2.2 AMM theorycrafting

[Droll]

This is an aside but I just thought of something really stupid: Would laser warhead AMMs be able to ignore missile decoys regardless of ECM/ECCM tech?

Why would they? Same logic as a non-laser one applies, the laser might shoot at the real missile or the decoy.

I guess I'm just searching for a justification to using laser warhead AMMs, as right now it just seems like a bad idea.

[Snoman314]

This is an aside but I just thought of something really stupid: Would laser warhead AMMs be able to ignore missile decoys regardless of ECM/ECCM tech?

Why would they? Same logic as a non-laser one applies, the laser might shoot at the real missile or the decoy.

I guess I'm just searching for a justification to using laser warhead AMMs, as right now it just seems like a bad idea.

Yeah they definitely seem to be intended as an ASM warhead type, for penetrating point defences.

[captainwolfer]

So, the results of a practical test I just did. Note that the incoming missiles were from an NPR, and were 30,000 km/s size 9 missiles with 2 decoys each (I think). Also the incoming missiles were magneto-plasma to my ion engines, so my AMMs barely had a speed advantage. I only counted the number of missiles hit, I ignored decoy hits. My ships moved away from the incoming missiles at 6,250 km/s.

Missile fire control: 2.89 million km range vs size 10 missiles, fire 3 AMMs per incoming enemy missile.

Multiple Warhead AMM: 55 enemy missiles destroyed, 640 AMMs expended.
Retargeting AMMs: 172 enemy missiles destroyed, 640 AMMs expended.

AMM Designs:

Code: [Select]

Multi-Warhead AMM
Missile Size: 2.000 MSP  (5.0000 Tons)     Warhead: 1.500 (MW-3)    Radiation Damage: 1.500
Speed: 34,200 km/s     Fuel: 137     Flight Time: 106.6 seconds     Range: 3,645,720 km
Cost Per Missile: 2.285     Development Cost: 239
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 342%   3k km/s 114%   5k km/s 68.4%   10k km/s 34.2%


Code: [Select]

Retargeting AMM
Missile Size: 2.000 MSP  (5.0000 Tons)     Warhead: 0.500    Radiation Damage: 0.500
Speed: 33,000 km/s     Fuel: 137     Flight Time: 108.4 seconds     Range: 3,577,200 km
Retarget Capable
Cost Per Missile: 2.275     Development Cost: 238
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 330%   3k km/s 110%   5k km/s 66%   10k km/s 33%
I didn't even bother with trying ECCM or terminal guidance, because neither provide nearly as much as an advantage to an AMM as retargeting or multiple warhead.

Ultimately, Retargeting is clearly the best option, because it gives the AMM way more tries.
The AMMs are first fired at a distance of 2.8 million km. It take about 45 seconds for the AMMs to intercept at a range of about 1.8 million km. It then takes the enemy missiles 70 seconds to travel to 80k km from my ships, which was where I ended the tests. Thus, each AMM has a maximum of 14 tries to intercept a missile (first AMMs travel 1.485 million km to first intercept, and wont run out of fuel before the enemy missiles hit), although the number of possible attempts decreases as the missiles get closer.

In comparison, the Multi-target AMM effectively only gets 3 attempts per missile, 1 for each warhead. Every warhead I add needs 0.225 MSP of space in the missile (0.125 of warhead, 0.1 of multi-target bus), so I can only have a total of 3 warheads before the multi-target uses up more space than the retargeting module does. Yes, I could use smaller warheads against size 9 missiles, but a difference of .0125 per warhead basically doesn't matter, and going any smaller means introducing a risk of not destroying the missile when you do hit.

In conclusion, the only case you wouldn't use retargeting AMMs is if it is absolutely impossible to match the speed of the enemy missiles.

[Ulzgoroth (OP)]

I think the conclusion may be overreaching - if you were fighting from a superior tech base, your higher hit chance would have been more favorable to the alternatives.

But seems like a great demonstration that the concept works!

[captainwolfer]

I think the conclusion may be overreaching - if you were fighting from a superior tech base, your higher hit chance would have been more favorable to the alternatives.

But seems like a great demonstration that the concept works!

Basically, I don't see how multiple warheads could compete with re-targeting except maybe at much higher tech levels, since any more than 4 extra warheads (5 total) would be larger than a single retargeting module. Even if the missiles had been moving twice as fast, that still would have given at least 7 attempts for the retargeting, vs 5 attempts on a multiple warhead bus. And that ignores the fact that higher tech means the missiles can be targeted from further away, due to better sensor tech.

Terminal guidance, even at 90% increased hit chance, is basically just "twice as many hits". Way worse than using 0.5 space for much more than 2 chances to hit

ECCM only matters if you can actually hit the missile. And you need to have a tech advantage over the enemy

[Ulzgoroth (OP)]

I think the conclusion may be overreaching - if you were fighting from a superior tech base, your higher hit chance would have been more favorable to the alternatives.

But seems like a great demonstration that the concept works!

Basically, I don't see how multiple warheads could compete with re-targeting except maybe at much higher tech levels, since any more than 4 extra warheads (5 total) would be larger than a single retargeting module. Even if the missiles had been moving twice as fast, that still would have given at least 7 attempts for the retargeting, vs 5 attempts on a multiple warhead bus. And that ignores the fact that higher tech means the missiles can be targeted from further away, due to better sensor tech.

Terminal guidance, even at 90% increased hit chance, is basically just "twice as many hits". Way worse than using 0.5 space for much more than 2 chances to hit

ECCM only matters if you can actually hit the missile. And you need to have a tech advantage over the enemy

Multiple warheads can generate more than one hit, which matters against enemies with decoys. Terminal guidance I'm more doubtful of, but it can stack with multiple warheads in a way retargeting doesn't.

ECCM, yeah, only would consider that in very contingent circumstances.

[Pallington]

Necro posting, but terminal guidance is for saving on engine costs and therefore gallicite, without using a full 0.5 size for retargeting on size 1 AMMs. Because those AMMs aren't going anywhere if half their space is for retarget capability.

At BCAM (i know, nobody plays high enough tech to care), 0.71 mass ratio and x600% engine burn ratio caps you out at 270k km/s. This gives 270% to hit against 10km/s (therefore 23% or so against the 120km/s ASMs you're likely to run into), and costs 3.4 gallicite. Total cost 7.4.

At 0.46x600% and terminal guidance, you save 1.2 gallicite (and 1.2 boronide but who cares), spend only 0.6 uridium, and get a missile with 176k km/s but 282% to hit against 10km/s. Can't hit missiles built around being fast but even if you had the speed to catch up, without ATG your hit chance would be a piddly 15-20% max.

I haven't done spacemaster testing but if terminal guidance actually does work as these numbers imply, then late game when you start feeling gallicite crunch you REALLY should consider slowing your missiles and putting on terminal guidance (even lower levels will probably help) to make up the aim% difference. Eventually you'll even want to not slow down the missile that much (evidently next tech level will give me an extra few dozen km/s for my engine usage since i'm not capped out)

Retarget also is much worse when you don't care to make your AMM last longer than 20s, which is most likely the case for a size 1 AMM. If you use size 2 or size 3 AMM, then retarget is much more valuable, as you will probably put enough fuel for the AMM to last minutes, at which point you can actually try multiple times. Just beware the fuel expenses.

Edit: In fact, at bigger missiles this is even more important. You could probably save 2+ gallicite from your missile just by swapping over to TG instead of relying purely on speed, and use the extra space for retargeting or fuel for retargeting. If all you need is good range and a bit more than 120% of the ASM's speed, there's a very real argument to how much gallicite you put into your AMM.