The Paradoxian Federation – Aurora Forum Game II, run by Rendap.

[Rendap]

Ok, back and another update will drop by soonish - Should be building and then preparing for war!

@ Adamus - - And you'r not getting another medal before you do something worthwhile / stupid and survive it. (In Game that is)

@ Lord Strange - No wonder the Californicans was complaining then. I'll get some more assistants and explosive to you soonish.

@ Blue Emu - I normally do the same, which is ongoing at the moment. Just not posting about it... And duly noted on the fighter designs. I'll see what I can press out when the tech becomes available. I'll try to stay small enough for a 200t fighter and might lose a bit from that. We'll see!

 

[Rendap]

2046:

7/1 - Survey of the Starless Nexus Bernard's Star complete and 3 new JP located. SC Alexander Mackenzie returns to Earth for refit.
26/2 - Joebthegreat II completes research into Magneto-Plasma Drive Technology, confirming his theory that moving faster will actually let you arrive sooner than before. New engines are entering design phase. Research labs are transferred back to sensor control for upgraded sensors as well. Additionally labs taken from EW, Logistics and Defensive projects for sensor upgrades.
11/3 - Captain GaiusC improves Fleet Maneuver to 386
16/3 - Polar Mongoose has improved our shipyards efficiency by another 20%.
Retooling for Anuket complete and JCS Connector begins construction. Estimated completiong June 2047.
21/3 - Our new Military Engine is designed by Joebthegreat II. Next in line is the Fighter Engines.
With this, the design is locked re. the new Blue Emu class carrier:
------
Blue Emu class Carrier 20,000 tons 1185 Crew 3061.6 BP TCS 400 TH 2816 EM 600
7040 km/s Armour 6-65 Shields 20-300 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 5 PPV 0
Maint Life 3.56 Years MSP 3478 AFR 640% IFR 8.9% 1YR 421 5YR 6319 Max Repair 150 MSP
Flag Bridge Hangar Deck Capacity 4000 tons Magazine 680

Magneto-plasma Drive E7.2 (32) Power 88 Fuel Use 72% Signature 88 Armour 0 Exp 10%
Fuel Capacity 1,250,000 Litres Range 156.3 billion km (256 days at full power)
Gamma R300/16 Shields (10) Total Fuel Cost 160 Litres per day

FM-1-A Needle (680) Speed: 21,000 km/s End: 8.9m Range: 11.3m km WH: 3 Size: 1 TH: 70 / 42 / 21

Strike Group
20x F1 Grecale Fighter Speed: 9500 km/s Size: 4

Missile to hit chances are vs targets moving at 3000 km/s, 5000 km/s and 10,000 km/s

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
------
Missiles and Strike Group to be updates as the new designs become available - This will not be before Missile Engine Technology is upgraded so we know the size of the missiles our fighters will be using.

Retooling begins at once.
26/3 - Fighter Engine upgraded to Magneto. Also, our new active search sensor against ships is now available. Next is our new Fire Control. Joebthegreat II will commence improving our missiles for final design decisions.
6/4 - The new FC is now available and our sensor techs start looking at anti-missile sensors.
And with that I would like to precent the Sirocco Class Cruiser:
------
Sirocco class Cruiser 15,000 tons 1297 Crew 2444.2 BP TCS 300 TH 2112 EM 480
7040 km/s Armour 7-54 Shields 16-300 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 3 PPV 48
Maint Life 5.18 Years MSP 3306 AFR 600% IFR 8.3% 1YR 205 5YR 3079 Max Repair 126 MSP
Magazine 660

Magneto-plasma Drive E7.2 (24) Power 88 Fuel Use 72% Signature 88 Armour 0 Exp 10%
Fuel Capacity 400,000 Litres Range 66.7 billion km (109 days at full power)
Gamma R300/16 Shields (8) Total Fuel Cost 128 Litres per day

Size 4 Missile Launcher Mk 1 (12) Missile Size 4 Rate of Fire 40
Missile Fire Control FC75-R120 (50%) (3) Range 75.9m km Resolution 120

Active Search Sensor MR101-R120 (50%) (1) GPS 10080 Range 101.2m km Resolution 120

