Comments thread

[Cavgunner (OP)]

In order to consolidate all discussions, please feel free to comment here if you wish.

[Bughunter]

Only on the second page so far, but enjoying the read and hoping it will be a long one.

[Iranon]

Wow, and I thought I was stingy with missile agility!
Are there some roleplaying reasons for that? Shuffling weight from engine to agility for a manouverability rating of 15-20 should improve accuracy considerably for a rather moderate speed loss. I can sort of understand going purely for speed for offensive missiles (harder to shoot down), but AMMs could probably be 50% more effective.

[Cavgunner (OP)]

I've used the weapons enough in the field to realize that it's a weakness.  Future iterations will correct this.

[joansam]

What's your warhead tech? You may be able to cram more warhead into your Size 5s at the cost of a bit of speed, which could be offset by increased agility.   I've managed to fit a Size 4 warhead onto some short-range size 1 anti-ship missiles for fighters - kind of an interesting design that tends to overwhelm anti-missiles defenses and do decent damage. 

Also - can I ask what your rough hit stats are for AMMs and your point defenses? In the recent battle your AMMs seem to have suffered from targeting size 1 AMMs themselves - it's not fun economically to be throwing AMMs at AMMs.   Did the energy weapons fare better?

[Cavgunner (OP)]

Currently I have Fusion-Boosted Fission Warheads (8,000 RP).  Propulsion is Internal Confinement Fusion Drive with a max speed multiplier of x1.75 (x3.5 for missile engines).  My current Missile Agility tech is pretty backward at 48 agility per MSP (4,000 RP).  Most of my recent military tech gains (such as engine tech) are due almost entirely to salvage.  This has left big gaps in other areas.  Hopefully this provides some insight into why my weapons are the way they are. 

I haven't been able to test the current Flash missiles against other full size ASMs yet.  However, in the past my railguns and other PD weapons seem to have a hit rate of 30%-50% against ASMs, depending on the experience of the crew.

[joansam]

Gotcha - I prioritized the max speed multiplier relatively early on, but I've also been using SM mode to try things out.  It seems like smaller missile launchers have a huge advantage over larger ones because of their faster reload times - I've been trying to stick to an all-size 1 missile plan in my playthrough so far.

So the hit rate for your PD sounds decent - would it be cost-efficient enough to replace your AMMs in the long run? I just hate the idea of throwing away AMMs if something 'renewable' would do. 

[serger]

Splendid contact episode!

[Michael Sandy]

The passive sensors you have aren't actually better than the default power 1 sensors all ships have.  I have a very similar scout concept, a size 1 engine, .4 HS for fuel, and a .1 HS active sensor.  It isn't going to outrange anything with its sensors, except maybe pure beam ships, but it should be able to outrun anything if it detects a massive anti-ship sensor on its base passives.

[Garfunkel]

Yeah the default sensors all ships have - but are not listed anywhere - were a nasty surprise for me as well since I used to put tiny sensors on all ships. Better to use 1HS passives or nothing at all.

[Cavgunner (OP)]

Does the default strength of these "invisible" sensors also increase with advances in sensor power?

[DIT_grue]

Does the default strength of these "invisible" sensors also increase with advances in sensor power?

No. I seem to recall Steve once mentioning that they were intended to cover the potential problem of, "Why don't they just look out a window and tell me what's going on?" so higher sensor tech isn't really relevant to the way he thinks about them.

[Father Tim]

Does the default strength of these "invisible" sensors also increase with advances in sensor power?

No.  The 'freebie' sensors are always strength 1, regardless of your sensor tech.

[Garfunkel]

Ah, I thought they were 0.1 HS size always and thus depend on your tech level. That means that 0.5 HS passives are still useful as, few tech levels in and if kept updated, they will have lot more range than sensitivity 1 sensor.

And C# has banished them completely anyway.

[Father Tim]

Last I checked 1 HS or less sensors were civilian systems, and a ship with no sensors received strength-1 passives.