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[prav]

The time from firing until the Dragonfire applies its damage is roughly five minutes.

If you were to mod it to travel quickly and trigger instantly it'd be a complete menace. As it is it relies on brute force and overwhelming the target rather than striking at the right time - which makes the low ammo count a significant drawback. All muscle, no brain, no stamina. Maybe it should tick off two counts instead of one - and since there's already plenty of DEMs with high sustain I'd be leery of increasing the ammo. But then, the languid pace is pretty characteristic for the missile too - especially aesthetically - but does it really need to travel slowly AND trigger slowly?

Or just make it hit even harder.

[Ragnarok101]

The time from firing until the Dragonfire applies its damage is roughly five minutes.

If you were to mod it to travel quickly and trigger instantly it'd be a complete menace. As it is it relies on brute force and overwhelming the target rather than striking at the right time - which makes the low ammo count a significant drawback. All muscle, no brain, no stamina. Maybe it should tick off two counts instead of one - and since there's already plenty of DEMs with high sustain I'd be leery of increasing the ammo. But then, the languid pace is pretty characteristic for the missile too - especially aesthetically - but does it really need to travel slowly AND trigger slowly?

Or just make it hit even harder.

If it evaporated destroyers through their shields and badly hurt cruisers I'd be fine with all the drawbacks - then it would feel like the 'next generation, three steps ahead' missile it was billed as.

[TheLaughingDead]

If it evaporated destroyers through their shields and badly hurt cruisers I'd be fine with all the drawbacks - then it would feel like the 'next generation, three steps ahead' missile it was billed as.

Yeah, then it would feel beefy, but I dunno if destroyers need to be even more squishy in this game. After all, escort package was just added as an explicit way to give destroyers some love.

[FunnyScope]

All missiles seem fine on the Gryphon since it has the insanely powerful Missile Autoforge shipsystem.

I really don't see the doctrinal package you are talking about. Gorgons cost as much OP as Harpoons, almost have as much ammunitions (small Gorgons have 1 extra ammunition) and similar behaviour. And no one complains about them overshadowing Harpoons. Gazers even have MORE ammunitions and longer range and you seldom see them in player fleets.

The Dragonfire is the only DEM missile "punished" by a prohibiting OP cost on top of having super low ammunitions for unknown reasons.

Ah, yeah, I should've clarified that I meant the dragonfires specifically. While I was testing them for myself, they didn't work out great if not combined with DEM spam IIRC (I believe I tested DEM when 0.96 just came out, so I'm a bit foggy on the details). They were very effective when used in that way, although I still prefer throwing squalls and harpoons on everything.

As far as the doctrinal package goes, I feel like Dragonfires are meant to be used on missile-specialised ships, and not very viable on ones that aren't. I guess that does mean that it's just kind of bad, so that does prove me wrong on this point, I suppose.

[LeetKroo]

Like others said, mostly the ammo. I find that vs low armor ships, Gorgon actually performs just as good if not better than Hurricane because of its higher ammo count.

Well, Gorgon is a medium missile, so you can't exactly compare it to Hurricane, you have to compare it to Harpoon (which it's very similar to).

I'm talking about Hydra (I hate that naming, why not call it Gorgon MDEM or smth). It has 45k total output compared to Hurricane's 35k, at 5 less OP. Compare that to the 20k for 28 OP with the Dragonfire.

and dont forget that it's very good vs fast ships too compared to Hurricane. Makes the flagship Pegasus work without escorts.

[PixiCode]

Hydra is a decent missile, but only in two cases; against frigates like explained, or (Sadly) to ruin AI behavior. I've seen a brilliant ship try to guard against hydras targeting an entirely different ship far away from it, allowing an executor to fire 2 HILs and autolances etc into its exposed hull. Yikes!

Anyway, my problem with Hydra is that it splits its damage up between the armor flanks of a ship, reducing how much of its overall damage might contribute to deleting hull and actually destroying the ship. That might be nice as an anti-armor trick, but the Hydra seems like it deals a lot less dps per missile (and so, less hitstrength) so it really struggles with anything reaching ~700? or so armor and above.

[LeetKroo]

Hydra is a decent missile, but only in two cases; against frigates like explained, or (Sadly) to ruin AI behavior. I've seen a brilliant ship try to guard against hydras targeting an entirely different ship far away from it, allowing an executor to fire 2 HILs and autolances etc into its exposed hull. Yikes!

Anyway, my problem with Hydra is that it splits its damage up between the armor flanks of a ship, reducing how much of its overall damage might contribute to deleting hull and actually destroying the ship. That might be nice as an anti-armor trick, but the Hydra seems like it deals a lot less dps per missile (and so, less hitstrength) so it really struggles with anything reaching ~700? or so armor and above.

