To be honest, I'm a little concerned about this....
It appears that you have based your calculations based on combat that would happen today - which would tend to bias the mechanism in favour of missiles (as that is the best weapon system at the moment - exactly the same that guns were the best 100 years ago, and aircraft were the best 60 years ago).
The calculations for new missile ranges were based on internal consistency within the game rather than trying to match modern combat. This resulted in something similar to today, probably because reality is internally consistent too, but that wasn't the initial goal
But that's my point - that the missiles are similar to what they are
today, rather than 20 or even 50 years ago (when missiles first appeared as viable weapons).
And my point still stands - that missiles are
THE dominant weapon today. With the Aurora missiles being similar to missiles today, it means that it is
likely that missiles will also be the dominant weapon in Aurora.....
For example, using the changes above (100 times range, double damage), the balance of the game has been dramatically changed in favour of missiles.
You are missing the factor that started these changes. Missiles have also been made 4x larger than before which means ships can only carry 25% of their previous load.
While missiles are 4 times the size, this will only affect the total number of missiles carried by a ship (as well as reducing the number of launchers).
When you consider the range of the missiles verse the range of the beam weapons, a ship with a
single launcher (and large enough magazine space) will be able to defeat
any beam weapon (as long as the magazine is sufficient) - as no missile defense is going to be 100% missile proof.
While the missiles may be easier to detect, a majority of anti-missile beam weapons are only going to get one shot against the missiles (due to the relative short range of the beam weapons c.f. to the speed of the missile) - which means for game balance, you might want to look at chenging the anti-missile ability of beam weapons to "even out" the increase in missile ability....
Although the new missiles are a little faster than before, there are some compensations in v2.6. Firstly, missiles are larger and more expensive so you will generally be faced with far fewer of them overall, although you may find larger single salvos. As they are much longer ranged, you will have more time to shoot at them if you can detect them and because of the new zero resolution rule for active sensors, you will be able to detect missiles at greater ranges. If you use the Fleet window to set up formations, that will make a significant difference because you can place anti-missile ships along the threat axis. The changes should make anti-missiles more effective too, especially as you will be able to create effective size 1 missiles and use size 1 launchers. Finally, gauss cannon appear in v2.6, which are more effective than lasers at engaging missiles.
While you can detect the missiles at a longer range, also consider what this will mean to the stealth systems - the same detection system will also detect any stealthed beam-armed ship long before it enters beam range.
Also, the fact that gauss cannon are the best anti-missile weapon, means that in addition to missiles being the dominant weapon system (and so always developed), gauss cannons will also always be the
second dominant weapon system (and so also developed) due to its superior anti-missile capability.....
At the moment (without seeing any results of the combat), it
seems similar to the CM in R3rd ed Starfire, once
someone deploys it, it forces
everyone else to use it as well......
The first combat will be happening in my new campaign soon so we will see how the new missiles work out. I imagine they will do well at first and then we will see what I can come up with as countermeasures in terms of design and tactics. I have a few ideas in mind.
Steve
I look forward to seeing the results!