Brainstorm This Missile ammo brainstorming

[Planr]

No thank you. Making missiles use ammunition is a bad idea (it allows people to make power-free-cost super weapons).

 

[Keptick]

I'd be cool with this if ammo could be automatically reloaded in shipyards. From a missile turret perspective, this would be great :D. Because let's face it, going around manually refilling turrets (or anything for that matter) would suck, a lot. Of course you's still have to manually refill in combat, if need be.

 

[Newbatron]

Ammo would be cool. Something I've wanted since I found out about weapons in the game.

 

[Dr. Whammy]

I don't oppose this idea but I think missiles would need a substantial buff afterward.

I offer a different proposal instead if you guys are interested.

If I might add a less combative and more constructive answer;

In real world navies, missiles are not some endless commodities that you can spam at a target like a machine gun. The are tactical one-shot-one-kill type weapons used to eliminate a higher value target outside the range of smaller unguided munitions. As such, they are extremely limited in number on a real military warship. On my Naval posting, we never had more than 1-2 dozen guided weapons on board and reloading them was considerably more complicated than just inserting a magazine into a rifle.

In the spirit of realism, missiles should be powerful but they should not be something that you spam people endlessly with.

My proposed solution; Bring back the alpha strike power of missiles by either adding more damage output or reducing power consumption. In return, apply (and increase) the group penalty to the reload time instead.

This way, you can have the powerful alpha strikes typical in the opening stages of a military engagement instead of spending 3-5 minutes trying to kill one measly >50 mass fighter or doing next to no damage to larger ships. Meanwhile, you won't have people using super missiles a crutch to compensate for their lack of combat prowess. If they miss because their opponent moves out of range, dodges or has respectable AMS units on board, they'll have to wait to fire again or be defeated when the enemy closes in and starts ripping them to shreds with cannon fire and point-blank missile strikes.

Superior equipment and fire power should always give you an advantage but superior skill and tactics should also remain important in a game like this. This isn't Eve online; we actually design and fly these rigs.

 

[Groovrider]

I don't oppose this idea but I think missiles would need a substantial buff afterward.

I offer a different proposal instead if you guys are interested.

I respect you real world experience but Iron man had like 60 micro-missiles stored in his suit. And this is the future. Even Veritech Alphas carried over 80 missiles.

 

[Dr. Whammy]

I respect you real world experience but Iron man had like 60 micro-missiles stored in his suit. And this is the future. Even Veritech Alphas carried over 80 missiles.

You imply a disagreement when none exists. The Apache helicopter was designed in the 1970s and can be rigged to carry 76 rockets in addition to wingtip pylons. The new rockets actually have limited guidance and are no longer totally dumbfire. Future weapons will undoubtedly include hydra rocket sized guided weapons.


It's not unheard of to have a lot of missiles on board but we do need a way to balance them in contrast to cannons and beams. If you nerf them (like they are now), less people will use them. If you buff them too much, we'll have to start calling the game Star-missile or Missile-made.

Ammo consumption sounds like an ok idea but they need a major buff or it won't be worth trying to keep your launchers supplied. personally, I think losing the group power consumption penalty and slowing the reload speed would make things simpler. That way you could throw a lot of fire power at a target all at once. The cost is that you'd have to wait for the reload.

Think about it, would you really want to run into a ship firing salvo at you after salvo with no interruption? Likewise; do you really want fighters to take multiple salvos kill when you're flying a titan?

 

[whooplaah]

I think that all weapons should have ammo components, not just missiles. Laser cartridges, kinetic capasitors, electron transfer units, etc. Maybe there should be one weapon that has infinite ammo, but does a lot less damage than the systems we currently have.

This could also tie into discussions about putting factories on ships, and those discussions on how inventory and cargo will be managed.

 

[Bee_Ri]

I would argue that the current missile system should suffice, but there is a particular niche not being filled in
the spectrum of weaponry available. As has been mentioned, there is no powerful but very limited use
weapon in the game that would fulfill the new consumissle hole.

