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[Ragnarok101]

I still don't get what the point of the Dragonfire 'torpedo' is. It's a beam, meaning it's effectively useless against a target with shields, yet it takes too long to move to be able to exploit overloads compared to Hurricanes, it's supposed to be powerful with minimal ammo but can't achieve remotely the same power as a Reaper while costing more points, it can get sniped by PD fairly easily rendering it pointless, and it just...doesn't do anything. There's no reason to take it over Hurricanes or Cyclone launchers (depending on if your large missile slot is off-bore or not).

At least the Gazers provide useful pressure and the Gorgons and Hydras, well, exist (though neither of the latter really seem to do much compared to standard harpoons).

DEMs honestly seem to need an across-the-board buff to fit their 'intended role' as next-gen munitions, at least it seems that way to me. What do you think?

[Spyro]

Dragonfires are good when spammed, better than Hurricanes at least since they do energy damage. And since AI like firing both missiles willy nilly I'd rather they fire one that has better odds of hitting and killing something. I agree they're flying a bit slow.

Wouldn't also call a huge burst of energy "useless" since you're supposed to keep the pressure lol, or pressure first and then fire away. By that logic most weapons in the game are useless since they don't one shot the enemy and they can just back away.

Don't get the extreme amount of hate it's getting since it's effectively a better Hurricane if you can spare the cost.

[Thaago]

I still don't get what the point of the Dragonfire 'torpedo' is. It's a beam, meaning it's effectively useless against a target with shields, ...

This here is your misunderstanding. DEM weapons are great vs shields, because it does 100% damage to them, unlike an HE weapon. A Gorgon does slightly more than double the anti-shield damage vs a harpoon; a Dragonfire does double the shield damage of a Reaper. Both are weaker vs armor: for Gorgons this makes them only moderately effective vs heavily armored targets, but Dragonfires still have 4000 penetration (half the penetration of a Reaper is still enough).

The weapons do soft flux, so the target can regenerate the damage without lowering their shield... IF the missile is impacting by itself vs a target with the room to stop firing and back off. The solution there is to fire multiple at a time, while also using other guns/missiles. If you fail to overwhelm a target with a DEM, they have a higher chance of recovering, but it is twice as easy to get that overwhelm going.

Take a look at what happens when they are used as bombers, 1/wing:

Heck, give the thing Dragonfires and see how they do. 1 per fighter and watch the red death-beams fly.

pretty funny, ngl

Or, fire up a mission sim Onslaught and put all 4 as Dragonfires in a Linked group. The things evaporates an opposing Onslaught, at the cost of using all its missile ammo at once.

[Fenrir]

the answer is simple, they cost 12/28 op. If they cost 10/25 instead they will be well valued for the money.

[Ragnarok101]

I still don't get what the point of the Dragonfire 'torpedo' is. It's a beam, meaning it's effectively useless against a target with shields, ...

This here is your misunderstanding. DEM weapons are great vs shields, because it does 100% damage to them, unlike an HE weapon. A Gorgon does slightly more than double the anti-shield damage vs a harpoon; a Dragonfire does double the shield damage of a Reaper. Both are weaker vs armor: for Gorgons this makes them only moderately effective vs heavily armored targets, but Dragonfires still have 4000 penetration (half the penetration of a Reaper is still enough).

The weapons do soft flux, so the target can regenerate the damage without lowering their shield... IF the missile is impacting by itself vs a target with the room to stop firing and back off. The solution there is to fire multiple at a time, while also using other guns/missiles. If you fail to overwhelm a target with a DEM, they have a higher chance of recovering, but it is twice as easy to get that overwhelm going.

Take a look at what happens when they are used as bombers, 1/wing:

Heck, give the thing Dragonfires and see how they do. 1 per fighter and watch the red death-beams fly.

pretty funny, ngl

Or, fire up a mission sim Onslaught and put all 4 as Dragonfires in a Linked group. The things evaporates an opposing Onslaught, at the cost of using all its missile ammo at once.

Here's the thing: if I want missiles to be great versus shields, I can mount Gazers or Sabots for much cheaper and get a far better result. If you're firing harpoons at shields you're doing it wrong (Reapers on the other hand at least have enough raw boom to burst down a high-fluxed shield)

As for Onslaught - sure, but what's the practical difference between that and spamming 4 reapers? Which would have more ammo to go around at the cost of maybe some not making it through the PD grid.

DFs and DEMs just don't have the punch to do anything particularly well imo.

