Aurora 4x

VB6 Aurora => Advanced Tactical Command Academy => Topic started by: jseah on May 22, 2012, 04:48:12 AM

Title: Debriefing Report: The Battle of Kagoshima: On the use of two-stage missiles
Post by: jseah on May 22, 2012, 04:48:12 AM

The entirety of this report is carried out in v5.60

OOC:
Since I went and screwed up my Japanese themed game by making all the civilians refuse to ship infrastructure, I went ahead and used it to SM in a fleet to swat the pesky spoilers (or so I think they are) three systems down-chain in order to a test a new missile design. After three disastrous tries, I gave up and SMed myself two additional TLs as I couldn't force an engagment with only Magneto-Plasma engines. This post-2TL buff brought my tech roughly in line with theirs and the following account is based on that engagement.

The design in question is this:
Offensive missiles are essentially 2-stage missiles. The actual warhead is a short range, high speed missile designed to evade PD. The bus just gets it there. Only 1 missile per bus.

What follows is a hypothetical report from the returning admiral commanding Alpha Fleet.
Go to the bottom for the lessons learnt part (which is the important part!) =)

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Relevant Technologies Report:
Magnetic Confinement Drives
Fuel Efficiency 0.5
Power Efficiency -30%
Missile Warhead 6
Missile Engine 5
Missile Agility 64
Launcher Reload 6
Launcher Size Reduction 25%
Active Sensor Strength 28
EM Sensitivity 14

Saya, Size 5 ASM
Missile Size: 5 MSP (0.25 HS) Warhead: 0 Armour: 0 Manoeuvre Rating: 10 Speed: 20000 km/s Endurance: 60 minutes Range: 72.0m km Cost Per Missile: 6.4152 Second Stage: Wakizashi, Size 3 ASM x1 Second Stage Separation Range: 10,000,000 km Overall Endurance: 1 hours Overall Range: 84.2m km

Wakizashi, Size 3 ASM
Missile Size: 3 MSP (0.15 HS) Warhead: 3 Armour: 0 Manoeuvre Rating: 10 Speed: 80000 km/s Endurance: 3 minutes Range: 12.2m km Cost Per Missile: 4.7485 Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 800% 3k km/s 260% 5k km/s 160% 10k km/s 80%

Tanto, Size 1 AMM
Missile Size: 1 MSP (0.05 HS) Warhead: 1 Armour: 0 Manoeuvre Rating: 32 Speed: 47800 km/s Endurance: 2 minutes Range: 7.0m km Cost Per Missile: 1.5963 Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 1529.6% 3k km/s 480% 5k km/s 305.9% 10k km/s 153%

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Kirishima class Scout Frigate 6,000 tons 517 Crew 2500.7 BP TCS 120 TH 431 EM 0
7183 km/s Armour 8-29 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 7 PPV 0
Maint Life 3.06 Years MSP 1823 AFR 41% IFR 0.6% 1YR 293 5YR 4388 Max Repair 1400 MSP

Magnetic Confinement Fusion Drive E6.5 (6) Power 143.75 Fuel Use 65% Signature 71.875 Armour 0 Exp 12%
Fuel Capacity 515,000 Litres Range 237.7 billion km (382 days at full power)

Active Search Sensor MR196-R1 (1) GPS 1400 Range 196.0m km Resolution 1

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Kuma class Missile Frigate 6,000 tons 471 Crew 1714.3 BP TCS 120 TH 431 EM 0
7183 km/s Armour 4-29 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 12 PPV 26.5
Maint Life 2.05 Years MSP 357 AFR 144% IFR 2% 1YR 113 5YR 1693 Max Repair 168 MSP
Magazine 480

Magnetic Confinement Fusion Drive E6.5 (6) Power 143.75 Fuel Use 65% Signature 71.875 Armour 0 Exp 12%
Fuel Capacity 250,000 Litres Range 115.4 billion km (185 days at full power)

Size 5 Missile Launcher (33% Reduction) (10) Missile Size 5 Rate of Fire 500
Size 1 Missile Launcher (10) Missile Size 1 Rate of Fire 5
Missile Fire Control FC210-R20 (1) Range 210.4m km Resolution 20
Missile Fire Control FC70-R1 (2) Range 70.6m km Resolution 1
Tanto, Size 1 AMM (280) Speed: 47,800 km/s End: 2.4m Range: 7m km WH: 1 Size: 1 TH: 510 / 306 / 153
Saya, Size 5 ASM (40) Speed: 20,000 km/s End: 60m Range: 82m km WH: 0 Size: 5 TH: 66 / 40 / 20

Missile to hit chances are vs targets moving at 3000 km/s, 5000 km/s and 10,000 km/s

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Kagero class Scout Frigate 7,000 tons 663 Crew 2666.2 BP TCS 140 TH 503 EM 0
7185 km/s JR 3-50 Armour 5-32 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 7 PPV 0
Maint Life 2.6 Years MSP 1666 AFR 56% IFR 0.8% 1YR 347 5YR 5202 Max Repair 1400 MSP

J7000(3-50) Military Jump Drive Max Ship Size 7000 tons Distance 50k km Squadron Size 3
Magnetic Confinement Fusion Drive E6.5 (7) Power 143.75 Fuel Use 65% Signature 71.875 Armour 0 Exp 12%
Fuel Capacity 120,000 Litres Range 47.5 billion km (76 days at full power)

Active Search Sensor MR876-R20 (1) GPS 28000 Range 876.5m km Resolution 20

Order of Battle:

Empire of the Rising Sun	vs	Kagoshima Aliens
1x Kagero, 7ktons		6x Gwangmyeong, 1kton
1x Kirishima, 6ktons		1x Namwon, 12.2ktons
8x Kuma, 6ktons		1x Chungmugong, 12.2ktons
		1x Iri, 6.1ktons
		5x Jinju, 6.05ktons
		3x Busan, 6.1ktons
		1x Ganggyeong, 6.1ktons

Relative Strength: 61ktons vs 91.15ktons
Relative Fleet Speed: 7183 km/s vs 6550 - 6600km/s (10 kkm/s for Gwangmyeong)

Casualties:
6x Gwangmyeong
1x Namwon
1x Iri

Overall Result:
Withdrawal amounting to Tactical Defeat; Strategic Victory

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Battle Account:
After jumping into the system, the wreck of the Taiho class survey vessel was scanned by the active sensor of the Kagero and the Busan, Jinju and Ganggyeong classes were uncovered. As we proceeded to clear the honour of the Empire, all enemy contacts immediately turned to engage.

Over the next few hours, a task force of the Gwangmyeongs were spotted incoming as well as a task force containing the Iri, Namwon and Chungmugong. These were not involved in the initial battle.

In order to assess the capabilities of the enemy, we waited for their missiles to arrive. (OOC: I actually screwed up here and forgot to set the separation distance to 10 mkm, a salvo of Sayas were actually launched but I deleted them before they arrived) As they passed the 70 million kilometer range of the AMM firecontrols, we began to detect the first missiles incoming.
They used a size 4 missile barrage with 20 seconds between salvoes of 5, one salvo per ship, with a speed of ~45 kkm/s, evidently using full sized launching mechanisms. We countered with a 3v1 AMM point defence at a range of 7mkm; scoring an effective 30% hit rate. Only one missile made it through our defences and struck with a strength 6 warhead on Kuma 001.
After the long barrage, our AMM stockpiles were half depleted. As the aggressors turned to flee, we fired one salvo of 10 at each of the Busans, two salvoes at the Ganggyeong and 1 salvo each at three Jinjus.

At this point, we discovered a major flaw of the missile doctrine. Although the enemy was theoretically within the maximum range of the Saya, as the enemy retreated directly away from us, the Saya ran of endurance after only covering 2/3 of the distance! A quick calculation showed that at the enemy's speed, the Saya would only close an effective distance of 48 million kilometers before launching the Wakizashi. I ordered the fleet to close to 40 million km and a long stern chase began.

During this time, the Gwangmyeong approached clockwise on the plane of rotation and from the inner planets. While they were in range of the Saya, we decided not to risk losing another salvo of which only 3 remained. We detected three incoming salvoes of 11 of the same size 4 missile but they were all intercepted by the Tanto.
As the Gwangmyeong continued to approach, they closed to within 30 million kilometers and the risk of their closing to use energy weapons was deemed too high and 1 salvo of 10 Sayas were targeted at each of the Gwangmyeongs. The separation of the Wakizashi was recorded at the 10 million distance mark and achieved an 88% hit rate without any being shot down by point defence fire. Whether the Gwangmyeong class possessed any point defence is unknown but my personal opinion is that they did not. All the Gwangmyeongs were destroyed by their salvo.

As the stern chase continued and the range to the Busans dropped to 60 million km, the Iri, Namwon and Ganggyeong crossed the maximum range of the Saya. At this point, I concluded they were about to begin launching missiles at the fleet. Since they would have to remain within range to guide their missiles to us, and their demonstrated missile range was roughly comparable to the Saya, there was then a very good chance the Saya would have the opportunity to reach them.

Two salvoes of Sayas were launched at the Namwon and Ganggyeong each, one at the Iri. As the Saya passed 35 million km, we detected an incoming stream of size 4 missiles of virtually the same composition as we had just survived from the Busan. All of these missiles were also shot down by the Tanto. At this point, the number of Tantos remaining were around 20% of the fleet's maximum complement.

The Saya closed and launched the Wakizashi at the appropriate range, all of which proceeded to hit their targets, achieving a theoretical hit rate of 132%. Of these missiles, the Namwon shot down 2, the Iri shot down 1 and the Ganggyeong shot down 1. The enemy did not show any significant damage from the Sayas.
At this point, I concluded that the fleet did not have enough firepower to destroy all enemy ships. Thus, I ordered the fleet to return to the Tokyo jumppoint and retreat.
Despite the risk of allowing the enemy to know more about our capabilities, I allowed the warhead-less Saya missile buses to close with the enemy ships. Ten were shot down by the Namwon and Ganggyeong each, 4 by the Iri, giving a good indication of their point defence fire strength. Evidently, the Wakizashi's extreme speed greatly hindered their efforts to shoot them down.

