komo
New Member
Posts: 15
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Post by komo on May 12, 2020 3:27:25 GMT
I've been stuck on this mission since 2016.
At this point it's like a tradition: I come back every few months, do the whole campaign up to this point to refresh myself on the mechanics and get stuck on Ceres for a few days until I get frustrated and leave.
But seriously, how in god's name am I supposed to beat this? My missiles do absolutely nothing.
I've launched them in small groups, in large groups, one by one and all at once and nothing @%$^ing works. On the off chance the blasted things don't get annihilated by the lasers before they reach the enemy they just... fly right past the enemy ships no matter what commands I give them. This is extremely frustrating. Has the game been just broken? Should I just delete the game and never come back?
There are no guides anywhere on how to use missiles. All the walkthroughs are from like... 4 years ago and players just click AND IT WORKS FOR THEM. What am I doing wrong?
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Post by eternalsorrow on May 12, 2020 10:24:52 GMT
The game is fine, there are just few uncertainties in missile behavior. 1. If your flaks do no damage, that's due to known bug. Their fragments are being cleaned up after a one game tick. Engage at >2km/s and they will shred the enemy. 2. Keep your normal component of engagement speed < 20 m/s during planning an intercept, or you will miss with a high chance. 3. If you still miss with missiles, that may be due to the floating point math. If you plot an engage far away from enemy, it will be inaccurate. Re-enter planning more periodically to force the game to re-compute your course and you will see true values of your intercept speeds and distances. 4. Don't let the missiles run out of dV on final burn, the more dV they have on engage the better.
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Post by AtomHeartDragon on May 12, 2020 10:36:15 GMT
I've been stuck on this mission since 2016. At this point it's like a tradition: I come back every few months, do the whole campaign up to this point to refresh myself on the mechanics and get stuck on Ceres for a few days until I get frustrated and leave. But seriously, how in god's name am I supposed to beat this? My missiles do absolutely nothing. I've launched them in small groups, in large groups, one by one and all at once and nothing @%$^ing works. On the off chance the blasted things don't get annihilated by the lasers before they reach the enemy they just... fly right past the enemy ships no matter what commands I give them. This is extremely frustrating. Has the game been just broken? Should I just delete the game and never come back? There are no guides anywhere on how to use missiles. All the walkthroughs are from like... 4 years ago and players just click AND IT WORKS FOR THEM. What am I doing wrong? Aside from the flak missile bug (flak needs high closing velocity to work at all), the mission is pretty straightforward once you get a good grasp of factors that matter. Factors that matter are: - Weapon types rock-paper-scissors
- Pros and cons of high and low velocity intercepts with and against different weapons
- Understanding intercept parameters (parallel and perpendicular velocity, distance)
- Being able to spot and reason about worthwhile target modules in enemy designs
- A bit of orbital physics, especially in regards to boosting missiles and drones with your capships, spacing intercepts and dancing enemy drones out of delta-v (low vs high orbit in and out of plane manoeuvres), although harassing them with beam drones tends to work better
Forum thread: Previous version YT vid: |
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komo
New Member
Posts: 15
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Post by komo on May 17, 2020 4:38:31 GMT
Thanks for the advice, but I'm still having trouble with it after a couple more days.
I'm not entirely sure if it's the game or just me being that incompetent. It's depressing.
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Post by AtomHeartDragon on May 17, 2020 8:17:50 GMT
Thanks for the advice, but I'm still having trouble with it after a couple more days. I'm not entirely sure if it's the game or just me being that incompetent. It's depressing. Sooo... What exactly are you doing? |
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Echo
Full Member
Posts: 141
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Post by Echo on May 17, 2020 17:53:29 GMT
My missiles do absolutely nothing. I've launched them in small groups, in large groups, one by one and all at once and nothing @%$^ing works. On the off chance the blasted things don't get annihilated by the lasers before they reach the enemy they just... fly right past the enemy ships no matter what commands I give them.
In that video I made a fast intercept, but maybe you'll be better off doing a slow intercept to let your drones deal more damage while your missiles run forward and screen the drones from the lasers. Basically, don't intercept the enemy fleet with your own fleet like I did, but launch everything from your initial orbit.
