Missiles I think would work well with infinite ammo, with minimal changes:
Swarmers, Annihilators (both), Locust, Squall
There's an issue with multiple ships firing too many missiles vs an unshielded target, yeah. This is addressed in the dev version.The main issue I have with limited-ammo weapons is that, in some cases, they distort the optimal player tactic to one of 'wait out enemy ammunition, then engage'. The most egregious example here is an Onslaught with four Annihilator Pods - as long as it's got ammo for those, it's very hard to push an engagement - due to both the flux-free damage output, and the fact that a wall of annihilator rockets tends to absorb a large portion of incoming attacks.Missiles I think would work well with infinite ammo, with minimal changes:
Swarmers, Annihilators (both), Locust, Squall
The main issue there is flux cost. They'd end up being far too good over a long battle. As they are now, they're a limited amount of flux-free pressure a ship can exert, with various wrinkles. If they have unlimited ammo, they become both overpowered and boring - from something that's an interesting decision to fire, to something you literally never want to take off autofire.
It could all be worked around, perhaps, but a solution would have to address those concerns. IIRC I tried this with Swarmers a while back and it really did feel awful, they went from "a fun thing to fire" to a "have to make sure I'm firing them on every cooldown" chore.
The main issue I have with limited-ammo weapons is that, in some cases, they distort the optimal player tactic to one of 'wait out enemy ammunition, then engage'.The fear of waiting being optimal due to regenerating ammo is more than offset by waiting being optimal by stalling until AI wastes all ammo (except one for revenge kill). Look at AI ships lobbing Sabots, MIRVs, or Squalls. The optimal way to fight those ships is to wait until they run out of ammo. SIM Conquest is one the biggest offenders. Want to solo that? Wait until it wastes all of its Squalls. Onslaught with quad Annihilators is another example.
Well at present, if I know I'm going to be in long battles I just don't mount those weapons.Yup, me either. The only missiles I like right now are Locust pods, because they usually have enough ammo to make the early-game stuff / fighters die, in Vanilla. Pilums got nerfed too hard and the rest of them aren't worth the OPs for the occasional alpha-kills they generated.
For them to be viable AI needs to be stupid enough to commit exploitable mistakes, yet smart enough to correctly exploit them.AI (and players) will always make mistakes that can be exploited, the only issue is the "yet smart enough to correctly exploit them" part.
AI (and players) will always make mistakes that can be exploited
- 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.
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.
In fact, Serenitis, if you would consider posting your mod somewhere I'd appreciate that
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