Tactics to avoid getting nailed by anti ship missiles?

[wdboyd]

The problem remains... missiles cannot be designated as a target for any weapon in this simulaton.. It's apparently hardcoded.
 
"Does the Starshatter Engine support making projectile based cannons rather than energy weapons?"
 
One could make a MK7 type missile projectile fire from a cannon. I'm sure it could be modded. I was considering somthing like it for hover tanks I've built. So many ideas and only 24 hours in a day. Darn it.

[Zanthras]

if I could play the devil's advocate for a moment...

seems a lot of talk about how to stop missles, in general, from blowing you up before you make it to the target.

well, there is a way, but it ain't easy. Sure, it could be made easier or one could learn how to work with what you have. Naval units in full combat situations have to improvise often, I have been there.

Sometime it does mean re-inventing the wheel while on the fly, sometimes it means make due with what you have captain! 

Here's a little proof this can be done, although I cannot guarentee you won't suffer losses.

Op Nightfall : day 1
Mission: Destroy the Dragon

I was in command of the CA group Havoc which included;
CA Braveheart
CA Intergity
DD Douglas

also under my command was a DD group, as defined in the FORCES tab.
DD Robinson
DD Keller
FF Malory
FF Sorrel

I redirected the DD group to follow a course parallel to mine in the mission briefing. I gave them no specific orders except vector, as I could control them in game with the right-click option.

At the start of the sim my unit was immmediatly engaged with a small DD unit and the Robinson's unit was jumped by a heavy CA group. We made short order of the destroyers and gave backup to the Robinson and her DESRON. With two FFs destoryed before we got there and enemy fighters where bearing down I ordered everyone jump to an unoccupied sector.

We performed repairs while Q drive re-charged. I monitored activity in Relay sector and saw the heavy CA group headed for the CVGN. To keep everyone together I gave the command to escort the Havoc, otherwise everyone would have jumped as soon as thier quantums had charged. CV Orion's support ships were moving to engage the enemy as my repairs were finished and the hyperdrive was fully charged. All units ordered back into Relay sector.

We jumped almost into the midst of the fray, I targetted the closest vessel, a heavy CA, and using radio commands requested the Orion's support destroyers engage it. I then targetted the second CA and ordered my units engage that one. Meanwhile both my support CAs and the Orion's CA support did thier own target choosing. By this time enemy and friendly fighters filled the sky and the map showed multiple attack craft enroute to engage us on our turf.

With the heavy CA quickly dispatched I ordered my unit and the Robinson to follow a course that ran parallel to thier approach by about 50km, minimum targetting distance for the PDB. I also requested one of the Orion's CAs follow along for support. I dropped just front of and below the first ship, CA Braveheart and ordered the heavily damaged CA Intergity to follow to my stern. I let everyone else follow thier own path as laid out. I also called in, by radio, two of the Orion's fighters running a sweep to COVER ME, they complied.

With two fighters flying my 11 o'clock position and the Braveheart just above me to my six the enemy fighters fell for the bait. As they flew in to target the Braveheart I used my PDB's, set to auto, and cycled through targetting using the U, (closest target), command. Between me and the support fighters not one F/A got a missile off. The entire assault group, (including a CA Devastator, 3 CA Courageous, DD Asher and a couple Stormhawks), got through without any more damage.

Up to this point micromanagment was constant. Using radio options for those not under my direct command and direct orders to those who were, we had a full compliment of ships with minimal damage to perform an assault on the CVGN Dragon. I lost count, but most of the Dragon's aircraft were out, only minimal resistance was shown by any fighters. I ordered the fighters to RTB...last roll call, (error log), indicated they made it.

Her other support, 2 Volnaris and 2 Tigers weren't too much trouble, but the CA Integrity and DD Robinson already had critical damage, I tried ordering them out back to Garden sector, but it was too late. Whether they had lost quantum ability or just were determined to stick it out, of this I cannot be sure. Thier crews will be missed.

The remaining ships, CA Havoc, CA Courageous, CA Braveheart and DD Douglas pounded the Dragon from all angles. I chose to pull up right in front of her two launch bays at 50km and deposit a few anthenas in her hanger, while firing grasers at her point defense weapons. The Integrity and Douglas were lost in the blast, the Courageous and myself returned to meet with the Orion while making repairs.

My hull suffered 40% damage and most of my systems were beyond repair. We took on over 50 enemy units and lost only a handful in combat. 30 pilots were lost due to pilot error on landing, a higher number than should be expected. The end result cleared the Relay sector of any enemy presence in one fell swoop, which was acceptable in my book.

