Missile Woes

[SievertChaser]

So, I was making my third attempt to build a ship, and as a part of that I have strapped together some ordnance. In particular, I was trying to build a passable short-range missile that was as compact as possible. That of course has many caused problems and questions:

1. Why are the Ejectors so frigging powerful? I can launch a missile halfway towards space with just one, or use a torpedo rack as a cannon. This imposes a minimum practical range on any cold-start VLS.
   
2. Why is the One Turn so simplistic? They could have at least added steering rockets to put the missile on the initial trajectory quicker.
   
3. Why are the attach rules for the Missile Controller so ridiculous? (rhetorical question)
   
4. Do you harpoon?
   
5. Does anyone NOT use TV cameras, seeing as they render decoys ineffectual?
   
6. Why do missiles with frag warheads sometimes bounce and explode harmlessly? And if so, why does everyone gush over them?
   
7. How do I cause ANY damage with my Thumper Beamriders? Because my 3-piece rockets did none even with a variable thruster set to 5000. If it's supposed to be used on bigger rockets, how do I integrate any guidance other than the beamrider?
   
8. How does Proportional Azimuth Guidance work, and is it for lasers or heatchasers? How is it different from simple target course prediction?
   
9. How do different guidance systems combine?
   
10. What is the Ramp Distance of the Variable Thruster?
    
11. Do Magnets combine with Ballast Tanks set to 0 to produce self-propelled depth charges, or do I need to manually make them sink?
    
12. How ambitious do you have to be to produce a missile that requires a Regulator? And how long does it take torpedoes to burn through fuel?
    
13. Can I have an in-game ruler? Lack of good distance measurement combines poorly with precise Local Weapon Controller range settings.

[Wraithbourne]

1. Ejectors are for me at least a method of getting a cruise missile out and away from the ship quickly. Small AA missiles tend to move quick enough on their own. Whereas a 10 long cruise missile lumbers out slowly enough that a nearby enemy with anti missile systems can detonate it as it leaves the silo, damaging your own ship.

2. You can I believe impart more complex turning abilities into a missile using LUA, but thats for someone more skilled in that area to explain.

4. no.

5. I dont use cameras on very small AA missiles designed to only take out things like squirrels.

7. Thumpers need to be big and very very fast to do significant damage. Size is debatable but I believe the sweet spot for speed is around the 25,000 mark, you'll need 3 engines per missile, I personally only use thumpers as a space to ground attack method, the distance and relatively smooth targeting (up to down) means they can track lasers better.

10. The ramp times in seconds, if the missiles fast and its a VLS its advisable to have it set in the upper end of the scale so the missile can level out before it accelerates.

12. Not very, and torpedo's use fuel very slowly. Using a regulator on a torpedo is viable if you plan on the torpedo to go a fair distance since they travel a lot slower than standard missiles and can expire before they reach the target at longer ranges

13. Best option at present is to build a 500m or so long structure with range markers on it and then estimate longer distances. Devs might add a range calc later on but who knows.

Questions I dont have an answer for or were rhetorical have been left unanswered.

[Admiral Obvious]

1. No idea why ejector add-ons are so powerful. Probably needs to be rebalanced.
2. One turn is simplistic because, solely, it's simplistic. It works until a more "real" solution is in place.
3. I tried the harpoon once, pulled a DWG sub out of the water, otherwise, it's more of a liability than something useful.
4. Missiles with frag warheads can go through basically everything, mainly due to the fact that EACH warhead (try having 4) explodes directionaly with 50 fragments.
5. I prefer TV/Laser guidance, as IR is easily beat by flares.
6. Combined guidance is best done for stuff like hit and run missiles. Point a laser at the target, and turn away, let the IR take over. Or, in situations that the laser designator gets torn off.
7. Balast is dependent on where in the water they are launched. 0 is neutral bouancy, so the missile/torpedo/mine will remain where launched. This includes bouncing back to the surface if dropped from above the water.
8. Regulators require some decent missiles to make sense, typically above 10 parts (20 components).
9. I haven't fired a torpedo that's run out of fuel, they usually despawn first, and that's with just one fuel piece.
10. Each block is 1 meter, but I assume you knew that. A ruler would be nice.