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
------
A smaller version of the Serapis class Heavy Cruiser it fits our current slipways better and can be retooled immediately.
21/5 - Vice Admiral Reis91 improves training bonus to 275.
And we are out of Uridium to mine on Earth. 6 more years max and we've emptied our home planet.
1/6 - Our new Missile Radar is now designed. Next for the Fire Control.
11/6 - Captain GaiusC improves Crew Training to 150.
16/6 - And our new FC against missiles is done. I can therefore present the Nirbhrk II:
------
Nirbhik II class Destroyer 5,000 tons 436 Crew 1021 BP TCS 100 TH 704 EM 300
7040 km/s Armour 4-26 Shields 10-300 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 1 PPV 12
Maint Life 5.37 Years MSP 1128 AFR 200% IFR 2.8% 1YR 66 5YR 984 Max Repair 126 MSP
Magazine 148

Magneto-plasma Drive E7.2 (8) Power 88 Fuel Use 72% Signature 88 Armour 0 Exp 10%
Fuel Capacity 150,000 Litres Range 75.0 billion km (123 days at full power)
Gamma R300/16 Shields (5) Total Fuel Cost 80 Litres per day

Size 1 Missile Launcher Mk 1 (12) Missile Size 1 Rate of Fire 10
Missile Fire Control FC6-R1 (50%) (6) Range 6.9m km Resolution 1

Active Search Sensor MR9-R1 (50%) (1) GPS 84 Range 9.2m km Resolution 1

This design is classed as a Military Vessel for maintenance purposes
------
By cutting the Anti-Ship sensor and half the fuel, we get doble the armor and almost double the shields and a range matching the Cruisers.
Retooling commences.
21/6 - Captain GaiusC promoted to Commodore.

 

[Rendap]

1/8 - Captain Velko have improved Fleet Maneuver to 315.
16/8 - Polar Mongoose have passed yet another audit with flying colours and is now cleared for Admin Level 8.
11/9 - Captain Stuckensmidt improves Fleet Maneuver to 318.
6/10 - Our new "Scout" sensor designed. More to come of this. 1 lab returns to improving our beam control while the other 9 are transferred to Lord Strange.
16/10 - Joebthegreat have designed Magneto Drives small enough to fit missiles. Next will be a civilian drive.
1/11 - The Blue Emu Class is now ready for construction after retooling. The first 3 ships are laid down. Names will be Blue Emu, Green Parrot and Yellow Raven. Construction will take close to 2 years, if our Duranium last.
11/11 - Sirocco Class is now also ready. 3 ships are laid down of this class as well.
16/11 - The Civilian version of the drives have been researched by Joebthegreat II. Next is a designated "Scout" Engine.
Nirbhik II Class retooled and the first 3 enters refit.
1/12 - Lord Isaac Strange have now improved our Missile Agility to 80. He will next begin designing new missiles for our warships.
For our size 4 Ship Killers we have a current FC range of 75mio. km. Expecting ECM, I've gone for a shorter range:
------
Missile Size: 4 MSP (0.2 HS) Warhead: 9 Armour: 0 Manoeuvre Rating: 14
Speed: 30000 km/s Endurance: 33 minutes Range: 60.0m km
Cost Per Missile: 4.35
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 420% 3k km/s 140% 5k km/s 84% 10k km/s 42%
Materials Required: 2.25x Tritanium 2.15x Gallicite Fuel x2000
------
Same Warhead as before, but 33% faster and 2,5 times the range.
Our Anti Missiles gets some love as well, but the upgrade is not as large:
------
Missile Size: 1 MSP (0.05 HS) Warhead: 1 Armour: 0 Manoeuvre Rating: 15
Speed: 60000 km/s Endurance: 2 minutes Range: 6.0m km
Cost Per Missile: 1.375
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 900% 3k km/s 300% 5k km/s 180% 10k km/s 90%
Materials Required: 0.25x Tritanium 0.87x Gallicite Fuel x50
------
Fighters and Fighter Missiles will be postponed until our Carrier Commanders have made their input.

11/12 - Our new Ship Killers completes test phase and can now be constructed. Same goes for our new fighter Fire Control.
26/12 - Joebthegreat II and Lord Issac Strange both completes projects. A new Scout Engine and our AM missiles are now available. Lord Strange will next look at Railgun Velocity while Joebthegreat II will be increasing Capacitor Recharge rate.