Or, you could try what I did (making sure you have a perpendicular intercept velocity as close to zero as possible), but I can't guarantee it will work 100% of the cases. |
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komo
New Member
Posts: 15
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Post by komo on May 18, 2020 0:45:35 GMT
Thanks for the advice, but I'm still having trouble with it after a couple more days. I'm not entirely sure if it's the game or just me being that incompetent. It's depressing. Sooo... What exactly are you doing? Maneuvering until the drones and missiles run out of dV, then launching my missiles fast and drones slow. |
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komo
New Member
Posts: 15
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Post by komo on May 18, 2020 1:01:45 GMT
My missiles do absolutely nothing. I've launched them in small groups, in large groups, one by one and all at once and nothing @%$^ing works. On the off chance the blasted things don't get annihilated by the lasers before they reach the enemy they just... fly right past the enemy ships no matter what commands I give them.
In that video I made a fast intercept, but maybe you'll be better off doing a slow intercept to let your drones deal more damage while your missiles run forward and screen the drones from the lasers. Basically, don't intercept the enemy fleet with your own fleet like I did, but launch everything from your initial orbit.
Or, you could try what I did (making sure you have a perpendicular intercept velocity as close to zero as possible), but I can't guarantee it will work 100% of the cases. Your video shows a Laser Skiff in the enemy fleet. Mine shows 2 orbital defense craft. |
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Echo
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Posts: 141
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Post by Echo on May 18, 2020 7:15:49 GMT
Oh, that's the fan-made hard campaign: in that mission the enemy has the same ships (1x Escort Carrier, 1x Laser Frigate, 2x Orbital Defense Craft) with an extra Laser Skiff to make it harder. I've got a few ideas as to why your missiles aren't working (and they are not mutually exclusive): - the missiles are too slow and they get destroyed by the laser(s) before they can get close enough to detonate on their own;
- you don't separate your missiles in groups and give them slightly time-separate homing orders, so when they approach the enemy ship they try to converge in a single point and collide with one another (that's another thing I got wrong in the video with my flaks);
- the perpendicular intercept velocity is too high, and that means your missiles are more likely to miss;
- your flaks are actually too slow: there is a known bug that despawns the flak shrapnel a tick (1/30 of a sec) after they are generated. Flaks only do damage if their velocity relative to the enemy ship is > 2 km/s;
So the conclusion is: try sending all your missiles and all your drones in a single fleet (like I did in the video), but with a slow intercept (unlike I did in the video); when the combat start make sure all your missiles are homing and all your drones are in broadside, have your drones ignore weapons range and disable the distributed targeting, set the laser frigate as your target priority (I don't know which subsystem is best to target, but I'm pretty sure it won't matter much), then unpause the game for a sec or two and cancel the missiles orders (this way they'll run forward to screen the drones from the lasers, but not as fast as they can). You want your missiles closer to the enemy than your drones at all times, so order them to home in accordingly. Then enjoy the slide show  I'll try to make another video to better showcase this. |
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Post by AtomHeartDragon on May 18, 2020 9:12:13 GMT
Sooo... What exactly are you doing? Maneuvering until the drones and missiles run out of dV, then launching my missiles fast and drones slow. And what exactly happens and how it goes wrong? How exactly do you imagine anyone will help you if no one knows what is happening in your game? We are not sitting beside you staring at your screen. Make some screenshots or a video, or at least describe in detail what you're doing, what is happening and how it doesn't work. Some points: - Save your delta-v against enemy missiles. Decoys can handle them just fine. Only worry about drones.
- Use your capital fleet's engines to create a decent velocity intercept, flaks alone don't have delta-v to make an effective run against even undefended target (due to flak bug), they need to have >1km/s velocity to begin with. Nukes don't care about closing velocity much (unless you set warheads to delayed and use them as KKVs first, nukes second), but they won't last against enemy PD if coming slow. High velocity also makes decoys less effective.
- Optionally send beam drones in first, concentrate on melting aluminium radiators (on frigate and carrier) to deprive enemy crew modules of cooling and cripple their PD (effectively taking out flares and laser). If you used beam drones rather than delta-v dance to deal with enemy drones it can be the same fleet.
- Hit the enemy frigate with flaks or mixed flak/nuke fleet (say, 20+20) fast enough so that missiles are coming in fast with nearly full tanks (if you separate early after the capital fleet builds velocity even small burn can put a lot of distance between your missiles and launching capships). That should take out frigate's reactor and kill the ship (and with it its laser AND railguns). Nukes may also melt aluminium radiators if there are any left and cause additional damage. Unless you do mixed missile/drone fleet, you need to take out enemy laser before you intercept with Stingers, else they will die quickly.
