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Post by caiaphas on Jan 9, 2017 3:24:44 GMT
I generally put 250 km range for any laser that doesn't have more than 500 MW power because waiting for them to do any damage is boring. I already posted this on the Technical Support, but I thought it might get more attention in designs. Made a ship (from my disarmed Gunship ofc) that apparently doesn't emit any visible light. Christ that looks dark as hell, you weren't kidding when you said it's a Nightstalker. It's a hole in freaking space. |
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Post by The Astronomer on Jan 9, 2017 3:53:39 GMT
Here it is, the freaking 261 meters long, 17.4 kt mass fleet mothership packed with three kinds of drones.  |
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khenderson
New Member
my god, it's full of missiles
Posts: 40 
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Post by khenderson on Jan 9, 2017 5:28:39 GMT
I also want to note how grossly underestimated my cost on nukes were as an AoE quality nuke starts around the 1Mt range (which costs roughly 100,000c) which means your nuke would be required to intercept 100 or more missiles simultaneously to be able to trade cost effectively (assuming 100% perfect kill rate which would require a perfectly clumped missile swarm with no cascading approach, which is actually questionable on missiles designed to tank large amounts of EM and heat damage from the front (aka laser armor)). Considering that the nuke would be forced into making that intercept to protect the drone fleet (as 100 mini-missiles threatens them) all tempo is in the hands of the attacker in this case. The nuke would also be forced into an early detonation, before the first wave of attackers hit in a cascade as if the attackers land a disabling blow the payload could be lost (and would likely be lost within the first 5 missiles). This would not insure 100% kill rate on the missile swarm as many could hang back. You have no situational control or tempo when you are in control of the more expensive missile. So even in the best case scenario for this engagement the trade is even 1:1 cost ratio. When your best possible outcome from a tactical blunder is 1:1 it is a very unfavorable exchange. First of all, fix your sentence structure/paragraph formatting. Your writing is becoming less readable than amimai 's writing, which is saying something. Next, the solution to 'counter-counter' missiles would be to thicken your non-expendable defenses (lasers, etc) to the point where it takes more money in attacking missiles to penetrate them than the price of your countermissile(s). Sure, a nuclear countermissile might be worth hundreds of attacking missiles (or more!) so you just increase your defenses to the point where anything less than hundreds of attacking missiles has no chance of penetrating your defenses. Duh.Except this doesn't appear to work. For each cost optimized laser you add, with the same number of credits I can add about 8 times the number of missiles needed to get past it. And that isn't even taking into consideration the much greater support a laser requires compared to a launcher. The mid to high yield nuclear armed missiles that appear to be most effective as counter missiles don't fare any better. Offensive missiles are effective with small, cheap payloads, while defensive missiles are stuck using much more expensive payloads to saturate an area. |
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Post by newageofpower on Jan 9, 2017 6:34:43 GMT
Except this doesn't appear to work. For each cost optimized laser you add, with the same number of credits I can add about 8 times the number of missiles needed to get past it. And that isn't even taking into consideration the much greater support a laser requires compared to a launcher. The mid to high yield nuclear armed missiles that appear to be most effective as counter missiles don't fare any better. Offensive missiles are effective with small, cheap payloads, while defensive missiles are stuck using much more expensive payloads to saturate an area. Allow me to illustrate... Suppose I have defensive nuclear missiles costing 2 kc (my current defense missiles run ~1.1kc) and you have micromissiles that cost 10c ea; each of my nukes would have to delete 200 of your attacking missiles to be cost-effective, so I build 10 Megacredits of laser/gun drones that can easily shoot down 200 attacking missiles. Now you lob 10 megacredits of missiles at me... except as soon as you launch 10 megacredits of missiles, I launch a few counternukes. If your attacking missiles evade the counternukes, they lose significant amounts of dV (which means as soon as your missiles attempt to reacquire my defending constellation, I launch more countermissiles) or get deleted by my counternukes. Even worse, you face a problem of diminishing returns; it doesn't matter if you saturate a cubic kilometer of space with 1,000 or 100,000 missiles; my counternuke swarm kills them all. Of course, nobody would use such a tight formation, but if your attacking net is too wide the vast majority of your missiles will never hit (and the ones that would hit, can be dealt with using PD and/or countermissiles). I can vary the amount of countermissiles in my salvo/net based on yours, and my defending missiles require far less dV than attacking missiles to achieve the same goal. |
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Post by dragonkid11 on Jan 9, 2017 6:44:32 GMT
This...is basically a continuous counter discussion on whether defensive or offensive tech is more cost and mass effective.
