RFE: More Progression Paths for Missiles

[anonusername]

Currently, the only ways to improve missiles ability to defeat PD are
1. Swarm launches that overwhelm enemy PD.
2. More dv to increase relative velocity and give enemy PD less time to shoot missiles.
3. Increase the probable kill radius using more powerful explosives or shaped charges.

Notably, (1) has a serious mismatch with the progression to increasingly powerful nuclear weapons which usually only require a single clean hit and have limited magazine sizes. (2) lacks any real tech progression after the mid-game nuclear powered torpedo techs. I think (3) is in a good place right now.

Overall, I think this makes the missile gameplay somewhat one dimensional. There is essentially a straight progression from hyperbolic to hydrolox to nuclear engines to shaped nuclear warheads. The hydrolox and non-shaped nukes are rendered somewhat ineffective because conventional missiles already have very high damage and are better at overwhelming PD.

IRL speed and numbers are of course important methods used to penetrate air defense, as seen with the recent focus on hypersonics and drone swarms. However, they aren't the only method used. Historically missiles have used technologies like sea skimming to complicate targeting, and there have even been "stealth missiles" with small radar signatures. There are also ways to saturate the terminal air defense with a single missile by using MIRV, decoys, etc. These sorts of technologies intended to create a single expensive, but hard to intercept, missile are lacking in TI.

I think the following techs would improve the game.
1. Missile ECM. This could represent passive stealth measures to make it harder to detect before the final burn, or active jamming. The key point would be allowing the creation of more expensive missiles which have a chance of causing PD to miss.
2. Missile Hardening. Currently one hit will always kill a missile, even from a particle PD. This tech would allow shielding the missile using more advanced materials
3. Missile Lightweight Materials. Basically the same as (2), but applying late-game techs like adamantine to reducing system mass rather than increasing durability. This would produce
4. Missile advanced propulsion. Make missiles with more dv via improved propulsion tech.
4a. Improved Fission propulsion. After researching advanced fission or a similar tech, allow upgrading to a more advanced fission drive with better EV and/or thrust.
4b. Fusion propulsion. Add a compact fusion reactors tech for late game missiles which use exotics and are competitive with the late-game alien missiles even without a shaped nuclear charge. Alternatively, make bigger multi-stage missiles with an initial fusion stage that launch multiple sub munitions after picking up speed.
4c. Antimatter propulsion. Add a follow-on tech for anti-matter torps which converts them to use one of the anti-matter drive technologies.
5. Missile decoys. Make nuclear missiles launch decoys ~300km from the target to distract enemy PD.

This is probably too many techs to research individually, but I think there is opportunity for consolidation. e.g. Missile ECM could be automatically upgraded to the latest unlocked ECM rather than having multiple models. Hardening and lightweight materiels could be different missile variants unlocked by the same project. Late-game missiles could make these advances mandatory, so researching anti-matter torpedoes will always include the best engines, ECM, etc. to the very expensive torpedo can actually hit a target.

[PAwleus]

I hope you realize in your missile considerations that they are much, much better in the missile maneuvering combat (your post indicates that you think only about the static combat). Paradoxically, because of how the combat AI and the effective range works, in such combat missiles with lower amounts of deltaV are way better: https://steamcommunity.com/app/1176470/ ... 556586222/

[anonusername]

I hope you realize in your missile considerations that they are much, much better in the missile maneuvering combat (your post indicates that you think only about the static combat). Paradoxically, because of how the combat AI and the effective range works, in such combat missiles with lower amounts of deltaV are way better: https://steamcommunity.com/app/1176470/ ... 556586222/

I consider that to fall under swarm launches, since it relies on the superior numbers and clustering of missiles to overwhelm PD. I think the game already handles this pretty well. More late-game missiles instead of only more torpedos would be nice, but all they really need is more of the same. i.e. Larger magazines, more dv, and denser launches.

I don't think it's the low amount of deltaV that is better on missiles, however. The higher max acceleration means missiles burn their dV multiple times faster than torpedos. The high acceleration gives most missiles a large window to increase dV without impacting launch behavior outside of extreme close range combat. e.g. The python's dV can be doubled and it still won't start the final burn until fairly close to a target.

[PAwleus]

I don't think it's the low amount of deltaV that is better on missiles, however.

The thing is you are mistaken - as you could see in the linked thread, lower deltaV has huge impact on the maneuvering combat as it increases the effective range of missiles more and allows in this way to fight against higher deltaV missiles even without entering their effective range for the whole combat so that your ships are entirely safe. This is a crucial factor why currently Riverjacks are better than Vipers and Sindwinders are the best not just because of their shaped-charge warheads.

