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Post by chasergrey on Sept 24, 2016 2:59:14 GMT
...how do you hit anything with missiles? I've tried putting them on chase, chase with reserve, orienting them manually, targeting everything I can find on that gunboat, and the result is the same. Missiles close in, fire guns, then zoom past and are effectively neutralized. Repeat until your magazines are empty. And the only tutorial advice I get is "try different solutions and see what works." Hey, thanks!
So what's the secret to actually using missiles to hurt the enemy?
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Post by Crazy Tom on Sept 24, 2016 3:50:58 GMT
...how do you hit anything with missiles? I've tried putting them on chase, chase with reserve, orienting them manually, targeting everything I can find on that gunboat, and the result is the same. Missiles close in, fire guns, then zoom past and are effectively neutralized. Repeat until your magazines are empty. And the only tutorial advice I get is "try different solutions and see what works." Hey, thanks! So what's the secret to actually using missiles to hurt the enemy? How high is your closing velocity? I try to get my missiles to tactical combat with enough propellant in the tank for a continuous thrust until impact. I find that the stock flak missiles are too wasteful in terms of propellant. I would recommend giving a Nuclear Sniper missile a pointy cap, doubling the thrust of its engines, and giving it two sets of 90 degree gimball maneuvering thrusters at both ends. The resulting engine's mass flow rate should be good enough to intercept the enemy, but not so high that it blows all of it's dV in the early stages of tracking - I find a continuous burn to be more effective at ensuring impact. The nuclear warhead will seal the deal.
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Post by jakjakman on Sept 24, 2016 13:58:16 GMT
I think in this mission OP means 'drones' instead of 'missiles.' It's the third mission, where you take out the out-of-plane ship around Mercury with your fleet carrier.
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Post by Crazy Tom on Sept 24, 2016 18:07:52 GMT
I think in this mission OP means 'drones' instead of 'missiles.' It's the third mission, where you take out the out-of-plane ship around Mercury with your fleet carrier. Oh, IIRC, I just used all my drones at once. They swiss-cheesed the enemy in short order.
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Post by chasergrey on Sept 24, 2016 23:55:55 GMT
Yeah, looking again they're called "Stinger Drones." But here's how my last run went just now:
- Matched orbits, then did a retrograde burn to close me in on the corvette. - Prediction said it would take 143 m/s to engage, so I rolled all my drones. Burned the carrier again afterwards so it wouldn't become engaged. - When I plotted the attack, it ended up using 1.4 km/sec to engage. I'm committed at this point, so whatever. - Ordered all 25 drones to homing and unpaused. 25 drones fly at the enemy, fly past the enemy, then don't have enough delta-v to engage again. LOL, silly human.
So again, what am I doing or not doing here so that my drones are completely ineffective, instead of "swiss-cheesing the enemy?"
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Post by Crazy Tom on Sept 25, 2016 1:25:03 GMT
Yeah, looking again they're called "Stinger Drones." But here's how my last run went just now: - Matched orbits, then did a retrograde burn to close me in on the corvette. - Prediction said it would take 143 m/s to engage, so I rolled all my drones. Burned the carrier again afterwards so it wouldn't become engaged. - When I plotted the attack, it ended up using 1.4 km/sec to engage. I'm committed at this point, so whatever. - Ordered all 25 drones to homing and unpaused. 25 drones fly at the enemy, fly past the enemy, then don't have enough delta-v to engage again. LOL, silly human. So again, what am I doing or not doing here so that my drones are completely ineffective, instead of "swiss-cheesing the enemy?" Hmmm, can you post some screenshots? I'm having trouble visualizing this - are you using the intercept command or the fly-by command when matching orbits with the enemy?
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Post by harlikwin on Sept 25, 2016 14:05:09 GMT
So I'm a total noob here, but I made it past that mission. I think you are using them wrong. Basically "drones" are more akin to fighters in the game in that they have guns. You want to be real careful about closing speed with them, you want a medium closing speed a few hundred m/s. And then orient them broadside so they shoot at the enemy. If you are going too fast, your engagement time is too short and their guns are inaccurate at high speed. If your closing speed is to low initially you can have them home for a few seconds to build it up, but then turn them off. Also once you pass the target you can turn homing back on to get another pass.
Later you get to use nuclear tipped missiles in which case you want a high closing speed and to use the homing functions.
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Post by shiolle on Sept 25, 2016 22:05:02 GMT
You start this mission with almost 90 degrees inclination difference with your enemy but you don't have to match plains manually. Here's what I did: Here's what you'll get: My god, this is one ugly intercept, but a plane change like this may even be more efficient than what you can do manually, since plane change is less costly the further away you are from the body you're orbiting. I also had 3 wings of drones 5 each spread out a little to ensure they intercept the enemy one after another and before their carrier. This is the end result: It's good thing the enemy isn't launching missiles at you on this mission. 3.75km/s closing velocity for free before missile acceleration. On the other hand, I wanted my first wing of drones to do a flyby the target to make them a harder target. I found that the drones don't do much at these velocities at all, so if you by any chance matched planes, but your orbits are in the opposite directions, drones will indeed fly out of range before they can do anything.
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Post by jakjakman on Sept 27, 2016 2:08:14 GMT
This is a great example of where using the 'frame of reference' tool saves the day. After using shiolle's advice to insert into the same orbit as the enemy corvette, expel your drones from the carrier. Make the corvette the frame of reference, then select your drone fleet. Start adjusting the tangent velocity adjuster (red) until the ending trajectory meets the enemy corvette. Your drones should end up intercepting the corvette with a minimal amount of delta-v, allowing for plenty of time on target to shoot the crap out of it. In my case my carrier was slightly behind the corvette, so my drones needed a slight retrograde burn to put them on the inside track to overtake the corvette, then intercept it. Here is the maneuver with the corvette as the frame of reference: And here it is with Mercury as the frame of reference. Notice it takes almost a full orbit to intercept, but when your drones do, the delta-v between them and the corvette is only 42 m/s, giving you plenty of time to shoot it up.
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Post by chasergrey on Sept 27, 2016 23:31:16 GMT
Update: I did a much better intercept on the corvette, and more to the point had my drones concentrate on the enemy's main radiators and take broadside instead of homing. Took a couple tries, but it worked. Thanks to everybody who gave such great advice!
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