To this I would say that a there is a simple solution that is nearly in the game allready: Torpedoes

Let me explain the concept: you build a small ship that has some thrusters, an AI module and
most importantly, warheads on it. You keep the torpedo docked, either in a bay, under wing
or five star executive suite, (whatever takes your fancy) then undock them in a fight, where they
proceed to fly towards your enemy, promptly exploding with a shower of deadly confetti.

All that would really be required for the most basic implementation of torpedoes would be an
option for a ramming AI option and a rebalancing of warheads.
At the more advanced end, the possibility to link modules to warheads to provide different effects
would allow torpedoes of varying purposes eg Ion, emp, kinetic etc.

This should in theory allow a good balance as more powerful torpedoes would use more space to construct,
allowing one to build a ship that carries lots of smaller torpedoes or a few big ones. This is effectively a
trade off between alpha damage and hit chance. It also raises the question, do I put armor on my to
torpedoes so they have a better chance of surviving until impact, or just use more explosives.
If this is done, is becomes possible to create unique designs for torpedoes that have advantages and
disadvantages over one another.

Withing building ships there is also a trade off evident, putting in torpedoes means you have less space
for other systems, particularly weapons. This means that a ship with torpedoes could be better in a single
one on one fight, but once it has fired its torpedoes it will have a hard time winning anything.

Finally balance wise, a more clever deploying tactic would have benefits, pushing away from
building a Massive Missile and duct taping it to the wings as have the explosives exposed is cleary
a bad move, this means that a smart and well designed torpedo system would have serious benefits
over one that is simply bigger.

Fleet tactics would also be given more variety, pushing away from the tactic of everyone bringing a titan.
Say that in fleet a person could bring a ship that has a sole purpose to carry some powerful torpedoes,
that makes it a valuable target to destroy for the enemy and an asset to protect for the faction.

With the advent of the shipyard update, reloading torpedoes is easy enough to do, but can't be done in combat.

Let me know if you think that this would fill the hole in the weapons systems.

 

[Zekester81]

I think it would make missiles a little more valuable if they weren't so cheap to use.

I might suggest an addition to the Bobby AI module instead. Add a chase and ram function. Then you could make real missile tubes for large ships, build the torpedoes using blocks (thrusters, warheads, power gen, ect). Could make rail loading/launching systems for them. Magnetic rail docking would help with that, and a better way to possibly remote undock them perhaps. Just throwing that out there. You could even leave the current missiles alone with that, or even give them an upper damage limit so the ones you build become the high end weapon.

Edit: It'd be really nice to be able to use the Bobby AI module on something like this without having to use a ship core. Then they become less obvious because the game normally makes all cores visible.

Spoiler: Picture reference

Other than that, I'd be interested in seeing them have an ammo just to see what it'd be like.

Edit 2: Yeah, didn't read the previous post. Pretty much what Bee_Ri said.

 

[BDLS]

AI use to have a ramming function that usually worked when it couldn't use weapons anymore. I think the code is pretty much lurking waiting to be implemented into BOBBY.

 

[Dr. Whammy]

I would argue that the current missile system should suffice, but there is a particular niche not being filled in
the spectrum of weaponry available. As has been mentioned, there is no powerful but very limited use
weapon in the game that would fulfill the new consumissle hole.

To this I would say that a there is a simple solution that is nearly in the game allready: Torpedoes

Let me explain the concept: you build a small ship that has some thrusters, an AI module and
most importantly, warheads on it. You keep the torpedo docked, either in a bay, under wing
or five star executive suite, (whatever takes your fancy) then undock them in a fight, where they
proceed to fly towards your enemy, promptly exploding with a shower of deadly confetti.

