How do you defend against missiles?

[Gracey Face]

-Flak screens from battlestars don't cover enough of the battlestar to protect you, never mind anyone behind you. Also about 50% of missiles come straight through.
-Missile countermeasures fire too slowly and don't protect a large enough area
-Putting fighters on defence says that it protects you against missiles on the loading screens but it doesn't do anything at all (the fighters do fly out towards incoming missiles, but I have never seen one get shot down).
-Weaving does nothing against guided missiles and can only defeat torpedos with faster ships, slower ones are too slow to get out of the way.


I am on the mission where you have to steal the medical supplies and the 10+ torpedo boats that the mission throws at you is just ridiculous.

[kucsidaveee]

I'll adress these one by one:

Flak:
They are actually very effective at shoting down missiles, but their efficiency is dependant on a lot of factor:
-Stance: The more defensive your stance is, the more effective your flak wall is. If you see a few guided missiles heading your way, you are still good on on offensive stance, keep at it. If you see 16 unguded torpedoes heading your way, set it on full defensive. a few will get trough, but not much. 1 or maybe 2 / salvo.
-Ship type: Different ship types have different size and efficiency flak fields. A minerva's flak field barely covers itself, but an Artemis' or Jupiter's flak field not just envelops the Battlestar, but can also cover 2 more ships if they are very very close (almost collision level close) This gives birth to the colonial burger, where there are two ships serving as the bun, and the Artemis or Jupiter is the meat.

PCM:
They are not really meant to destroy an entire salvo by themselves (not on lower skil levels anyway), but they are perfectly good at destroying a few missiles from the beggining of the salvo, so your vipers and raptors can either finish, or shoot down a few more to minimize the damage. They are best used as emergency measures or on mass. with a multi-layered defense field. In that case, I would bring at least 3 of them, shoot one far ahead, one at medium distance and one at close range. The reason behind it is that these have a trigger zone, and an effectiveness zone. As soon as a munition enters a trigger zone comes a 1-2 seconds delay, then all munitions go boom in the effect zone. But if during that 2 second window a munition reaches the trigger zone of another PCM, you will waste it. At high skill games, I have seen people sending them from the side of munition salvos, where the trigger zone first makes contact to the middle of the salvo, destroying the whole thing.

Fighters:
If you want fighters on munition defense, most of them are quite bad at it. They will shoot down 2 maybe 3 munitions, but out of 16 unguided missiles, it is not much. Though they are very effective against nukes, as they are very slow, and come in a package of 1. Even cluster nukes are easy to destroy by them before they split.
But if you want fighters to defend, there is nothing better than the Sweeper. It has the Chaff ability that serves as a mobile flak field against munition, though it does nothing against enemy fighters, and the Sweeper itself is very poor in dogfight.

Weaving:
Yes, slow ships won't be dodging torpedoes, but even medium speed ships like an Artemis can do good. Just make sure that you:
1 Change your altitude
2 overturn your ships as much as possible in one direction, while turning in the other.
Unguided munitions are being shot calculated by among others to which direction your ship is facing. If it is facing forward, but in all actuality it turns hard, a there will be munitions that miss.

Hope these help.

[Gracey Face]

Originally posted by kucsidaveee:

-Ship type: Different ship types have different size and efficiency flak fields. A minerva's flak field barely covers itself, but an Artemis' or Jupiter's flak field not just envelops the Battlestar, but can also cover 2 more ships if they are very very close (almost collision level close)

We must be playing different games. The Artemis's flak coverage is the same length as the ship but projected out roughly a ship width out This means there's about 300 degrees of uncovered area, and it can only cover ships that are directly in line with it on a flat plane from that ~60 degrees of protected area. And I say 300 degrees, this is going by the visuals of the flak field, but I know that the outer edge of the visual flak field doesn't actually do anything so the actual protected area is even lower.

Can't speak for the other one as I am not far enough in to have anything but an artemis.

I will try setting the flak vessels on defensive though. I had them on offensive for the flak as it's a set of guns trying to shoot down the incoming. Offensive is the intuitive setting.