Thus ends 2046 - Our Nevy is building and we have a design decision to make. How should our new fighters look. More in next post with several possibilities.

 

[Rendap]

Ok, time to look at fighters and missiles. My assigned FC for fighters at the moment is 30 mio. km. This gives the following upgraded fighters:

Size 1 missiles - 6 Launchers:
------
F2 Lucifer class Fighter 200 tons 4 Crew 42.6 BP TCS 4 TH 53 EM 0
13250 km/s Armour 1-3 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 0 PPV 0.9
Maint Life 0 Years MSP 0 AFR 40% IFR 0.6% 1YR 1 5YR 17 Max Repair 9 MSP
Magazine 6

FTR Magneto-plasma Drive E720 (1) Power 52.8 Fuel Use 7200% Signature 52.8 Armour 0 Exp 50%
Fuel Capacity 5,000 Litres Range 0.6 billion km (13 hours at full power)

Size 1 Box Launcher (6) Missile Size 1 Hangar Reload 7.5 minutes MF Reload 1.2 hours
Missile Fire Control FC30-R120 (1) Range 30.4m km Resolution 120

This design is classed as a Fighter for production, combat and maintenance purposes
-------
Size 1 Missiles - 2 Launchers:
------
F2 Lucifer class Fighter 165 tons 4 Crew 38.2 BP TCS 3.3 TH 53 EM 0
16060 km/s Armour 1-2 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 0 PPV 0.3
Maint Life 0 Years MSP 0 AFR 33% IFR 0.5% 1YR 1 5YR 20 Max Repair 9 MSP
Magazine 2

FTR Magneto-plasma Drive E720 (1) Power 52.8 Fuel Use 7200% Signature 52.8 Armour 0 Exp 50%
Fuel Capacity 5,000 Litres Range 0.8 billion km (13 hours at full power)

Size 1 Box Launcher (2) Missile Size 1 Hangar Reload 7.5 minutes MF Reload 1.2 hours
Missile Fire Control FC30-R120 (1) Range 30.4m km Resolution 120

This design is classed as a Fighter for production, combat and maintenance purposes
------
I think that size 1 launchers will not fit any longer. We can get an alpha strike of 120 WH4 missiles from 1 carrier, but the speed of the missiles are only 24,8k and range 6 mio km. However, a WH1 missile would be interesting for Anti Fighter/Gunboat duty. It would have a range of 9mio km and a speed of 64k.

If we go to a size 4 in the other end of the scale, our fighters would look like this:
------
F2 Lucifer class Fighter 250 tons 4 Crew 49 BP TCS 5 TH 53 EM 0
10600 km/s Armour 1-3 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 0 PPV 1.8
Maint Life 0 Years MSP 0 AFR 50% IFR 0.7% 1YR 2 5YR 29 Max Repair 9 MSP
Magazine 12

FTR Magneto-plasma Drive E720 (1) Power 52.8 Fuel Use 7200% Signature 52.8 Armour 0 Exp 50%
Fuel Capacity 10,000 Litres Range 1.0 billion km (26 hours at full power)

Size 4 Box Launcher (3) Missile Size 4 Hangar Reload 30 minutes MF Reload 5 hours
Missile Fire Control FC30-R120 (1) Range 30.4m km Resolution 120

This design is classed as a Fighter for production, combat and maintenance purposes
------
Each Carrier would then be able to carry 16 fighters and deliver 48 missiles in each alpha strike. Missiles could look something like this:
------
Missile Size: 4 MSP (0.2 HS) Warhead: 9 Armour: 0 Manoeuvre Rating: 16
Speed: 36000 km/s Endurance: 14 minutes Range: 30.0m km
Cost Per Missile: 4.8
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 576% 3k km/s 192% 5k km/s 115.2% 10k km/s 57.6%
Materials Required: 2.25x Tritanium 2.75x Gallicite Fuel x1000
------

What say our Carrier Commanders and Fleet Captains? Which fighter design philosophy should be pursued? The Small missiles where our fighters have to brave the defensive fire from 6 mio. km. to deliver with predictable heavy losses? Or the longer ranged, slower and heavier missiles with more time for PD? I can also design a super short ranged missile with 2 mio km. range or so where everything goes into speed and WH. I can also look at size 2 or 3 with the current technology, but it will probably not be able to produce a WH9 fighter missile. We need a size 4 for that.