All that would really be required for the most basic implementation of torpedoes would be an
option for a ramming AI option and a rebalancing of warheads.
At the more advanced end, the possibility to link modules to warheads to provide different effects
would allow torpedoes of varying purposes eg Ion, emp, kinetic etc.

This should in theory allow a good balance as more powerful torpedoes would use more space to construct,
allowing one to build a ship that carries lots of smaller torpedoes or a few big ones. This is effectively a
trade off between alpha damage and hit chance. It also raises the question, do I put armor on my to
torpedoes so they have a better chance of surviving until impact, or just use more explosives.
If this is done, is becomes possible to create unique designs for torpedoes that have advantages and
disadvantages over one another.

Withing building ships there is also a trade off evident, putting in torpedoes means you have less space
for other systems, particularly weapons. This means that a ship with torpedoes could be better in a single
one on one fight, but once it has fired its torpedoes it will have a hard time winning anything.

Finally balance wise, a more clever deploying tactic would have benefits, pushing away from
building a Massive Missile and duct taping it to the wings as have the explosives exposed is cleary
a bad move, this means that a smart and well designed torpedo system would have serious benefits
over one that is simply bigger.

Fleet tactics would also be given more variety, pushing away from the tactic of everyone bringing a titan.
Say that in fleet a person could bring a ship that has a sole purpose to carry some powerful torpedoes,
that makes it a valuable target to destroy for the enemy and an asset to protect for the faction.

With the advent of the shipyard update, reloading torpedoes is easy enough to do, but can't be done in combat.

Let me know if you think that this would fill the hole in the weapons systems.

Come... Join us...
http://starmadedock.net/threads/questions-about-warheads.21016/page-2#post-231540

 

[spunkiethefirst]

I'd agree to this proposal if the ammo were in place of the power requirement.

• missiles require 1 warhead per missile tube for the most basic missile
  
• ammo in the form of weapon/ effect modules would apply effects to the missile

The missile computer has an interface that allows missile setup, there are 3 slots available for customizing. The weapon and effect slot can both be assigned an amount of modules equal to the number of missile tubes assigned to that computer. The tertiary effect slot only uses 1 module per shot. The modules assigned will be consumed per shot, and are supplied from storage blocks linked to the missile computer.

Spoiler: weapon/effect/tertiary module influence

• weapon slot: these can be assigned 1 per missile tube until effect reaches 100%
  • cannon, damage beam, damage pulse, missile: same effect as having it applied to secondary in the current system
• effect slot: these can be assigned 1 per missile tube until effect reaches 100%
  • piercing: the missile penetrates its blast radius value or until it hits a void then explodes, half the missiles damage value is used for determining penetration
    
  • punch: the missile explodes on impact but the blast is shifted towards the direction it was heading when it impacted
    
  • jump inhibitor: damage split evenly to all jump drives in the impacted ship reducing their charge (no jump drive on target then no effect)
    
  • jump drive: damage split evenly and applied to all jump drives in the impacted ship, if this causes a jump drive to reach maximum then the ship will jump as if pilot right clicked, if multiple drives were completely filled they will be discharged in the forced jump (no jump drive on target then no effect)
    
  • all other effects have same function as their current effect
• tertiary slot: one module consumed per shot these add special functions to the missiles
  • thruster: modules replace the normal missile rocket propulsion so no missile trail is generated they produce a small thruster plume instead
    
  • scanner: missile impact has same effect as scanner pulse upon impact with target, it only affects the impacted target
  • beacon: missile acts as a decoy by drawing attention of swarmers (friendly or not) and non anti missile turrets( non-friendly), continues to temporarily draw fire after impact with target, the draw fire function ceases immediately if shot down
    
  • radar jammer: reduced detection range vs missile defense turrets
  • camera: steerable missile and watch from the missiles point of view, in the case of multiple groups missiles will fly in the formation they were fired in, if missile has lock-on capability it can be engaged to auto pilot the missile upon locking a target via left click in missile cam
    
  • any light block: replaces destroyed blocks with light rod corresponding to the selected light block (does not affect terrain and plant type blocks)
    
  • mass enhancer: temporarily applies mass to struck target, consecutive strikes with this effect will stack as well as reset the timer (possibly every 5 damage inflicted causes mass increase of 0.01)

 

[Menos]

What I would do if missiles would require ammunition: buy a ton of ammunition and put it into the missile computer (or related storage unit) and effectively my missiles run indefinitely again.

