Range finding Question (Or how do i increase the range on my Beam firing control

[iceball3]

Worth noting that if your missiles don't outspeed your target, you can potentially fail to hit them at all due to them trying to chase it and not being able to catch up.
A good point of advice for AMMs of any sort, try to at least hit 10,000 km/s.

[doulos05]

Alright it is time for me to begin trying to parse how to make missiles.

Primary takeaway from all the advice you are about to get: AMMs should be almost all engines and agility is only to fill in  the gaps left between the smallest possible MSP that gives you the desired warhead size and the smallest possible MSP for fuel that gives you the range you want.

[Catman115 (OP)]

Quote

Ok so took this advice and redid the missile engine. Got a size one missile that moves at 24000 km/s. So yay i guess?

A good point of advice for AMMs of any sort, try to at least hit 10,000 km/s.

Yay! Mission accomplished!

Primary takeaway from all the advice you are about to get: AMMs should be almost all engines and agility is only to fill in  the gaps left between the smallest possible MSP that gives you the desired warhead size and the smallest possible MSP for fuel that gives you the range you want.

Many thanks for the sage advice, i do see this now.

Now the as for Anti Ship Missiles and larger Torpedoes, what should i be looking for in terms of size and speed? Lets say size 6 for ASM and size 10+ for torpedoes.

[doulos05]

Simple rule of thumb is "It should hit your own ships 100% of the time."
So if your ships go 5000kmh, your missiles should have engines and agility such that they hit targets going 5000kmh 100% of the time. After that, balance between fuel and warhead. Aim for a warhead of 9, but don't feel too worried if you can't get there yet. As for range, that depends on your missiles fire control range, which depends on your sensor range. Others will have more concrete suggestions for that. I'm afraid I can't help too much.

[doulos05]

One more thing, 24,000kmh for AMMs is great. The faster, the better (generally speaking).

[Iranon]

For a general purpose missile, a good baseline is 40% engine, 30% warhead, 20% agility, 10% fuel, then account for break points due to rounding.
If you want sensors or to boost speed/damage/range, some agility can be sacrificed without problem

[db48x]

@ db48x:
That's too much agility. Highest accuracy for a given engine/agility budget is achieved when
(Agility MSP) = (Engine MSP) - 10*(Total Size) / (Agility per MSP)

In practice, you'd use less for bigger engines: larger engines save a little fuel, speed has other advantages.

You're right! The AMM had too much agility; I must have flubbed the arithmetic.

[Catman115 (OP)]

For a general purpose missile, a good baseline is 40% engine, 30% warhead, 20% agility, 10% fuel, then account for break points due to rounding.
If you want sensors or to boost speed/damage/range, some agility can be sacrificed without problem

Right so i followed this advice and unfortunately i got this result.

Missile Size: 6 MSP  (0.3 HS)     Warhead: 9    Armour: 0     Manoeuvre Rating: 23
Speed: 4800 km/s    Engine Endurance: 210.3 hours   Range: 3 634.4m km
Cost Per Missile: 4.146
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 110.4%   3k km/s 23%   5k km/s 22.1%   10k km/s 11%
Materials Required:    2.25x Tritanium   1.896x Gallicite   Fuel x1500

Now the chance to hit slow moving stuff IS pretty decent, ECM aside, but that really isnt what i intended this missile to do. The Torpedo i designed is even worse. So what did i do wrong here? 

[Pixel1191]

Range is waaay too high.

Cut the fuel, give the engine as much power boost as your current tech allows and possibly make it bigger, that should change things up.

You could also try using this little handy spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1mQ3PJGxqgK4fvWSdjWkSPt3QebO2jLlcngxNFTiIdys/edit#gid=917907050%EF%BB%BF

[Catman115 (OP)]

Aight then so i THINK this is better.

Missile Size: 6 MSP  (0.3 HS)     Warhead: 9    Armour: 0     Manoeuvre Rating: 16
Speed: 24000 km/s    Engine Endurance: 77 minutes   Range: 110.2m km
Cost Per Missile: 4.818
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 384%   3k km/s 128%   5k km/s 76.8%   10k km/s 38.4%
Materials Required:    2.25x Tritanium   2.568x Gallicite   Fuel x1250

[Pixel1191]

Yep, that looks a lot more reasonable.

And with that design, whenever you reach a new level in the relevant tech (engine tech, engine power modifier, fuel consumption, missile agility and warhead) you can just take this design, leave the values as they are and research the new missile. You'll have a missile of the same size, which is simply  a bit better, depending on what tech you get, if you don't want to fiddle with an entirely new design, that is.

[doulos05]

Aight then so i THINK this is better.

Missile Size: 6 MSP  (0.3 HS)     Warhead: 9    Armour: 0     Manoeuvre Rating: 16
Speed: 24000 km/s    Engine Endurance: 77 minutes   Range: 110.2m km
Cost Per Missile: 4.818
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 384%   3k km/s 128%   5k km/s 76.8%   10k km/s 38.4%
Materials Required:    2.25x Tritanium   2.568x Gallicite   Fuel x1250

That's pretty much exactly what my missiles look like.

[Catman115 (OP)]

Right then so let see if this Missile boat i have made makes any kind of sense at all.

Baku class Frigate    4 850 tons     147 Crew     1001 BP      TCS 97  TH 396  EM 0
4082 km/s    JR 3-50     Armour 1-25     Shields 0-0     Sensors 1/1/0/0     Damage Control Rating 1     PPV 12
Maint Life 0.78 Years     MSP 129    AFR 188%    IFR 2.6%    1YR 166    5YR 2486    Max Repair 315 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 15 months    Spare Berths 1   
Magazine 102   

State Engineering Commune Escort Class Military Jump Drive     Max Ship Size 5100 tons    Distance 50k km     Squadron Size 3
State Engineering Commune Escort Class Ion Drive (2)    Power 198    Fuel Use 64.72%    Signature 198    Exp 11%
Fuel Capacity 250 000 Litres    Range 14.3 billion km   (40 days at full power)

State Engineering Commune Size 6 Missile Launcher (2)    Missile Size 6    Rate of Fire 45
State Engineering Commune Ship Missile Fire Control (1)     Range 693.0m km    Resolution 100
Standard Missile Mk1 (33)  Speed: 24 000 km/s   End: 76.5m    Range: 110.2m km   WH: 9    Size: 6    TH: 128/76/38

State Engineering Commune Basic Ship Sensor Suite (1)     GPS 7560     Range 107.4m km    Resolution 60

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

[Pixel1191]

I don't see it having much success, to be honest. Just two launchers, the salvos are gonna be just too small to get past any kind of point defense or anti-missile net. Even when using vastly inferior anti-missile, which I don't see happening from NPRs or spoilers, a salvo of 3 anti-missiles per missile is gonna knock your two missiles out of space, no problem.

You could also tone down the range on the Fire Control, it's got 6 times the range of the actual missile, that's just wasted space.

[Catman115 (OP)]

I don't see it having much success, to be honest. Just two launchers, the salvos are gonna be just too small to get past any kind of point defense or anti-missile net. Even when using vastly inferior anti-missile, which I don't see happening from NPRs or spoilers, a salvo of 3 anti-missiles per missile is gonna knock your two missiles out of space, no problem.

You could also tone down the range on the Fire Control, it's got 6 times the range of the actual missile, that's just wasted space.

Is 5 or so better? What is the optimal missile saturation?