Missile Miniaturization

[Daltesh (OP)]

Forgive me if this has been suggested before.  While playing a recent conventional start game with only energy weapons I realized that the changes to engines allow you to make somewhat effective fighters very early on in the game.  However, when it comes to missile equipped fighters the heavy requirements for researching box launchers (22,000RP) makes them impractical as an early goal.   

I suggest that Missile Launcher miniaturization techs be replaced with something akin to how Engine Efficiency, basically some level of miniaturization allowed from the outset.  This would allow an early implementation of Box Launchers which aren't as effective yet still offer a much needed size reduction for fighters, FACs, and other small ships.   

[alex_brunius]

I don't understand how a box launcher can be more complex then a launcher that is supposed to also be able to reload in-mission. Box launcher is basically just strapping the missile/torpedo to the outside or in a simple box?

I would suggest Box/External launcher be available from start and you have to research the other way up until speed 1.0 reload factor (or possibly even faster).

Another potential bonus to make this attractive could be giving a fairly sizable RCS (radar cross section) penalty to box/external mounted missiles. (The bonus being that you can avoid it by researching internal reloads).

[KaziArmada]

Bit of a Necro but it's hardly down the page so if it's really that big a boo-boo, I'll accept being in trouble.

I'm going to agree with Alex.  A box launcher being more 'Complex' than a regular launcher is pretty odd to me.  I'd vote for it being made available far sooner, but maybe a size/munition amount limit to prevent folks from being able to early game spam Box Launcher craft. 

[Hawkeye]

I always thought of the probelem to build box launchers not to be the miniaturization of the launcher itslef (as you and alex state, it would´t make sense) but given aurora uses reactionless drives, I assumed those engines to use some form of (enter your technobabble of choise) - my first pick would be gravity field generator (yes, the engine names don´t make sense then either, I know) and a large part of the regular launchers mass is taken by stuff that protects the ship from the effects of the missiles engines or ship/missle engine interactions.

Miniaturization of that equipment is difficult and also reduces the space available for the reload mechanism.

[sloanjh]

From a game-play point of view, the problem is that if box launchers were lowest tech but best, that would kind of knock out the opportunity for tech advancement.  So view this as a game play decision which then needs justification in techno-babble.

From a techno-babble point of view, don't think of them as Harpoon 4-packs; think of them as VLA.  Recall that the USN progressed from rail launchers with magazines (e.g. one-armed bandits) to VLA.  I like the babble about protecting the ship from launch effects that Hawkeye used.  An interesting note:  In the evolution of Aurora, my recollection is that it progressed the same way as IRL.  Steve was thinking in terms of launchers and magazines and all the equipment to get the missiles from magazine  to launcher; box launchers came in as the most efficient (and most difficult) way to do this (just like VLA, which is what they're based on IIRC).

John

[Jorgen_CAB]

Although Box launchers are not really equivalent as VLA launchers. I usually view 25% launchers the equivalent of a VLA launcher since you can rearm them in space it just take allot of time to do so. Box launchers are more like the launch mechanism on a airplane where you need to replace them in a hangar or base. VLA on a ship can be replaced at sea if necessary, if memory serves me right.

Anyway I build most of my warships on the VLA principle most of the time with no magazine on the ship to replenish the launcher, I need a collier ship for that.

Box launcher should really be the easiest system to fit on any ship, the problem with replenish them should be a good enough drawback. The problem is that ships can fire ALL missiles in one salvo which make them hard to defend against, that is the main problem and is somewhat unrealistic. There is no current VLA system, capable to launch all missiles in a 5 second period. Fire-controls should have limits on the number of missiles in a salvo as there should be limits to how many missiles can be launched at any one time unless you dedicate space for all those launches.

The main benefit of VLA over rail launch mechanism is that you can launch a much broader variety of missiles with VLA and the fire rate is higher.

[alex_brunius]

If we need more drawbacks for box launchers to make them balanced a very logical one (besides those already mentioned) is that they should be located outside the armor.

So any hits to the box launcher area of the ship will detonate the missiles too. If you got your entire ship full of launchers well... BoooooM.

[Hazard]

Another option would be to add a (tech) line to Missile Fire Control systems that determines how many missiles they can control at any single moment, call it 'Salvo Size.'

Missiles with electromagnetic, thermal or active sensors of their own can still be launched in salvoes of unlimited size but their relatively limited sensor power would help counter that strength, as well as the trade off in yield, speed and range needed to mount a sensor that's actually useful.

[Paul M]

A box launcher would only be able to launch 1 missile every 5 seconds (or whatever your hightest speed launch cycle is) because multiple missile launches would overstress the "cooling system*" 

This would prevent you launching 50 missile salvos but give you a way to launch effectively any size missile quickly.

*cooling system is probably wrong, but it is what limits a VLS launch rate since the hot exhaust gases are an issue.  In Aurora the reason likely is different but still that much energy from the missile drives would be something to dissipate...since a box launch of 50 size one missiles is then the same as a size 50 missile energy wise.

Regardless, modern systems can't easily do multiple missile launches and putting in a rule like that for Aurora would leave the system functional and useful without making it overpowered.

I would also either outright limit the armour thickness of a ship with Box launchers or else reduce the armour in specific locations as the box would dramatically weaken the ships armour belt.  Also any impact on the hull in those locations should hit the launcher (and the doors on the box and the box itself would have a HTK).  Which should cause a check for fratricide if the launcher is hit.

[Jorgen_CAB]

Although launches in space would probably not need to dissipate energy in the same way as you would inside an atmosphere and gravity being an issue. I'm pretty certain that missiles in space would be ejected by a rail-gun mechanic or similar and then missiles internal drives would start when the missile is at a safe distance from the ship hull.

