How to load missiles in conventional start PDCs?

[Michael Sandy (OP)]

So I wanted to try out survey missiles, experimented a bit, designed

Missile Size: 9.995 MSP  (0.49975 HS)     Warhead: 0    Armour: 0     Manoeuvre Rating: 10
Speed: 200 km/s    Engine Endurance: 1,767.8 hours   Range: 1,272.8m km
Cost Per Missile: 0.7266
Second Stage: Size 2.995 Buoy(small) x1
Second Stage Separation Range: 0 km
Overall Endurance: 1701 days   Overall Range: 1272.8m km
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 2%   3k km/s 0%   5k km/s 0.4%   10k km/s 0.2%
Materials Required:    0.0165x Boronide   0.685x Uridium   0.0251x Gallicite   Fuel x5250

Development Cost for Project: 73RP

Missile Size: 2.995 MSP  (0.14975 HS)     Warhead: 0    Armour: 0     Manoeuvre Rating: 10
Speed: 0 km/s    Engine Endurance: 39,062.5 hours   Range: 0.0m km
Geo Sensor Strength: 0.0274    Maximum points: 1070.3125
Cost Per Missile: 0.7016
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 0%   3k km/s 0%   5k km/s 0%   10k km/s 0%
Materials Required:    0.0165x Boronide   0.685x Uridium   0.0001x Gallicite   Fuel x250

Development Cost for Project: 70RP


Yeah, it could take 4 years to survey that 1070 points, but a .1 MSP reduced fuel engine gave that stage all the endurance it needed to survey forever.

But I can't figure out how to get them loaded into the ICBMs I started with, let alone fire them.  I keep getting a message that I do not have enough missiles to load them, which concerns me because I also only want to fire one survey drone per target.

I am having mixed feelings about missile based surveying. While the per survey cost is pretty cheap, the costs of shipping the launcher and magazine adds up.  For handling a dispersed survey, as distinct from asteroid belts, trojans or large moon systems, it seems economical.  And a survey ship design based on a reduced sized launcher and large magazines has a decent conversion to a minelayer.  At least it could do duty as a fleet collier.

It is attractive at the start because you already have the launcher and you don't need to ship it anywhere, (if I could get it to work).

[Michael Sandy (OP)]

Those are conventional missile engines, btw.  I figured that I would research them while I was working on Transnewtonian research in hopes of getting my propulsion scientist some leveling.  Didn't happen.  There was also an accidental race between building up my shipyard to build commercial surveyors and the development of reactor tech that would allow missile based surveying.  I actually timed it so Geosurvey sensors and the reactor tech completed in the same month.

[Detros]

You say you have designed some missiles but have you actually build any ?

Other than that, there should be Load Ordnance command connected to "standard loadout for the type, as defined in the ship design window". "Or you can use the Ordnance tab in the Individual Unit window. " See Missiles#Loading missiles for more.

I guess you are trying to load ICBMs into your starting ICBM launchers, thinking you are loading those survey missiles.

[Michael Sandy (OP)]

No, I built a few.  I also noticed a bug in the missiles where they separate into their 2nd stage at 150,000, which is contraindicated for Geo probes!  I posted the corrected version in the thread above.

At least, I built ordnance factories, and completed making a few missiles.  I only made a few, factories and missiles, because the goal was survey on the cheap.

RP-wise, there was this massive shipyard (well, relatively speaking, in terms of employment) gearing up to produce survey ships, and this small ordnance factory was going to get the jump on surveying.  Which was all part of a plot to get more resources invested in missile tech and ordnance, of course, or undermining the corrupt status quo.

I wanted to build as small a geoprobe missile as I could that would do the job, because I figured it didn't matter if the survey itself took a long time, as long as it was done before I needed it and had the means to exploit it.  So I didn't build sized 24 missiles, but I thought you could fire smaller missiles in large launchers, just at the large missile rate of fire?

[Detros]

So you have some of those survey missiles stored.
Can you load them via that Individual unit screen when you select those ICBM launcher silos?

Try manually loading few missiles via "Ordnance management" tab. Just select "population" in the middle from the offered options and double-click on those survey missiles that should show up to load them one by one. If you set it properly at Class design screen you can also use Fast reload according to default ordnance setup.

[Michael Sandy (OP)]

Sounds like great ideas to try, but aurora is in pop-up death mode right now.  I can't start it, and I can't close the pop-ups, not even the task manager helps.  I can force quit, and restart, but I am having so many bugs that I might have to uninstall completely, again, and try again. 

Or wait for 7.2 or something.

[MarcAFK]

That sucks. Are you sure ICBM launchers are actually capable of launching missiles that aren't ICBMs? I Can't exactly recall having used them before like that. I usually scrap them and make replacements pretty early on.

[Michael Sandy (OP)]

Can you scrap ICBMs, or can you only delete them?  I didn't see a scrap option for them from my shipyard.

[Michael Sandy (OP)]

I saw the refit PDC, but no scrap option.   Oh well, an update.  So I got Aurora back working, made geosurvey missiles, and still can't load them.  I see them on the load from population window, but can't assign them to the launch, it says "select a missile type".

Well, I built it using the missile design tech, so it should be a missile.  Somewhere there is a button that does what I want it to...

[Detros]

Well, I built it using the missile design tech, so it should be a missile.  Somewhere there is a button that does what I want it to...

So now you see them? Good.
To move missiles from one area (population) to other one (ship), double click on the name of missiles at the area you want them taken from.

P.S.: Could you please rename the OP so that this thread has less generic name than "a couple of n00b questions"? Something like "How to load missiles" would work.

[MarcAFK]

When I say scrap I mean delete them after making replacements :/

[TheDeadlyShoe]

if all else fails you can abandon ship in the ships screen

[Detros]

if all else fails you can abandon ship in the ships screen

If all else fails you can call government of your country and ask them to help you load ICBM to your ICBM launcher

[Michael Sandy (OP)]

For now, the point is moot because the game hard crashed and I had to delete the save.  But RP-wise, I handled it that the military refused access to their base, because they didn't trust the wacky civilians who had designed and built the Geo Probe missiles outside the normal government processes.

Also, I have been trying to build a doctrine for using them.

In the home system, the overhead cost of magazines isn't an issue, but using them in other systems, it really is an issue.  A bare bones drone, (size 2 geo drone head, size 1.5 MSP engine, reduced fuel use, .5 msp fuel), in a ship with 10 magazines, (the same cost as a geo survey sensor), means that a survey ship could survey about 40 planets/moons/comets before returning for reload.

But it would also have to be a military ship, so that adds costs for maintenance.

I think they are useful in a conventional start.  Then you use them to survey the comets and Mercury, which can be annoying for a slow commercial surveyor.  And use them to survey the widely separated rocks in the Ourt cloud.

But if you are building a commercial shipyard early, to get started on colonization, then you are prioritizing logistics techs over drive techs, so the essential ingredient for geo buoys, the reactor, comes later.

[Garfunkel]

It could be a size issue, in that the ICBM Silo in the conventional missile bases do not accept anything else but Size 24. I'm currently playing a 3-way conventional Earth start campaign and one of the powers created TN missiles to use in them. I had no trouble loading them:



I haven't tried with smaller sizes. With normal launchers, that isn't a problem but the ICBM Silo might be a special case.