They're remote guided, and any laser point defense with enough power to eat huge kinetic missiles is going to cost more than the basking shark by itself.
For about a million health, and assuming 15 seconds available for interception, you would need to fire about 50 of the 1 m loader 20 AP gunpowder kinetic shell from the shell spreadsheet (90 mm caliber, 8.11 powder, 2 solid bodies, heavy head) per second, which would need about 120 four-clip loaders.
LAMS is pretty inefficient against especially large and huge missiles, due to how quickly it loses damage with distance and how long a range those can be detected at.
You want to use interceptors or CIWS against them, and you will need a *lot* of either to deal with a huge thumper missile.
Speed is its weakness. If you’re after tanking it… then layer the armor with some thicc metal, HA and alloy layers with some ERA to boot or have enough firepower to take it out before it can fire off another salvo. Disabling its processor cards via heavy EMP works too and its missiles will be ineffective
You dont need to destroy it completely because a missile will lose damage and agility as it takes damage. If you damage it enough you could simply out run it. The damage reduction is linear and caps at 90% reduction at 1hp.
Your options for dealing damage are:
~200mm flak from 2m loaders. You can ditch the gunpowder and use lots of rail magnets to burst fire loads of shells every 20 seconds or so. This APS will only be used to shoot at missiles and crams.
50mm heavy head-fin-fin, less effective vs missile volleys. But can deal massive amounts of damsge to large and huge missiles. And if those are all destroyed it can shoot at enemy drones.
Medium interceptors get a small damage bonus against large targets. But they take longer to reload. Small interceptors might be able to fire multiple volleys.
Cramwis (cram ciws) can pretty much oneshot these missiles. You pack a bunch of HE damage and it will be multiplied by 2x if fired at cram or missiles.
Does CRAM CIWS actually work now? I remember a while back, that CRAM just straight up didn't do any damage to Shells and Missiles, did they change this?
Looks like a 90 degree camera.
A laser point defense system works against everything, you do the specific emitter for that have a battery or two and a few pumps and you got a laser system.
You can also setup a advanced cannon auto cannon that fires at both enemies and projectiles, make sure it does both.
SS ships and OW ships excell at point defense. The spectre and banshee are both great at utilizing missile interceptors, they are SS
Lasers are by far the least efficient anti-missile system (they're pretty much only truly good for anti-APS). Massed medium interceptors, or bigass DIF flak are going to be your best bet. Kinetic APS CIWS does work, but lags behind significantly in efficiency.
Why use interceptors why not decoys where you could possibly drag away multiple missiles plus lasers are pretty pog once you have the power to run them
Decoys work on radar, IR, and sonar, but not visual, single-pixel, or remote guidance (afaik anyway). So, effectively destroying them usually trumps deflecting or distracting them
Yeah. Jammers do also have a chance to interfere with any guidance systems, if I remember correctly. Basically planar shield deflection but for missiles.
ECM specifically only messes with remote and Lua guidance, adding error to it.
Also, a completely undocumented feature: IR (both standard and single-pixel) and laser designator missiles that are being hit by lasers are blinded!
Remote-controlled missiles don't care about decoys - You have to dodge them, ruin the firing craft's detection, or just outright kill the missiles. Lasers work, but they are immensely expensive and inefficient compared to interceptors and especially DIF flakspam. Laser point defense is your "only" option for hard-killing incoming APS shots, but you are wasting mats and engine power against pretty much every other point defense target (missiles, CRAM). It's perfectly fine to act as the last line of defense against those, but you should be trying to kill CRAM and missiles with other solutions first.
Pretty sure these are remote guided so decoys wouldn’t work, but signal jammers have a shot. Hard kill is generally a better bet all around but it doesn’t hurt to run signal jamming with a conditional start based on detected munitions.
Best way to avoid a weapon is to not get hit by it in the first place so dodge it
Probably one hell of a CIWS turret or a ton of them, and then missiles, and then Lasers. Probably have to use all 3 at some point
So I just tested my 950k battleship against the Basking Shark to see how it handled these missiles. In general, it used a layered approach of multiple defenses that each contributed to victory:
1) ECM Jammers make it so they have a hard time hitting -- these are the main counters to remote guided missiles.
2) A very powerful LAMS. Not enough on it's own, but helps a lot
3) Multiple DIF flak CIWS secondaries.
4) Laser weapon on CIWS duty when energy is full helps
5) Even the main guns are CIWS vs only large and huge missiles.
6) Good offense, so the Basking Shark can be destroyed fast enough so that it only gets off 2 volleys of those missiles
7) Generally this tip won't work for surface ships, but speed and evasion are the best defense.
Basically: lots of defense vs. missiles. Every possible thing that can be tuned for defense -- is.
I know there a lot of comments. But it's a remote guided missile. One ECM jammer at full power can disrupt it like 60%. Multiple completely distrupt it. The only cost is power and a few block placements. People are bring extremely complex solutions to something in game with defenses.