Despite having used all their missiles, the Iri and the Namwon continued to close while the Ganggyeong retreated along the same path leading in-system as the Busans. I ordered the remaining two and half salvoes to be fired on Iri and Namwon, dividing equally among them, hoping to damage their engines and prevent them from tracing us back to our jumppoint.
Their strength was obviously overestimated as the first incoming launch of 40 Sayas each destroyed the Iri and halted the Namwon. The second launch of 40 destroyed the Namwon and effectively, 3/4s of a full launch of Sayas were wasted. Perhaps the Ganggyeong might have been destroyed by these, but there was no way find out.

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Lessons Learnt:

At 50% tonnage in AMM launchers/magazines, against similar tech opponents who are 100% offensive ASM armed, standard launchers cannot get through at any effective rate.
Given the weight of the AMM launch, there is practically no way to saturate the same defences, either by reduced size launchers for the same tonnage. Not even box launchers if you add parasite tonnage to the mothership's (discounting hangars severely due to low cost).
- This was actually the reason why I was trying this design out. My estimates on theoretical interception rates indicated that my own reduced size launcher fleet would get missiles through a 3v1 defence at a pathetic rate of 1 in 300 or so. Non-reduced launchers can't fire fast enough to swamp AMM launchers either...
- Furthermore, the same ASMs getting shot down take up more space in magazines and launchers and each costs more to build than the AMMs! You lose, both tactically and economically.
While the enemy presented zero AMM capability in this scenario, I suspect the abominably low hit rate AMMs would have vs missiles going twice their speed might let you leak some through.

The drawbacks are many, however. While you can evade PD very well, you can't do much damage. Your warheads are inherently limited by small size of your final stage (unless you fancy huge missile buses). So you'll sandpaper. Alot.
Furthermore, there is always the risk that your enemy AMM outranges your final stage! And THEN, the fun starts... =D

Slow missile buses are a problem. Normal missiles move fast enough that enemy movement isn't much of a factor. Problem being, I couldn't find a simple way to increase the effective range vs a running enemy beyond what I had (1 MSP engine, 1 fuel). More engine = faster = less penalty due to enemy speed, but your fuel range is highly limited. More fuel = longer range, but lower speed means that range increases gets eaten up by the penalty due to an even lower speed difference with the enemy.
Obviously, you see me use some basic tactics here. If your missile bus range is roughly the same as enemy ASMs, you can simply launch at them as they approach to launch their missiles. If they want to hit, they have to stick around. And if your range is slightly longer than theirs, by the time they get around to running from out-of-ammo, it's too late, your buses'll get to launch.
And also obviously, if you are being chased around, then your effective range goes UP ALOT. In the above scenario, if the chase was in reverse, my missiles would have effectively a 96 mkm range!

All-in-all, the missile bus design presents some very interesting strategic and tactical decisions. It certainly makes positioning and movement matter much more than they normally would in Aurora.
The payoffs in getting something through thick PD, massed saturation fire, and the potential for drawing enemies into a trap where you suddenly outrange them *massively*... (not to mention keeping your actual range much harder to determine since it varies so much in practice) You can punch through superspoiler level of PD with not much more Internal Confinement if my estimates are correct.

... the potential payoffs are huge indeed. And essentially energy point defence may as well not exist since they'll not be getting much more than 10% hit rate at equivalent tech.
And yet, the potential for ginormous screw ups also exist. If your enemy guesses when you launch and turns tail, you'll find your range advantage evaporating. And if you actually launched... then you may find your missiles evapourating too...

So, tl;dr, possibly feasible, potential for large advantage balanced by potential for large disadvantage.

EDIT:
Another advantage is in having a short range ASM designed and ready to use. A box launcher salvo of the Wakizashis in a warppoint defence or assault would be devastating.

And the best advantage of all... it's more fun to play! The tactical space for using 2-stage missiles is bigger and more varied than normal missiles. An alien watching two fleets armed with these going at each other might be forgiven for thinking it was some kind of ritual dance... XD

Title: Re: Debriefing Report: The Battle of Kagoshima: On the use of two-stage missiles
Post by: TheDeadlyShoe on May 22, 2012, 06:31:54 AM

an interesting experiment. Personally, I'm not willing to accept that warhead size. While punching through contemporary levels of anti-missile defences can range from difficult to purely attritional, regular missiles seem cheaper than buses. And there are lots of applications for firepower that don't involve punching through contemporary antimissile fire.

If you're purely concerned with optimizing against antimissile fire - you can use size 1 - 1.5 second stages to maximize numbers. This maximizes sandpapering, but it's impossible for AMMs to defeat AMM-sized missiles efficiently. You can do this with one stage missiles too but its kind of exploitive imo. Heh.

I prefer single missile second stages, myself. It seems more elegant.

Title: Re: Debriefing Report: The Battle of Kagoshima: On the use of two-stage missiles
Post by: jseah on May 22, 2012, 07:45:24 AM

Yeah, there are a number of parameters I was thinking of tweaking. For one thing, the initial design was actually going to mount an agility-for-speed AMM missile inside a size 2 bus. But I didn't want to change too many variables too fast so I stuck to something that might be a smallish ASM, if not for the experimental modifications.

Obviously, there were many things I could have done better. This experiment will help inform that.

The only thing I feel I ought to mention in its defence is that this design can afford a size 4 warhead right now, at the trade off for speed. And definitely by next TL. Size 4 is start of non-sandpapering.
Missile Size: 3 MSP (0.15 HS) Warhead: 4 Armour: 0 Manoeuvre Rating: 10 Speed: 75000 km/s Endurance: 2 minutes Range: 10.1m km Cost Per Missile: 4.7483 Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 750% 3k km/s 250% 5k km/s 150% 10k km/s 75%

Another thing to try would be to use size 4 missiles and size 6 buses (the biggest you get before detection ranges go up)
Missile Size: 4 MSP (0.2 HS) Warhead: 4 Armour: 0 Manoeuvre Rating: 10 Speed: 80500 km/s Endurance: 2 minutes Range: 10.3m km Cost Per Missile: 6.3643 Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 805% 3k km/s 260% 5k km/s 161% 10k km/s 80.5%
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Missile Size: 6 MSP (0.3 HS) Warhead: 0 Armour: 0 Manoeuvre Rating: 10 Speed: 16700 km/s Endurance: 60 minutes Range: 60.1m km Cost Per Missile: 8.031 Second Stage: Size 4 Anti-ship Missile x1 Second Stage Separation Range: 9,500,000 km Overall Endurance: 1 hours Overall Range: 70.4m km

But it's hard to say. The bus is even slower here so there's that to consider.

Of course, if you really didn't mind launcher size, then you could do this size 10 drone:
Missile Size: 10 MSP (0.5 HS) Warhead: 0 Armour: 0 Manoeuvre Rating: 5 Speed: 40000 km/s Endurance: 150 minutes Range: 360.0m km Cost Per Missile: 12.906 Second Stage: Size 4 Anti-ship Missile x1 Second Stage Separation Range: 9,500,000 km Overall Endurance: 3 hours Overall Range: 370.2m km
Which obviously does not have to launch a sprint ASM. It could very well launch a cluster of size 1s or a pair of size 2s.

Title: Re: Debriefing Report: The Battle of Kagoshima: On the use of two-stage missiles
Post by: Theokrat on May 22, 2012, 10:04:23 AM

Big missiles are overrated. Go as small as you can. Certainly never use a size 3 warhead - it's even worse than 3 size one warheads. A size 3 warhead will only ever cause layer-1 damage, while there is a finite chance that two out of three successive size-1 explosions hit the same spot, causing level 2 damage.

But primarily: One small missiles is just as difficult to hit as one large missiles - and the number of missiles you can put into the enemies AMM zone goes with the inverse square(!) of the missile size, as smaller launchers are smaller (more on the ship), and fire more frequently (higher rate of fire).

Consider the following missile example, with the same technology you posted, and with the same effective range against the fleeing 6,666km/s enemy:

Code: [Select]

Missile Size: 1 MSP  (0.05 HS)     Warhead: 1    Armour: 0     Manoeuvre Rating: 11
Speed: 76200 km/s    Endurance: 14 minutes   Range: 55m km
Cost Per Missile: ???
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 750%   3k km/s 250%   5k km/s 148%   10k km/s 74%

Now the Kuma-class could carry 33 additional standard-sized size-1 launchers instead of the 10 size-5(33% reduction) launchers. These size-1 launchers would have a rof of 5s, i.e. they could launch 100 salvos in the time it takes the current Kuma's to launch a single one. Moreover you could actually use all launchers in both, an offensive and defensive role, as fits the situation best. For example: you could use all 43 launchers to launch, say 6 salvos each, which takes just 30s and puts nearly 260 missiles in space. Then switch all launchers to defensive fire for 43 defensive tubes.

While the advantage of this clearly lies in overcoming dense AMM fire, the beauty is that it actually sacrifices very little in terms of other capabilities. I.e. you can launch an alpha strike of just the same size in terms of total warhead as with big missiles (or an even larger alpha strike with the additional PD tubes).

Also note that its frequently sensible to bring ASMs up to agility 11. Due to the rounding the "first" agility point (from 10 to 11) is only half as costly as the subsequent ones in terms of missile size, while increasing the hitchances by a considerable 10%.

