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[USEC_OFFICER]

If it doesn't suck completely then I'll start mass production after designing the second stage. 5.5 million kilometres is just too pitifully short at the ranges I'm considering.

[Flying Dice]

It'll work as a siege missile or PDC crackers. They won't be able to catch moving ships for crap, at least not beyond fairly low tech aliens. Though 20 MSP is pretty noticible compared to size 6.

Then I guess that I can drop the warhead power, again. Man, designing anti-ship missiles are hard at the lower tech levels. What should I be aiming for, stats-wise? More speed? More maneuverability?

It's really, really not. Up until ~TL5-6 you can get by with WH4, being the first square above WH1. There's a balance to be struck between drive and agility that will maximize CTH; it's more difficult to find without Paul's missile design spreadsheet, but you can usually figure it out with a minute or two of effort. Slightly more difficult now that you need to design missile drives rather than just putting points into it, though. For your tech, 20k km/s would be a reasonable velocity, and whatever amount of points in agility maximizes CTH. For range, around 60-80m km is again reasonable for your tech level. Aim for a size-4 or size-5 missile, and put whatever spare partial points are left into an active sensor.

The design challenge has always been about balancing drive and agility for the best possible combination of CTH and velocity; it's shifted a bit in the direction of coming up with a near-ideal balance of drive efficiency and power, but as before WH and fuel are largely known variables that won't change very much.

Start with your STR-4 WH, come up with a good drive design, put in whatever agility you need to maximize CTH, give it enough fuel to hit that 60-80m km range (or as close as possible[for your tech, at least]), and then slip the leftovers into a sensor.

[Sirus]

Does anyone else enjoy making orbital bombs filled with radiation?

*raises hand*

[Lightningfalcon]

Does anyone else enjoy making orbital bombs filled with radiation?

Ooh! I do!
What I really want thou is the ability to tow astroids into the path of a planet.  Or slingshot them towards the planet.  Either way would work.

[Lightningfalcon]

'This asteroid has high levels of polonium in it!'
'Excellent...'

There will be so little planet left that any polonium would be unnecessary. 

[Flying Dice]

Radiaton bombs?

Clumsier and more random than precision strikes, an inelegant weapon for a less civilized age.

[Sirus]

Radiaton bombs?

Clumsier and more random than precision strikes, an inelegant weapon for a less civilized age.

Don't your "precision strikes" tend to destroy all the valuable and possibly high-tech goodies on the surface?

[Jacob/Lee]

Either way, you're going to either kill tons of people or flatten tons of infrastructure, both of which I would like to preserve if I ever came across an alien homeworld. How bad would it be to assault a planet with ground troops until they surrender?

[Sirus]

Either way, you're going to either kill tons of people or flatten tons of infrastructure, both of which I would like to preserve if I ever came across an alien homeworld. How bad would it be to assault a planet with ground troops until they surrender?

Don't precursors sometimes have planetary bases? I'm not sure they ever surrender.

[Flying Dice]

Radiaton bombs?

Clumsier and more random than precision strikes, an inelegant weapon for a less civilized age.

Don't your "precision strikes" tend to destroy all the valuable and possibly high-tech goodies on the surface?

Silly, you don't attack civilian populations, you strike concentrations of ground forces until they're weak enough for a division or two of armor to roll over them. Civilian populations are for enslaving, not killing.

[Cockyy]

How exactly do I move a Jump Point Defense Base into position? I want to have one guard a JP to Sol from the other system but I can't tractor it or move it in any way.

[gimlet]

Tractoring it using a ship with a LOT of engine power is the way - what happens when you try?  You built the base in a shipyard right?  If not, it's a PDC type base that can only go on a planetary body...

[Metalax]

Alternatively, build a mega-carrier. These can then act to move fixed defences into position, be used for field repairs of your smaller warships or carry hordes of fighters.

[Flying Dice]

Also note that between the maintenance clock and morale it will be a massive pain to maintain it. I suppose we probably won't see mechanics for OWPs ever, either, given that Aurora 2 is going to use the Honor Harrington model of FTL rather than the Starfire one.

[Cockyy]

So a Jump Point Defense Base is effectively a waste of time? PDC's don't seem to need maintanence though. My PDC's around Earth are up to a 60000% annual break rate but never have had maintenance problems.

The wiki says I have to transport the prefab parts via cargo ships but I don't even have the option to pick them up from Earth.