I know this reads like an after action report, but a guess my point is that you can overcome the dreaded attack craft and thier assaults. Careful management of the AI support is required, and based on comments, more than some would like.

I offer this idea as an option until somebody does come up with a way to defend against such attacks. But until then we must engage the enemy with the weapons given us by Fleet command.

a sidenote to some...note the command points. Not all glory comes from being the man to pull the trigger.

this is just IMHO...

Partial error log...
FINAL SCORE 'MSN-001 Assault Carrier Dragon'
Name              Kill1  Kill2  Died   Colls  Points  Cmd Pts
----------------  -----  -----  -----  -----  ------  ------
Hal Rifa              0      0      0      0       0       0
Kalas Gannet       0      0      0      0       0       0
Mount Teras        0      0      0      0       0       0
Black River          0      0      0      0       0       0
Orion                 2      0      0      0      40    1110
Courageous        6      2      0      0    1440       0
Asher                7      0      0      0     200       0
Shaw                6      0      0      0     140       0
Havoc              26      2      0      0    3620    2860
Braveheart        10      2      1      0    1100       0
Integrity            1      1      1      0     240       0
Douglas             5      2      1      0     800       0
Robinson            0      0      1      0       0     270
Keller                1      0      1      0     500       0
Malory               0      0      1      0       0       0
Sorrel                3      1      1      0     120       0
Dragon               2      0      1      0    1300     560
Alin Volnaris        1      0      1      0       0       0
Pav Enke            0      0      1      0       0       0
Tiger Bay            0      0      1      0       0       0
Falkridge             0      0      1      0       0       0
Assailant             5      0      1      0     260     500
Silencer              1      1      1      0    1000       0

[Tophat1815]

 Verygood report and way to put this all in perspective. Still the FF's got waxed early on,seems that is basically to be expected.

 Has anyone done the campaign going the FF command route and not advancing through fighter command?

[wdboyd]

Salutations,

In the end... I have to believe that the creators and playtesters of the stock Starshatter have considered every angle, as far as play balance is concerned. Starshatter had a lengthy developement period where a LOT of tweaks were made in gameplay. Thus we have the current simulation. When all is said and done.... it's a great simulation of tactic spaceship combat. Have fun out there.

Here's a little proof this can be done, although I cannot guarentee you won't suffer losses.

Note: Suffering losses isn't a bad thing. It's part of combat. Sometimes I think commanders want a silver bullet that will permit them to be invincible and prevent any losses. That's not realistic, even in a simulation. The fear of loss adds needed combat friction to any system. Overcoming with mininmal or acceptable loss should be sought.

Now, modded ships and galaxies.... thats a whole new bag of worms isn't it. Or can they correct some percieved ship imbalances? I for one, think the games stock Frigates are pretty wimpy, even in their role as fighter screen.

[JT]

Reading this whole thread, the only thing I could think of was the fact that USN fighters wreaked utter havoc on IJN ships during World War II -- and vice versa with Japanese fighters versus U.S. ships. As far as I'm concerned, fighters are and have always been very dangerous to unescorted ships. Sure, WW2 ships had flak and machine guns, and did score their fair share of fighter kills, but for every three or four fighters downed, one ship was also sunk (these figures are just pulled out of the air, and are probably quite off, but you get the idea).

The only thing that can protect a capital ship from fighters is more fighters. However, capital ships are far more efficient at destroying other capital ships than are fighters, so their effectiveness in battle is not completely given over to fighters.


There's a reason, for instance, that a carrier group scatters fighters when they detect a package of MiGs headed their way. If the destroyers and other assets in the group could adequately protect the group, there'd be no need for fighters.


That all said, however, I think the fire-and-forget anti-ship missile is a bit too easy. Fighters should have to close range to well within the frigate's effective protection radius and maintain an active terminal lock on the target to guide the missile in. Frigates should have flak guns intended to shoot down missiles and fighters. PDBs and flak guns should be made less accurate as a whole. Torpedos should be slowed down significantly given their current payload, so as to balance it out and give PDBs a good chance of shooting them down before they impact -- torpedos behave as though they're only a few hundred kilos, when anything with that kind of explosive potential would have to be upwards of a tonne or two (unless nuclear, but I get the impression that nukes are banned by treaty, or else every battle in this game would be a hell of a lot shorter).

