The Rascals didn't seem to be hiding their destination, so it should be pretty easy tracking them back to Cancri-A.
-
We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.
Well... FINALLY.
This is not the empty system that they've been trolling us over. This is the system that contains our colony The Establishment.
- 1
Contact!
Having refueled from the Tankers and resupplied from the Colliers, we have moved in closer to the star system's only planet, DX Cancri A-I.
We've spotted both of the damaged ships that fled, and six new ships (or possibly space stations) as well.
Having refueled from the Tankers and resupplied from the Colliers, we have moved in closer to the star system's only planet, DX Cancri A-I.
We've spotted both of the damaged ships that fled, and six new ships (or possibly space stations) as well.
So what do you think, people?
Do we launch a full-up Fighter strike and hope that the planet and its swarm of ships / space stations has nothing that can detect or attack a Fighter from 60 m-km away?
Or do we bring the whole fleet in to 60 m-km, so that the Fighters can launch their strikes from inside our Point Defense umbrella?
Note that beam weapons (like Lasers) are limited to about 1.5 m-km even at maximum tech, so we'll be 100% safe from those at 60 m-km. Our only concern is enemy missiles.
I think move the fleet up. We can back off again if we start getting missile fire that's too heavy. And as well as protecting the fighters, it will shorten our turn around time for strikes.
Yes and no.
The NPRs will never deliberately design a Rock-type class, it's not in their AI and frankly it's a silly tactic anyways even if it does work. However, I have occasionally found bugs where a NPR ship design will be intended for a component their race doesn't actually have researched yet (usually at early tech levels in <500m pop starts) and extra armor is added to make up the tonnage. As this is usually unexpected the "Rock tactic" does admittedly work on me, but not very well since I usually plan my salvos to kill all of the enemy anyways. The one ship survives and everything else still dies.
Yes.
If you're interested in doing math based on what you can see from the Intel window, you can work out the kind of sensor they would need to detect a fighter at 60m km, but to make a long story short they almost certainly do not have such a sensor. To detect fighters at 60m km requires a pretty high tech level to do with a reasonable (i.e. not extremely massive) sensor design, I think into the 30k RP techs actually although it can be done at 16k with a very big sensor.
This would actually be interesting because we could test our PD capabilities in a relatively safe environment. We should have enough mass of PD fire (and AMMs?) to defend against what the Rascals have left, but it would be good to get a sense of what our hit rates are like for future battling.
- 1
As you say, it would be interesting to see if they can penetrate our PD screen. I'm actually cautiously optomistic that we might be able to shoot down the vast majority of incoming rounds.
We've moved in to 61 million km from the planet, with no apparent reaction. We've launched eight of our nine strike groups, and divided up the targets as follows:
Carrier strike groups:
Andromeda's strike group will fire at Adamant 001
Bootes strike group will fire at Abdiel 002
Cassiopeia's strike group will fire at Acta Sanctorum 001
Cephus's strike group will fire at Adamant 002
Draco's strike group will fire at Apage Satanas 001
Eridanus's strike group will fire at Apage Satanas 002
Fornax's strike group will fire at Apocalypse 001
Gemini's strike group will fire at Apocalypse 002
Heavy Cruisers:
ESN Agincourt will fire at Abdiel 002
ESN Antietam will fire at Acta Sanctorum 001
ESN Auerstadt will fire at Apage Satanas 001
ESN Austerlitz will fire at Apage Satanas 002
ESN Borodino will fire at Apocalypse 001
ESN Chickamauga will fire at Apocalypse 002
... all as one simultaneous fleet salvo. That's 272 missiles divided into 236 salvos (12 x 4-missile salvos and all the rest single missiles).
That should make them sit up and take notice. Or lie down and die. Whatever.
Carrier strike groups:
Andromeda's strike group will fire at Adamant 001
Bootes strike group will fire at Abdiel 002
Cassiopeia's strike group will fire at Acta Sanctorum 001
Cephus's strike group will fire at Adamant 002
Draco's strike group will fire at Apage Satanas 001
Eridanus's strike group will fire at Apage Satanas 002
Fornax's strike group will fire at Apocalypse 001
Gemini's strike group will fire at Apocalypse 002
Heavy Cruisers:
ESN Agincourt will fire at Abdiel 002
ESN Antietam will fire at Acta Sanctorum 001
ESN Auerstadt will fire at Apage Satanas 001
ESN Austerlitz will fire at Apage Satanas 002
ESN Borodino will fire at Apocalypse 001
ESN Chickamauga will fire at Apocalypse 002
... all as one simultaneous fleet salvo. That's 272 missiles divided into 236 salvos (12 x 4-missile salvos and all the rest single missiles).
That should make them sit up and take notice. Or lie down and die. Whatever.
Interesting.
The Rascals have some pretty effective PD. Not effective enough, though.
Beginning about 1.3 million km out from the target, our incoming salvos (travelling at 27,000 kps) were hit by 27 Anti-Missile Missiles, then ten seconds later by 6 more, then five seconds later by 18 more, then five seconds later by 15 more, then five seconds later by two more... then they coasted in for the final fifteen seconds without being shot at by missiles (or at least, without being hit). A total of 68 missiles lost to AMMs.
