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Post by RiftandRend on Feb 16, 2017 20:15:23 GMT
He's my first attempt at a Drone Missile Bus (DMS)/MIRV and Drone launched micro Missile (DM) (after all the imput from this thread. Needs a lot of work but I'm excited about the ideas and the possibilities. It's set to close within about 10 km, then it launches 1000 DM as fast as it can. Need to find a way to do more with less. THe cost is about what a small stock ship would cost, so it needs work. I recommend making a smaller system. If you can get your missile diameter below 10 cm (7 cm being the hardcap) It should significantly improve your survival rates. I don't think you need so many missiles per carrier either. 20-100 work fine against Gw arrays.
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Post by lieste on Feb 16, 2017 20:22:06 GMT
How, exactly, are you planning to get a 126m^2 ship inside 10km with 2km/s delta v?
I have successfully shot down more than 400 rail gun gundrones of ~2m^2 in a single engagement with a 4 ship fleet of relatively light vessels, plus all the launching capitals reduced to unarmed hulks, and I am sure I am not alone in having decent long range kinetic/laser mixes on small hullforms of one or two compatible types.
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Post by vegemeister on Feb 16, 2017 21:50:17 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 At least in my case, because weird things tend to happen if you separate payloads on high-velocity intercept trajectories. Like 8.5 km/s intercepts turning into 22 km/s intercepts and such.
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Post by deltav on Feb 17, 2017 0:28:28 GMT
How, exactly, are you planning to get a 126m^2 ship inside 10km with 2km/s delta v? I have successfully shot down more than 400 rail gun gundrones of ~2m^2 in a single engagement with a 4 ship fleet of relatively light vessels, plus all the launching capitals reduced to unarmed hulks, and I am sure I am not alone in having decent long range kinetic/laser mixes on small hullforms of one or two compatible types. Are you saying speed wise? It has lots of armor to make up for the complete lack of armor on the micro missiles. I've tried it vs my 12 GW super laser ships, and they work well. (Don't mind feedback, the design needs a lot of work, just answering the question.) The idea is to survive laser long enough to get almost into it's gun ranges, then to spit out as many missiles as possible as quickly as possible to saturate and overwhelm the enemy with microflak DMF, that have just as much punch as the stock full size flak missiles.
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Post by lieste on Feb 17, 2017 0:48:07 GMT
The first gun I had on hand for the non-entry (quarter cost, one eighth mass) to the "Kinetics" battle would commence fire on the drone bus at 193km range. It is of the class that routinely shreds (or destroys weapons/radiators) within a few 10s of km of engagement. While it is possible to overwhelm with sufficiently high closing velocity, or with large numbers of targets, a drone bus that is intended to penetrate inside 10km with that little delta-v and with armour that flimsy is not in the remotest sense viable. The whole thing is approximately two thirds the projected area of the crewed version of that capital ship, which is silly given the absence of a requirement for crew volume/mass and the need to penetrate to extremely close range with no delta-v budget.
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Post by ross128 on Feb 17, 2017 2:42:09 GMT
Here's the missile I use on my current iteration: And here's the boost stage (well, the KKV version of the boost stage, only difference is the warhead on the missile, stats otherwise identical): I've adjusted my KKV and NEFP micromissiles to be the same weight, so they can be completely interchangeable. The drone isn't armored at all, because it doesn't enter engagement range. I set up an intercept, preferably using a retrograde orbit so I don't have to mess with a straight-line burn, launch the missiles, then break away. The missiles make small adjustments to correct for any error introduced by the launch, and hit the engagement envelope at a screaming 6km/s with full tanks to burn. They can cross a million-meter engagement envelope in under two minutes.