Title: Re: Debriefing Report: The Battle of Kagoshima: On the use of two-stage missiles
Post by: jseah on May 22, 2012, 06:32:34 PM

Missile Size: 1 MSP (0.05 HS) Warhead: 1 Armour: 0 Manoeuvre Rating: 10 Speed: 68000 km/s Endurance: 14 minutes Range: 55.4m km Cost Per Missile: 1.3828 Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 680% 3k km/s 220% 5k km/s 136% 10k km/s 68%
This was the best I could do to replicate that so your speed is slightly higher than mine. Perhaps fuel efficiency?

In any case, I see your point.

Then again, there is this:
Missile Size: 1 MSP (0.05 HS) Warhead: 1 Armour: 0 Manoeuvre Rating: 28 Speed: 40700 km/s Endurance: 23 minutes Range: 55.1m km Cost Per Missile: 1.3778 Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 1139.6% 3k km/s 364% 5k km/s 227.9% 10k km/s 114%
Essentially, this is a 55 million km range AMM. With a 28% hit chance vs itself, and 14% vs the speedy missile, you can massively simplify your logistics by having a dual role missile, thus all your ships become completely offensive and defensive at the same time.

The only problem I see with using tiny missiles is that making them go very far can cost you alot in fuel MSP. The two-stage design scales better as tech increases, both in range and in armour penetration. Like I mentioned, I could get WH4 on the Wakizashi if I was willing to sacrifice 5000km/s.

The danger with tiny missiles is that simply by increasing their engine % on ships, enemies who outrange you with bigger missiles now also outrun you. Normally, this spells the end for a fleet, but the two-stage missile can turn a speed disadvantage into a significant range advantage if you can bait them into chasing you.

I basically think that this two-stage design is a mid-tech design (starting around Internal Confinement) that does particularly well against higher or equal tech enemies, while is inefficient against lower tech.

Title: Re: Debriefing Report: The Battle of Kagoshima: On the use of two-stage missiles
Post by: Arwyn on May 22, 2012, 08:54:25 PM

Interesting read up. I have done this exact thing before, with similar results.

I built my two-stage/booster missiles in the current game to beat the AMM/sandpaper issue. I was getting shredded by a horde of Precursors armed with massive AMM salvos. I couldnt close (sandpapered by AMM fire) and if I slugged it out, I couldnt get past their AMM's, while the showered me with ASM's that outranged and out damaged me.

With boosters, I was slinging missiles from outside their engagement range and pounding the daylights out of their missile boats. AMM boats were still a pain in the posterior to get rid of, but did it eventually.

In my previous game, there was a VERY annoying NPR who was fielding massive salvoes of smaller ASM's, and it was really killing me. My missile tech was slightly inferior and he was firing at almost identical ranges, but with MUCH larger salvos. Solution was to stay outside his range and cram lob 2-stagers with hyperfast final stages at him. Once I started that, I slaughtered his ships.

I like the two stage designs because it gives you flexibility. The major downsides to 2 stage designs is there is basically a real requirement to have good sensor tech to take advantage of the range they give you. Secondly, its blood expensive from a logistics standpoint to maintain multiple missile designs. If you make these designs your Imperial Standard Missile, you give up hitting power.

That being said, my PDC's almost all exclusivly use 2-stage missile designs now, either boosted single warheads for range/speed, or saturation MIRV designs. The cost/benefit for PDC based systems, especially with reload times, is hard to ignore.

Title: Re: Debriefing Report: The Battle of Kagoshima: On the use of two-stage missiles
Post by: Theokrat on May 23, 2012, 04:23:26 AM

Quote from: jseah on May 22, 2012, 06:32:34 PM

This was the best I could do to replicate that so your speed is slightly higher than mine. Perhaps fuel efficiency?

Uhm, sorry about that. I dry-run designs through my personal excel, so sometimes my designs are slightly off (and I cant calculate missiles costs). Anyway I cant even replicate my own design with the posted stats, so my guess is I forgot to change a technology parameter. My bad really. Sorry.

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The only problem I see with using tiny missiles is that making them go very far can cost you alot in fuel MSP. The two-stage design scales better as tech increases, both in range and in armour penetration. Like I mentioned, I could get WH4 on the Wakizashi if I was willing to sacrifice 5000km/s.

Let's keep two things apart: Overall size, and two-stage missiles. Of course two-stagers are generally larger, but even for these there is the question on how large one should make them exactly.

Range is a valid concern and two-stage designs are a good way to increase it. Basically the trade-off of two stage designs is that you can increase the range at the cost of speed because you can use a smaller engine compartment (and more fuel). The drawback is that on the one hand marginal returns are quickly diminishing against a fleeing enemy (because the speed differential matters, as you saw). On the other hand, your missiles arrive later at the enemy. Since non-sensor missiles are only operational when the launching spaceship is still around this creates a certain weakness: If you encounter an enemy with a similar range, but faster missiles (say at the costs of a smaller warhead) his missiles will arrive before yours. Some of your ships might die, and the missiles launched by them just vanish- meaning your enemy can potentially project much more force on you than vice versa (despite smaller warheads!).

But, more on my point: Missile size is not a criterion for range (or fuel efficiency, as you put it). Take any given missile and double the size of all components (including any second stage) and you get a missile with just the same range, just the same speed, and just the same maneuver rating. The only difference is the warhead, and the costs. One large missile has the same costs and total warhead as two half-sized missiles, but the damage profile caused by the warhead is different. So you can see that missile size is a trade-off between only two things: Damage profile (usually in favour of large missiles) vs. number of missiles (in favour of more smaller missiles, which are more difficult to intercept). Note that "range" does not enter this consideration.

And thus follows my point: A 3-warhead already has the worst possible damage profile (as I pointed out, even slightly worse than 3 size-1 warheads). If the damage profile is not an argument against downsizing, then nothing is. So downsize and you have better design for sure! And here is how I should have put this to begin with: Divide your original design by three. I.e. use a tiny "Sho-Wakizashi" of size 1, and have the Saya load three of these. Presto, a better design jsut by decreasing the size, which we knew we should do because of the weird original damage profile. Of course this is just a single dominating relation, so it only tells you one way to make a design better but does not tell you whether its the best design overall. In particular one might want to use different proportions of the total size in the various components, but that is a different discussion.

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The danger with tiny missiles is that simply by increasing their engine % on ships, enemies who outrange you with bigger missiles now also outrun you. Normally, this spells the end for a fleet, but the two-stage missile can turn a speed disadvantage into a significant range advantage if you can bait them into chasing you.

Actually, multi-stage missiles are much more sensitive towards the speed of the enemy. You witnessed that when the enemy disengaged and your missiles could not close the distance quickly enough before they ran out of fuel. Suppose your enemy increases its engines, and gets to a speed of 7,500 instead of 6,666. The multi-stage missiles have an effective range of circa 45m km, instead of 48m km (-6%), while the one-stage design has 49.3 instead of 50 (-1%). Even more pronounced against an enemy running 10k km/s: Multi-stagers loose 25%, single-stage design only 5%. Of course this only applies to chase-battles where the other guy is running, but of course that is a valid tactical option for him.

But I would actually say this point is not too important, simply because ships take much much longer to built than missiles. So game-theoretically its fair to say that missiles can be designed to engage a certain ship, but not the other way round. Put differently: The missile-designer has the second move and can react to encountered ship designs (quickly), while the ship-designer can only react to a missile with great delay. A ship designed to engage a certain missile can become quickly obsolete by a new missile. Well, if the enemy was clever enough that is (which the AI is really not).

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I basically think that this two-stage design is a mid-tech design (starting around Internal Confinement) that does particularly well against higher or equal tech enemies, while is inefficient against lower tech.

I agree that two-stage designs can be very valuable, but I maintain that tiny two-stage designs are preferable to large ones ;-)

Title: Re: Debriefing Report: The Battle of Kagoshima: On the use of two-stage missiles
Post by: TheDeadlyShoe on May 23, 2012, 06:26:28 AM

I prefer the drone-type design myself. Unfortunately there doesnt really seem to be a cost advantage to the drone engine.

Naturally the drone/regular dichotomy goes out the window once 5.7 comes out.

***

Tiny missiles are pretty much broken so far as game mechanics go. They are both drastically harder to intercept and fire at a far higher rate; the only downside is sandpapering. Well, you can't really put active sensors on a tiny missile, but other than that... missile ecm and missile armor are both kind of bad.

Title: Re: Debriefing Report: The Battle of Kagoshima: On the use of two-stage missiles
Post by: jseah on May 23, 2012, 06:45:45 AM

I did mention, however, that the Wakizashi could manage Warhead 4. Which does crater a bit. I understand your point about size 3s, but if the Wakizashi carried a strength-4? How would that change your analysis?

Especially as tech levels climb. Once you're into magnetic and inertial confinement, missile warhead strength starts to climb even for size 3s.

Additionally, the range penalty vs fleeing ships is not that severe a penalty. Fleeing ships generally mean they're running away. (unless it's a bluff!) And ships closing to attack you with shorter ranged missiles will suffer a withering bombardment from far more range than is feasible for 1-stage missiles.

Still, it might be feasible to make two versions of the Saya. One carries a strength-4 Wakizashi, the other carries 3x strength-1 Sho-Wakizashi. Fire the Sho- ones first to soak AMMs galore, and to test missile defence, then fire the ship-killers.

Title: Re: Debriefing Report: The Battle of Kagoshima: On the use of two-stage missiles
Post by: Theokrat on May 23, 2012, 09:41:52 AM

Quote from: jseah on May 23, 2012, 06:45:45 AM

I did mention, however, that the Wakizashi could manage Warhead 4. Which does crater a bit. I understand your point about size 3s, but if the Wakizashi carried a strength-4? How would that change your analysis?

Yes you did mention that, and I do not mean to discount that. I was solely exploiting your initial post to show that there is an easy rule to check if a missile is optimally designed in one aspect.

