Author Topic: How Many Types of Missiles Do you Need?  (Read 8232 times)

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Offline Michael Sandy

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Re: How Many Types of Missiles Do you Need?
« Reply #30 on: November 26, 2019, 12:02:05 AM »
There is a bit of a difference between missiles actively in production, and missile stockpiles one expects to use at some point.

I have a lot of different missiles in stock that I won't make more of, but will use on the occasion that I have more magazine space.  I try to use up the older missiles first.

But broadly, I have:

Sensor missiles designed to fire at waypoints billions of km away, and then loiter for months.  Cheap 1 MSP missiles, so I can carry a lot of them, and use them in system that I know has a presence because of wrecks, so I can find out what bodies have ships based at them.  They can also detect troops and the small thermal associated with Deep Space tracking sensors.

Decoy missiles for soaking enemy AMMs.

AMMs

AFM, (basically, longer ranged than AMMs, not quite as accurate), used to kill fast scouts as well

sandblasters missiles designed to hit ships in the 4k km/s range.  Typically 5 million km range
sandblasters missiles designed to hit ships in the 1k km/s range.

Once I have cloaked warships, I intend to build a time on target design, perhaps a size 4 launcher with size 3 missiles.  These will be classified by their separation range.  I have a couple of thoughts regarding 2-stage missiles.  Since the first stage doesn't have highly boosted engines, it might end up that a 2-stage missile is only slightly more expensive than the final stage.  So a lot depends on whether I am more magazine constrained or ordnance BP constrained.

Firing at relatively stationary targets with a time on target missile, you could have literally billions of km of range.  If you want a 10k first stage, you either need a somewhat bigger first stage, or much shorter range.