Missiles as units (a.k.a microdrones)

[Batman]

I'd say that a given planet should really be able to churn out missiles. As far as the rate relative to mines, that's a little tough. If a single ship can fire hundreds per combat, then I guess they should be really cheap to build.

If that's the case, PDC would need to be smaller, or perhaps let standard weapons target missiles, otherwise missiles would really overwhelm PDC (just with sheer numbers)

[Batman]

The other thing with cargo space (especially with changing the size-capacity ratio) is the chance that changing it will screw up balance for carriers etc.

I am thinking about some special missile types. Until I get better names, I'll 'borrow' David Weber's names.

1) AFHAWKi fighter missile. Should be easy to
do.

2) SBMHAWK:warp-capable missiles (might need to model them as ships, which, if I recall, means they can't be cargo. Catch-22)

3) AMBAM. Anti-mine missiles (in the books they were described as low strength missiles with a large bLast radius, just enough to set off mines)

[geoschmo]

Well, as a starting point, you could just try to make it equivalent to the exsisting missles, and then tweak it from there as you play test it.

A CSM I take 50 KT, shoots 10 missles in a complete round of combat, and costs 400 minerals and 80 rads.

So a good starting point I guess would be to make the magazine take up 50KT of space and hold 10 missles. And make the total cost of the magazine and ten missles be the same as an exsisting CSM I.

Of course then a micro missle ship would be a one combat weapon and a standard CSM can fight in combat after combat until it's out of supply. But you can tweak these numbers to balance that out. The extended range of the miscro drones alone gives them a big advantage over standard CSM's I think.

Geoschmo

[bearclaw]

Man, I like this idea! (wish it had come up while I was creating the DN2 mod...)

What about leaving the missles as being targeted as drones but give them a really high defensive bonus (like fighters). That way, PDC's would still be your primary defense against missles but other weapons could still have a chance at hitting them.

[Baron Munchausen]

There are limitations to this approach. The biggest problem is that you cannot choose the target of a drone.

You can't target a particular type of ship or even nearer/further, larger/smaller, or whatever else on the fly in combat. Drones will follow their pre-set strategy no matter what.

Drones might automatically choose to attack a ship that you want to capture by boarding.

Even anti-ship drones might turn on a planet if there are no ships left. What if you want to capture that planet? Even if the anti-ship drones do less damage than anti-planet drones they could do enough damage on a small planet to destroy it before you can capture it.

The automatic re-targetting can be a disadvantage in all of the above situations, too.

[ June 12, 2002, 22:09: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]

[geoschmo]

Originally posted by Batman:
1) AFHAWKi fighter missile. Should be easy to do.

Yeah, no problem. You can put PDC on them at least. You may be able to put an actual warhead that targets fighters only. Not sure about that.

2) SBMHAWK:warp-capable missiles (might need to model them as ships, which, if I recall, means they can't be cargo. Catch-22)

Drones are warp capable, so no problem. Well, little problem. You have to have something on the other side of the warp point painting the target for you.

3) AMBAM. Anti-mine missiles (in the books they were described as low strength missiles with a large bLast radius, just enough to set off mines)

No problem. Drones hit mines just fine. In fact you could probably even put a minesweeper component on a drone. Haven't heard of anyone trying that. But if it doesn't work, just make it with low damage warheads and high structure fo the missle to soak up lots of mine damage. The only problem is, as with the warp missles, you can't simply tell a drone, "Go hither and sweep those mines.", you have to give it an attack order. Which means there will ahve to be an enemy in the minefield the drone can see, or one on the other side so the minefield is in the drones attack path.

Geoschmo

[AeoN2]

Could these mini-drones possibly be a good idea to use instead of the "point defense missiles" idea that someone came up with? The trouble was that with missiles that targets seekers that all missiles would fire at the same target since it wasn't "destroyed" yet since the missiles don't move immediately...

But if the drones can target missiles they could work like pd-drones... probably wouldn't be worth it unless pd guns were removed in the mod though...

--
AeoN2
--
Law of Selective Gravity:
An object will fall so as to do the most damage.

[Lemmy]

how about including a small space yard component, so you can build to missiles on your ship?
about 100kt, produces on avg 1-3 missiles/turn

[geoschmo]

That is certainly a possibility. The problem is there is no convienent way to only allow the constructor to build missles, they could build fighters, mines, or even ships given enough time.

I think that in a mod with these microdrones though it would be common practice to send a space yard ship with the battle fleet so you don't have to keep going back for more missles.

Geo

[Baron Munchausen]

Remember that if you mod 'micro' drones you won't be able to use standard size drones anymore. There's no way the AI can keep the two classes of components straight in design, or keep the different sizes straight in combat. It's one or the other.

We've been asking for a 'units only' space yard for some time. If MM could just add a setting to restrict the size of vehicle that a space yard can build you could mod one easily enough. Or some way to set the 'flags' that mark a planet-only space yard as different from a space yard facility or a space yard component

[ June 13, 2002, 21:51: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]