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[Girlinhat]

Here's what you want to do...
Hyperdrive.

It's an engine system no one ever uses.  I forget exactly how it works, but it's something like 10x speed, at no additional fuel cost, but can only be activated a certain distance away from any star.  Move the hyperdrive-capable ship outside the safe radius, hyper over to the other star, and decelerate to do things.

A few notes on hyperdrive though.  It's ONLY useful for binary systems and certain comets, as most systems are too small to actually utilize it.  If you can lure an enemy outside of hyper limit, then you can get an easy 10x speed boost and do some weird trickery.  You'd be surprised what 10x speed can do for your dodge rate, not to mention troopship success.  Certain designs of hyperdrive fighters can get WELL over the speed of light.

[Tarran]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think Steve removed/disabled/hasn't got back to re-implementing Hyperdrives in the latest version. I certainly don't see them in engine design, nor any research for them in the latest version.

[Keldane]

Check Flying Dice's sig for a fix.
Also, wouldn't you just need a bigger screen, not a better computer? At most you might need an new graphics card, if for whatever reason yours somehow doesn't support high resolutions or something? I dunno.

My computer is a laptop, and it tends to freak out when hooked up to any sort of external display. It has overheating issues at the best of times. So, wanting a newer computer for a combination of better size of display and better cooling would be the reasons behind my post.

[iceball3]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think Steve removed/disabled/hasn't got back to re-implementing Hyperdrives in the latest version. I certainly don't see them in engine design, nor any research for them in the latest version.

That's what i've been thinking, yeah. I'm using the latest version and there simply isn't any tech that refers to hyperdrive.
Though apparently a TG without any units in it can somehow have that as a select-able action somehow sometimes.

Unrelated, here goes me asking more questions.
What would happen if i hit a unit with a buoy directly? I mean, nonwithstanding point defense, would they be tagged with the buoy, especially if they somehow can't pick it up on the sensors, or would it just stick to the location they were hit at?
I find the idea of sticking a size really tiny thermal sensor to enemy ships to track their movement rather amusing, though i doubt it'd work..
On a semi-related note, what do second stages need to actually -hit- something? Or rather, to elaborate:
What causes the proximity trigger to set off? Does it need an active contact or a passive contact, or does it just set off regardless of contact information?
I'm trying to design mines and i'm not exactly sure what degree of sensor presence is actually needed to make them useful, i've got some mines with 4.7 million kilometer MIRV range capability, but i dunno how/if they will work.

[Girlinhat]

How to work a second-stage missile, specifically fire-and-forget mines or super long range drones fired from outside active sensor range:

First you want the 'housing' stage, which should include some sensors and enough room to pack sub-munitions.  If it's a drone, make sure you go with the most fuel-efficient engine you can, and enough fuel to get wherever you're shooting it.  I believe thermal sensors are fine, but active sensors are for sure.

Second, the sub-munitions need engines, active sensors, and warheads.  These must be ACTIVE sensors.

Third, whatever the flight range of the sub-munitions is, set the housing stage to 'separate at x distance' where x is that flight range.  You probably also want the housing stage to have enough sensor strength that it can definitely detect ships at that range.

So basically, you want to get the mine/drone where it needs to go (either drop from a ship, or blind fire at a location), the housing stage must be able to SEE the enemy, the enemy must come within the payload's range, then the payload has to be able to SEE the enemy and move to them.

[iceball3]

Ah-.. That does make things more difficult than desired. Luckily, the mine emplacements i have are tucked in a belt of active sensor buoys, would that be sufficient?
Admittedly would fall to long range fire, but i had the tacit to place them on jump points. 4+ million range for sensors and missiles would go straight for anything that isn't too small or too stealthy, yeah?

[tryrar]

Yes. Just be aware simply having a single large field is not very efficient, as they'll all fire at the same target. This is wasteful if only a single or a couple ships come through(though if you're expecting an invasion dropping lots of mines is a fun thing to do ). Better  to have a ring of minefields with overlapping coverage so that not all fields activate at the same time.

[Girlinhat]

Yes. Just be aware simply having a single large field is not very efficient, as they'll all fire at the same target. This is wasteful if only a single or a couple ships come through(though if you're expecting an invasion dropping lots of mines is a fun thing to do ). Better  to have a ring of minefields with overlapping coverage so that not all fields activate at the same time.

If a warhead missile has an active sensor on it, it should try to auto retarget onto the next available in-range target.  If the missile is slaved to a ship's firecon, then excess missiles are lost, but if the missile has its own sensors then it's capable of firing a huge alpha strike at one target, and missiles should knock out every ship in line until the volley is depleted or you run out of targets!

[iceball3]

Yes. Just be aware simply having a single large field is not very efficient, as they'll all fire at the same target. This is wasteful if only a single or a couple ships come through(though if you're expecting an invasion dropping lots of mines is a fun thing to do ). Better  to have a ring of minefields with overlapping coverage so that not all fields activate at the same time.

If a warhead missile has an active sensor on it, it should try to auto retarget onto the next available in-range target.  If the missile is slaved to a ship's firecon, then excess missiles are lost, but if the missile has its own sensors then it's capable of firing a huge alpha strike at one target, and missiles should knock out every ship in line until the volley is depleted or you run out of targets!

Actually, aren't submunition missiles able to home in using thermal sensors or are active sensors an absolute necessity?
And beyond that, do the sensors actually need any sort of seeing range or can i stick a 0.001 active sensor on it so long as i have continuous contact?

[Girlinhat]

I don't entirely know.  All I know is, I had good experiences sending waves of missiles with .1 active, and the ship's sensors would lead it to target and when the first target was killed, that .1 would lead them to the rest of the ships in the stack.

[iceball3]

I don't entirely know.  All I know is, I had good experiences sending waves of missiles with .1 active, and the ship's sensors would lead it to target and when the first target was killed, that .1 would lead them to the rest of the ships in the stack.

Do active really read in EM emissions? I remember sticking rather powerful active sensors on a buoy and firing it in range of a suspected alien colony. It proceeded to receive a barrage of AMMs which all bounced off the armor, followed by an ASM of power 10 that blew it out of the sky. Didn't get any contacts indicating active sensors, maybe they fired using the EM sensor only?

[Girlinhat]

I know that thermal sensors pick up thermal signatures based on like, the sensor strength * 1,000km or somesuch...  Actives are basically modern radar, they send out a signal and then they receive a bounced back signal from whatever they hit, and the signal is in EM, so an EM sensor can detect if someone has Active sensors turned on.  I think Actives can also run 'passive' and just detect EM?  I'm not totally sure...

[iceball3]

I know that thermal sensors pick up thermal signatures based on like, the sensor strength * 1,000km or somesuch...  Actives are basically modern radar, they send out a signal and then they receive a bounced back signal from whatever they hit, and the signal is in EM, so an EM sensor can detect if someone has Active sensors turned on.  I think Actives can also run 'passive' and just detect EM?  I'm not totally sure...

Don't active sensors just pick up gravitational fields, even though they use EM based tech? Damn this game really needs an Arena Mode

[Girlinhat]

Ssssorta?  It detects gravitational disturbances, in the same way that radar detects steel disturbances.  Actives and Radar both have to send out a ping to get a reading.

[iceball3]

Ssssorta?  It detects gravitational disturbances, in the same way that radar detects steel disturbances.  Actives and Radar both have to send out a ping to get a reading.

As an aside... what other sorts of EM signatures could be put out by a ship besides actives or shields? Is it only active systems that can be detected by EM, and if so, does this mean that stationary silent ships are pretty much invisible to all but actives?