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Post by Durandal on Jul 17, 2017 16:01:42 GMT
You don't need to use the automatic flyby to intercept fleets. Just plot the course manually and you should be fine. No, but depending on the missile design it may be beneficial.
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Post by Durandal on Jul 17, 2017 15:27:07 GMT
thats asking for them to be shot off, and then the thrust from escapeing gas will throw your aim and might kill your crew, even then the enemy has an extra 1-2 seconds where you can't shoot back, more if you have a smaller ship If you're engaging the enemy properly from at at least 1Mm and they manage to get close enough to shoot the radiators I'd say you've lost already, broadside or not.
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Post by Durandal on Jul 17, 2017 2:25:47 GMT
You mention choosing the flyby Icon. Try expending all of your missile's dV for a direct intercept from the orbital view. They'll have a higher intercept velocity so the enemy will have less time to defend against them.
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Post by Durandal on Jul 17, 2017 1:30:29 GMT
You can't put the blast launcher on a turret though, so the conventional gun is likely the best option if you don't want to put on some thrusters on that nuke. Tried shooting a blast launcher out of a gun? (It's very effective.)
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Post by Durandal on Jul 16, 2017 7:24:51 GMT
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Post by Durandal on Jul 14, 2017 17:36:16 GMT
I still build my spacecraft in this fashion, even though I do not seem to be in the majority in doing so. Building asymmetrically allows you to have your radiators completely covered. Putting radiators edge-on to the enemy is nice, but they are still exposed and precise weapons or lucky shots would be able to take them out. Admittedly, I've fantasized about a knife-shaped spacecraft with steeply sloped armor that broadsides enemies with kinetics and possibly has lasers for backup. All of the radiators would be on the reversed side of the spacecraft. It would have trade offs with the traditional cylindrical CDE designs (poor mass ratio) but would probably have its own benefits (small cross section, sloped armor.) I have also considered what benefit saucer-shaped craft might have. I messed with saucers a few updates ago. The way the ship designer works makes radiators can be a pain, but they allow for a massive amount of weaponry to be mounted on the leading edge. The only issue is if the ship rotates so that its flat sides are towards the enemy it's literally a giant bullseye. That, and getting propellant tanks to work with them is a bit of a nightmare too.
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Post by Durandal on Jul 14, 2017 16:03:52 GMT
Nose forward with lateral dodging would be far superior. I used to agree but now am not 100% sure about this. If the pattern of misses/error is symmetrical with respect to x/y, but non-uniform (hit probably is highest at intended target and drops off as you go out), then I think there's actually benefit to spreading out vulnerable components so that near-misses at laser #1 are unlikely to hit laser #7 and vice-versa. Lasers would actually be less vulnerable broadside (obviously, if you had a bunch of laser drones you'ld want them spread out, not tightly clustered). OTOH broadside is *much* more exposed to damage to fuel tanks, crew, etc. I believe carriers definitely want to be nose-forward-lateral-dodging if feasible. I *think* lasers want to be broadside if low-powered-long-range sniping of lasers is the worry, and if you're worried about heavy weapons hitting your lasership it's probably in deep trouble anyway. I've found that with broadside laserstars it doesn't matter when it comes to laser dueling. If the enemy has Las superiority the broadside ship will be disarmed. Especially when fighting a drone swarm or multiple laserstar capitals. I believe the main advantage is KE avoidance from near misses and perhaps allowing for a wider "field of view" for lasing missiles.
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Post by Durandal on Jul 14, 2017 13:01:26 GMT
I still advocate for broadside designs in certain circumstances. A laserstar laid out broadside-fashion with a strong resistojet on the end can allow for 'ok' performance, but maneuvering is tricky. Nose forward with lateral dodging would be far superior. Of course. But the AI isn't that great with lateral dodging, and it can be a hassle naming individual translation engines for port, starboard, dorsal, and ventral and then lining up the thrust vector so the ship doesn't spin. It would be nice if we could control engine burns like we can payload-firing cannon in the tactical screen.
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Post by Durandal on Jul 14, 2017 12:56:26 GMT
I still advocate for broadside designs in certain circumstances. A laserstar laid out broadside-fashion with a strong resistojet on the end can allow for 'ok' performance, but maneuvering is tricky.
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Post by Durandal on Jul 10, 2017 2:52:56 GMT
If this were the case, it would push the meta back to large arrays of counter-battery lasers. Every engagement would revolved around sniping enemy sensors to blind their weapons. How would this effect missiles? I assume each missile would need a seeker, and I'm sure we've been over this several times on this forum. I'm with the consensus that modeling sensors and communications are beyond the scope of this game. I believe qswitched addressed this on the blog with the idea of ubiquitous system-wide sensor nets that all factions could easily access. Just because there's reconnaissance planes like U-2 doesn't mean you don't need AWACS planes like E-2, they are equally important. Data from early warning telescopes can tell you something about where and what the enemy is but it doesn't show you the full picture. The EM spectrum is definitely within the scope of the game as much as it is within the scope of any tactical simulation - a lot! I agree completely that the EM spectrum and the associated sensors are within the scope of a tactical simulation, I just don't think that at this time it should really be a part of this game. I don't think factoring in the whole EM spectrum within ship design was the author's intent, which is why the issue is currently abstracted away. The same thing for cyberwarfare. Allowing for cyberwar "modules" would be entirely different game in itself, therefore I think it's best if it is abstracted away.