Remember that when it comes to directly impacting something (say, with missiles), parallel velocity is your friend, perpendicular velocity is NOT your friend.
- Hit the enemy fleet with Stingers. Unless something has gone VERY wrong and frigate still lives, concentrate fire on enemy decoy launcher as you want to make your missiles effective again (decoys can spoof all the ships in enemy fleet but Laser Frigate) and its explosion is likely to cause additional damage, killing the ship. As secondary targets concentrate on any explosive modules on orbital crafts (launchers, cannons, don't bother with engines as they are highly redundant and RTGs and are very small, so you are unlikely to achieve power generation kill either), and, if carrier is somehow still alive, on its weapons and engines.
- If something is still alive, series of missile intercepts should kill it.
- If not, you still have your capital fleet with its railguns and 60mm cannons (remember to broadside, neither of your ships is built for nose forward) barrelling down...
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komo
New Member
Posts: 15
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Post by komo on May 18, 2020 21:35:55 GMT
Oh, that's the fan-made hard campaign: in that mission the enemy has the same ships (1x Escort Carrier, 1x Laser Frigate, 2x Orbital Defense Craft) with an extra Laser Skiff to make it harder. I've got a few ideas as to why your missiles aren't working (and they are not mutually exclusive): - the missiles are too slow and they get destroyed by the laser(s) before they can get close enough to detonate on their own;
- you don't separate your missiles in groups and give them slightly time-separate homing orders, so when they approach the enemy ship they try to converge in a single point and collide with one another (that's another thing I got wrong in the video with my flaks);
- the perpendicular intercept velocity is too high, and that means your missiles are more likely to miss;
- your flaks are actually too slow: there is a known bug that despawns the flak shrapnel a tick (1/30 of a sec) after they are generated. Flaks only do damage if their velocity relative to the enemy ship is > 2 km/s;
So the conclusion is: try sending all your missiles and all your drones in a single fleet (like I did in the video), but with a slow intercept (unlike I did in the video); when the combat start make sure all your missiles are homing and all your drones are in broadside, have your drones ignore weapons range and disable the distributed targeting, set the laser frigate as your target priority (I don't know which subsystem is best to target, but I'm pretty sure it won't matter much), then unpause the game for a sec or two and cancel the missiles orders (this way they'll run forward to screen the drones from the lasers, but not as fast as they can). You want your missiles closer to the enemy than your drones at all times, so order them to home in accordingly. Then enjoy the slide show I'll try to make another video to better showcase this. Well, the advice seems to be applicable either way, so it's still useful. 1. I try to use the ship dV to help accelerate missiles, but they hardly ever do anything at all. Yes, if I go in slowly they get lasered from miles away, but at the high speed they either miss entirely or just fly past enemies without hitting anything and even if I detonate them manually they do little to nothing. 2. I've been trying send my missiles in groups of 5, 10, 20, etc up to all 100 at once, but I haven't been able to do much with them yet. 3. I'm trying to launch them on the collision course so that the relative speed increases, but no luck so far. 4. My fastest approach was at about 1.2km/s, I guess I have to speed it up more. |
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komo
New Member
Posts: 15
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Post by komo on May 18, 2020 21:40:30 GMT
Maneuvering until the drones and missiles run out of dV, then launching my missiles fast and drones slow. And what exactly happens and how it goes wrong? How exactly do you imagine anyone will help you if no one knows what is happening in your game? We are not sitting beside you staring at your screen. Make some screenshots or a video, or at least describe in detail what you're doing, what is happening and how it doesn't work. Some points: - Save your delta-v against enemy missiles. Decoys can handle them just fine. Only worry about drones.
- Use your capital fleet's engines to create a decent velocity intercept, flaks alone don't have delta-v to make an effective run against even undefended target (due to flak bug), they need to have >1km/s velocity to begin with. Nukes don't care about closing velocity much (unless you set warheads to delayed and use them as KKVs first, nukes second), but they won't last against enemy PD if coming slow. High velocity also makes decoys less effective.
- Optionally send beam drones in first, concentrate on melting aluminium radiators (on frigate and carrier) to deprive enemy crew modules of cooling and cripple their PD (effectively taking out flares and laser). If you used beam drones rather than delta-v dance to deal with enemy drones it can be the same fleet.
