Some thoughts, by which I mean a whole-ass essay: Missiles can be pretty scary. The SS Asphodel got an update recently and is a great example, would recommend checking it out (and maybe doing a most wanted on it?) I'll be using “flares” to refer to missile based decoys whether radar, sonar, or IR, because they all work more or less the same other than flares having a time limit. I’m not going to go into Lua missiles, Lua is a pathway to many abilities some consider to be unnatural. I've heard of Lua missile scripts that will bypass the need for GPPP and/or ignore detection error and ECM, and even if not using something that's an outright exploit like that, it's still a massive boost. It's also something that most people, even in FTD, probably aren't going to learn for themselves. To the best of my knowledge, a flare with 10x the signature of the vehicle will pull almost every missile away; at 25x, it will do the same even to missiles with signal processors, because all they do is reduce the chance of targeting a decoy by a percentage. Chaff making things worse for the cram ship makes sense. Chaff and the decoys/target simulators in the defence tab will increase the vehicle’s signature of the corresponding type by a huge amount, which makes flares a lot less effective. It's generally an either or situation, and the deciding factor imo is the size of the vehicle. Making a flare with a large enough signature to outshine a small vehicle is reasonably cheap while making one for a big vehicle gets pretty expensive; by comparison, chaff and target simulators start out expensive to run for a small craft, but stay about the same cost for a much larger one. This fight is definitely biased against the missiles, cost notwithstanding. For one, the cram ship only has radar flares, because you know you're facing radar missiles. Normally you would have to diversify, because while missiles have a lot of counters, most of them are specific to one guidance type. Radar/sonar/IR all have different flares associated, remote guidance has ECM, and laser guidance has smoke (at least in theory, my limited testing says that smoke doesn't actually make a ton of difference.) Active munition defense (CIWS, interceptors etc.) is the most universal, but can struggle against thump missiles with reinforced bodies due to their high HP. For next time, I would either diversify the guidance types on incoming missiles, or just make sure to give the cram ship defenses against all of them, to at least simulate what the true cost would be. At some scale I think some kinetic missiles become almost mandatory. At some point, you hit a critical mass of active defenses where you're almost impervious to attack from missiles without reinforced bodies, at least from anything in the same price range. Interceptors and APS CIWS have an AOE, so you can't just chuck more missiles to solve the problem because they'll just die too. Reinforced bodies boost survivability, thump damage on impact, and mean other warheads will do more damage on average because the missile will have more HP left if it does get damaged. Thumper head is even better because it gives a speed boost as well, though obviously that requires RG/Lua/beam-rider missiles. The SD Velocity is an example, it uses thump missiles with some narrow angle frag on them, which I've found to be quite effective. You can also have them fire in a salvo with kinetic missiles going first to soak up damage, the notorious Brimstone Rain does this I believe. HEAT missiles are also an option, and are nasty if they can hit turret caps, deck, or anywhere without a lot of room for spaced armor. Any self guided missiles will tend to suffer from a similar problem, that being spreading out damage all over the target instead of concentrating it. Large missiles do decent chunks of damage, but any one of them is probably not going to be a decisive hit at this size of vehicle. Have 4 of them hit in the same place, though, and your target is definitely going to feel it. This is another argument in favor of remote/laser guided missiles, because they will all concentrate on the aimpoint. Having a full salvo of missiles also helps; you don't want them so tightly packed that they're getting AOE’d too hard, but also not so far apart that defences can engage them one at a time. Again, check the Asphodel to see what all of those hitting close together will do. Cram is ultimately just really good here. It's high firepower per material, and the damage effectiveness is arguably even more of an improvement, because AP+payload doesnt have to check through your armor to wreck your internals. The main defense against crams is dodging, because with enough hardener pellets they become very difficult to shoot down (see: Gimle.) Having recently tried to built a ~1m ship that could dodge crams, it's pretty damn hard if you're in the water. Active defenses have to be very bursty to deal with crams; your long-recharge LAMS is probably a step in the right direction, and DIF flak would help, but some rail burst flak would be good as well, if you can afford it.
