Warheads are just fine as they are???

[AtraUnam]

So apparently warheads ability to ignore shields makes them fine with their current damage. Just to make a point I took a picture of what happens when a warhead is propelled into a block of advanced hull with the usual push clock system.

Actually I lied, through the magic of clipping that's actually the result of 10 warheads hitting that point simultaneously. When I tried it with a single warhead it 'dented' a single block without even breaking it. This amount of damage is simply not worth the effort and resources required to get even one warhead to the target; if collision damage was turned on warheads would do the least damage of any block because they destroy themselves on contact.

And in-case anyone was wondering, using more warheads does nothing to remedy the situation, a 3x3x3 cube of warheads does only marginally more damage than a single warhead.

Edit: I've also been told that warheads ignore the damage reduction of armor blocks. If this were the case a single warhead should have been more than enough to break a block of adv-armor. While they do display un-reduced damage upon hitting they are clearly still effected by armor damage reduction.

Edit2: So if you somehow needed more convincing that warheads are absolute shit:

Spoiler: Minimum blocks to 'reliably' get a warhead to its target and explode

Warhead
Core
Power generator
Wireless block
Push-effect computer
Push-effect module
Docker

Thats 7 blocks, in comparison a 6 block missile/pulse (including the computers) does more than 3 times the 2000 damage that warheads do, and a 6 block beam/pulse (also including computers) does about the same damage as a warhead. There is literally no reason to use a warhead torpedo in place of conventional weapons unless for some reason you want a weapon that does less, unreliable damage, and only works once.

 

[Lecic]

I think warheads need to have maybe... 10x the damage, but maybe 5x the resource cost as well. They should also stack together (probably on a diminishing returns system) to make building decent torpedoes doable.

Warheads need some sort of counter, though. I think PD turrets should try and target warheads as well as missiles. Maybe have two PD settings- [Prioritize Missile] and [Prioritize Warheads]. Maybe some sort of anti-cloaker mechanism on warheads as well? I think it'd be hilarious if warheads detonated if you were cloaked and got de-cloaked by a scanner.

 

[Criss]

100% true actually. Very good points. Maybe now we can find a value worth working towards? How much damage would you expect a self propelled system be capable of inflicting in comparison to similarly sized weapon systems?

 

[Lecic]

100% true actually. Very good points. Maybe now we can find a value worth working towards? How much damage would you expect a self propelled system be capable of inflicting in comparison to similarly sized weapon systems?

I think 10x the current damage (20,000 vs 2000), plus a limited grouping ability would be good.

Also, reintroduce some sort of capsule cost to warheads. I think using the same capsule as missile tubes would be a good idea.

 

[Dire Venom]

I think 10x the current damage (20,000 vs 2000), plus a limited grouping ability would be good.

Also, reintroduce some sort of capsule cost to warheads. I think using the same capsule as missile tubes would be a good idea.

Regaring grouping, you could 'link' warheads, AND set one of the blocks as the out put for all the blast.
This would enable more warheads to be used at once (unlike how they are currently)

 

[BDLS]

I dunno about 10x more damage, there are currently ways to make them extremely effective with a little engineering. But sure, maybe buff damage 5x and get community input on balance.

 

[Lecic]

I dunno about 10x more damage, there are currently ways to make them extremely effective with a little engineering. But sure, maybe buff damage 5x and get community input on balance.

10 warheads stacked together with glitchyness only breaks a couple of blocks of advanced. What kind of engineering are we talking to make them more effective? Clipping them into ships and undocking them?

 

[MrFURB]

From testing I've seen that warheads tend to have a disproportionate amount of damage go to the victim's armor HP before any is applied to the block itself. Some test torps have managed to destroy a couple million AHP but only a small crater of advanced armor blocks.

 

[BDLS]

10 warheads stacked together with glitchyness only breaks a couple of blocks of advanced. What kind of engineering are we talking to make them more effective? Clipping them into ships and undocking them?

sekret tech, just know that there's a way to make them not completely crap.

 

[Keptick]

sekret tech, just know that there's a way to make them not completely crap.

Lag-warp them into the enemy ship? :D

Even so, their damage is abysmal. I don't really see a way to make them useful without glitching something badly...

 

[StormWing0]

hmm yes we need these things to deal a good amount of damage and maybe group with each other when placed together. Other than that I think just making the group with the benefits of grouping should do.

