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Post by vegemeister on Feb 4, 2017 18:43:36 GMT
So, I've been using a disarmed, dis-engined version of the stock gunship as a test target, and I moved the reactors forward so that nothing mission-critical is located in the part of the hull directly beneath the central mass of radiators. Because the only option for missile homing is infrared guidance that goes straight for the biggest heat source, this made the test target very robust against damage. Unless lucky positioning lets you shoot down its long axis, killing it practically requires doing enough damage to separate the tail-end of the ship, which seems to be a guaranteed kill whether the front half is still operational or not.
Flak missiles and nukes can do this, but kinetic missiles just whiz straight through the hull, leaving a small hole. It seems to me that pure kinetic missiles offer the smallest possible design, but "put all the radiators at one end, away from anything important, then turn the ship broadside" is a nearly-perfect defense against them. Do any of y'all kinetic micromissile people have a way of getting around this problem? (Aside from replacing the homing algorithm with one that guides the missile to a random spot along the length of the hull, like the gunner does.)
Edit: The center-of-radiators guidance is also theoretically exploitable, if it were possible to order our ships to put themselves into end-over-end spins. That would cause APN to see a continually changing acceleration without any more use of the evading ship's fuel than required to start the spin, causing the missiles to piss away their fuel trying to follow it. I actually ran into this situation accidentally by puncturing one of the test target's fuel tanks and sending it into a spin.
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Post by teeth on Feb 4, 2017 18:56:10 GMT
Some people use what I call swords, either a solid sword made out of osmium radiators or a sword made out of multiple osmium pellets all launched along the same axis by carrier modules. These greatly increase the destructive radius of a KKV but I'm not sure how well they'll solve your problem.
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Post by lawson on Feb 4, 2017 20:55:14 GMT
My usual solution has been to add a nuclear hand grenade fused to detonate at 0 range. After the armor is penetrated, the <20c nukes go off inside the armor.
Radiator or Gun based swords are a good option as well. On impact the game appears to replace any single impactor with a disk of the same radius and density at each radius before calculating damage. So armor holes are always round and penetration isn't as good as you'd expect. Haven't tried a "seed spreader" missile yet. I expect it'd be quite effective once optimized.
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Post by Hicks on Feb 4, 2017 22:47:06 GMT
I'll have to try equipping my smart rounds with a nuclear hand grenade. What was it supposed to be? Anything going ~3km/s is like strapping its mass in TNT to the contact spot, but those mini-nukes start equivalent to ~95 tons.
I see some posters shooting NEFP? Which is like your coil gun shooting a homing missile that is itself a nuclear powered shotgun fired point blank into the enemy's face.
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Post by pocok5 on Feb 4, 2017 23:47:26 GMT
In my KKV I use a fairly heavy iridium explosive right behind an osmium dart. The dart goes through most or all of the ship but the iridium pellets tend to make the exit hole the size of a small car. In this for the KKVs destroy almost all stock ships in one salvo by wiping out the engines and the radiators. TBH I mostly geared them towards decreasing enemy mobility and defensive firepower by putting holes into engines and laser radiators so my heavier NEFP weapons can get through more effectively.
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Post by midnightdreary on Feb 5, 2017 19:30:58 GMT
My usual solution has been to add a nuclear hand grenade fused to detonate at 0 range. After the armor is penetrated, the <20c nukes go off inside the armor. I do this as well. Very effective.
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Post by Hicks on Feb 5, 2017 20:35:50 GMT
I can confirm that an 83.5t pure fission grenade kinda beats the pants off of a pure kkv. If you hit the target right on the nose, yeah the kkv can end the fight in one hit, over-penetrating every spinal module. But more likely you take a thousand rounds as the target rotated broadside and you are still pelting the exact same spot but not getting any more modules.
Since my coil gun "missiles" are basically an armored proportionally guided projectile, they fly sideways doing course corrections, not nose first. So I wrapped yust the nuke in a centimeter or so of Osmium. The nuke detonate with 83.5 tons of force, the Osmium jacket breaks up without becoming a plasma, and the fragments spray the entire side of the target with Osmium buckshot.
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Post by bdcarrillo on Feb 6, 2017 18:21:37 GMT
Put an engine on your test target and try again.
I can put 200 kkv missiles through the same hole on a stationary target. Give it a bit of motion and the missiles each correct slightly differently and tend to scatter.
Technically speaking, KKVs won't have explosives on board. They rely on kinetic energy alone, thus their name.
Increasing speed, mass, or cross section (rad shield cap, armored nose, radiator sword, etc) should increase lethality. As a general rule, speeds above your exhaust gas velocity start costing you final KE in propellant usage.
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elukka
Junior Member
Posts: 73
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Post by elukka on Feb 7, 2017 20:49:19 GMT
Try putting a small explosive (I used 500 grams, but I didn't test to see how much it really needs) to frag the missile. Have it pop maybe tens of meters before impact so that instead of a monolithic missile you have a cone of mulched missile debris hitting the target. Pure KKV holes: i.imgur.com/qizqyp6.jpgWith the explosive: i.imgur.com/XmHPhfR.jpgIn essence, without an explosive you have the maximum penetration and minimum area of damage. You can dial those factors however you like by varying the frag distance. Very heavy armor can actually defeat a fragmenting missile: i.imgur.com/Ql038Et.jpg
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Post by ross128 on Feb 7, 2017 22:10:55 GMT
Generally, my solution to securing kills with KKVs is volume. Fire enough of them, and eventually they'll saw the tail section off. They're dirt cheap, so it's fairly viable.
And the reason sawing the tail section off tends to be a kill, is because the radiators there are usually the reactor's radiators (the reactor is generally the hottest thing on the ship after all, and all that heat goes to its radiators) and removing that section detaches them. With no reactor radiators, the reactor melts down and the ship dies.
I suppose a plausible defense against it would be to double up on radiators, and space them out enough so that when the missiles hit, they'll only saw off the rearmost set. That way they'd have to "kill" you twice.
All that said, micro-NEFPs are more cost effective overall in the current version due to the fact that right now, you can build a 95t warhead for about 16Cr.
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