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Author Topic: All missiles should cost 0 ordnance points.  (Read 24421 times)

Techhead

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Re: All missiles should cost 0 ordnance points.
« Reply #60 on: December 07, 2017, 06:20:39 PM »

Using missiles at a critical time in an engagement can turn the tide of that engagement, quickly eliminating that enemy threat and freeing up the attacking ship to go assist allied ships in their own engagements, starting a domino effect. Burst damage is a powerful tool in starsector, and one of the greatest sources of it (missiles/ torpedoes) are limited in ammunition to balance out their incredible power.

Agreed, but the most reliable burst damage is close rage builds like machine gun hammerhead, not missiles ships.
Missiles both have bigger bursts and longer ranges than HMGs and similar weapons, for none of the flux cost. I think that limited ammo is one of just two main downsides of vanilla missiles compared to other weapons. (Excepting Pilums and Salamanders) The other downside is that they can be intercepted with PD. But on the rest... They have amazing range. They cost no flux. They're guided. While you have ammo, they have insane DPS. Look at the Harpoon rack. If you had unlimited missile ammo without changing anything else, it has 750 DPS in a small slot. That's THREE Hellbores, with over twice the base range.

You wanna look at HMG Hammerhead? Using two medium slots and a weapon boosting system (Which itself is kinda insane. I mean, 2x DPS at zero extra flux cost? It's top-tier for gunship systems.), it delivers 1280 kinetic damage in one second. That's only 28% more than a single Sabot. A Sabot rack can drop one of these every second until it runs dry, and there are several frigates capable of mounting double Sabot racks.

Ammo is the leash on missiles' power.
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Thaago

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Re: All missiles should cost 0 ordnance points.
« Reply #61 on: December 08, 2017, 07:29:39 AM »

I think missiles are in a good spot, barring a few tweaks (Pilums need a speed buff and sabots need a refire delay nerf). I'm firmly on the side that their burst potential is what makes them good because the game rewards burst damage so much. Shields are infinite health, so when you have the opportunity to do real damage you need to take it (or you can use them as an 'oh crap' to get an enemy to back off if things go badly). They also allow frigates to stay relevant much longer - a Harpoon Wolf (less so Lasher, but doable) with extended missile racks is perfectly viable to deploy late game, mainly because their missiles.

That said, they are poor choices for "Player v everything" style combat because if you need to destroy 10 ships of equal size, popping 2 easier doesn't actually help that much. I'd say missiles are useful up until the numbers are greater than 3-1 against the player in terms of ships. And even then you can use "engage -> kill several ships -> retreat -> engage again" type tactics to reload your missiles and get the upper hand.
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Megas

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Re: All missiles should cost 0 ordnance points.
« Reply #62 on: December 08, 2017, 08:08:56 AM »

Pilums need to be faster.  They feel more like mines.  Small Sabot seems okay if fired only by one (maybe two) ships.  Medium may be overkill.  I would like Medium act like Small Sabot, but regenerates in combat like Salamanders do.

@ Thaago:  Your PvE comment explains why I do not use non-regenerating missiles much.  Most relevant fights are equal or superior forces in enemy's favor.  (If player has advantage, they run and player can auto-resolve.)  I would not use retreat and re-engage until the loot bug gets fixed though.
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Thaago

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Re: All missiles should cost 0 ordnance points.
« Reply #63 on: December 08, 2017, 08:28:12 AM »

Shipmaster, the enemy outnumbers us three to one!

Then it will be an even fight. Burn their mongrel hides!

I was playing some Halo 3 recently and thought of you Megas. <3
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Tartiflette

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Re: All missiles should cost 0 ordnance points.
« Reply #64 on: December 08, 2017, 09:16:32 AM »

Cross posting here since it's even more relevant to this discussion:
According to my ingame tests, a default Lasher with harpoons take out an Onslaught in 1 min 45' with 6 harpoons, while without missiles but better flux and weapons it took 2min 10'. A Rocket pod version did it in 1 min 5'

So just 6 missiles shaved 20sec of TTK against the best armor in the game for a frigate, and rockets halved it. Even the SO version of that frigate that didn't had to vent only matched the TTK of the Harpoon equipped variant.

