max out my fire control range with that size meson as long as I continue to reasearch the range multipliers.  For point defense I would use the 10-15cm sizes, especially the 15cm once I had capaciter 6 as it still has a respectable range and very rapid fire.  When fighting beam armed npr's ships they would usually try to close to short range so that their weapons were at max effectivness, the meson armed ships would start to hammer them with the long range mesons and get some good damage in, and then they would close to the point where my point defense could engage.  Even though their damage was getting up there the number and rapid fire nature of the mesons let me shredd their ships very quickly.  As a side note I often combine mesons with particle torpedo's as they have good range and really help out in the long range beam battles.

I havn't used the microwave weapons much, but they work pretty much the same way.  You do have to get through their shields before they start to blind a ship, but I seem to remember that each shot does 3 points of damage to shields.  The couple of times that I have used them were in nebula's where that didn't matter and there they were devestating.

The cloak does work to prevent the npr from finding you with their active sensors.  Just remember that a ship with shields up has a large em signature and be carefull of that.  While they can not fire beam weapons at you without getting an appropriate resolution active sensor in range they can still find you with their passives, and most beam armed ships will still have an anti-missile active sensor which can see you at the ranges that their beam weapons can shoot at you anyway.  The biggest advantage that the cloak gives you is against long range missile attacks.  As long as the missiles do not have thier own guidance that can track you then you will be pretty much immune to the really long range attacks.  They will still probably be able to fire on you however in the last 3-5 million km as you close depending on their active anti-missile sensor capabilities.

Hope all this helps
Brian

[On_Target (OP)]

So, unlike lasers where increasing the size of the beam has two advantages (damage and range), there is no effective difference in the bonus given by increasing the size of the meson vs the range multiplier?  And not only is there no difference in the bonus, but the focal size increase takes up more hull space and fires less frequently?  It seems interesting that with lasers, you (usually) want to prioritize the focal size for the damage increase; but with mesons (and by extension, microwaves) it's the exact opposite.  The particle torpedoes/beams seem like a good idea as well.

Have you had any luck using mesons as a precursor to boarding actions?  Or would I be better served with microwave beams for that?

Glad to hear the cloaking will work vs NPRs.  I'm planning on a campaign with the premise that mankind knows it's a little fish in a very big pond, and must tread lightly else be stamped out (more than one NPR to start, invaders as a matter of course).  No shields, no armor--instead a focus on cloaking, heat-free engines, and EMC, with inexpensiveness and numbers making up for the frailty.  (The nice side effect I'm hoping for is not having to spend forever swatting down waves of missiles when my own missile boats are outranged.)

Thanks for the advice.

[Brian Neumann]

Sounds like you have a good plan.  You will need better armour however.  By the time you are in range for beam weapons, they will be able to see you and shoot at you.  They may even outrange your beam weapons.  Shields are a different story however.  While I like shields they have a big drawback in this situation that having your shields raised gives you a big EM signature.  If you want to go with shields at some point I would recommend pushing the regen rate as high as possible.  The better the regen rate is compared to the shield strength the faster you will recharge your shields.  You may need this if you are in combat before you raise them.

Your missile ships can get away with smaller missiles, try for missiles that do at least 4 points of damage so you get some armour penetration however.  also make sure that the fire control can handle shooting at multiple small targets (1 f/c for every 5 launchers).  This will be to deal with fighters/gunboats that close with you.  As they are small to start with they are hard to see at longer ranges, You might even want to set all of your fire control for missiles up so that the largest resolution is 16-20 so you are optimized for killing gunboats.  After all you never know when another cloak using race will show up, and this will help a lot.

Have really big passive sensors as you are not going to want to have any actives untill you start shooting.  If you can cram the ability in I would even put small EM seekers on some of your missiles.  This way you can open fire at a way point without activating your own active sensors and giving you away.  They will only home in on ships with an active sensor going, or shields up, but that should help to hurt them from an ambush.

Good luck
Brian

[UnLimiTeD]

I agree, once you approach medium tech levels, you will need at least 5 levels of armor.
ECM can be a life savior here, push it when you can.

