Manual: Missile defenses¶
Missile defense happens in stages. Defensive weapons can destroy missiles before impact; Lightning Field can destroy surviving ordnance; then cloaking, displacement, and missile evasion can prevent individual warheads from hitting. Torpedoes bypass weapon interception but still face the later defensive systems.
Intercepting missiles¶
Missiles can be shot down by regular and PD mount beam weapons, Interceptors, Anti-Missile Rockets, Pulsars, Plasma Flux, and Spatial Compressors. Spatial Compressors can also fire automatically against incoming fighters.
Torpedoes cannot be targeted or damaged by these interception weapons.
Special defensive systems¶
Three special systems can defend against both missiles and torpedoes:
- Lightning Field: has a 50% chance to destroy each missile, torpedo or fighter attempting to strike the equipped ship.
- Cloaking Device: Under the default rules, missile warheads and torpedoes have an independent 50% chance to miss, but only while the device is active and the ship remains cloaked. Mods can replace this fallback with a configured cloak-evasion value.
- Displacement Device: Missile warheads and torpedoes have a 30% chance of missing completely, regardless of any other equipment or considerations.
Note that Lightning Field acts before MIRV missile warheads separate but Cloak and Displacer effects happen afterwards.
Missile evasion¶
Missiles and torpedoes that survive interception and reach a ship have a 100% base chance to hit unless one of the ship's later defenses stops them. Missile evasion can come from the following sources:
| Source | Evasion bonus | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| ECM Jammer | +70 | - |
| Multi-Wave Jammer | +100 | - |
| Wide Area Jammer | +130 | Also gives +70 to the rest of the fleet.* |
| Inertial Stabilizer | +25 | - |
| Inertial Nullifier | +50 | - |
| Ship Defense -20 racial trait | -20 | - |
| Ship Defense +25 racial trait | +25 | - |
| Ship Defense +50 racial trait | +50 | - |
| Green crew | 0 | - |
| Regular crew | +7 | - |
| Veteran crew | +15 | - |
| Elite crew | +25 | - |
| Ultra Elite crew | +37 | - |
| Helmsman fleet leader | Half the Helmsman value | Uses the applicable active fleet-leader bonus. |
*The Wide Area Jammer fleet bonus does not stack with other jammers; only the best jammer bonus applies.
The probability of a single missile warhead getting jammed is:
jamming chance = defender missile evasion - attacker scanner bonus
This probability is halved if the missile has ECCM (Electronic Counter Countermeasures).
Scanner values reduce the target's missile evasion:
| Scanner | Evasion adjustment |
|---|---|
| Space Scanner | 0 |
| Tachyon Scanner | -20 |
| Neutron Scanner | -40 |
| Sensors | -70 |
The jamming chance is calculated for each warhead, so it may happen that not all warheads of a MIRV missile hit, but some get jammed.
Note that all monsters, the Guardian and Antarans have a Neutron Scanner onboard in tactical combat, and Sensors in strategic combat.
Dragon Breath is a special torpedo with standard damage of 300 and dissipation of 15 damage per square. Scanner-based missile evasion does not stop it, although other applicable defenses such as Lightning Field, an active Cloaking Device, and Displacement Device still act normally.
Example¶
The probability that an ECCM warhead guided by a Tachyon Scanner gets jammed by a target with the Wide Area Jammer fleet bonus (+70), Inertial Stabilizer (+25), a racial penalty (-20), Regular crew (+7), and a Helmsman value of 10 is:
P = [(70 + 25 - 20 + 7 + (10 / 2)) - 20] / 2 = 33%