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Posted by: sloanjh
« on: January 23, 2009, 08:56:44 PM »

Another thing to remember is that the cost of researching TL grows with TL.  This means that, for example, a race at TL5 for the various missile techs could probably advance to eg TL 3-4 in a particular beam weapon for the same cost as advancing missiles from 5-->6.  A similar argument holds for AAM in a beam-heavy race; they could make big strides in AAM capability fairly cheaply.  So perhaps an interesting question to ask is "how does a totally beam or totally missile strategy compare to a balanced strategy, or to a beam-heavy or missile-heavy strategy?"

John
Posted by: Steve Walmsley
« on: January 23, 2009, 12:57:22 PM »

A general point on missiles. While it is possible to create a beam-only race, I think every race needs some missile tech, even if it is relatively limited. In modern day naval combat, which is a major influence on Aurora, every naval power has missiles of some sort backed up by guns and Phalanx-type weapons for shorter-range combat. Another major influence on Aurora is the Honor Harrington universe which has missiles as the primary long range weapon backed up by short-ranged energy weapons. In Aurora, missiles are usually the best way to hit a target at long range in deep space, as well as providing the basis for buoys, recon drones and mines. This isn't the same as Starfire though where every race develops the same Capital Missile. The huge variety of missile designs leads to some fascinating match-ups between different missile and anti-missile design philosophies. Missile design is as much a part of the game as ship design.

I am not trying to create a game where every weapon is relatively equal and it doesn't really matter which weapon you decide to concentrate on. Different weapons are for different situations and I think its likely that for long-range warfare in deep space, missiles will be the primary weapon, just as they are in modern naval warfare. As I have mentioned before they do have a number of restrictions though in terms of logistics, nebulas, the difficulty in hitting ships close to a jump point and the fact they can be intercepted. Energy weapons all have their uses, as a main armament, for point defence, for flexibility, for instant damage to prevent the target jumping out of harm's way or for the independence from a logistical tail. The fact remains though that any race that wants to project power outside of a nebula is going to have take missiles into account, both in terms of defending against them or in using them as a primary or secondary weapon. A race that uses only missiles though will struggle as much as a race that does not use them at all.

The various weapon technologies in Aurora complement each other's abilities. They are not meant to be used in isolation and a balanced approach that includes both missiles and one or more beam weapons is probably the best approach. In my own campaign the Commonwealth has previously used beam weapons primarily for point defence. However, after running into a few problems with missiles they are now looking at designing a ship with a beam weapon main armament to complement their missile-armed warships.

Steve
Posted by: Steve Walmsley
« on: January 23, 2009, 12:17:15 PM »

Quote from: "jfelten"
> You will probably need at least one dedicated ship with a really large active search system to see them at 3-4 million klicks to take full advantage of the amm range.

I didn't get to actually testing any of the designs in combat.  Can a ship with shorter range missile targeting sensors use another ship's longer range missile targeting sensors to fire its AMM's?
No. It can lock its fire controls on to missiles that have been detected by another ship's active sensors, but it needs its own fire control system to guide the missiles. If you have AMM with onboard guidance, then you could potentially fire them at targets outside your onboard fire control range by using waypoints.

Steve
Posted by: Steve Walmsley
« on: January 23, 2009, 12:13:53 PM »

Quote from: "Kurt"
I'm writing this before reading any of the other replies, so I might be repeating things.  IMO, you can design point defenses effective enough to allow beam ships to close with a missile using enemy, however, given the wide range of possibilities in Aurora this statement comes with several caveats:
1.  For purposes of this question I am assuming relatively equal "tech levels" and tonnages;
2.  The beam only side MUST have a superior fleet speed to be able to catch the missile side;
3.  The beam side must have a "mature" point defense capability, consisting of long-range anti-missile missiles coupled with long-range anti-missile sensors, and some sort of decent clsoe-in point defense system to deal with the leakers.  

