Aurora 4x
VB6 Aurora => Bureau of Ship Design => Topic started by: Iranon on September 14, 2015, 07:11:55 PM
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I haven't been able to test this yet as I'm currently having some technical issues.
The theory: If I rely on missiles, I'm normally a big proponent of massive salvos from box launchers to oversaturate enemy anti-missile defence.
But there is something better than large salvos: An even larger number of missiles (on the same tonnage) in single salvos, arriving in the same increment.
Cheetah class Fast Attack Craft 1 000 tons 5 Crew 242 BP TCS 20 TH 320 EM 0
16000 km/s Armour 1-8 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 0 PPV 1
Maint Life 0 Years MSP 0 AFR 200% IFR 2.8% 1YR 23 5YR 343 Max Repair 21 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 0.1 months Spare Berths 5
Magazine 91
32 EP Magneto-plasma Drive (10) Power 32 Fuel Use 336.02% Signature 32 Exp 20%
Fuel Capacity 100 000 Litres Range 5.4 billion km (3 days at full power)
Size 1 Missile Launcher (1) Missile Size 1 Rate of Fire 10
Missile Fire Control FC61-R80 (1) Range 62.0m km Resolution 80
ASM-1 Sloth (91) Speed: 16 000 km/s End: 72.1m Range: 69.2m km WH: 2 Size: 1 TH: 101/60/30
Missile to hit chances are vs targets moving at 3000 km/s, 5000 km/s and 10,000 km/s
This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
I hope to achieve this by matching missile and platform speed - very slow missiles fired by a fast ship. This one may take 15 minutes to empty its magazines during an attack run (over a distance of 13.5m km, cutting significantly into its effective range)... but they should all arrive on target at the same time, in single missile salvos, rendering most defences comically ineffective.
There are probably many things wrong with the particulars of the design... but is the basic principle sound?
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Sure it would work, until a single shot hits and disables the ship instantly.
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Unless you shove sensors onto the missiles. Honestly fighter or fac launched anti capital missiles should be sensor equipped anyway because of how vulnerable the launch platform is.
Of course AMMs should have sensors too for maximum efficiency against overwhelming salvos or when used offensively.
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That's a pretty cool alternative to box launchers. Too bad it only works with size 1-2 missiles! At least in terms of putting out a really big salvo.
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The other alternative is massive MIRV salvos.
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Well.... TBH, this actually probably isn't tht bad of an idea.
Think of it this way, assuming you start your attack run at your max missile range (lets say you have something else providing your active sensor ping). lets round it to 60mkm for ease.
1 missiles fired once every 10 seconds, means 900 seconds to fire the whole supply (910 - 1,10 sec increment because you don't need to reload the first shot)
900 seconds @ 16,000km/s is ~14mkm. Assuming you started the run at 60, the ship will finish its firing at around 45m, and turn away.
91 shots out, which give or take a bit, would only fit about 50-60 equal sized box launchers. Which NEED a hangar to reload, as opposed to a collier which can support the OP's design without needing to be very much larger than the FAC itself.
Also to note, is that it will be in 91 separate target salvos coming in that need interception, As opposed to a single 60missile salvo, that the defenders fire control will have no trouble engaging.
Personally, I really like this idea, its kinda nifty, and I might be trying it out myself for the lulz, once 6.5 comes. Personal revisions I would make however.
Since I experiment the most at the ion tech it'd probably be around there.
Maybe stack a few launchers on the craft (4-5) with a tiny magazine with only a couple reloads, And build an equally sized collier, that makes the attack run with a handful of these craft, and can burn through the ammo supply in about 10 salvos rather than 90. This way your attack run is only ~160kkm, and your craft can turn back long before they made it anywhere near detection range.
Also by giving them a few more launchers of their own, this allows them to see other usage as AMM launching craft, if direly necessary (can feed off the AMM stock of a bigger ship, or collier)
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this is a very bad idea
any PD weapon can cover this missile threat
16km/s missile without salvo density in magneto era means no hits unless there is real swarm of such FACs ( with a such swarm better to do bigger design for economy reason )
magneto era means 16km/s tracking gauses or 5-7km/s tracking railguns
if you use small crafts you want to stay in danger zone as short as possible not 15 minutess ....
also boxes means salvo density and guarantee something can leak through defence
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boxes are like 15k rp from standard launchers, if not more.
so that's like this with magneto plasma, versus ion tech with boxes
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Sure it would work, until a single shot hits and disables the ship instantly.
