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[Princess of Evil]

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).

[Doctorhealsgood]

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.

Personally i don't like gazers that much and if i want graviton pressure i would rather use graviton lasers

[FunnyScope]

I think that DEMs, especially the dragonfire, are really cool. But from what I've found, if you want to field the dragonfire you do have to build your fleet around the use of DEM missiles. They're bad as one-offs. Not only because it appears that you need to saturate enemy PD for them to be effective, but also because they're very demanding on OP otherwise. But yeah, build a fleet around it and it works well, I think.

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.

When used on missile-specialised ships like the Gryphon their ammo seems fine to me. And decreasing their OP would make them better suited as options to put alongside other weapons, but to me it seems like that does de-emphasise the whole doctrinal package they come with, and I like the naval doctrines currently in the Sector so I'm somewhat against it. 

[Doctorhealsgood]

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).

Gorgon comes in small too though.

[Princess of Evil]

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).

Gorgon comes in small too though.

Does Hurricane?

[Ptirodaktill]

 Dragonfire take forever to reach the target, then take forever to charge-up and then some time to actualy fire. By the time it reach it target, the target is either dead, retrieted or recovered and there is a high chance that Dragonfire is intercepted before it can even charge. Also it does almost nothing against Remnants and strugle against regular high tech enemies, so there is almost no reason to deploy Dragonfire in first place.

[Megas]

I still don't get what the point of the Dragonfire 'torpedo' is.

Probably a Reaper alternative for the League, like Hammer is for Ludd factions.  Factions do not have all of the meta weapons (even Independents since they are missing IR Autolance) because of "uniquifying the factions".  When they do not have (access to) all the best stuff, they are forced to use worse.

It is probably a reason why we will never see a real high-tech carrier (unless we get lost blueprints for player-only ships).  Only two factions use high-tech freely, Tri-Tachyon and Independents.  Tri-Tachyon doctrine wants warships and phase ships instead of carriers, and Independents use a wide variety of smaller common stuff.

[Ragnarok101]

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

I wanted to come back to this.

Yeah it melts an Onslaught - because the fighters have infinite dragonfires. Even if you brought a Pegasus to the fight for 4x max ammo capacity DF launchers you'd have to expend a massive chunk of ammo for the same performance.

[PixiCode]

Using dragonfires a bit, they’re really good but mostly just in 3 scenarios;

1: when you outnumber the opponent and can throw away ships to just be dragonfire boats (fighting Persean League is sort of like this)

2: when manually fired by the player’s flagship. The low ammo isn’t as bad when the player can make good, efficient use of them. They’re extremely versatile so they can be worth the cost when used efficiently.

3: spammed on something that gets in front of the enemy very fast, especially Hyperions. It’s very unlikely the enemy will backpedal away from the dragonfire if you teleport next to them and launch it there! In fact, there’s a chance that hyperion dragonfire will get the dragonfire to hit the enemy ship’s shield, which deals full dragonfire damage but as hardflux.

An OP reduction could help make ECCM more viable to use with dragonfire. Their slow speed is a big issue. Or it’s a good balancing metric.

[Hiruma Kai]

The biggest issue with Dragonfires is probably the ammo count.  However, with a dedicated build, i.e. Missile Specialization and Expanded Missile racks, they have enough for more most anti-armor/hull uses.

The individual munitions are pretty good, other than the delayed effect which means they hit dead ships more often than other guided missiles, but hit targets more often than AI launched Reapers could, since they pass around allied ships.

I suppose you could do a test comparison between 10 Gryphons taking out an Ordo with Dragon fires vs Reapers.

Here's an example with the Dragon fires on Gryphons vs an Ordo:

[PixiCode]

The biggest issue with Dragonfires is probably the ammo count.  However, with a dedicated build, i.e. Missile Specialization and Expanded Missile racks, they have enough for more most anti-armor/hull uses.

The individual munitions are pretty good, other than the delayed effect which means they hit dead ships more often than other guided missiles, but hit targets more often than AI launched Reapers could, since they pass around allied ships.

I suppose you could do a test comparison between 10 Gryphons taking out an Ordo with Dragon fires vs Reapers.

Here's an example with the Dragon fires on Gryphons vs an Ordo:

in addition to the ammo issue. I found the way the ai shoots dragonfires means it usually wastes at least one salvo during the start of a battle. Dragonfire moves pretty slow and inefficiently so it’s easy to encourage it run out of fuel. That’s why I think they work best on fast close range ships, where you minimize the ability for the enemy to run. ECCM might help, though dragonfires are expensive so it makes it harder to afford ECCM.

[SCC]

Okay, but how do you modify bombers to have different missiles?

I modded the game. It's rather simple, really.

Even if you brought a Pegasus to the fight for 4x max ammo capacity DF launchers you'd have to expend a massive chunk of ammo for the same performance.

Prolly. Those unsupported wyrmflames had a hit rate of about 1/6, which they admittedly do because they are unsupported, but even if we assumed they were supported and all hit, you would need about 8 of them to wreck an Onslaught. Neither side had any skills in that video, in case you are curious, so I would say skills shouldn't change the balance too much. I don't feel like the increased reliability makes up for the smaller ammo pool.

3: spammed on something that gets in front of the enemy very fast, especially Hyperions. It’s very unlikely the enemy will backpedal away from the dragonfire if you teleport next to them and launch it there! In fact, there’s a chance that hyperion dragonfire will get the dragonfire to hit the enemy ship’s shield, which deals full dragonfire damage but as hardflux.

The "hilarious but ineffective loadouts" thread is down the hall and to the left.

I suppose you could do a test comparison between 10 Gryphons taking out an Ordo with Dragon fires vs Reapers.

Would you put reapers on Gryphons, though? I don't think I would. I suppose that shows that serpentblazes are more versatile than reapers and you can put them on different ships.

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

pretty funny, ngl

im famus

[Okawal]

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

pretty funny, ngl

Ok they are of course very overtune with the Lizardlasers but i realy like the concept of a energy missile bomber ... mmmh but no idea of to balance them without ignoring most of the PD vs missile balance (which kinda happends with normal energy missile too so maybe it will just fit nicely)

[PixiCode]

3: spammed on something that gets in front of the enemy very fast, especially Hyperions. It’s very unlikely the enemy will backpedal away from the dragonfire if you teleport next to them and launch it there! In fact, there’s a chance that hyperion dragonfire will get the dragonfire to hit the enemy ship’s shield, which deals full dragonfire damage but as hardflux.

The "hilarious but ineffective loadouts" thread is down the hall and to the left.

Why is it ineffective? I played with them for a bit against ordos and the dragonfires on average did as much damage (sometimes more, sometimes less) than their 2 heavy blasters in a 2 ordo battle. I wouldn’t call that ineffective. Unless ‘the meta’ is the definition of effective, but I would disagree that it has to be the most effective tactic possible to be effective.

[Selfcontrol]

I think that DEMs, especially the dragonfire, are really cool. But from what I've found, if you want to field the dragonfire you do have to build your fleet around the use of DEM missiles. They're bad as one-offs. Not only because it appears that you need to saturate enemy PD for them to be effective, but also because they're very demanding on OP otherwise. But yeah, build a fleet around it and it works well, I think.

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.

When used on missile-specialised ships like the Gryphon their ammo seems fine to me. And decreasing their OP would make them better suited as options to put alongside other weapons, but to me it seems like that does de-emphasise the whole doctrinal package they come with, and I like the naval doctrines currently in the Sector so I'm somewhat against it. 

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.