Twin Assault Gun: medium ballistic, 2x100 HE, 800 range, 180/180 dps/flux, medium accuracy, 7 8 OP.
Efficient HE ballistic that hits reliably on small and medium targets. Outmatched by heavier cruiser grade armor.
Alex has said that he intentionally left an explosive damage gap with medium balistic to let missiles fill that role.
Light Assault gun does 160 dps, and fills your needs. Did you know you can put small balistic weapons into medium ballistic mounts? It's 85% of what you want.
Metal storm: Large ballistic, 4x40 KE, 500 range, 1400 burst dps, 350 sustained. 0.5 dps/flux, Good accuracy, fast rotating PD. Mag size: 16, 20 OP.
A rapid fire PD that can double as anti shield weapon. It bosters incredible kinetic dps like needlers, but the mag size is too small to burst down ships. Against fighters it will shred entire squadrons instantly. Large slot HMG analog.
Against missiles, it's out matched by flak hitting multiple targets at the same time. Against fighters, it's completely and totally outmatched by Devistators. At at most during burst it'll kill 2 broadsoards in 1 second, where Devastators kills 10 in a single salvo. There's no contest.
Storm Needler will attack fighters if there's no other targets, so it's basically exactly what you want, better suited. The damage that PD does against missiles is tuned. 1400/350 is too much for that long of range. Even the Paladin is 200 sustained. You'd have to reduce it's damage if it was firing at missiles, and thus have a PD tag.
Intersting sidebar - S-mod IPDAI affects small needlers. It can fill that itch.
Altropos LR pod: Large missiles. 1500m range, otherwise near identical to regular atropos (1000dmg). 3 shots per volley, 10s reload, 15 ammo total. 16 OP.
General purpose brawling weapon for large ships. Mediocre burst potential, but reliable against ships of smaller class. The extended fuel tank make it slightly less maneuverable.
A large missile mount firing atropos torpedos would need 28 ammo and fire 4 at once to match the Reaper ammo growth curve. The OP would need to go up to match, and well. Ok perhaps 3m fired and 27 ammo to reduce the OP cost? It'd go up quite a bit.
Overall, I think this missile launcher is a good addition! The short range high damage guided explosive for large missiles is lacking. There's a uniqueness in skipping the medium size. Also, it might be too much an ask to see small, medium, large, versions of harpoons, sabots, atropos, and breach.
BTW, the "General Purpose Brawling" for larger ships is handled by unguided missiles. Hammers and Reapers. And the "reliable against smaller class" is handled by a Locust. Locusts also do well against larger ships too, as each volley does a combined 6000 fragment damage, and it has enough ammo reserves to last the entire battle, particularly with a missile officer.
Zeus MRM: medium missile: 800 energy dmg, 400 EMP dmg(chance through shield), 2000 range, 2 per volley, 10 max. fast speed, poor tracking.
Fires disruptive plasma jets that disrupts enemy. Alternative to ubiquitous harpoon spam. AI fire it similar to finisher when enemy high in flux.
Energy missiles feel like an Omega weapon thing.
There's an issue with the weapon as you described it. It doesn't really have a role to play outside of being another MRM. I can't imagine a situation I'd like to use other than as part of a Harpoon volley to shave off whatever shields the target restored before the harpoons get there.
For other similar missiles,
Sabot is spike damage, and needs to operate at short range as the ship want's to be range to make use of the hit. The Resenator MRM has a very solid solid suppression role.
With regards to Harpoon as a comparison,
Harpoon spam only happens when you load up on harpoons. So I wouldn't call that ubiquitous, just a function of the missiles you decide to bring and the length of time they travel on screen, leading them to be seen more. If you want to see this hang out on screen effect in action, load up Pilums on all your medium and large missile slots across the board. You'll think the pilums are as common as stars in the background. Shame that pilums are not particularly effective, but it is comedic gold to see a ship with fast missile launchers use pilums. Pegasus can lunch 96 pilums in the time it takes for the slower ships on both sides close range to firing distance.
If you are playing a long range game, with Hypervelocity + Maulers and ITU, it makes sense that to use Harpoons as the missile to help finish things off. Other missiles have to short of range. And many players like to design for that range, as it keeps their ships safer. I don't see using Zues in this situation.
Nor do I see it used in a Lasers using AO + ITU, as squalls are better suited due to the larger ammo counts and difficulty shooting them down.
It's very easy to load up Enforcers and Eradicators with harpoons. Perhaps too much so, as they tend to over-fire at stuff they'll never hit. A single Hound will see them fire a large barrage at it, only for it to evade. The Gryphon's harpoon + Squall case is a specific very effective strat that only gets stronger with more Gryphons.