Details! :)
Of course we could slap some armour on... or take some precautions to avoid being shot at.
Slow missiles have a lot of flexibility. If I don't blow 40% of missile weight on a 2-damage warhead, I can easily get 150-200m range with some space left over for more agility. Even if we lose 10% effective range to our peculiar attack run, that should be a safe distance for FACs. Of course, this would require a more powerful missiles fire control and probably cost us a magazine.
Maybe stack a few launchers on the craft (4-5) with a tiny magazine with only a couple reloads, And build an equally sized collier, that makes the attack run with a handful of these craft, and can burn through the ammo supply in about 10 salvos rather than 90. This way your attack run is only ~160kkm, and your craft can turn back long before they made it anywhere near detection range.
Also by giving them a few more launchers of their own, this allows them to see other usage as AMM launching craft, if direly necessary (can feed off the AMM stock of a bigger ship, or collier)
Thanks for the encouragement. While your suggestion would shorten the attack run, multiple launchers would sacrifice some of the salvo dispersion that was a main reason for this approach.
I only chose 1000t FACs for a high ratio of magazines to launchers/FC, which in turn requires a long attack run and limits a secondary role as AMM escorts... if that trade-off is not desired, I'd simply use smaller ships (possibly fighters).
this is a very bad idea
any PD weapon can cover this missile threat
16km/s missile without salvo density in magneto era means no hits unless there is real swarm of such FACs ( with a such swarm better to do bigger design for economy reason )
magneto era means 16km/s tracking gauses or 5-7km/s tracking railguns
if you use small crafts you want to stay in danger zone as short as possible not 15 minutess ....
also boxes means salvo density and guarantee something can leak through defence
1) If this works as intended, the finest beam defence in the universe it will shoot down exactly 1 missile per fire control in final fire mode. AMMs will be similarly useless unless they have truly impressive R1 sensors. A unified volley of 91 missiles in 91 salvos may overtax the PD capabilities of a small fleet, pathetic missile speed is irrelevant to this (they'll shoot down anything they target, but they can't target them all). And they come from a single FAC...
2) A bigger design would be more visible. FAC was chosen over fighter because it enables multiple magazines per launcher/FC.
3) Duration of the launch procedure isn't relevant, range-to-target when we fire the last missile is. The 15 minute attack run for 90 reloads costs us 10-20m km effective range (depending on target movement, we cover 14.4m during it). Maybe we need longer-ranged missiles and FCs to launch from a comfortable distance, but "15 minutes in the danger zone" is a red herring.
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1) If this works as intended, the finest beam defence in the universe it will shoot down exactly 1 missile per fire control in final fire mode. AMMs will be similarly useless unless they have truly impressive R1 sensors. A unified volley of 91 missiles in 91 salvos may overtax the PD capabilities of a small fleet, pathetic missile speed is irrelevant to this (they'll shoot down anything they target, but they can't target them all). And they come from a single FAC...
well, the low missile speed actually is a problem. a fast magneto-plasma warship might go 4500-6000 m/s, which constitutes a massive increase in engagement time when reduced from the missile speed. it's plausible you might even be able to use fast escorts in area beam defence mode to get more shots off.
and ofc there are ships faster than 16kkm/s out there
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You might be able to get around the slow missile speed by using two-stage missiles: the first is a slowish stage that allows the FAC to keep pace, and the second is a zippy little missile that separates from the first stage after the FAC's magazine has been emptied, but before the salvos get engaged by the enemy AMMs. The combined stage will probably be larger than your current missiles, but they may get more warheads onto the target in the end.
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oh, incidentally. you may suffer some salvo fragmentation depending on enemy movement, initiative, etc. hard to say how it would fall out in practice.
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5-6km/s speed on magneto era warships is not rare
so it has 30-40%hit chance ? and low speed is working as intended ?
slow ships - fast missiles are understandable but reverse ?
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well, with a slow missile you could afford a lot of agility.
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How many do you expect to be deploying at any one time?
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5-6km/s speed on magneto era warships is not rare
so it has 30-40%hit chance ? and low speed is working as intended ?
slow ships - fast missiles are understandable but reverse ?