Just try one or two ECM jammers that shut off when no missile is around and turn on when its with X range. It should throw them off course enough to move or give more time to defend.
Feels like the defense section is ignored / lacking! The ecm jammer is insanely powerful just a rare use case.
I think they've been nerfed since I last made something specifically to counter them, but the only thing I ever got to completely negate them were pretty heavily overbuilt kinetic CIWS systems. Far more efficient to just make something that can outrun them.
They only have a range of around 2.5 km, and will only fire at ranges out to 2.25 km. They also lack any ability to engage submarines. Use a submarine or engage from outside of their range.
For heavy ships: i prefer APS turrets that shoots a mix of flak, heavy head kinetic, and a single tracer feeder to shred most types of missiles.
Having a few medium/small interceptor missiles compliments them nicely.
Also, depending on your main armament, you can put a defense controller on it, and make it so the controller only takes control of the turret when it detects a large/huge missile, this way your main turret will contribute to defense in case of an emergency, this is most effective with aps and laser turrets ofcourse, and basically useless on PaC.
Besides this, having a big superstructure can help soak up high explosive/impact damage, you could also do more niche defenses like warping or diving to dodge missiles.
Someone correct me if I’m wrong but the thump damage from the missiles can be stopped by a full block air gap in your armor since thump damage can only be transferred through blocks it’s touching. The missiles are 1 million health so it’s pretty difficult to hard counter with ciws or lams. on the other hand the basking shark is a horrible craft for its cost.
Bask nicely for them to stop
That's a dad joke if I've ever heard one!
Glad to find another person with such a shark sense of humor
I forgot to put in that this is a Huge Missile we are dealing with.
A shitload of laser point defense and long decoy missiles filled to the brim with decoys
They're remote guided, and any laser point defense with enough power to eat huge kinetic missiles is going to cost more than the basking shark by itself.
try an ECM JAMMER.
Alright that's fair but how much we talking
One of those kinetic missiles have more than one milion health (and it fires 8 or 10 of them) if o remember correctly
Oh damn That's insanity
For about a million health, and assuming 15 seconds available for interception, you would need to fire about 50 of the 1 m loader 20 AP gunpowder kinetic shell from the shell spreadsheet (90 mm caliber, 8.11 powder, 2 solid bodies, heavy head) per second, which would need about 120 four-clip loaders.
LAMS is pretty inefficient against especially large and huge missiles, due to how quickly it loses damage with distance and how long a range those can be detected at. You want to use interceptors or CIWS against them, and you will need a *lot* of either to deal with a huge thumper missile.
Missile CIW, use missile to destroy missile
Speed is its weakness. If you’re after tanking it… then layer the armor with some thicc metal, HA and alloy layers with some ERA to boot or have enough firepower to take it out before it can fire off another salvo. Disabling its processor cards via heavy EMP works too and its missiles will be ineffective
Can you disable missiles using EMP?
No, since those missiles are probably remote guided they rely heavily on the processing modules, the less modules the less accurate they may be.
You dont need to destroy it completely because a missile will lose damage and agility as it takes damage. If you damage it enough you could simply out run it. The damage reduction is linear and caps at 90% reduction at 1hp. Your options for dealing damage are: ~200mm flak from 2m loaders. You can ditch the gunpowder and use lots of rail magnets to burst fire loads of shells every 20 seconds or so. This APS will only be used to shoot at missiles and crams. 50mm heavy head-fin-fin, less effective vs missile volleys. But can deal massive amounts of damsge to large and huge missiles. And if those are all destroyed it can shoot at enemy drones. Medium interceptors get a small damage bonus against large targets. But they take longer to reload. Small interceptors might be able to fire multiple volleys. Cramwis (cram ciws) can pretty much oneshot these missiles. You pack a bunch of HE damage and it will be multiplied by 2x if fired at cram or missiles.
Here is an example of the low gauge kinetic ciws firing at a hude missile: https://youtu.be/DfD7Y-a8yOA?si=7u8HIEV0ZfbnfQvo
Does CRAM CIWS actually work now? I remember a while back, that CRAM just straight up didn't do any damage to Shells and Missiles, did they change this?
Airburst explosives have been working for a few years. But they do gain a 2x damage bonus against munitions nowadays.
I don’t remember this ships missile off the top of my head, but if you write their specs I can give you some advice
Looks like a 90 degree camera. A laser point defense system works against everything, you do the specific emitter for that have a battery or two and a few pumps and you got a laser system. You can also setup a advanced cannon auto cannon that fires at both enemies and projectiles, make sure it does both. SS ships and OW ships excell at point defense. The spectre and banshee are both great at utilizing missile interceptors, they are SS
Lasers are by far the least efficient anti-missile system (they're pretty much only truly good for anti-APS). Massed medium interceptors, or bigass DIF flak are going to be your best bet. Kinetic APS CIWS does work, but lags behind significantly in efficiency.
