Missile
Limited ammunition and fire rate make missiles unsuitable as a primary weapon, and missile ships play a support role. However 80% of combat ships have missile mounts and most of the rest have flexible mounts. Missiles have no flux cost, are usually guided weapons, have long range, can be fired off-bore, deal huge damage, and have specialised types. A small mount can have a big punch, even if it can only punch once.
High explosive missiles are most common and excel against Armor. Weaker hits have more damage negated but the single large strike a missile is the most efficient anti-armor weapon. Specialised anti-shield missiles can quickly bring down shields, or timed to cause an overload.
At their core missile weapons require good timing and judgement to use, and have their place in every battle and every fleet.
Missile terminology
Missile weapons have some acronyms and jargon involved. Missiles, torpedos and rockets are all called missile weapons, although the distinction that rocket weapons are unguided still holds true.
| SRM : | Short-range missile, range 1000 to 2000 |
| MRM : | Medium-range missile, range 2500 |
| LRM : | Long-range missile, range 4000 |
| DEM : | Directed energy munition, these missiles fire beams at the target when close |
| MIRV : | Multiple independant re-entry vehicles, this missile has multiple warheads that split close to target |
| MDEM : | Multiple directed energy weapons, a cross between DRM and MIRV |
| MLRS : | Multiple launch rocket system, this weapon is meant to fire in very large bursts |
Missile overview and types
- There are four torpedos: Atropos (small), Hammer (all sizes), Reaper (all sizes), Dragonfire (medium/large)
- There are eight small missiles that have small & medium mounts: Annihilator, Breach, Sabot, Gazer, Gorgon, Harpoon, Salamander, Swarmer (Swarmer is small only)
- There are four large missiles (4): Squall, Hurricane, Hydra, Locust
- The Pilim LRM breaks the rule and comes in medium & large sizes. It has gratuitous range and a harrassment role.
- The Proximity Charge Launcher (medium) is a rocket that did not appear above. It is the medium part of the anti-fighter trio with the Swarmer and Locust.
Racks, launchers, & pods
Most small missiles have a small-size launcher version, and a medium-size pod version that holds and fires more rounds. A few missiles though have a rack-mount instead of a launcher. Torpedos can have a similar arrangement.
- These missiles have two small mounts - one single (torpedo) or double (missile) mount, and one rack mount. They can still have a medium-size pod mount
- The racks hold one more round than the single/double version. There big benefit is that they have a small firing delay - only one second between launches instead of the 10 seconds typical for a pod or launcher
- The Atropos, Hammer, Harpoon, and Sabot rounds have these variants.
Missile guidance
Missile weapons usually guide themselves to the target, and may not even need to be pointed at the target
- Torpedos are either unguided or poorly guided - poorly guided meaning they track but need to be fired toward the target
- Almost all missiles are both guided and can be fired off-bore (fired out the back of the ship) and still guide themselves to the target. Sabot missiles don't have off-bore capability. Annihilator rockets are of course unguided.
- Missiles have a tracking rating, which are very poor, poor, medium, good, and excellent.
Enemy defenses
Targets (sometimes termed 'ships') typically have Shields and Armor to protect their Hulls, and Engines to move them out of harms way, but missileers face additional challenges.
- There exist both ballistic and energy point defences. They are both common and effective in shooting down missiles, as well as fighters. Some missiles have more hit point to survive through fire, some are fired in salvos, and some launch an attack from stand-off range.
- Flares come as Ship Systems only but are still quite common. The Active flares intercept missiles, while ordinary flares are fired in large bursts and attract missiles towards them - although an ECCM Package can mitigate this. The Decoy is used by fighters to distract PD.
- Fast maneuvering targets are hard to hit, and not all missiles are maneuverable enough. The more a missile has to maneuver, the less straight line range it will have. Weapons like unguided torpedoes will struggle to hit small targets, and even DEM energy beam bursts can miss if something is moving fast enough.
Special warheads and firing modes
Due to the existence of shields, point defenses, and evasive maneuvers, the classic 'fly-into-the-enemy-and-see-what-explodes' approach is often augmented by special types of missile and ways of firing them. The classic style is found only on finisher role missiles that targets with reduced defenses.
Directed energy munitions (DEM) & submunitions
DEM missiles fire a beam at the target when they get close, while kinetic submunitions fire ballistic projectiles at the enemy at close range. This is the only method for missiles to do energy or kinetic damage to a target. The beam-type missiles all have the names of monsters.
- The Gorgon, Dragonfire, and Hydra deal energy damage in a 1 second burst
- The Gazer deals kinetic damage with a 10 second Gravitron Beam
- The Sabot missile fires a spread of kinetic projectiles at close range for kinetic and EMP damage
- The short-burst energy beams can still miss rapidly moving targets since aim and then take a moment to fire.
Dual-stage
The Pilum LRM and Squall MLRS have two-stage designs with opposite aims. The Pilum missiles travel slowly with poor tracking but at extreme range, with a 2nd stage that is fast and nimble. The Squall MLRS fires a huge salvo that only track for a short period before becoming unguided. The Sabot fires a spread of kinetic submunitions, which could be considered a second stage.
