Drones?

[ramblingvanman (OP)]

We are wondering about drones for jump zone assaults. Missile designs seem to fit the bill except for one thong Can missiles use jump gates? If we build a jump gate on one side, can we fire missiles at a target through the gate?

[Andrew]

No
There is no way to target anything on the other side and if a way of firing missiles through a gate was added Jump shock would blind them until long after their fuel had run out.
If you want missile pods build fighters  with jump engines and at least some with active sensors and send them through. you could skip the jump engines and use a gate but they would be blind for so long the enemy would wipe them out. Even with Jump engines its probably a terrible idea

[ramblingvanman (OP)]

Hmmm... missiles can use a gate though. Maybe use as decoys to soak some enemy missile fire? Trying to storm a heavily defended jump point.

[Andrew]

I don't think you can fire missiles through a gate at all.
Best methods for storming a jup point,
1) Go around it
2 wait until most of the defenders go away
3) Build jump ships which can appear a long way from the jump gate and squadron jump in multiple ships with 100% crew training so they recover and open fire fast

[Steve Walmsley]

Missiles can't be fired through jump points.

If you want Starfire-style SBMHAWKs, then build fighters (or ships) that consist of box launchers and fire controls, plus 'control pod' fighters with sensors and a jump drive with the maximum squadron size and jump radius. Send them through in squadrons. After recovering from jump shock, launch all the missiles at the desired targets. If you build enough, they should swamp the defences.

Or you can use more general fighters, but you are spending BP/mass on engines, etc.

[randakar]

Another option is decoy fighters. Missile jammer equipped decoy missile launching fighters. No weapons, those come on the second wave ships that will do the killing.

[Garfunkel]

Multiple squadrons jumping through at the same time is the most straightforward way of assaulting a defended JP. With squadron jumps and high fleet training, the ships will recover pretty fast and with multiple dispersed squadrons, the defenders have to split up their fire. You'll probably be outside beam range for at least some of your squadrons too.

[Michael Sandy]

True, missiles can not be fired through Jump Points.

But fighters that consist of nothing but a box launcher and a homing missile can.

And if they launch their missiles on transit, firing at a waypoint on top of the jump point, wouldn't that serve?  You could even use a commercial jump tender.  As I understand it, firing at a waypoint isn't going to be affected by jump shock.

[Ghostly]

It is currently possible to break through JP blockades with ease because the Fire at Will command negates jump shock almost entirely. Not only it makes it much easier to assault JPs with regular mass squadron jumps (spoilers, also spoilers) or even squadron-capable missile boxes, but even standard-jumping a blob of fighters would be a valid tactic, as they'd experience minimal, if any, delay. I consider this to be a pretty serious bug and really hope it gets fixed in the next version, but if you're unwilling to abuse it now, consider high-jump range jump-capable fighters to lead the blockading ships away from the JP before sending in your main force, this works really well if your enemy doesn't have AMMs (spoilers again)

As I understand it, firing at a waypoint isn't going to be affected by jump shock.

Honestly, this feels like a variation of the same bug to me (waypoint targeting ignoring jump shock same way fire at will does), but also waypoint-fired missiles are in a pretty weird spot right now. As in, the only way to make them switch targets from a waypoint to an enemy ship on the fly (that I've found) is to use the currently bugged Move Waypoint command while the missile is in flight, which makes the missile switch targets using its on-board sensors. This can only be done once per game launch (need to save/close/reopen before moving a waypoint again) and there's no telling whether this will work once waypoint moving is fixed in 2.6.0. It would be nice for missiles to use their sensors to target anything in range without the need for waypoint shuffling, but on the other hand, being able to fire at targets without the need for active sensors or an appropriate MFC just by applying a little bit of math (not even always necessary) might be a bit OP.