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[RedKing]

No, but it does prevent rapid spacing, as mentioned above.

Although in that model, mesons should also cause random crew casualties, as even millimeter-sized tunnels are generally detrimental to humans, especially if it's in the skull or thoracic region.

I suppose you could lucky and just get hit in the leg, leading to lots of spaceport guards who say, "I used to be a warship captain like you, then I took a meson to the knee." 

[PTTG??]

Could anyone point me to some info about using missiles to geosurvey planets? I've messed with economic stuff for a while but I don't know the first thing about, say, launching an interplanetary ballistic missile with a survey sensor on the end.

This is a conventional start with multiple missile silos, I was planning on launching from an ICBM silo if that matters.

[Girlinhat]

ICBM has a miniscule range, they're meant for missiles that don't leave atmosphere.

Geo-missiles are difficult if not impossible.  The trouble is that the missile needs enough lifespan to complete a survey, and that's very expensive.  Grav-missiles are more likely, since you only need to get them near a fixed location in space, and buoys can do that - or whatever the new missile system gives you as a buoy, I haven't looked.

[andrea]

how many antimissiles can a precursor base have? I ran into one, and I want to destroy the defending fleet to avenge the loss of my earlier fleet.
however, my current ship design relies entirely on railguns and armor.
lots of railguns and armor.
however , railguns can't be turreted and so make extremely poor anti-antimissile weapons( despite being surprisingly good against anti-ship missiles.) and armor can't last forever. as the wreck of my last destroyer shows. (though, to be fair, it did take more than half a thousand hits before failing. )

I would attempt stealth, but a 30k ton ship with a thermal signature the size of a small colony might be hard to hide ( enemy has active sensors).
is it worth designing a smaller ship just for the task or fighting this enemy? I have a smaller design, but it doesn't have enough armor to survive more than a volley.
or maybe I should invest in CIWS?

at the moment, my strategy is to send armor toward them until they either run out of missiles, or I have enough armor to survive the barrage until close range ( and then they get annihilated by the fire of 13 railguns). which is bound to work. eventually.

[JacenHanLovesLegos]

Code: [Select]

Efren Riedesel - Energy Weapons - 55%
Graig Bacheder - Sensors and Fire Control - 50%
Monty Lamountain - Sensors and Fire Control - 35%
I think I will do well in this arms race.

[Girlinhat]

Code: [Select]

Efren Riedesel - Energy Weapons - 55%
Graig Bacheder - Sensors and Fire Control - 50%
Monty Lamountain - Sensors and Fire Control - 35%
I think I will do well in this arms race.

You don't have enough labs.  I dunno how many you've got, but it's definitely not enough!

[Flying Dice]

how many antimissiles can a precursor base have? I ran into one, and I want to destroy the defending fleet to avenge the loss of my earlier fleet.
however, my current ship design relies entirely on railguns and armor.
lots of railguns and armor.
however , railguns can't be turreted and so make extremely poor anti-antimissile weapons( despite being surprisingly good against anti-ship missiles.) and armor can't last forever. as the wreck of my last destroyer shows. (though, to be fair, it did take more than half a thousand hits before failing. )

I would attempt stealth, but a 30k ton ship with a thermal signature the size of a small colony might be hard to hide ( enemy has active sensors).
is it worth designing a smaller ship just for the task or fighting this enemy? I have a smaller design, but it doesn't have enough armor to survive more than a volley.
or maybe I should invest in CIWS?

at the moment, my strategy is to send armor toward them until they either run out of missiles, or I have enough armor to survive the barrage until close range ( and then they get annihilated by the fire of 13 railguns). which is bound to work. eventually.

One thing you can do is, once you've figured out what their maximum range is, send a fast ship just inside of it with a long ranged sensor ship supporting, and once you've confirmed launches have the bait book it directly away. With enough time and sufficiently good drives and sensors, you can burn through their magazines without taking losses. Alternatively, against AAM (especially with them being fired from a known location), use heavy shields and lots of single gauss turrets linked into multiple defensive networks (aka PD FCs). Unless you've got shitty tech in one or both, in which case just armor up as much as you can afford and charge.

[Girlinhat]

A solid tactic for most issues is the armor ball, yes.  Usually hefty Duranium cost there though.

[Rince Wind]

Make a civilian ship consisting of a few engines and armor. Lots and lots of armor.

[Metalax]

Could anyone point me to some info about using missiles to geosurvey planets? I've messed with economic stuff for a while but I don't know the first thing about, say, launching an interplanetary ballistic missile with a survey sensor on the end.