So as mentioned multiple times already: missiles can be a damage multiplier, a support weapon or a finisher, but they rarely are a main damage dealer and it is pointless to compare them as such.
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intrinsic_parity

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Re: All missiles should cost 0 ordnance points.
« Reply #65 on: December 08, 2017, 10:54:21 AM »

Medium (sabot) may be overkill.

The medium sabot pod definitely needs to be changed. Considering on a legion you can have 5 of them which is 20 simultaneous sabots. Its enough to overload anything instantly, and then you throw a couple wings of bomber in... aurora can abuse medium sabot pod too, even 8 at once is kinda unbalanced. I definitely agree that regenerating medium pods would be a good change for most missiles. Small pod should also have a firing delay between missiles.
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Megas

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Re: All missiles should cost 0 ordnance points.
« Reply #66 on: December 08, 2017, 11:10:08 AM »

If I sacrifice PD and guns for five missiles on a Legion, those missiles had better unfailingly erase whatever they were sent at unless the target had overwhelming PD (like Onslaught with seven dual flak plus Vulcans and/or devastators), given that there will likely be twenty-something more ships to kill after the missiles are spent.  Seeing that fighters are better missiles than missiles, I see no need to make that sacrifice.
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Algro

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Re: All missiles should cost 0 ordnance points.
« Reply #67 on: December 08, 2017, 01:34:34 PM »

So, basically, downgrade fighter missiles and make ship missiles sustainable.

As in, change missiles from medium and up sustainable in longer battles and make bombers less like missile platforms and more like old school mine throwers.
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Megas

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Re: All missiles should cost 0 ordnance points.
« Reply #68 on: December 08, 2017, 02:14:52 PM »

I rather have missiles be at least one among:  more powerful (like 0.7.2 Atropos), more sustainable (regeneration), or cheap (as per OP suggestion).  Fighters are mostly fine (they were underpowered for several versions).  Warthogs are the only fighters that may be overpowered, but for those, their OP could be raised to match more expensive fighters.  (Talons are also rather strong for a free fighter, stronger than Wasps and Mining Pods, despite being a bit weak overall.)
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intrinsic_parity

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Re: All missiles should cost 0 ordnance points.
« Reply #69 on: December 08, 2017, 03:38:10 PM »

Firing 20 sabots at something will unfailingly erase it, you will still need to finish the job, but nothing can take 20 sabots without over loading or taking massive hull damage, and you still have the two large slots plus bombers for finishing power. Its a super consistent combo. Throw expanded missile racks on there and you have 120 missiles... More than enough for pretty much any fight. You probably only need ~4 for most ships, in my experience 8 will overload almost anything except paragon. Legion doesn't have the best flux stats anyway, so it can't really support a huge complement of weapons, two large weapons is already a lot of flux. Small mounts for pd is probably enough in a fleet context.
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mehgamer

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Re: All missiles should cost 0 ordnance points.
« Reply #70 on: December 08, 2017, 11:17:00 PM »

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Algro

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Re: All missiles should cost 0 ordnance points.
« Reply #71 on: December 08, 2017, 11:47:17 PM »

That, that is just gorgeous. But isn't the Gryphon one of the only few ships that can actually regenerate missiles? (That felt like a giant bomber which could refit itself, but yeah, missiles have high burst damage, point taken)
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AxleMC131

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Re: All missiles should cost 0 ordnance points.
« Reply #72 on: December 09, 2017, 01:30:17 AM »

But isn't the Gryphon one of the only few ships that can actually regenerate missiles?

(I know I said I was bowing out of this convo, but must say:)

Only once. The Missile Autoforge system can only be used once in a battle.
« Last Edit: December 09, 2017, 01:32:09 AM by AxleMC131 »
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DatonKallandor

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Re: All missiles should cost 0 ordnance points.
« Reply #73 on: December 09, 2017, 02:34:43 PM »

Missiles both have bigger bursts and longer ranges than HMGs and similar weapons, for none of the flux cost. I think that limited ammo is one of just two main downsides of vanilla missiles compared to other weapons. (Excepting Pilums and Salamanders) The other downside is that they can be intercepted with PD. But on the rest... They have amazing range. They cost no flux. They're guided. While you have ammo, they have insane DPS. Look at the Harpoon rack. If you had unlimited missile ammo without changing anything else, it has 750 DPS in a small slot. That's THREE Hellbores, with over twice the base range.

