Decoy Missiles?

[Edymnion]

So I have a ship that I'm thinking I want to have launch a swarm of missile/beam torps to help punch through point defenses.

Got a question though.

I'm planning on it launching six missiles at a time in pairs. Do you think I would do better with 6 missiles of equal strength so that anything that gets through has an equal chance of doing damage, or should I intentionally underpower the early volleys as PDT bait so the ones behind them packing most of the punch get through?

Or to state it another way, with stagger fire, are the first torps a few meters ahead more likely to draw PDT long enough to I crease the odds of the behind?

Or would I be better off with equal charges and just launch all 6 at the same time?

(I'M intending to stagger fire by having the output barrels physically staggered. All would fire at the same time, some would just start out closer.)

 

[Reilly Reese]

I personally have missile turrets with rapid-fire weak ion missiles spewing out the decoys and let the main ship fire the real missiles.

 

[Dire Venom]

I have a missile-ion one with over 200 missiles per volley ^_^
I would suggest lots of low powered ones, with a couple of more higher-powered ones
Spreading the total firepower thoughout multiple missiles might be your best bit (so if any hit they'll do decent damage)

 

[Reilly Reese]

I personally have missile turrets with rapid-fire weak ion missiles spewing out the decoys and let the main ship fire the real missiles.

I bet I know what the next Brotherhood Missile Boat will have >_>

 

[Panpiper]

For turret or AI ship fire, I will typically have six or eight big, powerful, energy intensive missiles each with their own computer so as to minimize their energy cost. I will then have another couple of computers that each have ~20-30 two module missiles whose only real purpose is to be decoys. Those are deliberately as small as possible to minimize the energy cost, given that their numbers on a single computer will inflate their cost by a couple hundred percent. The decoys will be ahead of the real missiles both physically as well as on the hot bar, though I believe their placement on the hot bar will have zero effect on their actual timing. They appear to all launch simultaneously, but accordingly the decoys will be ahead of the real killers and in theory, attract the most point defense fire.

I do not typically build manually fired missile/beams because I have difficulty targeting them properly. Were I to do so, I would probably do something similar for decoys, but deliberately also take an energy penalty to marry two to four heavies so I can launch them all with a minimum of button switching. I would then try to launch as rapidly as possible, two waves of decoys followed by one wave of killers.

 

[Reilly Reese]

For turret or AI ship fire, I will typically have six or eight big, powerful, energy intensive missiles each with their own computer so as to minimize their energy cost. I will then have another couple of computers that each have ~20-30 two module missiles whose only real purpose is to be decoys. Those are deliberately as small as possible to minimize the energy cost, given that their numbers on a single computer will inflate their cost by a couple hundred percent. The decoys will be ahead of the real missiles both physically as well as on the hot bar, though I believe their placement on the hot bar will have zero effect on their actual timing. They appear to all launch simultaneously, but accordingly the decoys will be ahead of the real killers and in theory, attract the most point defense fire.

I do not typically build manually fired missile/beams because I have difficulty targeting them properly. Were I to do so, I would probably do something similar for decoys, but deliberately also take an energy penalty to marry two to four heavies so I can launch them all with a minimum of button switching. I would then try to launch as rapidly as possible, two waves of decoys followed by one wave of killers.

You run them on a clock I hope...

 

[Dire Venom]

For turret or AI ship fire, I will typically have six or eight big, powerful, energy intensive missiles each with their own computer so as to minimize their energy cost. I will then have another couple of computers that each have ~20-30 two module missiles whose only real purpose is to be decoys. Those are deliberately as small as possible to minimize the energy cost, given that their numbers on a single computer will inflate their cost by a couple hundred percent. The decoys will be ahead of the real missiles both physically as well as on the hot bar, though I believe their placement on the hot bar will have zero effect on their actual timing. They appear to all launch simultaneously, but accordingly the decoys will be ahead of the real killers and in theory, attract the most point defense fire.

I do not typically build manually fired missile/beams because I have difficulty targeting them properly. Were I to do so, I would probably do something similar for decoys, but deliberately also take an energy penalty to marry two to four heavies so I can launch them all with a minimum of button switching. I would then try to launch as rapidly as possible, two waves of decoys followed by one wave of killers.

I thought only large beam and cannon arrays got a % punishment per extra group?
Why would missile groups be penalized by the other groups connected to the computer (ignoring lag-array builds built to crash servers)

 

[Panpiper]

You run them on a clock I hope...

I run swarmers (heat seekers) from a logic clock. Swarmers will acquire a target after launch. Missile/beams as far as I know have to be deliberately targeted (fired from a Bobby AI counts as targetting). If they are fired from a clock, they will dumb fire.

I thought only large beam and cannon arrays got a % punishment per extra group?
Why would missile groups be penalized by the other groups connected to the computer (ignoring lag-array builds built to crash servers)

I have always understood that all weapon systems will incur an energy penalty cost if more than one is attached to a weapon computer. I could of course be wrong. It wouldn't be the first time. But I am pretty sure I have seen huge inflations of energy costs on those multi-launch computers.

 

[Dire Venom]

I guess one way to test this:
hook up different computers with the various groups to a ship,
puta ton of power moduals down, charge it to full, remove the power genertators then test and reccord the power consumptions upon firing ^_^

 

[Tunk]

I run swarmers (heat seekers) from a logic clock. Swarmers will acquire a target after launch. Missile/beams as far as I know have to be deliberately targeted (fired from a Bobby AI counts as targetting). If they are fired from a clock, they will dumb fire.


I have always understood that all weapon systems will incur an energy penalty cost if more than one is attached to a weapon computer. I could of course be wrong. It wouldn't be the first time. But I am pretty sure I have seen huge inflations of energy costs on those multi-launch computers.

10% for cannon/beam, 2.5% for missile weapons, none for damage pulse.
Per additional group.

 

[Mork2]

Using swarms as decoys does have some issues. Full 100% slave swarmers have the lowest velocity of all missiles. Any other missiles fired at the same time will race ahead of them. You also want your swarming decoys to not fly at the targets in the same bearing as the actual missiles if possible. To this end a lot of people have the decoy swarms straight at the target or launch in a different direction from the missile which are usually VLS (vertical launch) main missile.

Having missiles homing in on the target seems to make them easier to shoot. I've also seen that swarmers group together a lot and single hits on them can sometimes wipe out multiple missiles. If you launch missiles that are dumb to the sides of target they are a little harder to shoot. So a trick is to have an enemy detector or logic to fire swarmer missiles with 0% slave in VLS. They have normal missile speed but only fire one missile each your main missile battery or whatever you want. Then have a couple logic driven rocket launchers angled 45degrees to each side. 2 of them alternating fire by logic every 0.5 seconds. They will fly to the sides of the target in a constant stream and be harder to target. They will also decoy AMS turrets into pointing in the wrong direction in between main missile salvos.