MIRVs and MDEMs
MIRV weapons split apart as they approach the target, in practice into 5-11 maneuvering warheads. The Hurricane MIRV and Hydra MDEM are the main types. They have an advantage over salvo/burst weapons in that all their munitions will arrive at once.
Salvos / MLRS
- MLRS: The Squall fires 20 missiles over 10 seconds, and the Locust fires 30 over 3 seconds
- Burst weapons (like the Breach, Swarmer, Annihilator Launcher and Pilum) fire bursts of 3-6 with a short delay between each
- Continuous weapons: Racks have a delay of 1s for their few rounds, but the Annihilator Rocket Pod has 100 rockets fired with a 0.5s delay. These weapons can choose how many missiles to fire
- Salvo mounts: Usually pods, the larger versions of missiles often fire an extra missile or two
Maneuvering
The Salamander MRM is a heat-seeking weapon with an anti-engine role. Instead of attacking the target head on it will attempt to fly around to strike it in the read. This can increase time exposed to point defense but can bypass enemy shields, in addition to its purpose of disabling the enemy vessel with frag/emp damage to the engine.
EMP arcing
The Pilum LRM not only fires bursts of 2-stage missiles, it is also an EMP weapon with the special EMP arc characteristic - it can cause EMP arcs to jump to target systems even when only hitting their shield. The Salamander deals EMP damage but does not share this special property.
Hullmods, Skills, and Ship Systems
In addition to hullmods that genericaly improve weapon ranges, turret turn rates and ranges, some hullmods affect missiles directly.
- Expanded Missile Racks doubles missile ammunition for each weapon
- Missile Autoloader increases missile ammunition, shared across weapons
- ECCM Package reduces the effect of ECM, Flares, and increases missile speed and maneuverability
Some ship systems enhance missile capability.
- Fast Missile Racks is a ship system for a number of ships that can complete reloads instantly
- Missile Autoforge is a ship system on the Gryphon can fully restock missile weapons twice in a battle
- The Gryphon only
The Missile Specialisation capstone combat skill doubles missile ammunition capacity, and also increases missile hitpoint by 25%. At Elite is also increases ammunition regenration (for the Pilum and Swarmer) and rate of fire by 25% each, and missile damage by 10%.
Freindly Fire
Most missiles can pass over friendly ships while they still have guidance, such as Harpoons. These missiles will still present a friendly fire threat if they fizzle out due to exceeding their flight time or EMP effects. Some of the heavier torpedoes can always cause friendly fire and particular care needs to be taken with these, of particular note the Reaper-class Torpedo.
Missile Tables
| Torpedo | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Damage | Single | Small | Medium | Large | |
| Atropos | HE | Atropos-class Torpedo (Single) | Atropos-class Torpedo Rack | ||
| Hammer | HE | Hammer-class Torpedo (Single) | Hammer-class Torpedo rack | Jackhammer launcher | Hammer Barrage launcher |
| Reaper | HE | Reaper-class Torpedo | Typhoon Reaper Launcher | Cyclone Reaper Launcher | |
| Dragonfire | Energy | Dragonfire DEM Torpedo | Dragonfire Torpedo Pod | ||
| Small Missiles | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Role | Damage | Double | Small | Medium | |
| Annihilator | Anti-Armor / Pressure | HE | Annihilator Rocket Launcher | Annihilator Rocket Pod | |
| Breach | Anti-Armor | HE | Breach SRM launcher | Breach SRM Pod | |
| Sabot | Anti-Shield | KE | Sabot SRM (Double) | Sabot SRM rack | Sabot SRM Pod |
| Gazer | Suppression | KE | Gazer DEM SRM launcher | Gazer SRM Pod | |
| Gorgon | Assault / Finisher | Energy | Gorgon DEM SRM launcher | Gorgon SRM Pod | |
| Harpoon | Finisher | HE | Harpoon MRM (Double) | Harpoon MRM rack | Harpoon MRM Pod |
| Salamander | Anti-Engine | Frag/EMP | Salamander MRM launcher | Salamander MRM Pod | |
| Swarmer | Anti Small Craft | HE | Swarmer SRM Launcher | ||
| Large Missiles | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Role | Damage | Notes | |
| Squall MLRS | Suppression | KE | FIres 20 missiles than only track briefly |
| Hurricane MIRV Launcher | Finisher | HE | Fires a single MIRV missile |
| Hydra MDEM Launcher | General | Energy | Fires a MIRV that splits into 6 DEM warheads |
| Locust SRM Launcher | Anti Small Craft | Frag | Fires 30 rapid missiles |
| Special Missiles | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Role | Small | Medium | Large |
| Anti-Small Craft | Swarmer SRM Launcher | Proximity Charge Launcher | Locust SRM Launcher |
| Long Range Missiles | Harpoon MRM launcher | Harpoon MRM Pod | |
| Pilum LRM Launcher | Pilum LRM Catapult | ||
| Small | Medium | Large | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Energy | |||
| Fragmentation | |||
| High Explosive | |||
| Kinetic |