Leaked: Assyrian Antiship System

[Theodidactus (OP)]

the director sits across the table, brushing drops of water off his finely groomed mustache, as you anxiously shuffle in. The director earned his office on the 17th floor of the Bureau for spotting oppertunities just like this one. You earned your office, two floors below, for turning his oppertunities into advantages. What's on his desk now could move you up one floor.

The director passes two slim documents your way, each composed of a few laminated pieces of paper, stapled together. You haven't seen this kind of primitive technology in decades...they moved on to holopaper and cloud projection at the end of the last century...but each format was fraught with its own security risk. Whoever printed these documents was trying to keep something secure.

"I don't officially condone the activities of the Fruentes industrial espionage cartel" the director says "but its time you learned that we...ah...invest in them from time to time, and occasionally these investments pay off."
"I'm well aware," you respond cooly, examining the documents, "what am I looking at here?":


Assyrian Guided Missile Drone
Missile Size: 10 MSP  (0.5 HS)     Warhead: 0    Armour: 0     Manoeuvre Rating: 5
Speed: 24000 km/s    Endurance: 156 minutes   Range: 225.0m km
Cost Per Missile: 10.9418
Second Stage: Cohort Antiship Missile x4
Second Stage Separation Range: 2,000,000 km
Overall Endurance: 3 hours   Overall Range: 227.2m km
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 120%   3k km/s 40%   5k km/s 24%   10k km/s 12%
Materials Required:    4x Tritanium   5.8488x Gallicite   Fuel x2500


Cohort Antiship Missile
Missile Size: 1 MSP  (0.05 HS)     Warhead: 4    Armour: 0     Manoeuvre Rating: 5
Speed: 19200 km/s    Endurance: 20 minutes   Range: 22.5m km
Cost Per Missile: 1.195
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 96%   3k km/s 30%   5k km/s 19.2%   10k km/s 9.6%
Materials Required:    1x Tritanium   0.178x Gallicite   Fuel x25


"Our sources intercepted that from a courier outside of Vindge Colony, on Mars." The director says, "It looks to be an official military design...and highly unconventional. The warheads on the primary weapons system are slow, probably designed to shoot down large capitol ships. What interests me is the range...any warship capible of projecting a 200 million kilometer threat zone would fundamentally alter the balance of power in this part of the system."
"It would be able to outrange any weapons system currently in use." you conclude, "It seems like you've got a good handle on this, why did you call me in."

"Because I don't trust the Fruentes," the director says, "And I trust the current government even less. This could the United Nations feeding us false information, if not a Fruentes fake....but if it isn't, we need to understand this system inside and out."
He takes another sip of water, and you get the feeling this is going to be a long day
"I need to know if this is a plausable weapons system." He explaines, "Or is there something here I'm not seeing?"

[jseah]

If you haven't already, this thread: http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php/topic,4897.0.html
is an example actually put to the test. 

Your ASM is very slow.  Any ship with PD weapons will gun it down incredibly quickly, and AMMs will have no problems generating a hit.  It needs to be size 2 at least, preferably size 3. 

I also had an interesting observation.  Ship speed being a good fraction of the drone speed will make the geometry of the combat matter more.  A normal ASM might lose 10% of it's range against a fleeing enemy, a slow drone could lose 30% or more.  Likewise, the reverse applies. 

[icecoldblood]

Your first stage has a range of 225,000,000km, but you separate at 2,000,000km?

Your first stage is a bit too fast.  slow it reduce engine space for some range. 

Your second stage is too slow, any ship with PD could stop it easily and it would have a hard time hitting most ships.  Its also too weak to do much damage even if it scores a hit.

I've only been playing for a few months so I may be missing something, so don't take my comments too seriously.

[Theodidactus (OP)]

I think the speed is probably as good as I can make it, for now. The missile in question has the smallest fuel allocation available, and I can't reduce warheads or agility any further without making it basically useless at its role. The upward limit for the size of the whole vehicle is 10 Missile size points, because that's the largest launchers I can feasibly run in large quantities.


I suppose I could build a new size 20 launcher and make it fire slower. That would allow me to double the size of the cohorts, it would also allow me to double the number of available cohorts and even strap an ECM onto the assyrian.

[jseah]

You can reduce the warhead.  By that I mean the proportion. 

Make the 2nd stage size 2 and warhead is halved.  You have 16 points of warhead per size 10 launcher.  If it was 8 or 6 points, that would actually perform better.  It would greater than double the PD penetration of each Cohort to make up for the lost warhead. 

If you could give me your tech levels, I'll make my own version of it. 

[Theodidactus (OP)]

I basically doubled every part of the system.

Logistically it will be nearly impossible to make this a "primary weapon", but my war cruisers now run two Assyrian platforms, and store 11 or so. I imagine they will be useful in picking off smaller, independently operating craft. My Statesman class cruisers can detect these vessels from over 1 billion kilometers away, and target them from 300 million kilometers out. You can read more here