Foreward
Hello, This is a document that records the various types of ways you can sync up successive missile strikes to hit a target all at once, known as a Time on Target (ToT) strike.
This was written in anticipation of carrier update's release, and the buffing of the cruise missile Moorline playstyle. (as of writing, it's tomorrow!).
This guide, in its initial state, is intended to provide the reader objective information about every possible method to do a cruise missile ToT that I know about.
ToTing is something of an art, and everyone has their own method to get missiles onto target.
I leave determining the merits of each method up to the reader.
I have also included non-objective (read: possibly incorrect) tips at the tail end of the guide to help our newer misileers.
It is a pared down ToT reference I made while sleep deprived. It is inspired by observations of different container liner (Moorline) players, and influenced by readings of guides made by Ysune, Jordanxue and Arofire.
ToTing is something of an art, and there are multiple different ways to get your missiles to land all at once…
Choosing which method you prefer and when to use it is up to you.
I am not the best at organizing my thoughts, but hopefully these resources can help burgeoning missileers learn what tools are available to them.
These strikes are both an awesome spectacle to behold, and are powerful against even massed PD nets. Multi-axis / multidirection time on target strikes are an intensely intimidating tornado of ordinance that can find suboptimal softkill angles and hit where ships cannot defend from.
Essential Basics
When firing a missile, a tooltip widget shows up next to the cursor, this contains both an estimated flight time, and a distance measurement of the current path. This tool is essential for certain ToT techniques.
The HOLD fire setting can help buy time to program several different cruise paths, However, it does have some odd quirks. Launch orders given during hold fire do not program, but you can set weapons free to start programming, and set back to hold to have the salvo preprogrammed but not fire.
ESPECIALLY important for triple or higher ToTs, it is important to not have more than 1 Salvo waiting to be programmed. Salvos that are queued are fired in a random order.
Having one currently programming and one queued is OK.
Method 1 "Successively Shorter Paths"
This method of ToT has the player plot several unique paths towards a target, making each path successively shorter by a measured interval tied to the ship's programming time.
It is possible to use both time or distance as the metric.
To use time as the metric:
[New salvo time] = [Previous salvo time] - [programming time]
To use distance as the metric:
[New Salvo Distance] = [Previous Salvo distance] - [Speed in MS]x[Programming time]
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Base programming times for missiles are:
S1=6s S2=8s S2h=10s S3=3s S3h=16s CM-4=20s
To find your programming time:
[Base Programming time] / [Programming speed modifier]
Ex: Container with 150% prog speed buff
20s/1.50
13.3333 second programming speed.
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So the equation for time as a metric becomes
[New salvo time] = [Previous salvo time] - ([Base Programming time] / [programming speed modifier])
And the equation for using distance as the metric becomes
[New Salvo Distance] = [Previous Salvo distance] - [Speed in MS]x[[Base Programming time] / [Programming speed modifier])
It helps to have a nice even number for programming time / meters traveled per prog interval to make this method easier.
These paths can be extremely dissimilar.
For best accuracy, Be sure to measure directly to a target. Drop a signal marker near where you predict the target will go and measure to that if the target is moving, or if you expect to lose track. Players don’t mind (or never say anything) if you drop a ton of markers.
Method 2 "Hairpin Holding Pattern ToT"
This is one of the two "holding pattern" ToT methods. In this method, the player paths the missiles behind or to the side of the ship and has them fly a pre-tested distance out in order to wait for the remaining salvos before resuming course.
Test how far to the side you need to route the missiles in the firing range.
Note that the turn rate of the missiles may effect how long it takes them when compared to a salvo that was plotted without a hairpin turn.
Drawing of the sideways launch variant
Method 3 "Looping Pattern Holding Pattern ToT"
This ToT method has the player delay the missiles using a standardized, pre-tested pattern (the simplest of which is a zig-zag).
Distances needed to introduce the proper amount of delay can be measured in the firing range.
Since the distance given in the tooltip widget is total distance, not the distance from the current waypoint, the distances for the maneuvers themselves can be measured more easily using the range radius projected onto the sensors manager view.
The red ring gives the range of the current leg of the cruise path.
Miscellania: Anticipating Target Movement
- Some of this may have changed a little bit with planes everywhere... Pending review post CV.
Missiles are a highly limited resource, so ensuring hits is paramount.
When targets are moving, often leading them will no be enough to land a hit.
Missile flight times longer than 1:10 often allow targets plenty of time to alter course enough to be safe, provided the target is not preoccupied in some way. (EG in a gun fight).
What you can do is try to put yourself into the mind of the enemy player and imagine where they might want to move currently, and send missiles intercepting that area. This puts them into the choice of either changing course and moving suboptimally, or risk eating the missiles.
Usually, ships flown by good players will gladly accept a delay in their course if it means they avoid being missile'd, but there are two interesting cases I would like to bring to attention.
The first is where a a ship is rushing to get onto one of your cap points, especially small capping ships, like FFLs.
If you fire missiles either routing from the capture point into the capper, or from behind the capper into the cap point, you can greatly increase your odds of hitting. Often they will struggle to slow down and outrun their own countermeasures.
The second situation is the case where allies are pinning down an enemy ship in a gun fight.
Ships implicated in gun fights are usually excellent targets for missiles, as they can't dodge around freely without losing cover and line of sight advantages.
Be sure to fire at them from odd angles that compromise their cover positions, as firing straight at them may mean they can duck back into cover and rock PD your salvos.
Longer missile ranges and faster missiles can help allow for these unusual strikes.
If you yourself find yourself getting targetted by an enemy missileer, try to move extremely erratically. Constantly rounding the perimeter of a rock can make you extremely difficult to hit.
Source: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3404009387
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