Other features that should be implemented should be requesting support from assets and packages higher up on the chain of command, with the possibility for them to veto (deterministically based on how many assets have already been committed) and actually having starmada groups work as groups instead of giving "kill this target" orders to a lowly frigate in the group while the rest of the group sits around and scratches their asses. ("Team A will consist of Stan, Kyle, Cartman, Chef, and myself. Team B will consist of Kenny. While Team A goes into the lounge and sips hot cocoa, Team B -- that's you, Kenny -- will go through the ventilation shaft here...")

[Galdred]

No one argue about the fact that fighters and fighter bombers should be powerful, but the problem is that it is a little over the top, as you don't need so many anti ship missiles to utterly destroy one:
I think that being able to destroy a destroyer with a single bomber wing in a single strike (as they can unload all their 6 ASM in one volley...) when the other ship cannot even retaliate is too much.
There should be more risk involved for the bombers, or it should take some time, so that they'd need to survive opposing fighters longer. As it has already been pointed out, the main problem is that frigates are too weak. But destroyers being outranged by fighters make them even weaker than in WW2, in which they served mainly as AA platforms, and much weaker than today, as they don't have long range cruise missiles.
decreasing ASM range would make bombers harder to fly, but would not make capital ships overpowered, as PDB damages are lousy against fighters.

It is not only a problem when controling capital ships, it makes bombing missions way easier than combat air patrol, or intercept missions (and much easier than frigate based ones).
The only "hard" thing with bomber missions is to time your strike in order to make the kill yourself for maximizing mission score.

[smaff]

The thing is, as pretty much the only real thing a commander of a destroyer/cruiser can do when faced with an attacking wing of bombers is either take the damage or run. Given the damage to a single destroyer can be really quite significant they'll probably want to run. So even if the bombers don't actually get any hits, the fact they've forced the destroyer to leave the field of battle for the length of a quantum recharge (not short) is as if not more significant (situation depending).
 
Any military planner is going to consider this to be one hell of a weakness. Your enemy, risking very little indeed, can deny you the presence of a significant fleet asset. You can of course assign fighter coverage to the Capital ships, and they will protect it very well... However you've just lost one of the main advantages of the Cap Ship group - it can go where the carrier isn't.
 
Carriers are presumably expensive, and more to the point, relatively rare. They can only project their force over the range of the bombers/fighters and in space this is a bit small. The aim of cap ship groups is to be able to survive out from under the wing of the Carrier, and frigates just can't - practically anything can take them down.
 
If there was much supply chain happening (where you need to restock - though this may be done in down time), and that the frieghters that carry this are actually modeled in the game as availiable targets, then the frigate may have a role - essentially as pirates :> Unfortunately though you could easily add in missions where there's frieghters you need to destroy/make run etc. it won't actually affect the disposition of the enemy forces without some seriously heavy mission design.
 

[Bryax]

ORIGINAL: smaff

Well, frigates are pretty fragile, and to be honest I'm not sure about what they're actually supposed to do, and as such, why anyone bothers to build them. Pretty much the best thing to do when assault fighters turn up is to order your ships to quantum out.

Frigates are built for one purpose: because they can consistently blow the s**t out of fighters. Get in within 50k of a frigate, you'll start taking hits. A cruiser or destroyer doesn't have -anything- for fighters except PDB, and any compentent pilot can knock those out. Frigates, on the other hand, are nasty.

[wdboyd]

ORIGINAL: Bryax

Frigates are built for one purpose: because they can consistently blow the s**t out of fighters. Get in within 50k of a frigate, you'll start taking hits. A cruiser or destroyer doesn't have -anything- for fighters except PDB, and any compentent pilot can knock those out. Frigates, on the other hand, are nasty.

Quite right Bryax. The Frigates of Starshatter are primarily meant for pickets against enemy fighters and or bombers. They are one of the smallest capital ships and therefore have the smallest integrity points. Hit points. For this reason, it take less hits from enmey harpoons to do them in. That is why most people have little love for the FF. Versus other capitals they are a bit on the weak side.

I have noticed, in my mission building efforts, that frigates under AI control won't easily go up against larger captital ship. They need to be assigned an assault or intercept mission versus larger ships or they won't be as aggressive as you want when the AI is in control. Hey, maybe the AI is smarter than we think.

The frigates I created for the Cartel fleet have a bit more offensive power than the stock frigates. They have more AA turrets that have a great rate of fire and good range. Not to mention the Mk7 batteries. I added one of my CKG1 main gun turrets to it to supplement its laser. My frigates can hurt other capital ships and defend versus fighter/attack craft. Still, it remains the smallest and most vulnerable of the capital ships. But remember, if the enemy uses up its harpoon missiles versus the frigates, they won't be available to target the larger ships and carriers.