As our own missiles approached to point blank range some guns opened up on them shooting down another 55 missiles. This gunfire appeared to be coming from the Acta Sanctorum (CIWS) and the Apocalypse (Gauss Cannon and CIWS).
The remaining missiles then impacted, destroying two targets and damaging four others.
We'll land the strike groups, re-arm, and try that again.
The Rascals have some pretty effective PD. Not effective enough, though.
Beginning about 1.3 million km out from the target, our incoming salvos (travelling at 27,000 kps) were hit by 27 Anti-Missile Missiles, then ten seconds later by 6 more, then five seconds later by 18 more, then five seconds later by 15 more, then five seconds later by two more... then they coasted in for the final fifteen seconds without being shot at by missiles (or at least, without being hit). A total of 68 missiles lost to AMMs.
As our own missiles approached to point blank range some guns opened up on them shooting down another 55 missiles. This gunfire appeared to be coming from the Acta Sanctorum (CIWS) and the Apocalypse (Gauss Cannon and CIWS).
The remaining missiles then impacted, destroying two targets and damaging four others.
We'll land the strike groups, re-arm, and try that again.
Correct. We are half-way through our re-arming (one hour gone out of the two hours it requires) and there has been no counter-attack.
OK, we're ready to try this again.
With two targets destroyed in our first-wave strike, we can afford to double up on two of the remaining enemy targets. Since the Apocalypse class were observed to be firing Gauss Cannon (a highly effective PD weapon), they get nominated. Hopefully, we can keep them so busy that they can't defend the other four ships.
With two targets destroyed in our first-wave strike, we can afford to double up on two of the remaining enemy targets. Since the Apocalypse class were observed to be firing Gauss Cannon (a highly effective PD weapon), they get nominated. Hopefully, we can keep them so busy that they can't defend the other four ships.
On this second strike, the enemy opened fire somewhat earlier (the officer-in-charge must have yelled at them) with a 32-AMM spread. Ten seconds later, 14 more. Five seconds later, 1 more. Five seconds later, 6 more. Five seconds later, 10 more. That's 63 of our missiles lost. Then (again) our missiles coasted in for the remaining 15 seconds and impacted.
Three more targets destroyed, including one of the two Apocalypse Gauss PD platforms.
I wish I knew which ship or station was shooting all those AMMs. I would prioritize that bastard if I could identify it.
Three targets left. Time to re-arm the Fighters again.
Three more targets destroyed, including one of the two Apocalypse Gauss PD platforms.
I wish I knew which ship or station was shooting all those AMMs. I would prioritize that bastard if I could identify it.
Three targets left. Time to re-arm the Fighters again.
Penetrating PD screens is always a function of the number of SALVOS fired, not the number of MISSILES fired. That single fact is a game-changer.
Each fire control can only engage one target per 5-second time increment. Defensive fire (anti-missile fire), whether by gun or missile, is always targeted at salvos, not at missiles. So a defensive fire control can destroy one salvo of missiles per time increment (assuming that it controls guns or missiles capable of doing that).
A salvo of four missiles is treated as a single target with four hit points. A 120mm point defense Laser, for example, does four hit points damage per hit... so it will wipe out a four-missile salvo with each hit. But the fire control directing that Laser can only target one salvo per 5-second increment.
This is why we build very small, fast Fighters, each carrying a single missile. You might think that larger, more heavily armed Fighters would be more effective... and for some purposes, that's true. But for penetrating enemy PD, you'll find that NOTHING beats a massed strike by hundreds of light Fighters. Hundreds of incoming missiles, all syncronized for time-on-target, and EACH INDIVIDUAL MISSILE is in a seperate salvo. The enemy must shoot at each missile individually.
One missile per salvo. This overloads the capability of the enemy's Fire Controls to track and engage all these missiles, and every successful hit or interception only reduces our attacking strike by ONE missile... because defensive fire targets salvos, and each salvo is a single missile.
The cruisers excell at pounding things that have poor PD, because they have four (or eight) missiles per salvo. But they are correspondingly poor at penetrating PD, because their entire salvo can be wiped out with one hit.
- 1
Re-armed.
Let's do that one more time.
We have nine Fighter squadrons and six Heavy Cruisers. Conveniently, we have three targets.
Time for some over-kill...
Let's do that one more time.
We have nine Fighter squadrons and six Heavy Cruisers. Conveniently, we have three targets.
Time for some over-kill...
OK, that's 301 missiles launched, in 277 salvos. If this doesn't kill all three targets, I'll eat my star map.
EDIT:
Got all three. Not before time!
Now let's move in a bit closer and probe the surface of the planet with RADAR.
EDIT:
Got all three. Not before time!
Now let's move in a bit closer and probe the surface of the planet with RADAR.
There was no AMM fire against that last missile strike (so the AMM platform was NOT one of those three, Adamant, Abdiel or Apocalypse; but there WAS gunfire from both Gauss PD (destroyed 57 of our incoming missiles) and Laser fire... so those three types include the Gauss PD platform (the Apocalypse) and the Laser platform.
Last edited: