One fire control per weapon, or group weapons in batches? (Also PD)

[Panpiper (OP)]

The game will apparently let you group as many as three weapons under a single fire control. I presume the only benefit to 'not' grouping them, is it would allow you to split fire between multiple targets. Versus ships, splitting fire is a "bad thing" and so for that purpose, there is no reason not to group. What I am utterly uncertain of however is if using those weapons against missiles? If I have two, dual-beam laser turrets working under a single beam fire control, would that not mean that all four weapons would fire at just one missile per firing opportunity?

Pursuant to the above, for point defence, is one better off having single barrel turrets? I did this with my gauss point defence, just one gun per turret. Was that a mistake? They've also got a dedicated beam fire control for each turret.

[TheTalkingMeowth]

The game will apparently let you group as many as three weapons under a single fire control. I presume the only benefit to 'not' grouping them, is it would allow you to split fire between multiple targets. Versus ships, splitting fire is a "bad thing" and so for that purpose, there is no reason not to group. What I am utterly uncertain of however is if using those weapons against missiles? If I have two, dual-beam laser turrets working under a single beam fire control, would that not mean that all four weapons would fire at just one missile per firing opportunity?

Pursuant to the above, for point defence, is one better off having single barrel turrets? I did this with my gauss point defence, just one gun per turret. Was that a mistake? They've also got a dedicated beam fire control for each turret.

You can put an arbitrary number of weapons under a single fire control. Though in the next version, you will also be able to design special (smaller) fire controls that can only control one weapon.

Multiple fire controls are good for splitting fire (if your fleets are inexperienced, retargeting weapons causes a delay so spreading your fire out can be used to reduce wasted shots), as well as redundancy against battle damage (this is more important than the first thing).

For PD purposes, I'll link the actual rules post rather than restating the contents and getting something wrong:
Basic PD rules: http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg107268#msg107268
Targeting multiple salvos in final fire mode is possible: http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg115853#msg115853

[captainwolfer]

In C# Aurora, fire controls set to 'Final Defensive Fire' or 'Final Defensive Fire (Self Only)' will fire on hostile missiles, regardless of whether the fire control is set to 'Open Fire'. Fire controls set to Area Mode or for AMMs will only fire defensively when that fire control is set to 'Open Fire'.

Something to note is that you no longer need to have area defense BFC or AMM FC set to "Open fire" for them to actually fire.

[Droll]

In C# Aurora, fire controls set to 'Final Defensive Fire' or 'Final Defensive Fire (Self Only)' will fire on hostile missiles, regardless of whether the fire control is set to 'Open Fire'. Fire controls set to Area Mode or for AMMs will only fire defensively when that fire control is set to 'Open Fire'.

Something to note is that you no longer need to have area defense BFC or AMM FC set to "Open fire" for them to actually fire.

Not true for AMM FCs, missile based Point Defence FCs must be explicitly told to open fire, this is because unlike beam PD ammunition, AMMs aren't infinite so there may be cases where you want those MFCs to hold fire.

[captainwolfer]

In C# Aurora, fire controls set to 'Final Defensive Fire' or 'Final Defensive Fire (Self Only)' will fire on hostile missiles, regardless of whether the fire control is set to 'Open Fire'. Fire controls set to Area Mode or for AMMs will only fire defensively when that fire control is set to 'Open Fire'.

Something to note is that you no longer need to have area defense BFC or AMM FC set to "Open fire" for them to actually fire.

Not true for AMM FCs, missile based Point Defence FCs must be explicitly told to open fire, this is because unlike beam PD ammunition, AMMs aren't infinite so there may be cases where you want those MFCs to hold fire.

From the 1.12 Patch notes:

Missile fire controls with point defence modes set will launch AMMs without a specific 'Open Fire' order.

[Droll]

In C# Aurora, fire controls set to 'Final Defensive Fire' or 'Final Defensive Fire (Self Only)' will fire on hostile missiles, regardless of whether the fire control is set to 'Open Fire'. Fire controls set to Area Mode or for AMMs will only fire defensively when that fire control is set to 'Open Fire'.

Something to note is that you no longer need to have area defense BFC or AMM FC set to "Open fire" for them to actually fire.

Not true for AMM FCs, missile based Point Defence FCs must be explicitly told to open fire, this is because unlike beam PD ammunition, AMMs aren't infinite so there may be cases where you want those MFCs to hold fire.

From the 1.12 Patch notes:

Missile fire controls with point defence modes set will launch AMMs without a specific 'Open Fire' order.

When I'm playing my AMMs will not fire unless told to fire so I've got not clue what the patch notes are talking about

[Panpiper (OP)]

I can't be sure my point defence is firing at all. Not sure what I should be looking at to know. It took me an hour to figure out, barely, how to get my ships to fire on an enemy. I had the impression I had to fly through a heck of a lot of unopposed missiles to get to firing range of my lasers (thank the gods for good armour research). Do we not see reports of missiles destroyed by point defence? (Probably a question for a different thread.)

[nuclearslurpee]

I can't be sure my point defence is firing at all. Not sure what I should be looking at to know. It took me an hour to figure out, barely, how to get my ships to fire on an enemy. I had the impression I had to fly through a heck of a lot of unopposed missiles to get to firing range of my lasers (thank the gods for good armour research). Do we not see reports of missiles destroyed by point defence? (Probably a question for a different thread.)

