Author Topic: How does Area Point Defense mode work?  (Read 2833 times)

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Offline Journier (OP)

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How does Area Point Defense mode work?
« on: March 03, 2010, 11:43:12 AM »
Final Defensive fire works but AREA point defense mode doesnt seem to work...

I have laser's and railguns and gauss cannons all set to Area point defense , the lasers have 90,000 range etc.

None of them are firing on their own!

what the hell is going on?

Final defensive fire works great though!

Is there some kind of special use that Area Point Defense mode is for to make it actually track and fire?
 

Offline Charlie Beeler

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Re: How does Area Point Defense mode work?
« Reply #1 on: March 03, 2010, 11:54:51 AM »
Area defense occurs during the normal weapons fire segment while final defense occurs during the movement segment when the missile(s) should intercept their target.  If the missile can cross the engagement range of a PD beam during a single movement then it will not be engaged.  

90k is really too short a range for area defense.  Most missiles are travelling fast enough to cover that distance in 5 seconds.  Especially if the target is closing and not running.
Amateurs study tactics, Professionals study logistics - paraphrase attributed to Gen Omar Bradley
 

Offline Journier (OP)

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Re: How does Area Point Defense mode work?
« Reply #2 on: March 03, 2010, 12:01:32 PM »
Quote from: "Charlie Beeler"
Area defense occurs during the normal weapons fire segment while final defense occurs during the movement segment when the missile(s) should intercept their target.  If the missile can cross the engagement range of a PD beam during a single movement then it will not be engaged.  

90k is really too short a range for area defense.  Most missiles are travelling fast enough to cover that distance in 5 seconds.  Especially if the target is closing and not running.

damn...

i guess ill do 120,000 range ie a 12 cm laser on my area defense fleet ships then.
 

Offline Hawkeye

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Re: How does Area Point Defense mode work?
« Reply #3 on: March 03, 2010, 01:45:03 PM »
In my opinion, Area Defense mode only makes sense, if you have the range and the rate of fire to be able to engage a salvo twice, if, for example, you can hit them at 180.000km and again at 40.000km.
Otherwise, the increased to-hit-probability of the (very) short range from final defensive fire far outweighs any possible benefit from long-range pd fire.
Note: If you want to use your lasers/railguns/mesons in area defense, I think it would be necessary to use a rather long-ranged firecon, to enhance to-hit chances at long range.

Example:
Using a 180.000km range laser and a 180.000km max-range / 16.000km/s tracking speed firecon trying to hit a 32.000km/s missile at 90.000km gives you a 25% chance of a hit (50% for range * 50% for tracking speed)
If you want the same chance to hit out to 180.000km, you´d need a max-range 360.000km firecon.

I haven´t calculated the mass requirements, but I am pretty sure you could put two short range turrets + fircons for each dingle long-ranged + firecon on your ship, and, frankly, I´d take the two turrets anytime.
Ralph Hoenig, Germany
 

Offline Steve Walmsley

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Re: How does Area Point Defense mode work?
« Reply #4 on: March 03, 2010, 01:55:30 PM »
Area Defence, as the name implies, is point defence designed to protect an area rather than a tight group of ships. If all your ships are in the same location then point blank mode will work better for normal PD turrets. For Area Defence to work properly you are going to need a 16 HS beam fire control with maxed range and tracking speed and some large lasers. At least 20cm and probably larger and with very good capacitors. Area defence is partway between point blank defence and anti-missiles and should cover an area several hundred thousand kilometers in diamater. The ideal is to be able to protect a formation of ships or to be able to engage an incoming salvo multiple times, either because of very good range or because the area defence ship is positioned on the threat axis some distance from the main body. In that latter case, point blank defence wouldn't work if the missiles are heading for the main body but area defence will engage them 2-3 times as they fly past the area defence ship. It probably isn't possible to design an effective area defence ship at low tech levels.

Steve
 

Offline Yonder

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Re: How does Area Point Defense mode work?
« Reply #5 on: October 24, 2011, 11:07:48 PM »
As part of my extensive testing for how Laser Warheads currently work I did several test salvos of all sorts of different speeds (both lasers and non-laser warheads), and I could never successfully get Area Mode PD and AutoFiring to work. I had lots of successful manual firings against missiles at the lasers maximum range, and lots and lots of successful automatic Point Blank Defense firings, but no matter what I did I could not get the ship to automatically target in area mode. (They had plenty of time. 5 second recharge times, 300+k km laser range, 300k km area defense range, and I made really slow missiles at 8.3k km/s)

How am I supposed to set up a the PD, Automatic Fire Checkbox, and Firing Modes to successfully do this?
 

Offline Charlie Beeler

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Re: How does Area Point Defense mode work?
« Reply #6 on: October 25, 2011, 08:00:32 AM »
As part of my extensive testing for how Laser Warheads currently work I did several test salvos of all sorts of different speeds (both lasers and non-laser warheads), and I could never successfully get Area Mode PD and AutoFiring to work. I had lots of successful manual firings against missiles at the lasers maximum range, and lots and lots of successful automatic Point Blank Defense firings, but no matter what I did I could not get the ship to automatically target in area mode. (They had plenty of time. 5 second recharge times, 300+k km laser range, 300k km area defense range, and I made really slow missiles at 8.3k km/s)

How am I supposed to set up a the PD, Automatic Fire Checkbox, and Firing Modes to successfully do this?

Area Defense mode is only available for ship/PDC mounted beam weapons.  To my knowledge there is no cross functionality with missiles. 

Autofire only works with offensive functions and not defensive.  It will actually reassign weapons that have been allocated to point defense to offensive targeting.  To my knowledge Steve has not changed this.

Area mode for beams may have some coding issues.  To my knowledge no one has used since missile speeds were increased a couple of years ago and made it next to useless without a segnificant tech advantage.
Amateurs study tactics, Professionals study logistics - paraphrase attributed to Gen Omar Bradley
 

Offline Yonder

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Re: How does Area Point Defense mode work?
« Reply #7 on: October 25, 2011, 10:22:17 AM »
Area mode for beams may have some coding issues.  To my knowledge no one has used since missile speeds were increased a couple of years ago and made it next to useless without a segnificant tech advantage.

Ok, from my testing last night I think that there may be bugs in it, when I had Area Defense on (and AutoFire off) the turrets seemed to function like they were in Point Blank mode.

Off to the bug thread!
 

Offline LoSboccacc

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Re: How does Area Point Defense mode work?
« Reply #8 on: October 25, 2011, 11:17:03 AM »
I've tried once to use the main particle beams as area defence as an additional protection while closing in to precursors with a beam only fleet and they worked. just a couple of missile knocked down per salvos per each ship, but helped the gauss pd to do their work.