Why in the world would you think people just want regenerating missiles to be the ammo number deleted from the spreadsheet? Of course they'd be insane if they could fire at their current DPS with unlimited ammo because many of the current missiles have absolutely absurd fire rates, kept only in check by limited ammo counts (which incidentally, get broken by extended mags to make those missiles far stronger than they should be). Nobody is suggesting just making them infinite and leaving it at that, because it's bananas. Regenerating missiles would need to be properly balanced - but then, missiles in general need to be properly balanced anyway. Many of them are bad, and some them are way too good, even in their current ammo-limited state. Might as well make them a proper pyramidion in the weapon triangle (which is absolutely achievable, and there's multiple mods that have done it) by giving them regen while you're doing a necessary balance overhaul.
« Last Edit: December 09, 2017, 02:38:00 PM by DatonKallandor »
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mehgamer

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Re: All missiles should cost 0 ordnance points.
« Reply #74 on: December 09, 2017, 03:00:54 PM »

Missiles both have bigger bursts and longer ranges than HMGs and similar weapons, for none of the flux cost. I think that limited ammo is one of just two main downsides of vanilla missiles compared to other weapons. (Excepting Pilums and Salamanders) The other downside is that they can be intercepted with PD. But on the rest... They have amazing range. They cost no flux. They're guided. While you have ammo, they have insane DPS. Look at the Harpoon rack. If you had unlimited missile ammo without changing anything else, it has 750 DPS in a small slot. That's THREE Hellbores, with over twice the base range.

Why in the world would you think people just want regenerating missiles to be the ammo number deleted from the spreadsheet? Of course they'd be insane if they could fire at their current DPS with unlimited ammo. Nobody is suggesting that, because it's bananas. Regenerating missiles would need to be properly balanced - but then, missiles in general need to be properly balanced anyway. Many of them are bad, and some them are way too good, even in their current ammo-limited state. Might as well make them a proper pyramidion in the weapon triangle by giving them regen while you're doing a necessary balance overhaul.

I can't really think of any bad vanilla missiles...

-Harpoons are easily stackable assault damage on overloaded or vulnerable targets
-Sabots are a meme they're WAY too powerful.
-Swarmers are sustainable damage for several minutes worth of fighting, and help fight fighters - a BIG DEAL.
-Annihilators are the same way but trading the guiding system for more damage and faster speed.
-Hammers are like sniping torpedos, doing a lot of damage and flying particularly fast.  Extra shot too!
-Reapers kill things.  They kill them dead and once they die they are no longer alive.
-Atropos are guided torpedos.  Not great guidance, not reaper tier damage, but it's quite a lot and it hurts.
-Salamanders mess with the AI, deal EMP damage (often focused on the engines) and are infinite ammo, which is a big deal.
-Proximity mines basically make fighters irrelevant and act as a wall of PD, with enough ammo to last a while.
-Pilums, enmasse; confuse the AI, force them to keep shields up, completely disarm phase ships, and occasionally even finish overloaded targets (especially in tandem with salamanders disabling engines!)
-Hurricane is antifighter or anti everything else, with enough damage to one hit many ships.  Plus, the MIRV means it can avoid PD if it gets within burst range.
-Squalls are sustained KE damage, something incredibly effective at pressuring ships at extreme ranges and opening them up for followup attacks.
-Locusts are probably the most powerful missile in the game, to be honest, the launcher fires so many of them in such a fast rate that enemy ships refuse to drop shield if they are unfortunate enough to drop their shields.  This often means that locusts combine with kinetic and energy weapons to very cleanly force ships to be overloaded from long ranges, and then things like harpoons or other means of assault damage can finish the vulnerable enemy.

Missiles rule.
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