Options I like at my current tech (warhead 5, agility 64, fuel 0.6... ) are:
2 damage, 68.6m range, 64% against 5k
1 damage, 153.6m range, 86.4% against 5k
100% accuracy vs. 5k is possible, but I'd rather take the 2-damage warhead or get some combination of increased accuracy and range. Note that my missile tech may be lower than expected: my reference designs tend to use "everything up to 10k RP, and magneto-plasma drives"
well, with a slow missile you could afford a lot of agility.
True, but there are sharply diminishing returns... bigger warheads instead will result in higher expected damage. And low speed means we get a good amount of range if we forgo some expected damage, even on size 1 missiles.
How many do you expect to be deploying at any one time?
Not many. They shouldn't need to be massed to the same extent as many other missile-based systems, and they have some serious limitations.
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any PD weapon can cover this missile threat
16km/s missile without salvo density in magneto era means no hits unless there is real swarm of such FACs ( with a such swarm better to do bigger design for economy reason )
also boxes means salvo density and guarantee something can leak through defence
Even in the best case, most PD ships will have 1 FC/pd turret, or 1 FC/AMM launcher. When the missiles get close, you'd need 90 FCs to attempt intercepting all of them withing the 30 or so seconds that they'll be approaching.
Remember, this is 91 separate salvos of 1 missile. As opposed to 1 salvo of 91 missiles. 1 FC with a gauss cannon can only shoot down 1 salvo of 1 missile per 5 sec increment. The same FC and GC can take down several of the missiles in a 91 missile salvo in that same increment. I don't knwo of too many ship designs that roll around with more than 10 FCs, and even those are rather specialized, or unnecessarily large.
boxes are like 15k rp from standard launchers, if not more.
so that's like this with magneto plasma, versus ion tech with boxes
Boxes might take a bit of initial research cost to unlock the boxes themsevles, but once are researched, are done themselves, as opposed to regular launchers that need reload upgrades that can get over 100krp. Guess this is actually a rather odd way of trying ot accomplish the same role of ship with cheaper launchers RP wise.
Details! :)
Of course we could slap some armour on... or take some precautions to avoid being shot at.
Slow missiles have a lot of flexibility. If I don't blow 40% of missile weight on a 2-damage warhead, I can easily get 150-200m range with some space left over for more agility. Even if we lose 10% effective range to our peculiar attack run, that should be a safe distance for FACs. Of course, this would require a more powerful missiles fire control and probably cost us a magazine.
Only major problem I have with the design itself is the missile, which its tohit chance seems a little low for your tech level
Thanks for the encouragement. While your suggestion would shorten the attack run, multiple launchers would sacrifice some of the salvo dispersion that was a main reason for this approach.
I only chose 1000t FACs for a high ratio of magazines to launchers/FC, which in turn requires a long attack run and limits a secondary role as AMM escorts... if that trade-off is not desired, I'd simply use smaller ships (possibly fighters).
Multiple launchers can be made to have the same salvo dispersion via having equal numbers of launchers and FCs, Might end up sacrificing some magazine space to do this, but this is why they'd carry their reloads on a supporting collier.
Which leads me to what I'm personally going to try myself, a variant of this based around a fighter. (will post below, for your consideration) alogn with a fighter sized collier to make the attack run with. Nice thing about it. It's pretty safe during its attack run because not much will pick it up and start firing on it.
You might be able to get around the slow missile speed by using two-stage missiles: the first is a slowish stage that allows the FAC to keep pace, and the second is a zippy little missile that separates from the first stage after the FAC's magazine has been emptied, but before the salvos get engaged by the enemy AMMs. The combined stage will probably be larger than your current missiles, but they may get more warheads onto the target in the end.
Probably worth considering. Size 2 missile with a trawling size 1 stage, and a size 1 missile, set them all to separate around 30mkm (outside of most all AMM systems at this low tech
Aside from minor deviation due to target movement while on the attack run, all the missiles should separate at the same range, and about the same time (give or take an increment) and start blasting their way towards the target at say 40kkm/s. Also could have longer overall range with this tactic.
Concept fighter variation for MY testing, pls note, this is an ion tech craft, not magneto plasma. And its engines are limited to a 2x modifier due to my current tech level.
