Anti missile thread + moar

[lilFishy]

Hello there,
insignificant peasant here.

I was thinking about ways to counter missiles that would reduce their OP-nes but still make them usable and i got to these two following ideas:

1) Make missiles have almost all properties of an entity (shipy). Reason behind this... we would allready have flares than ( im looking at you swarmers). And when i said allmost, i just meant basicly an ability to hit the pesky missile with any weapon. This leads me to another suggestion

(I am not quite shure if the following thing is or is not allready present, I only mannaged to destroy missiles with cannons)

2) Give all weapons the ability to destroy missiles f.e. a person couly make a pulsing shield around his/her ship that would destroy missiles.....

Edit: Since the brain was generous enough here is another idea

Make computers and thrusters send out a logic on singnal when they are used. (Also make Jammer logic activable if it isnt allread, my toaster is kinda fried so i do not have time to test that)

What are the uses you ask?
Truly permajam ships, the second the first jammer is of the second one kicks in.

Seqential missile fireing, for aesthetics/power usage/veriety. Esentialy you lock on a single comuter and after a while ( if you conncect delays, that is) a second wave, maybe with different slave/effect is fired.

Movable thruster shields, wings...

 

[Cuttyflame]

Whit cannon, you can already destroy missile if you shoot at them and also you can do a cannon turret and set the bobby ai to missile to automaticly shoot them

 

[CyberTao]

I doubt it would be hard to make any weapon destroy missiles, so I would assume it was for a reason that they can't.

AI can't even use beams yet, and even once they can, it would be insta hit and snipe (If not for forced inaccuracy at longer ranges)

Missiles, because... well imagine a Waffle-turrets with 64 1/1 Missile/missile or Missile/beam. Fighting missiles with missiles is just a terrible idea imho.

Pulse? Well it's pulse.

 

[lilFishy]

Whit cannon, you can already destroy missile if you shoot at them and also you van do a cannon turret and set the bobby ai to missile to automaticly shoot them

Do not mistake my inexperiance with absence of knowlage.
Boby AI is incapable of dealing with streight fired missiles, let alone vertical/horizontal launched ones. And that is just for the missile/beam combo. It is powerless against big groups of swarmers.

What I suggested deals with all of these problems.
100+ swarmers incoming? Activate pulse/ pulse or pulse/cannon shield.
Lock ons fired but you do not have a pulsing shield? Fire swarmers and hope they intercept.

For info, I playing on EE so AI difficulty is mean (i think?)
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I doubt it would be hard to make any weapon destroy missiles, so I would assume it was for a reason that they can't.

AI can't even use beams yet, and even once they can, it would be insta hit and snipe (If not for forced inaccuracy at longer ranges)

Missiles, because... well imagine a Waffle-turrets with 64 1/1 Missile/missile or Missile/beam. Fighting missiles with missiles is just a terrible idea imho.

Pulse? Well it's pulse.

Well i had a different ides for beams than thei AI usage.... hint: jail bars
Regarding missiles vs missile fight, than would need some tweaking around, but than again, setting up a Waffel turrets is easy and I think that would persuade any sane person (Joel excluded) to not rely heavly on missiles

My main focus was the pulsing shield, it would render missiles almost obsolete unless the target ship is being ambushed, or doesnt have a pulse shield. This would also finaly add some ussage to the pulse weapon.

 

[CyberTao]

My main focus was the pulsing shield, it would render missiles almost obsolete unless the target ship is being ambushed, or doesnt have a pulse shield. This would also finaly add some ussage to the pulse weapon.

Pulse is hard to actually use. It doesn't do any damage until the animation is over, plus you have to consider lag and update ticks (collision detection doesn't happen instantly), you end up with a very small window to actually use pulse. If missiles were entities, you could use area triggers to time your pulse (though, different missile speeds would mess up the timings).

Another thought; do Missiles detonate upon being destroyed? If they do, you can effectively knock out an entire swarm of missiles by hitting 1 of them, but it also means that if they go off too close to your ship, you still get hit, adding more risk to using pulse as PD.

It's one of those "This could be interesting" ideas, that when looked at closely, causes some people to ignore their existence (Like Pulse currently).

