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Post by captinjoehenry on Oct 18, 2016 20:08:20 GMT
I'm just wondering with all of the high performance missiles and drones that I have been seeing I am just wondering if two people fought each other would their cap ships ever see each other and engage with their guns. I mean with the drones and missiles I am having a bit of difficulty figuring out how cap ships would close range to engage each other with their weapons for anything other than cleaning up the ruins of the enemy after the missile and drone waves?
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Post by nivik on Oct 18, 2016 21:25:56 GMT
I'm just wondering with all of the high performance missiles and drones that I have been seeing I am just wondering if two people fought each other would their cap ships ever see each other and engage with their guns. I mean with the drones and missiles I am having a bit of difficulty figuring out how cap ships would close range to engage each other with their weapons for anything other than cleaning up the ruins of the enemy after the missile and drone waves? I think you're probably right. I wouldn't want to expose my capital ships to enemy fire unless my drone bays and missile magazines were empty and I had no other way of achieving my mission. While I do spend a lot of time testing my ships against threats, I honestly consider it a failure if my cap ships are forced into combat at all, even against drones.
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Post by redparadize on Oct 18, 2016 22:02:07 GMT
Indeed.
The combat doctrine will evolve into something similar to ww2 carrier. They were faster than everything but destroyer. That say it all.
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Post by wafflestoo on Oct 18, 2016 22:08:05 GMT
I'm just wondering with all of the high performance missiles and drones that I have been seeing I am just wondering if two people fought each other would their cap ships ever see each other and engage with their guns. I mean with the drones and missiles I am having a bit of difficulty figuring out how cap ships would close range to engage each other with their weapons for anything other than cleaning up the ruins of the enemy after the missile and drone waves? I think you're probably right. I wouldn't want to expose my capital ships to enemy fire unless my drone bays and missile magazines were empty and I had no other way of achieving my mission. While I do spend a lot of time testing my ships against threats, I honestly consider it a failure if my cap ships are forced into combat at all, even against drones. I usually try to avoid close-quarters combat as well. Sending expendable ordinance into harms way instead of my soft and squichy crewmates just makes too much sense to me. It doesn't even need to be all that much ordinance either; just enough to be a credible threat with more than enough in reserve in case that salvo was ineffective. Until we see some kind of PvP arena though all of this is just speculation.
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Post by cuddlefish on Oct 18, 2016 23:22:07 GMT
Well, if one looks at the modern naval analogue... things only could get to an opposed gunfight if a lot of people have really, really screwed up. Same with modern air to air combat (I recall reading there hasn't been a jet-on-jet gun kill since the '70s?) as well, though it at least has more scope for it.
So if Space combat does indeed hash out that way, it's not overly surprising.
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Post by argonbalt on Oct 19, 2016 13:18:10 GMT
I think this is largely a misconception at the moment. Much of the Gun and Missile supremacy is now largely based on the ludicrous abilities of Silica-Aerogel. Now i am not so certain that it is truly as effective as it is at the moment in game, that is not too say that it is not a miraculous material, but when it takes only a few mm or cm of the stuff to effectively laser proof a micro drone or missile, it is no wonder that the current meta-model of ship development is leaning towards micro missile spamming silo ships and micre drone spamming carriers.
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Post by ross128 on Oct 19, 2016 13:28:54 GMT
Well having to use basalt fiber or aramid fiber would make the missiles a bit heavier and more expensive, but they would lose very little in the way of protection from lasers as those two materials are about as effective.
It would also hurt large missiles more than micromissiles, because they have more area to armor, and because micromissiles can afford to take a few dozen losses during approach.
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Post by beta on Oct 19, 2016 20:40:56 GMT
Seems odd that aramid fiber is so effective against lasers when the developer made a blog about it and specifically mentions fibers (various armaid forms) being ineffective against lasers. childrenofadeadearth.wordpress.com/2016/08/04/raw-steel/"Synthetic fibers like Aramid, which includes Kevlar, Technora, and Twaron have exceptional strength against projectile damage while having very low density as well. On the other hand, they suffer badly against laser damage, having rather low melting points." I wonder what materials in reality are being considered for laser armor ...
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Post by cuddlefish on Oct 19, 2016 20:45:48 GMT
I've been experimenting with PTFE for non-aerogel laser armor. It's got good insulative abilities, and it isn't translucent. My 3.3 dry-kilo missiles have a bit under a millimeter on the front, and take attrition but make it through against a stock laser frigate when you fire a few score of them.
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Post by ross128 on Oct 19, 2016 22:10:47 GMT
Technically Kevlar is para-aramid. Aramid is Nomex, which is actually pretty resistant to heat...
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Post by dwwolf on Oct 20, 2016 14:47:11 GMT
Missiles are small. Combine that with pointed missile cones and you are not focussing that much energy on any one spot.
Do you think a 5 cm thick Si-gel nose cone would do much to hamper missile performance ?
I'm willing to put in a 10 cm Si-gel rad shield pill upfront if it'd save my missile.
Or I think I will alternate some 500ųm gold layers on the nose with 3 mm thick Si-gel.
Theres different ways to increase missile survivability.
How about I send in 10 extra bog cheap decoy KKV missiles that have better accell and dV than the main wave ? But with increased protection and a nice 1cm thick carbonsteel nose ?
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Post by wafflestoo on Oct 20, 2016 16:47:39 GMT
Technically Kevlar is para-aramid. Aramid is Nomex, which is actually pretty resistant to heat... It's a good insulator... but based on the safety films they showed us in the military it's not very resistant at all... it likes to melt, and stick to things, like your skin.
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Post by the_Demongod on Oct 28, 2016 1:21:49 GMT
Well, if one looks at the modern naval analogue... things only could get to an opposed gunfight if a lot of people have really, really screwed up. Same with modern air to air combat (I recall reading there hasn't been a jet-on-jet gun kill since the '70s?) as well, though it at least has more scope for it. So if Space combat does indeed hash out that way, it's not overly surprising. I think this is exactly right. Anyone who plays study sims like DCS or BMS can attest to the fact that as years go on, standoff ranges just increase. Nobody wants to lose even a single fighter, and so we end up with the current method of missile "jousting": climbing high and going as fast as possible to lob your missiles further than the enemy can, before turning away to avoid any missiles the enemy fires back. What we really need are better CIWS capabilities on capships, and a combination of that + flares will make missiles far less powerful. Additionally, it's not a good idea to just wait for enemy drones and missiles to hit you. Every time an enemy drone or missile group is launched at me, I launch a few missiles and intercept them to thin their numbers before they can intercept my capital fleet. You can knock out an entire fleet of missiles with one nuke because they'll all track it and be destroyed upon impact.
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Post by trevlite on Oct 28, 2016 2:25:51 GMT
Anyone found a way to kill the Unlimited Power style laser ships in a cost effective way. Inhave killed it by using 1000 drones and I think one of the disabled drones sniped a hit on the ship but I was getting 0fpm (frames per minute) so could not see what happened.
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Post by captinjoehenry on Oct 28, 2016 2:59:59 GMT
Anyone found a way to kill the Unlimited Power style laser ships in a cost effective way. Inhave killed it by using 1000 drones and I think one of the disabled drones sniped a hit on the ship but I was getting 0fpm (frames per minute) so could not see what happened. Pretty easy. Massed nuke strike. Protect the nukes with a fair few cm of silica aerogel and a few of the will get through and instantly fuck up the massive radiators. If you are losing a lot of missiles just command detonate them. or send in drones with ignore range. If they don't dodge the projectiles it'll kill them.
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