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Post by Durandal on Jul 10, 2017 2:28:06 GMT
If sensors would be modeled, lasers would be more powerful IMO. Custom sensor arrays allow for greater range (reduced wobble), and sensors can be burned out at much lower intensities (and thus, greater ranges) than the intensities required for armour ablation. Also, even with modding, our lasers are limited to about 41%, much less then current gen military lasers (60+%) or existing FEL's (65%). If anything is going to nerf lasers, it will be more detailed modeling of radiators and coolant pipes (pressure, heat gradient, mass of the coolant in the piping, structural integrity, ...). You are going to need multiple types of sensors depending on what your trying to do, regardless of the ship type if we had to. One sensor for long range identification, one for optimal range of the primary weapons, and one sensor set for finding extremely small incoming objects (eg, meteors, micromissiles, gunfire). If you have all three of these, your weapons will become increasingly powerful, if you've only got one or two (or a directional gap in sight) that opens you up to huge weaknesses. These sensors are extremely weak, or extremely pricy too. It'd be interesting to see someone try and blind the opposite ship by pointing lasers at them though. If this were the case, it would push the meta back to large arrays of counter-battery lasers. Every engagement would revolved around sniping enemy sensors to blind their weapons. How would this effect missiles? I assume each missile would need a seeker, and I'm sure we've been over this several times on this forum. I'm with the consensus that modeling sensors and communications are beyond the scope of this game. I believe qswitched addressed this on the blog with the idea of ubiquitous system-wide sensor nets that all factions could easily access.
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Post by Durandal on Jul 9, 2017 18:44:05 GMT
So it took a few days, but I've built a missile system that can reliably mission kill and usually hard kill minimalist laserstars of various configurations.* It is a bit finicky and I'm certain that others could optimize it further, but my objective was to use standardized components from my existing missile fleets to build a missile that can reliably kill a laserstar at 1Mm range. This missile system has been tested around the asteroid Herculina and in the gravity wells of Luna and Venus. Using the majority of the dV from the first stage, the weapon gets around 14 km/s of relative velocity to the target. The blast launcher boosts the payload a further 5km/s (actually a bit higher, the launcher goal was 5km/s and the name was kept the same). In total, an intercept of around 18-20 km/s is attainable for the Kill Vehicles. The Hypervelocity Boost Missile is essentially a stripped down version of my standardized cruise missile with a large blast launcher and drop tanks. The launcher fires a highly modified micromissile with an engagement range set to just outside of 1Mm. A bit cheesy, but it ensures that the missile can engage outside of the standard engagement range of the laser. The boost vehicle is simply an unarmored first stage. To ensure a hit on the enemy it requires a perpendicular velocity of at least<5mm. I've managed to get intercepts with perpendicular velocities within the nanometer range with patience. [snip]
Have you considered a miniaturized gun drone as the final stage (or rather, as an intermediate stage, with the slugs as the final stage KKV)? I have a slightly less refined version of this, but instead of the terminal missiles it launches 5Kg gundrones. Sure, a 1g 1.5Km/s gun is garbage... but once it's already closing at 10Km/s it might as well be a railgun, and it can get laser kills from 500Km out without having to get through the worst part of the death zone. Also, guns aren't fooled by flares. Despite the fact that 80% of them seem to get confused it's just too much fire at all those fragile mirrors, and there's no way a MPD drive can dodge at that point. I've also had good luck with the surprisingly simple strategy of building the skinniest possible railgun drone. I can make a 40cm diameter one with a 7+Km/s railgun for under 10Kc and I'm sure it can be improved. The rate-of-fire is lousy, but it doesn't matter. Because it's so tiny (and they're so big and immobile) it effectively outranges the laserstar! Widebeam lasers would probably counter... My main problem with both of these is that they're almost completely ineffective against anything *but* glass cannon lasers. I have a small gundrone from an old project that I've thought about using to replace the KV but I haven't had a chance to test it yet. I'm afraid that a conventional gun, even if mounted internally, would be vulnerable to laser cookoff. I haven't considered EM weapons mainly due to the added mass requirements of a reactor and radiators, which I again think would be more vulnerable to laser fire. What I'd really like is to mount the blast launcher on a turret, but if that behaved anything like our other turreted weapons I believe the turret would be pretty heavy and power hungry. I consider this missile to be more of a technology demonstrator than a finished weapon. I'm thinking I may switch the propelant over to decane or a similarly dense fuel, and I may use one of the micromissiles from the challenge thread as the base for a new KV. Some of the ealier KV tests I did* used radially spaced engines instead of a single rear engine. I had hoped that this would allow them to make minor course corrections while staying nose-on with the target but the dang things like to tumble. I also originally wanted the KV to simbly be an inert payload, but the KV has to maneuver a little bit otherwise they pass by the laserstar even on a "perfect" intercept. I can't wait until qswitched gives us Kasaba-Howitzers. That'd solve this whole laserstar problem. *You may notice the one I posted is the Mk-VII
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Post by Durandal on Jul 9, 2017 3:20:14 GMT
I voted none of the above, because none of them are correct.
The human mind will be the ultimate space weapon. *badum-tish*
For real though, I'd go with missiles. A missile studded with point defence lasers and KE weapons counts as a missile right?
*edit*
Nuclear pumped x-ray lasers.
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Post by Durandal on Jul 8, 2017 21:49:23 GMT
Oh. No, that's how it is set up. The boost stage is deployed from a mothership from a normal launcher, makes a 14km/s burn towards the target, then deploys the Kill Vehicle from just outside the laser's 1Mm killzone.
Sorry for not being clear, I thought that was implied.
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Post by Durandal on Jul 8, 2017 21:31:26 GMT
you can cut cost and mass using normal launchers, on the siloship I'm not sure I follow. You mean putting the blast launchers on the mother ship? That'd put the ship in the laserstar's killzone. MPD drives would help (and I considered building an MPD drone for the boost stage) but I don't have any small-scale MPDs for a drone.
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