Did you use some form of auto-assign for your fire controls? All fire controls whether BFC or MFC do need a PD mode assigned to them in the Ship Combat tab which is automatically done for you if you use an auto-assign but if you do the entire FC configuration manually you will need to set this yourself.

[captainwolfer]

I can't be sure my point defence is firing at all. Not sure what I should be looking at to know. It took me an hour to figure out, barely, how to get my ships to fire on an enemy. I had the impression I had to fly through a heck of a lot of unopposed missiles to get to firing range of my lasers (thank the gods for good armour research). Do we not see reports of missiles destroyed by point defence? (Probably a question for a different thread.)

Can you see the missiles before they hit? You need a Resolution 1 active sensor activated on at least 1 ship to be able to see missiles.

[Panpiper (OP)]

I can indeed see the missiles, before they enter laser range, let alone that of the gauss. I'm not sure what size they were but fortunately for me, they only did one point of damage each. (I have two active radars aboard, one optimized for size 3000 for range and the other optimized for size 50 for precision.)

I did not autoassign, as I did not trust it. If I hit autoassign, it automatically makes my lasers final defense, which given their range seems kinda dumb. I manually dragged the final fire onto the gauss guns and area defense onto the lasers.

I'm really not sure what all the numbers mean on the screen. I 'think' they 'might' have been groups of five, with about sixty in total per wave. I got hit pretty consistently by 22-23 of them. By the numbers, my weapons should have been quite accurate against them. Is it the case that they were just consistent in the numbers they shot down and all I saw were the impacts of the ones that survived? I would have 'thought' we would see something telling us about hits on missiles, but what do I know, I'm a newb. ;-)

With the settings I used, my weapons 'were' able to fire offensively and destroyed the two enemy ships.

[nuclearslurpee]

I can indeed see the missiles, before they enter laser range, let alone that of the gauss. I'm not sure what size they were but fortunately for me, they only did one point of damage each. (I have two active radars aboard, one optimized for size 3000 for range and the other optimized for size 50 for precision.)

I did not autoassign, as I did not trust it. If I hit autoassign, it automatically makes my lasers final defense, which given their range seems kinda dumb. I manually dragged the final fire onto the gauss guns and area defense onto the lasers.

I'm really not sure what all the numbers mean on the screen. I 'think' they 'might' have been groups of five, with about sixty in total per wave. I got hit pretty consistently by 22-23 of them. By the numbers, my weapons should have been quite accurate against them. Is it the case that they were just consistent in the numbers they shot down and all I saw were the impacts of the ones that survived? I would have 'thought' we would see something telling us about hits on missiles, but what do I know, I'm a newb. ;-)

With the settings I used, my weapons 'were' able to fire offensively and destroyed the two enemy ships.

I always start off with the auto-assign, and then make manual corrections including turning off PD modes - although this is not necessary as PD modes do not lock a weapon to PD only, so it is useful to have even your massive 50 cm lasers assigned to final fire just to give a little bit more defense while you close the range. Anyways, once manual corrections are made you can assign the revised FC setup to all ships of that class both present and future.

[Panpiper (OP)]

Do you advise using final fire on 'everything', even though lasers would be able to get off several shots before the missiles get to point blank range.

[Droll]

Do you advise using final fire on 'everything', even though lasers would be able to get off several shots before the missiles get to point blank range.

Lasers are good on area defense, especially if they can reach out to 1.4m km. If you can get multiple shots off area PD can become more efficient than final fire.

[captainwolfer]

I can indeed see the missiles, before they enter laser range, let alone that of the gauss. I'm not sure what size they were but fortunately for me, they only did one point of damage each. (I have two active radars aboard, one optimized for size 3000 for range and the other optimized for size 50 for precision.)

I did not autoassign, as I did not trust it. If I hit autoassign, it automatically makes my lasers final defense, which given their range seems kinda dumb. I manually dragged the final fire onto the gauss guns and area defense onto the lasers.

I'm really not sure what all the numbers mean on the screen. I 'think' they 'might' have been groups of five, with about sixty in total per wave. I got hit pretty consistently by 22-23 of them. By the numbers, my weapons should have been quite accurate against them. Is it the case that they were just consistent in the numbers they shot down and all I saw were the impacts of the ones that survived? I would have 'thought' we would see something telling us about hits on missiles, but what do I know, I'm a newb. ;-)

With the settings I used, my weapons 'were' able to fire offensively and destroyed the two enemy ships.

Weapons in Final Defensive Fire mode can still be assigned targets. I think they will prioritize shooting down missiles over firing at the offensive targets, but that isn't a bad thing for smaller lasers and Gauss to do.

If you look at the events tab (the calendar button on the main screen) you will see information on what ships fired, how many missiles were shot down, how many hit your ships, etc. Additionally, you can get events to show up on the main screen by going to the display tab on the left of the screen, and clicking "Events", which will be the top-left checkbox under the "Display" tab

[Panpiper (OP)]

That's the thing though. The events screen did not show any reports of my ship's weapons firing on missiles and mentioned nothing about how many had been shot down. They 'did' fire on enemy ships that had been designated. Is there some esoteric button somewhere that needs to be pushed to 'tell' your ships to fire defensively? I DID drag the final defence and area defence tags onto each of my fire controls, in which were also my weapons and ECCM.