Okay then. I'll dump em' all and tech up. Thanks.
How are my missiles, given my current tech level?
It looks like you haven't used the maximum power multiplier on the engines for those, you should ALWAYS use the maximum power multiplier for all missiles, always!, Well unless you're making some ultra long range probe for a system with a secondary star half a light year from tbe primary or something similar.
Second, you generally want to devote about 50% or more of the missile to engine power, and it's best to design an engine exactly half the size of the desired missile, the saved fuel compared to multiple small engines is significant.
Most of the rest of the missile should be warhead, I like to make it exactly 50% warhead, then take away enough warhead MSP to lower it by 1 point, devote some of that tonnage to fuel, and also enough to make agility hit 11 or 12. If the missile's range is too low I'll keep lowering the warhead by adding to fuel untill it reaches the desired range, you should try to keep warhead above 1/3 of MSP.
The most important variable factor when designing a missile is range, consider what ship will be using the missile, and how much tonnage that ship can devote to sensors/fire control, design a fire control that large in the desired resolution, then design a missile that has no more than that range, unless you plan on using the same missile in a larger class, but generally it's better to design a new perhaps slightly bigger missile for that ship.
I'm assuming you have nuclear pulse technology so heres an ASM and AMM I could make for that tech level.
Assuming your first ships are around 4000 tons, and devote 5% of tonnage to fire control, you should get around 50 million kilometer range for resolution 40. So I would aim for that range. Assuming multiplier technology of 1.5*, and efficiency of .78. I design a size 2 engine with 3* multiplier and 2.4 EP.
I'll assume you have a warhead strength of 3 per MSP and agility of 20 per MSP.
Heres what i come up with:
Size 4 Anti-Ship Missile Speed: 12,000 km/s End: 123m Range: 88.8m km WH: 5 Size: 4 TH: 40/24/12Note that I have exceeded the specified range of 54 million by quite a large factor, I could have increased the engine size in .01 increments while decreasing the fuel in the same manner untill I had the range exactly right in trade for some more speed, but in order to reduce micromanagement I left fuel at exactly .1
And for AMM:
Size 1 Anti-Missile Missile Speed: 14,900 km/s End: 8m Range: 6.9m km WH: 1 Size: 1 TH: 44/32/16This is using a size .62 engine, .01 msp fuel, and .03 msp agility so it reaches 11, if you want greater range use a .61 power engine and trade 100km/s for double the range, note of course that a size 10, Resolution 1 sensor at that tech level has a range of 7 million km, but only a missile detection range of 700k.
Note that I designed my AMM by subtracting from size 1 the amount of warhead needed to hit 1 point, subtracting the amount of agility needed to hit 11 for a size 1, then subtracting .01 for fuel. the number left should be devoted entirely to engine. If you want to make the design more efficient try taking note of the hit chance for your agility 11 missile, then take away speed and add agility untill your missile reaches agility 12, compare the new hit percentage, if it's higher than you should use that setting, if it's lower than go back to the other configuration.
Designing missiles really is a trial and error process, sometimes I instant design loads of prototype engines with give or take .01 extra size just to maximise the efficiency of my missile before I get the researchers to start on it.
Honestly I don't know what people are talking about when they say that missiles aren't worth the bother at that tech level, they are effective you just need stupid quantities of them.
Edit; Typos and added some more information about my design process.
Author
Topic: Aurora - The Dwarf Fortress of 4X Games (Read 2840567 times)