[AzureSkies]

Originally Posted by Wolfpack345

Awesome! The cruise missile looks great!

Originally Posted by Rickster1

All i can say is this game is looking good and looking forward to its development

Thanks!

Originally Posted by Herman

That is generally how Harpoon simulates the missile, too.

However, I remember an NWAC developer saying that the missile in his game had a slower cruise speed in transit and only increased speed when it neared the target area because it would have insufficient fuel for maximum speed throught the flight profile.

I would not profess to know which behaviour is wrong or right. Have you considered different operational parameters?

This got me digging again.

So, to clarify, these are P-500 Bazalts. These were later upgraded to P-1000 Vulkans, which do have a terminal boost to above mach 3, but weren't cleared for service until the late 80's.

Some sources cite the Bazalt's top speed as Mach 2.5, others cite it as Mach 2 or even Mach 1.7. In any case, its drag would be largely dominated by wave drag. Wikipedia had some nice equations for wave drag. Approximating the Bazalt as a double-wedge aerofoil to get its drag at Mach 2.5, then using the specific fuel consumption of the R-15 turbojet (in afterburner) (since it's a turbojet engine from a similar era, so fuel economy should be very similar), I found it'd only take a few hundred kg of fuel for it to travel its entire range at Mach 2.5, using fairly conservative estimates.

The research on the missile is interesting, though. Learned more detail on their guidance AI and found a small tweak I'll probably make to their visual launch effects. This is another funny case where realism will probably look unrealistic - real pictures of Bazalts or Vulkans launching show an impressively large flame plume from the booster rockets.

On the topic of its guidance, I haven't spoken at length about the Bazalt's guidance software, but as some here may know, it was very impressively sophisticated. I haven't gone over it yet because I'm not sure I can implement it on the game's Early Access release, but realism holds some interesting challenges when it comes to balance.