Munition:sgm-1-balestra

Missiles based on the SGM-1 body are fast and agile, able to maneuver in tight spaces and face their target only a split second after firing. Their nimble maneuver characteristics make them excellent for intercepting other missiles, or for use against lighter warships when fitted with the correct warhead. Unfortunately, due to the frame's small size it has limited capacity for fuel and explosive material.

SGM-1 Balestra
Type	Conventional
Size	1
Integrity	10 HP
Wall Thickness	0.05 cm
Socket Weight	0.33x
Programming Time	6 sec
Available Warheads	HEI/HEKP/BF/BFEL
Component Slots	W, G, Seek
Body Cost	0 pt
Faction

The SGM-1 Balestra, commonly referred to as an "S1", is by technicality the most common missile type present in the game.. They are the primary Anti-Missile-Missile (AMM) used by ships and the cheapest missile per unit (1 point) in the strike role.

Design Considerations

Warhead

Anti-ship warheads should be HE Shaped; all of the standard reasons like being more cost efficient apply here, but in addition the S1 body cannot carry a large enough warhead or a fast enough engine to make HEKP deal useful damage. In an S1 it can't even DT break better than the 50 ray damage of HEI. HEI warheads are almost always seen in size 4, to maximize damage.

Anti-craft warheads are almost always Blast Frag, as EL does not bring useful benefits against craft and costs significantly more. This is because craft, unlike missiles, take 50% damage on a failed roll instead of 0 damage, in addition to HE-frag warheads being less likely to fail against craft. BF warheads are seen in either size 3 or size 4, which one you use depends on the faction you are playing. ANS uses size 4 warheads to defeat the higher health of Barracuda fighters, while OSP uses size 3 warheads which are sufficient to defeat Tanto fighters. This difference in warhead does not significantly affect the missile's ability to kill bombers, but does provide a slight range advantage to OSP.

Anti-missile warheads can use either form of HE Frag, with both Blast Frag and Blast Frag-EL seeing use depending on desired investment and reliability. BF warheads are only ever around 50% reliable at best against missiles, often requiring twice as many AMMs fired at a target to defeat it. As such, the most common BF warhead size is 4, under the assumption that if the warhead successfully hits it had better kill. This allows for a generalist missile that can reliably semi-reliably defeat any size 2 missile or size 3 hybrid type missile in two shots and remain effective against enemy fighters, if with less range than a dedicated ACM tuning.

EL warheads are significantly more reliable, often requiring half as many AMMs fired at a target to defeat it. However their high cost dictates that the most common forms of EL warhead are size 1 and size 2; the former can one-shot non-HS size 2 missiles (Hardened Skin size 2s need two hits) and two-shot non-HS size 3 hybrids (Hardened Skin size 3 hybrids need three), while the latter is more effective against size 3 hybrid types using hardened skin and retains the ability to two-shot them, but is less cost efficient against everything else.

Engine

Defensive Anti-craft S1s will typically seek to achieve ~4.5 G and around 300+ m/s to get a good probability of kill and a good No Escape Zone against their targets.

Defensive Anti-Missile S1s will typically seek to achieve 10+ G to get a good probability of hit against high agility hybrid type missiles in their terminal maneuvers.

Anti-ship S1s will typically seek to maximize speed so as to penetrate point defense via speed and mass alone.

Common Missile Designs

Cruise Missile Designs

Cruise missile designs for the S1 are uncommon to the point of near non-existence, as the missile body doesn't have the range to make a useful cruise weapon, and the cruise guidance ends up making up a majority of the missile cost.

Direct Missile Designs

Offensive Direct Types

• CMD - Requires a lock.
• ACT - Gambling the target doesn't have chaff.
• EO - Some of the least efficient damage per point in existence.
• ARAD - Gambling the target doesn't EMCON
• SAH - Requires illumination.