We would still, in my opinion, be limited to a certain number of missiles launched depending on how advanced the missile fire-controls are and the actual launch mechanism. So having a technology for this purpose and then limit each fire-control to s set number of missiles in a salve would go a long way of balancing this whole problem.

This would also make larger missiles have a slight advantage over smaller missiles since they would require less fire-controls per mass of missiles. I think we need some more advantages for larger missiles and nerf smaller missiles as a whole anyway, so this would be a good thing I think. 

[Paul M]

Heat is a much larger problem in a vacuum then in an atmosphere.  In a vacuum cooling is accomplished only by radiation and that is basically at very low rate unless the object is quite hot.  Cooling is the biggest issue that a warship would have, as waste heat would build up very quickly.  Attack Vector Tactical or Mass Effect are essentially correct on this point; the former messing up how their heat sinks would work since they violate the thermodynamical law that heat flows from hot to cold (the heat sink can't be hotter than the object you are sinking heat out of).

If you have a mass driver launch mechanism then you do not have a "box" launcher.  You could use a cold launch mechanism (gas blast) but that would slow down your launch rate again since no matter what you do, you would not want a collision between launching missiles...you would get also a staggered powerup to ensure that again a failure doesn't happen and so on.  There is no reason you can not say that a box launcher fires but a single missile per 5 s (or whatever) interval.  That would still leave them useful for larger missiles and for convience but not make them so overpowered that they are the only sensible option.

Small missiles are nerfed the second that you stop using ablative armour, until you do that you are bandaging a sucking chest wound as far as I am concerned.

There is nothing wrong with a limit on how many missiles a ship can command per fire control but the reality is that becomes irrelevant as the mass of a fire control is not significant and so if I have 10 of them rather than 1 it won't alter the situation that much.

[alex_brunius]

Small missiles are nerfed the second that you stop using ablative armour,

Agreed 100%. Even if ship armor would just get one point of damage absorption per 10 ablative layers, it would be very simple to counter AMM spam missiles.

[Jorgen_CAB]

Heat is a much larger problem in a vacuum then in an atmosphere.  In a vacuum cooling is accomplished only by radiation and that is basically at very low rate unless the object is quite hot.  Cooling is the biggest issue that a warship would have, as waste heat would build up very quickly.  Attack Vector Tactical or Mass Effect are essentially correct on this point; the former messing up how their heat sinks would work since they violate the thermodynamical law that heat flows from hot to cold (the heat sink can't be hotter than the object you are sinking heat out of).

If you have a mass driver launch mechanism then you do not have a "box" launcher.  You could use a cold launch mechanism (gas blast) but that would slow down your launch rate again since no matter what you do, you would not want a collision between launching missiles...you would get also a staggered powerup to ensure that again a failure doesn't happen and so on.  There is no reason you can not say that a box launcher fires but a single missile per 5 s (or whatever) interval.  That would still leave them useful for larger missiles and for convience but not make them so overpowered that they are the only sensible option.

Small missiles are nerfed the second that you stop using ablative armour, until you do that you are bandaging a sucking chest wound as far as I am concerned.

There is nothing wrong with a limit on how many missiles a ship can command per fire control but the reality is that becomes irrelevant as the mass of a fire control is not significant and so if I have 10 of them rather than 1 it won't alter the situation that much.

I'm certainly not going to argue whether Box launchers can use a rail-gun mechanism or not. I don't know how much space it would take with technology that exist in Aurora.

I know that heat is a bigger problem in space, so I didn't mean that the heat in and of itself was the problem, rather that it's easier to propel the missile out from the ship without igniting the missile engine due to that there is no gravity pulling it down.
Although, the gauss principle would probably be more probable and should take very little space to propel a missile a few dozen meters in a matter of seconds.

The thing about fire-control is not so much the size as the cost, fire-controls is very expensive.

I do agree with the ablative armour style mechanic. I do like the Newtonian aurora damage model where the armour model is better and if we had that I would be quite happy. Here, armour will have some minimal resistance and can withstand smaller damage without being destroyed. Nuclear missiles would not intercept ships either which is quite ridiculous given their speed in Aurora anyway.

With 6.3 we will get chock damage which obviously will make a missile with larger warheads much more important. So there will be some band-aid mechanics in place to spice things up.  

[Paul M]

My point is that it is a decision of game mechanics how the box launcher works so you can find a "technobabble" justification for limiting it to the speed you want without that much difficulty.

In starfire, where the box launcher comes from, the capacity of a single box launcher is not particularily large and so while it is good for small ships to push their broadside up to the point where it might do something it is otherwise not the best launcher choice.  For ships that might not survive to launch twice (WP Assault ships) it would be an option.

In Aurora due to the fact that it allows huge launches of size 1 missiles, that simply can't be stopped by a reasonable level of point defence it breaks the game.  But that is a symptom of the fact that a size 1 missile with a weak warhead is still viable for doing damage due to the ablative armour concept.  Shock damage is not a factor.  I can stop the larger missiles because the salvo density is lower...so the fact the odd one slips through is less of a danger than the fact the smaller missiles will just obliterate the ship targeted exactly as they do now.  Why bother changing your set up?  I don't see that shock damage does anything to fix the issue.

The cost of a fire control system?  In money?  I'd think that really doesn't play much of a role does it?  I'd think that people will do what gives them the biggest advantage and cost be damned.  Not being a min-maxer I have a hard time figuring out what is behind their thinking.

[Erik L]

This whole discussion is why when I first designed Astra Imperia I included sensor channels. Each thing you track, including your own missiles requires a sensor channel. This limits the number of things that are on the board at any one time. And yes, there are ways of increasing the channel pool.