Hi, a couple of quick newbie questions:
From what I'm reading in the tutorials and wiki, gauss cannons, railguns, and CIWS are considered "beam" weapons, and don't require magazines; magazines are for missiles only. Is this right?
Correct
Also, is there an easy way to automate asteroid mining, like you can automate surveying? The prospect of guiding my ships manually through hundreds of those little rocks does not appeal to me. I wouldn't be playing this game if I weren't a little bit anal, but there are limits!
Nope, but keep in mind that it will take months, sometimes even a year or more, to stripmine an asteroid. The ones with minerals in the 100s are not worth the effort IMO
What's the difference between a search sensor and an active missile control? All I see in the design screen is that missile control has a much longer range. Is it more limited somehow?
Active sensors are your regualar RADAR and is used to see alien ships and, even more important, is used to light up a target Without that, you can´t target it.
The Missile control system is, what guides your missiles in/tells ´em what to hit. Both are needed if you want to engage an enemy with missiles (the active sensor has not to be on the shooting ship, any acrive will do)
For beam weapons, you need the beam fire control system in a similar way to the missile Firecon
More about firecon here:
http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php/topic,2926.0.htmlDoes point defense see what kinds of missiles are coming at it and prioritize, or can I spoof it with lots of tiny dummy missiles and couple of big shipkillers mixed in?
It´ll engage the closest missile first. If different size missiles are at the same range, I belive it prioritizes the larger ones, but am not sure on that.
There'll be more questions as I think of them, I'm sure, but that's it for now. Thank you!
No problem.