Generally the analysis becomes either much more difficult, or necessities an arbitrary assessment. The thing is that missile size is a trade-off between damage profile and the number of missiles. Or put differently, between the ability to overcome passive (armour) or active (AMM, beam –PD) defences.

The later is relatively easy to asses with only one assumption. Assume the enemy can shoot down Y of your missiles per minute, and you launch Z missiles per minute. Then X=Z-Y missiles will get through. Quite simple, really. (Ok, one should make a small distinction between final fire and AMM, and take some final-sample effects into account, but all this can be done and it does not really change much)

However, how much better is one size-4 warhead, compared to four size-1 warheads? I find this extremely hard to answer. All four size-1 warheads could strike the same spot, potentially causing more internal damage than the size-4 warhead. On the other hand the size-4 wh is guaranteed to cause second-layer damage with the first hit. But that may or may not be internal damage. So in short I have no good statistical model on how to assess the “value” of various damage profiles (which is why I happily jumped on your initial size-3 wh, because that one is easy to evaluate ;-) ).

Well, if you have no idea of how something works, just make something up. So how I handle this for the moment is arbitrarily assigning relative values the various layers of damage. Say layer-3 damage scores 1 “point”, layer-2 damage scores 0.33 “points”, layer-1 damage scores 0.11 points. Then nine size-1 warheads would score 0.99 points, while one size-9 warhead would score 5*0.11+3*0.33+1 =2.55 “points”. As I said, arbitrary, but works to gain some insights.
Assume we can launch a number of missiles with a total of 72 warhead. What missile size should we use? 72 Size-1 missiles, 18 Size-4 missiles, 12 Size-6 missiles or 8 Size-9 missiles? Let’s plot a graph of the amount of damage (weighted according to above) that gets through the enemy’s active defences.

(http://s15.postimage.org/45tndrbu3/image.jpg)

The result is not really surprising: If the enemy cannot shoot down a lot of missiles (left part of the graph), large missiles are superior because they cause deeper damage. If the enemy can shoot down more missiles, then smaller missiles become preferable, because a smaller proportion is lost.

But what shall we make of this then? Well firstly one can note that small active enemy defences usually mean a “win” anyway. So the large missiles tend to make a good situation better, but things quickly start to go downhill against more serious opposition. Conversely, the smallest missile is nearly flat. To me the smaller one looks much better. It’s nice to make a turkey shot easier, but what really counts is battles occurring against serious enemies. The only exception to this is when small opposition might be encountered and magazine space is really a critical concern. Spells “scout ship”, doesn’t it?

Secondly, one can see a finer point in the comparison between the size-4 and size-6 missiles. Note that the size-6 is only better in a very very narrow band (and not much better even then), while the size-4 is better over a much larger range of the plot. Moreover, the size-6 does not compare well with the size-9 or size-1 – at any position its worse than one of these. So in short: Size-6 warheads are really not a great idea. Ever. Which is because of their awkward damage profile, which in turn results from 6 not being a square number. So lesson to take away: Use warheads that are a square number.

Quote from: jseah on May 23, 2012, 06:45:45 AM

Still, it might be feasible to make two versions of the Saya. One carries a strength-4 Wakizashi, the other carries 3x strength-1 Sho-Wakizashi. Fire the Sho- ones first to soak AMMs galore, and to test missile defence, then fire the ship-killers.

Personally, I would actually put a much larger proportion of the missile towards the warhead. In a two-stage design this could mean the following:

Code: [Select]

Yumi, Size 2 Multi-Stage
Missile Size: 2 MSP  (0.10 HS)     Warhead: 0    Armour: 0     Manoeuvre Rating: 10
Speed: 25000 km/s    Endurance: 48 minutes   Range: 72.0m km
Cost Per Missile: ???
Second Stage: Ya, Size 1.1 ASM x1
Second Stage Separation Range: 10,000,000 km
Overall Endurance: 1 hours   Overall Range: 82.0m km

Code: [Select]

Ya, Size 1.1 ASM
Missile Size: 1.1 MSP  (0.055 HS)     Warhead: 4    Armour: 0     Manoeuvre Rating: 13
Speed: 31800 km/s    Endurance: 7 minutes   Range: 13.0m km
Cost Per Missile: ???
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 410%   3k km/s 140%   5k km/s 83%   10k km/s 41%

This design is also much less likely to hit (62% against 6,666km/s, instead of 100%) compared to your revised design, but also has a much larger warhead/size (4/2=2, instead of 4/5=0.8 ). So the expected damage (per missile size) is larger (by 50%!). It has the same effective range against a fleeing enemy. It is considerably easier to shoot down due to the low speed of the second stage, but at the same time there are much more missiles per salvo, and these are launched in quicker succession, so that’s a bit better in this aspect as well.
But then again, I am a simple guy, so I would likely use the following one-stager of the same size and armour-penetration:

Code: [Select]

Hira, Size 2 ASM
Missile Size: 2 MSP  (0.10 HS)     Warhead: 4    Armour: 0     Manoeuvre Rating: 15
Speed: 38,800 km/s    Endurance: 27 minutes   Range: 75.0m km
Cost Per Missile: ???
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 580%   3k km/s 190%   5k km/s 120%   10k km/s 58%

Or, even more likely, the following one which could also be fired from PD-tubes, although it looses out on the crating:

Code: [Select]

Kuaiken, Size 1 ASM
Missile Size: 1 MSP  (0.05 HS)     Warhead: 2    Armour: 0     Manoeuvre Rating: 15
Speed: 38,800 km/s    Endurance: 27 minutes   Range: 75.0m km
Cost Per Missile: ???
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 580%   3k km/s 190%   5k km/s 120%   10k km/s 58%

Title: Re: Debriefing Report: The Battle of Kagoshima: On the use of two-stage missiles
Post by: TheDeadlyShoe on May 23, 2012, 03:14:23 PM

I like your chart, but i think you're waving this off a bit too much.

Quote

The later is relatively easy to asses with only one assumption. Assume the enemy can shoot down Y of your missiles per minute, and you launch Z missiles per minute. Then X=Z-Y missiles will get through. Quite simple, really. (Ok, one should make a small distinction between final fire and AMM, and take some final-sample effects into account, but all this can be done and it does not really change much)

Final fire has a peak, but as long as there are good enough sensors and launchers, a competent AMM defense is almost entirely attritional in nature. That is to say, its very difficult to breach an AMM umbrella of equivalent technology until it runs out of missiles.

Assuming all missiles have the same speed and no armor, its always equally as difficult to shoot down a size 10 missile as a size 1. You can detect a size 10 further out, but that's irrelevant since you're more limited by your ammunition than launch capability. ECM is irrelevant since it is simplicity itself to have upgunned fire controls. (Even if you don't, missile ECM takes a huge chunk out of the warhead, fuel, or speed.) And given equivalent tech and decent-sized warheads, you usually get missiles about 3 times as fast as an AMMs 100% hit rate. Given that missiles are usually launched in salvos, missile survival is mostly a matter of outliers. So its about 3 AMMs per missile, with a few tossed in for cleanup.

10 size 4 missiles take 30-35 AMMs (40 magazine space vs 30-35). So the 'standard' ASM has to fire more magazine space than a defending fleet has to answer it with AMMs.
40 size 1 missiles take 120-140 AMMs (40 magazine space vs 140). Note that AMM defence is almost completely untenable against size 1 missiles, on both a strategic and tactical basis.

The kicker is that size 1 missiles fire fast enough that they might even overwhelm the defensive launch capacity of an AMM umbrella, making them the exception to the earlier rule about impenetrability - even ignoring their attritional advantage!

The 80,000 km/s Wakizashis attempt to get around the attritional rule the other way - by generating huge numbers of misses. The Tanto has about a 19% to-hit, which works out to a better-than-even chance of surviving 3 AMMs. You probably need to fire _at least_ 6 AMMs per Wakizashi - so even with a size 5 bus, the 'high speed penetrator' missile has an attritional advantage.

(Sidenote: If I remember my probability correctly, about 1 in 4 missiles will survive a 3-AMM salvo... that then get another 3 AMM salvo. So if you launch individual missiles rather than salvos, the defender will actually spend about 3.75-4 AMMs per missile.)

This attritional problem is why I don't like to use tiny missiles. They kind of break the missile balance, even without looking at how hard final defensive fire sucks against them. The final nail in the coffin is that they are almost free to research while big missiles are hella expensive.

Title: Re: Debriefing Report: The Battle of Kagoshima: On the use of two-stage missiles
Post by: jseah on May 23, 2012, 04:54:16 PM

This is getting VERY nice! Thanks for that chart! I shall see to never using anything other than WH:4.

Just to add more about AMM fire:
There are three factors that determine what gets through an AMM envelope.

1) Hit Rate against your missiles.
2) AMM range vs missile speed (aka. number of interception chances)
3) AMM ammunition count.

Tiny WH:1 ASMs win on number 3. They launch faster and in more numbers than AMMs can intercept them. Fair enough, they break the game. For getting through the most damage through a contemporary AMM umbrella, size 1s win hands down.

Now let's talk about the other two. This is why speed is so important.

Take the Tanto;
47800km/s, maneuver 32. It has 19% vs an 80 000 km/s missile and about 38% vs 40 000 km/s.
However, it also has a range of 7 million km.

VS the 40kkm/s missile
The first interception occurs around 3.5 million km range. 2nd is at 1.75 million, 3rd at 875 thousand, 4th at 440 thousand, 5th at point blank.
So it generates 38% chance to hit, across 5 chances to hit it. At 3v1, the leak rate of this umbrella is ~24% per interception = 0.07% getting through all interceptions.
This is the reason why my fleet suffered exactly one hit.