A system like the one described in #3 above can be overwhelmed by either box launchers or if the attacker has enough time and space to launch multple salvoes and then combine them into one large salvo.  However, either of these decisions carries a risk for the attacker.  If he launches his entire load he is vulnerable in the next battle even if he wins this one, or if his combined salvo isn't actually big enough to overwhelm the defenders defenses then he is in big trouble.  
As you touch on above, another point to consider is that missiles in a one-off tactical battle are a more effective weapon that they are in a campaign. If you don't care about production or resupply, then reaching a decision to fire off every missile to try and win the battle in one massive attack is a lot easier than if you are a long way from home, far from resupply or if your Empire has a general missile shortage. When you have to think about future battles, the fact that missiles are a finite resource is much more of a factor.

Steve
Posted by: Charlie Beeler
« on: January 23, 2009, 09:47:09 AM »

Effectively,  if you have any ship that can see a target (missile, ship, fighter, etc) then any of your other ships can target it.  Even if out of actual range of the weapons system or endurance of the missile.  That is see it with active sensors.  Passive targeting is a lot more restricted.
Posted by: jfelten
« on: January 23, 2009, 08:20:51 AM »

> You will probably need at least one dedicated ship with a really large active search system to see them at 3-4 million klicks to take full advantage of the amm range.

I didn't get to actually testing any of the designs in combat.  Can a ship with shorter range missile targeting sensors use another ship's longer range missile targeting sensors to fire its AMM's?
Posted by: Brian Neumann
« on: January 23, 2009, 05:36:34 AM »

AMM missiles are not quite as bad as you are thinking to reasearch.  It helps to get a little farther up the warhead tree.  At 8000 rp the warhead is only .2 spaces.  You can also put in really small amounts of fuel.  I usually use .01.  I split the rest between engines and agility about 2-1 in favor of the engines.  You are right that more engines do help to get the to hit chance up, but a small increase in agility also has a major effect.  On the missile design screen you will see an agility on the left side of the missile stats near the top.  That is the chance the missile will hit a target going at the same speed it is going.  As the base chance is 10%, having .1 spaces in agility tends to get you a 15% chance.  That is effectivly 50% better than before.  My current amm using ion engines have a 1 point warhead speed of 28300 range of 3m km and about a 25% chance to hit.  Against my own attack missiles which are moving at 24000 km/s they are closer to 30%.  Even if someone had reasearched another level of engines and had a speed of around 32000km/s I would still be getting around a 20% chance per amm.  The hard part is actually spotting the incomming missiles far enough out to get multiple shots, and that is a function of sensor tech.  You will probably need at least one dedicated ship with a really large active search system to see them at 3-4 million klicks to take full advantage of the amm range.

Brian
Posted by: jfelten
« on: January 23, 2009, 05:01:10 AM »

I tried creating some test designs with my test race last night including a one space anti-missile missile.  This is from memory so pardon any inconsistencies.  IIRC I researched the 2nd level warhead so I could use a half space warhead and still generate the 1 point of damage necessary to kill other missiles thereby making a 1 space AMM viable.  One thing I ran in to was that even just using 0.1 spaces of fuel, it still had a range of something like 25Mk.  But the longest range missile fire control sensor I could design with zero resolution (or whatever the best is called) to detect enemy missiles but still keep it down to a "reasonable" size only had a range of 6Mk.  I need to go back and figure out what to research to improve missile fire control sensor range as I suspect the farther out I can target the missiles with AMM's, the more chances I have to intercept them.  It is important to try to keep the size down so all ships can mount some AMM ability.  Dedicated escorts can of course mount clusters of them but I think all warships should have some innate AMM capability if going that route.

I'm not sure how the missile accuracy calculation works.  I tried trading off engine space (speed) for agility but it seemed that more speed always resulted in better accuracy than the same amount of space dedicated to agility.  I'm guessing this is because my test race has researched missile speed more than missile agility so the speed tech is better than the agility tech.  But I don't know what the actual equation is.  Also I'm not sure what the accuracy is vs enemy missiles.  The little accuracy chart in the missile design window doesn't list that but judging by the size brackets and assuming it is linear, the chance of actually intercepting a missile that weighs relatively little would be extremely poor.  