This is a conventional start with multiple missile silos, I was planning on launching from an ICBM silo if that matters.

ICBM has a miniscule range, they're meant for missiles that don't leave atmosphere.

While true for using them to launch missiles to attack ships, the initial missile bases are perfectly capable of being used to launch missiles to deploy sensors at remote locations.

Geo-missiles are difficult if not impossible.  The trouble is that the missile needs enough lifespan to complete a survey, and that's very expensive.  Grav-missiles are more likely, since you only need to get them near a fixed location in space, and buoys can do that - or whatever the new missile system gives you as a buoy, I haven't looked.

Lifespan is no longer a problem since the new missile system was introduced. From this post, Missiles that have sensors will now remain on the map forever, with two exceptions:

a) If a missile has geo sensors and no other type of sensor, it will self-destruct when the geosurvey of its target planet is completed.
b) If a missile has a warhead, it will self-destruct when its fuel runs out.


This is my usual process if I want to get geosurveying underway as soon as possible from a conventional start. The following assumes you have only researched "Trans-Newtonian Technology", "Pressurised Water Reactor" and "Geological Survey Sensors" techs. If you already have higher techs use them as appropriate.

First of all design a missile engine at maximum size and x1.00 power modifier.

Put 10 msp into geo sensor, 0.2 reactor will be added automatically to power it. 1.4 msp into fuel will give you the range to reach Neptune, though it will take 1.6 years to get there. Jupiter and Saturn only take a few months to reach.

This results in,

Code: [Select]

Size 16.6 Geosurvey Probe Mk I
Missile Size: 16.6 MSP  (0.83 HS)     Warhead: 0    Armour: 0     Manoeuvre Rating: 10
Speed: 100 km/s    Engine Endurance: 14,000.0 hours   Range: 5,040.0m km
Geo Sensor Strength: 0.1    Maximum points: 1400
Cost Per Missile: 2.5725
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 1%   3k km/s 0%   5k km/s 0.2%   10k km/s 0.1%
Materials Required:    0.06x Boronide   2.5x Uridium   0.0125x Gallicite   Fuel x3500

Development Cost for Project: 257RP

To launch, we first need a target. on the system view screen, click on the body you want to survey(you may need to zoom in to get it clearly), open the waypoints tab on the left and click "Last". This puts a waypoint on the body that will orbit with it.

Open the individual ship details screen, load the probe onto one of the missile bases and assign it to a launcher(make sure there are no missiles assigned to the other launchers). Assign the firecontrol to the launcher, assign the waypoint as the target of the firecontrol and click open fire to launch.

[Girlinhat]

Really?  This is very neat to know!  I can imagine a scout ship with many reduced size launchers and many tiny fire control, capable of launching geo drones from warp point and then returning home, saving on the whole "crew's pissed for being out too long" deal.

This also means that thermal sensor buoys can give you some great long-term coverage of a system you're performing operations in.  And if you're doing it right, you could even scheme some missiles with active sensors to pin a target on an enemy and have an stealth artillery platform open fire.

[EuchreJack]

I was thinking it might be easier to just have one missile launcher and a large magazine.  Then no waste of missiles because I accidentally loaded them all.

[Mini]

You also only need one MFC, since it can be re-used for a different missile launcher and target every 5 seconds, so it will be able to go through all of your missile launchers before the first one can reload (especially if you use reduced size launchers). This also applies for being in combat, except less so, so you can link some of your launchers to the MFC, fire, and at the next increment link some more, fire those, and repeat. I believe they will fire if they have some launchers loaded and some not, but I'm not sure. If they don't you have to unlink the fired ones, if not then after you have gone through all of your launchers once you can just retarget and keep going. Obviously, this only works well in situations with many weak targets with little PD, since otherwise you're better of firing the same number of missiles all at once so that there are more targets for PD and so more of your missiles are likely to get through.

[Shooer]

This also means that thermal sensor buoys can give you some great long-term coverage of a system you're performing operations in.  And if you're doing it right, you could even scheme some missiles with active sensors to pin a target on an enemy and have an stealth artillery platform open fire.

That's how I've been running my stealth ships this since before 5.60.  Nothing like a group of 6kt ships that have a cross section of 1.2kt ships sneaking in with your main fleet just to head out and away, only to come back into range of their 700M km siege drones to wipe out bases and docked ships.  Just flash a little active, fire and the drone has a small thermal and the subs each have an active.

[Girlinhat]

Utilizing second-stage missiles, if those still work, you could even fire a long-range silent probe, that deploys an active sensor buoy.  That way the enemy couldn't track the origin of the missile, they'd only notice the ping when the actives turned on.