Originally posted by kucsidaveee:

PCM:
They are not really meant to destroy an entire salvo by themselves (not on lower skil levels anyway), but they are perfectly good at destroying a few missiles from the beggining of the salvo, so your vipers and raptors can either finish, or shoot down a few more to minimize the damage. They are best used as emergency measures or on mass. with a multi-layered defense field. In that case, I would bring at least 3 of them, shoot one far ahead, one at medium distance and one at close range.

How does bringing three of them protect you when you're facing 8-10+ ships that all fire multiple torpedo salvos every couple of turns that also spawn on top of you and are faster than you while you're boosting? I can see 3 of them protecting you if you have enough time to prep a countermeasure field, but you never do due to how the missions are set up.

Especially when the enemies have two sets of ships all firing out of sync, so one shoots one turn then the other shoots then the other shoots. Only 3 isn't enough countermeasures to do anything against that.

[kucsidaveee]

Originally posted by Gracey Face:

We must be playing different games. The Artemis's flak coverage is the same length as the ship but projected out roughly a ship width out This means there's about 300 degrees of uncovered area, and it can only cover ships that are directly in line with it on a flat plane from that ~60 degrees of protected area. And I say 300 degrees, this is going by the visuals of the flak field, but I know that the outer edge of the visual flak field doesn't actually do anything so the actual protected area is even lower.

Can't speak for the other one as I am not far enough in to have anything but an artemis.

I will try setting the flak vessels on defensive though. I had them on offensive for the flak as it's a set of guns trying to shoot down the incoming. Offensive is the intuitive setting.

Let me illustrate the Colonial Burger and how you can check what postude does for ships.
Colonial Burger behind Artemis Flak Wall:
https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/1820040025155962064/DC4EA71D542E1CFDFCFC35C5AB78A1FD17557D8B/?imw=5000&imh=5000&ima=fit&impolicy=Letterbox&imcolor=%23000000&letterbox=false

https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/1820040025155962189/90F20591EE424F1E0386F2FB693E6437B0FE4FA1/?imw=5000&imh=5000&ima=fit&impolicy=Letterbox&imcolor=%23000000&letterbox=false

As you can see, if you turn your side to the enemy, the Artemis' flak wall is more than capable of covering multiple ships.

If you want to check stuff out in depth, instead of using the right side slider, click on a ship, and press space, and you will get the following menu:

https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/1820040025155962300/C12FCD68940ABC08A81826E7FF1E6B3537F06A83/?imw=5000&imh=5000&ima=fit&impolicy=Letterbox&imcolor=%23000000&letterbox=false

Click Posture, and you will get the following menu:
https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/1820040025155962422/C5B6436059B30D3256C134FEB480099497A6C758/?imw=5000&imh=5000&ima=fit&impolicy=Letterbox&imcolor=%23000000&letterbox=false

Full offensive:
https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/1820040025155962741/64D80BE94E9E2DDB4300A133E474FB50F853B989/?imw=5000&imh=5000&ima=fit&impolicy=Letterbox&imcolor=%23000000&letterbox=false

Full defensive:
https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/1820040025155962529/B158918D0C00092C51F2D8A925B6694BB754CB40/?imw=5000&imh=5000&ima=fit&impolicy=Letterbox&imcolor=%23000000&letterbox=false

As you can see, Flak is linked to the Armory, not the fire control like every other tipe of gun, since it's range is fixed and it is a purely defensive measure.

From the spacebar menu if you click turrets, you can even set targeting priority to each turret type. So that for example your point defense turrets will only shoot at enemy fighters as long as there are any in firing range instead of shooting at their capitals because they are closer.
https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/1820040025156005237/3D85CE59A1362A6299D98ED935C539D6CF355D3C/?imw=1024&imh=575&ima=fit&impolicy=Letterbox&imcolor=%23000000&letterbox=true

Also be aware that the Point Defense Turrets will not fire if their side is using a flak, as technically they provide the flak field.

Originally posted by Gracey Face:

How does bringing three of them protect you when you're facing 8-10+ ships that all fire multiple torpedo salvos every couple of turns that also spawn on top of you and are faster than you while you're boosting? I can see 3 of them protecting you if you have enough time to prep a countermeasure field, but you never do due to how the missions are set up.

Especially when the enemies have two sets of ships all firing out of sync, so one shoots one turn then the other shoots then the other shoots. Only 3 isn't enough countermeasures to do anything against that.

