v2.2.0 Changes Discussion Thread

[Pedroig]

Sub-1.0 warheads will be needed to keep current interception rates, and WH1 AMMs will be more of a dual-purpose weapon much like 10cm laser turrets are currently.

This is really a high hope, the sub-1 warheads do not save much space to begin with. AMMs will become the toy of the riches as the cost of the AMMs needed to shoot down an ASM will be (far) more than the cost of said ASM.

I dunno, I mean, just using some Java tool that somebody came up with...   It would seem that against size 6 missiles, even with low warhead strength per MSP, one can get 3 warheads, plus the 0.1 MSP "tax" and be actually more effective on paper, before decoys/ecm/jamming/etc. are factored in.  And it would seem there becomes a fairly nice "balancing act" on larger ASM's because making them larger makes AMM's less effective, but makes PD more effective versus the current baseline of a size 6 ASM.

[Iceranger]

Sub-1.0 warheads will be needed to keep current interception rates, and WH1 AMMs will be more of a dual-purpose weapon much like 10cm laser turrets are currently.

This is really a high hope, the sub-1 warheads do not save much space to begin with. AMMs will become the toy of the riches as the cost of the AMMs needed to shoot down an ASM will be (far) more than the cost of said ASM.

I dunno, I mean, just using some Java tool that somebody came up with...   It would seem that against size 6 missiles, even with low warhead strength per MSP, one can get 3 warheads, plus the 0.1 MSP "tax" and be actually more effective on paper, before decoys/ecm/jamming/etc. are factored in.  And it would seem there becomes a fairly nice "balancing act" on larger ASM's because making them larger makes AMM's less effective, but makes PD more effective versus the current baseline of a size 6 ASM.

Forget anything the current missile optimizer tells you, as agility is gone Now the name of the game is, how fast defending AMMs can go compared to incoming ASMs

Without agility, ASMs need to be faster than the current ones to make up for the hit chance, which makes AMMs' life even harder without agility.

I'll put my simple examples here, from another post:

Since the MR is fixed, higher missile speed means higher accuracy, and the accuracy is now only a function of missile speed and target speed (let's exclude E-war for now).

Speed = EP/HS*1000 km/s = (engine power per HS) * (engine HS) * (engine power multiplier) / HS * 1000 km/s = (engine power per HS) * (engine power multiplier) * (engine HS) / HS * 1000 km/s

Let's use E to denote (engine power per HS), and use some rule of thumb (engine HS)/HS values, to see how well the new missile model performs.

• For a slow beam warship, let's assume it uses 1.2x engine power, 40% engine ratio, then its speed is 480E km/s (1.2*0.4*1000)
• For a fast beam warship, assume it uses 1.5x engine power, 50% engine ratio, then its speed is 750E km/s (1.5*0.5*1000)
• For a fighter, assume it uses 3x engine power, 50% engine ratio, then its speed is 1500E km/s
• For an ASM, assume it uses 6x engine power, 60% engine ratio, then its speed is 3600E km/s
• For an AMM, assume it uses 6x engine power, 90% engine ratio, then its speed is 5400E km/s.

Then when MR is fixed to 10, we have:

• The ASM has a 3600/480E*10%=75% chance of hitting the slow beam ship, 48% chance of hitting the fast beam ship, 24% chance of hitting the fighter.
• The AMM has a 112.5% chance of hitting the slow beam ship, 72% chance of hitting the fast beam ship, 36% chance of hitting the fighter. Likely the AMM won't do any damage to these ships anyway. The AMM has a 15% chance of hitting the ASM. When it does hit, it is likely to have a less than 100% chance of destroying the ASM due to having to use a smaller warhead.

And this relationship won't change much as tech level progresses. Yes, missiles can use smaller warheads to achieve the same damage, but the reduction is relatively small compared to the engine ratio used in the examples. And when we consider E-war, such saved MSP should probably be devoted to E-war components.

Now, this hit chance is based on a 90% engine ratio AMM, which means 0.1MSP left for an S1 AMM. There is no space for the luxury of multiple warheads, or ECCM components.

If the ECCM is still 0.25MSP, that means realistically they can only be installed on S4 AMMs if you intend to keep a 90% engine ratio (leaving 0.15MSP for warhead and fuel). If multiple warheads are desired, we are looking at S5 and up AMMs.

And when the ECCM on AMMs is on-par with the missile decoy tech, the AMMs still take a penalty on hit chance based on the number of decoys.

