Posted by: Ninetails
« on: November 19, 2015, 11:19:24 AM »The problem with early game/min tech missiles is their hit rate. This has an effect of serverely lowering their cost/benifit ratio. For minimum tech it is so bad that it is cheaper to build a huge chunk of armor and engines than to pay for the missiles that could destroy it. This means that sending any ship against early/min tech missiles would be a cost effective counter. This in turn means that in early wars between equavalent empires (say same system spawn), then practically any non-missile ship will be an effective counter to missile ships, and ships with anti-missile systems even more so.
While early missiles are indeed quite bad, that does not mean they are without uses as several of you have mentioned. Cost efficiency is not always a concern (it mostly is a concern when the sides are roughly ballanced), and it can be the only real way to destory targets of higher tech level. This does not necessarily make them a good choice, just the only choice, and you can easily have that your only choice is a bad one.
The point where missiles becomes decent is around TL 3-5 (depending on tech priority), where it becomes possible to design missiles that can have 100% hit chance against equal tech level, while still retaining a sizeable warhead. How early this is considered is dependent on who looks at it though, and what scenario one is playing.
The main reason I suggest not using early game missiles is the cost of oppotunity through cost of deployment. The resources you put into the deployment infrastructure, early missile ships, ordenance factories, the missiles themselves and missile tech would benefit you more if they went into your economy and research, and you just deployed defensive military instead, whos goal is not to defeat the enemy ships, but prevent them from harming you, which at that level can be done effectively with point defense/energy weapon ships. Since the growth in the early game is super-exponential, then getting ahead in the economy/research could easily put you significantly ahead, and after the delay tactics, you would be able to bring out a military far more powerfull than theirs.
It should be noted that I usually have a very heavy research focus in my strategy, which means that even TL 5 ships would be considered as early game ships, which would be outdated by a tech level or 2 before they leave the shipyard, and I typically would first construct a real fleet until around TL 7-8 (for main techs like engines, I prioritice some areas very heavily compared to others).
While early missiles are indeed quite bad, that does not mean they are without uses as several of you have mentioned. Cost efficiency is not always a concern (it mostly is a concern when the sides are roughly ballanced), and it can be the only real way to destory targets of higher tech level. This does not necessarily make them a good choice, just the only choice, and you can easily have that your only choice is a bad one.
The point where missiles becomes decent is around TL 3-5 (depending on tech priority), where it becomes possible to design missiles that can have 100% hit chance against equal tech level, while still retaining a sizeable warhead. How early this is considered is dependent on who looks at it though, and what scenario one is playing.
The main reason I suggest not using early game missiles is the cost of oppotunity through cost of deployment. The resources you put into the deployment infrastructure, early missile ships, ordenance factories, the missiles themselves and missile tech would benefit you more if they went into your economy and research, and you just deployed defensive military instead, whos goal is not to defeat the enemy ships, but prevent them from harming you, which at that level can be done effectively with point defense/energy weapon ships. Since the growth in the early game is super-exponential, then getting ahead in the economy/research could easily put you significantly ahead, and after the delay tactics, you would be able to bring out a military far more powerfull than theirs.
It should be noted that I usually have a very heavy research focus in my strategy, which means that even TL 5 ships would be considered as early game ships, which would be outdated by a tech level or 2 before they leave the shipyard, and I typically would first construct a real fleet until around TL 7-8 (for main techs like engines, I prioritice some areas very heavily compared to others).