 

[lilFishy]

Pulse is hard to actually use. It doesn't do any damage until the animation is over, plus you have to consider lag and update ticks (collision detection doesn't happen instantly), you end up with a very small window to actually use pulse. If missiles were entities, you could use area triggers to time your pulse (though, different missile speeds would mess up the timings).

Another thought; do Missiles detonate upon being destroyed? If they do, you can effectively knock out an entire swarm of missiles by hitting 1 of them, but it also means that if they go off too close to your ship, you still get hit, adding more risk to using pulse as PD.

It's one of those "This could be interesting" ideas, that when looked at closely, causes some people to ignore their existence (Like Pulse currently).

Regarding the pulse ussage, again, my ide would not use area triggger,rather a pulsing clock that would fire in sequence 3-4 pulses per 1 clock. That way the danger of lag, missile going to fast etc. would be partialy taken care of.

And i agree with the idea classification fully, I personaly am somewhat sick of making most ships depend on missiles if they want to be usable in combat.

 

[Cuttyflame]

I can survive whit 6 anti missile turrets again two alpha pirate station(they were very close and both of them were shooting me lock on/heatseeker missile i dont know) and 5 other ship who was shooting 8 missiles each whit lock on and still survive until my turret was destroy by cannon after 3 min. But still that a lots of missile who never reach me and you will only need more turret again 100+ missiles

 

[lilFishy]

I can survive whit 6 anti missile turrets again two alpha pirate station(they were very close and both of them were shooting me lock on/heatseeker missile i dont know) and 5 other ship who was shooting 8 missiles each whit lock on and still survive until my turret was destroy by cannon after 3 min. But still that a lots of missile who never reach me and you will only need more turret again 100+ missiles

Piratestations are nothing comared to real ship to ship combat.
Have you played on the EE server?
Do you realise that the ammount of groups that would be needed to simply overrun a PD deffence is very small? You would effectively need to make a flat barge with nothing but PDs on it and hope that stops all of the missiles ( It wont)

 

[Edymnion]

Flak cannons work fine against pirates for one reason, they obey the speed limit.

Players on the other hand are routinely on servers with a much higher maximum speed (mine is 300m/sec instead of 75). Missile speed is based on ship speed. The Bobby AI simply cannot keep up with missiles fired from that fast of a ship.

 

[lilFishy]

That is why we need something like pulsuar shield/ beam grill/ missile swarm to fight this faul creature know nas missile

 

[Valiant70]

to fight this faul creature know nas missile

Well, PD does need some work, which will probably come in the planned AI rework.

Until then, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. Adopt a long-range combat style using lock-on missiles and long-range ion cannons. Use overdrive to stay at long range. It might seem cheap, but in reality it's just the way this meta works. When the meta changes, these long ranger ships will likely be mixed in with others and remain useful

 

[NeonSturm]

Flak cannons work fine against pirates for one reason, they obey the speed limit.

Players on the other hand are routinely on servers with a much higher maximum speed (mine is 300m/sec instead of 75). Missile speed is based on ship speed. The Bobby AI simply cannot keep up with missiles fired from that fast of a ship.

There is a very easy solution to this.

• Bezier-Curves for x=distance and y=relativeSpeed.
• Unlike other Projectiles, missiles adjust their speed and direction all the time, thus this wouldn't be noticeable.

Make it so that the missile has:

• Your speed while close to you.
• Enemy speed while close to enemy.
• Transition of speed while between enemy and you, depending on distance.

+ Add the missiles base speed.​

• If the enemy is faster than you, the missile will accelerate along it's path.
• If the enemy is slower than you, the missile will decelerate along it's path.
• The missile will always be [it's base speed] above you or your target's speed.

 

[Keptick]

I doubt it would be hard to make any weapon destroy missiles, so I would assume it was for a reason that they can't.

AI can't even use beams yet, and even once they can, it would be insta hit and snipe (If not for forced inaccuracy at longer ranges)

Missiles, because... well imagine a Waffle-turrets with 64 1/1 Missile/missile or Missile/beam. Fighting missiles with missiles is just a terrible idea imho.

Pulse? Well it's pulse.

Afaik it's not because they can't. Beams intentionally can't shoot down missiles due to balance.