VS the 80kkm/s Wakizashi
The first interception occurs around 2.33 million km. 2nd is at 777 thousand, 3rd at point blank.
So it generates 19% chance to hit, across 3 chances. At 3v1, the leak rate is 53% per interception meaning a whopping 15% go straight through! Even at 5v1, the leak rate for all chances is still at 4%.

Title: Re: Debriefing Report: The Battle of Kagoshima: On the use of two-stage missiles
Post by: Arwyn on May 24, 2012, 02:16:56 AM

I like the discussion so far. If I can throw in a few as well, there are a couple of other items to add to the mix.

From a cost/efficiency standpoint, for single stage missiles, size 4 still seems to be the optimal solution. Going below size 4 means you will see diminishing returns on range and sensor capability, but you get increased capacity. The flip side is that your smaller ASM's lack speed, which is killer.

jseah nailed it in the hit rate assessments, and I might suggest the other item to look at is range in the AMM's used. His hit rate/interception chance analysis is dead on, but you can increase that further;

Code: [Select]

Javelin-4 AMM
Missile Size: 1 MSP  (0.05 HS)     Warhead: 1    Armour: 0     Manoeuvre Rating: 23
Speed: 55000 km/s    Endurance: 4 minutes   Range: 12.9m km
Cost Per Missile: 1.4917
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 1265%   3k km/s 414%   5k km/s 253%   10k km/s 126.5%
Materials Required:    0.25x Tritanium   0.9867x Gallicite   Fuel x125

So, from a hit rate perspective, your looking at;
10K= 126.5
40K= 31.6
80K= 15.8

The big bump though is the range, 12.9km which adds additional opportunities to intercept.

So, if your facing an opponent using something like this, missile speed is critical, otherwise, you simply not going to get through. Saturation DOES work, but the problem with single stage designs against this kind of interception envelope is that you have to make it through the bad guys own ASM envelope to get there.

I would also argue that the range and speed of the fleets needs to be factored into this as well, as they are the critical elements of any missile engagement. For example, if your facing an opponent using the small missile doctrine, range WILL be an issue. Assuming equal speeds for the respective opponent fleets, the fleet with the longer range can empty their magazines without ever taking a missile in response, if they are in a open space engagement. That is a major advantage.

If the opponent has both range AND speed, they can dictate the fight. They can fire, empty their magazines and disengage at will. At that point, the engagement becomes a test of Anti-Missile defenses and attrition. (This has happened to me repeatedly against Precursor ships early in games)

Here is an example, using Theokrats example missiles, the small ASM's have a 75km range. In my previous game, I had a bunch of ships with the Terran standard size 6 tubes. To get a big range boost and hit increase, I developed these;

Code: [Select]

Long Lance ASM6-2
Missile Size: 6 MSP  (0.3 HS)     Warhead: 0    Armour: 0     Manoeuvre Rating: 10
Speed: 16700 km/s    Endurance: 86 minutes   Range: 85.9m km
Cost Per Missile: 6.12
Second Stage: Dagger ASM3 x1
Second Stage Separation Range: 150,000 km
Overall Endurance: 1 hours   Overall Range: 98.8m km
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 167%   3k km/s 50%   5k km/s 33.4%   10k km/s 16.7%
Materials Required:    1x Tritanium   0.07x Uridium   4.66x Gallicite   Fuel x5000

Carrying these;

Code: [Select]

Dagger ASM3
Missile Size: 3 MSP  (0.15 HS)     Warhead: 4    Armour: 0     Manoeuvre Rating: 12
Speed: 66700 km/s    Endurance: 3 minutes   Range: 12.9m km
Active Sensor Strength: 0.07   Sensitivity Modifier: 140%
Resolution: 50    Maximum Range vs 2500 ton object (or larger): 60,000 km
Cost Per Missile: 4.4533
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 800.4%   3k km/s 264%   5k km/s 160.1%   10k km/s 80%
Materials Required:    1x Tritanium   0.07x Uridium   3.2433x Gallicite   Fuel x375

Thats a combined total range of 97.9 m/km. The final stage also has sensors, which I would argue are more important as the tech levels go up, and it help alleviate the problem with missile wastage. Economically, you want to have as many missiles hit as you can, sensors help. In the case of the Dagger, its a very limited and myopic sensor, but it does give a missile a chance to engage a target in range of the sensor in a single impulse. It also means that loss of fire control doesnt result in the loss of the missile, which is an issue with non-sensor missiles. Later in the game, at longer ranges this IS and issue, as the loss of the fire control can result in a large number of missiles in transit just going *poof*, which is frustrating to say the least.

Now, the Long Lance main bus is slow as hell, but if your firing on a closing enemy, this is less of an issue. It is still faster than most ships at the tech level, but in a stern chase, its going to perform poorly due to slow speed. To a certain extent, its a bit gamey, since the AI is going to close to its missile engagement range you get to ignore the stern chase most times, since you can expend your munitions before he can close.

Economically, the cost per missile is 6.12, which is actually in the same range as a conventional size 6 missile. Example;

Code: [Select]

Akula-4 ASM6
Missile Size: 6 MSP  (0.3 HS)     Warhead: 6    Armour: 0     Manoeuvre Rating: 13
Speed: 43300 km/s    Endurance: 33 minutes   Range: 85.6m km
Active Sensor Strength: 0.14   Sensitivity Modifier: 140%
Resolution: 50    Maximum Range vs 2500 ton object (or larger): 130,000 km
Cost Per Missile: 6.0483
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 562.9%   3k km/s 182%   5k km/s 112.6%   10k km/s 56.3%
Materials Required:    1.5x Tritanium   0.14x Uridium   4.5633x Gallicite   Fuel x5000

So, from that perspective, longer range, lessened intercept chance, and self guidance for the 2nd stage has something to be said for it. The longer the range, the bigger advantage the multi-stage missile fleet is going to have. The shorter the range, the odds rapidly start favoring the "more is better" side of the argument. Finally, from and economics perspective, this isnt significant EXCEPT for the much higher consumption of Gallicite.

Economically, if your Gallicite limited, stay away from multi-stage missiles, they consume a LOT of that mineral!

Title: Re: Debriefing Report: The Battle of Kagoshima: On the use of two-stage missiles
Post by: TheDeadlyShoe on May 24, 2012, 03:18:13 AM

Quote

From a cost/efficiency standpoint, for single stage missiles, size 4 still seems to be the optimal solution. Going below size 4 means you will see diminishing returns on range and sensor capability, but you get increased capacity. The flip side is that your smaller ASM's lack speed, which is killer.

Size has no effect on range or speed.

Title: Re: Debriefing Report: The Battle of Kagoshima: On the use of two-stage missiles
Post by: jseah on May 24, 2012, 03:39:20 AM

Well, the smallest warhead size you can use is 1.

If you have a size 5 ASM with warhead 4, it can be longer ranged and faster than a size 1 ASM with warhead 1.

Title: Re: Debriefing Report: The Battle of Kagoshima: On the use of two-stage missiles
Post by: Theokrat on May 24, 2012, 06:00:51 AM

Quote from: TheDeadlyShoe on May 23, 2012, 03:14:23 PM

I like your chart, but i think you're waving this off a bit too much.
Final fire has a peak, but as long as there are good enough sensors and launchers, a competent AMM defense is almost entirely attritional in nature. That is to say, its very difficult to breach an AMM umbrella of equivalent technology until it runs out of missiles.

Well the beauty of the above formula is that it applies one per-time basis, just as much as on an attrition basis. I formulated it as X, Y, and Z being the number of missiles per minute that can launched/shot down/get through. If you assume that Y >Z, then you get into an attrition situation. Let’s put the argument differently then: Let z be the number of missiles that can be shot down by the enemy in total, z be the number of ASMs you can launch in total, then x=z-y is the number of missiles that get through in total. So it’s the same formula (unless we would start considering beam weapons), and importantly the number of missiles launched enters the formula just the same way.

One difference is of course that on a per-time basis, the number of missiles that can be launched goes with the inverse square of the missile size. E.g. one might be able to launch one size-2 missile every 10s (from one launcher) or two size-1 missiles every 5s (from two smaller launchers), giving either 1 or 4 (=2^2) missiles per 10s. In total one is limited by available magazine capacity, and thus the total number of missiles that can be launched goes with the inverse (not squared) of the missile size. E.g. one can either store one size two missile, or two size-1 missiles.

Thus while the formula stays the same, the variable takes a different value, and on an attrition basis smaller missiles do not look as good as on a per-time basis. I.e. by halving missile size one can only double z, while Z could have been quadrupled. But as you point out nicely, even on an attrition basis smaller ASM provide a significant benefit. Also, just to point this out I was being conservative when I made the graph and only used same-magazine size number of missiles. I.e. I compared nine size-1 missiles to one size-9 missile, while on a per-time basis one could also have compared eighty-one (!) size-1 missiles to one size-9 missile.
In other words the chart is based on the assumption of attritional missile warfare.

Quote from: TheDeadlyShoe on May 23, 2012, 03:14:23 PM

This attritional problem is why I don't like to use tiny missiles. They kind of break the missile balance, even without looking at how hard final defensive fire sucks against them. The final nail in the coffin is that they are almost free to research while big missiles are hella expensive.

Well, from a game-design point of view I would hope that some economies-of-scale factors are included in missile designs. Right now you could do the equivalent of taking a present-day real-world ICBM and just scale it down by a factor of 1000, and get a miniature ICBM with the same individual characteristic (speed, range). That’s weird. For instance one could make the warhead more-than proportional to the Missile size points assigned to it, and thereby provide an inventive for larger missiles.

Quote from: jseah on May 23, 2012, 04:54:16 PM

This is getting VERY nice! Thanks for that chart! I shall see to never using anything other than WH:4.