That's good news for the fleet. Well, except for the gallant frigate captains out there. [:'(]

Salute. [:D]

[Bryax]

ORIGINAL: wdboyd

ORIGINAL: Bryax

Frigates are built for one purpose: because they can consistently blow the s**t out of fighters. Get in within 50k of a frigate, you'll start taking hits. A cruiser or destroyer doesn't have -anything- for fighters except PDB, and any compentent pilot can knock those out. Frigates, on the other hand, are nasty.

Quite right Bryax. The Frigates of Starshatter are primarily meant for pickets against enemy fighters and or bombers. They are one of the smallest capital ships and therefore have the smallest integrity points. Hit points. For this reason, it take less hits from enmey harpoons to do them in. That is why most people have little love for the FF. Versus other capitals they are a bit on the weak side.

I have noticed, in my mission building efforts, that frigates under AI control won't easily go up against larger captital ship. They need to be assigned an assault or intercept mission versus larger ships or they won't be as aggressive as you want when the AI is in control. Hey, maybe the AI is smarter than we think.

The frigates I created for the Cartel fleet have a bit more offensive power than the stock frigates. They have more AA turrets that have a great rate of fire and good range. Not to mention the Mk7 batteries. I added one of my CKG1 main gun turrets to it to supplement its laser. My frigates can hurt other capital ships and defend versus fighter/attack craft. Still, it remains the smallest and most vulnerable of the capital ships. But remember, if the enemy uses up its harpoon missiles versus the frigates, they won't be available to target the larger ships and carriers.

That's good news for the fleet. Well, except for the gallant frigate captains out there. [:'(]

Salute. [:D]

I am one of those gallant frigate captains. At Vice Admiral, I still enjoy darting around the combar zone in a frigate, nailing strike fighters right and left, and letting the destroyers play with the big dogs

[Bryax]

ORIGINAL: wdboyd
I for one, think the games stock Frigates are pretty wimpy, even in their role as fighter screen.

One word: Range

Frigates die easy because they don't have range
This is why they are wimpy
Range of 65-85 for missiles, with a slower missile launch rate, might fix this.
I'd also like to see more effective sensors on frigates.
Finally, frigates would be more useful if they could be used in joint fighter/frigate assaults.

E.G.
6 F/A, full load ASM's
1 Frigate
Frigate screens and covers the F/A's, and the F/A's either pop off missiles at target of oppurtunity, or they ride the frigate escort in to a pre-picked target, and unload.

Finally, cruiser groups don't need a destroyer. Trade that destroyer for two frigates. I'd bet cruiser group performance on both sides would go up.

Finally, I'd like to see the advent of the anti-ship missile frigate. Simply put, a nike/athena launch tube with engines for fast attacks on enemy warships.

[&o]Frigates

[PegasusJF]

In the original StarShatter I greatly enjoyed that game, until I realized just how impotent my capships were against Anti-ship Missiles.
 
Simply put, for me to purchase the sequel, it would either have to be that the AI will provide adequate fighter cover against attack bombers and/or some sort of gatling system on cap ships (with the most in the frigates as others have stated.)  IIRC, almost all modern navy ships have some sort of point defense against missiles, it makes absolutely no sense that this design paradigm would be forgotten in the future.
 
This area simply must be balanced some how, until that happens, I'm afraid I can't spend the money on the new sequel, since it is a game breaker to me. 

[wdboyd]

Game breaker? [8|]
 
Has anyone else been able to win the games campaign with the current missile configuraton?
 
Assuming that it can be done... then nothing is actually broken other than your personal game preferences. [;)]
 
That't perfectly alright. One shouldn't play a game one doesn't like. [:(]
 
But I have found that intercepting and shooting down incoming attack craft before they get to my ships eliminates their missile attacks or at least a lot of them. But that's just me.

[JT]

ORIGINAL: PegasusJF
This area simply must be balanced some how, until that happens, I'm afraid I can't spend the money on the new sequel, since it is a game breaker to me.

The game's AI is pretty cool, and the fact that the campaign remembers all losses is probably the game's best selling point, but you're right in that the AI doesn't provide enough fighter cover for you or itself. Usually every time you jump in on an enemy carrier, you catch it merely running CAP missions around itself, and its cruisers and other assets are simply left to their own devices.