The floor is open for discussion at fleet headquarters Fighter Command.

 

[joebthegreat]

26/2 - Joebthegreat II completes research into Magneto-Plasma Drive Technology, confirming his theory that moving faster will actually let you arrive sooner than before. New engines are entering design phase. Research labs are transferred back to sensor control for upgraded sensors as well. Additionally labs taken from EW, Logistics and Defensive projects for sensor upgrades.

Ah! There is no confirming of theories! Progress is only made by the disproving of formerly accepted rules!

With enough funding and research, I will work to disprove the assertion that moving faster causes you to arrive sooner!

 

[blue emu]

A size-2 WH-4 missile would have both good range and high speed/high to-Hit numbers... and a 180-ton F2-Lucifer Fighter could carry four of them.

F2-Lucifer/180 class Fighter 180 tons 3 Crew 52.3 BP TCS 3.6 TH 55 EM 0
15277 km/s Armour 1-2 Shields 0-0 Sensors 1/1/0/0 Damage Control Rating 0 PPV 1.2
Maint Life 0 Years MSP 0 AFR 36% IFR 0.5% 1YR 2 5YR 31 Max Repair 28 MSP
Magazine 8

FTR Magneto-plasma Drive E910 1947 (1) Power 55.2 Fuel Use 9100% Signature 55.2 Armour 0 Exp 60%
Fuel Capacity 5,000 Litres Range 0.5 billion km (9 hours at full power)

Size 2 Box Launcher (4) Missile Size 2 Hangar Reload 15 minutes MF Reload 2.5 hours
Missile aFAC Fire Control FC49-R18 1964 (1) Range 49.9m km Resolution 18
Size 2 ASM-4-30 1951 (3) Speed: 40,400 km/s End: 12.7m Range: 30.9m km WH: 4 Size: 2 TH: 161 / 97 / 48

Missile to hit chances are vs targets moving at 3000 km/s, 5000 km/s and 10,000 km/s

This design is classed as a Fighter for production, combat and maintenance purposes

... that's at Magneto-Plasma tech level. I'm currently one level up from that in my own game.

You can get some pretty impressive to-hit numbers, if you know how to properly balance Agility against engine power:

Missile Size: 2 MSP (0.1 HS) Warhead: 4 Armour: 0 Manoeuvre Rating: 20
Speed: 41200 km/s Endurance: 16 minutes Range: 40.5m km
Cost Per Missile: 2.6233
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 824% 3k km/s 260% 5k km/s 164.8% 10k km/s 82.4%

Materials Required: 1x Tritanium 1.6233x Gallicite Fuel x675

Again, that's at Magneto-Plasma tech level. I think my Agility is one level up from yours.

 

[Vainglory]

A size-2 WH-4 missile would have both good range and high speed/high to-Hit numbers... and a 180-ton F2-Lucifer Fighter could carry four of them.

... that's at Magneto-Plasma tech level. I'm currently one level up from that in my own game.

You can get some pretty impressive to-hit numbers, if you know how to properly balance Agility against engine power:

Again, that's at Magneto-Plasma tech level. I think my Agility is one level up from yours.

Is there a set formula you know for balancing agility and engine power? I've not stumbled upon any and the trial-and-error method gets tedious; shave 0.1 off engine power here for agility there and it makes 2% difference for to-hit at 10,000km/s... shave off 0.05 from agility back to engine power and it's 2.1%...

 

[Capt. Kiwi]

Is there a set formula you know for balancing agility and engine power? I've not stumbled upon any and the trial-and-error method gets tedious; shave 0.1 off engine power here for agility there and it makes 2% difference for to-hit at 10,000km/s... shave off 0.05 from agility back to engine power and it's 2.1%...

I came up with one through some good old fashioned calculus when blue emu first started us on this. I'll see if I can find it.

 

[Vainglory]

I came up with one through some good old fashioned calculus when blue emu first started us on this. I'll see if I can find it.

I'd appreciate that a lot. Maths has never been my strong suit. Paradox Forums seems to have a disproportionate number of maths types... it must be something about the complexity of their games appeals to the sort of people that are good at maths.

