Nebulous Fleet Command - Missile Defence

[@vonLuck130]

A pity you couldn't squeeze in jamming into this video but you were right at 30 minutes. Great job explaining the PD's - the real magic happens when you combine lessons learned here with good jamming.

[@Phrosphor]

Jamming is going to slot into an 'advanced defense' video down the road. This was more of an introduction for new players really.

[@Marinealver]

This is how effective missile defense system is SHIP BLOWS UP* Right, FIRE THE MISSILES!!!!!

[@moksound19]

These Nebulous videos have been great. Just got the game, and it's pretty overwhelming. I appreciate each time you provide a short takeaway summary, in written text, followed by details. Not only that, you're covering the topics IN PRACTICE, rather than just talking about stats on-paper. In many games, there tends to be a lot of players focusing on the latter. This looks like the sort of game that'll punish excessive theorycraft that doesn't model the messiness of putting things into practice. Looking forward to more Nebulous content.

[@Phrosphor]

I won't deny that these videos take a really long time to put together, and because I am still learning the process of editing them mistakes are slipping through. I am really happy with how they have come together though and comments like this are really appreciated. Thank you.

[@moksound19]

@@Phrosphor no surprise that these vids are tough, this game doesnt make explanation easy. Lol which is exactly why we end up looking here! One more suggestion, to make your job more complicated: if you can constrain topics via a table of contents at the start, itll significantly help referencing back, and tames the detail barrage that this game is rife with. I've checked other peoples vids that have a whole lot of unstructured rambling on a ton of related details. If you can reduce that, you'll stand out even more. Again, good work.

[@codyamann12345]

These tutorials you made are fantastic! The in game tutorial is really good, but these videos do an even better job of tying it all together, and explaining how to apply everything in a practical sense. Thanks a ton!

[@Phrosphor]

Thank you so much. The latest update has invalidated these a little bit but I think the fundamentals are still solid. Check out JDee on youtube for loads more tutorials if you are still looking for info on stuff!

[@ceruleanskies1414]

Point of note about the Riposte missiles: They will do damage. They can damage all sorts of things mounted on the hull, blind them by taking out radar panels, and enough of them can even cause more problems. I used a barrage in my recent vid on Nebulous to cripple an enemy frigate when my own missile boat had run dry of other options.

[@Phrosphor]

Good to know! I have seen them used in multiplayer as well to dummy enemy ripostes and chaff as well. They are really quick and can scare people.

[@Kitkat-986]

Small correction, frag missiles such as the riposte do deal damage, they just lack the armor penetration to damage almost any ship. Even a sprinter could take multiple riposte hits before its armor is compromised. I did once kill a frigate with frag missiles by stripping its armor with other weapons, then causing a critical hit to its reactor with a salvo of frag missiles. They aren't useless offensively, but they really aren't something to be relied on. I wouldn't use them in this way unless I was desperate and most of my other weapons were disabled. With the missile update, you can put an HE warhead on S1 missiles. They deal only about a quarter of the damage of an S2 missile, but they can be very cheap (1 to 2 points depending on your design), and are good at killing corvettes and frigates. Occasionally you'll get a lucky critical hit when firing at a larger enemy ship whose armor is compromised, but this isn't to be relied on.

[@realityapostasy2158]

This was a great video, and the pacing was very good for a tutorial !

[@Phrosphor]

Thank you, I am really glad you liked it. I am going to go over Radar and ELINT next.

[@kakapokid1796]

Point defense is so satisfying.

[@Phrosphor]

It really is!

[@Ah23377]

Awesome video looking forward to your next one on nebulous!

[@Phrosphor]

Thank you so much for the nice comment!

[@Horkruxx]

great Video!

[@jt6581]

Great video! Thank you

[@boomer19450]

A battleship with nine auroras is a goddamned fortress. I always paired it with a stealth ewar spotter corvette. Unless i was facing another battleship or a two heavy cruiser task force, the eleven barrels of 450 mm cannon will DESTROY everything at up to eight kilometer range in short order.

[@Phrosphor]

I have a livestream where I used an Aurora BB and it was indeed a monster but it really does need support and if it gets ganked by beam DD's it's a huge liability.

[@boomer19450]

@@Phrosphor Beam DD and jam spam is the bane of capital ships indeed. Well, it was never really meant as a brawler anyway. Behind a screen of frigates though, a beam BB with three beam cannon can kill a destroyer fleet in three minutes. I think the cannon mount is easier to aim than destroyer's spinal mount.

[@archerbascha8757]

You can even use the main guns to shot down the missiles. Since they have a track like any ship, you can target them manually. Of course, it is some micromanagement but it is possible. I have to try it with the proximity fuse ammo for the 120mm and 250mm and see what happens.

[@Phrosphor]

Interesting, I will place with this for inclusion in my advanced PD video. Thanks for letting me know!