Essentially speaking, it's a theoretical dick fight that honestly should be in other thread or so.
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khenderson
New Member
my god, it's full of missiles
Posts: 40
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Post by khenderson on Jan 9, 2017 7:08:27 GMT
Except this doesn't appear to work. For each cost optimized laser you add, with the same number of credits I can add about 8 times the number of missiles needed to get past it. And that isn't even taking into consideration the much greater support a laser requires compared to a launcher. The mid to high yield nuclear armed missiles that appear to be most effective as counter missiles don't fare any better. Offensive missiles are effective with small, cheap payloads, while defensive missiles are stuck using much more expensive payloads to saturate an area. Allow me to illustrate... Suppose I have defensive nuclear missiles costing 2 kc (my current defense missiles run ~1.1kc) and you have micromissiles that cost 10c ea; each of my nukes would have to delete 200 of your attacking missiles to be cost-effective, so I build 10 Megacredits of laser/gun drones that can easily shoot down 200 attacking missiles. Now you lob 10 megacredits of missiles at me... except as soon as you launch 10 megacredits of missiles, I launch a few counternukes. If your attacking missiles evade the counternukes, they lose significant amounts of dV (which means as soon as your missiles attempt to reacquire my defending constellation, I launch more countermissiles) or get deleted by my counternukes. Even worse, you face a problem of diminishing returns; it doesn't matter if you saturate a cubic kilometer of space with 100 or 10,000 missiles; my counternuke swarm kills them all. Of course, nobody would use such a tight formation, but if your attacking net is too wide the vast majority of your missiles will never hit (and the ones that would hit, can be dealt with using PD and/or countermissiles). I can vary the amount of countermissiles in my salvo/net based on yours, and my defending missiles require far less dV than attacking missiles to achieve the same goal. I understood your point, except it doesn't work. When the game loads the tactical mode, it wont put more than 37 missiles in a rank, it just adds more ranks. And organized like this, a megaton warhead wont take out the 800+ incoming missiles that are equivalent in cost. I was running tests of just this sort of thing over the last week, and ending up with a megaton warhead taking out fewer than half of the 102 credit missiles in a 37x10 salvo. My 5 kt design (~600 credits) was the most cost effective on average, but was still only managing 3-5 credits killed for every 6 spent. |
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Post by jasonvance on Jan 9, 2017 7:13:42 GMT
First of all, fix your sentence structure/paragraph formatting. Your writing is becoming less readable than amimai 's writing, which is saying something. Next, the solution to 'counter-counter' missiles would be to thicken your non-expendable defenses (lasers, etc) to the point where it takes more money in attacking missiles to penetrate them than the price of your countermissile(s). Sure, a nuclear countermissile might be worth hundreds of attacking missiles (or more!) so you just increase your defenses to the point where anything less than hundreds of attacking missiles has no chance of penetrating your defenses. Duh.Except this doesn't appear to work. For each cost optimized laser you add, with the same number of credits I can add about 8 times the number of missiles needed to get past it. And that isn't even taking into consideration the much greater support a laser requires compared to a launcher. The mid to high yield nuclear armed missiles that appear to be most effective as counter missiles don't fare any better. Offensive missiles are effective with small, cheap payloads, while defensive missiles are stuck using much more expensive payloads to saturate an area. Missile saturation formula if you wanted to do some mathematical theorycrafting on saturation attacks (I tend to prefer having numbers to go on): TtI / (TtK / Dn) = Mi Mt = (Tn / Pk) + Mi TtI = Time to Intercept (this variable is based off the orbital interception and can vary in favor or disfavor of either side) TtK = Time to Kill (how fast a single defense platform (like a single laser) can destroy a missile) Dn = Number of Defenders (In the case of laser array defenses this is the total number of lasers in the fleet that is defending) Mi = Total number of intercepted missiles (how many the defenses destroy before interception occurs) Mt = Total missiles required to saturate the defenses and destroy the targets Tn = total number of targets (how many drones / craft do you need to destroy with the leaking missiles) Pk = Probability of kill (what is the likely hood of your missile destroying it's target or rather how many missiles it takes to kill the target) *note this is a very rough method for calculating probability kills* Compare Mt to Dn to get cost analysis on the cost effectiveness of the saturation attack. (In most cases I have found the cost of Dn to