Glad you like it. One point though: The graph depends on the rather arbitrary weighting of damage caused to different layers. This weighting is not based on any analysis, but simply a number I assigned based on subjective experience (spell: made up). As an anecdote: I once encountered an enemy that apparently liked to use two layers of armour. Against this enemy a size-9 warhead will cause internal damage with the first hit. This internal damage could be on battle-critical systems, and I actually had a first hit cause a magazine explosion that ripped the whole thing apart. So in this case layer-3 damage should be valued much higher than in my previous example. Actually this drove me to use a weighting of 25-5-1 for damage to layers 3, 2 and 1 respectively. And this weighting resulted in favour of warhead-9 missiles (which were awfully slow due to my short-term launcher size restrictions, but still performed extremely well, often causing engine damage with the first few hits, resulting in the enemy battle line falling apart).

Quote from: jseah on May 23, 2012, 04:54:16 PM

Just to add more about AMM fire:
There are three factors that determine what gets through an AMM envelope.

1) Hit Rate against your missiles.
2) AMM range vs missile speed (aka. number of interception chances)
3) AMM ammunition count.

Tiny WH:1 ASMs win on number 3. They launch faster and in more numbers than AMMs can intercept them. Fair enough, they break the game. For getting through the most damage through a contemporary AMM umbrella, size 1s win hands down.

Now let's talk about the other two. This is why speed is so important.

Take the Tanto;
47800km/s, maneuver 32. It has 19% vs an 80 000 km/s missile and about 38% vs 40 000 km/s.
However, it also has a range of 7 million km.

VS the 40kkm/s missile
The first interception occurs around 3.5 million km range. 2nd is at 1.75 million, 3rd at 875 thousand, 4th at 440 thousand, 5th at point blank.
So it generates 38% chance to hit, across 5 chances to hit it. At 3v1, the leak rate of this umbrella is ~24% per interception = 0.07% getting through all interceptions.
This is the reason why my fleet suffered exactly one hit.

VS the 80kkm/s Wakizashi
The first interception occurs around 2.33 million km. 2nd is at 777 thousand, 3rd at point blank.
So it generates 19% chance to hit, across 3 chances. At 3v1, the leak rate is 53% per interception meaning a whopping 15% go straight through! Even at 5v1, the leak rate for all chances is still at 4%.

You are quite correct in your analysis of the trade-of between the relative distribution of missile size points between the warhead and the engine. But, just to iterate this it does not touch on the optimal absolute size of the missiles. You can have large or small 80kkm/s missiles, and you can have large or small 40kkm/s.

Also you are assuming that the enemy can “use” all theoretical interception points. That might be true for the Wakizashi (with its indeed impressive ability to both dodge missiles and grant few interceptions). Assume the enemy devotes roughly the same space to AMM launchers as we do to ASM launchers. We are able to launch one Saya from the size-5 33%redction launcher at a time, while the enemy would be able to fire 3 AMMs from size-1 launchers (roughly the same space). However the Saya would only be fired every 500s, so the enemy would only ever face one salvo at a time. By the time the first salvo arrives at the target, the second salvo has not even reached the outer range of the AMMs.

Now consider the smaller missiles. These are not only launched in greater quantity, but also much more frequently. Indeed a new salvo can be launched every 5s. Consequently, every five seconds a new salvo will enter the engagement range of the AMMs. A salvo that contains just as many missiles as the enemy has AMM-launchers. So what does that mean for the number of interceptions? Funny, but the enemy will only ever be able to launch one AMM against each incoming ASM in the long run! So in fact, the expected number of interceptions is 1 in the long run! With only one missile!

So the Wakizashis are engaged by an average of 9 AMMs (as you nicely show), meaning that 15% get through at 19% individual hit chance. Yet the 40kkm/s missiles are only engaged by 1 AMM, meaning 62% get through in the long run! Funny, eh? (Ok, the long run means after an infinite number of salvos, which takes a while. But even with only two salvos, the average number of interceptions drops from 5 to 3 – the same number as with the Wakizashis). Of course this is not an effect of the lower speed (which is detrimental), but solely of the small size – the miniature Sho-Wakizashis would enjoy a similar effect.

Quote from: Arwyn on May 24, 2012, 02:16:56 AM

… Going below size 4 means you will see diminishing returns on range … The flip side is that your smaller ASM's lack speed, which is killer…For example, if your facing an opponent using the small missile doctrine, range WILL be an issue…

No. Small missiles do not have a disadvantage in range. The range of a missile is determined by the fuel efficiency technology and the percentage of missile space devoted to missile size. A missile with x% of mass devoted to fuel will have the same range, regardless of whether it is size-1 or size-10.
In other words, a large missile can be reduced in size by decreasing all components by the same amount – and it will go just as far. Therefore range is never an argument for using smaller or larger missiles. Except, of course for warhead-1 missiles which can not be decreased in size.

It’s quite human to fall for this trap by saying “oh I could add 1 MSP of fuel to this missile to make it go further, but it will increase the missile size from 4 to 5”. So it looks like there is this trade-off between size and range. But there were really two things that were changed when 1 MSP was added to fuel- the size of the missile and the relative proportions of the various components. And it was the later, not the former, that made the range go up. You could again reduce all components by 20% and remain at the same range. So getting more range is a question of the relative proportions of components – but not of the total size. In other words: Range must be balanced against the size of the warhead, the attainable speed and manoeuvre ratings- but not against the size. Roudnign can be an issue, but it can go both ways.

Range is not the only variable with this behaviour. Speed and maneuver Rating are also functions that are only dependent on the relative proportions, but not on the absolute size of the missile. Something that does not share this is the active sensor bit. Indeed there are good arguments for making self-guided missiles rather big. And this is a good reason for the size of your designs, as well as the rounding issues. But not for range purposes.

Title: Re: Debriefing Report: The Battle of Kagoshima: On the use of two-stage missiles
Post by: Havear on May 24, 2012, 10:17:35 AM

There's two things I'd like to point out. 1) Agility points are independent of missile size. 2) Warhead strength is independent of size.

Yes, it *is* indeed possible to get a smaller missile with the same speed and range, since those are proportional to size. However, you then have to lower either your warhead or agility ratings, which are not proportional, and thus are flatly lower. It's indeed possible to get missiles with better performance in *very* small packages, but actually doing decent damage when they get there is another story.

Title: Re: Debriefing Report: The Battle of Kagoshima: On the use of two-stage missiles
Post by: TheDeadlyShoe on May 24, 2012, 10:22:24 AM

Agility ratings are divided by missile size, and thus are proportional. Warhead strength is completely independent of size; 4 strength 1 warheads are equal to 1 strength 4 warhead, except insofar as damage grouping/cratering is concerned.

However, damage grouping is irrelevant versus shields, and even strength 4 warheads dont do much clustering to write home about against decent (5+) armor layers. It takes strength 9 or higher warheads to do meaningful clustering in my experience.

The only things that small missiles cant do are ecm and sensors. Even armor scales down to some extent, but you're almost always better off with more engine instead of armor.

Title: Re: Debriefing Report: The Battle of Kagoshima: On the use of two-stage missiles
Post by: Theokrat on May 24, 2012, 11:09:33 AM

Quote from: Havear on May 24, 2012, 10:17:35 AM

There's two things I'd like to point out. 1) Agility points are independent of missile size. 2) Warhead strength is independent of size.

Yes, it *is* indeed possible to get a smaller missile with the same speed and range, since those are proportional to size. However, you then have to lower either your warhead or agility ratings, which are not proportional, and thus are flatly lower. It's indeed possible to get missiles with better performance in *very* small packages, but actually doing decent damage when they get there is another story.

At the risk of repeating a bit what TheDeadlyShoe said:

1) The Maneuver rating is, like range and speed, a function of only the proportion of size devoted to agility- but not of the total size. x% of missile space towards agility results in the same maneuver rating, regardless of whether its a size-1 or a size-10 missile. Thus decreasing the size of a missile does not change the agility the tiniest bit.

2) The Warhead is the only component other than sensors and ecm that is propotional to the total size devoted to it (and not to the proportion of the missile).

But of course one should not compare missiles on a per-unit basis. Sure one size-1 missile is worse than one size-2 missile. But that comparison is meaningless, as it does not consider the constraints involved. Players are limited by the industrial costs of producing missiles, by the magazine space on their ships, and by the weight of ships that can be devoted to missile launchers. All of these factors scale proportionally to the size of a missile, thus one size-2 missiles must be compared to two size-1 missiles (or even four when considering missiles per second in non-attrition situations). But therefore "splitting" a missile into a number of smaller ones does not decrease the total sum of warheads, it merely leads to a different damage profile caused by these. And for strongly-armoured ships this is almost certainly a second-order effect at best.

Title: Re: Debriefing Report: The Battle of Kagoshima: On the use of two-stage missiles
Post by: sloanjh on May 24, 2012, 11:24:22 AM

A few comments (many of which many people are already aware of):

1) I think a lot of people upthread have been using "size" when describing warheads rather than "strength". When I say "strength 4 warhead" below, I mean a warhead that does 4 points of damage.

2) If you stick with the basic systems (engine, warhead, agility, fuel) and don't put "dead weight" systems (e.g. armor, sensors) onto your missile designs, then missile capabilities scale exactly. In other words, a size-4 missile, with a strength-4 warhead will have exactly the same range, speed, and hit probability as a size-1 missile with a strength-1 warhead if you pick the percentages of basic systems to be the same (and the size and cost will be 4x greater). This means that, in terms of expected damage per (non-intercepted) missile, the size-4 missile and 4x size-1 missiles cost the same and occupy the same amount of magazine space. I'll assume that missiles of different sizes have been tuned in this way (to have same performance characteristics) in the discussion below.

