Heh yeah, the number of times panic missile spam has gotten one of my frigates is too damn high!
Pretty ironic isn't it? Since explosives suck in space due to the lack of a medium to send the shock wave through.It is true that most of the force of an external explosion will be wasted in space. However, if an explosive weapon penetrates the armor prior to detonating, the story becomes rather different, as the ship's armor or hull will act to confine the rapidly-expanding gases generated by the explosion, concentrating the explosive force in a relatively small area; either a section of the ship's armor will have to give way to allow the explosive force to vent into space, or the ship's armor will help concentrate the explosion's power against the very things that the ship's armor is intended to protect (actually, it'll do that even if the armor gives way, but it'll do it more if the armor doesn't give way than if it does). Even with a ship designed so that there is a void space between the armored and primary hulls, if an explosion occurs in the void space you're still looking at a choice between compromising the armor or compromising the things that the armor was intended to protect - an explosion in a void space between the armored and primary hulls is mostly trapped in a relatively small space by the two hulls, concentrating its power. If the explosive is sufficiently powerful, one or the other hull must give way in order to allow the explosion's force to be expended; if the hull which gives way is the armored hull, then a section of the ship's armor will be peeled away, while if the primary hull gives way first then the ship's armor has failed to protect that which was intended to safeguard and may even have increased the amount of damage sustained. An explosion within the void space which is insufficiently powerful to cause either the armored or the primary hulls to fail may still compromise the armor if it is sufficiently powerful to damage the structural elements connecting the armored and primary hulls.
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Pretty ironic isn't it? Since explosives suck in space due to the lack of a medium to send the shock wave through.
Also, given that all the base game HE weapons appear to use either contact detonators or delayed-action fuses with a very short delay, full or partial armor penetration prior to detonation is a realistic possibility.
Missiles are kill-stealers! Regular guns do all of the hard work, and then missiles come in and steal all the glory.
Does this speak of missiles/torps being overpowered or is it simply the nature of burst damage being superior to sustained?
And to answer the question in the topic title, to my eternal shame I had a Medusa (not one I was piloting, but still though) killed by a pirate Mudskipper yesterday on my current level 51 character.
Does this speak of missiles/torps being overpowered or is it simply the nature of burst damage being superior to sustained?
And to answer the question in the topic title, to my eternal shame I had a Medusa (not one I was piloting, but still though) killed by a pirate Mudskipper yesterday on my current level 51 character.
Wow, how can something so sad be so funny? Even if the AI was piloting it, how can it happen? ???
Missile Spam vs Frigates is probably the worst-case scenario from a game design perspective. How do you make missiles that are both fast and damaging enough to pose a threat to destroyers, but don't just obliterate frigates when spammed in massive numbers?