 

[Capt. Kiwi]

Took longer than expected to find, but here it is:

If S is missile size, M is Missile agility per MSP, and T is the total amount of space devoted to engines and agility in the missile, the amount of space devoted to engines E that will maximise to-hit is:

E = (T/2) + (5S/M)

Regardless of missile and target speeds.

Obviously, this leaves for agility:

A = (T/2) - (5S/M)

A couple of notes: Firstly, the game rounds speed in its database and calculations while this formula gives a precise answer. This may mean a slight adjustment is needed to get the actual optimum - although it's not normally a major difference. Secondly, as long as your missile has 100% to hit on your desired target speed, there's no real point to increase the accuracy any more - but there is a point to increase the speed so as to beat PD systems.

Also, this formula was based on version 5.42. It's probably still correct, but I haven't checked.

 

[Vainglory]

Took longer than expected to find, but here it is:

If S is missile size, M is Missile agility per MSP, and T is the total amount of space devoted to engines and agility in the missile, the amount of space devoted to engines E that will maximise to-hit is:

E = (T/2) + (5S/M)

Regardless of missile and target speeds.

Obviously, this leaves for agility:

A = (T/2) - (5S/M)

A couple of notes: Firstly, the game rounds speed in its database and calculations while this formula gives a precise answer. This may mean a slight adjustment is needed to get the actual optimum - although it's not normally a major difference. Secondly, as long as your missile has 100% to hit on your desired target speed, there's no real point to increase the accuracy any more - but there is a point to increase the speed so as to beat PD systems.

Also, this formula was based on version 5.42. It's probably still correct, but I haven't checked.

Pretty sure 5.5x hasn't changed any of the relevant parameters. Time for me to try this out. Thanks!

 

[blue emu]

Is there a set formula you know for balancing agility and engine power? I've not stumbled upon any and the trial-and-error method gets tedious; shave 0.1 off engine power here for agility there and it makes 2% difference for to-hit at 10,000km/s... shave off 0.05 from agility back to engine power and it's 2.1%...

My trial-and-error method works differently... set the missile Agility MSP to a value that gives an integral Agility number which is a whole-number multiple of the missile size (eg: setting it to 0.12 would give an Agility of 12 if you had the "100 per MSP" missile agility tech, and that number - 12 - is good for size-1, size-2, size-3, size-4 and size-6 missiles, but not for size-5, since it is not an integral multiple of five... for size-5 missiles, you would want to use 0.05, 0.10 or 0.15 instead - assuming 100 agility per MSP, as before). Then try a higher or lower whole-number multiple, to see if it improves it or reduces it.

Not as good as calculus, but better than guessing.

The problem with using calculus is that this is a step-function (owing to the integral-multiple-of-missile-size nonsense), not a continuous curve.

I suppose the best solution would be to use Kiwi's formula to find the peak of the curve, then my step-function to test the two integral points that bracket that peak.

 

[Vainglory]

The problem with using calculus is that this is a step-function (owing to the integral-multiple-of-missile-size nonsense), not a continuous curve.

I suppose the best solution would be to use Kiwi's formula to find the peak of hte curve, then my step-function to test the two integral points that bracket that peak.

"Just like school: I have no idea what you are talking about." I'm left rather confused by all this: I used Kiwi's formula on my size 1 AMM and increased to-hit by slightly more than 2%. I tried various agility ratings that were multiples of 1 and didn't find any that worked better than Kiwi's. But then I tried this on my size 6 anti-ship missiles and found that your rule-of-thumb worked better than Kiwi's formula. Not that I've the least idea what's going on here.

Also I goofed on the AMM and used 0.1 fuel instead of 0.05 which resulted in double the range (2.6M km instead of 1.3M km), for a slower AMM (by 200km/s), that had 2% greater to-hit @ 10,000km/s (from 60% to 62.1%). So I redid it with 0.05 fuel and the to-hit improved by 0.4% @ 10,000km/s versus the double-range version (2.4% versus my original). I know Kiwi's formula doesn't include a range/to-hit tradeoff but that made me blink... surely I'd be better off firing 38,800km/s AMMs with 0.4% less to-hit at 10,000km/s that can go twice as far than firing 39,000km/s AMMs with 0.4% extra to-hit at 10,000km/s that have half the engagement range? The Precursors I've encountered are using 40,000km/s missiles which means to-hit is 15.52% compared to 15.6% for the 200km/s faster missile, so with the Precursor missiles 1.3M km takes 6.5 5 second increments to cross, so that means my AMMs are in range for 13 increments (65 seconds) rather than 6.5 (32.5 seconds), and from what I understand of how PD works that actually means 13 versus 6 because the increment in which the missile strikes it can only be affected by final defensive fire and CIWS? Anyway it seems to me that 0.08% to-hit is an appropriate tradeoff for double the length of engagement time for my DEs, and I'm given to wonder how far I could push that.