[@archerbascha8757]

@@Phrosphor I just tested it with the Proximity fuse ammo. It kind of works, but I wouldn't count on it. Since the Missiles are so small, the projectile does miss pretty often without exploding near the missile. They also seem to only explode near the actual target and pass by the other missiles along the way. I will watch the video if you make one about it, maybe you get different results.

[@captainwolf5922]

RPF ammo won’t really work against missiles, because RPF ammo actually functions more like a shotgun with less than 10 pellets, rather than like the rebound’s flak rounds

[@infinitewisdom9619]

Very interesting video! Thank you!

[@Phrosphor]

New update is out this weekend! It's going to totally invalidate this video!

[@infinitewisdom9619]

@@Phrosphor I know. Thanks. Someone in the lobby chat said its going to be released in under 4 hours from now. I am very excited!

[@Phrosphor]

@@infinitewisdom9619 I'm going to stream done games of it in around 9ish hours!

[@infinitewisdom9619]

@@Phrosphor Great! Then it is gonna be late in the evening for me tho, maybe I will not be able to be there when it is live.

[@tomduke1297]

the bit im missing is the pd-zone toggle. i havent tried it out, but setting this to "point" instead of "zone" should mean that your pd isnt wasting shots/time on missiles that are already distracted by chaff. would have liked for someone who knows what they are talking about to either confirm or deny that assumption of mine.

[@Phrosphor]

I am going to explore this and a few other things for an 'advanced defense' video down the road, so hopefully I will have more info for you.

[@linksterbot]

This was a sick video. Do you have any thoughts on spacing for effective PD for a fleet? IE Do you see better coverage if they are closer together? Is there any thought into putting cheaper ships at the front with PD and the expensive ships at the back, or is this actually negatively effecting my PD fields because my bigger ship isnt shooting as much

[@jmkhenka]

depending on how dumb the OPFOR is, wild weasle kind of ships might be a nice idea, heavy PD or lots of VLS. Tendency in teamgames are to launch everything you have in the first wave. Combine chaff with comms jammers and you can fool CMD guided weapons aswell as radar guided weapons. Chaff works poorly vs thunderheads (the CMD guided ones) but comms jamming can distrupt them to.

[@crabstack5488]

In my (limited) experience I find that it's a trade-off between area covered and ships covered. If you want to screen a huge area of missiles then space your ships apart, conversely if you want overlapping fields of fire then group your ships up. I personally prefer tighter grouping around a central PD ship where the PD ship has a relatively clear view of your expected attack direction. Though of course your other ships should include PD as well

[@Phrosphor]

Some good advice from other commentators here, but also bear in mind your bigger (more valuable) ships will have a bigger radar signature, meaning they will get detected from further out. So even if you screen with smaller ships, the bigger ships will still usually end up as the target. A layered defense is probably the best, with a space between your screen and your bigger ships, but pulling this off is pretty hard. Anything Raines or smaller really can't contribute that much to a PD screen without sacrificing most of it's firepower. Best bet I find is to give these ships Chaff rather than a PDT.

[@todrichards8116]

@@jmkhenka Actually, chaff works great against thunderheads (self guided), and coms jammers work great against hurricanes (command guided). Blanket jammers help with all varieties--except for squalls of course.

[@shayminthedoctor9663]

Chaff is rediculously good against the majority of missile types. In my testing I've found they can deflect about 70-80% of incoming Gales and Thunderhead missiles. Not sure what the actual numbers are, but mixed chaff with rebound and defender PD is pretty much unbreakable. The only problem with Chaff is you have to use it preemtively, so it doesn't help when Thunderheads appear from around your cover It really is crazy how dangerous missiles are, but also how good PD can be.

[@Phrosphor]

I am hoping that this helps newer players feel less helpless when that big missiles swarm comes at them in multiplayer games. Especially the footage I managed to capture of chaff distracting massive barrages. I need to do an advanced video with info on how to defeat CMD GUIDED missiles and PD Zoning and stuff!

[@shayminthedoctor9663]

@@Phrosphor As someone who mainly runs missiles, that would be a problem lol

[@captainwolf5922]

Haven’t watched the whole video yet, but at around 1:30, you are wrong about how PD radar works. Both Defender and Aurora need a ship’s main radar in order to find incoming missiles, at which point the integrated FC radar in the PD locks on, providing a much more accurate track. IE, frontline radar has a 20 meter positional error, while the FC radar built into the defender and Aurora has a positional error of 0.5 meters. Rebound has no built in radar, and thus only uses the much less accurate main radar, but Rebound can still work without radar by using visual tracking of missiles, with reduced efficiency. There is no limit to how many missiles a ship’s main radar can track, but each FC radar can only track 1 target at a time.

[@Phrosphor]

Yes good point, i was oversimplifying I think. The main point I wanted to give was that the defender and aurora are much more accurate due to their FCR but I think I made what I was saying far too muddy. Thank you for clearing this up.