Also I haven't designed the particular missile yet as I will have a couple of weapons to arm the craft with. Both a 14400 speed missile, and another 17820 speed missile (because reasons)
numbers might be a little off from the one I'd actually use in practice because this is beign thrown together on my laptop in a "testing" save, which has a higher level armor tech than a regular ion equipped player would, so range and fittings of "non mission tonnage" may vary.
But the concept its there. For the same tonnage and a slight bit more BP, you can get 32 missiles out from similar range, but but much more safely due to the difficulty in targeting fighters at long ranges. This without eating up a FAC Naval yard that might be putting out another design (since most players generally don't do too much with fighters)
ZJSF-0A Mirage class Fighter-bomber 500 tons 10 Crew 165 BP TCS 10 TH 72 EM 0
14400 km/s Armour 1-5 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 0 PPV 1
Maint Life 4.29 Years MSP 21 AFR 20% IFR 0.3% 1YR 2 5YR 28 Max Repair 45 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 0.3 months Spare Berths 4
Magazine 16
24 EP Ion Drive (6) Power 24 Fuel Use 392.02% Signature 12 Exp 20%
Fuel Capacity 5,000 Litres Range 0.5 billion km (8 hours at full power)
Size 1 Missile Launcher (1) Missile Size 1 Rate of Fire 10
Missile Fire Control FC78-R80 (1) Range 78.9m km Resolution 80
This design is classed as a Fighter for production, combat and maintenance purposes
As far as massing them, the design I'm planning on doing below, I might make either 3+1collier, or 6+2 colliers, shove them in a CV and give em a test run.... they work, good, they've earned their place in the carrier, they don't oh well, not too much money or RP invested (at the small magazine size, theres no benefit of producing a single size 3 magazine for the collier, just use 3 size 1s, and any size 1 magazine costs 50 RP to research with 1HTK)
But for a 4 ship squadron of concept fighters, that will be 96 missiles in space for 2000t of cheap disposable fighter, that doesn't rely on me retooling any navy yards. Stripping out the collier and just building a regular squad all fighters will put out about 64 in a run before having to RTB
Mind you a standard size 1 armed box fighter at the same tech, can only pack ~13 size 1 boxes into the same space as the magazine and launcher... but requires a hangar reload... so you be the judge.
Perhaps it might be an interesting way in a multifaction campaign to create doctrines for 2 different empires that are using fighters.
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Even in the best case, most PD ships will have 1 FC/pd turret, or 1 FC/AMM launcher. When the missiles get close, you'd need 90 FCs to attempt intercepting all of them withing the 30 or so seconds that they'll be approaching.
Remember, this is 91 separate salvos of 1 missile. As opposed to 1 salvo of 91 missiles. 1 FC with a gauss cannon can only shoot down 1 salvo of 1 missile per 5 sec increment. The same FC and GC can take down several of the missiles in a 91 missile salvo in that same increment. I don't knwo of too many ship designs that roll around with more than 10 FCs, and even those are rather specialized, or unnecessarily large.
so is it 91 FACs with 91 magazine size ?
what do you mean simultanous as they are not simultanous within 1 ship fire ability
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(I trust that sitting on my initial reaction for a couple of hours has simmered it down from '1-man instant flame war' to 'stinging sarcasm'.)
so is it 91 FACs with 91 magazine size ?
what do you mean simultanous as they are not simultanous within 1 ship fire ability
::) So you don't bother reading the thread, even when you're forced to admit you've missed the entire point. Quoting the OP:
But there is something better than large salvos: An even larger number of missiles (on the same tonnage) in single salvos, arriving in the same increment.
I hope to achieve this by matching missile and platform speed - very slow missiles fired by a fast ship. This one may take 15 minutes to empty its magazines during an attack run (over a distance of 13.5m km, cutting significantly into its effective range)... but they should all arrive on target at the same time, in single missile salvos, rendering most defences comically ineffective.
To repeat it one more time, in the futile hope it will stick: the missiles are not launched in the same tick. They do (hopefully) end up running in together in a single clump. (Because every missile, as it is fired, runs alongside the ship at the same speed.)
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Yeah, it should work pretty well. I came up with the same tactic some time back: http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=5806.msg59633#msg59633
You even have pretty good designs. The problem, I've found, is mostly one of cost. The engines on your design cost 160 BP. A carrier also costs about that for 1 kton of package. Compare that to ~80 BP of other systems on your design, and ~80 BP of missiles.