Deeply, deeply confused now.

 

[Capt. Kiwi]

Deeply, deeply confused now.

Everything is proceeding according to my design *cackles*

What you're probably seeing there is the little known fact that pretty much anything is a multiple of one, and so there's less likely to be a large error associated with the way the game rounds numbers for agility. It may also be that by chance your size one missiles are coming up with an unrounded number for speed, simply because they don't need to be rounded - again this is more likely with size one missiles, as they have a nice mass to divide by (one). It's rounding by the game engine that makes my formula inaccurate at times. As it happens, size one missiles are the most likely to need high accuracy, rather than high speed, so that works out quite well.

 

[blue emu]

It's this part here:

... that should be an integral multiple of your missile size... in this case, 20 is ten times size-2. You might not notice much (or any) difference with very small missiles, or if the continuous-transformation peak is close to an integral size anyway, or if you've chosen the wrong multiplier (say, 8x or 12x instead of 10x).

... because the increment in which the missile strikes it can only be affected by final defensive fire and CIWS?

Note also that your (anti-) missiles don't move on the turn that they are launched.

 

[Vainglory]

Everything is proceeding according to my design *cackles*

What you're probably seeing there is the little known fact that pretty much anything is a multiple of one, and so there's less likely to be a large error associated with the way the game rounds numbers for agility. It may also be that by chance your size one missiles are coming up with an unrounded number for speed, simply because they don't need to be rounded - again this is more likely with size one missiles, as they have a nice mass to divide by (one). It's rounding by the game engine that makes my formula inaccurate at times. As it happens, size one missiles are the most likely to need high accuracy, rather than high speed, so that works out quite well.

Initially I didn't even bother trying Blue Emu's formula on Size 1 missiles because any whole number would be a multiple, but I figured that I should see anyway; obviously it's possible to design a missile with agility that isn't a whole number (it doesn't round the agility if the MSP allocated to agility doesn't equate to a whole number... pretty sure on that otherwise to-hit wouldn't change when squeezing those last few MSP into engine power or agility) so I tried a few whole numbers and they didn't seem to be better than your formula - for size 1 missiles; for size 6 Blue Emu's rule worked better. That is what I observed, but potentially I cocked up somewhere. I shall try it again when I've more time and see if, as I think is supposed to happen, the closest whole number to what your formula yields results in a better to-hit than the precise figure your formula generates.

@ Blue Emu

Yeah it took me a while to work out exactly what you meant, but once I got that right I started getting superior to-hit figures than based on trial and error, or Kiwi's formula (for larger than size 1).

Ah, yes, I didn't think of the fact that AMMs don't move in the launch increment. Looks like it's time for me to stop building Dart I AMMs and switch to Dart IIs - now with twice the range! Or maybe more, I'll have to see if I can find a break-even point; I'll need to redesign the MFC for the DEs though so they can lock onto missiles at that range. Fortunately my SWACS vessels already see much further than the DEs can shoot. Evidently that's a constraint on longer ranged AMM, that extra range means (all else being equal) bulkier MFC and Active Search Sensors (unfortunate acronym ahoy!).

 

[blue emu]

... I'll need to redesign the MFC for the DEs though so they can lock onto missiles at that range. Fortunately my SWACS vessels already see much further than the DEs can shoot.

Bear in mind that the numbers given even for res-1 PD Fire controls refer to targets rounded UP to the nearest Hull Square. A res-1 PD Fire control that is described as M23-R1 can lock onto a 1-HS target at 23 m-km, yes... but a size-6 missile is far smaller than that, and that FC can only target it at 2 m-km or so (about one-tenth of the printed range).

