Trouble firing on enemy target

[SalientBlue (OP)]

I've just started my first combat with an NPR, and I'm having a bit of trouble.   My fleet consists of three different classes of ships: a missile destroyer (Agincourt), an anti-missile destroyer (Guardian), and a sensor/supply/jump destroyer (Argo).   I've assigned weapons to their fire controls, missiles to their weapons, and turned on active sensors for the Agincourts and Guardians.   The Argoes don't have the option to turn on active sensors in the combat assignments overview, however.   I can't figure out how to turn on their sensors, and they're the main eyes of the fleet.

The Agincourts have picked up an enemy contact well within their active sensor range.   The contact reads "Black Hawk 002 Thermal 2750 Active Sensor S144/R59 9892 km/s Heading 131".   Despite the contact, I cannot target the ship with my Agincourts.   I've read here on the forum that if the contact reading doesn't show the enemy's tonnage that the contact is passive instead of active, and that's why I'm not able to target it.   That's weird, because from my understanding the enemy contact is within the Agincourt's active sensor range. 

The enemy has been shooting missile salvos, which I don't detect until they're practically on top of my ships.   My AMMs fire, but have no effect as the enemy missiles immediately hit during the next increment.

Here are my ships' stat blocks.   They're based off of Steve's Terran Federation AAR (although with some lesser technology), so I assume they're basically functional.

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Agincourt class Destroyer    5,700 tons     568 Crew     737.6 BP      TCS 114  TH 480  EM 0
4210 km/s     Armour 4-28     Shields 0-0     Sensors 6/6/0/0     Damage Control Rating 4     PPV 24
Maint Life 6.42 Years     MSP 324    AFR 64%    IFR 0.9%    1YR 14    5YR 203    Max Repair 30 MSP
Magazine 360   

Military Ion Engine E8 (8)    Power 60    Fuel Use 80%    Signature 60    Armour 0    Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 100,000 Litres    Range 39.5 billion km   (108 days at full power)

Size 4 Missile Launcher Mk 1 (6)    Missile Size 4    Rate of Fire 60
SPG-1Missile Fire Control FC25-R80 (1)     Range 25.7m km    Resolution 80
RGM-1A Javalin AS Missile (90)  Speed: 7,500 km/s   End: 82.5m    Range: 37.1m km   WH: 4    Size: 4    TH: 50 / 30 / 15

SPS-1 Active Search Sensor MR8-R80 (1)     GPS 1280     Range 8.6m km    Resolution 80
SQR-1 Thermal Sensor TH1-6 (1)     Sensitivity 6     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  6m km
SLR-1 EM Detection Sensor EM1-6 (1)     Sensitivity 6     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  6m km

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


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Guardian class Destroyer Escort    6,500 tons     571 Crew     957 BP      TCS 130  TH 480  EM 0
3692 km/s     Armour 3-31     Shields 0-0     Sensors 6/6/0/0     Damage Control Rating 4     PPV 15
Maint Life 6.48 Years     MSP 368    AFR 84%    IFR 1.2%    1YR 15    5YR 227    Max Repair 30 MSP
Magazine 495   

Military Ion Engine E8 (8)    Power 60    Fuel Use 80%    Signature 60    Armour 0    Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 100,000 Litres    Range 34.6 billion km   (108 days at full power)

Size 1 Missile Launcher Mk 1 (15)    Missile Size 1    Rate of Fire 15
SPG-10 Anti-Missile Fire Control FC2-R1 (15)     Range 2.9m km    Resolution 1
RIM-1A Dart AM Missile Mk 1 (495)  Speed: 14,000 km/s   End: 2.7m    Range: 2.3m km   WH: 1    Size: 1    TH: 93 / 56 / 28

SPD-1 Missile Detection Sensor MR0-R1 (1)     GPS 16     Range 960k km    Resolution 1
SPS-1 Active Search Sensor MR8-R80 (1)     GPS 1280     Range 8.6m km    Resolution 80
SQR-1 Thermal Sensor TH1-6 (1)     Sensitivity 6     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  6m km
SLR-1 EM Detection Sensor EM1-6 (1)     Sensitivity 6     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  6m km

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

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Argo class Jump Destroyer    6,600 tons     583 Crew     1162.2 BP      TCS 132  TH 540  EM 0
4090 km/s    JR 3-50     Armour 3-31     Shields 0-0     Sensors 6/6/0/0     Damage Control Rating 3     PPV 0
Maint Life 1.34 Years     MSP 330    AFR 116%    IFR 1.6%    1YR 196    5YR 2937    Max Repair 400 MSP

J8000(3-50) Military Jump Drive     Max Ship Size 8000 tons    Distance 50k km     Squadron Size 3
Military Ion Engine E8 (9)    Power 60    Fuel Use 80%    Signature 60    Armour 0    Exp 5%
Fuel Capacity 300,000 Litres    Range 102.3 billion km   (289 days at full power)

SPY-1 Wide Area Active Search Sensor MR240-R100 (1)     GPS 40000     Range 240.0m km    Resolution 100
SQR-1 Thermal Sensor TH1-6 (1)     Sensitivity 6     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  6m km
SLR-1 EM Detection Sensor EM1-6 (1)     Sensitivity 6     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  6m km

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes


Here's an image of my situation, with enemy and my sensor ranges showing:

hxxp: i. imgur. com/P9RN3. png

Anyone see what I'm doing wrong?  What do I do to get the Argo's active sensors up and my Agincourts to fire?