Halve the engine size and power modifier, allocate a HS each to engineering and crew quarters, ditch the launcher and magazine, replace the remaining space with 0.33 size launchers (only 6k RP, compare to 5k RP for hangar decks)...and you get 30 launchers for a boat that's 1/3 the cost. Plus you can use faster missiles. 0.25 or box launcher tech and you get even better results. It won't overwhelm fire controls, but when you're firing like 900 missiles a salvo that's not generally important.
It's a very cool trick, but it doesn't break missile combat. Practical application is mostly limited to MIRVs, which still have the slow first stage problems, and homeworld defense, where you don't need a carrier. Or if you desperately need to break a much bigger fleet's missile defense.
Fair warning: I'm mostly a theorycrafter, and I'm not sure I ever actually tested this design. But it should work.
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ok now I understand the concept
it seems like I missed the point previously
PD will take few of the missiles only
hit ratio will be moderate
but there will be initial stack of 91 so 40-50 hits out of 1 FAC is within theory range
it looks good at this point and vs some slower enemies like some NPRs that tend to go slow number will go significantly higher
it seems for a magneto era vs 20kt military ship with armor 4-6 about 6-8 such FACs will be needed to score kill
good idea as system defence
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an idea!
make a slow size 2 MIRV missile (4000-8000km/s)
load it with a pathetic 0,4missile engine and 0,1fuel
set its trigger range to the max detection range you predict for the FAC
then load the MIRV's with blinding fast 1.5 size missiles
FAC (or even your main boat) unloads a wave of these missiles at more reasonable speeds (so you can fit twice as much ammo) at just outside their trigger range
once this wall of missiles gets in range, all the MIRV trigger at the same time, and BOOM you have a wall of 9001 separate salvos traveling at max speed fired from a single boat
admittedly this is nothing new to me, as ive always assumed that's how you used bombers because of a PvP space FPS/RTS game i once played that used this exact strategy to glass entire planets.
although that was taking it to the extremes since the bomber actually dive bombed the planet while doing this to shield the missiles from ams fire
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How in the name of god Magneto Plasma missile can be only 16k km/s ?? This is literally nuclear pulse level ...
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How in the name of god Magneto Plasma missile can be only 16k km/s ?? This is literally nuclear pulse level ...
They are in the name of god that slow because they were designed to be that slow. As clearly stated in the first post.
The question that remains is whether or not the volley segmentation confounds defensive fire controls enough to justify both the to-hit penalty and the increased vulnerability that comes with the slower speed.
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I like the idea, and the MIRV even more, here is a example for a slow MIRV-bomber:
Ju-87 class Fast Attack Craft 1 000 tons 6 Crew 198 BP TCS 20 TH 128 EM 0
6400 km/s Armour 1-8 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 0 PPV 6
Maint Life 0 Years MSP 0 AFR 200% IFR 2.8% 1YR 65 5YR 976 Max Repair 52 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 0.1 months Spare Berths 4
Magazine 102
64 EP Magneto-plasma Drive 2.0 (2) Power 64 Fuel Use 443.5% Signature 64 Exp 20%
Fuel Capacity 20 000 Litres Range 0.8 billion km (35 hours at full power)
Size 6 Missile Launcher (1) Missile Size 6 Rate of Fire 60
Missile Fire Control FC77-R20 (1) Range 77.5m km Resolution 20
Size 6 Missile Stage (16) Speed: 6 400 km/s End: 200.8m Range: 81.6m km WH: 0 Size: 6 TH: 21/12/6
Size 1 2nd Stage ASM (6) Speed: 25 600 km/s End: 3.3m Range: 5m km WH: 2 Size: 1 TH: 111/66/33
Missile to hit chances are vs targets moving at 3000 km/s, 5000 km/s and 10,000 km/s
This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
Missile tech is fairly low since I have no missile specialists in my current game, but still. 68 missiles with 33%-to-hit 10k speed enemies does not look that bad at this tech level. And a range of 75mkm should be enough to avoid detection except vs. high tech races and a separation range of 4.5mkm should be enough to avoid detection of the size 6 bus.
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That's basically what I'm thinking of using for saturation attacks.