[Spyro]

You're missing the flexibility and utilily aspects of it. It's pretty safe on AI ships, don't need to aim them like torps, and doesn't require precise timing like Hurricane.

Saying it doesn't do as much damage as a Reaper is silly. If it had the exact same armor damage with current properties it would be broken. And I still don't get how you feel Dragonfire is lacking damage while simultaneously praising Hurricane.

[Ragnarok101]

You're missing the flexibility and utilily aspects of it. It's pretty safe on AI ships, don't need to aim them like torps, and doesn't require precise timing like Hurricane.

Saying it doesn't do as much damage as a Reaper is silly. If it had the exact same armor damage with current properties it would be broken. And I still don't get how you feel Dragonfire is lacking damage while simultaneously praising Hurricane.

I didn't say Hurricane had great damage, I said Hurricane was better at exploiting overloads. Because there's not a bit where your torp sits in the void slowly charging for several seconds, the missile just flies in, splits, and reconvenes on the target.

I'll grant you Gazers are decent-ish at utility (the graviton beam effect is nice) but I just don't see that with the other, HE-replacement ones.

[Spyro]

But why do you look at them as HE replacement? Not a single DEM deals HE damage, they're not supposed to obsolete Harpoons and Reapers. You've gotta change the mindset and playstyle a bit to see their worth.

For example small Gorgons are absolutely disgusting at bullying anything smaller than a cruiser. Extremely potent when spammed.

[Phenir]

Here's the thing: if I want missiles to be great versus shields, I can mount Gazers or Sabots for much cheaper and get a far better result. If you're firing harpoons at shields you're doing it wrong (Reapers on the other hand at least have enough raw boom to burst down a high-fluxed shield)

As for Onslaught - sure, but what's the practical difference between that and spamming 4 reapers? Which would have more ammo to go around at the cost of maybe some not making it through the PD grid.

DFs and DEMs just don't have the punch to do anything particularly well imo.

Yeah but gazers and sabots suck against armor. Dragonfire MUST be blocked on shields. With gazers and sabots, you can turn off shields and nullify them (almost cause sabot emp). If you don't block dragonfire with shields, you are hurting bad. Plus dragonfire does so much damage in one burst, blocking it on shield can be risky. Sure, it doesn't do hard flux but I don't know any ship that can dissipate 4k flux in .5 seconds. I don't get how you can give reapers a pass against shields because they "have enough raw boom to burst down a high-fluxed shield" when dragonfire does twice the shield damage in one burst that a reaper does.

Exactly as you said, some or even all those reapers would get shot down or maybe even avoided. It is much harder to shoot down dragonfires. Dragonfires also do not miss.

I have to laugh at the spamming harpoons against shield is doing it wrong when one of the best performing early game fleets is essentially harpoon spam.

[Amoebka]

I think this is pretty much the problem though. DEMs are good when spammed, but not really worth using when you just need to fill some missile slots on your mix-and-match midgame fleet. Gazers are somewhat ok for that, which is why nobody really complains about them much compared to dragonfires.

[Pizzarugi]

Heck, give the thing Dragonfires and see how they do. 1 per fighter and watch the red death-beams fly.

pretty funny, ngl

Or, fire up a mission sim Onslaught and put all 4 as Dragonfires in a Linked group. The things evaporates an opposing Onslaught, at the cost of using all its missile ammo at once.

Okay, but how do you modify bombers to have different missiles? Normally I avoid vanilla missiles due to their finite capacity, but slotting different ones on bombers would make me not only use missiles more, but add carriers to my fleet.

[Megas]

Not fond of Dragonfire for the reasons mentioned by OP, plus high OP cost.  However, I like them using them on battlestations because the main weakness, low ammo, is removed.  Too bad I do not fight with my battlestations more than a few times, and that assumes I built a low-tech or midline station (which have missile mounts).

Dragonfire would probably be fine if it had more ammo or if OP cost was cheaper like Hammers.

[Phenir]

Okay, but how do you modify bombers to have different missiles? Normally I avoid vanilla missiles due to their finite capacity, but slotting different ones on bombers would make me not only use missiles more, but add carriers to my fleet.

Modding of course. There's a folder dedicated to all the fighter variants in the game files.

[Selfcontrol]

In my opinion, Dragonfires deserve to cost slightly less OP (25/10 for Large/Medium).

They are already ammunition starved because they are more reliable than Reapers and other torpedoes. Adding extra OP to them is adding insult to injury.

[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.