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Author Topic: Sabot Missiles are Too Strong  (Read 7228 times)

Bob69Joe

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Re: Sabot Missiles are Too Strong
« Reply #30 on: November 27, 2019, 03:16:00 PM »

Perhaps I can resurrect this to add my observation. I only want to talk about the missile's speed. It seems to defy physics on my 208 top-speed wolf frigate that it fires a sabot which immediately trails behind it uselessly. I guess this is built in behavior for the sabot to actually slow down and maintain another speed somehow defying a vacuum or the burner changes its velocity.

I'm thinking I am hinting at vacuum based physics for all missile types, but that would be a missile overhaul. E.G., going 200 speed, the missile will maintain that speed plus whatever the burner adds but sabots slow down to I would guess 150 or less. The firing animation looks very peculiar with the missile barely making it out of the tube and then passing right behind the hull. Missiles are of zero flux use so the ship isn't slowing down at all.
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Plantissue

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Re: Sabot Missiles are Too Strong
« Reply #31 on: November 27, 2019, 04:24:45 PM »

It doesn't bother me to be honest. Sabot is speed 150. It matches speed with a Wolf perfectly. If you want to see strange, wait till you see Vigilance firing Pilums.

What does bother me is that Sabot range is described as 1200 but I'm pretty sure I've hit ships from at least 2000 range. Also that the missile disappears entirely before its chaff and sabot munitions appears so for a split second the missile simply vanishes.
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intrinsic_parity

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Re: Sabot Missiles are Too Strong
« Reply #32 on: November 27, 2019, 06:54:55 PM »

Yeah the missile speed thing doesn't make sense from a physics perspective but balance wise, it prevents missiles from going super fast and causing issues. Imagine a plasma burning odyssey sending reapers flying across the map so fast you can hardly react before your ship explodes. Missiles going a set speed makes sure that they are always similarly difficult to avoid.

It's actually sort of abusable in its current state though because you can easily use your shields to prevent sabots from getting shot down by PD before the second stage fires. I abuse that with the aurora sometimes.
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Goumindong

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Re: Sabot Missiles are Too Strong
« Reply #33 on: November 29, 2019, 10:43:01 PM »

It doesn't bother me to be honest. Sabot is speed 150. It matches speed with a Wolf perfectly. If you want to see strange, wait till you see Vigilance firing Pilums.

What does bother me is that Sabot range is described as 1200 but I'm pretty sure I've hit ships from at least 2000 range. Also that the missile disappears entirely before its chaff and sabot munitions appears so for a split second the missile simply vanishes.

This is usually caused by eccm or missile skills. Missile speed increases increase missile range because missiles dont have “range” stats they have “duration” stats. The range is just a helpful placeholder.
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DatonKallandor

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Re: Sabot Missiles are Too Strong
« Reply #34 on: November 30, 2019, 05:11:01 AM »

Nah it's because Sabots can burn out and lose their engines but the warhead stays "live" for a long time while it drifts and if the target gets into range it pops and spews sabots all over the place, long after it's max range.
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bobucles

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Re: Sabot Missiles are Too Strong
« Reply #35 on: November 30, 2019, 05:43:45 AM »

Nah it's because Sabots can burn out and lose their engines but the warhead stays "live" for a long time while it drifts and if the target gets into range it pops and spews sabots all over the place, long after it's max range.
Normal missiles are still dangerous after burning out as well, I learned that the fun way during an experiment. Sabots are particularly dangerous because their second stage is still functional, so if a ship wanders into range it can still get hit. It's almost like a land mine, or at least it's more dangerous than other idle missiles out there.

Actually it's a really cool thing. You could in theory mod a missile with a short burn time and a very long idle time. Give it a secondary payload, and it will blast any ships that wander nearby. In effect you'd have a minelayer type of weapon, something that fails in a direct fight but would create chaos for ships that fly through it.

Plantissue

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Re: Sabot Missiles are Too Strong
« Reply #36 on: November 30, 2019, 10:51:16 AM »

No eccm or missile skills. I just did some tests in sim. I thought it was possible that the target ship moving forward combined with travel time of the missile meant that it was hitting at 1200.

Definitely hitting at 2100 range, which is way over 1200. My guess is that the main sabot missile range is 1200+ and the sabots are 800+ range. So Sabots have 2100+ range.
« Last Edit: November 30, 2019, 11:11:14 AM by Plantissue »
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SCC

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Re: Sabot Missiles are Too Strong
« Reply #37 on: November 30, 2019, 01:19:26 PM »

The range stat doesn't denote actual range for missiles, but is recommended range for those weapons. ECCM and Missile Specialisation indirectly increase missile range, because they increase speed, while leaving missile life time intact.

Plantissue

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Re: Sabot Missiles are Too Strong
« Reply #38 on: November 30, 2019, 03:17:29 PM »

No eccm or missile skills.
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SCC

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Re: Sabot Missiles are Too Strong
« Reply #39 on: November 30, 2019, 11:26:35 PM »

The range stat doesn't denote actual range for missiles, but is recommended range for those weapons.
This part of my post still stands.

Plantissue

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Re: Sabot Missiles are Too Strong
« Reply #40 on: December 01, 2019, 06:53:01 AM »

I ignored it because it was clearly connected your next sentence about eccm and missile skills.

It doesn't bear up to scrutiny anyways. Most missile weapons are fairly close to their ranges, maybe 10-20% more at the most and then they deactivate, which is about right, since most projectile weapons fade away shortly after their range. They don't continue significantly on after that. The only notable exceptions to that I can think of is Hammer and maybe Harpoon (difficult to tell with the shifting battlefield and the curving, slow nature of the Harpoon) which is a long range missile anyways. Hammer being the only short range missile and its range description should change too to reflect that. In any case they wouldn't be at the massive +75% range that the sabot exhibits.

Since we the players use the range indicators to know when to fire our weapons, the visual range indicator of the weapon should be changed to reflect their actual range.
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Igncom1

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Re: Sabot Missiles are Too Strong
« Reply #41 on: December 01, 2019, 07:54:25 AM »

This all does make me wonder, if the damage bonuses/penalties for HE and KE were swapped, how would the game play?

Is there a mod that does this because I'd love to give it a go.
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DatonKallandor

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Re: Sabot Missiles are Too Strong
« Reply #42 on: December 01, 2019, 10:44:14 AM »

I've considered swapping the damage stats of harpoons and sabots (harpoons turning into fast emp/kinetic single-stage homing missiles and sabots being spray-of-HE slow two-stage missiles) for both ease of use reasons (linked together they'd lead to the kinetic arriving first and the HE following up instead of what it is currently, at least when not fired in touching range) and to give atropos an actual role as the guided HE strike option.
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intrinsic_parity

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Re: Sabot Missiles are Too Strong
« Reply #43 on: December 01, 2019, 12:36:58 PM »

Sabots would probably be pretty bad as HE missiles. They have low damage-per shot with all the pellets meaning low armor penetration, and the damage also gets spread out meaning it will be affecting different armor cells.
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DatonKallandor

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Re: Sabot Missiles are Too Strong
« Reply #44 on: December 01, 2019, 02:12:58 PM »

Yup - but at least a shotgun HE option (scales with target size, better against low armor targets, chance of partial hits, harder to PD) would be more interesting than Atropos-but-more as Harpoons are currently. It'd at least make the Atropos something unique rather than a slower less good harpoon.
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