[3_14159]

As far as I see it, the reasons for your problems are the following:

1.  AMM not hitting
Your AMM-sensor has a range of only 960k km against a 1 hullspace (= 50 tons) targets.  Using your technology, I simulated the sensor, getting the following ranges (you can see them when first designing it):

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Resolution: 1    Maximum Range vs 50 ton object (or larger): 960,000 km
Range vs Size 6 Missile (or smaller): 104,544 km
Range vs Size 8 Missile: 153,600 km
Range vs Size 12 Missile: 345,600 km

Therefore, you will see a missile at 104,544 km worst case.  Your missiles will need (afaik) two ticks to really intercept: One to launch, and one to, well. . .  intercept.  A missile would need only a speed of about 21000km/s to hit you without you seeing them coming.
The change I'd propose would be a bigger sensor (maybe mounted on a separate ship), I'd propose at least a size4 sensor, which should make you able to intercept missiles travelling at a little bit about 40kkm/s (or at least shooting at them ;-) ).

2.  No shooting at the enemy
I'd say the enemy is about 15mkm away from you, which is in your missile fire control range, but not in your active sensor range.
You've got to differentiate between active sensors and missile fire control.
Active sensors tell you "There is an enemy with that tonnage".
Missile fire controls let you shoot at an enemy you already have in active sensor range.

What you've shown on the map is the missile fire control range, you will need to about halve the distance to your enemy, then you should be able to shoot at them, providing they haven't got ECM or such.  And of course, providing they're at least 4000tons or more.

[chrislocke2000]

It's a little hard to see what's happening in that picture but from what I can make out it looks like you don't have any active sensors online. The ranges you can see are for the missile fire controls rather than the sensors.

There are a couple of ways to get your sensors online. In the combat window on the bottom right hand side where you will see buttons for open fire and cease fire there will also be a button to activate sensors. Hit that and then scroll down in the bottom right box which shows all of you weapon assignments and you will see sensor status. It should now say active and once you refresh the system screen you should see the ranges with the name of the sensor next to it. Edit: Make sure you actually have a ship selected from the task group list in the far left hand window before trying to press the activate sensor button.

The other way to do this is to set a waypoint close to where your ships are and then in the task group orders window set, check the box that says waypoints (its in the row of boxes that run along about 2/3rds up). Now select the waypoint in the drop down list on the far right had side and then in the next drop down list along with all the actions you should see activate sensors. This will then order your ships to move to the waypoint and switch all their sensors on. Don't forget to cancel existing orders first and also, if you have not trained your crews, expect a delay before the ships actually react to your new order.

In terms of the problems with the anti missiles, even with your sensors on they probably won't give you enough time to fire anti missiles. Although you have a res 1 sensor, any missile of size 6 or below is only going to get picked up at about 96,000 k away. (You can check this range when you are in the design details tab for the sensor). If the incoming missiles are moving more than about 20,000 kms then they will be able to close the distance with your ships in the 5 sec pulse before you can react. Generally you want to design your resolution 1 anti missile fire control and sensor to have a range of about 10 times the range of your anti missile missile. That way you will be able to make best use of that missile and it will give you time to fire on the incoming missiles.

Hope that helps

[TheDeadlyShoe]

In terms of ship design, you can dump the regular active sensor on the Guardian, and use the saved space for an enlarged AM sensor.  You could also dump the majority of the antimissile fire controls -  the space premium at this technology level is prohibitive for a 1:1 AMM:FC setup.  You only need one fire control in your fleet per incoming salvo at _most_. 5 missile fire controls would let you triple their size individually, giving you a far more useable range against enemy missiles.  Personally, I would go down to 3 controls, and quintiple their size.

The enlarged AMM sensor will also have more than enough range to target any opponent that your AMMs can actually reach, so it will be doing double duty in that sense.

I would also note that the Agincourt's missile far control is significantly shorter range than its missiles, which is very suboptimal.  Enemy ECM can shorten the range of your missile control significantly and it's a lot easier to upgrade your missile range than your ships. So generally you want your missile fire control to be significantly longer range than your missiles at the time of design.

[SalientBlue (OP)]

Thanks for your help, guys!  I'll keep all that in mind for my next game.