Arming Missiles

Any missile set to Offensive in the missile's guidance role counts as a valid weapon for the purpose of capturing and contesting a capture point, allowing the given ship to take priority over unarmed ships attempting to contest and successfully contest the point against other armed ships. While such missiles can be made with any missile body, S1s are the most common due to their low cost (1 pt), low mount cost (they fit in the VLS-1 you are already taking for chaff) and for their full technical functionality (you can equip a full size HEI warhead and a SAH or WAKE and the missile will remain 1 pt).

• SGM-1 Ceremonial Arming missile; found in every starter fleet

SAH Direct Types

Typically used on fighters and craft for strike, or large formations of Sprinters. The SAH missiles used in either are interchangeable, the primary driver is being 1 pt. Coincidentally, the only real difference between these and Arming Missiles is simply the scale of use. They penetrate PD via mass and penetrate softkill purely through good illum micro as long as the target doesn't have self-illum. The lack of a backup means they have poor resistance to jamming, but the typical range these are employed at means large targets will frequently be unable to jam them out; the stacking illuminators at such close range prevent the jammer from hiding capital ships.

Defensive Direct Types

• CMD - Requires radar coverage of decent positional error, which is not always present on a given ship and can be jammed.
• ACT - Can be jammed or seduced
• EO - Some of the least efficient damage per point in existence. Struggles with some fast or complex targets due to the seeker not seeing velocity.
• ARAD - Incredibly niche as an AMM as it will only track missiles with jammer pen-aides. As an ACM it is still niche. It will track craft radars and jamming pods, but will trigger targeted craft to evade; this can be over-ridden by issuing another order.
• SAH - Requires illumination; Can be jammed or seduced. Cannot lead fast or complex targets effectively due to the seeker being unable to see range.
• WAKE - Cannot see missiles. Can see craft in rear aspect, but craft softkill it trivially by either dropping countermeasures or turning around in half a second.

KKV/HTK types

Similar to S2H ADASH, these Kinetic Kill Vehicle/Hit To Kill missiles are specific tunings designed to directly impact craft with an HE Shaped warhead. This allows them to be dual-purpose anti-craft (AD) and anti-ship (ASH). They are generally much less common on ANS than ADASH due to the necessity of bringing a bullseye; as any ship with a bullseye would benefit significantly more from using better missiles like ADASH instead. They have somewhat more of a niche on OSP, both due to the much reduced cost of the Pinpoint and due to the high quality 20 m positional error of the Ithaca Bridgemaster radar. All KKV/HTK missiles use a CMD primary seeker and require a bullseye or Pinpoint lock to reliably hit the craft. Claymore bombers within ~3 km of a Ithaca Bridgemaster equipped ship can be hit on average ~50% of the time without a lock. Seekers other than CMD cannot reliably hit craft due to built-in inaccuracy in the seeker, with hit-rates for ACT averaging ~20%.

• ADATS - Warhead 3, 250 m/s, 9.0 G

Common S1 Fleet Archetypes

• Every fleet using an arming missile
• Craft-based S1 Strike (Spamto/SAHcuda)
• Light Cavalry - direct SAH rush-down sprinter ball

Detailed Stats

Main Speed	Thruster Speed	Range	Acceleration	Top Speed In	Turn Rate	Radar box, m (width × height × length)	Side-on	Nose-on	45° off nose, level	Peak, banked 45° (angle off nose)
250-400 m/s	40-50 m/s	1458-11911 m	35.7-76.5 G	0.3-1.1 sec	3.9-13.3 G	12.5 × 12.5 × 32	400	156	393	587 (75°)

Engine/Warhead Size	HE Shaped Damage	HEKP Damage	BF/BFEL Damage	Min Range	Max Range
3/4	317	528	65.34	1,458 m	5,911 m
4/3	238	396	56.58	1,958 m	7,911 m
5/2	158	264	46.20	2,458 m	9,911 m
6/1	79	132	32.67	2,958 m	11,911 m