Editing VB-Anti-Missile Tutorial (section)

==Elements of a defence system==
Before we get to the missiles, we need to take a look at sensors, launchers and magazines and what they do because that's what a lot of people get wrong. 

Any AMM missile defense is a system where all components need to be work together. It has five parts:

* An '''Active Grav Search Sensor''' (ASS) with a Resolution of 1. That's a pure missile warning sensor. It's not much use for anything else, but your big high-resolution search sensors will see missiles only when they already scratch the paint of your expensive ship. In theory you need only one warning sensor and it can be on any ship. All you need is somebody, somewhere to spot the missiles with an Active Sensor (not Thermal or EM sensors). All your ships now know where the incoming missiles are, even those in different taskgroups. In practice you might want to put at least a small warning sensor on most warships, just in case. 

* A '''missile fire control''' (FC), also Resolution 1. Each ship firing AMMs needs at least one of those. The ASS looks out for trouble, then the FC guides your anti-missiles to their targets.

* A bunch of Size-1 '''launchers'''. Why are AMMs almost always Size 1 missiles? Because they don't need much Bang! or range or fancy extras. They need to be fast, really fast, and the launchers need to be fast as well. Size-2 launchers take twice as long to reload as Size-1, Size-3 need three times etc. Early reloading tech means a Size-1 salvo every 30 seconds.

* A '''Magazine'''. Each launcher can store one missile, that's why adding eight Size-1 launchers to your ship design gives you a magazine capacity of eight (note: Magazine Capacity is measured in Missile Size Points, not number of missiles. Adding four Size-6 launchers gives you a capacity of 24). Now there will rarely be only one salvo of 28 ASMs to defend against. There might be five or ten or even more, depending on how deep the enemy's magazines are. Another reason to make your AMMs as small as possible, and that's Size-1 (you can't build anything smaller). Having 

* A '''Missile'''. You guessed that one, right?