My first Combat

[Whitecold (OP)]

I just fought my first combat against a horde of 40 odd FAC's, and it raised some questions.

First I often got messages x missiles selfdestruct because they have no target, is it possible to retarget missiles inflight, or do I have to destroy one target before I can shoot another without loosing the missiles.
Then I never saw any message about interception of my missiles, does that mean they are too stupid to shoot at them, or do I miss something? I know they have mesons, and those FAC's are fast.
Is there some way to automatically assign targets? Autofire only seems to destroy my assignments of the missile tubes to the FCs

[GreatTuna]

1.  Missiles will retarget themselves, but only if you have sensors on them.
2.  No sense in it.  They are not designed for PD work, and they won't intercept enough missiles to prevent destroying.
3.  The only thing that I know is "Same Loc" button.  It will give any ship in fleet different target.

[Nightstar]

Missiles cannot be retargetted midflight. Missiles can retarget themselves if they have sensors, but it can't be done from the ship. You don't have to destroy one target before shooting at another however. Missiles inflight should continue targeting whatever they were aimed at during launch.

The aliens probably did not have a sensor with which to spot your missiles to shoot them. Stupid design, basically. NPRs being too stupid to shoot missiles down for other reasons is not unknown.

Besides the buttons in f8, not really. There is a 'all ships target different' (or something like that) button that's meant for these sorts of situations though. Autofire not working at all is a little weird.

[joeclark77]

If you are firing multiple salvos, you can re-target your fire control after each salvo to aim for a different enemy.  The missiles already in flight will continue toward their original target, not the new target.  So when I face a large swarm of FACs like this I'll send one volley at each, then fire a second volley at any that survived the first missiles.

[niflheimr]

The same location button is awesome though .... I'm trying to take care of 1k npr FACs , and i know i'd quit without that

[Whitecold (OP)]

So, that went moderately well, ran into some 60k t giant shielded ship which just sucked up my missiles, and I clearly need a more precise weapon against those FACs. Managed to break off, but run my magazines dry. My R&D is now working on some viable beam destroyers against those FACs, as I suspect there are more around.

[joeclark77]

Try to determine the range of their weapons, and their top speed.  If you can outrange them with energy weapons and outrun them, you can destroy them at your leisure.  Beware poor fleet training, though.  If you are very close to them (say, "following" at just outside their weapon range) and you destroy the one you're "following", you'll need to switch to "following" another one.  If your fleet is poorly trained it may take them a minute to accept the new orders, during which time the enemy FACs will close range and eat you alive.