To missile or not to missile

[Napther]

Auxiliary cap noted, I do have them in two groups but ill divide even more.

But really 10m shields? I mean 100k mass for m ship is an over estimate and its looking more like 70k but 10m shielding seems a bit much.

my regen is 1.8m. but ion harding I'll take into account

You are using probably too much Shield recharge.

To note, shield recharge is GREAT for sheer sustain VS AI and pirates, Ion effect makes it even more effective. In combat when shields are about 35% capacity you can expect 1.8m sheild regen PLUS ion effect to have a combat regen on 1 million/second.

However, shield recharge will not save you from people using alpha weapons, and its less efficient*** than raw shield capacity plus Ion. Huge capacity shields are great for shorter, brutal PvP encounters, Regen is good for long, drawn out battles for example VS multiple pirate waves.

For 70k mass thats a LOOOT to have 1.8m regen. thats 330,000 shield rechargers that also draw power while they recharge. 330,000 is also 33k mass. Litterally half you weight is shield recharge... You should consider dropping that back, adding shield capacitors, Better weapons, and full passive ion effect (60% cap). Ion effect is much better than using more shield blocks themselves.

 

[Calhoun]

I'd cut back on the Aux in favour of standard power lines. With that much Aux, it'll only take one piercing shot to really ruin your day.

 

[bluelightningwizard]

I'd cut back on the Aux in favour of standard power lines. With that much Aux, it'll only take one piercing shot to really ruin your day.

I guess more shields are in order

 

[Edymnion]

Also do missiles have hp? and if so is it dependent on type?

All missiles have 1 hp and 0 armor. Currently only cannon fire can actually hit them. Standard point defense is 1/1 cannon/cannon with the bobby set to aim at missiles.

 

[Bladeriker]

I found for DP that a C/C/E works well against grouped missiles, though it does tend to make my PD just a bit larger than compact, but they still get the job done.

 

[KiloZulu]

All missiles have 1 hp and 0 armor. Currently only cannon fire can actually hit them. Standard point defense is 1/1 cannon/cannon with the bobby set to aim at missiles.

Beams can be set to point defense. My larger ships that have space actually have layers of point defense, cannon+cannon to start picking off missiles farthest out, beam+cannon to pick off missiles that get through, and cannon+missile flak cannons as a last ditch measure.

 

[Edymnion]

Beams can be set to point defense. My larger ships that have space actually have layers of point defense, cannon+cannon to start picking off missiles farthest out, beam+cannon to pick off missiles that get through, and cannon+missile flak cannons as a last ditch measure.

They can be set to aim at missiles yes, but as of the last I heard there was essentially a bug that prevented them from doing damage since the missile is actually a non-physical entity (same one that prevents you from using beams to destroy planet cores, IIRC).

Theoretically any weapon that does damage should be able to take out a missile, but in practice only cannon fire can get the job done (unless its been fixed and nobody told me, in which case I need to rebuild all my PDT).

 

[MrFURB]

I can confirm that only cannon projectiles are set to damage missile projectiles. I highly doubt that the explosive effect would effect missile projectiles but I haven't done any concrete tests of that yet.

 

[Panpiper]

There have been some very extensive tests of various anti-missile turret designs, including competitions to see which turret could shoot down the most from varied sources. I have done extensive testing myself. The result of those tests is that there frankly is no trick to creating such a turret that makes it more effective than the standard cannon/cannon. Waffleboards make no difference, the AI focus fires on a point and it either hits or misses, having lots of projectiles changes nothing. Having various different weapon types on the turret such as beams, etc., can actually reduce the turret's effectiveness as the AI tries to aim beams so as to miss with it's cannons, etc..

Having multiple barrels on the same turret base 'does' work to shoot down more missiles, but only as long at the turret does not have to rotate. However such a turret generates a LARGE quantity of server lag due to the multiple barrels both colliding with one another and warring for control of the base. End result, don't do it.

