Point defense kinetic weapons

[captainwolfs]

I want to use something other than lasers for anti missile work, but I am having trouble making it effective. Any tips? For that matter, any tips on how to make good railguns or coilguns in general would be welcome

[SievertChaser]

Railguns and coilguns appear to be inferior when it comes to antimissile work. You need a weapon with reduced deflection stress, not high muzzle velocity, so that it has greater range in the lowest crossection category. In my experience, 2.5 km/s conventional guns with Cr-V steel barrels are moderately effective, although the jury is out whether solid or flak shells are more effective.
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=875826478
As a salient strategy, I recommend nuking incoming missile waves with a few of your own missiles.

[StalkerJames]

• High muzzle velocity 10km/s or more
  
• Fast turning speed
  
• Optimising the engagement range of small and medium targets(increasing the barrel armour thickness)

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=875837593

[dragonkid11]

Coilgun seems to be the better of point defense gun since they can fire ridiculously accurately.

[ulzgoroth]

The trouble with non-laser anti-missile weapons is (unless there's a trick I'm missing) that their per-target dwell time is increased by the projectile travel time.

My current finding is that the stock 200 kW capacitor railgun, stuck on a turret and given extra power to boost its rate of fire, is improbably good at everything, including shooting down missiles and shredding capital ships from frankly ridiculous ranges. I stuck 8 of them on a ship as a tertiary battery to back up 4 heavier rails and a long-range laser system, and I hardly think it needed any of the other weapons.

[SievertChaser]

ulzgoroth původně napsal:

The trouble with non-laser anti-missile weapons is (unless there's a trick I'm missing) that their per-target dwell time is increased by the projectile travel time.

My current finding is that the stock 200 kW capacitor railgun, stuck on a turret and given extra power to boost its rate of fire, is improbably good at everything, including shooting down missiles and shredding capital ships from frankly ridiculous ranges. I stuck 8 of them on a ship as a tertiary battery to back up 4 heavier rails and a long-range laser system, and I hardly think it needed any of the other weapons.

Yeah, they may lack "DPM", but they have a lot of range for their power consumption. They make for nice secondary guns indeed, and for some tiny RTG-powered ships they're adequate main guns.

I wonder if it can be revolutionary if deployed on heavy drones.

[ulzgoroth]

dennis.danilov původně napsal:

ulzgoroth původně napsal:

The trouble with non-laser anti-missile weapons is (unless there's a trick I'm missing) that their per-target dwell time is increased by the projectile travel time.

My current finding is that the stock 200 kW capacitor railgun, stuck on a turret and given extra power to boost its rate of fire, is improbably good at everything, including shooting down missiles and shredding capital ships from frankly ridiculous ranges. I stuck 8 of them on a ship as a tertiary battery to back up 4 heavier rails and a long-range laser system, and I hardly think it needed any of the other weapons.

Yeah, they may lack "DPM", but they have a lot of range for their power consumption. They make for nice secondary guns indeed, and for some tiny RTG-powered ships they're adequate main guns.

I wonder if it can be revolutionary if deployed on heavy drones.

The stock version is the main weapon of the current-model lancer drone.

After optimizing the capacitor to drop the weight from nearly 3 tons to 555 kg and sticking it on a turret, I made a version overclocked to 12 MW for a 14.8 ms cycle time. At that point, it puts out damage pretty fast, and the power budget to fire 8 at once wasn't really a problem for a ship designed to run a pair of 180 MW lasers.

[ulzgoroth]

11dragonkid původně napsal:

Coilgun seems to be the better of point defense gun since they can fire ridiculously accurately.

How accurate?

I managed to redesign the sniper coilgun into something with slightly higher muzzle velocity and accuracy than my leading railgun, but only slightly. (It does outmatch my heavy sniper railgun in most respects, though.)

[Chara]

My railguns (which is using modded OP material) have both high speed and high accuracy, so I use them against incoming missiles.

[newageofpower]

dennis.danilov původně napsal:

In my experience, 2.5 km/s conventional guns with Cr-V steel barrels are moderately effective, although the jury is out whether solid or flak shells are more effective.

The problem is the travel time and range become horrid against high velocity attackers. For arguement's sake, let's assume you're using some ludicrously minmaxed 4km/s conventional gun.

Even on Resistojet-only my Missile Carrier drone has 10km/s dV, and the terminal stage missiles themselves have 4km/s; at 12km/s closing velocity the incoming missiles are travelling at three times the speed of the defending slugthrower rounds.

dennis.danilov původně napsal:

As a salient strategy, I recommend nuking incoming missile waves with a few of your own missiles.

This, backed up by swarms of lasers, seems to be currently the most effective defense.

[DeciNinja]

I've never seen kinetics used effictively as a singular layer of defense. The problem is that, unlike lasers and nukes, they can't be made significantly more effective by making them bigger or more numerous; you still have to wait for the slugs to arrive. Like many players, I rely heavily on counter-missiles, backed up by a big laser ship or two, instead. However, I have found use of kinetic CIWS as a last ditch defense, like it is used on real warships. My weapon of choice for this is the "Needler" railgun:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=887174543

Yes, yes, there are plenty of traits of this gun that could be considered disadvantages, but it shows what I look for in a kinetic defense gun.

The mass and power requirements are fairly negligible, and having them offers a few advantages:

--They offer a significant extra firepower in capital v. capital flybys.
--They reduce reliance on relatively easily armored against photonic damage.
--They usually take out several of the missiles that penetrate the laser and counter-missile canopies, greatly reducing the probability that a missile strike will destroy the ship.

However, rarely do they stop every missile, and, because of the harsh diminishing returns of investing more mass in them, kinetic defenses are more useful in a supplemental role, in the form of a handful of small turrets on each ship. I maintain that they are very useful in that role, but expecting a lot from them will never work out well.

[ulzgoroth]

How do counter-missiles work? With respect to getting them to split up between many targets, I mean.

[DeciNinja]

ulzgoroth původně napsal:

How do counter-missiles work? With respect to getting them to split up between many targets, I mean.

I don't know any way to make them do that. My approach is to just use one or a few big nukes; my smallest missile is 500 kt. Two of those is enough to take out a whole flight of stock missiles.

[Enderminion]

ulzgoroth původně napsal:

How do counter-missiles work? With respect to getting them to split up between many targets, I mean.

you launch them before the enemy missiles make it into combat range with your caps, use high yield warheads, I use 9.5-10.2Mt