Getting shot from offscreen without the visual cues of seeing the ship or counter-play is not fun, and it is also not very engaging for the player who can't see offscreen to use weapons like that. It can work as a boss weapon (or stations) but not on any random ship.
That is only an issue if there is no visual cue, game mechanics or nuance tied to it, which is the mistake many games make.
The argument that long range combat means no maneuvering or interaction or that it promotes spam is a false one that continues to be propagated due to ignorance in games with long range combat. Or long range combat as a general concept. It saddens me and I must write.
I will use modern flight games and common semi-active missiles as an example of LRM interactivity and hope that it can spark some thinking regarding this to open new gameplay avenues to Starsector (keeping the game's arcade nature in mind) instead of shutting them down arbitrarily.
Modern flight games have radar missiles launched from dozens of kilometers away. Supersonic missiles that can cripple or destroy their target in one hit.
And yet, sitting back launching all your missiles without positioning or maneuvering does not win fights.
And yet, you do not get hit from long range without warning, nor do you aimlessly launch missiles into the void like you do Pilums.
And yet, you do not put the longest range missiles on all your hardpoints unless you want to lose.
Why?
Because both sides are
always interacting. In this example, the moment the attacker sees the defender on radar, the defender knows, because they have radar warning, a visual indicator that somebody sees them from afar and from which direction. When the attacker decides to attack with a long range missile, the defender knows, because radar warning shows them that the enemy radar is in attack mode and targeting them. Both sides will maneuver. Long range missiles are not omnipotent and have clear weaknesses in acceleration and agility, and both parties will maneuver to increase their chance of hitting/"dodging", or to force the opponent in a dangerous position before launch even occurs. And with most long range missiles, the attacker must continue to beam their radar at their target for the missile to track properly, creating further weaknesses in positioning that can be exploited. I won't mention countermeasures, because I don't need to: Starsector already has its equivalent with PD weapons.
I think that lessons can be taken from real life and other games when it comes to making something interactive.
My suggestion on making LRMs effective and fun based on what I wrote above:
-Give LRMs VERY slow acceleration, good top speed, low agility that grows worse the further they fly and a gradual loss of speed beyond a certain distance. Thus they are unreliable at close range, but also at very long range. This gives them a "soft spot", a range margin at which they are best making positioning before launch important despite their long range nature, instead of throwing them out anytime anywhere. The bad agility would also mean that you have to angle your launchers towards the target to have a chance to hit at all.
-Make LRMs require the launching ship to lock their target for a few seconds or the missile won't track at all. The ship being locked on has a visual warning of being locked and of the direction and range of the ship locking them, and a stronger warning when the lock is complete and missiles have been launched. Thus the defender knows and can start thinking of dodging and/or orienting their PD/shields/armor knowing the missiles are coming, from where, and when.
Locking a target also reveals the launching ship regardless of fog of war, making interception with various means possible.
-The launching ship must maintain the lock on the same target all the way or LRMs will stop tracking completely. Raised shields, high flux, taking damage and changing directions quickly interfere with guidance, causing homing on launched missiles to be worse. Thus a launching ship that is forced to defend themselves in any way will be hindered in their long range attack instead of having no interaction with their missiles after launch.
Woo, that was long, but I hope it'll be worth it. It has saddened me for years that LRMs are effectively forgotten as an entire gameplay aspect because "pilums r boring" are the spot they've always been in.