You were a bit overambitious with this revision. Revisions are revising one thing, and while that thing could potentially indirectly affect other aspects of a design or designs in general, it has to be that one thing. A design would be much more suited for something like this. (Maybe a bit more ambitious in the design, though.) I felt I was a bit generous in implementing features other than just radio-guidance, but that's at the cost of increased weight.
Revision: "Songbird Banshee" Radar-Guided Missile
2+2
Our new Songbird Banshee class of missile is a competent weapon that shall be promptly replacing all our existing missiles.
There were two parts to the project: guidance/accuracy, and lethality. Considering the demands of some of Amaok's design leads, we put priority on the former option.
The new missile includes a miniaturized radar guidance system providing it with an overview of nearby entities. All current and future vessels will emit a short-range IFF signal to prevent missiles locking onto friendly targets. The IFF signals are one-purpose and their short range makes them extremely easy to fit onto anything. A missile chooses the closest valid target and locks on.
The missile is still two stages. In the first stage, tiny reaction thrusters point it in the right direction with an integrated fuel supply while a short but high-power booster stage clears the missile from its launcher. In the second stage, a fuel tank is shared between correctional thrusters and a lower-powered propulsion thruster. Small fins are affixed to the missile's second stage, allowing for efficient atmospheric flight. The reaction and correctional thrusters allow a missile to acquire and manuever towards a target, but if the target is capable of competent evasive maneuvering or if the missile still isn't aimed in the rough direction of the target, a positive hit is unlikely.
We've developed an actually guided missile. It's able to acquire targets and maneuver towards them and is capable of atmospheric flight. It may not be able of completely changing course, acquiring new targets, and st but it keeps the same low destructive abilities of our other missiles, and has one other flaw: Size.
The Songbird Banshee is a large missile. We can only fit two Songbirds on an A-ASF-8 instead of its four unguided missiles. And since they retain the same destruction capabilities, Central Command isn't entirely sold on fitting our A-ASF-8s with Songbirds. Ultimately, it's your call in the strategy phase.
The Songbird Banshee is an effective weapon. Even if it doesn't pack a particularly explosive payload, its drastically increased ability to hit enemy targets could very well be worth it. 4 positive hits with a Songbird is better than 1 out of 4 positive hits with our standard variant.
This missile is considered a Design but does not require a Production Line to make. More substantial and even larger variants in the future could potentially be considered worthy of production lines, however.
"Songbird Banshee" Radar-Guided Missile: A missile variant that's twice as heavy and big as our standard missile. Uses radar guidance and two stages to acquire new targets. Has IFF functionality and targets the closest non-friendly radar entity. Can manuever in limited amounts, to the point where if the target isn't performing effective evasive maneuvers and the launcher is pointed at the target, it can reliably hit. Carries a low-yield destructive payload which can reliably breach unarmored spacecraft but isn't effective on the ground unless directly fired at a ground target. The first stage provides a boost and the second limited cruising, and fins allow it to work effectively in-atmosphere. Doesn't require a Production Line, but has to be assigned to missile-using designs.
It is now the Strategy Phase of 2209. In addition to the regular strategy orders, please also name your vessels. (Maybe not the A-ASF-8s)
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Topic: Planetary Arms Race - Amaok, Strategy Phase 2212 (Read 35238 times)