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Posted by: Steve Walmsley
« on: Yesterday at 03:07:36 AM »

I don't want to create 'exception' rules unless they add something significant to the game, or add interesting decisions. Besides, you can have a reasonable missile fire control for 5 tons and use a 30% launcher, so a 'buoy launcher' is small anyway. For example, I have the ship below in my current game. If the missile launcher was slightly smaller it wouldn't change any decisions about the design - it would just make it slightly smaller and slightly cheaper.

Oculus Vigil class Buoy Deployment Vessel      2,400 tons       49 Crew       272.7 BP       TCS 48    TH 120    EM 0
2500 km/s    JR 3-50      Armour 1-15       Shields 0-0       HTK 17      Sensors 5/8/0/0      DCR 1-4      PPV 3.6
Maint Life 2.44 Years     MSP 71    AFR 46%    IFR 0.6%    1YR 16    5YR 246    Max Repair 60 MSP
Magazine 216 / 0   
Captain    Control Rating 1   BRG   
Intended Deployment Time: 3 months    CDE 20%    Morale Check Required   

RM-24 Military Jump Drive     Max Ship Size 2400 tons    Distance 50k km     Squadron Size 3

Ravenor Drive Systems RDS-120-M (1)    Power 120    Fuel Use 63.90%    Signature 120    Explosion 10%
Fuel Capacity 384,000 Litres    Range 45.1 billion km (208 days at full power)

Buoy Dispenser (1)     Missile Size: 12    Rate of Fire 1390
MK I Probe Launcher Fire Control (1)     Range 4m km    Resolution 1   ECCM-1
Auspex Buoy (18)    Speed: 0 km/s    End: 0m     Range: 0m km    WH: 0    Size: 12    TH: 0 / 0 / 0

MK I Commercial Active Augur Array (1)     GPS 1920     Range 31.5m km    Resolution 120
MK I Electromagnetic Augur Array (1)     Sensitivity 8     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  22.4m km
MK I Thermal Augur Array (1)     Sensitivity 5     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  17.7m km
Posted by: 1tallboi
« on: Yesterday at 02:15:15 AM »

In-game, a missile will be named "buoy" if it is an engineless, warhead-less missile with some kind of sensor on it.

I think it would be interesting to add an option when designing missile launchers to create a "buoy launcher." A buoy launcher would be smaller than a standard missile launcher, say 35 tons per MSP instead of 50, and don't require missile fire controls (you're basically pushing a button to drop a chunk of metal out of your spaceship at your own location) with the caveat that you cannot use it to launch anything whose first stage has an engine or warhead

Furthermore, a ship won't be labeled a "warship" if it has a Buoy Launcher on it

This'll allow more flexibility in designing ships whose primary role is buoy deployment/minelaying, while also making it easier to add that same capability to other class designs.

Furthermore, as things stand it's pretty simple to just slap a giant engine and a bunch of fuel to a missile stage and use that to deploy mines/buoys, I genuinely don't see much reason not to do so. Thus, the limitation of having a Buoy Launcher only allow for launching missiles without an engine or warhead while being significantly smaller (if I'm correct, at 0.3 size reduction, you're looking at 10.5 tons per MSP on the buoy launcher)

With the space savings on a buoy launcher, the gap between the space efficiency afforded by buoy launchers vs. the flexability offered by long-range missile stages used to deliver buoys and mines closes a little bit