Yeah, I agree. I won't shoot Hydras at a battleship. But they're better vs light cruisers and smaller. It's just a tradeoff that IMO leans slightly in favor of the Hydras thanks to its ammo. Even brute forcing a triple capital Heg bounty works, although I have to prioritize the smaller crafts first and let my allies strip the capitals' armor instead of straight up busting them with the Hurricane.

[Siffrin]

Hydras biggest strength is AI jank right now which kind of sucks.

[Princess of Evil]

I'm talking about Hydra (I hate that naming, why not call it Gorgon MDEM or smth).

Hydra is not Gorgon. You wouldn't call Hurricane a Hammer ripoff just cause they both deal HE damage.

It has 45k total output compared to Hurricane's 35k, at 5 less OP. Compare that to the 20k for 28 OP with the Dragonfire.

and dont forget that it's very good vs fast ships too compared to Hurricane. Makes the flagship Pegasus work without escorts.

Hurricane has four times the armor pierce. Effective damage: 1000. Hydra's is 250 (500 beam DPS). Gorgon has 400 (800 beam DPS), which is the lowest bound of armor damage i consider worth using against a cruiser.
Also, unlike Gorgons (which act like beam Harpoons - exactly how you'd expect), Hydras are straight up designed not to hit the same spot with every beam, making them even more useless against armored targets. Hell, even Hurricane tries its best to converge (and occasionally succeeds).

[Darloth]

Their numbers are simply too bad:

• They're too slow
• There aren't enough of them per mount
• They cost too many OP
• They don't do enough damage

At least some, possibly all of the above would need to be tweaked for me to consider using them as a ship weapon.  As a bomber weapon, these faults are excusable, mostly because... even at 25 OP for a single Dragon bomber, you're getting probably at least six torpedoes in most combats, maybe more, and that fixes not having enough and/or being too expensive.

That said, I'd prefer the other numbers to be tweaked.  I want to pay a ridiculous amount for a slot of them, and only get a couple of missiles, and then I want to fire one missile at one frigate and move on because I know that frigate and anything stupid enough to get in front of it will die in the next seven seconds.

I want to fire a pair of them at an annoying destroyer that won't go away and know it's GOING to go away.

[Phenir]

I want to fire one missile at one frigate and move on because I know that frigate and anything stupid enough to get in front of it will die in the next seven seconds.

I want to fire a pair of them at an annoying destroyer that won't go away and know it's GOING to go away.

Sounds real fun to play against.

[Rattlesnake]

I don’t see a problem. 4 Dragonfires already evaporate a cruiser through shields. They don’t miss, are hard to shoot down, and actually invulnerable to PD if they activate behind friendly shield/hull. Imo, they’re only bad when fired from max range or on something that’s about to die anyway.

The only other guided large “strike” missile is Hurricane, and I kinda hate it. It misses, it gets shot down, it’s negated by shields. Even when it hits, against heaviest armor, 1 hurricane is nothing. Its only virtue is being very quick to hit overloaded ships.

Given that I hate Hurricanes and don’t really trust AI with reapers, I’ll gladly fit Dragonfires in large slots if I want burst damage. Haven’t tried medium Dragonfires on not specialised ships, but on missile ships, a few of them work kinda like a perfectly timed, auto-hit sabot + reaper combo.

[Ptirodaktill]

Imo, they’re only bad when fired from max range or on something that’s about to die anyway.

99% of times that exactly where AI fire them.

[Darloth]

I want to fire one missile at one frigate and move on because I know that frigate and anything stupid enough to get in front of it will die in the next seven seconds.

I want to fire a pair of them at an annoying destroyer that won't go away and know it's GOING to go away.

Sounds real fun to play against.

I think you'd be surprised.  Strong stuff in the hands of the player is usually a lot less well applied by the AI, and can usually be played around - but might require some new tactics if you see the enemy fleet is heavy with them.  With the current state of dragonfires I've seen the AI launch them against frigates which triggered the aiming cycle and then just left, quickly enough that the missile was out of range by the time it finished charging up.

[Phenir]

I want to fire one missile at one frigate and move on because I know that frigate and anything stupid enough to get in front of it will die in the next seven seconds.

I want to fire a pair of them at an annoying destroyer that won't go away and know it's GOING to go away.

Sounds real fun to play against.

I think you'd be surprised.  Strong stuff in the hands of the player is usually a lot less well applied by the AI, and can usually be played around - but might require some new tactics if you see the enemy fleet is heavy with them.  With the current state of dragonfires I've seen the AI launch them against frigates which triggered the aiming cycle and then just left, quickly enough that the missile was out of range by the time it finished charging up.

Right but you literally can't engage anyone that has a dragonfire with a frigate or possibly a destroyer. Idk about you but I don't think I'd enjoy dancing around enemy weapon range for a minute before I'm finally allowed to get close enough to actually shoot them.