There are only two things one can do with point defense turrets that make them more effective. One is to build them in such a way that none of their parts can collide with anything. This will keep them freely rotating to track targets and prevent them from getting stuck. The other thing is to build them in such a way that they don't get blown off your ship easily. This increases their effectiveness simply by keeping them in the fight longer.

And yes, only cannon hurt missiles.

 

[KiloZulu]

I'm going to use cannon blocks for the hull of my next ship and hook them up to a clock so they just constantly fire. Missiles no more.

 

[Panpiper]

I'm going to use cannon blocks for the hull of my next ship and hook them up to a clock so they just constantly fire. Missiles no more.

Unless they are using vertical launch missiles, which will attack your ship from an oblique angle. You'll still need AMS turrets.

 

[KiloZulu]

Nah, it's highly unlikely that a missile, even fired at an oblique angle is going to manage to hit exactly in one of the corners between the two firing angles - particularly since missiles tend to aim towards the center of the ship. They'll pass through one of the planes of fire and get shot down. We're talking 100% can+can fire rate here, btw.

 

[Edymnion]

Nah, it's highly unlikely that a missile, even fired at an oblique angle is going to manage to hit exactly in one of the corners between the two firing angles - particularly since missiles tend to aim towards the center of the ship. They'll pass through one of the planes of fire and get shot down. We're talking 100% can+can fire rate here, btw.

Doesn't work that way. Missiles are point objects, as in they don't have a physical model or size, they are just theoretical points in space with some lens flare animation. Same with the cannon shells. Neither physically exists in the game, so its not running collision checks or anything like that to see if they hit. It has to be an exact, perfect shot down to the smallest decimal place to hit it, as far as I understand.

The odds of even a giant array of steady cannon fire actually hitting a missile passing through it are very small.

 

[aRottenKomquat]

So make the entire surface of the ship out of docked cannon+cannon+Bobby AI modules. Should be able to fit that into a 1 x 1 x something linear turret for near 100% coverage by point defenses.

...Just don't do it on my server.

 

[KiloZulu]

Doesn't work that way. Missiles are point objects, as in they don't have a physical model or size, they are just theoretical points in space with some lens flare animation. Same with the cannon shells. Neither physically exists in the game, so its not running collision checks or anything like that to see if they hit. It has to be an exact, perfect shot down to the smallest decimal place to hit it, as far as I understand.

The odds of even a giant array of steady cannon fire actually hitting a missile passing through it are very small.

So, are bullets actually hitting a target, or is the code rolling a dice each time a shot is fired and deciding if that one was the one that hit the missile? I'd always just assumed that a missile was an invisible block filling one square as it passed through space, and any bullet that made contact with the block (passing through the same square) hit it.

 

[aRottenKomquat]

So, are bullets actually hitting a target, or is the code rolling a dice each time a shot is fired and deciding if that one was the one that hit the missile? I'd always just assumed that a missile was an invisible block filling one square as it passed through space, and any bullet that made contact with the block (passing through the same square) hit it.

That would be fairly easy to test. Just need a non-AI-controlled cannon/cannon turret and see if a player is capable of shooting down missiles. Use a nuke missile to make it easier since they're slow.

 

[MrFURB]

You don't need the cannon projectile to pass through the exact coordinates of the missile. It just have to be near enough to look like it hit.

 

[Calhoun]

Manual Point Defense is a (fairly useless) thing. If you're firing a Can/Can at the enemy and they launch a missile, it'll pop it.

 

[Ezekial Alexander]

Manual Point Defense is a (fairly useless) thing. If you're firing a Can/Can at the enemy and they launch a missile, it'll pop it.

In fact, your own c/c's will do it. I made the unfortunate choice of putting m/b in the middle of a c/c waffle board on a turret...damn thing shot down like 90% of its own missiles

 

[KiloZulu]

In fact, your own c/c's will do it. I made the unfortunate choice of putting m/b in the middle of a c/c waffle board on a turret...damn thing shot down like 90% of its own missiles

That's why I make my missiles arc out away from my ship rather than fire directly towards the target - just to get them out of the path of my PDT's.