Regarding the Kiwi/Blue Emu missile design approximations... I'm pretty sure that Kiwi and I are saying exactly the same thing, in different words. My step-function finds all of the critical values, but can't tell which is best. His continuous function finds the peak of the curve... the "sweet-spot"... but doesn't reduce it to an integral value. So the best procedure is to use Kiwi's continuous function to find the peak of the curve, then test the two integral values that lie to the right and left of that spot. One of them will be the "sweet spot".

Check this size-1 PD missile out, for example... found by exactly that method.

Missile Size: 1 MSP (0.05 HS) Warhead: 1 Armour: 0 Manoeuvre Rating: 48
Speed: 48500 km/s Endurance: 1 minutes Range: 3.6m km
Cost Per Missile: 2.0083
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 2328% 3k km/s 768% 5k km/s 465.6% 10k km/s 232.8%
Materials Required: 0.25x Tritanium 1.5083x Gallicite Fuel x25

... 232.8% to-Hit!

EDIT: even with this size-1 missile, Kiwi's theoretical peak gave 231.4% to-Hit, which was marginally improved by BOTH of the bracketing integral values (232.4% and 232.8% respectively).

 

[Capt. Kiwi]

If it's not the agility rounding it could be the speed rounding. It may be that for a size 1 missile the neat mass division makes my theoretical solution the accurate one in terms of speed, so that changing the agility to a neat number results in a disproportionate loss of speed as it gets rounded down. Possibly.

Really, it would all just be easier if it had a higher number of significant figures in storage, and no step functions. I'm used to 16 sf in programs, but for this 6 sf would probably be fine. The step function in damage might be hard to avoid without a fundamental redesign, but the only reason I can think of for step function missile agility is memory useage. Which might not be insignificant.

Edit: Yeah, theoretically you could go to the critical agility points either side of my maxima. But there are also critical speed points in their own rounding-based step function, which are unlikely to match the step function of agility... And that's what may cause my answer to be more accurate at mass 1 than the critical agility points either side of my answer.

 

[Vainglory]

Bear in mind that the numbers given even for res-1 PD Fire controls refer to targets rounded UP to the nearest Hull Square. A res-1 PD Fire control that is described as M23-R1 can lock onto a 1-HS target at 23 m-km, yes... but a size-6 missile is far smaller than that, and that FC can only target it at 2 m-km or so (about one-tenth of the printed range).

Yeah I'm aware of that. My statement was ambiguous: SWACS ships mount a sensor that can see 1000t vessels at somewhere around 100M km and a second, flak-specialized sensor that can see 50t objects at 23M km. So any plausible increase in the DE MFC range won't even come close to being able to lock-on beyond the flak scanner's range.

Regarding the Kiwi/Blue Emu missile design approximations... I'm pretty sure that Kiwi and I are saying exactly the same thing, in different words. My step-function finds all of the critical values, but can't tell which is best. His continuous function finds the peak of the curve... the "sweet-spot"... but doesn't reduce it to an integral value. So the best procedure is to use Kiwi's continuous function to find the peak of the curve, then test the two integral values that lie to the right and left of that spot. One of them will be the "sweet spot".

Check this size-1 PD missile out, for example... found by exactly that method.



... 232.8% to-Hit!

EDIT: even with this size-1 missile, Kiwi's theoretical peak gave 231.4% to-Hit, which was marginally improved by BOTH of the bracketing integral values (232.4% and 232.8% respectively).

I must have boned something when comparing size 1 missiles.

It seems to me that this is begging for a spreadsheet to do the heavy lifting, although right at this second I can't imagine how to make it find the values either side of "theoretical" perfect... I suppose the rounding functions would help me there. When I get home I think I'll take a crack at making a spreadsheet so I can just plug in numbers and let it do the crunching for me.

 

[blue emu]

... and a second, flak-specialized sensor that can see 50t objects at 23M km.

That sensor would pick up a size-6 missile at about 2.5 m-km... because its size is only 6/20ths of 1 HS... so the detection distance is 23 m-km times (6/20ths squared).

I must have boned something when comparing size 1 missiles.

Not necessarily. As Kiwi points out, we've only cracked 2/3rds of the problem. The step-function governing the relation between missile size, engine power, speed and to-Hit has not yet been resolved. So there may be secondary maxima that our method won't find.