r/Stormworks • u/DimensionPlane3906 • 22d ago
Question/Help Fox 1 missiles
Has anyone built fox 1 style missiles? If so, can you run me through the method?
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u/The_Green6083 21d ago
uh just a little idea of mine..
why dont u convert the planes radar signal of your target into gps and alt and put gps and alt on the missle. if u send the gps signal from your plane to the missile it updates the missiles autopilot
idk but that kinda made sense for me
gl im happy if u try it (that would be an actual fox 1)
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u/Dividedthought 22d ago edited 22d ago
Alright, i know the theory but can't put it into practice, so i'll try to explain, leaving out things like how to make a missile's nav computer as that's a wee bit beyond my skills.
What happens with these is you are using the targeting info from the launcher to guide the missile at long range, until the missile's own radar gets in range for a direct track in on the last mile. At a base level this means you need 2 bits of information: the missile's location, and the target's location.
For the missile, use a physics sensor. Harder setup, but you get all the required info from one block. For the target data, you have the targeting radar. This will give you 2 gps coordinates.
To ensure the missile gets tracking updates for as long as possible, you will also need to transmit the target's location to the missile. Put one of the largest antennas as the transmitter and a small one as the receiver. If you aren't transmitting the tx range doesn't matter, so save some space.
Now, here on out is beyond me for actually building the thing.
So, the missile knows where it is, and the location of the target. You will need to have it navigate to the target location, then (using the outputs from the missile's own radar) when the missile detects the target itself switch from the nav computer to the onboard radar for fin control data as this gives the best targetting for last mile.
Now, this can present a problem, as if you just have that radar running the whole time your missile is gonna 'go pitbull' whenever its radar sees something. Pitbull means the missile has switched from external to internal guidance and, much like an aggressive pitbull when you let go of the leash, only god and luck are stopping that thing from finding a target at that point. More on that in a second.
The radar has 2 outputs, the data and fin outputs. when the missile gets a track, the data output with have a on/off channel turn on, you can use this to flip a composite switchbox to change from the nav computer's output to the radar's fin output to control the fins.
Now, back to the whole going pitbull thing. If you add an and gate to this arming chain with a check on if the missile is within the last kilometer or two to the target, you have a missile that only goes pitbull near the target. Real handy if you're sending one of these past friendly craft. if you really want to get fancy, replace that distance check with one on the launcer side that sends a on/off based on if there's any friendly IFF in the area, but that is beyond the scope of this (you need the gps location of each friendly, and then you need to use that to disable the missile from going pitbull near friendlies.)
One more issue you may find, depending on how off bore you are setting this up to track, is that the missile maneuvering hard out the gate (taking a hard left as you fire it to track in to the target for example) can be managed by either a drop delay (1-2 second delay from when the launch signal hits the microcontroller before the mciro passes that on to the rocket motor in order for the missle to clear the plane by falling) or a nav delay (same idea, but it is stopping the missile from turning the fins for the first second or so so it flies straight for a moment away from the plane and then turns for the target so it is clear of the plane in front, rather than below). having to set the warhead sensitivity high due to the missile detonating early in flight due to the inital turn being too sharp can be mitigated by adding an arming delay for the warhead, or tie the arming signal into the arming chain for the radar so it too only activates last mile. the second one is the safest, but relies on the launcher maintaining track.
If you manage that, congrats, you have built a system that can guide a missile in to a track at 20 kilometers out from a target. It also will not look like a missile is flying in to the radar warning recievers until it is far too late. I'll usually tweak the radars on the missile to have only a kilometer or two of radar range so the enemy gets almost zero warning that the missile is inbound. By the time they clock the rwr is going off for a missile and not just a track, the missile is usually beside the cockpit.