3) Launch rate is proportional to missile size, and launcher size is inversely proportionaly. This means that (assuming no interceptions) the expected damage per salvo for size-4 missiles is the same as the damage per salvo for size-1 missile. It also means that the rate of damage is inversely proportional to missile size, since salvos are launched more quickly for smaller missiles. Since it costs the same to intercept a size-4 missile as to intercept a size-1 missile, sandblasting with size-1 missiles (which might have warhead strengths greater than 1!) is vastly superior if damage templates are ignored.

4) When thinking about damage templates, there are two limiting regimes: the warhead can penetrate the targets armor and do internal damage with a single hit, or it can't. Consider a ship with thick armor (e.g. 12, or 20, or even 6) and a strength-9 warhead, which has penetration 3 and so needs to hit a patch of armor only 2 units thick in order to do internal damage. Because of the way statistics of large numbers works, you should assume that you're going to have to grind away essentially all of the armor before you're able to do internal damage. Because of the increased RoF, size-1 sandblasting is most effective here; even in comparison to size-2 missiles it will grind away twice as fast (and that's before the effects of interception are taken into account). Now consider a really big freighter with armor-1. In this case, the size-4 missile will have twice the penetration (and an even bigger improvement in the ratio of internal-to-armor damage) of the size-1 missile, and you don't have to wait for a later hit to randomly hit a hole you've made in the armor before you can do internal damage. So for thinly armored ships (e.g. armor less than 4 or 5) you want big honking warheads.

In my designs, I tend to have two missile sizes: size-4 ASM missiles, which give a good balance between RoF and salvo size vs. penetration in the early game and size-1 missiles. For the size-1 missiles, I usually have a warhead strength-1 designed optimized for AAM work, and an ASM "slug" design with the biggest warhead size I can manage (typically 2 or 3 in the early game).

John

EDIT - Ninja!! (I got pulled away while typing :) ). Theokrat's post is spot on. One caveat: when you start talking about missile armor the advantage goes to the big missiles.

Title: Re: Debriefing Report: The Battle of Kagoshima: On the use of two-stage missiles
Post by: TheDeadlyShoe on May 24, 2012, 03:41:09 PM

Quote

4) When thinking about damage templates, there are two limiting regimes: the warhead can penetrate the targets armor and do internal damage with a single hit, or it can't. Consider a ship with thick armor (e.g. 12, or 20, or even 6) and a strength-9 warhead, which has penetration 3 and so needs to hit a patch of armor only 2 units thick in order to do internal damage. Because of the way statistics of large numbers works, you should assume that you're going to have to grind away essentially all of the armor before you're able to do internal damage.

I think you are underballing damage clustering. Check this out:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birthday_problem

let's assume you have a 6,000 ton warship being attacked by missiles, which is 29 armor columns. The second missile has a 1/29 chance of landing on the same location. The third missile has a 2/29 chance of landing on either previous location. The fourth has 3/29, and so on. It rapidly becomes more probable to have landed two hits on the same location than not. That's for *direct hits* on previous impact craters. What this basically means is that battle-damaged ships armor will be mountains and valleys - even on the thickest armor, you're likely to have undamaged columns while other sections have been completely penetrated.

or to put it another way: if you hit something with 7 missiles, there are 21 distinct chances for hits to cluster. on a 29-column (or 6000 ton) hull that works out to about a 52% chance that 2 missiles will hit directly on top of eachother. So lets suppose that the hull is armor rating 5, being attacked by strength 9 warheads - you have a 52% chance of internal damage after taking only 63 points of damage out of 148 armor strength. Bear in mind that this significantly underballs that chance, because it does not take into account damage outside the 'central column' of the pyramid.

If you hit that same ship with 10 missiles, you have about an 80% chance that two of your hits will be on top of eachother. 15 missiles is a 98% chance.

Just for kicks... looking at a 40,000ton freighter being hit by strength 1 warheads. That's 104 armor columns, but with 20 missile hits you have a 84% chance of having scored internal damage.

Quote

EDIT - Ninja!! (I got pulled away while typing ). Theokrat's post is spot on. One caveat: when you start talking about missile armor the advantage goes to the big missiles.

Yeah - now if only armor scaled up with technology. :(

**EDIT**

I got to thinking. What about strength 12 warheads? The damage shape means that you essentially have 3 chances(one slight off left, one direct, one slightly off right) of scoring a stacking hit on a previous impact rather than 1. So a strength 12 warhead needs only 4 hits (48 damage) to hit ~50% internal damage chance, and 6 hits (72 damage) to hit ~80%. Hrm. Same applies to strength 6 vs armor 3, or strength 20 vs armor 7.

Title: Re: Debriefing Report: The Battle of Kagoshima: On the use of two-stage missiles
Post by: Havear on May 24, 2012, 05:54:54 PM

All good points. I'll admit, I've not used reloadable launchers for some time. Even on box launchers, I've been considering moving from size-6 back to size-4, as I'm not really noticing much more then slightly increased range (pretty useless for fighters) and some ECM, which doesn't seem to match the 50% density tradeoff.

Title: Re: Debriefing Report: The Battle of Kagoshima: On the use of two-stage missiles
Post by: jseah on May 24, 2012, 06:02:38 PM

Bigger ASMs could get better performance than smaller ones by having less than 1 Warhead per MSP.
You are also presented with the tradeoff of getting slightly more than 1 warhead per MSP.

Eg. the Wakizashi could be a size 4 carrying WH:3 (assuming sandblasting is going to happen)
It could also be a size 3 carrying WH:4

These proportions are inaccessible to a size 1 ASM.

Title: Re: Debriefing Report: The Battle of Kagoshima: On the use of two-stage missiles
Post by: sloanjh on May 24, 2012, 07:17:22 PM

Quote from: TheDeadlyShoe on May 24, 2012, 03:41:09 PM

Just for kicks... looking at a 40,000ton freighter being hit by strength 1 warheads. That's 104 armor columns, but with 20 missile hits you have a 84% chance of having scored internal damage.

And if those 20 points of damage were instead from 5 strength-4 hits you'd have a 100% chance of doing at least 5 points of internal damage, with even more internal damage done if the str-4 hits overlap. The intuition here is that the 4th point of damage (on the 29 column warship) has a 100%, rather than 3/29 chance of clustering.

The detailed math is really yuckky, but I'm pretty sure that clustering actually helps big warheads more than it helps small warheads. The reason for this is that, for a large number of hits, the percentage fluctuation of hits in any one column (i.e. the relative size of the mountains and valleys) will go like 1/sqrt(NHits). So the damage profile from a large number of big warhead hits should be more jagged than from a set of small warhead hits that do the same amount of total damage. For example, imagine a ship with 100 columns of armor that is hit with with 10,000 str-1 hits or with 2,500 str-4 hits. In the str-1 case, each column is likely to get 100 +/- 10 hits; in the str-4 case each will get 25 +/-5 str-4 hits. The average damage per column is easy for the str-1 case - it's just 100. For the str-4 case, it's 2*25 for the column being considered + 25 each spillover from each adjacent column, for a total of 100 (this is as it must be, since both cases did the same total damage). The fluctuations in the str-4 case are very interesting though. You need to add uncertainties in quadrature, so it sqrt(2^2+1^2+1^2)*5, or sqrt(6)*5, which is sqrt(1.5)*10. In other words, the fluctuation in the penetration depth for str-4 warheads will be sqrt(1.5) larger than for str-1 warheads. The reason that str-4 (stronger clustering) doesn't win in this regime is that the str-1 missiles can be fired 4 times as fast, and this affects the central (average) value, not just the fluctuations.

My gut feel is that if your warhead can penetrate with 2 or maybe 3 hits, then you're probably not in the sandblasting regime, i.e. large warheads are better because they penetrate (and cluster) better, but anything more than that and you're in sandblasting mode.

John

Title: Re: Debriefing Report: The Battle of Kagoshima: On the use of two-stage missiles
Post by: Brian Neumann on May 25, 2012, 11:33:17 AM

Quote from: sloanjh on May 24, 2012, 07:17:22 PM

My gut feel is that if your warhead can penetrate with 2 or maybe 3 hits, then you're probably not in the sandblasting regime, i.e. large warheads are better because they penetrate (and cluster) better, but anything more than that and you're in sandblasting mode.

John

Another important factor is how big the crater is vs how large the target. When you start getting craters that are around 1/3 of the total columns on the ship the chances of getting an early internal hit go up much faster than what the sandblasting will get you. A quick example with a smaller ship (17 columns and 6 points of armor each) and size 16 warheads. (Size 16 gets a maximum of 4 levels of penetration and damages at least 7 columns.) By the fourth hit you will already have some damage overlaping. On that fourth hit you have a small chance to get internals. If you didn't then by the fifth you are pretty much garrunteed hitting somewhere that has already lost enough armor to have that hit get through. In comparison the same total damage (64 or 80 points for 4 or 5 missiles respectivly.) from size 1 warheads will probably have penetrated the first 3-4 rows with about half of the next row being down as well. You still need about 20 more hits before you are likely to get any internal. Of course by the point that a sandplasting attack is getting internals the target is pretty much dead. Flip this example around and have a much bigger target with 40 columns and it takes a lot more hits to start getting your clustering. In effect you are having to partially sandblast the ship anyway before you get to the point that the larger warheads are actually helpfull.