[anonusername]

I don't think it's the low amount of deltaV that is better on missiles, however.

The thing is you are mistaken - as you could see in the linked thread, lower deltaV has huge impact on the maneuvering combat as it increases the effective range of missiles more and allows in this way to fight against higher deltaV missiles even without entering their effective range for the whole combat so that your ships are entirely safe. This is a crucial factor why currently Riverjacks are better than Vipers and Sindwinders are the best not just because of their shaped-charge warheads.

I am saying the benefit is lower burn time, which comes from dV/max accel. e.g. the Sidewinder is 3.37kps/18.27gees = 18.81 seconds. The Acheron is 9.51kps/4.89gees = 3 minutes 18 seconds. If the Acheron had the same max accel, it would be 53 seconds. If the Acheron had the same acceleration as the Racer, it would be only 32 seconds.

[PAwleus]

It looks like you think only in static combat categories - in the maneuvering combat the acceleration of your missiles is almost meaningless as long as it's higher than enemy ships have (which it almost always is) because the main relative-to-target velocity of missiles comes from your ships and you can take as long as you want to accelerate them using distancing tactics (providing your ships have enough deltaV and at least equal acceleration to the enemy's).

Low deltaV of missiles is a hugely more important factor as it allows you to fight entirely safely (against current AI) outside of the effective range of any enemy weapon (especially in case of the Aliens as they don't have any low deltaV missiles) starting from the early game (as early as 2026) - you don't need any PD and any armor and your ships are still entirely safe against any alien weapon providing you arrange to have enough missiles to at least mission-kill enemy ships (and it's still easy to do so with some experience despite increased randomness introduced with changed ECM and penetration mechanics but as a general rule 2 Escorts vs 1 dedicated PD in the early game maneuvering combat is usually more than enough, while in the late game even 1 Escort vs 1 dedicated PD is overkill, no matter the enemy fleet composition).

[anonusername]

It looks like you think only in static combat categories - in the maneuvering combat the acceleration of your missiles is almost meaningless as long as it's higher than enemy ships have (which it almost always is) because the main relative-to-target velocity of missiles comes from your ships and you can take as long as you want to accelerate them using distancing tactics (providing your ships have enough deltaV and at least equal acceleration to the enemy's).

Low deltaV of missiles is a hugely more important factor as it allows you to fight entirely safely (against current AI) outside of the effective range of any enemy weapon (especially in case of the Aliens as they don't have any low deltaV missiles) starting from the early game (as early as 2026) - you don't need any PD and any armor and your ships are still entirely safe against any alien weapon providing you arrange to have enough missiles to at least mission-kill enemy ships (and it's still easy to do so with some experience despite increased randomness introduced with changed ECM and penetration mechanics but as a general rule 2 Escorts vs 1 dedicated PD in the early game maneuvering combat is usually more than enough, while in the late game even 1 Escort vs 1 dedicated PD is overkill, no matter the enemy fleet composition).

I'm not sure you're actually reading my posts. I am telling you the low burn times which enable the tactics from your steam post are determined by *both* acceleration *and* deltaV. If you doubled both dV and accel, the burn time (and hence distance from the target at which the burn begins) would be *identical*. You can test this by giving your favorite missile the same accel as a nuclear torpedo and see how the behavior changes. It will start burning at over 3x the distance from the target.

[PAwleus]

I'm not sure you're actually reading my posts. I am telling you the low burn times which enable the tactics from your steam post are determined by *both* acceleration *and* deltaV.

I read your posts but you apparently don't understand how the game works in this area so I have to tell you this again: the distancing tactics are not enabled by low burn times at all - they are enabled by the difference between the effective range of own and enemy weapons. As you can see in the equation for the effective range of missiles it has nothing to do with their acceleration.

If by the tactics you mean just stacking missiles then it is also not enabled by low burn times (they have some impact, though, in extreme cases) but by the maneuver angle parameter that is not shown in-game (it's not dependent on acceleration but only on the warhead type). There is an alternative method of stacking for missiles with low maneuver angle at lower than stacking relative velocities and it is dependent on missile acceleration being similar to ship's one (so rather long burn times).

Substantially lower acceleration of missiles (like 9g, instead of 18g) with the same deltaV would actually make the tactics stronger, not weaker, but only because of the final acceleration phase. If you proportionally increased both acceleration and deltaV of a missile then in the maneuvering combat it would behave very differently in comparison to others because its effective range would be much lower (so it would be much worse) but basically the same effect you would have by increasing just its deltaV.

[anonusername]

I'm not sure you're actually reading my posts. I am telling you the low burn times which enable the tactics from your steam post are determined by *both* acceleration *and* deltaV.