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missile fc should be a bit higher as any ecm on target will prevent from using max missile range
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an idea!
make a slow size 2 MIRV missile (4000-8000km/s)
load it with a pathetic 0,4missile engine and 0,1fuel
set its trigger range to the max detection range you predict for the FAC
then load the MIRV's with blinding fast 1.5 size missiles
Would be nice if it was possible, but no missile stage may be below 1MSP. Since more than ~1/4 for the first stage is excessive, a size 3 or 4 missile launcher seems right for a FAC. I think I still prefer a single-stage approach for a FAC: The overhead for engines isn't without its benefits, and anything that's problematic for a 4xstandard speed missile (against most targets, the large warhead more than compensates for the to-hit rate) poses even bigger problems for a 2-stage cruise missile.
I like a two-stage approach for larger ships though.
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SUCCESS!
After sorting out my (touchscreen-related) technical difficulties, the original design is now officially battle-tested.
2 FACs accompanied by a spotting variant engaged a fleet totalling about 120kt (1x27kt, 3x18kt,4x10kt) known to have 1-damage beam and AMM defence, moving at about 2.8k.
Offensively, they were known to use small-ish particle beams at considerable range, and slow but high-yield missiles (size 4, 12k, 11 damage, unknown range but sensor coverage extending out to 112m at R78).
The map display showed a small spread, but two volleys of 90 and 91 missiles remained close enough together to intercept their targets in the same tick (one missile was given a head start to alert the enemy, after all the main goal is trolling point defence operators). 4 losses to point defence, 10k target destroyed, 27k target crippled (mostly thanks to secondary explosions).
The system performed exactly as designed and exceeded expectations, even considering the weak targets.
Unfortunately, I didn't have 200+ box launchers at hand to test enemy PD vs. conventional missile spam, but I believe there would have been some interceptions.
Frigates with a more reasonable speed and 2-stage missiles will be considered when tech permits: current engine multiplier tech is sufficient for slow high-yield missiles, not so much for short-ranged sprinters like dedicated AMMs or final ASM stages. Faster missile reload speed is also welcome for larger launchers.
Something similar to the current system will be kept for a fast response option, and to have an alterntive to slow cruise missiles when their limitations become a problem.
However, it may be scaled down to 400-600t in future generations for a smaller sensor footprint.
Alternatively, scaling up the armament also looks reasonable once a satisfactory (single stage) size-3 missile can be made with WH9 and a minimal sensor.
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Apparently it won't work. Slower missiles means enemy have much more AMM salvos to intercept them and have much higher chance to hit.
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Joker read up about fire controls vs number of salvos.
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Assume I'm launching a single coordnated strike of size-1 missiles from 10 FACs.
910 missiles in 910 salvos, speed 16k, WH2, MR19. 61% to hit a 5k target
720 missiles in 10 salvos of 72, speed 32k, WH1, MR22. 141% to hit a 5k target.
The first is my design from the first post.
The second represents the best I can do with fast missiles from box launchers, comparable effective range (~45m) , from platforms half as fast (8k).
The first looks much, much, better to me.
*
If we use two-stage missiles with size-1 payloads, we get rid of the speed restriction for the final stage... but slow cruising stage introduces its own problems.
On 8km/s craft launching 8km/s two-stage missiles, I could get
740 missiles in 740 salvos (Size 2 launcher)
980 missiles in 490 salvos of 2 (Size 3 launcher)
Final stages with a range requirement of about 6m could be
25600 km/s, WH2, MR22, 112% for a 5k target.
32000 km/s, WH1, MR28, 179% for a 5k target.
38400 km/s, WH1, MR22, 169% for a 5k target.
Larger launchers are unnecessary tonnage overhead and reduce dispersion if we just want to drown our target in size-1 missiles, but become interesting when we want larger final stages. 10 FACs could also deliver 160 of the following in single-missile salvos:
Total size 6, 6km/s, 75m cruising range, releasing a size 4.861 second stage:
26300 km/s, WH9, Range 7.2m, MR24, 126.2% to hit a 5km/s target
My two-stage missiles currently suffer from insufficient engine power multipliers, and the bigger one above should probably carry a sensor.
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Just used this vs. lots of small enemy FACs and it worked nicely with hardly any of the usual micro needed.
Put your FACs on auto+sync fire once in range and force as many turns as needed to run out of ammo, reload at collier and repeat till either all enemies are down or they got close enough to force you to jump out of the system.