[@SNIPERTHATSUCKS]

Thanks for the video, I appreciate how you broke down each of the missile defense systems

[@chickenassasintk]

My like and comment

[@aY227]

Wait... its out? Oh my.

[@Phrosphor]

It just launched in early access, there is no campaign as of right now and there is still a few things on the roadmap.

[@lookitsdante]

Point-Defense and Point-Defense Defense.

[@Phrosphor]

Don't forget Point-Defense Defense Point- Defense!

[@Nortonius_]

Another fantastic tutorial and analysis! Chucked when I noticed the HIF +Aurora Test+ on the hull in game 😅 Do think being able to hear the music adds a lot to the immersion of these vids. If you’re naming test ships for Highfleet chars, then loyal Admiral Daud has more than earned a namesake!

[@Phrosphor]

My main multiplayer fleet has all the ships named after Daud, Pyotr, Isi and Mark.

[@winnie8614]

Thanks for your video!

[@fennecky3764]

Basically , if you can survive 1,234 missiles and 42 torpedos , you should be good.

[@rustyshackleford1508]

Words to live by

[@Phrosphor]

'What do you hear?' 'Nothing but the rain.'

[@balduglydonut5338]

@@Phrosphor I hate that I read the same lore snippit

[@michup86]

In current state where one can build 25-55 point class-2-3 hybrids that are hard to defeat with kinetic projectile hardkills and they not get fooled so easily by decoys and jammers with secondary validators - I think putting on ANS ships Auroras is the only way to go. Yes, they are expensive, yes, they draw a lot of power, but at missile volley you want to dedicate all power solely to survive, also ship hulls not allow to use all of them at the same time, some get destroyed at some point in game or overburned via battleshort. Therefore, one needs to build for redundancy. I put all small point defenses slots only with Auroras, and see how many can operate from one side of the ship, like: left, right, top, buttom, bow, stern - and make sure I've enough energy to operate all per side (not all of them at once). Typically having 3 per side is nice with bshort, and having 4-5 active at the same time is very good. Ship will re-orient power to the one that it feels it needs to most - again, not all needs to run at all times. Auroras, may not get all of them but at least they will certainly shot down what they aim at, while other defenses uses points but don't give you so much guarantee, so I argue that its rather to invest more points on something that works, then still a lot of points on something that is situational and random. In the end, the goal is to survive, even if it costs you other nice things to have, which makes no difference if you bring them and you're dead. Also, negating missiles is also something worth a lot of points, because that negates other fleet effectiveness, if they invested small numbers in missiles they will be completely negated, if large, they could be negated enough to render them useless in anything else later on - like hand to hand combat. Longer one survive the less PD importance become, and that power draw won't be necessary anymore once most if not all missiles are used. I.e. for solo Axford put 8 Auroras, for two put 3-4 on each, for 3xDD put 2-3 on each, for 2xDD put 3-4. For 5-6 FF put 1x Aurora on each, select one side only top or only buttom, and re-orient fleet as need be when expecting missile barage. 24-slot bay for chaff and decoys could be usefull on opposite side of the ship, like if you use one Axford and you mostly put yourself bow head on the enemy then you could use bottom-back mount for chaff and decoys. If you have 3xDD and you put mostly on left-right and top Auroras - then you can add chaff/decoy to bottom or if you use left-right and bottom Auroras, then you can put chaff/decoy on the top. Other PD's don't make sense if you have access to Auroras IMO. At lease one radio jammer should be in every fleet, which can be used also for missile defense.

[@jimmaccauley]

Great tips.

[@322wongamos]

Great video!

[@Phrosphor]

Thanks, I see a couple of things that could have been polished but I am learning!

[@virusguy5611]

So recently there's been a CL build where five ML3 Torpedo launchers are placed and given a horde of Maces. Is there ANYTHING that can counter that if they get close enough?

[@Phrosphor]

Oof that is a really nasty CL. Your best hope there is a spacing I think. The MACE is jammable but if they are right in your nose that won't help too much. I think I need to think about this. I wonder if we will see it in the upcoming 6k 1v1 tourney I am going to be casting.

[@todrichards8116]

not a very fair comparison. there was only one rebound engaging, while there were three auroras...?

[@Phrosphor]

Sadly the AI controlling the Raines rolled it to get turret coverage so the other rebounds were rotated under the ship. Because the Aurora's were able to engage from much further out this didn't effect them as badly. It was unfortunate but even three rebounds on their own wouldn't have performed as effectively as three aurora.

[@rzmonk76]

Thanks for sharing your skills with us. I’m excited to try this game because of all the sci-fi books I grew up on. The one thing that’s been holding me back is that it looks so dauntingly complex.

[@jessejohnson6435]

Great Video very helpful thank you for all the work put in

[@nnmmnmmnmnnm]

Really well structured and explained video.