Imperium Galactic War Active Defenses Introduction

Imperium Galactic War Active Defenses Introduction by Option Verbose

The principle of active defense is deceptively simple – an active defense seeks to shoot down or intercept an incoming attack before it can connect with its target. To protect a ship, guided weapons can be destroyed outright, projectiles can be knocked off course, and beams diffused. More over, the same systems that can handle this task are ideally suited for taking out drones, which are too elusive to target with anti-ship weapons.

How do active defenses work?

Active defenses look for attacks entering their sensor envelope, and attempt to shoot them down. Every active defense is limited by its accuracy – in the form of an Intercept Rating against the type of attack it’s attempting to intercept – and its rate of fire, which controls how often it can make an attempt to take something out.

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Anti-Missile System I protects against Guided attacks.

DeflectorScreen_Level01

Deflector Screen I protects against Projectile attacks.

An active defense will take a shot at any appropriate attack that comes into its range (since beam attacks cross distances instantly, the location of the beam’s target must be in range for a beam intercept), and shoots at the closest target first. It will engage incoming attacks from any enemy, regardless of which ship those attacks target, and can take multiple shots at the same attack as the attack crosses its engagement envelope. If there are no incoming attacks in range, the active defense will instead direct its fire against any nearby drones.

An attack that is successfully intercept is destroyed, deals no damage, and creates no secondary effects such as splash damage. That simple. Drones take multiple shots to take down however, so the active defense will typically require some time to eliminate them.

The Smart Targeting feature upgrades the system with an advanced targeting algorithm which prioritizes targets based not only on distance but on velocity, chance of successful intercept, potential damage dealt, and other factors, insuring maximum defensive efficiency. The option to enable this behavior will be made available at some point in the future, but is not available on any currently available active defense modules.

How do I overcome Active Defenses?

An active defense’s basic chance of intercepting an attack is calculated using the standard rating system, but it’s actual effectiveness is dependent on a number of factors. A few weapons feature an Intercept Penetration bonus which makes them harder for active defenses to hit, but the more commonplace way of overcoming them is to ‘saturate’ the enemy’s defense with more attacks than their active defenses can effectively engage.

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Anti-Missile System II can fire every 0.3 seconds.

Because an active defense can only fire so often, if you send more attacks down range in at a time than it can shoot in that same period, by definition it is less likely to intercept them all (it might still be able to if they take too long to cross its engagement envelop). Obviously this also means that improving the velocity of your Guided and Projectile attacks will give your enemy less time – and thus fewer opportunities – to take the attack out.

For best results against active defenses, try to get your attacks coming in in large waves. An active defense with nothing to shoot at isn’t protecting anything, so sending your attacks in groups will get the greatest possible percentage of attacks through. Equipping your fleet with a large number of weapons of the same time can help with this as well, though it does so at the cost of having all your attacks be vulnerable to the same kind of defense. Lastly, think about the rate of fire of your attacks – weapons that fire in large bursts are inherently harder to stop.

When should I use Active Defenses?

Active defenses are most effective when combined with each-other. Since they provide a protective umbrella over an area rather than exclusively protecting a single ship, their value compounds with the protection provided by active defenses on your other ships, as long as they’re near each other.

ActiveDefenseIncoming

With so few coming in, these these torpedoes probably won’t make it.

If your fleet is designed to have its ships stay close together, you can make it much harder for the enemy to saturate your defenses by piling them on. Conversely however, shields and armor will generally be more valuable if your ships split up in battle. It’s also important to keep in mind that if an attack penetrates your active defenses, it may carry splash damage (or an inherent area effect, such as an arc weapon), so stacking up is not without risks.

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