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[Alastar]

Very short-range high-powered missiles can work too; only CIWS will defend if the missiles hit in the same tick they are fired.

Still, if you go for very short-range anyway, you may give them enough fuel to comfortably outrange beam weapons and one minimum-sized fire control per decent-sized tube for more flexibility at very little cost. Detros' example is still more sophisticated and flexible, but requires considerable overhead in high-power engines... adding cost and limiting strategic range if not hangar-based.

It all depends on how much you care about additional functionality, and which concessions you're willing to make.

[Paul]

If you're going extremely short range, why not just use beam weapons?

Meson fighters are very effective. And no minerals wasted on missiles to reload - you just have to replace the fighters. You may not have the raw power of missiles, but they start wrecking internals right away.

[Alastar]

I normally prefer beam weapons, but...

1) at the 5s missile travel limit, even high-tech beam platforms will deal very little damage, and may be one-shotted by a missile brawler that costs considerably less.

2) they can engage superior beam combatants outside their range if necessary.

Meson fighters would be rather short-ranged, and ineffective at fighting fast ships with longer beam range. I'm not saying torpedo rams are better than beam ships/fighters, because they aren't... but they may find their niche.

[Urist McScoopbeard]

Hey did this game ever get more efficient so that you could play it without everything slowing down a few years after start or getting an alert every nanosecond of simulation?

[origamiscienceguy]

Currently, the dev is rewriting the game in C#, so I expect a drastic performance increase will result from that.

[Paul]

I'm waiting for the rewrite to play again. The better efficiency and the various features he's adding really appeal to me

One in particular I like is the max pop based on world size. Right now there really isn't a reason to colonize a bunch of worlds except for roleplay reasons and any old barren moon is just as good as a huge lush world with a hydrosphere, after the update all the little rocks will be limited and not able to hold billions and billions of people.

[Flying Dice]

Is it possible, using a ship with highly powerful missiles with just enough fuel to detonate while the ship is in range, to create kamikaze ships?

You can create fighters so fast they can ride with the missiles missiles. This way you either can send close range fighters and attack the enemy while he is busy with missiles or send missiles fighters, launching more missiles as you go, to create a massive first strike. Note when target of missile without active sensor is destroyed, the missile self-destroys ... while missiles with their own small sensors are able to retarget.

There are no area damage weapons in space combat. So no laser warheads a la Honorverse. Other difference from that series is ships in Aurora use speed and can stop on a dime while Honorverse ships use acceleration as the main "speed value" and thus need some time to change the vector.

NPC ships (usually when out of ammo) sometimes try for a ramming attack. Player ships are not allowed to do it.

Well, there are bomb-pumped laser warheads. They're standoff weapons to counter shorter-ranged PD.

Very short-range high-powered missiles can work too; only CIWS will defend if the missiles hit in the same tick they are fired.

Still, if you go for very short-range anyway, you may give them enough fuel to comfortably outrange beam weapons and one minimum-sized fire control per decent-sized tube for more flexibility at very little cost. Detros' example is still more sophisticated and flexible, but requires considerable overhead in high-power engines... adding cost and limiting strategic range if not hangar-based.

It all depends on how much you care about additional functionality, and which concessions you're willing to make.

Unless I'm misremembering all PD set to final defense will fire at point-blank missile strikes, it's just area defense that fails.

[Detros]

Hey did this game ever get more efficient so that you could play it without everything slowing down a few years after start or getting an alert every nanosecond of simulation?

One part of slowing down to long intervals of 5s increment was two NPC races battling in some distant system - now you can set systems without you presence as "radars see nothing" zone so such battles can't occur there. They either battle one another near your ships ... or use their ships to meet with your ones instead. This way some sleeping horrors don't get woken and are still waiting for you to find them, too.

Currently for me the only noticeable slowing is "your empire is getting bigger", standard for 4X games.

[Alastar]

@ Flying Dice:
No. CiWS will fire at missiles launched at point blank range, regular point defence won't no matter which mode they use. This is because the missile is never picked up by an active sensor.

[Detros]

There are no area damage weapons in space combat. So no laser warheads a la Honorverse.

Well, there are bomb-pumped laser warheads. They're standoff weapons to counter shorter-ranged PD.

OK, I have noticed them now. I haven't got that far into missile tech yet.

[Flying Dice]

@ Flying Dice:
No. CiWS will fire at missiles launched at point blank range, regular point defence won't no matter which mode they use. This is because the missile is never picked up by an active sensor.

Just ran some trials on my test game and right you are.

That said, it's not a valid reason for telling people to use CIWS on military ships, since you're accepting a massive amount of excess tonnage to cover an edge case that (at least in my years of playing) has never actually arisen. Especially because (at least to the level of granularity I've been able to test, down at the low thousand-kilometer ranges) any gap will allow PD to function.

Just don't park fleets on top of Precursor space stations and it won't ever matter.

[Hanzoku]

Oh agreed, point-blank missile volleys only come up in player narratives, it's nothing something the AI would even think to do.

[RAM]

There is also the issue of entering a defended jump-point, but you are probably going to either massively overpower them or send in something specially designed to survive and lure the defenders away... Either way your main fleet is not going to be geared to that scenario.

[Flying Dice]

Even a player-defended JP wouldn't have all the mines sitting atop it, though. That's too easy to ruin with decoys, an optimal spread would cover at least a few score million km radius. Same sort of deal with missile boats, you'd want them parked farther out so they couldn't be rushed down by good ol' balls of armor and guns.

And regardless of that, there's a spread on jumps, so you'd need pure luck for an attacking force to land atop defenders.

[Detros]

...or send in something specially designed to survive and lure the defenders away...

Like this?

Code: [Select]

Breacher class Jump Point Attack Base    44,950 tons     360 Crew     3898.5 BP      TCS 899  TH 700  EM 0
1557 km/s     Armour 20-112     Shields 0-0     Sensors 8/8/0/0     Damage Control Rating 1     PPV 0
MSP 54    Max Repair 37.5 MSP
Intended Deployment Time: 34 months    Spare Berths 1   

Daniels-Forster 200 EP Commercial Magneto-plasma Drive (7)    Power 200    Fuel Use 0.78%    Signature 100    Exp 2%
Fuel Capacity 150,000 Litres    Range 77.0 billion km   (572 days at full power)

Lamb Kinetics CIWS-200-4 (30x4)    Range 1000 km     TS: 20000 km/s     ROF 5       Base 50% To Hit
Lee Design Bureau Active Search Sensor MR1-R1 AAS16 (70%) (2)     GPS 16     Range 1.3m km    MCR 139k km    Resolution 1
Mellor-Ingram Active Search Sensor MR5-R16 AAS16 (70%) (2)     GPS 256     Range 5.1m km    Resolution 16
Bolton-Manning Active Search Sensor MR10-R65 AAS16 (70%) (2)     GPS 1040     Range 10.3m km    Resolution 65
Wilkins-Spencer Thermal Sensor TH1-8 (70%) (2)     Sensitivity 8     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  8m km
Wilkins-Spencer EM Detection Sensor EM1-8 (70%) (2)     Sensitivity 8     Detect Sig Strength 1000:  8m km

This design is classed as a Commercial Vessel for maintenance purposesIf they are just sitting on the JP, the "CIWS can defend even against point blank missile fire" gets valid really fast.