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Post by RiftandRend on Feb 14, 2017 20:01:04 GMT
MIRV/Missile Bus systems seem to be the most effective way to destroy a ship with heavy directed point defense. Have a carrier drone accelerate to a few Km/s and dump the payloads once they enter weapons range. If you use super thin missiles overly focused lasers can't even hit them let alone shoot them down and they are too small to be reliably hit by kinetic PD. The main counter to this kind of system seems to be nuclear interceptor missiles but you can just direct one of the payloads to intercept the interceptor turning it into a numbers game of who has the most missiles at their disposal.
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Post by Easy on Feb 14, 2017 20:04:12 GMT
In many ways a strict missile bus can be considered the lower stage of a missile.
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Post by ross128 on Feb 14, 2017 20:23:39 GMT
Another thing you can do with a MIRV is dump the payload on an intercept course *before* entering engagement, then use the empty drone to block an interceptor nuke. Granted, that's only one free block per drone, but since the drone has already dropped its payload it *is* essentially free.
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Post by newageofpower on Feb 14, 2017 21:35:30 GMT
If you use super thin missiles overly focused lasers can't even hit them let alone shoot them down and they are too small to be reliably hit by kinetic PD. The main counter to this kind of system seems to be nuclear interceptor missiles but you can just direct one of the payloads to intercept the interceptor turning it into a numbers game of who has the most missiles at their disposal. IIRC, Laser Wobble was introduced to keep lasers from fragging guns too fast, but it's just made micromissile swarms deadlier.
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Post by bigbombr on Feb 14, 2017 21:44:03 GMT
If you use super thin missiles overly focused lasers can't even hit them let alone shoot them down and they are too small to be reliably hit by kinetic PD. The main counter to this kind of system seems to be nuclear interceptor missiles but you can just direct one of the payloads to intercept the interceptor turning it into a numbers game of who has the most missiles at their disposal. IIRC, Laser Wobble was introduced to keep lasers from fragging guns too fast, but it's just made micromissile swarms deadlier. I'm really looking forward to when/if custom sensors get implemented.
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Post by bdcarrillo on Feb 14, 2017 21:49:51 GMT
Missile busses will be a lot more efficient with one-salvo racks. Less mass wrapped up in launchers and ammo cans.
I'm kinda waiting for that feature before diving too deep into mirv weapons.
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Post by newageofpower on Feb 14, 2017 22:19:30 GMT
Missile busses will be a lot more efficient with one-salvo racks. Less mass wrapped up in launchers and ammo cans. I'm kinda waiting for that feature before diving too deep into mirv weapons. Missile buses as they are now have the advantage of being able to wrap missiles in a layer of armor before delivery. Rack-type launch will preclude such a scheme, but is probably more efficient overall.
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Post by RiftandRend on Feb 14, 2017 22:35:32 GMT
What kind of micro missiles do you all use in your MIRV/Bus systems? I use 500g boron flak warheads atop a Fluorine-Lithium-Hydrogen combustion rocket. It only gets ~2 km/s d/v but weighs 3 kg and costs ~60 c.
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Post by Enderminion on Feb 14, 2017 22:54:42 GMT
Missile busses will be a lot more efficient with one-salvo racks. Less mass wrapped up in launchers and ammo cans. I'm kinda waiting for that feature before diving too deep into mirv weapons. Missile buses as they are now have the advantage of being able to wrap missiles in a layer of armor before delivery. Rack-type launch will preclude such a scheme, but is probably more efficient overall. Why are you armouring MIRV buses, they should drop missiles before combat is joined to prevent a lucky laser taking them out before they launch all of the payload
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Post by caiaphas on Feb 15, 2017 0:19:32 GMT
Missile buses as they are now have the advantage of being able to wrap missiles in a layer of armor before delivery. Rack-type launch will preclude such a scheme, but is probably more efficient overall. Why are you armouring MIRV buses, they should drop missiles before combat is joined to prevent a lucky laser taking them out before they launch all of the payload Because usually a MIRV is large enough and has enough of a dV budget that it can afford sufficient armor mass to prevent that. Look at it this way; here are the necessary design requirements for a practical missile. You need - sufficient dV and burn endurance (how long can your missile accelerate for?) to get it moving fast, for course corrections, and for pursuit.
- it to be as narrow as possible and as small as possible, to prevent target acquisition by PD guns and to minimize laser damage.