Just answered the things I have experience with.

[SievertChaser]

Tested the magnetic mines. They do require precise deployment (or violent spamming), but they maneuver quite merrily once in range.

A question I forgot: do fins work for inert, gravity-propelled "missiles"?

[Wraithbourne]

Fins will try to orientate an unpowered missile but you need propulsion to actually make them function.

[Kage]

1. Don't know but you rarely need more than one, but when combined with Thumpers they are surprisingly cost effective.

2. Don't think it needs to be more complicated, it allows your missile to more readily turn 90 degrees to face it's target allowing vertical missiles to actually target horizontal targets and visa versa.

3. The attach rules for most blocks are rediculous. You just learn to roll with it.

4. Occassionally, either for boarding, or just for fun, but they are absolutely useless on anything not specializing in drills and rams. However I have created a fun little ramming craft that just zips across the battlefield via it's tow cable ramming targets and doing a surprising amount of damage in the process. Not as much as the missile itself probably, but fun all the same.

5. If by the Heat Decoy, then yes, however their use is fairly rare and poorly implimented in most of the designs that use them, so not really a concern. What's more of a concern is your missiles harmlessly going through a hole in the center of the enemy ship.

6. People seem to like frag because of it's potential to damage internals as well as it's somehwat more effecient use against wooden structures which make up quite a bit of the early game.

7. What gamer800 said. They need a more or less direct line to the target, and quite a bit of speed and or mass to be remotely effective.

8. Guidance systems as far as I'm aware work on both, but are more useful for IR, however given they are predictors, they are more easily thrown off by erratic movement, and do not work well with Beam Riders for obvious reasons.

9. They don't, not really anyway. APN is more or less for long range against relatively slow steady craft, the other one (forget the name) is more or less for fast targets or one turn missiles. Either way they aren't really neccessary, and with squirrels can actually be a hinderance.

10. gamer800 speaks the truth, additionally the higher the ramp time the more effeciently it uses it's fuel allowing a very slight range advantage.

11. More or less yes though you may want to add an ejector just to be safe, that or a saftey fuse.

12. Given the max settings for minimum range (2k for naval, 1k for air) regulators are rarely needed for missiles. Torps however are slow enough that they tend to require one, as a single torp prop will only be able to use 1/3 of a torp's fuel without a regulator, or roughly 1200m on a six rack torp. Altenatively multiple props can be used, up to three, but with deminishing returns and a max of up to 1800m with a six rack torp.

13. Measuring ranges are only really a problem with missiles (or unregulated torps), which can be done by using the bullet cam (capslock) after firing a volley. It will give you a range from launcher.

14. Yes and no. Yes in so much as they try to, and that with fairly long mag equiped mines they could potentially put the magnet just within range by their tracking, but without a thruster of some sort they won't actually be able to guide themselves. Maybe an APN bomb could given how it supposedly works, will have to check but I doubt it.

[Lulloser]

You can use APN to make non Thrust, self guiding bombs.

Fin - APN - Warhead - Seeker Is a viable self guiding bomb.

[Kage]

I concur, and after fairly extensive testing I have determined that unguided bombs dropped from a stationary blimp at an altitude of 165 with a downward facing two slot rack will launch them 10 meters in whatever direction would be "up" for the rack. With IR and 3 fins alone the bomb was able to travel an exact same distance in the direction of the target, a whopping 105m difference. TPG actually had slightly worse results being roughly 25 meters off target, while APN had simular results to the IR and 3 fins with 1 fin.

Now actual distance from the launcher remained the same for the IR 3 fin and APN tests as the control did, 175m or 10 meters horizontal from the altitude, but due to the guidance the bomb was able to change it's angle considerably. So over all triple fin or APN guided bombs can make a considerable difference in acuracy, but distance traveled remains the same.

Before it comes up, One Turn does not work with APN, though it does appear to have a simular results in place of TPD, BUT has a significantly worse effect when combined with TPD.

[Sabertoothproton]

I had harpoons on my mothership sub that could drag planes underwater and flood ships through their turrets but I discarded it because normal missiles were more effective. I only use harpoons on dedicated ramming ships