Using CIWS instead of designated point defense ships

[nafaho7]

Due to the timing of missile being fired during the fire phase and detection (1st thing in the fire phase) a missile is invisible for the first 5 seconds of flight.   This translates to your beam point defense will NEVER fire on a missile during those 1st 5 seconds.

Realistically most beam warships use beam PD weapons, which are only really usable in “final fire” mode.  The flight time of enemy missiles is not really important for final fire, and final fire will always get a shot, even if the flight time of the enemy is lower than 5s, no?

I was under the impression that Final Defensive Fire was always allowed to fire upon incoming warheads, provided that the ship in question still had unallocated energy weapon fire from weapons mounts dedicated to Final Defensive Fire.

Also, if an energy weapon based fleet is attempting to close a large distance through the range envelope of an opposing force, wouldn't the fleet be better off with at least some of its weapons dedicated to Area Defense, in stead of Final Defense?  As I understand things, Area defensive fire allows ships to engage previously detected missiles during the standard shooting phase, and will engage any detected missiles in range.   Final Defensive Fire, on the other hand, works on the same basic rules as the Close In Weapons System.

If an energy focused fleet does not have enough individual weapons mounts to safely divert some of them to Area Defense, then the fleet has already lost, as none of the ships may support other fleet elements, which makes the particular energy fleet a waste of research and resources.   If the fleet does have enough energy mounts, then the fleet is approaching the appropriate size for dealing with the given threat.

And, like all fleets, the larger your Resolution 1 sensor is, the happier you are.   With sufficient detection range, energy weapons may attempt to swat down missiles in Area Defense mode, instead of depending upon Final Defensive Fire.   With sufficient detection range, and sufficient research, your fleet can also have nice bonuses towards tracking and targeting missiles.

[Theokrat]

I was under the impression that Final Defensive Fire was always allowed to fire upon incoming warheads, provided that the ship in question still had unallocated energy weapon fire from weapons mounts dedicated to Final Defensive Fire.

Also, if an energy weapon based fleet is attempting to close a large distance through the range envelope of an opposing force, wouldn't the fleet be better off with at least some of its weapons dedicated to Area Defense, in stead of Final Defense?  As I understand things, Area defensive fire allows ships to engage previously detected missiles during the standard shooting phase, and will engage any detected missiles in range.   Final Defensive Fire, on the other hand, works on the same basic rules as the Close In Weapons System.

If an energy focused fleet does not have enough individual weapons mounts to safely divert some of them to Area Defense, then the fleet has already lost, as none of the ships may support other fleet elements, which makes the particular energy fleet a waste of research and resources.   If the fleet does have enough energy mounts, then the fleet is approaching the appropriate size for dealing with the given threat.

And, like all fleets, the larger your Resolution 1 sensor is, the happier you are.   With sufficient detection range, energy weapons may attempt to swat down missiles in Area Defense mode, instead of depending upon Final Defensive Fire.   With sufficient detection range, and sufficient research, your fleet can also have nice bonuses towards tracking and targeting missiles.

Apparently even "final fire" does not help against missiles launched and it in the same 5s increment, but I am also awaiting confirmation from other forum member. This would actually be a point in favor of longer ranged beams,  simply for staying out of that range.

Final fire works similar to CIWS, but - critically - does engage missiles headed for other ships. In other words: point defence does allow the ship to support other fleet elements.

“Area defence” for beam weapons on the other hand is questionable if you keep your fleet stuck together. You need incredibly large firecontrolls and lasers to even match the kill potential of final fire weapons on a per unit basis- let alone on a per weight measure. This is because 1) missiles move fast and cover quite some ground in 5s, and 2) shooting at targets further away implies lower hitchances- or larger systems.

In other words: If you can not shoot multiple times anyway, then you might as well wait to the last moment when you have the best hitchance.

[TheDeadlyShoe]

This translates to your beam point defense will NEVER fire on a missile during those 1st 5 seconds.

I believe CIWS still works. One of its advantages in jump assaults. 

[Charlie Beeler]

Brian is correct.  It's a function of the sequence of play.  Sensor detection is at the end of the main movement phase.  Weapons fire, including missile launch, is at the end of the turn.  At the beginning of the next turn is movement and final defensive fire against any missiles that will hit thier targets...before sensors are resolved.  This creates a single 5 second impulse where missiles could be launched and hit without any chance of intercept.  This is well know to veteran players.  It is very difficult to actually use though.  CIWS does not function any better than any other system, it's at the mercy of the same exploit of the sequence of play.

[xeryon]

I feel slightly proud of myself as an extremely novice player that I did pick up on the 5 second missile travel & turn sequence loophole. 