- a high-gee rocket (and therefore a relatively high-mass flow rocket) in case the target dodges.
- sufficient armor to allow it to survive until it can deliver its payload.
If you read this carefully, you'll see that everything conflicts with point one. The smaller the missile the less room it has for propellant, decreasing your dV. The higher the mass flow of your rocket the worse your burn endurance is, and the less efficient your rocket tends to be, decreasing your dV. Armor is added mass, period, which decreases your dV. Unfortunately, all of this is necessary. The bigger a missile is the easier it is to acquire as a target, the worse its acceleration the easier it is to just dodge (and, as a corollary, the easier it is to smash with PD guns), and the less armor it has the easier it is to shoot to pieces. Now, with those considerations in mind, let's get back to missile buses. Missile buses and MIRVs (sidenote, since the acronym is multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle I feel as though it's a little inappropriate for our purposes, but whatever, the metaphor suffices) serve one, single, overarching purpose: get the missile close enough that it can deliver its payload. They do this in a number of ways. First they decrease the engagement time by giving the missile a velocity boost, second, since the missile now effectively has free dV, you can afford to bulk up the armor, which will increase your survivability (fingers crossed) when engaged by enemy point defense, or, third, you can keep it lightly armored but decrease the propellant you're carrying to just what is needed to maneuver (which is what I tend to prefer). However, why stop there? Remember the square-cube law; as your vehicle gets larger, the surface area to volume ratio drops, which means that you can add more armor for the same decrease in dV (presuming you're using that extra volume to store more propellant instead of Snickers bars or something). So why not add more armor to the missile bus? Now you have a relatively tough little drone lugging more vulnerable missiles around; so why not use the added protection and bring those missiles in as close as you can before launching them? EDIT: this further decreases the time the enemy ship has to engage your missiles, increasing their survivability again and making it even more likely that they'll ruin their day.
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Post by darkwarriorj on Feb 15, 2017 0:33:43 GMT
Missile buses as they are now have the advantage of being able to wrap missiles in a layer of armor before delivery. Rack-type launch will preclude such a scheme, but is probably more efficient overall. Why are you armouring MIRV buses, they should drop missiles before combat is joined to prevent a lucky laser taking them out before they launch all of the payload Theorycrafting on my part, but here's now I see it: 1. Currently, there are two different types of armors to hold out against lasers - threshold type where no damage is dealt below a certain intensity level (Ex. Diamond) and ablative type where it doesn't matter what the intensity is, it ablates at a capped rate. 2. A missile going in at an enemy lasership has no need for threshold armor once the threshold is crossed, but it would really be nice to have it while cruising towards the enemy before reaching the threshold. A missile bus shouldn't getting into the high power enemy laser threshold, if it can be avoided. 3. Therefore, why not have threshold armor on the bus, and ablative armor on the missile? The threshold armor on the bus ensures the bus can't be taken out at utterly absurd ranges by lasers, while the ablative armor allows the missile to do its best to push through the laser's sphere of influence to nail the ship. Like I said, theorycrafting, because the relevant situations I don't think can or will happen at this current state of the game's development, but that's the idea.
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Post by dragonkid11 on Feb 15, 2017 0:34:47 GMT
More often than not, my missile carrier drone get its launcher shot off in laser fire range even when armoured.
And of course, stupid flare makes everything worse.
So I made my missile carrier drone to have a frontal turreted light gun placement to either shoot off flare launcher or laser if possible.
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Post by underwhelmed on Feb 15, 2017 0:48:54 GMT
One thing that would be really nice is the ability to rotate ammo stacks. I've got a missile carriage drone, but it has plenty of empty space because it's diameter is much smaller than other components.
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Post by underwhelmed on Feb 15, 2017 1:00:19 GMT
1. Currently, there are two different types of armors to hold out against lasers - threshold type where no damage is dealt below a certain intensity level (Ex. Diamond) and ablative type where it doesn't matter what the intensity is, it ablates at a capped rate. There are? From browsing the forums, I thought ablation rate increases with intensity, then maxes out at a certain intensity threshold.
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Post by underwhelmed on Feb 15, 2017 1:07:00 GMT
Look at it this way; here are the necessary design requirements for a practical missile. You need - sufficient dV and burn endurance (how long can your missile accelerate for?) to get it moving fast, for course corrections, and for pursuit.
I've been playing with missile guidance a bit more - for certain values, you can actually get midcourse to basically be pulse width modulation, which increases your effective burn time.
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