Missile firing question

[Elowan]

Is there any way to fire only a few missiles per turn or is it all or nothing?

If it's all or nothing - suppose that you have missiles and torpedoes - is it still all or nothing?

[Suicide Junkie]

In tactical combat, you can click some of the weapons to "disarm" them, and save them for later.
In strategic, probably not.

Firing all of your missiles helps to overwhelm PD fire, though, and is generally a good idea.

[Arkcon]

The topic of how many missles are fired is covered in this recent thread here ...

Click Me

Briefly, the game on strategic tries to take into account how much damage is needed to destroy a target and fire enough missiles. It may be buggy though for a number of reasons, notably when dealing with PD cannons and large numbers of ships vs planetary weapon platforms.

'Course on tactical, you can just click to select which weapons fire any time you want.

[tbontob]

I have a number of questions which need clarification.

Assume:
1) I have a large weapons platform with 11 missiles on it.
2) My planet is being attacked by 2 escorts.
3) Assume only 2 missiles are required to destroy an escort.

Can this large WP target both ships with missiles? Or is it only capable of targeting one ship and a second WP is necessary in order to target the other?

And is the answer any different if the WP was cramed with DUC's?

[Raging Deadstar]

I'm not sure either on this, i havn't tested but i think 2 things would happen.

A.) The computer fires all it's rockets at the first escort, meaning once it's destroyed those missiles are useless

B.) You use multiplex tracking, though i'm not sure if that changes anything

If it was crammed full of DUC's i'm pretty sure it would destroy or at least damage both escorts

[ October 07, 2002, 20:10: Message edited by: Raging Deadstar ]

[Elowan]

Originally posted by Elowan:
Is there any way to fire only a few missiles per turn or is it all or nothing?

If it's all or nothing - suppose that you have missiles and torpedoes - is it still all or nothing?

I was referring to a ship here - not weapon platform(s).

[Grandpa Kim]

Originally posted by Elowan:
Is there any way to fire only a few missiles per turn or is it all or nothing?

Yes there is. You must use missiles with different maximum ranges. For instance, arm your ship with equal numbers of CSM V's, CSM IV's and CSM III's. With a little luck, you can get continuous volleys going, but you should get at least 2 volley's in 3 turns. Frankly, I've never tried this because I think its better to fire them all off at the same time and overwhelm the PDC, just as Suicide Junkie said.

Kim

[Arkcon]

Originally posted by Grandpa Kim:
You must use missiles with different maximum ranges. For instance, arm your ship with equal numbers of CSM V's, CSM IV's and CSM III's.

Kim

More than once I tried equal numbers of CSM 5 and plasma missiles. With their greater range and speed, the plasma missiles should at least soak up some point defense, which is always up to level 5 by the time you get this far in the game.

The result was not impressive, either on tactical or strategic. I don't have exact numbers, but not a whole lot more of the CSM 5 make it with the plasma missles taking point than otherwise. A similar result occurs with the ion disperser missile.

I've also tired mixing up missiles on weapon platforms. hoping to lure in PDC ships with the log range missiles. Doesn't really work.

As it's already been said, it's always better to saturate the field with the best missiles.

If you use all the same missile, you get one missile group the opponent can dance away from. The multiple missile types results in several smaller bunches, and multiple banks of point defence can get to the just as easily. What we want is a spread of missiles, like drones -- they don't stack when fired.

More than once it's come up that we can mod the game to use a small drone as a mini intlligent missile. Maybe the CSM should behave more like a drone.

[ October 08, 2002, 03:45: Message edited by: Arkcon ]