be much greater than the cost of Mt) Improvements to attacker missiles can occur from optimizations around TtI and TtK (a good balance of speed, armor, and small size is what to min-max for) as well as improvements to Pk. All of this should be balanced around the cost total of Mt though, as the lowest costing Mt is typically the most effective missile saturation attack. In the case of wanting to add AoE nukes to the equation calculate how many attacker missiles a single nuke can intercept when firing in cascading formation (the most likely interception), then multiply by the number of nukes you plan to use (you should also take into account TtI for your own nukes to targets and the need to space nuke hits out in cascade to avoid friendly fire kills of other nukes or your own laser drones so in reality you can only intercept for a small window of the total conflict TtI). This value can simply be added to Mi and the cost of the nuke will be added to Dn in the cost formula. So an example: you have an attacker missile fleet closing at 10km/s TtI = 1000km / 10km/s = 100 seconds TtK = 20 seconds (single laser takes 20 seconds to kill a target on average) Dn = 20 (single drone of 20 lasers) The laser drone will down 100 missiles (100 / (20 / 20) ) = Mi Assuming a very modest 4 missiles to kill the single drone you can calculate the total needed missiles: (1 / 0.25 ) + 100 = 104 missiles are required to kill the single 20 laser drone **Note if the lasers were spread across individual platforms the required missiles would go up to 180 and this should be taken into consideration when building around missile saturation attacks** These are also the cases that increasing Pk could save cost (as investing slightly more into a larger payload to increase Pk could help reduce over all cost of the entire saturation attack). In my experience 20x 1,000km lasers on a drone tends to cost about 600,000c and each attacker missile tends to cost about 100c so the Dn vs Mt in this case highly favors the missiles. In fact for the same cost 6,000 missiles could be fielded. For each AoE nuke added (which range from 100,000c to 650,000c) the same calculation of how many extra attackers can be fielded must be taken into consideration. Those are just estimate on my personal numbers though you can run your own stuff. |
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Post by newageofpower on Jan 9, 2017 7:15:16 GMT
Then, have enough defenses to kill the 37 wide missile stream ad infinitem.
*Shrug* If we're going to abuse the game's broken logic, then we'll just use Shurugal's coilgun launched flare-dispenser setup.
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Post by apophys on Jan 9, 2017 9:53:18 GMT
A nuke going ahead, with an eye toward a missile fleet, cannot be easily stopped by one countermissile. The nuke can disable its warhead and dodge, letting the countermissile fly by. Given similar thrust profiles, it is much harder to achieve a precise impact than it is to dodge a precise impact. Even if it were possible, adding a laser drone or two as escorts to the forward nuke would prevent such tactics. At this point, we are getting into mind game territory: how many things should I split off the main group to counter my opponent, and how soon should I make the split? If we ignore the mind game, which is very tedious to play and difficult to evaluate an advantage for, we can take a look at group skirmishes (where the whole drone fleet encounters the whole missile fleet).
The question of Laser+Nuke vs MicromissileSpam in large encounters favors lasers+nukes in the short term; it may or may not favor micromissiles in the long term due to cost. One nuke can run ahead of the rest of the fleet (while still in combat mode) and clear out a significant portion of enemy missiles, hopefully without friendly fire (may be repeated once or twice), leaving lasers in a nice position to clean up the rest. (Coilgun-launched nukes should work similarly). Any attempt at single-missile counters in combat mode will be rapidly swatted down with the large group of supporting laser drones. Repeating this procedure, the laserdrone fleet can approach and engage the enemy capital by sufficient expenditure of nukes. In this case, cost efficiency in long-term attrition is not important, as the battle is won. In a war scenario, the surviving drones can be recovered, unlike expended missiles.
Note that the original post of mine doesn't focus on the details of what would be the best weapon doctrine (too hard to judge), but rather on the propellant doctrine. One of the viable tactics I mention is having missiles launched from high-dV drone buses. I avoid optimized micromissile spam due to lag reasons, but it is certainly viable.
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Post by randomletters on Jan 9, 2017 12:11:51 GMT
Rocket WitchI'd suggest adding a 1x10cm osmium rod to the front of your callisto rocket instead of that spacer, it'll add some significant armor piercing performance at less than 200 g per missile. As a counter to low cost spammed missiles why not simply fire duplicates of the attacking missiles on high V intercepts with a coilgun as a form of point defence?