What I would do if ammo prices would be so high, that buying huge quantities was unreasonable: use lasers.

Effectively adding ammunition to missiles would make the thing either more tedious or unused. In both cases there is nothing in store for the player, and a feature that adds no gameplay value whatsoever is better to be skipped. It's a waste of dev resources and no one gains anything.

 

[Bee_Ri]

Come... Join us...
http://starmadedock.net/threads/questions-about-warheads.21016/page-2#post-231540

I cant really claim credit for the idea, as it has kicked around the drone R&D and a load of other
threads for a while., but I do think that it would remove the need for ammunition based missiles.
Someone suggested something like weapon grouping with the warheads that would work thusly:

as you make a bigger group of warheads, on impact they are all removed and an explosion is
generated with damage and radius that scales to the amount of warheads in the group.​

I think that would work really well with slight buff to accommodate the required blocks to make a
torpedo fly. At their smallest you could make a 1 core, 1 power, 1 shruster, 1 docker, 1 faction, 1 warhead

 

[whooplaah]

Effectively adding ammunition to missiles would make the thing either more tedious or unused. In both cases there is nothing in store for the player, and a feature that adds no gameplay value whatsoever is better to be skipped. It's a waste of dev resources and no one gains anything.

Ammo counts would add other things to gameplay. I say the following assuming all weapons have ammo counts.

1) A battle between ships can be won with good thrusters. Dodge all the incoming fire until the enemy ship runs out of ammo.

2) You must employ tactics against enemies. It becomes less likely that a vessel can completely obliterate another ship. You will want to make sure you concentrate fire on key systems - thrusters, control, jump modules.

3) Player built stations and shops become more important as resupply zones. Invading an enemy faction's claim requires that you build supply depots for your vessels.

4) Blockading an enemy station becomes a much more viable strategy in faction wars. If you cut off the supplies then the station will run out of ammo.

5) When you win a battle with one ship you are more vulnerable to counter-attacks because your ammo has been depleted.


If missiles are the only weapon with ammo counts, then nothing I just said holds true.

 

[Parameter]

First off, let me say I think we should have both missiles and torpedoes, with torpedoes being higher damage dumb-fire or AI weapons that are more complicated and risky to deploy. I won't discuss torpedoes in this post.

That said, I like the idea of missiles as high damage, low power, long cycle time weapons that use ammunition. I like the idea of fashioning a single missile consumable, and keeping the current master/slave/tertiary system roughly the same for missiles, but replacing ~75%+ of the power consumption with consuming a missile item. Missile computer could link to storage containing missiles, as others have suggested. Multiple missile groups under one computer would have a linear additive power consumption, but also consume one missile for each group. Swarm missiles should consume a missile per firing, not per individual missile. Fluff it as a "multi-missile" that breaks apart after launch or some such.

Things I like about this system:

• Missiles become a weapon that doesn't have power as its primary limiting constraint. Power-constrained ships can still field weapon systems, albeit with limited shots.
• Missiles become attractive for small ships. Small ships can field missiles without killing their power budget, but their role become somewhat determined by the benefits & limitations of missiles, since it would likely be a major weapon for them.
  
• Asymmetric weapon limitations can add interesting combat decisions. For instance, since some weapons don't require any/as much power, you can increase the strength of power-denying weapons like EMP. Stronger EMP might deny beam usage, but not missiles, since missiles would work even under low-power situations. Weapon counters like this (Beams > EMP > Missiles > etc.) add variety to combat, a more complex meta, and more fun, IMO.

