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[Strict]

Well now you've just made it useless. I know Sabots are hated but come on you can't expect a kinetic missile like this to do literally nothing if you drop shields. AI would never do anything with it, ever. It's not the fact that people use it for EMP, it's to have some effect if you tank it on armour.

No? Combine missiles together and time it well, atropos+sabot as example, use HE strike weapons during first stage, it will be uselesss on it's own and it's a good thing. Dumping sabots and not thinking is good strategy in this patch (you either overload it or emp it to overloaded like state, I know that 3 medium sabots on odyssey is hilarious but it gets old real fast).

[Grievous69]

Wait until this guy hears about Harpoon spam...
But seriously do you then want HE missiles to do zero damage to shields? Because that's pretty much what you're asking for here. You CAN'T remove the EMP component unless you completely redesign Sabots from ground up (and they were already reworked bunch of times).

And if you have free time, make a fleet full of Harpoon missiles with Expanded missile racks and ECCM for hullmods, and then come back here to say Sabots are broken.

[Strict]

Wait until this guy hears about Harpoon spam...
But seriously do you then want HE missiles to do zero damage to shields? Because that's pretty much what you're asking for here. You CAN'T remove the EMP component unless you completely redesign Sabots from ground up (and they were already reworked bunch of times).

And if you have free time, make a fleet full of Harpoon missiles with Expanded missile racks and ECCM for hullmods, and then come back here to say Sabots are broken.

I absolutely seriously and unironically don't understand what you mean, armor tanking kinetic damage makes this type of damage useless without something "extra"? Most weapons work this way and you combine them for that reason.

[Grievous69]

Most weapons don't have very limited ammo?

[Strict]

Most weapons don't have very limited ammo?

Most weapons don't do insane burst damage and cost flux to fire, so it's balanced that way. Still don't understand how it will make sabots useless, why hammers are not useless when you can easily block them by shield?

[Grievous69]

Most weapons don't have very limited ammo?

Most weapons don't do insane burst damage and cost flux to fire, so it's balanced that way. Still don't understand how it will make sabots useless, why hammers are not useless when you can easily block them by shield?

Because they still generate flux if you hit shields, so you can overload someone on high flux to punish them for not dropping shields. Sabots as openers do literally nothing without EMP. I mean just config the files and give them 0 EMP damage if you're so sure they won't be useless. And before using the "just combine them with other weapons lol" argument, you get that the AI is capable of flickering shields right. So if there's a burst coming you're telling me the point of the missile is to use that 0.2 second frame when shields are down to punish the enemy with a weapon that doesn't even exist with that sort of projectile speed. I honestly don't get what you're arguing for here.

Again, Harpoon spam is just as, if not more, annoying to deal with. Missiles are strong, water is wet, let's move on please.

[Strict]

Because they still generate flux if you hit shields, so you can overload someone on high flux to punish them for not dropping shields.

KE does damage to armor if you hit armor (armor does not regenerate so its more valuable), so you can damage hull if someone is on high flux to punish them for not raising shields. Some ships have really bad armor.

[Grievous69]

Sabots spread into smaller munitions at second stage so they don't do what you described. But sure you could unload 6 Sabots into a single frigate if that's your thing, my my truly broken.

EDIT: Don't watch this if you're home alone!

Spoiler

[close]

EDIT 2 Electric Bogaloo: 12 Sabots vs a single Lasher, talk about inefficient use.

Spoiler

[close]

That's a 300 armour frigate, surely you can't be serious anymore and double down on your thoughts.

[SafariJohn]

Sabots have EMP because kinetic-only sabots have been tried and they didn't work well.

[Strict]

Sabots spread into smaller munitions at second stage so they don't do what you described. But sure you could unload 6 Sabots into a single frigate if that's your thing, my my truly broken.

So its never about that EMP we were talking about? Than remove it and buff damage, should be good imo.

Sabots have EMP because kinetic-only sabots have been tried and they didn't work well.

They were working the same way they work now? I can't see something like KE atropos being bad.

[Grievous69]

Man you're so lucky that Thaago The missile connoisseur is asleep now, this is just too big of a boss fight for us.

[Strict]

Everyone is saying sabots are fine and so on, why than they are getting nerfed next patch? It's twice less emp damage then before.

UPD: I actually understood why I couldn't get what you were saying, I never used sabots as openers

[Grievous69]

We're saying it's fine that they're getting nerfed, not that it's fine completely removing the EMP portion of damage, I'm sure that easy to understand.

[Sozzer]

snip

First up: it's definitely a different missile. But, as you noted, what it retains is the general idea of the Pilum, which is a long-range support missile. (Plus, for fun, it functions more like its ancient namesake now, what with punching holes in shields and all.)

A support missile generally means it's not going to be synched up well with whatever its supporting, so unlimited ammo is a desired quality. But this means that you have to be careful that it doesn't out-compete non-support missiles in their roles. For example, even a modest speed boost lets the old Pilum function pretty well as an unlimited-ammo medium range finisher missile, and that really steps on the Harpoon. The fast second stage is a way to let it have reasonable anti-PD performance while ... bascially not suppressing venting in an overly-large area simply by existing. Plus, this second stage means that there's less accomulation of Pilums from multiple salvoes following a target around - they'll get used up (by getting close enough and engaging the second stage) at about the rate they're fired.

The idea is to let it support another ship, and shield-piercing EMP damage should accomplish that. With HE damage, it's easier to get into trouble with it being too good as a short-range finisher instead of support, hence frag damage.

As for why not make it another missile - I don't think the original Pilum concept worked out, ultimately, and I was just done trying to salvage it in anything like its original form.

That's fair. I have to wonder, any plans to make another missile oriented at massing them, pushing toward that goal from a different direction? Or is it a niche you think just won't really work in vanilla?

(And while I'm here, question we were discussing over on discord - is the temporal shell understood to be related to phase technology, or is the description of the scarab merely using phase as a different example of TT pushing the boundaries?)

I'd say it's probably related, though to what degree is extremely fluid.

Interesting, if a little suspicious. I appreciate the answer!

[Amoebka]

Guys, can we please not mention Harpoon until the patch is released? Wouldn't want another missile nerfed, would we.