Brian

Title: Re: Debriefing Report: The Battle of Kagoshima: On the use of two-stage missiles
Post by: Theokrat on May 25, 2012, 12:22:02 PM

Quote from: Brian on May 25, 2012, 11:33:17 AM

Another important factor is how big the crater is vs how large the target. When you start getting craters that are around 1/3 of the total columns on the ship the chances of getting an early internal hit go up much faster than what the sandblasting will get you. A quick example with a smaller ship (17 columns and 6 points of armor each) and size 16 warheads. (Size 16 gets a maximum of 4 levels of penetration and damages at least 7 columns.) By the fourth hit you will already have some damage overlaping. On that fourth hit you have a small chance to get internals. If you didn't then by the fifth you are pretty much garrunteed hitting somewhere that has already lost enough armor to have that hit get through. In comparison the same total damage (64 or 80 points for 4 or 5 missiles respectivly.) from size 1 warheads will probably have penetrated the first 3-4 rows with about half of the next row being down as well. You still need about 20 more hits before you are likely to get any internal. Of course by the point that a sandplasting attack is getting internals the target is pretty much dead. Flip this example around and have a much bigger target with 40 columns and it takes a lot more hits to start getting your clustering. In effect you are having to partially sandblast the ship anyway before you get to the point that the larger warheads are actually helpfull.

Brian

You are very much underestimating the effects of sandblasting. It is extremely unlikely that the small missiles will neatly only touch the outermost undamaged armour layers like you suggest.

I have run 100 simulations on the situation you described: Let an armour layout of 17 (width) by 6 (layers) be hit by 80 strength-1 explosions. The results are very different from your assertion that "You still need about 20 more hits before you are likely to get any internal".

Internal damage was dealt in _all_ 100 simulations. Indeed the most frequent case saw 6 points of internal damage (20 cases), and it went as far up as 13 internal damage (one case). The median was 6.5 internal damage.

Title: Re: Debriefing Report: The Battle of Kagoshima: On the use of two-stage missiles
Post by: blue emu on May 25, 2012, 12:39:43 PM

I've found that people generally have poor intuition regarding statistics and probabilities... even statisticians themselves often fall prey to this.

Title: Re: Debriefing Report: The Battle of Kagoshima: On the use of two-stage missiles
Post by: Bunga on May 26, 2012, 04:38:52 AM

Quote from: blue emu link=topic=4897. msg50091#msg50091 date=1337967583

I've found that people generally have poor intuition regarding statistics and probabilities. . . even statisticians themselves often fall prey to this.

You may be right, statistically speaking of course.

Title: Re: Debriefing Report: The Battle of Kagoshima: On the use of two-stage missiles
Post by: TheDeadlyShoe on May 27, 2012, 10:34:12 AM

Data point: 10,000 ton (41 armor column) survey cruiser with 4 layers of armor (and thus 160+points of armor) took 11 hits from strength 6 warheads. This is just 66 points of damage - less than half its total armor strength, and needing 3 hits on the same location to breach - yet it took 4 points of internal damage and has a 5-column wide total breach in its armor.

Title: Re: Debriefing Report: The Battle of Kagoshima: On the use of two-stage missiles
Post by: sloanjh on May 29, 2012, 11:22:24 PM

Quote from: Theokrat on May 25, 2012, 12:22:02 PM

You are very much underestimating the effects of sandblasting. It is extremely unlikely that the small missiles will neatly only touch the outermost undamaged armour layers like you suggest.

I have run 100 simulations on the situation you described: Let an armour layout of 17 (width) by 6 (layers) be hit by 80 strength-1 explosions. The results are very different from your assertion that "You still need about 20 more hits before you are likely to get any internal".

Internal damage was dealt in _all_ 100 simulations. Indeed the most frequent case saw 6 points of internal damage (20 cases), and it went as far up as 13 internal damage (one case). The median was 6.5 internal damage.

Did you try the same experiment with 20 str-4 and 5 str-16 explosions? How about 17x60 with 800 str-1, 200 str-4, or 50 str-16 (i.e. everything 10x)? My expectation is that you should (on average) always see better effects (in terms of internal damage) from large warheads than from small, because of the larger relative fluctuations in column depth.

The reason that sandblasting wins is because the damage for str-1 warheads is done 4x as fast as for str-4 warheads (assuming same performance). This just made an interesting idea occur to me - if you're limitted by ammunition stocks, i.e. you're going to run out of ammo before you run out of targets, then large warheads also have an advantage in this case. Of course this will be offset if the target has any anti-missile defences.

John

Title: Re: Debriefing Report: The Battle of Kagoshima: On the use of two-stage missiles
Post by: sloanjh on May 29, 2012, 11:38:02 PM

Quote from: Brian on May 25, 2012, 11:33:17 AM

Another important factor is how big the crater is vs how large the target. When you start getting craters that are around 1/3 of the total columns on the ship the chances of getting an early internal hit go up much faster than what the sandblasting will get you. A quick example with a smaller ship (17 columns and 6 points of armor each) and size 16 warheads. (Size 16 gets a maximum of 4 levels of penetration and damages at least 7 columns.) By the fourth hit you will already have some damage overlaping. On that fourth hit you have a small chance to get internals. If you didn't then by the fifth you are pretty much garrunteed hitting somewhere that has already lost enough armor to have that hit get through. In comparison the same total damage (64 or 80 points for 4 or 5 missiles respectivly.) from size 1 warheads will probably have penetrated the first 3-4 rows with about half of the next row being down as well. You still need about 20 more hits before you are likely to get any internal. Of course by the point that a sandplasting attack is getting internals the target is pretty much dead. Flip this example around and have a much bigger target with 40 columns and it takes a lot more hits to start getting your clustering. In effect you are having to partially sandblast the ship anyway before you get to the point that the larger warheads are actually helpfull.

I think the salvo size and RoF needs to be looked at here for a good comparison with sandblasting. Let's pretend that you have a salvo size of 1, with str-16 warheads, and a RoF of 1 (in some units). This is to be compared with a salvo size of 16, str-1 warheads, with RoF of 16. In this case, the str-1 missiles can do 256 points of damage to the target for each 16 point salvo of the str-16 missiles. Since there are only 102 points of armor on the target, sandblasting will have probably annihilated it before the second heavy-warhead salvo is away. The issue is that you'll have ended up burning more missile volume with the sandblasting than with the heavy missiles (unless the enemy has AM defences, in which case each AM hit is 16x as effective in the heavy warhead case).

That being said, you make a good point that if you can get good internal damage on the target in a single salvo then this is one of the regimes where heavy warheads come out ahead.

John

Title: Re: Debriefing Report: The Battle of Kagoshima: On the use of two-stage missiles
Post by: Arwyn on May 31, 2012, 01:52:23 PM

I think that is an excellent point, and along with that, comes the rate of fire component as well.

At reload 4, your size 1 launchers are running at 10 seconds per volley. Size 4 launchers are running at 30. So, the ship with size one launchers is running 6 salvos to the 2 salvos from the size 4 ship. Assuming similar warhead sizes and range, the damage ratio is clearly in the favor of the smaller launchers. As the reload rate comes up, their is a noticeable shift in the favor of the larger missiles.

(For illustrations sake, this is using the following for baselines. Cobalt warheads (10pts) and Magnetic Confinement drive tech, compressed carbon armor. Range is identical, speeds are identical, hit chance is identical.)

Size 1 missile

Code: [Select]

Missile Size: 1 MSP  (0.05 HS)     Warhead: 4    Armour: 0     Manoeuvre Rating: 20
Speed: 31200 km/s    Endurance: 34 minutes   Range: 64.2m km
Cost Per Missile: 1.7708
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 624%   3k km/s 200%   5k km/s 124.8%   10k km/s 62.4%
Materials Required:    1x Tritanium   0.5208x Gallicite   Fuel x625

Size 4 missile

Code: [Select]

Missile Size: 4 MSP  (0.2 HS)     Warhead: 12    Armour: 0.2     Manoeuvre Rating: 20
Speed: 31200 km/s    Endurance: 34 minutes   Range: 64.2m km
Active Sensor Strength: 0.28   Sensitivity Modifier: 140%
Resolution: 30    Maximum Range vs 1500 ton object (or larger): 210,000 km
Cost Per Missile: 5.6633
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 624%   3k km/s 200%   5k km/s 124.8%   10k km/s 62.4%
Materials Required:    3.05x Tritanium   0.28x Uridium   2.8333x Gallicite   Fuel x2500

At reload 6, the size 1 launchers drop to 5 seconds, for 12 salvos a minute. With a damage of 4, thats 48 pts of damage output per launcher.

At reload 6 the size 4 launchers drop to 20 seconds, for 3 salvos a minute. With a damage of 12, thats 36 pts of damage per launcher.

At reload 8 the size 1 launchers are still 5 seconds, for 12 salvos a minute. With a damage of 4, thats 48 pts of damage output per launcher.

At reload 8 the size 1 launchers are now 15 seconds, for 4 salvos a minute. With a damage of 12, thats 48 pts of damage per launcher.

So, at Reload 8, from a total damage perspective, the missile sizes are a wash. The advantages of the smaller missiles are still there (numbers) and with the hit % being identical, the chances are that the smaller missiles are still going to get things through to do damage.

As the tech goes up, missile intercepts go up as well as anti-missile defenses improve, more missiles are intercepted. This would argue strongly for the numbers approach with more numerous but smaller missiles.

Arguably though, the larger missiles are becoming MORE capable as the tech goes up. In the size 4 design above, the missile includes some armor and sensors, which the size 1 lacks. In the case of the size 4, its relatively easy to modify the missile further to improve survival, or speed, or range while maintaining the same warhead yield. Thats not possible with the size 1 missile. The larger missile also has improved penetration vs. the size 1.

So, the question at middle and later tech is smaller + numbers vs. larger + damage/penetration/flexibility.

I think that the smaller missiles have a significant number of advantages, especially so early in the game. In fact, they are probably game breakingly advantageous early on. By middle tech levels, there are some advantages to the bigger missiles that start to become apparent. In terms of flexibility, the advantage goes to the bigger missiles, since its easier to modify the fuel/speed parameters of the design without losing damage. This flexibility is ESPECIALLY pronounced if sensors/ecm are part of the mixture.