NEBULOUS: Fleet Command Jakub's Guide to not Dying to Missile Spam

Introduction

This guide is meant to help you dear blueberry, understand the various types of missile spam being lobbed around the modern Neb battlefield, and some methods to counter them. This guide will go by missile category, because every type of missile can be spammed if the enemy feels like it.

Best Practices

Before we go any further, it is important to say this now. THE BEST METHOD OF AVOIDING MISSILE SPAM IS INTELLIGENCE, SCOUTING, AND MANEUVER. Do not blindly charge the enemy. Do not send your capitals head first into the unknown. Careful use of scouts and other long range sensors can pick up these fleets well before they are in range of you. This can let you strike or even destroy them before they can fire on you.

In addition, softkill and hardkill options will be presented. A competent fleet uses a mix of both. One or the other invites disaster

S2/S2h Spam

S2 spam is by far the most common, and perhaps the most common type of missile spam you will encounter on the battlefield. Fast, cheap, maneuverable and high dps, S2 missiles builds take many forms, and is very hard to stop. If you ever see a lobby of gold deck an enemy team in less than 10 minutes it is probably with this. S2 is able to be spammed in volumes of about 40 by ANS, and upwards of 80 by OSPN. Flak can usually be counted on to kill these missiles, but with so many missiles, the amount of flak needed is unlikely to be present on a fleet in particular.

ACT/WAKE Cruise Spam This type of spam missile is usually quite easy to softkill, but can be very difficult to stop if used for tight maneuver strikes. The ACT can be easily countered by chaff, and throttling your engine speed to 1/3 will blind the WAKE seeker. As with all S2 hulls, flak can usually much through it, though the amount needed will be massive, and generally not worth it to stop such a large strike. A final option is jamming. This causes ACT seekers to be thrown off, though requires the defending player to be able to quickly fire off a directional jammer, or bring the more expensive OSPN-exclusive bubble version. It also runs the risk of attracting HOJ seekers which will home in on the source of jamming.

Counter: Chaff + throttle engine to 1/3 speed, as much flak as you can muster. POS fire jammers/deploy jamming bubble.

SAH/HOJ Direct Spam When it comes to missile spam, SAH is the most dangerous. It is cheap and hard to soft kill. However, it is not without weaknesses. SAH/HOJ lacks a backup seeker, meaning that if you can fool the SAH head, while avoiding jamming, you can throw the missile off course. This is usually most successful on small ships, like shuttles and sprinters. Chaff spam a few seconds before impact has a very high chance of throwing off the entire salvo. Another option is Kill Joys. These are defensive S2 missiles with a jammer attatched. With these, the goal is to fire it at the missile volley as early as possible. They either jam the SAH and force HOJ targeting onto the missile, or they get to their target early enough that the SAH isn't even in range, and the HOJ seeker pick is up. This can cause the missiles to veer off course hard, and burn out. These options are the most reliable ways to stop this combo. Anything else revolves around staying in cover, or killing the spammers beforehand.

Counter:Last minute chaff, kill Joys, flak.

CMD/ ACT/CMD The least common S2 spam, and generally the easiest to counter. As long as you have both a comms and radar jammer, these missiles will pretty much never hit. Their value is that the equipment to stop them is niche, so it is not often mounted on small ships, and often even bigger ones. They also are very reliable for hitting targets, assuming they are not being jammed.

Counter: Chaff + comms Jamming, comms jamming + radar jamming, radar jamming alone if act seeker, flak.

There are other variations, but so long as you can counter these, the others will not be a problem. This includes S2h.

Container Spam

Container spam can be scary. Often times, an experienced CLN player will use ToT(Time on Target) methods to get 2-3 salvos of 12 to strike you simultaneously. Combined with decoys, this can completely overwhelm and destroy even battleships instantaneously. Thankfully, these are also the easiest to softkill and hardkill of the strike types. As such, this section will only briefly go over it, and give a general overview.

Containers struggle to adequately maneuver, meaning they rely on sheer brute force to break through a target. As such, spamming Defenders is usually a surefire way to stop most attacks outright. Basic softkill options, such as the EMCOM button, Chaff, Active Decoys, and throttling your engine to 1/3 will stop 95% of container designs

Counter: Defenders, EMCOM, Chaff, Active Decoys, 1/3 engine speed.

Torpedo Spam

Rare, but somewhat hard to stop. Torpedo spam can be quite dangerous. With sufficient maneuver, they can mostly ignore defenders, their most reliable hard kill option. However, the great weakness of torpedo spam is their seekers, which is usually CMD. As such, CMD jammers can usually stop a torpedo salvo in it's tracks.

Counter: Defenders, CMD Jammers (Bubble jammer prefered).

S3h Spam

Most people don't even think this one is possible, it is that rare. It also draws a bead of cold sweat on the brow of any OSPN commander on the receiving end. S3h spam is usually a salvo of 15-16 S3hs fired en masse.

With this type of spam, the secret to its undoing lies in what makes it terrifying: quantity. S3hs are expensive. As such, seekers are usually dumbed down to make it affordable. As such, the softkill measures are near identical to the measures against S2 spam. Hardkill is a nightmare though. The best bet to even stop it is one or two aurora-heavy ocellos. Sarrissas can help as well if they are direct fired. Aside from that, heavy pavise + grazer spam has a chance to stop most of it.

Counter: Sarissas, Auroras, Usual soft kill measures.

S1 Spam

Yes this is real. Yes it can kill. It can also distract a fleet's PD net while high damage missiles slip straight through.

While it can be a problem, the answers are identical to S2s. Just be mindful of what the followup will be.

Conclusion

Missile spam is very dangerous, but also a double edged sword. Missile spam fleets often sacrifice many things to function, like PD, DC, Radar, etc. If you can counter the spam, you can essentially invalidate their fleet, or at very least, buy you time to escape or kill them.

Even with knowledge of these counters, be vigilant, it only takes 1-2 missiles slipping through for a winning situation to be flipped around. NEVER UNDERESTIMATE THE SPAM.

Source: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3359921755

Jakub's Guide to not Dying to Missile Spam