@biggestboss1756Ай бұрын
In terms of interceptors going to the decoy i think having some filters in terms of altitude may help to be set just a few meters over the height of the ship,as well as dictating which caliber they should prioritise. You may want to also set the small interceptors with a limit on ciws targeting a projectile and perhaps a range limit so that they only fire when they get closer,and keep decreasing that limit for each ciws controler so they fire interceptors sequantialy as the projectiles get closer,although may doing changing some Q settings or using the firing delay block may work as well for that purpose.
@BorderWise12Ай бұрын
About 17 minutes in, I announced the wrong ship as the winner. Oops, my bad.
@EXoDuZ302Ай бұрын
some missile ideas that might be interesting to save on processing cards one turn no other guidance short range thruster rockets turreted single pixel ir missiles differing types of missiles within a large missile volley synced so thumper missiles always go first torpedo bays built into the bottom of the hull honestly that last one people just dont use the bottom of their ships enough, always die a little when i see so many use a completely flat bottom
@OmicronMkIАй бұрын
I think you should try laser guided (designator, not beam rider) missiles. Smoke seems to have a minimal effect on them now, so they tend to hit what they're aiming at. I've had a stream of missiles dig a hole through the Tyr using laser designator guidance and a target prediction module. Beam riders tend to lag a few meters behind the aimpoint on a moving target.
@sethchaffin1999Ай бұрын
Dont be ashamed of canoes Border, they are your thing. They make your fleet special.
@monsterkicker291Ай бұрын
So bad news: there was a tropical storm where I live and I don't know when the power will come back. The good news is that I finished making music for Glacave Dominion so when the power does come back I can update the google drive
@BorderWise12Ай бұрын
Oh no! Hope it comes back soon!
@aarongreeno3817Ай бұрын
Don't know how much it would help as you were using radar seekers, but i tend to delay the activation of the seeker on Vertical launch missiles until the one-turn is completed so that they don't pick up any decoys during the turn. It helps with my missiles, but i mainly use infrared where the search cone is smaller
@Underb00tАй бұрын
Can decoys also counter remote guidance missiles? Especially from those damn Basking sharks?
@BorderWise12Ай бұрын
@@Underb00t Nope, that's what the ECM block is for! 👍
@dziobalezАй бұрын
Cram are deadly but only for slow targets .
@francisxaviertremblay4901Ай бұрын
Imma play devils advocate, but its kinda like comparing a hunting rifle with an assault rifle while limiting the assault rifle to single shots. Missiles are best used with variety especially with guidances. I use lots of radars but I always have at least a few infrared or laser guided, if not all out remote guided (or better LUA but im not there myself 😂). Also torpedoes. They are absolutely wicked and are missiles in theory. Crams can't compete with that. Now crams are insanely cheaper tho, you can run a battleship with the same value as a lil missile frigate so theres that for them 😁
@BorderWise12Ай бұрын
@@francisxaviertremblay4901 All good points, which is why there are going to be further tests in future. I left torps out of this just because I see them having a role too different from airborne missiles & CRAMs, but I should probably include them in future.
@izzy-wt9srАй бұрын
Also torps get entirely hard countered by torp ints
@SuwinTziАй бұрын
Maybe missiles should be a bit lower on the tier list
@BorderWise12Ай бұрын
Radar and IR missiles bring the category down a bit. But remote guided and LUA missiles make up for that in spades! :D
@SuwinTziАй бұрын
@@BorderWise12 That's what missile interceptors, LAMS and custom CIWS are for 😑. I also feel the Large and Huge missiles are too expensive in upfront cost for their dmg output and size compared to a small nuke drone for the same vulnerabilities. That being said, with how the IFF module on the missiles keeps getting knocked out, maybe it's not being put in as safe a location as it could be? Could the missile system have been better protected or built in a way to reduce it?
@Perryverduijn111Ай бұрын
Have remote guided missles? or lua ones?
@BorderWise12Ай бұрын
@@Perryverduijn111 In future tests, yup!
@zuminlair92cpАй бұрын
i see. you make bad test video to make an excuse for another bad test video(hope it not).