I read your posts but you apparently don't understand how the game works in this area so I have to tell you this again: the distancing tactics are not enabled by low burn times at all - they are enabled by the difference between the effective range of own and enemy weapons. As you can see in the equation for the effective range of missiles it has nothing to do with their acceleration.

If by the tactics you mean just stacking missiles then it is also not enabled by low burn times (they have some impact, though, in extreme cases) but by the maneuver angle parameter that is not shown in-game (it's not dependent on acceleration but only on the warhead type). There is an alternative method of stacking for missiles with low maneuver angle at lower than stacking relative velocities and it is dependent on missile acceleration being similar to ship's one (so rather long burn times).

Substantially lower acceleration of missiles (like 9g, instead of 18g) with the same deltaV would actually make the tactics stronger, not weaker, but only because of the final acceleration phase. If you proportionally increased both acceleration and deltaV of a missile then in the maneuvering combat it would behave very differently in comparison to others because its effective range would be much lower (so it would be much worse) but basically the same effect you would have by increasing just its deltaV.

Yes, I am talking about the stacking and other tactics that enable the strategy relating to dV. I don't think we have any disagreement that non-dV stats like rotation_degps have value.

Lower dV doesn't increase the effective range, and doubling both acceleration and dV wouldn't change the effective range at all. It would actually make the missile better at engaging agile targets because of increased maneuverability in proportion to the missile's agility stats. The maximum rotation of the missile also has nothing to do with dV anyway. The final acceleration phase is the only thing dV matters for, and it is calculated by dV/accel.

EDIT: Specifically, the only thing in your post that I identified as impacted by lower dV is the need to avoid late-game torpedoes because their high dV causes them to start burning immediately upon launch, creating greater spacing.

[PAwleus]

Lower dV doesn't increase the effective range, and doubling both acceleration and dV wouldn't change the effective range at all.

I don't know why you can't see the equation for the in-game effective range of missiles so I add it also here for you to see clearly:

Effective range = Nominal range * (1 + Relative velocity / Nominal deltaV of missile)

Where do you see the missile acceleration in it (Relative Velocity is at launch)? There are only 2 parameters of missiles in consideration here: Nominal Range and Nominal deltaV. Thus, you are wrong, only lower deltaV does increase the effective range of missiles. Why don't you test it in-game?

Haven't you realized from the linked thread that basing on this knowledge I had created the calculating speadsheet (link to it is there) that you can use to easily find safe combat solutions for low-deltaV ship designs? It's heavily tested in-game, also during Brutal campaigns.

Edit:

EDIT: Specifically, the only thing in your post that I identified as impacted by lower dV is the need to avoid late-game torpedoes because their high dV causes them to start burning immediately upon launch, creating greater spacing.

This one you also misunderstood because eg. Athena at over 15,27km/s relative-to-target velocity at launch presumably (I haven't tested it) can also be stacked when launch is started at its effective range (they can also be stacked to same degree by the second method). Problem is your ships would be unable to avoid entering the enemy effective missile range - this is why they are so bad in the maneuvering combat that I haven't even tried to test them (but tested those with below 10km/s deltaV and they certainly can be perfectly stacked)

[anonusername]

I think maybe we're talking about different things. When I hear effective range, I think "the range at which the weapon is effective against a target". This range will be different based on the target, in particular how maneuverable it is, how much armor it has, etc. Usually it will be different for e.g. point vs. area targets, etc. e.g. GetShipEffectiveScaledCombatRange is 60% of laser range and 75% of all other ranges as a heuristic for lasers having lower effective ranges. It sounds like you're talking about the targeting (i.e. maximum) range?

Regardless, the EffectiveRangeAgainstProjectiles_km for missiles is just the targeting range, the only thing I can find which takes both targetingRange_km and deltaV_kps into account is maxRunTime_s, which *increases* with dV. The actual range checked when determining if the weapon can fire is scaledTargetingRange, which is just the targeting range multiplied by the scaling factor for converting kilometers to the game's internal distance measurement.

EDIT: Also, I have tested different dV and acceleration numbers in game. The check on when to begin the burn is literally the distance between the missile and the target divided by the dot product of the relative position and velocity vectors of the missile and targets compared to the burn time. I think they use this rather than calculating the burn distance e.g. (4.9(x kps/1 gees)^2/s^2) meters in order to better account for the possible need to maneuver or existing velocity. There is also an additional check to enable burns if the missile is moving *away* from the target, or based on ManeuverParameter, which is derived from manuverAngle_deg. I'm not sure what the significance of the ManeuverParameter is, all my testing has either resulted in the expected final burn or "oops, wrong direction" logic. I suspect it might be to adjust course prior to a final burn, although I am also curious what happens if the manuverAngle_deg is exactly 90 or 180 degrees.

