Posted by: Charlie Beeler
« on: November 08, 2012, 07:56:16 AM »@Nathan
The longer range of my approach isn't by intent, but more of a function of the reduced precision of the missile engine size. If we still had 4 decimal precision I'd have much short ranged AMM's with slightly faster speeds.
@Bandus
As Nathan points out, offensive missiles have much greater variability. That being said I do have some rough guidelines for starting designs.
These are just starting points but do form a solid foundation for further refinement to personal preference in agility, armor, ECM, onboard sensors.
This last one is more difficult than it sounds. If requires a lot of outside the game program work. Personally I've developed a workbook with worksheets for sensor/fire control design based on available tech and then that drives the range parameters for missile design. With the latest changes to engine design my worksheet for missiles is still in a state of flux with way to much manual manipulation of formulas.
There is one thing I see most people repeating when they post ship and missile designs. That is 1:1 matching missile range with MFC and active sensors. This in my opinion is a mistake, and it is one I used to recommend. The mistake is that means that against ships in a meeting engagement you are giving up a significant amount of the missiles range. With some simple math you can determine at what range you need to detect/target a ship at a given speed to have initial intercept near the maximum range of the missile. this is what I use for determining the spec's for active sensors and MFC's. If I don't know what speeds I'll be facing I use my own (or what I think the next engine tech will provide) to guide the spec's.
On the flipside if you're in a stern chase of an NPR ship the range is actually much lower. It's is still a fairly simple bit of math to determine what that engagement range is.
The longer range of my approach isn't by intent, but more of a function of the reduced precision of the missile engine size. If we still had 4 decimal precision I'd have much short ranged AMM's with slightly faster speeds.
@Bandus
As Nathan points out, offensive missiles have much greater variability. That being said I do have some rough guidelines for starting designs.
- ASM size matching launcher reload rate for a 30sec cycle
- Warhead around 20%-25% of available msp
- Balance engine and fuel function well with active sensors/missile fire control
These are just starting points but do form a solid foundation for further refinement to personal preference in agility, armor, ECM, onboard sensors.
This last one is more difficult than it sounds. If requires a lot of outside the game program work. Personally I've developed a workbook with worksheets for sensor/fire control design based on available tech and then that drives the range parameters for missile design. With the latest changes to engine design my worksheet for missiles is still in a state of flux with way to much manual manipulation of formulas.
There is one thing I see most people repeating when they post ship and missile designs. That is 1:1 matching missile range with MFC and active sensors. This in my opinion is a mistake, and it is one I used to recommend. The mistake is that means that against ships in a meeting engagement you are giving up a significant amount of the missiles range. With some simple math you can determine at what range you need to detect/target a ship at a given speed to have initial intercept near the maximum range of the missile. this is what I use for determining the spec's for active sensors and MFC's. If I don't know what speeds I'll be facing I use my own (or what I think the next engine tech will provide) to guide the spec's.
On the flipside if you're in a stern chase of an NPR ship the range is actually much lower. It's is still a fairly simple bit of math to determine what that engagement range is.