Problems I see with this system:

1. From a game standpoint, how do you balance capacity between missile types? Should you have as many shots with a Missile/Plasma nuke as a Missile/Cannon dumbfire by default?
2. It makes more sense that larger ships have more ammo onboard. How do you keep large ships from simply stacking ammo so deep that ammo limits are effectively removed?

For problem 1, I'm torn. Part of me says you should have fewer slow nukes, but another part of me says the missile type variations should be a reasonably balanced set of trade-offs, so the same ammo capacity for each type should be fair.

For problem 2, I see a couple ways to mitigate the issue. The first is to make missiles cost more. Require that missile recipes use an expensive ingredient, like a "Missile Core." This is unsatisfying to me because it makes missiles a "pay-to-win" kind of weapon. Established players and faction with large mining setups could afford to spam missiles, but not smaller factions or starting players.

A second, IMO better, option, is to require a cycle time when transitioning from one ammo storage to another. Simulation-wise, you can say that the automatic missile loaders are reloading the magazine from remote storage. Game-wise, even though you might can carry a lot of missiles, there is a cap on the number of missiles you can deploy in one engagement.
[DOUBLEPOST=1442958550,1442958097][/DOUBLEPOST]

Ammo counts would add other things to gameplay. I say the following assuming all weapons have ammo counts.

1) A battle between ships can be won with good thrusters. Dodge all the incoming fire until the enemy ship runs out of ammo.

2) You must employ tactics against enemies. It becomes less likely that a vessel can completely obliterate another ship. You will want to make sure you concentrate fire on key systems - thrusters, control, jump modules.

3) Player built stations and shops become more important as resupply zones. Invading an enemy faction's claim requires that you build supply depots for your vessels.

4) Blockading an enemy station becomes a much more viable strategy in faction wars. If you cut off the supplies then the station will run out of ammo.

5) When you win a battle with one ship you are more vulnerable to counter-attacks because your ammo has been depleted.


If missiles are the only weapon with ammo counts, then nothing I just said holds true.

I agree with these points. However, I think they apply even if only missiles have ammo. Missiles are normally high damage, long range alpha weapons. If that became their niche, then using them at the appropriate times in combat, and not wasting them in others, is very important when ammo is a factor. If you run out of long range weaponry, enemy attackers can fight you from stand-off, effectively scoring free damage. If you can't alpha enemy shields, or alpha systems when you breach hull, then your time-to-kill becomes longer and the enemy has more time to bring their weapons to bear on you.

I would personally like it if beams were the only weapons that only used energy, and both cannons and missiles used ammo, with cannon ammo being very cheap and with short reload times, and missile ammo being more expensive with longer reloads.

Weapon variety is the spice of combat.

 

[shadowulf]

Torpedo's can be made in the game now, don't use up precious block id's to further alienate a possibly great feature. Four things would have to be done to make torps a viable weapon.

1. Scale back up the power of warheads, and make their damage a deminishing return.
2. Allow an entity to retain momentum after undocking.
3. Allow certain docked entities to not have a core. (My idea is if it has no core, it can't have an ai module)
4. Warheads bypass shields
If these three things happened, pulses would be a ( barely) viable weapons to stave off torpedo impacts. Also, larger torps would be more effective, to a degree. Third, a hot subject, no cores on UNGUIDED torpedoes would allow for stealth attacks, but visual acquisition and destruction would be easy. Fourth, and most important, torpedoes bypass shields. Now, before you get crazy, remember that
1. Most ships have PD, making a hit difficult or impossible
2. Warheads are not gonna be uber murderous. Its not going to utterly annialate a titan in one shot, just put a chink in its armor.
3. Warhead torpedoes are extremely difficult to aim unless both ships are at a standstill. Risk vs reward.
4. With this system, no new block id's need to be generated, and it utilizes a block that currently has no purpose.
5. A ship carrying warhead torps will not be able to function as a first line warship, as torpedo storage and protection takes quite a large amount of space.
6. Think of the concequences of a warhead going off inside a ship. Ouch.