EDIT2: For length based examples, a lancehead will have a burn distance of about 53km with no relative velocity and 69km with the a starting 650mps velocity. A hestia torpedo will have 3570 km and 3820km respectively. A hestia with the same acceleration as the lancehead would instead have a burn distance of 954km and 1022km. The difference becomes larger with increased relative starting velocity from maneuvering because the bigger the initial velocity the more significant burn time becomes. A styx, which has a less ridiculous dV than the hestia but still double that of a lancehead, would have burn distances of 225km and 258km if acceleration was identical to a lancehead, compared to the actual values of 842km+.

In my experience of testing absurd values for acceleration and dV, giving a torpedo 60g acceleration and a corresponding dV just causes it to zoom across the map and delete anything that can't shoot it down. It can maneuver to hit even gunships just fine because it requires a proportionally smaller burn time to correct the velocity vector. It doesn't do well vs. PD because it doesn't cluster at all, but that could be solved by tuning the dV to trigger the final burn within targeting range.

[PAwleus]

I am not sure why you are so fixed on missile burn times and repeat obvious about it - currently, their importance in the context of the maneuvering tactics is very small (to the point of being almost meaningless in the late game) in comparison to the effective range of missiles (range at which missiles start to be launched when you are coming from outside of it) and burn times or in particular missile acceleration have nothing to do with the range. Missiles don't have to be perfectly stacked for the tactics to fully work (to mission-kill enemy while being safe) and in case of Pythons the perfect stacking is even contraindicated but their effective range HAS to be long enough for your ships to avoid entering the enemy effective range because only then the tactics are most effective against current AI.

Test it in combat (Skirmish or campaign - it doesn't matter) and you will see (range is best tested against stationary targets because then you know exactly what your range and relative velocity at launch is - UI isn't helping much otherwise).

Edit: You can also see effective ranges of some chosen by me missiles in relation to relative-to-target velocity at launch in my calculator and compare them fast with the distance needed to launch and decelerate as to realize what their viability is against each others. Or just you could use it as it's intended to find safe deltaV expenditure solutions.

[anonusername]

I am not sure why you are so fixed on missile burn times and repeat obvious about it - currently, their importance in the context of the maneuvering tactics is very small (to the point of being almost meaningless in the late game) in comparison to the effective range of missiles (range at which missiles start to be launched when you are coming from outside of it) and burn times or in particular missile acceleration have nothing to do with the range. Missiles don't have to be perfectly stacked for the tactics to fully work (to mission-kill enemy while being safe) and in case of Pythons the perfect stacking is even contraindicated but their effective range HAS to be long enough for your ships to avoid entering the enemy effective range because only then the tactics are most effective against current AI.

Test it in combat (Skirmish or campaign - it doesn't matter) and you will see (range is best tested against stationary targets because then you know exactly what your range and relative velocity at launch is - UI isn't helping much otherwise).

Edit: You can also see effective ranges of some chosen by me missiles in relation to relative-to-target velocity at launch in my calculator and compare them fast with the distance needed to launch and decelerate as to realize what their viability is against each others. Or just you could use it as it's intended to find safe deltaV expenditure solutions.

Mostly because this post is about providing more variety of missiles to make missile combat strategies more varied, and you specifically brought up the dV. My point is that while existing nuclear powered torpedoes have more dV than they need, adding more powerful engines with more dV would still be beneficial *if* other performance metrics like acceleration and agility increase to match. There is no point arguing on the value of outrangeing your opponent or of swarm tactics to overwhelm PD because we don't disagree on that.

I don't think we're going to agree on the effects of dV on targeting range. I simply haven't been able to reproduce by testing or inspection the results you claim wherein higher dV decreases targeting range. Higher relative velocity is definitely beneficial to missiles since they don't provide their own velocity on the approach, but you seem to be describing actually being able to fire them from beyond their maximum range based on dV.

[Jack Ojakco]

This is the tactics Pawleus is talking about in action. 90 ships battle, starts in 11th minute. No shot fired by aliens:
https://youtu.be/OoMg_WwSYi8?si=9Z9s5KI6ZGuCKyYb

[PAwleus]

I don't think we're going to agree on the effects of dV on targeting range. I simply haven't been able to reproduce by testing or inspection the results you claim wherein higher dV decreases targeting range. Higher relative velocity is definitely beneficial to missiles since they don't provide their own velocity on the approach, but you seem to be describing actually being able to fire them from beyond their maximum range based on dV.