What I also realized was that in order to design good AMM's to intercept the high tech missiles of a missile centric opponent seems to require dedicating nearly as much research in to missile techs as the missile centric opponent does.  So the beam centric race is going to be at a large research disadvantage.  To deploy effective AMM"s they have to dedicate about as much research in to missile techs as the missile centric race (in which case they could just deploy anti ship missiles too), then they also have to heavily research their beam weapons which the missile centric race doesn't have to research.  So it seems to me just looking at the surface that will put the beam race at a marked disadvantage overall.  However I've not actually tried to verify this in practice and there are a lot of variables to consider.
Posted by: Kurt
« on: January 22, 2009, 07:36:29 PM »

Quote from: "jfelten"
It is going to take me a lot of time to get enough experience with the combat system to form solid conclusions.  So for now I'll ask you.  In your opinion/experience, given equal investments in research points and resources, can a non-missile fleet mount enough effective PD to survive a missile fleet's missile strike and still have enough direct fire weapons and close with them to have a fair chance of winning a battle?  I can see the non-missile fleet will start at a disadvantage.  The missile fleet gets to hit first.  And unless the missile fleet is defending a fixed location, the beam fleet will have to dedicate enough technology and additional resources to be faster than the missile fleet else they'll never be able to close to engage.  Otherwise the missile fleet would be able to do what damage they can then retreat to reload.  Obviously there are a lot of variables and no such thing as perfect balance, but is it close?

I'm writing this before reading any of the other replies, so I might be repeating things.  IMO, you can design point defenses effective enough to allow beam ships to close with a missile using enemy, however, given the wide range of possibilities in Aurora this statement comes with several caveats:
1.  For purposes of this question I am assuming relatively equal "tech levels" and tonnages;
2.  The beam only side MUST have a superior fleet speed to be able to catch the missile side;
3.  The beam side must have a "mature" point defense capability, consisting of long-range anti-missile missiles coupled with long-range anti-missile sensors, and some sort of decent clsoe-in point defense system to deal with the leakers.  

A system like the one described in #3 above can be overwhelmed by either box launchers or if the attacker has enough time and space to launch multple salvoes and then combine them into one large salvo.  However, either of these decisions carries a risk for the attacker.  If he launches his entire load he is vulnerable in the next battle even if he wins this one, or if his combined salvo isn't actually big enough to overwhelm the defenders defenses then he is in big trouble.  

Kurt
Posted by: Brian Neumann
« on: January 22, 2009, 04:50:17 PM »

Quote from: "Erik Luken"
A good reason for dedicated ship types.

Back in the day, playing MOO2 with my roommate, he could never understand why my fleets beat his. He went for the "Enterprise" design, one ship does it all. I went for a "naval" design with dedicated carriers, escorts and scouts. He couldn't understand why or how my smaller ships were defeating his larger ones. The only time this broke down was when the fleets consisted of the death star ships.

So I am a firm believer of dedicated scouts to find those pesky stealthed ships.

From everything I have seen in this game, keeping ships tightly focused does tend to work better.  The only exception is if you plan on having a particular class out on extended patrols without backup.  In that case they need to have a better sensor set so they don't run into trouble that they didn't even see.  For actual fleet operations having a couple of scouts which have turned in thier offensive weapons for really big sensor arrays works wonders.  It allows for the other ships in a fleet to keep thier sensor to a bare minimum needed for weapons control.  This in turn lets you put in more weapons or defences etc.  I will admit that I often equip my biggest ships a little more lavishly in the sensor department than this would indicate, but that is partially so they have some redundant systems as well.

Brian
Posted by: Erik L
« on: January 22, 2009, 04:24:52 PM »

Quote from: "Brian"
I have played around with cloaking tech.  Even a basic level of reduction does wonders for making it possible to get in close.  This is because it changes the radar cross-section of the unit it is mounted on.  The most basic level of cloak reduces the cross-section by 3/4.  If someone actually has the points to reasearch this line then it will probably be more like 85% reduction.  That takes a 100hs ship down to a cross-section of 15.  I don't know about you but unless I know there is a threat at that size my long range radars tend to be at the 18-20hs size.  The drawback is that unless you have a huge amount of reasearch to put in to the size multiplier, the cloak will eat up an incredible portion of your tonnage.  For starters think of it as a fairly early generation jump dirve to get an idea.

The nice thing is that it does work fairly well.  Combine it with a slow speed and not having shields up and you are talking about a very hard to detect target.  The down side is that once someone knows about the possibility it is not to hard to retrofit the scouts with a large enough radar to still spot you at a good distance for missiles.  It will be very obvious however what you are doing.