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Post by The Astronomer on Jan 9, 2017 12:56:51 GMT
A nuke going ahead, with an eye toward a missile fleet, cannot be easily stopped by one countermissile. The nuke can disable its warhead and dodge, letting the countermissile fly by. Given similar thrust profiles, it is much harder to achieve a precise impact than it is to dodge a precise impact. Even if it were possible, adding a laser drone or two as escorts to the forward nuke would prevent such tactics. At this point, we are getting into mind game territory: how many things should I split off the main group to counter my opponent, and how soon should I make the split? If we ignore the mind game, which is very tedious to play and difficult to evaluate an advantage for, we can take a look at group skirmishes (where the whole drone fleet encounters the whole missile fleet). The question of Laser+Nuke vs MicromissileSpam in large encounters favors lasers+nukes in the short term; it may or may not favor micromissiles in the long term due to cost. One nuke can run ahead of the rest of the fleet (while still in combat mode) and clear out a significant portion of enemy missiles, hopefully without friendly fire (may be repeated once or twice), leaving lasers in a nice position to clean up the rest. (Coilgun-launched nukes should work similarly). Any attempt at single-missile counters in combat mode will be rapidly swatted down with the large group of supporting laser drones. Repeating this procedure, the laserdrone fleet can approach and engage the enemy capital by sufficient expenditure of nukes. In this case, cost efficiency in long-term attrition is not important, as the battle is won. In a war scenario, the surviving drones can be recovered, unlike expended missiles. Note that the original post of mine doesn't focus on the details of what would be the best weapon doctrine (too hard to judge), but rather on the propellant doctrine. One of the viable tactics I mention is having missiles launched from high-dV drone buses. I avoid optimized micromissile spam due to lag reasons, but it is certainly viable. Missile: *dodge* Countermissile: *follows but faster* Missile: oh shit |
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Post by David367th on Jan 9, 2017 13:23:29 GMT
A nuke going ahead, with an eye toward a missile fleet, cannot be easily stopped by one countermissile. The nuke can disable its warhead and dodge, letting the countermissile fly by. Given similar thrust profiles, it is much harder to achieve a precise impact than it is to dodge a precise impact. Even if it were possible, adding a laser drone or two as escorts to the forward nuke would prevent such tactics. At this point, we are getting into mind game territory: how many things should I split off the main group to counter my opponent, and how soon should I make the split? If we ignore the mind game, which is very tedious to play and difficult to evaluate an advantage for, we can take a look at group skirmishes (where the whole drone fleet encounters the whole missile fleet). The question of Laser+Nuke vs MicromissileSpam in large encounters favors lasers+nukes in the short term; it may or may not favor micromissiles in the long term due to cost. One nuke can run ahead of the rest of the fleet (while still in combat mode) and clear out a significant portion of enemy missiles, hopefully without friendly fire (may be repeated once or twice), leaving lasers in a nice position to clean up the rest. (Coilgun-launched nukes should work similarly). Any attempt at single-missile counters in combat mode will be rapidly swatted down with the large group of supporting laser drones. Repeating this procedure, the laserdrone fleet can approach and engage the enemy capital by sufficient expenditure of nukes. In this case, cost efficiency in long-term attrition is not important, as the battle is won. In a war scenario, the surviving drones can be recovered, unlike expended missiles. Note that the original post of mine doesn't focus on the details of what would be the best weapon doctrine (too hard to judge), but rather on the propellant doctrine. One of the viable tactics I mention is having missiles launched from high-dV drone buses. I avoid optimized micromissile spam due to lag reasons, but it is certainly viable. Missile: *dodge* Countermissile: *follows but faster* Missile: oh shit Missile: Haha I pulled range Counter: Nice distance you have there, it would be a shame if someone was carrying more than 5Mt Missile: oh boi |
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Post by The Astronomer on Jan 9, 2017 13:33:59 GMT
Missile: *dodge* Countermissile: *follows but faster* Missile: oh shit Missile: Haha I pulled range Counter: Nice distance you have there, it would be a shame if someone was carrying more than 5Mt Missile: oh boi Actually it's a real situation in my game, when drones scattered into a ring to flee the incoming missiles, but the missiles were at least as fast as them, so they all blew up. Creeper missiles. |
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Post by caiaphas on Jan 9, 2017 15:21:40 GMT
Missile: Haha I pulled range Counter: Nice distance you have there, it would be a shame if someone was carrying more than 5Mt Missile: oh boi Actually it's a real situation in my game, when drones scattered into a ring to flee the incoming missiles, but the missiles were at least as fast as them, so they all blew up. Creeper missiles. ...did, uh. Did we just meme-ify space warfare? |
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Post by The Astronomer on Jan 9, 2017 15:31:36 GMT
Actually it's a real situation in my game, when drones scattered into a ring to flee the incoming missiles, but the missiles were at least as fast as them, so they all blew up. Creeper missiles. ...did, uh. Did we just meme-ify space warfare?Yep. |
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