This is not a matter of opinion but clear facts and I am surprised you've failed to notice them even after being told about them when there are huge differences to find and they are very important for your suggestions of progression paths. Eg. at 7km/s retative-to-target velocity at launch the difference in range between Vipers and Sidewinders (which have the same acceleration) is almost 700km and between Hestia and Sidewinders over 1100km! Because you've apparently proved to be so bad at testing I have just done them for you in the current validation version (0.4.83 Skirmish): https://imgur.com/a/zOt454k (all pictures are in Full HD so you can enlarge them after you copypaste their address)

[anonusername]

I don't think we're going to agree on the effects of dV on targeting range. I simply haven't been able to reproduce by testing or inspection the results you claim wherein higher dV decreases targeting range. Higher relative velocity is definitely beneficial to missiles since they don't provide their own velocity on the approach, but you seem to be describing actually being able to fire them from beyond their maximum range based on dV.

This is not a matter of opinion but clear facts and I am surprised you've failed to notice them even after being told about them when there are huge differences to find and they are very important for your suggestions of progression paths. Eg. at 7km/s retative-to-target velocity at launch the difference in range between Vipers and Sidewinders (which have the same acceleration) is almost 700km and between Hestia and Sidewinders over 1100km! Because you've apparently proved to be so bad at testing I have just done them for you in the current validation version (0.4.83 Skirmish): https://imgur.com/a/zOt454k (all pictures are in Full HD so you can enlarge them after you copypaste their address)

So, the range is still the targeting range for all of those examples. What changes is not the range, but the target position. I think what you're describing is the feature where you target the future position of the enemy rather than their current position. When the game calculates the intercept position during target acquisition, it uses the dV as the initial velocity of the missile, which can lead to odd results since the actual intercept after firing doesn't work this way.

[anonusername]

I tried changing the target acquisition calculation to use the initial burn logic from the missile movement and the resulting calculation is more accurate to the actual intercept. It ends up having problems with torpedos because it ignores the final burn, but that could be easily corrected by copying that logic as well and getting the average velocity across the whole intercept. Also, the calculated position is going to be wrong when the target's velocity is low since it won't actually reach the targeted position before the real intercept happens. To solve that, I think FirstOrderInterceptPosition would need to increment the position by the target velocity and not the relative velocity.

Code: Select all

		public override Vector3 GetPositionToTarget(IDamageable targetToCheck, out bool impossible)
		{
			if (targetToCheck == null)
			{
				impossible = true;
				return Vector3.zero;
			}
			Vector3 vector = targetToCheck.position - base.position;
			Vector3 vector2 = targetToCheck.velocityVector - base.combatant.velocityVector;
			float scaledDv = SpaceCombatManager.km_to_scale(this.missileTemplate.deltaV_kps);
			float shotspeed = 0f;
			float currentDot = Vector3.Dot(vector2, Vector3.Normalize(vector));
			float targetDot = scaledDv * ((this.missileTemplate.maneuver_angle != 0f) ? ((float)(1.0 / Math.Tan((double)(0.017453292f * this.missileTemplate.maneuver_angle)))) : 0f);
			float adjust = ((targetDot + currentDot > 0f) ? ((targetDot + currentDot) / currentDot * vector2 - vector2).magnitude : 0f);
			shotspeed += Mathf.Min(adjust, scaledDv);
			scaledDv -= shotspeed;
			IDamageableType damageableType = targetToCheck.damageableType;
			if (damageableType == IDamageableType.Ship || damageableType == IDamageableType.Missile)
			{
				return TISpaceCombatProjectileState.SecondOrderInterceptPosition(base.position, base.combatant.velocityVector, shotspeed, targetToCheck.position, targetToCheck.velocityVector, targetToCheck.accelerationVector, base.weaponTemplate.cooldown_s, out impossible);
			}
			return TISpaceCombatProjectileState.FirstOrderInterceptPosition(base.position, base.combatant.velocityVector, shotspeed, targetToCheck.position, targetToCheck.velocityVector, out impossible);
		}

[PAwleus]

Ah, I see, you prefer to regard it from the point of view of a missile - this is why you are talking about the targeting range which I've found meaningless since from the point of view of the launcher you can assign a target at any range. Your approach makes it more difficult to imagine (at least for me) spacial relations between ships in combat so it's more difficult to establish good tactics. I much prefer the terminology used on the Steam forum: nominal range - the maximum range at which you can launch at 0 relative-to-target velocity (stated in weapon parameters), effective range - the maximum range at which you can launch at a chosen relative-to-target velocity (effective range of lasers and plasma is defined differently).

It's good to take under consideration that range in this meaning is not the same as distance crossed by a missile.