Please note that it is clear from what I wrote that PCM is not a main avenue of defense. That is Flak.
It is a secondary help, best used to defend against visitors that are unable to be covered by your flak. Like a flanking Nemesis or Maybe tanking a salvo from an Arachne, so you can open up your falk wall and use munitions of your own agains another target.
Also not that PCM's have a huge range, and are perfect in covering even a group of cylon ships. If you have ID of the enemy ship, when you click on them you can see how much time they have left until their munitions reload. You can use that to your advantage. If you didn't, you can check always manually track how often do munitions come from which Dradis blip, and can therefore guess what blip is what ship if you combine it with how fast they are moving and if they release raiders or not.

[Gracey Face]

So setting it to full defensive was what made flak actually work. Thanks for pointing it out. I never even looked at the armory. Not entirely sure why flak is boosted by defence rather than offense, or why it is in the armory section of all things (armory is for the marines...)


Thanks. Now it's stopping roughly 19 out of every 20 missiles.

[kucsidaveee]

That was most possibly a gameplay decision.
Glad that I could help you.

[AeQuArTz]

My experience with Vipers defending against missiles is not that bad. Viper 1's are certainly worse than Viper 2's at shooting missiles; in fact Viper 2's are superior in every way except cost (1's are free) and maybe hull (though 2's compensate for less health with better evade). Also I find it best to have at least 2 squadrons minimum in a group* to ensure quicker interceptions, but 3 or 4 is better if you can spare them. Just one viper defending a ship is going to be too much for them most of the time.

I also have a personal tendency to use defend at location instead of defend, in part because I use debris mines (to counter raider spam) and I don't want my vipers chasing missiles into the debris field where they get damaged; also because sometimes I don't know which ship they're targeting (defending an un-targeted ship means they only help out when the missiles are almost upon you) and a DaL squadron will shoot down anything that passes by indiscriminately; and I like to "stagger" the defending groups in a way that a further out group can shoot down much of the incoming wave of missiles while the second/third group shoots down the rest, and this can work even for torpedo spam (to an extent).

*If you want to know how you can assign squadrons into groups, shift-select all the squadrons you want and press ctrl-# where # is between 1-6 (otherwise it's in the spacebar menu: assign squadron). Doing this also helps you control your squadrons easier instead of micromanaging each one individually.

[Gracey Face]

Originally posted by AeQuArTz:

My experience with Vipers defending against missiles is not that bad. Viper 1's are certainly worse than Viper 2's at shooting missiles; in fact Viper 2's are superior in every way except cost (1's are free) and maybe hull (though 2's compensate for less health with better evade).

The mission where the decommissioned frigates open up on civilian transport ships. I put a squadron on each of the 4 transports, not a single missile got shot down. So then when I reloaded I put all 4 fighter squadrons on 1 transport. Not a single missile got shot down. The few other times I tried it they also did nothing, but this one was the most striking. I assume there's an RNG element to it, but that kind of performance is just unacceptable.

That being said, I have been using defend ship (as I personally find it reasonably easy to tell who is being targeted). Possibly thier performance with overlapping defend area's is much better. Also possibly thier performance is based on your ships posture in the same way flak is. I can't see anything to indicate that though. I personally just have my actual ships constantly boosting away.

Also I don't know why you would ever want to assign squadrons into groups. Putting them all in to one deathblob kills whatever you throw them at faster, and if you split them up for whatever reason grabbing them with the bounding box seems like it'll be just as fast as a keyboard shortcut.

[USS Midway veteran]

Originally posted by Gracey Face:

Originally posted by AeQuArTz:

My experience with Vipers defending against missiles is not that bad. Viper 1's are certainly worse than Viper 2's at shooting missiles; in fact Viper 2's are superior in every way except cost (1's are free) and maybe hull (though 2's compensate for less health with better evade).

The mission where the decommissioned frigates open up on civilian transport ships. I put a squadron on each of the 4 transports, not a single missile got shot down. So then when I reloaded I put all 4 fighter squadrons on 1 transport. Not a single missile got shot down. The few other times I tried it they also did nothing, but this one was the most striking. I assume there's an RNG element to it, but that kind of performance is just unacceptable.

