Planetary Missile Defenses

[Froggiest1982]

I'm going to assume that this just because Steve hadn't had the time to include missile launchers as STO weapons and/or there being something in the code for missile launchers that makes things lot more complicated - like magazines for example.

But yeah, ideally we would have both missile silos as an installation and STO units that wield missile launchers and supply vehicles that act as missile magazines.

STOs have integrated BFC limiting them to the range and purpose expected.

Assuming you are to introduce missiles to STOs how would you handle that? This will require an extra slot to add an existing MFC or a brand new one integrated.

Furthermore what about missile size? Existing or integrated.

Ultimately ordnance, you will require another slot to choose which missile is being used.

All the above will require a brand new mechanic that cannot be handled by STOs in their current form and, but this is my opinion, the problem is already being addressed by Stations. I also think maintenance is a fair price to pay for something that would be otherwise too powerful free of charge.

You can potentially tell that this is the way (Tha Mandalorian TM) it has been currently thought by looking at the precursors which use missile stations as AMM ASM planetary defense platforms.

Obviously, everything can be changed/included don't get me wrong.

[Zincat]

Iirc Steve mentioned somewhere that the problems were ammunition tracking/reloading, and actually target selection.
I can't find it where it was though..
With beam weapons it's easy, they don't have limited ammo, so when there is a target in range they shoot.

With missiles... the problem is much worse. You'd have to code ammo replenishment. You'd have to code ammo tracking. You'd have to have logics in place to decide when to shoot and what to shoot.

Remember that STO are NOT treated as ships. But missile STO would need to asses the space situation. What if there's a friendly fleet in orbit? Should the missile STO shoot then? Should they try to synch firing interval and target with the fleets?
I'll say it again, STO are not treated as ships right now, it was the reason why PDC were removed. Because they were basically immoble ships that broke a lot of other game rules, and needed exceptions.

I imagine there's nothing in the code that tries to synch the STO targets with the friendly fleets targets. I imagine the logic needed would be NOT trivial. And by the way, since they have limited ammo what do the missile STO target? The bigger ships? The fastest ships? At what range should they shoot?

Seems much more trouble to me than it's worth, when you can just make orbital bases for this specific purpose.