Fractal Softworks Forum

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Advanced search  

News:

Starsector 0.97a is out! (02/02/24); New blog post: Simulator Enhancements (03/13/24)

Pages: 1 [2]

Author Topic: Missile Behavior  (Read 9167 times)

evil713

  • Commander
  • ***
  • Posts: 114
    • View Profile
Re: Missile Behavior
« Reply #15 on: April 25, 2018, 04:34:23 AM »

What if a missile launcher had no flux when firing but had flux over time while reloading, a flux generated while building a missile sort of thing.
Logged

Megas

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 12118
    • View Profile
Re: Missile Behavior
« Reply #16 on: April 25, 2018, 04:53:09 AM »

- Squalls have potential usage as survival buffer (whatever mounts them will survive while they last).
I wished that was true.  Even with Squalls, AI Gryphon was always the first to die, and I eventually retired Gryphon from my fleet.

There is one other use of Sabots, my favorite:  Hull smasher (and armor smasher of smaller ships).  AI does not use sabots that way, except by accident with Longbow spam.  Unfortunately, that makes it a playership weapon.
Logged

Serenitis

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 1458
    • View Profile
Re: Missile Behavior
« Reply #17 on: April 29, 2018, 12:26:06 PM »

Missiles are one of my favourite weapons.
But the sad fact is, that as they are I just don't use them very often because I'd much rather use the OP to give my ships something that will help them forever, rather than be gone and left with potentially nothing. Much like I never used ballistic ships when they were ammo-limited.
The only exceptions are Pilums, which I still love to bits even despite thier nerf.

And as noted previously, the AI despite being generally awesome, has some very exploitable behaviour regarding missiles. Just think; every single ship in-sector except the one you are flying is subject to those behaviours.
I brushed over these problems by going through the weapons tables and adding an amount of regen to (almost) every missile weapon, and now it doesn't matter if an AI ship dumps an entire rack of harpoons on the tail of a fast ship they will never catch, or shoots all it's annihilators into empty space again. They'll get to have another go, and I don't get an easy ride once a notable fraction of thier weapons stop working.
The game seems to handle it fairly well, although it would be much better if the AI could decide to use missiles to pressure shields (a notable advantage the player has). But this isn't terribly likely unless vanilla's missiles get regen.

This has taught me that if nothing else, the prox. charge launcher absolutely requires regen to not only be useful, but shine as a PD weapon.
And I've actually started using large mount missiles now they're not dead OP.

What if a missile launcher had no flux when firing but had flux over time while reloading, a flux generated while building a missile sort of thing.
I could live with that.
Or maybe the reload time could depend on your flux level - higher flux = longer reload. Do you vent right now to reload quicker, or will you get your face pushed in if you drop shields?
Logged

Darloth

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 592
    • View Profile
Re: Missile Behavior
« Reply #18 on: May 15, 2018, 05:24:36 AM »

I like both the regen-to-one-salvo mechanic and the flux cost while regenerating to that one salvo ideas, personally.

I'd also support having the rocket style pods regen in chunks with a long regen time, to get a break between firing periods as someone suggested.

These ideas would keep missiles somewhat different from the other weapons, maintain their limited high-alpha low flux role in battle, and still preserve missile ships as not as useful after they've fired all their missiles, because now they have flux and can't even fly as fast until they've regenerated the next (batch of) missiles... but it would fix them being entirely USELESS after they're out, and it would make adding missiles to ships feel so much less a waste of OP if you're planning to get into any larger battles.

Even if you don't want to do this for the main game Alex, please would you check/add the ability for us to mod in regenerate-to-X ammo, and/or flux while reloading?  I'm aware that, if you don't go with it, it's time away from full game features, but it would open up lots of subsequent ammo based possibilities for all sorts of mod weapons (many of the spinal giant cannons would benefit from less flux cost but then flux-while-reload, for example) and I'd love it for pretty much all missiles.

Without those features, I'll probably still add a slow regen to all medium or larger missile mounts.  I think I did once for a previous version, forget which now.  In fact, Serenitis, if you would consider posting your mod somewhere I'd appreciate that, I'd certainly use it, even though I'll probably keep racks as zero-reload without the ability to limit them to 1 missile, as otherwise they can build up another alphastrike and are not costed to be able to do that more than once.

Edit: Before someone asks... yes, I absolutely do selfishly want these things at the expense of other stuff, like a sooner release.  And you should too, they're useful options with loads of potential.  You'll thank me for it laaaateeerrrr...  *is dragged off and devoured by the update-hungry masses*
« Last Edit: May 15, 2018, 05:33:19 AM by Darloth »
Logged

Sarissofoi

  • Captain
  • ****
  • Posts: 405
    • View Profile
Re: Missile Behavior
« Reply #19 on: May 15, 2018, 05:28:27 AM »

They are fine. Just to costly on OP.

Shuka

  • Lieutenant
  • **
  • Posts: 58
    • View Profile
Re: Missile Behavior
« Reply #20 on: June 06, 2018, 11:48:48 AM »

I like missiles right now, they have trade-offs and require some thought as to their use. As it stands, I generally save them for stripping armor on high threat targets that I can't afford to brawl with for long.

