Missiles as units (a.k.a microdrones)

[Batman]

Has anyone ever thought of modding a missile class of units? Basically it would involve making a, say 5kT, mini drone, calling it a missile, and making a component that can launch 0 missiles per game turn and 1 missile per combat turn and calling it a missile tube. The missiles could be stored in an armoured cargo bay (i.e. magazine). The missile tubes should be really small, 1-5kT maybe, 10 at the max. There would be missile components, different warheads, ECM etc.

This would necessitate the construction of ammunition back at a spaceyard, and transporting it up to the front.

Also, missile ships could be varied: they could shoot a couple of missiles a round for a longer time, or throw really heavy broadsides for a short time. This might make missile ships more able to penetrate tight PDC.

This might be a useful idea for anyone making an Honor Harrington mod, or a Starfire mod.

[Phoenix-D]

Yup. It's also the only way to make "laser head" missiles ala HH.

Only bad part is you can't change the ROF below 1 missile per tube per turn.

Phoenix-D

[Batman]

You mean you can't make components that can only launch during combat, and not launch from the map?

[Phoenix-D]

Oh, you can do that. Talking about in comat.. you can't get one missile fired every three turns for example.

[Baron Munchausen]

With a limited supply of missiles this is less unbalancing than you might think. You have to explicitly build the missiles, load them on a warship or a transport that will get them to a warship, then reach your enemy to launch them. Once you have launched however many you had, your missile space is useless cargo for the remainder of combat.

I think the ability to launch them on the strategic map should be preserved, btw.

[ June 12, 2002, 21:07: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]

[Batman]

Ok, that might be a minor thing. Could lower the damage by a factor of 3 to compensate I suppose.

Another problem would be the inability to 'choose' the type of warhead fired in a given volley of missiles.

It would, however, give missiles enough range to cover the entire tactical combat area, which makes for nice 'David-Weber' style long distance missile duels.

[Batman]

What concerns me about the ability to launch from the map is that you can launch a bunch of missiles, and not immediately give them targets (like with drones). Either way, wouldn't planets still be able to launch them from the map?

However, I guess they burn supply either way, so it could be alright.

I just like the idea because of the extra overhead involved in keeping a fleet supplied with ammo as well as fuel.

[geoschmo]

Hey now, I like this idea! This has some very interesting possibilities.

[Batman]

Yeah, I'm going to play around with this. I haven't modded anything before so it may take a little while, probably this weekend.

The thing will be balancing cargo requirements. A single ship would burn through up to 30 x (#tubes) per combat!! At 5kT per missile that's 150kT/Tube. Hmm, maybe I'd better make them 1kT and put a bunch of 0 mass, one-per-missile components in the missile tech tree.

I will probably leave torpedoes alone for the moment.

[geoschmo]

So what sort of cost do you think should be involved here. Should a missle cost less/more/the same as a mine for example?

Thankfully with Se4 cargo units there is no relationship between cargo capacity and size of the caro component. You can hold 150KT worth of missles and only take up 10Kt of space on the ship if you want. So the limiting factor of the missle bodies would be how many components to you allow to fit on it.

Jeez, not just ECM, you could have missles with shields. And then different types of PDC that skip normal shields. A new tech race!

And this would probably allow missles already launched to find new targets if the initial one is destroyed. I haven't used Drones enough in combat to know that for sure. Time to do some testing...

One thing though. Most standard weapons can target drones and not seekers. You would I guess want to change these weapons so they cannot target drones?

Geoschmo

[ June 12, 2002, 21:47: Message edited by: geoschmo ]