[MehMuffin (OP)]

What if you were to have one massive ship armed with large amounts of rapid fire CIWS, carrying a large group of fighters armed with mesons to act as additional PD and attack? If you overdid the shields and armor and CIWS, it would be awfully hard to damage the mothership, do the AIs limit their missile attacks against specific targets to avoid wasting ordnance?  

[TheDeadlyShoe]

CIWS does not function any better than any other system, it's at the mercy of the same exploit of the sequence of play.

CIWS has its own built in sensors and operates autonomously. IE - still works when you are in Sensor Delay. I ahven't tested it explicitly since I don't typically use CIWS, but I'm pretty sure it works that way from having shot missiles at assaulting NPCs.

[ollobrains]

anyone that does test us let us know how it pans out

[Charlie Beeler]

CIWS has its own built in sensors and operates autonomously. IE - still works when you are in Sensor Delay. I ahven't tested it explicitly since I don't typically use CIWS, but I'm pretty sure it works that way from having shot missiles at assaulting NPCs.

It does not matter if the sensor is built in to a system or is an independent suite.  Sensor detection follows movement and is before weapons fire.  Point defense final fire can only engage missiles that have been detected.  I used this exploit extensively with fighters before the active sensors were rewritten to change how resolution functioned.

CIWS is the result of a 'discussion' from a few years ago about reducing the hullspace size of Gauss Cannon.  I'm the one that started that discussion.  It is nothing for than reduced GC in a turret with an intigrated res1 active sensor and beam firecontrol.   It still follows all the rules/code for beam turrets/beam fire control set to final fire(self defense).

[Thiosk]

Heres a CIWS question for ya:

I want to put some CIWS on orbital habs (it only makes sense).

If alien missiles target the population, despite the fact that they live in the hab, will the CIWS go off?

[TheDeadlyShoe]

It does not matter if the sensor is built in to a system or is an independent suite.  Sensor detection follows movement and is before weapons fire.  Point defense final fire can only engage missiles that have been detected.  I used this exploit extensively with fighters before the active sensors were rewritten to change how resolution functioned.

CIWS do not have conventional sensors, they never do regular sensor detection. they just allocate HS to sensors and automatically fire at errything.

[Charlie Beeler]

CIWS do not have conventional sensors, they never do regular sensor detection. they just allocate HS to sensors and automatically fire at errything.

Absolutely wrong.  http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php/topic,1691.0.html 

[Theokrat]

Absolutely wrong.  http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php/topic,1691.0.html 

I believe what TheDeadlyShoe was pointing at, it that the game does not consider CIWS to have sensors for any other aspect than calculating the weight of the thing.

The sensor is an entirely implicit assumption that is just used to calculated the costs of the system, but not used in battle (i.e you could not detect a sensor boy with CIWS, if you where right on top of it) - see point 4 in the first post of the thread you linked to. Specifically you can never actually spot anything with this implicit sensor, it just serves to justify that a CIWS system will always fire, regardless of the presence of an actual sensor. So if it is actually programmed as CIWS will always fire at incoming missiles, that could include missiles during the first 5 s.

[Charlie Beeler]

I believe what TheDeadlyShoe was pointing at, it that the game does not consider CIWS to have sensors for any other aspect than calculating the weight of the thing.

The sensor is an entirely implicit assumption that is just used to calculated the costs of the system, but not used in battle (i.e you could not detect a sensor boy with CIWS, if you where right on top of it) - see point 4 in the first post of the thread you linked to. Specifically you can never actually spot anything with this implicit sensor, it just serves to justify that a CIWS system will always fire, regardless of the presence of an actual sensor. So if it is actually programmed as CIWS will always fire at incoming missiles, that could include missiles during the first 5 s.

Not exactly.  The hs is calculated for a minimum size sensor that would be required to detect missiles in time the the CIWS to engage.  To my knowledge Steve has not posted what criteria he has used for this.  This most definitely explicit not implicit.  Even though this sensor is not available for any other use and does not have a detectable EM signature it still goes through the required detection steps to see inbound missiles.  This includes the 5 second exploit. 

Back when Steve added this system I was extensively using the 5 second exploit with my fighters and many of the ships engages had CIWS suites and never engage those missiles.  With the major change to active sensors that removed resolution 0 and a the degradation of detection of ships larger that the sensor resolution the ability to make use of the exploit with fighters has functionally been eliminated. 

I highly doubt that he would have given CIWS a functional all seeing eye against missiles since that type of detection has been a major factor to not have in the game.  This actually goes back to our Starfire days.

[ollobrains]

is there any way CIWS can be split into an active and passive system and be susupectible to some form of jamming and boosting technology perhaps expand its elements in gameplay ?