So, things are looking pretty bad for AMMs on paper. Hope Steve's playtest prove me wrong.

[Bremen]

Sub-1.0 warheads will be needed to keep current interception rates, and WH1 AMMs will be more of a dual-purpose weapon much like 10cm laser turrets are currently.

This is really a high hope, the sub-1 warheads do not save much space to begin with. AMMs will become the toy of the riches as the cost of the AMMs needed to shoot down an ASM will be (far) more than the cost of said ASM.

A missile with a .5 damage warhead is going to generally be half the size of a missile with a 1 damage warhead and the exact same performance, because all other missile systems have performance relative to the size of the missile. You'd lose a bit of fuel efficiency for the smaller drive but fuel efficiency isn't usually a big concern for AMMs.

[Iceranger]

Sub-1.0 warheads will be needed to keep current interception rates, and WH1 AMMs will be more of a dual-purpose weapon much like 10cm laser turrets are currently.

This is really a high hope, the sub-1 warheads do not save much space to begin with. AMMs will become the toy of the riches as the cost of the AMMs needed to shoot down an ASM will be (far) more than the cost of said ASM.

A missile with a .5 damage warhead is going to generally be half the size of a missile with a 1 damage warhead and the exact same performance, because all other missile systems have performance relative to the size of the missile. You'd lose a bit of fuel efficiency for the smaller drive but fuel efficiency isn't usually a big concern for AMMs.

That doesn't change the math that the new AMMs will have a very low hit chance against ASMs. As with the agility gone, the base interception chance is purely based on the relative speed ratio. It is low enough that the defending side may have to spend more on AMMs than attacking ASMs.

[TheTalkingMeowth]

The possible saving grace for AMMs is the retargeting feature. You probably will have to build size 2 AMMs, but you can then get back a lot of the cost efficiency by getting 4+ attack rolls from a single AMM. Requires moderate to long interception ranges to have enough time to get that many attack rolls, but it's not excessive from some back of the envelope calcs in the missile discussion thread.

[lumporr]

Sub-1.0 warheads will be needed to keep current interception rates, and WH1 AMMs will be more of a dual-purpose weapon much like 10cm laser turrets are currently.

This is really a high hope, the sub-1 warheads do not save much space to begin with. AMMs will become the toy of the riches as the cost of the AMMs needed to shoot down an ASM will be (far) more than the cost of said ASM.

A missile with a .5 damage warhead is going to generally be half the size of a missile with a 1 damage warhead and the exact same performance, because all other missile systems have performance relative to the size of the missile. You'd lose a bit of fuel efficiency for the smaller drive but fuel efficiency isn't usually a big concern for AMMs.

That doesn't change the math that the new AMMs will have a very low hit chance against ASMs. As with the agility gone, the base interception chance is purely based on the relative speed ratio. It is low enough that the defending side may have to spend more on AMMs than attacking ASMs.

I wonder what the ideal parameters for a retargeting AMM would be, since it seems like that might be the winning strategy here. You'd need enough fuel and speed to reach the target missiles and retarget a number of times before the ASM intercepts your fleet. Someone more proficient at math might be able to produce something like a "number of retargets required for x% chance of successful interception", given the ASM's speed and assuming said ASM is detected at an appropriate distance. Like TheTalkingMeowth says, size-2 AMMs with a lower engine tonnage ratio might work out better.

A good thing to note is that this strategy of longer range, retargeting AMMs would also work against laser warheads.

I've been brainstorming a sort of cluster-interceptor concept. These would be mounted on a ship with a large R1 sensor. The first stage would be a missile with appropriate fuel to reach the target and a moderate engine tonnage ratio. The second would be a number of retargeting AMMs with as high of an engine ratio as possible - or alternatively, a pretty good engine ratio and enough fuel to have them continue retargeting for a decent amount of time. You could fire a small number at first to test enemy ASM capabiliies, and gradually pile more on as the ASMs got closer as needed. I'm not sure how much the multiple stages would help, or how it would work with initial targeting for the second stage, but it's something I'm eager to workshop.

[xenoscepter]

That doesn't change the math that the new AMMs will have a very low hit chance against ASMs. As with the agility gone, the base interception chance is purely based on the relative speed ratio. It is low enough that the defending side may have to spend more on AMMs than attacking ASMs.