And AI can use beams, it's just derpy because it still works with the cannon mechanic, so it tries to lead the target as if it were shooting a cannon. At least that's the feeling I got from testing them on drones.

 

[lilFishy]

Until then, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. Adopt a long-range combat style using lock-on missiles and long-range ion cannons. Use overdrive to stay at long range. It might seem cheap, but in reality it's just the way this meta works. When the meta changes, these long ranger ships will likely be mixed in with others and remain useful

Was actualy hoping of this issue being SOLVED rather than: " Well, this is totaly OP, but even my grandma can use it so it does not matter"
Than what is the actual point of other weapons ( I know they have uses, well cannons and beams do at least)?
I will just sit back outside of view range and spam missiles, couse we all know that they can lower shields, fight drones and destroy hull.
This is also something i dislike with modern armament.

keptick I still do not understand how would that be unbalanced? And why is everyone avoiding pulse? Just make a pulse activated by clock and you can sleep safe of the missile nightmare ( unless the person tring to scare you is like 5m away)

Would it be that bad if they added a initial exlosion radius to cannon/pulse at the price of a certain % of dmg?

 

[Valiant70]

Would it be that bad if they added a initial exlosion radius to cannon/pulse at the price of a certain % of dmg?

I know, right?! Explosive is currently almost useless except on missiles. Theoretically it might improve pulse function, but pulse isn't used. It can work well on powerful beams due to the number of pulses resulting in a greater number of blocks destroyed, but that still doesn't hold a candle to the all-out carnage caused by missiles.

The other thing is that for the enormous amount of energy in a cannon projectile going that far, they really don't do much good. They'd have an inherent spread of damage to surrounding blocks due to the shock of it hitting the target. DUUUUUDE! My mind is nuts! I think about one thing and come up with three more! Hold on, writing a thread.

 

[lilFishy]

I know, right?! Explosive is currently almost useless except on missiles. Theoretically it might improve pulse function, but pulse isn't used. It can work well on powerful beams due to the number of pulses resulting in a greater number of blocks destroyed, but that still doesn't hold a candle to the all-out carnage caused by missiles.

The other thing is that for the enormous amount of energy in a cannon projectile going that far, they really don't do much good. They'd have an inherent spread of damage to surrounding blocks due to the shock of it hitting the target. DUUUUUDE! My mind is nuts! I think about one thing and come up with three more! Hold on, writing a thread.

Edit: i think Cyber wrote that the explosion were bugged, in reality they only added 1 radius of explosion or something like that....


Always good to see brains in workable condition. I myself am trying to think of a way pulse would be usable, and the best idea i had was that one wiht cannon/pulse and the antimissile shield....
Gib credits xD

 

[Edymnion]

Afaik it's not because they can't. Beams intentionally can't shoot down missiles due to balance.

And AI can use beams, it's just derpy because it still works with the cannon mechanic, so it tries to lead the target as if it were shooting a cannon. At least that's the feeling I got from testing them on drones.

Odd, the fact that beams still lead their shots was my understanding of why they can't shoot down missiles, not that they can't do damage to them in the first place.

 

[CyberTao]

Afaik it's not because they can't. Beams intentionally can't shoot down missiles due to balance.

And AI can use beams, it's just derpy because it still works with the cannon mechanic, so it tries to lead the target as if it were shooting a cannon. At least that's the feeling I got from testing them on drones.

I said it wasn't because they can't, and tried to give some form of reason for each system. And yes, beams definitely try to lead targets, I know because when I was derping around with my fighters, it became easy to see how the beams react to your speed.

 

[Keptick]

I said it wasn't because they can't, and tried to give some form of reason for each system. And yes, beams definitely try to lead targets, I know because when I was derping around with my fighters, it became easy to see how the beams react to your speed.

Yea, I noticed in our mutual drone testing :P

 

[Mork2]

Lastest patch should fix the AI beams putting lead on targets. I haven't tested it though.

Anti missile turrets looks like they got a targeting buff as well.

When scaling the server top speed and sector size. Increasing speed without increasing size makes missiles more effective. Increase the speed and the sector size at the same rate.

Multiple weapon anti missile turrets generally don't work more effectively cause the Bobby AI uses focused fire. So all the guns are aimed at the same point rather than a spread pattern.