TL;DR. Warheads ARE already ammo using torpedoes. Use them instead of a whole new block ID. With only four tweaks, it can be done.
1 damage increase
2 momentum stays after undocking
3 certain docked entities have no core (optional, but STEAALTH TORPEDOES!)
4 warheads bypass shields.

 

[Dr. Whammy]

Torpedo's can be made in the game now, don't use up precious block id's to further alienate a possibly great feature. Four things would have to be done to make torps a viable weapon.

1. Scale back up the power of warheads, and make their damage a deminishing return.
2. Allow an entity to retain momentum after undocking.
3. Allow certain docked entities to not have a core. (My idea is if it has no core, it can't have an ai module)
4. Warheads bypass shields
If these three things happened, pulses would be a ( barely) viable weapons to stave off torpedo impacts. Also, larger torps would be more effective, to a degree. Third, a hot subject, no cores on UNGUIDED torpedoes would allow for stealth attacks, but visual acquisition and destruction would be easy. Fourth, and most important, torpedoes bypass shields. Now, before you get crazy, remember that
1. Most ships have PD, making a hit difficult or impossible
2. Warheads are not gonna be uber murderous. Its not going to utterly annialate a titan in one shot, just put a chink in its armor.
3. Warhead torpedoes are extremely difficult to aim unless both ships are at a standstill. Risk vs reward.
4. With this system, no new block id's need to be generated, and it utilizes a block that currently has no purpose.
5. A ship carrying warhead torps will not be able to function as a first line warship, as torpedo storage and protection takes quite a large amount of space.
6. Think of the concequences of a warhead going off inside a ship. Ouch.

TL;DR. Warheads ARE already ammo using torpedoes. Use them instead of a whole new block ID. With only four tweaks, it can be done.
1 damage increase
2 momentum stays after undocking
3 certain docked entities have no core (optional, but STEAALTH TORPEDOES!)
4 warheads bypass shields.

In your first list...
1. Modify block behavior config.xml to change damage
2. Modify server.cfg to enable/disable inertia
3. The core is necessary for you to move the torpedo in the first place. I wouldn't recommend changing this. An alternative would be to allow logic controlled radar jammers; same effect, minimal changes to the game mechanics.
4. Appears to already be the case in my game. All torpedo strikes in my tests went right through the shields and hit the hull.

In your second list...
1. PD would need a way to target torpedoes AND missiles. They would also need to be identified as a threat since most torpedoes will be neutral due to lack of a faction module.
5. I WILL find a way...
6. Spent all of yesterday night experiencing that... It is NOT pretty.

 

[Menos]

5) When you win a battle with one ship you are more vulnerable to counter-attacks because your ammo has been depleted..

No, that and your other scenarios are not going to happen.

If the amount of ammo in my cargo decides a battle, then I will just stock enough ammo. So if the average battle drains 1000 missiles, I just buy 1,000,000 for the next 1000 battles and never run out of ammo ever again. And if you add features to limit the amount of ammo per cargo-hold, I just put in more cargo-holds. And since I got enough ammo till infinity blockades won't do anything.

And if you somehow come up with a way that mass-stocking ammunition is not going to happen, because they are too expensive or too bulky or whatever, then I just fit my ship with lasers and don't use ammunition at all.

This is how it has been in all shooter games with ammunition so far, and I highly doubt that StarMade with all the options I have while building my ship would be an exception to that.

 

[Dr. Whammy]

Another thing you ammo proponent guys are forgetting: The variable of weapon sizes and the capability of players to build weapons with multiple sized emitters linked to the same computer.

How do you determine how much to spend on ammo for each size launcher? Do you need a specific ammo for a specific size launcher or use a generic ammo type who's use spans across all launcher sizes?