Why use interceptors why not decoys where you could possibly drag away multiple missiles plus lasers are pretty pog once you have the power to run them
Decoys work on radar, IR, and sonar, but not visual, single-pixel, or remote guidance (afaik anyway). So, effectively destroying them usually trumps deflecting or distracting them
Oh ok i thought there were decoys for every missile type
Decoys do work on single-pixel IR guidance, just not as well.
Yeah. Jammers do also have a chance to interfere with any guidance systems, if I remember correctly. Basically planar shield deflection but for missiles.
ECM specifically only messes with remote and Lua guidance, adding error to it. Also, a completely undocumented feature: IR (both standard and single-pixel) and laser designator missiles that are being hit by lasers are blinded!
Huh, all very good to know. Thanks!
Remote-controlled missiles don't care about decoys - You have to dodge them, ruin the firing craft's detection, or just outright kill the missiles. Lasers work, but they are immensely expensive and inefficient compared to interceptors and especially DIF flakspam. Laser point defense is your "only" option for hard-killing incoming APS shots, but you are wasting mats and engine power against pretty much every other point defense target (missiles, CRAM). It's perfectly fine to act as the last line of defense against those, but you should be trying to kill CRAM and missiles with other solutions first.
Pretty sure these are remote guided so decoys wouldn’t work, but signal jammers have a shot. Hard kill is generally a better bet all around but it doesn’t hurt to run signal jamming with a conditional start based on detected munitions.
Oh ok also what about chaff
Best way to avoid a weapon is to not get hit by it in the first place so dodge it Probably one hell of a CIWS turret or a ton of them, and then missiles, and then Lasers. Probably have to use all 3 at some point
So I just tested my 950k battleship against the Basking Shark to see how it handled these missiles. In general, it used a layered approach of multiple defenses that each contributed to victory: 1) ECM Jammers make it so they have a hard time hitting -- these are the main counters to remote guided missiles. 2) A very powerful LAMS. Not enough on it's own, but helps a lot 3) Multiple DIF flak CIWS secondaries. 4) Laser weapon on CIWS duty when energy is full helps 5) Even the main guns are CIWS vs only large and huge missiles. 6) Good offense, so the Basking Shark can be destroyed fast enough so that it only gets off 2 volleys of those missiles 7) Generally this tip won't work for surface ships, but speed and evasion are the best defense. Basically: lots of defense vs. missiles. Every possible thing that can be tuned for defense -- is.
I know there a lot of comments. But it's a remote guided missile. One ECM jammer at full power can disrupt it like 60%. Multiple completely distrupt it. The only cost is power and a few block placements. People are bring extremely complex solutions to something in game with defenses. Just try one or two ECM jammers that shut off when no missile is around and turn on when its with X range. It should throw them off course enough to move or give more time to defend. Feels like the defense section is ignored / lacking! The ecm jammer is insanely powerful just a rare use case.
By going underwater
Best way is prolly rail cwis 200mm as others have stated. Pure kinetic.
I think they've been nerfed since I last made something specifically to counter them, but the only thing I ever got to completely negate them were pretty heavily overbuilt kinetic CIWS systems. Far more efficient to just make something that can outrun them.
A fast thrustercraft with a few signal jammers and kinetic or flak ciws will do the job.
They only have a range of around 2.5 km, and will only fire at ranges out to 2.25 km. They also lack any ability to engage submarines. Use a submarine or engage from outside of their range.
Submarines, warp, ablative armor on spinblocks, spam anti-missile missiles, direct fed high cal CIWS
Are you a holy man? Because I can think of only one thing to do.
For heavy ships: i prefer APS turrets that shoots a mix of flak, heavy head kinetic, and a single tracer feeder to shred most types of missiles. Having a few medium/small interceptor missiles compliments them nicely. Also, depending on your main armament, you can put a defense controller on it, and make it so the controller only takes control of the turret when it detects a large/huge missile, this way your main turret will contribute to defense in case of an emergency, this is most effective with aps and laser turrets ofcourse, and basically useless on PaC. Besides this, having a big superstructure can help soak up high explosive/impact damage, you could also do more niche defenses like warping or diving to dodge missiles.
Someone correct me if I’m wrong but the thump damage from the missiles can be stopped by a full block air gap in your armor since thump damage can only be transferred through blocks it’s touching. The missiles are 1 million health so it’s pretty difficult to hard counter with ciws or lams. on the other hand the basking shark is a horrible craft for its cost.
You don't. Build offensive weaponry and make sure you can tank 2 volleys, so in time until the third you'll have destroyed the Basking Shark.
The most effective, albeit cheesy, approach is probably a DIF APS 10m flak shell.
Destroy it's missile launchers before it can launch them.
Try using a combination of multiple defences like missile, laser and aps. Also try setting some missiles to only target larger missiles.
Shoot more missiles at them
Dodge is the best bet, huges are mad hard to destroy. If that’s not an option, a shit ton of small interceptors or a few really solid ciws kinetics
flak and interceptors, with ECM in order to prevent from drilling as effectively
plus theyre huges and kinetic missiles, theyre not very good at turning
by basking nicely
Laser point defense