That being said, I have been using defend ship (as I personally find it reasonably easy to tell who is being targeted). Possibly thier performance with overlapping defend area's is much better. Also possibly thier performance is based on your ships posture in the same way flak is. I can't see anything to indicate that though. I personally just have my actual ships constantly boosting away.

Also I don't know why you would ever want to assign squadrons into groups. Putting them all in to one deathblob kills whatever you throw them at faster, and if you split them up for whatever reason grabbing them with the bounding box seems like it'll be just as fast as a keyboard shortcut.

Hello Gracey Face, Concerning the mission you spoke of, those Janus cruisers are firing torpedoes. Your Vipers would be practically useless defending those transports against torpedoes anyway. They would be better used going after Raiders.

The best thing to do in that situation is to constantly change the transports course and elevation. I've played that mission 10 times or more on all difficulty levels and I've never had to do anything else.

Also you are right about one thing, a ship's posture has nothing to do with the Vipers performance in protecting your ships. Posture will only regulate ship subsystems, but not the Viper squadrons.

Grouping squadrons is OK in some circumstances, but it is best to let them act alone. You can always assign multiple squadrons to a specific task, but - at least on higher difficulty levels - you are going to need your Viper squadrons to be flexible most of the time. There are times when grouping two or more squadrons together will work for you, but from my experience it can also work against you. Keep them separate as a general rule and group them only when you have a specific reason. Otherwise, just assign more than one squadron to the task at hand.

[Gracey Face]

Originally posted by USS Midway veteran:

The best thing to do in that situation is to constantly change the transports course and elevation. I've played that mission 10 times or more on all difficulty levels and I've never had to do anything else.

I know. I just used it as a test bed as it's a mission where there's a turn or two of just missiles being fired at you so the results of any experiment don't get skewed.

I had wanted to see if putting ships on defend actually did anything after it seeming to not do anything the few times I had done it before.

[kucsidaveee]

Originally posted by Gracey Face:

Originally posted by USS Midway veteran:

The best thing to do in that situation is to constantly change the transports course and elevation. I've played that mission 10 times or more on all difficulty levels and I've never had to do anything else.

I know. I just used it as a test bed as it's a mission where there's a turn or two of just missiles being fired at you so the results of any experiment don't get skewed.

I had wanted to see if putting ships on defend actually did anything after it seeming to not do anything the few times I had done it before.

I would like to add here that the slower the munition, the better the Vipers do against it.
Unguided torpedoes are the fastest, so that might give you a skewed view as well.
Vipers do moderately fine against Guided missiles, OK against AP (tiny bit faster than missiles) and very good against nukes and mines (while they are flying towards their target and not active)
Cluster nukes are the same as regular nukes before they split.
If you think you can get away with it, Vipers are a good way of getting rid of single munitions heading your way.

[USS Midway veteran]

"I had wanted to see if putting ships on defend actually did anything after it seeming to not do anything the few times I had done it before."

That is a correct analysis, Gracey Face. I discovered that for myself repeatedly. I would assign a Viper squadron to protect a small transport and it would ignore an attacking Raider. I had to manually assign the Viper to attack the Raider before it would do so.

[AeQuArTz]

Perhaps it's just my play style, but I rarely have my vipers doing things alone because they work better in bulk toward the same goal (shoot down missiles and raiders faster), yet I also try not to group all of them together so I can have flexibility. So bare minimum I have two assigned groups, generally split to have attackers (with better evade) and defenders, with 2-4 in each group, and often I will send one group to help in the other task when needed. When defending I would have a couple groups spread out in front of the fleet to cover all the angles, and when attacking I would have multiple groups go after their own target in the raider swarm. Grouping further minimizes the amount of clicking I need to do.

The basic reasoning is that in a 10v10 battle, it's better to make it into five 2v1's rather than ten 1v1's because the odds are greater in your favor. It helps when the raiders gradually filter in towards you one after the other rather than in one big wave.

[AeQuArTz]

As to why not just multi-select the vipers you want to use, I just find it easier to organize assigned groups, and I usually base it off of which ships they come from (based on their evade stat), so that vipers from berzerks with their 50% evade are a group that I can use to attack more effectively, while vipers from minervas with their 15% evade I group and mostly have on defense.