I don't think of it as much of a game breaker, since the enemy has the same disadvantage. If you don't like the enemy fighters kicking your capital ships' collective buttocks, the game has the wonderful feature of allowing you to transfer back to a fighter squadron to "thin out their numbers". =)

[Galdred]

ORIGINAL: JT

I don't think of it as much of a game breaker, since the enemy has the same disadvantage. If you don't like the enemy fighters kicking your capital ships' collective buttocks, the game has the wonderful feature of allowing you to transfer back to a fighter squadron to "thin out their numbers". =)

it is still boring though. I was pretty depressed when I came to the conclusion that I would have more effect on average flying a fighter-bomber than a cruiser, and that all of my hard earned ranks had been for nothing! Maybe if only the heavy bombers (the ones you only get about 15/carrier) were able to use Harpoon ASM, and the other ones were restricted to smaller range ASM it would not be such an issue.

[Player 5]

From my experience as a bomber pilot and as a cap ship pilot, it seems like the AI has an advantage whenever ASM's are involved wether the Ai is using them or they r bein used on the AI. I say this cuz usually most of my flight gets wiped out by PDB's either before or shortly after launching the missiles. Then when im usin cap ship, either the fighters take me out, or they get off the missiles be4 i can bring PDB's to bear on them since they are on top of the ship. IMO what would help is to give ships more complete fighter cover, not just the top or the front and rear

**EDIT** I didnt think about this, but it may just be that the ships were designed to show the difference between the TA and the Hegemony, with the TA more focused on anti-ship armaments than Anti-fighter armaments.

[JT]

ORIGINAL: Player 5

From my experience as a bomber pilot and as a cap ship pilot, it seems like the AI has an advantage whenever ASM's are involved wether the Ai is using them or they r bein used on the AI. I say this cuz usually most of my flight gets wiped out by PDB's either before or shortly after launching the missiles. Then when im usin cap ship, either the fighters take me out, or they get off the missiles be4 i can bring PDB's to bear on them since they are on top of the ship. IMO what would help is to give ships more complete fighter cover, not just the top or the front and rear

**EDIT** I didnt think about this, but it may just be that the ships were designed to show the difference between the TA and the Hegemony, with the TA more focused on anti-ship armaments than Anti-fighter armaments.

At what range are you unloading your ordnance? ASMs have an effective range of about 45-50 km. Fire all ordnance (wait until your flight has fired theirs), then order your package to form up and bug out, and chances are you'll have a damaged enemy capital ship with absolutely no friendly losses.

[Shadow_AUT]

hmmm... interesting opinions...

I have the following:

Fact 1: game is nearly balanced at all, Frigates are indeed, little bit "too vulnerable" to the missiles, thats right, and there are fighters who should cover these Capital ships, but... AI does NEVER send cover FIghters for Capital ships, so enemy bombers have fun and players losing even huge Capital ships in no Time...

Fact 2: Capital ships have shields, hmm i have NEVER seen any use of shields in this game, there are 2 bars over the target, green and blue, blue is shield, but it NEVER get hurt, instead of hurtig the Shields FIRST (with MIssiles and Torps) they devastating the Hull of Caps, WHY the Heck are there Shields if they are not working anyway ?!?!

Fact 3: Teamwork is the Key, but AI does not work as a Team and so every Ship is a LONE WOLF on "Battlefield"

ahhh.. I dont want to forget, the DD's are not really balanced, there is one DD in the first Campaign who can fire upon your DD from a too great Distance with Weapons, which I dont know what they are, but they are destroying your DD in 10 seconds, NO CHANCE... +lol+

[Voyager]

Only started fairly playing not to long ago, but the kill DD's mission did seem a bit to easy.

It does strike me as rather odd that the capital class ships do not have longer ranged missiles than their fighter wings do, considering their much higher stowage, computational, and sensor capacity, and their much higher costs. It also strikes me as peculiar that they have as limited EWar capacity as they do. (In fact, I'm a little unhappy with the very light CM load fighters carry, but that's another issue.)

Unfortunately, I don't have time to expound upon it at any length right now, but poke around in the Honour Harrington series for ways that capships can defend against smaller vessels. The recent two are particularly useful, as they follow a back-and-forth between fighter and dreadnought dominance, as each field counters the other's advances.

Addendum: After some number checking, it looks as though two fighters should be able to carry enough conventional ordinance to down any capital class in the game, first pass, and can unload them at an equal or greater range than the capital class ships can respond from. Were the fighters staring at the top of a potential well, and were cap ships in danger of sinking, I could believe this, but with both starting out at the same effective altitude, and neither in particular danger of negative buoyancy, it does stretch credibility just a bit.