Hope that helps you

Brian

A good reason for dedicated ship types.

Back in the day, playing MOO2 with my roommate, he could never understand why my fleets beat his. He went for the "Enterprise" design, one ship does it all. I went for a "naval" design with dedicated carriers, escorts and scouts. He couldn't understand why or how my smaller ships were defeating his larger ones. The only time this broke down was when the fleets consisted of the death star ships.

So I am a firm believer of dedicated scouts to find those pesky stealthed ships.
Posted by: Brian Neumann
« on: January 22, 2009, 03:55:57 PM »

I have played around with cloaking tech.  Even a basic level of reduction does wonders for making it possible to get in close.  This is because it changes the radar cross-section of the unit it is mounted on.  The most basic level of cloak reduces the cross-section by 3/4.  If someone actually has the points to reasearch this line then it will probably be more like 85% reduction.  That takes a 100hs ship down to a cross-section of 15.  I don't know about you but unless I know there is a threat at that size my long range radars tend to be at the 18-20hs size.  The drawback is that unless you have a huge amount of reasearch to put in to the size multiplier, the cloak will eat up an incredible portion of your tonnage.  For starters think of it as a fairly early generation jump dirve to get an idea.

The nice thing is that it does work fairly well.  Combine it with a slow speed and not having shields up and you are talking about a very hard to detect target.  The down side is that once someone knows about the possibility it is not to hard to retrofit the scouts with a large enough radar to still spot you at a good distance for missiles.  It will be very obvious however what you are doing.

Hope that helps you

Brian
Posted by: Charlie Beeler
« on: January 22, 2009, 03:27:48 PM »

Quote from: "Erik Luken"
Quote from: "Charlie Beeler"
Sorry,  I ment to reference the size 2 counter missile.  

After the early game railguns are no longer effective for missile defense, can't be turret mounted.

I left counter missiles mostly out of my primary reply to jfelten since he was asking if beam only ships had a chance against missile ships.  too that point a mix of laser turrets for ranged area defense and GC turrets for final defense are the best options I've used.  But your correct, for the best layered defense counter missiles are a must.  

After the early game missile races gain a huge advantage since missile speed easily out paces fire control and turret tracking speeds.  At that point the beam races had better at least deployed fast counter missiles so that their ships can wade in close enough to bring the main batteries too bare.  

I haven't done much with thermal reduction and cloaks yet to see if they are a viable option for beam races.  I've done some thermal reduction for fighters with mixed results for ambushes.

The only reason I can see for size 2 missiles are for increased agility. Hmmm, here's a thought.

Combine this as a submunition
Code: [Select]
Missile Size: 2 MSP  (0.1 HS)     Warhead: 1    Armour: 0     Manoeuvre Rating: 82
Speed: 16000 km/s    Endurance: 94 minutes   Range: 90.0m km
Active Sensor Strength: 1.5    Resolution: 1    Maximum Range: 15,000 km    
Cost Per Missile: 4.0833
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 1312%   3k km/s 410%   5k km/s 262.4%   10k km/s 131.2%Into this carrier
Code: [Select]
Missile Size: 12 MSP  (0.6 HS)     Warhead: 0    Armour: 0     Manoeuvre Rating: 10
Speed: 10700 km/s    Endurance: 281 minutes   Range: 180.6m km
Cost Per Missile: 18.4665
Second Stage: AM-Sub1 x4
Second Stage Separation Range: 150000 km
Overall Endurance: 6 hours   Overall Range: 270.6m km
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 107%   3k km/s 30%   5k km/s 21.4%   10k km/s 10.7%Yes, it is size 12. But, you've got a stand-off countermissile range of 270m km. The sub-munitions include an active sensor for tracking at the separation range. Actually, you could probably swap most of the fuel in the submunition to engine.

Layer these with shorter ranged countermissiles, laser batteries for medium area defense and GC for close-in last ditch.

As for the cloak/thermal mask. If you can't see it, you can't shoot at it. That might help a beam armed fleet get within range of the missile boats.

That's an idea to start with.  Like my ad hoc designs, those have issues.   :D
Posted by: Erik L
« on: January 22, 2009, 02:30:07 PM »

Quote from: "Charlie Beeler"
Sorry,  I ment to reference the size 2 counter missile.  

