I'm new to the game. This is only my second play, with the first being cut short after a few hours.
I'm flummoxed by a rash of AMM fire abraiding my ships to nothing, whereas the 700+ size 3-5 missiles preceeding this only left a few small dents.
First encounter with this enemy was our survey ships being scrubed out by clouds of missiles (really!? one each would have been sufficient). So I built my first military ships in response: my offensive tech is purely laser, so I tried point-defense heavy. Second encounter and each paired-salvo of 14 size4 missiles ravaged my new ships, ending the battle in minutes at a range of 40mkm. Though I learned through that experience that I needed to assign weapon systems to fire-control. Heehee, oops. . .
Now I'm on round three. A couple more ships with more PD turrets and everyone refitted with shields (Delta300/14, varying from 15-25 strength). FIVE hours of clicking the time increments and crashing through these paired salvos, coming in at a rate of 28 per 5 or 10 seconds. . . I was only scratched.
Then at 14mkm. . . salvos of 53 size1 AMM, also at 5-10s intervals. I hope this requires significantly advanced tech to achieve, because there is nothing I can figure out to stop it. First, PD is useless. Where I'd shoot down at least 20 of the size3-5 missiles, here I shoot maybe 8 of these AMM. . . leaving 45 to dissipate shields in one go and erode armor.
After more than 3000 of these AMM, my fleet of 12 is now spread in a line of wreckage across 2mkm of space on a vector toward these rock-slingers. I'm now 7 hours of time (IRL) into this click-fest, with 3 ships remaining. . . pretty much held together by sputtering shields.
And I wonder: WTF can I do against these AMM swarms? I keep thinking that sufficient defense of some form should make them insignificant to ships. . . but I've read of nothing that could stop this erosion. Having 20 layers of armor and plenty of ships to share the burden I guess. . . just crap that they'll whittle it down to paper even if it's enough to get in close. (And at this point I wouldn't be surprised if these ships turned on some mega death beams at 1mkm, before I get a shot in. . . )
They are 6 ships totalling 107kT mass. I'm not familiar with missile tech yet, but looking on these boards this kind of missile output looks very high. And I couldn't find any hint of people using (or coping with) AMM versus ship. Am I missing something that does make it insignificant to ships?
What would you do to fly through a fountain of gravel? Or are these aliens probably way beyond me? I thought I had them after riding out their missile onslaught. . . I can't switch to their game and try to out-missile them at range. . . hell, I can see that no missiles would get anywhere near them.
For reference as to my tech (well, fresh from the labs are one level up in everything), here is one of my ships.
Sovereign class Battleship 12,400 tons 1229 Crew 2545 BP TCS 248 TH 1020 EM 1050
5483 km/s Armour 8-47 Shields 35-300 Sensors 12/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 11 PPV 59.46
Maint Life 2.15 Years MSP 2128 AFR 1230% IFR 17.1% 1YR 615 5YR 9224 Max Repair 115 MSP
Magneto-plasma Drive E7 (17) Power 80 Fuel Use 70% Signature 60 Armour 0 Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 100,000 Litres Range 20.7 billion km (43 days at full power)
Delta R300/17.5 Shields (14) Total Fuel Cost 245 Litres per day
20cm C5 Ultraviolet Laser (6) Range 256,000km TS: 5483 km/s Power 10-5 RM 4 ROF 10 10 10 10 10 8 6 5 5 4 4
Twin 10cm C3 Near Ultraviolet Laser Turret (3x2) Range 90,000km TS: 16000 km/s Power 6-6 RM 3 ROF 5 3 3 3 2 1 1 1 1 1 0
Fire Control S06 48-16000 (1) Max Range: 96,000 km TS: 16000 km/s 90 79 69 58 48 38 27 17 6 0
Fire Control S06 128-6000 (1) Max Range: 256,000 km TS: 6000 km/s 96 92 88 84 80 77 73 69 65 61
Stellarator Fusion Reactor Technology PB-1 (8) Total Power Output 48 Armour 0 Exp 5%
Active Search Sensor MR3-R1 (1) GPS 28 Range 3.1m km Resolution 1
Active Search Sensor MR101-R120 (1) GPS 10080 Range 101.2m km Resolution 120
Thermal Sensor TH2-12 (1) Sensitivity 12 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 12m km
ECM 10