Yeah, but AMMs won't need much more than that, and eventually they get to 1 strength warhead and only really need more engine to keep up. What I'm more worried about is how this gonna affect my in progress MaxTech game... where 270,000km/s is the limit.

[nuclearslurpee]

words of hope

This is my thinking as well, retargeting capability is going to be a game-changer for AMM capabilities but it will require completely new doctrines and tactics to evolve. I get the sense that a lot of people, especially those who only play against NPRs, are not familiar with existing long-range AMM tactics and are still thinking of AMMs as a more expensive version of beam PD.

[Pedroig]

words of hope

This is my thinking as well, retargeting capability is going to be a game-changer for AMM capabilities but it will require completely new doctrines and tactics to evolve. I get the sense that a lot of people, especially those who only play against NPRs, are not familiar with existing long-range AMM tactics and are still thinking of AMMs as a more expensive version of beam PD.

Missiles should not be retargetable at all by other missiles.  Would need a three time speed advantage to make it happen.

[Andrew]

I can see why a 'real' reaction drive missile would need a big speed advantage to turn around cancel its vector and catch up again but  these are tnm missiles as a starship can instantly change its direction and speed of motion , so can missiles so once they reach the incoming salvo they do not zoom past them , they merely instantly change their speed and direction and follow along

[Destragon]

I can see why a 'real' reaction drive missile would need a big speed advantage to turn around cancel its vector and catch up again but  these are tnm missiles as a starship can instantly change its direction and speed of motion , so can missiles so once they reach the incoming salvo they do not zoom past them , they merely instantly change their speed and direction and follow along

I'm not sure how exactly the retargeting is gonna work, but if it works like the normal follow orders in Aurora, then (after the missile has 'missed' its target) I could see the missile standing still for one increment while its target is running away at full speed and then it needs the next couple increments (depending on the speed ratio between missile and target) to catch back up to its target.

[nuclearslurpee]

I can see why a 'real' reaction drive missile would need a big speed advantage to turn around cancel its vector and catch up again but  these are tnm missiles as a starship can instantly change its direction and speed of motion , so can missiles so once they reach the incoming salvo they do not zoom past them , they merely instantly change their speed and direction and follow along

I'm not sure how exactly the retargeting is gonna work, but if it works like the normal follow orders in Aurora, then (after the missile has 'missed' its target) I could see the missile standing still for one increment while its target is running away at full speed and then it needs the next couple increments (depending on the speed ratio between missile and target) to catch back up to its target.

Missiles move in launch order, IIRC, so AMMs always move after the ASMs they are fired against. As long as the AMM has at least the same speed as the ASM it is targeting, it will be able to keep up indefinitely (or until it runs out of fuel, which is probably not a serious problem here).

[Life_b]

I think an Ewar officer station and skill can be interesting.  Even maybe have modules that give Ewar benefits for the entire fleet, to allow for Ewar dedicated ships.

[Pedroig]

I can see why a 'real' reaction drive missile would need a big speed advantage to turn around cancel its vector and catch up again but  these are tnm missiles as a starship can instantly change its direction and speed of motion , so can missiles so once they reach the incoming salvo they do not zoom past them , they merely instantly change their speed and direction and follow along

I'm not sure how exactly the retargeting is gonna work, but if it works like the normal follow orders in Aurora, then (after the missile has 'missed' its target) I could see the missile standing still for one increment while its target is running away at full speed and then it needs the next couple increments (depending on the speed ratio between missile and target) to catch back up to its target.

Missiles move in launch order, IIRC, so AMMs always move after the ASMs they are fired against. As long as the AMM has at least the same speed as the ASM it is targeting, it will be able to keep up indefinitely (or until it runs out of fuel, which is probably not a serious problem here).

Which is why retargetting should take an increment.  So move to strike and miss in one increment, retarget in one increment, move to strike, so if same speed, they will take multiple increments to catch them unless double the speed.

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

I've updated the missile decoy rules from the original post. The main changes are:

• Decoys are all 0.5 MSP (and the decoy size tech line has been removed).
• The Decoy EW Strength tech line is changed to Missile ECM, but is mechanically the same. However, Missile ECM will also apply to Ship Decoys (name might change) which will be handled as a form of ordnance.
• The effect of ECCM advantage when attacking missiles has changed. Instead of reducing the effective number of decoys, it reduces the chance of hitting each individual decoy.

http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=13090.msg164388#msg164388