After the early game railguns are no longer effective for missile defense, can't be turret mounted.

I left counter missiles mostly out of my primary reply to jfelten since he was asking if beam only ships had a chance against missile ships.  too that point a mix of laser turrets for ranged area defense and GC turrets for final defense are the best options I've used.  But your correct, for the best layered defense counter missiles are a must.  

After the early game missile races gain a huge advantage since missile speed easily out paces fire control and turret tracking speeds.  At that point the beam races had better at least deployed fast counter missiles so that their ships can wade in close enough to bring the main batteries too bare.  

I haven't done much with thermal reduction and cloaks yet to see if they are a viable option for beam races.  I've done some thermal reduction for fighters with mixed results for ambushes.

The only reason I can see for size 2 missiles are for increased agility. Hmmm, here's a thought.

Combine this as a submunition
Code: [Select]
Missile Size: 2 MSP  (0.1 HS)     Warhead: 1    Armour: 0     Manoeuvre Rating: 82
Speed: 16000 km/s    Endurance: 94 minutes   Range: 90.0m km
Active Sensor Strength: 1.5    Resolution: 1    Maximum Range: 15,000 km    
Cost Per Missile: 4.0833
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 1312%   3k km/s 410%   5k km/s 262.4%   10k km/s 131.2%Into this carrier
Code: [Select]
Missile Size: 12 MSP  (0.6 HS)     Warhead: 0    Armour: 0     Manoeuvre Rating: 10
Speed: 10700 km/s    Endurance: 281 minutes   Range: 180.6m km
Cost Per Missile: 18.4665
Second Stage: AM-Sub1 x4
Second Stage Separation Range: 150000 km
Overall Endurance: 6 hours   Overall Range: 270.6m km
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 107%   3k km/s 30%   5k km/s 21.4%   10k km/s 10.7%Yes, it is size 12. But, you've got a stand-off countermissile range of 270m km. The sub-munitions include an active sensor for tracking at the separation range. Actually, you could probably swap most of the fuel in the submunition to engine.

Layer these with shorter ranged countermissiles, laser batteries for medium area defense and GC for close-in last ditch.

As for the cloak/thermal mask. If you can't see it, you can't shoot at it. That might help a beam armed fleet get within range of the missile boats.
Posted by: Charlie Beeler
« on: January 22, 2009, 01:04:28 PM »

Quote from: "Erik Luken"
Quote from: "Charlie Beeler"
Don't overlook that the above GC turret has 20 shots at a single salvo.  My preference is too not add the extra range to the GC and leave it for final defensive fire.  That laser turret makes a good area defense system.  If the ship(s) are able to force the missiles into a stern chase the lasers could get 2 or more shots at the incoming salvos depending of the ships speed.  As pointed out, active sensors that can see the missiles and a fire control that is up to the job are neccessary or it's just wasted mass.

IMO those missiles are overkill for the defense role.  Single space counter missiles are effective enough for me.  You ussually can't see the incoming missiles far enough out to use all that range.  Unless of course that additional space is needed for enough engine to at least match, if not gain advantage, speed with the incoming.

The size 8 missiles are intended as an example of offensive missiles, not AM :)

20 shots at 50,000 km. Compared to 20 shots at 180,000,000 km.

I agree the GC is very well qualified for last-ditch point blank efforts, but if you want to stop the missiles from ever getting to that, you'll need a longer reach. Lasers, Railguns or countermissiles.

Sorry,  I ment to reference the size 2 counter missile.  

After the early game railguns are no longer effective for missile defense, can't be turret mounted.

I left counter missiles mostly out of my primary reply to jfelten since he was asking if beam only ships had a chance against missile ships.  too that point a mix of laser turrets for ranged area defense and GC turrets for final defense are the best options I've used.  But your correct, for the best layered defense counter missiles are a must.  

After the early game missile races gain a huge advantage since missile speed easily out paces fire control and turret tracking speeds.  At that point the beam races had better at least deployed fast counter missiles so that their ships can wade in close enough to bring the main batteries too bare.  

I haven't done much with thermal reduction and cloaks yet to see if they are a viable option for beam races.  I've done some thermal reduction for fighters with mixed results for ambushes.