If a battle is going long, I usually try to keep the fighting near my spawn so I can safely retreat forces and call in backups. I almost never expect to defeat a huge enemy force with one wave of my own ships due to CR constraints, and the way missiles are now synergizes with the CR system.
Logged

Eji1700

  • Commander
  • ***
  • Posts: 222
    • View Profile
Re: Missile Behavior
« Reply #21 on: June 06, 2018, 02:25:40 PM »

I'm fine with missiles.  I'm also fine retreating my missile ships from combat when they run dry?

Seriously having a few Gryphons for the initial engagement just annihilate anything they fire at and then leave is such a huge combat swing it's not even funny.  Yes you can't leave them on the field, but by that point you've already won.
Logged

Serenitis

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 1458
    • View Profile
Re: Missile Behavior
« Reply #22 on: July 22, 2018, 04:48:54 AM »

In fact, Serenitis, if you would consider posting your mod somewhere I'd appreciate that

The thing about that is, it's not a mod in it's own right exactly. It's more a mod-of-a-mod, that is just me going into the weapon tables (including all mods present) and adding in a regen number for whatever missiles I feel would need it.
And it would be p. much impossible to make it into a standalone mod that covers all the others. (Doing it this way at least.)

That being said...
Spoiler
Basic rules:
Harpoon small triple mount is the baseline - set to regen 1 missile approx. every 20-ish seconds. (regen rate = 0.05)
Large mounts regen faster than small.
Large warheads regen slower than small.
No small mounts with >1000 dmg regen at all.

For reference this is the weapons table I use for vanilla: https://nofile.io/f/Yfa0vY1Gjyn/weapon_data.csv
(<drive>:\Starsector\starsector-core\data\weapons)

The following is a reference table for balancing regen rates if anyone should feel inclined in that direction.
https://nofile.io/f/0K7g3WhVEOR/ss-regen.ods (open office format)
[close]

Logged

Morbo513

  • Captain
  • ****
  • Posts: 317
    • View Profile
Re: Missile Behavior
« Reply #23 on: July 22, 2018, 03:45:05 PM »

I'd like to see Salamanders  and any other currently unlimited missiles given a finite ammo pool. Salamanders especially though.
Alternately, and I don't like this idea myself but food for thought, missiles could be infinite (w/long delayed reload cycle) but apply a malus to CR degradation.
Logged

Megas

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 12118
    • View Profile
Re: Missile Behavior
« Reply #24 on: July 22, 2018, 05:12:04 PM »

There are only two (true) missiles that are unlimited, Salamanders and Pilums.  Salamanders used to be limited, but became unlimited to make it easy for the AI to use.  It used to do 500 fragmentation damage, but that was changed because it was nearly as good as a Harpoon against unarmored ships.  (Fast Missile Racks gained charges too to prevent unlimited Salamander spam.)  Pilums are too slow and too fragile to be viable in 0.8.

My choice for unlimited missiles is... Converted Hangar and a wing of Talons or Claws for bigger ships that can use them.  They are more effective than Salamanders or Pilums.

I occasionally use Salamanders, but usually on small ships that cannot use Converted Hangar effectively.  Pilums are useless in 0.8.  As for other missiles, I rarely use them except as filler on clunkers.
Logged

agnar

  • Ensign
  • *
  • Posts: 5
    • View Profile
Re: Missile Behavior
« Reply #25 on: July 24, 2018, 01:13:18 PM »

I made an account to discus this ...

Anyway, what are possible ways to balance unlimited missiles.
One way most People suggest ist flux. -> Why not hard flux on regenerating missiles? This way they have a cost and it becomes intresting to use ships that have no shield as missileboats. This mean that you could make certain missiles cost no flux but have limited ammo.

Another way would be that missiles that regenerate have a similar system as carriers (fighter replacement). The more you use them the slower they regenerate and the number only regenerates if they are off cooldown. -> The missile boats can have a dedicated hullmod which either decreases the use or makes regeneration fast. And the special ability missile forge could have a flat regeneration 50% restoration of you missile replacement percentage.
Logged

TheWetFish

  • Commander
  • ***
  • Posts: 140
    • View Profile
Re: Missile Behavior
« Reply #26 on: August 12, 2018, 11:53:01 AM »

I recently started using more dedicated missile boats in my fleets.

While they perform very well under my control, the AI does not seem to know what to do with them.  The first unshielded frigate or destroyer invites half my fleet to fire all of their harpoons.  My ships will fire torpedoes from long range with no chance of hitting their targets.  I notice enemy AI firing sabots at my flagship, however after most engagements my fleet's sabot racks are full.

Is there a way to limit the max number of harpoons fired at one target and limit the range the AI will use harpoons/torpedoes at? Is there a common reason why AI would not use their sabots?

Thanks,
Kell

Which other weapons are in weapon groups with missiles can have a profound impact on how the missiles are used.  It's a pretty complex interplay sometimes.  Try putting Harpoons in a weapon group with a 'ranging' weapon like a Tactical Laser.  It will help to suppress the missile fire until the impetus to fire the whole weapon group is high enough, until the range closes enough for the ranging weapon to fire 

If you've got a specific setup that you want to work a specific way then hop on the Discord, head over to the Dry Dock channel and we can go through it
Logged
Pages: 1 [2]