As for Microwaves, it pays off to have a few boxlaunchers with short ranged missile swarms to overwhelm their point defense and bring their shield down, so you can blind them with a quick followup strike.

If you want to be really sneaky, get some massive passives, and fire missiles with sensor guidance at the enemy from long range.
You can combine this with a sensor fighter for added effect.

[On_Target (OP)]

Sounds like you have a good plan.  You will need better armour however.  By the time you are in range for beam weapons, they will be able to see you and shoot at you.  They may even outrange your beam weapons.  Shields are a different story however.  While I like shields they have a big drawback in this situation that having your shields raised gives you a big EM signature.  If you want to go with shields at some point I would recommend pushing the regen rate as high as possible.  The better the regen rate is compared to the shield strength the faster you will recharge your shields.  You may need this if you are in combat before you raise them.

Your missile ships can get away with smaller missiles, try for missiles that do at least 4 points of damage so you get some armour penetration however.  also make sure that the fire control can handle shooting at multiple small targets (1 f/c for every 5 launchers).  This will be to deal with fighters/gunboats that close with you.  As they are small to start with they are hard to see at longer ranges, You might even want to set all of your fire control for missiles up so that the largest resolution is 16-20 so you are optimized for killing gunboats.  After all you never know when another cloak using race will show up, and this will help a lot.

Have really big passive sensors as you are not going to want to have any actives untill you start shooting.  If you can cram the ability in I would even put small EM seekers on some of your missiles.  This way you can open fire at a way point without activating your own active sensors and giving you away.  They will only home in on ships with an active sensor going, or shields up, but that should help to hurt them from an ambush.

Good luck
Brian

Normally I'm all for having lots of armor and/or shields, anti-missile defenses, and multiple dedicated anti-missile ships as part of the fleet.  However, if the majority of the combat units are going to be stealthy and ECM'ed fighters/FAC--and the rest at most 5000 tons--you still expect plenty of armor to be needed?

I hadn't put much thought into passive seeking missiles, but that seems like something I'll have to strongly consider.  I was hoping to avoid missiles based on the strategic disadvantages--namely, the high expense--even though their tactical advantages are tremendous.

I agree, once you approach medium tech levels, you will need at least 5 levels of armor.
ECM can be a life savior here, push it when you can.

As for Microwaves, it pays off to have a few boxlaunchers with short ranged missile swarms to overwhelm their point defense and bring their shield down, so you can blind them with a quick followup strike.

If you want to be really sneaky, get some massive passives, and fire missiles with sensor guidance at the enemy from long range.

ECM, cloaking tech, heat dampened engines, and engine speed are going to be my top tech priorities.  I'm really wondering if that might not work to make armor and shields unneeded, especially if my ships are small enough.

With your microwave/boxlauncher idea--why not have 20+ rapid-firing microwave fighters to bring the shield down instead of missiles?  Seems like it would work just as well, with the 3x damage against shields.

You can combine this with a sensor fighter for added effect.

Can you explain what you mean by this?  Are you saying a fighter packed with sensors instead of weapons who is the eyes for the rest of his fighter group?

---
One question based on the combat I'm in right now: do you have to keep missile fire controls locked on their target until the missile hits the target?  Prior combat experience (against the Star Swarm) suggests that I do, but as I wade through thousands of missiles while my own are on approach (against the startup NPR), I'm not so sure.

[Brian Neumann]

One question based on the combat I'm in right now: do you have to keep missile fire controls locked on their target until the missile hits the target? Prior combat experience (against the Star Swarm) suggests that I do, but as I wade through thousands of missiles while my own are on approach (against the startup NPR), I'm not so sure.
On_Target

No, you do not need to keep the fire control on the first target.  In previous versions the missiles would follow the fire control as it switched targets.  This has changed recently and once launched the missiles will continue to track on the original target ship as long as the fire control that they were launched with is still operating.  If it is destroyed then they will lose tracking unless they have onboard sensor capabilities.

Brian

[Steve Walmsley]

Can you explain what you mean by this?  Are you saying a fighter packed with sensors instead of weapons who is the eyes for the rest of his fighter group?

Yes, think of it as an E2 Hawkeye or an AWACs.

Steve