Posted by: Paul M
« on: December 07, 2012, 10:35:44 AM »Yes, as far as I can see early game that come automatically.
I'm not saying that. I am only saying that it costs less RP to make a new version of your missile (with less range) than a sensor capable of detecting an inbound missile at the max range of most early model counter missiles.Ah - ok.
My point could be summed up in that a Size 1 missile costs something like 50 RPs to develop while a resolution 1 fire control and/or sensor system costs ~100 RP*antenna_size (more or less) so in the early game you can end up paying say 1000 RP for a size 10 system that has any sort of range. It is cheeper to change the missile then sensor.
Don't forget that the range at which you detect a size 6 or below missile is approximately one ninth of the range of youbres one sensor so in the example you posted whilst you have a sensor range of 500k you won't spot the missile untill a little over 54k. Same applies for the fire control as well.
For the way I approach this it is dependent on a few details.Active grav sensor strength is 10
- Active Grav Sensor strength tech
- EM Sensor sensitivity tech
- Missile Launcher reload rate tech
- Various missile engine tech(basically expected AMM missile speed)
- Expected speed of missiles to intercept
As a rough rule I tend to design systems to allow intercept of missiles with 30 seconds of better before they impact my ship(s).
5k km/s do you mean? It depends on what is shot at you. Consider that at 5000 km/s it will take the missile 100 s to go 0.5 m km so you have lots of time to detect and engage. Your launcher cycles every 30 s so that is 3 rounds off the racks in the time between an inbound missile was detected and it impacts. For 0.8 m km detecton/engagement range it is 160 s or 5 launches.
That seems ok to me. It depends on what is shot at you. If you aren't in a war build your counter missile to stop your own missiles and hope it works against an alien is my advice (largely role playing advice admittedly).
What would be considered a comfortable detection range and engagement range against a size 6 and smaller enemy missile?
If I decrease the missile fuel to .0005 that results in a .8m km range with a 100.8% chance to hit at 5k km.
That would require a .6 size FC and a size 1.6 search sensor to detect max res 1 (HS 50) at that range.
A .8m km detect and fire range seems short to me, as does a 5k km 100+ hit chance range.