Aurora 4x
New Players => The Academy => Topic started by: smoelf on October 23, 2016, 01:03:22 PM
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In a recent fight I had a problem with targeting the enemy ship, and I was wondering if I was doing something wrong. In the past couple of fights I have had no problems targeting, and was able to fire my missiles from about 100m km away. For this fight I had brought fighters for the first time (still rather new to the game), but even when they were right on top of the enemy ship, it didn't show up as a valid target in the combat overview. As for my missile boats, I couldn't target it at first, but after I had closed the distance to about 40m km, I was able to shoot normally. This would indicate some kind of ECM to reduce targeting distance, but I don't think it will explain my fighters' targeting problem. I'll list the ships below, in case I might have made a mistake building them.
Fleet command and sensor ship
Absalon II class Destroyer Leader 16 200 tons 475 Crew 3775.4 BP TCS 324 TH 3200 EM 150
9876 km/s JR 3-50 Armour 6-57 Shields 5-200 Sensors 30/8/0/0 Damage Control Rating 6 PPV 0
Maint Life 1.14 Years MSP 1874 AFR 349% IFR 4.9% 1YR 1467 5YR 22001 Max Repair 800 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 12 months Spare Berths 1
Flag Bridge
J16200(3-50) Military Jump Drive Max Ship Size 16200 tons Distance 50k km Squadron Size 3
1600 EP Magneto-plasma Drive (2) Power 1600 Fuel Use 169.71% Signature 1600 Exp 20%
Fuel Capacity 1 750 000 Litres Range 11.5 billion km (13 days at full power)
Alpha R200/144 Shields (5) Total Fuel Cost 30 Litres per hour (720 per day)
Active Search Sensor MR498-R200 (1) GPS 88200 Range 498.9m km Resolution 200
Active Search Sensor MR201-R100 (1) GPS 25200 Range 201.6m km Resolution 100
Active Search Sensor MR10-R1 (1) GPS 126 Range 10.1m km MCR 1.1m km Resolution 1
Thermal Sensor TH5-30 (1) Sensitivity 30 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 30m km
EM Detection Sensor EM1-8 (1) Sensitivity 8 Detect Sig Strength 1000: 8m km
ECM 10
This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
Missile boat
Tyr class Missile Frigate 7 950 tons 241 Crew 1537.6 BP TCS 159 TH 1600 EM 0
10062 km/s Armour 5-35 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 2 PPV 30
Maint Life 1.28 Years MSP 1242 AFR 252% IFR 3.5% 1YR 800 5YR 11997 Max Repair 800 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 12 months Spare Berths 1
Magazine 210
1600 EP Magneto-plasma Drive (1) Power 1600 Fuel Use 169.71% Signature 1600 Exp 20%
Fuel Capacity 750 000 Litres Range 10.0 billion km (11 days at full power)
Size 6 Missile Launcher (5) Missile Size 6 Rate of Fire 90
Missile Fire Control FC201-R100 (1) Range 201.6m km Resolution 100
S6 ASM (35) Speed: 25 600 km/s End: 61.6m Range: 94.6m km WH: 9 Size: 6 TH: 145/87/43
ECCM-1 (1) ECM 10
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
HPM Fighter
Falk class Fighter 492 tons 4 Crew 146 BP TCS 9.84 TH 160 EM 0
16260 km/s Armour 1-5 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 0 PPV 3
Maint Life 0 Years MSP 0 AFR 98% IFR 1.4% 1YR 42 5YR 637 Max Repair 80 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 0.1 months Spare Berths 0
160 EP Magneto-plasma Drive (1) Power 160 Fuel Use 322.44% Signature 160 Exp 20%
Fuel Capacity 5 000 Litres Range 0.6 billion km (9 hours at full power)
R4.5/C3 High Power Microwave (1) Range 45 000km TS: 16260 km/s Power 3-3 RM 4.5 ROF 5 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0
Fire Control S00.5 32-4000 (FTR) (1) Max Range: 64 000 km TS: 16000 km/s 84 69 53 37 22 6 0 0 0 0
Stellarator Fusion Reactor Technology PB-1 (1) Total Power Output 3 Armour 0 Exp 5%
This design is classed as a Fighter for production, combat and maintenance purposes
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Question, what is the estimated size of the enemy craft you can't target? Also, there is a "max weapons range (ships)" checkbox in the Display 2 tab, click that and zoom way in to your fighters and the enemy.
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It was almost 3000 tons.
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It was almost 3000 tons.
There's the problem. You have a R100 sensor, which can detect 5000 tons and above without losing any range. Since the target is 3000 tons, that 200m km max detection range will drop down to somewhere around 40m km.
As for the fighter problem, it's usually comes down to either not having an active sensor lock or your fleet movement initiative is not high enough.
The first scenario is rather unlikely since most AI ships around the 3000 ton range are survey ships with low thermal and EM radiations, so it's unlikely that you'll pick it up with a passive sensor and not an active one.
The second scenario is the more likely culprit. If you don't have a high enough movement speed, you'll end up chasing the enemy's last 5-sec increment location. Given the speed of your fighters and that of the enemy craft, you could be looking easily at a range that's further away than you can shoot.
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Ah, I see. I assumed that since I was able to see the target on the map and that it was within the general range of my active sensors, that I should be able to target it. I hadn't considered how the maximum distance for potential "lock" changes with the tonnage.
It actually makes a lot of sense in this context. The enemy ship was close to a colony of mine with DST's in a small system, and was picked up by their passive sensor, so I could "see" the ship on the map, but the reduced size affected my active sensors. I should also mention that the point at which my fighters attempted their attack, the main fleet was about 110m km away (which would have been fine with a 5000 tons ship), but I recovered the fighters before proceeding to 40m km, when the missiles started working. It's a shame I didn't test the fighters at that point.
Thanks for the help!
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Actually I believe if you lower the task group's initiative it will move after the enemy ship, effectively allowing it to catch up. or at least that's what I've been led to believe. Try it next time you're in that situation.
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I believe it's the opposite, high initiative means you move last (which is usually advantageous, as firing takes place after movement and the one to move last gets an advantage at choosing the range).
Regarding the contacts... it pays to have a closer look. If you can see the mass of the contact, you have an active sensor lock. If you just get an EM/Thermal reading, you don't.
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Yes, lowest initiative goes first, highest initiative goes last and you always want to move last as Iranon said.