wooaa
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Posts: 10
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Post by wooaa on Oct 12, 2016 22:18:47 GMT
Given that a salvo of nukes is a surefire way to ruin your day, defense against missiles is very important. I have found that launching a handful stock flack missiles against incoming nukes sorta works. But this is nothing I am sure that you have not all tried in the past. During these missile vs missile fights I noticed that the nukes, programmed to home in on the hottest thing around, would turn toward my missiles, wasting vital delta V. Even if there was no detonation, the spent fuel was a big help. Still, this is nothing new.
An idea i have kicking around my head is to make a small, cheep, missile whose sole goal is to make the incoming nukes waste their fuel trying to intercept. However, intercepting missiles is not always easy, as the target will take evasive maneuvers in many instances. The further the two missiles are from one another, the cheaper in terms of delta V it is to make a large evasive maneuver. My intersections with the stock flack missiles were most effective when they were launched as the inbound ordnance was close, but sometimes they lacked the acceleration to intercept.
So, my fuel waster missile will need to be cheep, light enough to carry a few of them, and have the acceleration necessary to make a close in intercept. Heck, it does not even need a warhead or all that much delta V. So far my tests have been inconclusive, but then again I am rather inexperienced at this game.
What do you all think? Is there anything to this idea?
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Post by morrigi on Oct 12, 2016 22:31:07 GMT
I have a 20kg flak missile that only costs ~300 credits that would probably do the job quite well. Haven't tested them explicitly for that purpose, but they don't exactly take up much space.
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Post by rathos on Oct 13, 2016 0:31:52 GMT
I noticed this when playing the campaign and thought the Ai was pretty darn dumb when doing this. Several times I would send 1 drone or 1 flak missile to an AI wave of 20 drones or nukes and they'd kill themselves by wasting all their delta-v chasing after that pointless target...instead of ignoring it and continuing on toward the ships.
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wooaa
New Member
Posts: 10
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Post by wooaa on Oct 13, 2016 0:50:53 GMT
Good to see I am not crazy. After much experimentation, and realizing I have no idea how to make an engine, I came up with a good decoy missile. I stuck the 18kn nitro methane rocket and gave it 10kg of fuel. Feather light at only 20kg and costs 106c. Over one km of delta V and a whopping 91g of acceleration. jebediah would be proud. It can intercept inbound ordnance before it hits your fleet, and its faint heat is more than enough to cause missiles to home towards it. With nukes it usually sets off a chain reaction. With flack, it is not as powerful. I have found that one is not always enough, but a salvo of 10 is usually sufficient. It does behave a bit oddly though. For some reason, it is very reluctant to burn at full power when set to active homeing. It also does not maneuver that much, although that might be a result of limited gimbaling on the thruster. Just to see what would happen, sent a swarm of them to attack a capital ship. Almost all of them missed, and those that hit did not even scratch the paint. I think that the simulation might not like insane amounts of acceleration. I tried equipping them with a flare, but to my annoyance could not find a way to prevent the flare from going off the second the missile was launched. Attachments:
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Post by morrigi on Oct 13, 2016 2:21:13 GMT
Missiles need a reasonable amount of burn time to allow for mid-course corrections against maneuvering enemies. I just use small anti-ship flak missiles, they're dirt cheap and can actually kill things as well.
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Post by goduranus on Oct 13, 2016 3:07:47 GMT
I find that if you just have one cannon firing flares, enemy missiles will often never hit. Needs a slow reload so you don't waste ammo though.
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Post by Durandal on Oct 13, 2016 13:06:33 GMT
]I tried equipping them with a flare, but to my annoyance could not find a way to prevent the flare from going off the second the missile was launched. Have you tried equipping them with a nuclear warhead? I feel like this effect could have significant applications for a certain propulsion system.
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wooaa
New Member
Posts: 10
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Post by wooaa on Oct 13, 2016 16:17:06 GMT
Nukes could work, but they are somewhat contrary to the idea. Nukes are heavy, expensive, and as of now beyond my ability to design. The goal of the long range flare is not necessarily to destroy inbound missiles, but to draw them off course.
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Post by Durandal on Oct 13, 2016 16:38:20 GMT
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Post by nivik on Oct 13, 2016 18:53:11 GMT
With flares, I recommend using a cheap, dense filler material as a delay compound. It increases burn time significantly (though makes flares more expensive). I'm partial to lead, since it's so cheap.
Putting a flare on a missile, though, is pretty difficult. Flares are huge and heavy. My primary missle-based flare is a 22 MW, 30 second flare on a 30x300cm missile that only has 500 m/s of dV.
That said, 500 m/s is plenty for a flare. It pushes the flare close to the enemy missiles, and you could also stick a nuclear warhead on your countermeasure missile so after it lures the enemy missiles in close, it tries to knock them out.
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Post by RA2lover on Oct 13, 2016 19:59:13 GMT
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