- Hit the enemy frigate with flaks or mixed flak/nuke fleet (say, 20+20) fast enough so that missiles are coming in fast with nearly full tanks (if you separate early after the capital fleet builds velocity even small burn can put a lot of distance between your missiles and launching capships). That should take out frigate's reactor and kill the ship (and with it its laser AND railguns). Nukes may also melt aluminium radiators if there are any left and cause additional damage. Unless you do mixed missile/drone fleet, you need to take out enemy laser before you intercept with Stingers, else they will die quickly.
Remember that when it comes to directly impacting something (say, with missiles), parallel velocity is your friend, perpendicular velocity is NOT your friend.
- Hit the enemy fleet with Stingers. Unless something has gone VERY wrong and frigate still lives, concentrate fire on enemy decoy launcher as you want to make your missiles effective again (decoys can spoof all the ships in enemy fleet but Laser Frigate) and its explosion is likely to cause additional damage, killing the ship. As secondary targets concentrate on any explosive modules on orbital crafts (launchers, cannons, don't bother with engines as they are highly redundant and RTGs and are very small, so you are unlikely to achieve power generation kill either), and, if carrier is somehow still alive, on its weapons and engines.
- If something is still alive, series of missile intercepts should kill it.
- If not, you still have your capital fleet with its railguns and 60mm cannons (remember to broadside, neither of your ships is built for nose forward) barrelling down...
Sorry! What generally happens is I run out of missiles and drones and when I engage with ship guns I get shredded because the enemy still has missiles and drones on top of a 2:1 numerical advantage. Both flak and nukes seem to fly past the enemy without ever engaging regardless of my commands to them most of the time even if they have dV left. My drones either ignore the enemy or fire for a few seconds, then stop completely as they are flying past the enemy while supposedly being in-range still. I've been trying to focus the laser ship, but so far I have had limited success. My missiles either zip past the enemy without doing anything or they get destroyed by the laser 5 feet away from the target without detonating. Same with drones, they barely do anything. If I approach fast they fly past the enemy and get disabled once they run out of dV and if I approach slowly they get melted by the lasers. I managed to get one good salvo in once so far, but unfortunately the game told me I no longer have the dV to make any sort of maneuvers despite having more than half of dV and grayed out the maneuver button so my ships engaged the enemy before most of my missiles and drones and got destroyed. The game then told me that despite 100+ missiles 2 minutes from impact the mission is failed. |
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Post by AtomHeartDragon on May 18, 2020 23:09:38 GMT
What generally happens is I run out of missiles and drones That means you're doing something wrong. Given that your ships aren't built for direct engagement, while enemy's are AND they have missiles and drones left, that shouldn't be surprising. Your commands won't help if the intercept is botched. Homing should suffice. Drones need to be given broadside order. Fixed gun drones like Stingers need to be oriented according to the firing solution - they need to lead the target just the right amount. Only broadside does that with fixed guns. Nose forward aims your drone directly at the enemy so it won't be aiming where its bullets need to be for the enemy to run into them. Homing tries to make the drone collide with the enemy, so it also doesn't work. Because you need to approach fast on the right trajectory to hit the target. Your missiles need both delta-v and time to make corrections as they start at laser's engagement range. Did all ships in your fleet have delta-v? Did all have working engines? |
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komo
New Member
Posts: 15
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Post by komo on May 19, 2020 6:31:58 GMT
Did all ships in your fleet have delta-v? Did all have working engines? Yeah, but the button was grayed out. |
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Post by cipherpunks on May 19, 2020 7:26:31 GMT
Did all ships in your fleet have delta-v? Did all have working engines? Yeah, but the button was grayed out. Did you checked that all the ships had engine control e.g. engines were not disabled, crew module radiators were functional and CMs were powered? Also, perhaps you had a fixed-thrust-vector ships that were relying solely on RCS to turn themselves?.. Obviously RCS has to be functional on such ship for being able to orient itself for burn. If I was you... And I amn't. But if I was, then I'd keep splitting the fleet in halves to pinpoint the problematic ship{s}, and dance from that. No offence, but tough events are taking place in this tough game, so you need to toughen up yourself, too, and keep working on solution. OTOH good thing that you're not in command of said fleet IRL, 'cause they only have one chance to make it right, with their actual meat locked inside these slightly radioactive tin cans. p.s. I confess that I forgot if damaged rad.shield could also cause this. IRL it surely should, as you do not want to make that NTR critical knowing it'll fry you. |
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