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Post by deltav on Feb 17, 2017 2:48:34 GMT
Here's the missile I use on my current iteration: And here's the boost stage (well, the KKV version of the boost stage, only difference is the warhead on the missile, stats otherwise identical): I've adjusted my KKV and NEFP micromissiles to be the same weight, so they can be completely interchangeable. The drone isn't armored at all, because it doesn't enter engagement range. I set up an intercept, preferably using a retrograde orbit so I don't have to mess with a straight-line burn, launch the missiles, then break away. The missiles make small adjustments to correct for any error introduced by the launch, and hit the engagement envelope at a screaming 6km/s with full tanks to burn. They can cross a million-meter engagement envelope in under two minutes. That is one complex little missile. These drones/missiles are like Swiss watches. How much does the Booster mass? And how do you use the KKV vs how do you use the NEFP? Where does one outshine the other?
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Post by ross128 on Feb 17, 2017 3:27:12 GMT
The booster weighs 14.1t all full. All but 1.6t of that is fuel and ammo.
And honestly, before 1.08 it was "KKVs are cheap, NEFPs are for when it's the only way to be sure".
But now the nuke warhead only costs 16Cr, so for now the KKVs are mothballed.
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Post by RiftandRend on Feb 17, 2017 5:50:13 GMT
Here's the missile I use on my current iteration: And here's the boost stage (well, the KKV version of the boost stage, only difference is the warhead on the missile, stats otherwise identical): I've adjusted my KKV and NEFP micromissiles to be the same weight, so they can be completely interchangeable. The drone isn't armored at all, because it doesn't enter engagement range. I set up an intercept, preferably using a retrograde orbit so I don't have to mess with a straight-line burn, launch the missiles, then break away. The missiles make small adjustments to correct for any error introduced by the launch, and hit the engagement envelope at a screaming 6km/s with full tanks to burn. They can cross a million-meter engagement envelope in under two minutes. I haven't gotten NEFP to work for me, can you tell me the settings on that 95t nuke and the material in the radiation shield payload?
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Post by ross128 on Feb 17, 2017 6:07:56 GMT
The nuke is set to go off at 20 meters, so very nearly point-blank. The radiation shield is Osmium. In general, high-density materials with high melting points (Osmium, Tungsten, similar) make ideal projectiles because they have the best chance of not getting instantly vaporized.
When it works, you'll know. The holes it makes are pretty distinctive, and naked nukes don't make those kinds of holes.
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Post by dwwolf on Feb 17, 2017 9:16:56 GMT
XNay on the rad shield NFPs. What you want is an explosive payload with the minimum mass of explosives and say 20kg of osmium or diamond.
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Post by dwwolf on Feb 17, 2017 9:18:25 GMT
Set it to detonate at the same time or later than your Nuke.
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Post by dragonkid11 on Feb 17, 2017 9:38:59 GMT
I gave up using radiation shield when it turns out that the only really why I'm doing damage with NEFP is because I crashed the missile into the ship before the nuke explodes.
Instead, I used frag warhead with minimum explosive so the projectile can probably get accelerated and actually hurt something.
EDIT: oh wait someone ninja-ed me already.
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Post by ross128 on Feb 17, 2017 19:55:07 GMT
Rad-shield EFPs have consistently worked fine for me, as fine as such a finicky mechanic can anyway. Though when adding a new nuke, I often have to spend some time adjusting the rad shield to match it to the warhead's yield. When in doubt, erring on the side of too heavy will at least get you a penetration.
In careful single-missile tests though, I have certainly gotten it to punch through on a detonating missile. Testing a single missile against an inert target is a good way to verify performance, because it's very obvious whether you're getting a detonation or not.
Of course, such tests will often take several attempts because of how NEFPs are extremely sensitive to what angle the missile detonates at. You're going to get a lot of misses, a lot of deflections and internal reflection on spaced armor, but a successful hit will be clear. There will be an obvious nuke flash, the armor around the impact site will have suffered thermal damage, and the projectile will have punched through far more than its velocity alone would account for.
Once you've verified that you have a working warhead, you then fire them in large volleys against live targets so that by sheer saturation, you can overcome the high dud rate. The handful of good square-on hits out of the volley will do the job.
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Post by dwwolf on Feb 17, 2017 19:55:44 GMT
I did start a thread on NEFP behaviour a couple of weeks ago. With testing.
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