 

[Gandrac]

At the Q&A Session i mentioned that warheads need to be looked into. Unfortunately, Schine didn't seem to share that opinion. To be fair.. i didn't explain in detail what i was referring to.
While it is true that -on paper- warheads seem to be powerful with their ability to ignore shields.. it comes down to how you want to use them. If you want to use them as a breaching charge to board an enemy craft they are just fine. If you want to make small fighter based push-torpedoes.. they have changed from unreliable but powerful to just horrible.

That is why i would like to see 2 separate Blocks for different application methods.

Warheads
For small to medium push torpedoes (big blasts radius with sufficient damage per Warhead. Maybe it would also make sense to use blast calculations from damage pulses to prevent Warheads from just being big one-time dumb-fire missiles)

Breaching Charges
For boarding purposes (no change needed)



...Yea i know, we have to save Block-ID's.

 

[Drakkart]

100% true actually. Very good points. Maybe now we can find a value worth working towards? How much damage would you expect a self propelled system be capable of inflicting in comparison to similarly sized weapon systems?

thing is how much damage should a weapon deliver which needs contact to the target to do it's work. A hell lot more than guns or missiles.
Should it ignore shields well roleplay wise yes for it travels through the shield and deals direct hull damage.
should it counter the armor system? maybe not entirely - should a torpedo in any case destroy some blocks on impact? that is pretty much the point of using them - damage on impact no matter how big your opponent is. this, only this makes them viable to use in smallship vs titan combat.

in that regard i would like to state that the current implementation of armor and hp system just acting as additional shields kinda did not really improove combat. sorry to pick on that system but a warhead to become effective should ignore that all and just do some damage but to the affected blocks in blast radius which should not be huge but you know.

 

[Mariux]

I'm kind of against them ignoring shields completely due to griefing... But I think they could ignore shields if the are below 80-50 percent. I can see potential in this as a boarding tool.

 

[AtraUnam]

Wow, didn't expect the thread to come back to life like this. As far as balancing goes I've got to agree with Lecic, the ability for a single warhead to destroy the amount of blocks shown in the OP (roughly 10 times the damage) would be nice without rendering it greatly open to abuse, the capsule cost would also go some way to discouraging potential griefers.

As for the subject of grouping I see 2 possible ways it could be done:

1. Have the ability to group adjacent warheads together with a particular warhead set as the output block, damage would probably need to increase on a decreasing to curve to prevent something I call 'titan hammers', essentially gigantic cubes of warheads on a large fulcrum which could easily be swung at high speed to destroy literally anything with 0 effort.
2. Perhaps more interesting would be do to make the following three important changes to warhead blocks:
   - Give them priority in collision calculations
   -They can no longer destroy other warhead blocks on the same entity
   -They no longer collide (but still explode on contact with a collision mesh)
   These changes, along with a buff to useful damage, would essentially mean that torpedoes no longer loose all of their momentum on impact and can be placed together without wasting damage on each-other. It would open up a lot of interesting design because the hole left by the impact would be roughly the same shape as your warhead group; an X shaped torpedo would leave an X shaped hole, a long thin torpedo would leave a deep and narrow hole etc...

So that's my two cents on how to balance warhead damage, if there are concerns about the griefing potential of something that ignores shields then two options to balance this aspect (if balance is deemed necessary) could be:

1. Warhead damage is reduced by the same percentage as the targets remaining shields so they do 0% damage at 100% shields, and 20% against 80% shields etc... This too could be on a curve so warheads begin doing full damage at only say 50% shields.
2. Alternately warheads could only ignore shields shortly after an inhibitor pulse, the duration for which they can ignore shields is dependent on the targets shield-regen and the strength of the inhibitor.

 

[Thalanor]

I feel like the cleanest way to make them viable is to partially or fully drop the shield penetration and just make them like 50 times more effective than the same block count in missile tubes. That way you'd have a high risk high reward weapon option.

Why the huge number? Because square-cube law. Torpedoes require a launcher system, so you can easily just fit a giant blob of missile tubes on a ship. Even tiny warheads should do absolutely massive damage, but be extremely pricey to produce.

 

[Lecic]

I don't see anyone using warheads if they don't ignore shields.

The trick is making sure the damage is low enough, the cost high enough, but still keeping them strong enough to be useful, so that they don't eclipse normal weapons but still have their uses.

I think it's important to keep in mind that warhead torpedoes are relatively slow, and have numerous downsides in their launching. Max server speed at most, require the ship to be completely still (or reversing) to fire them without hitting your own ship, and cost a huge amount of resources if you want them to track targets and actually be likely to hit them. 550 capsules for the push system, another 100 for the BOBBY AI, 25 for the rail docker, plus the mesh/composite costs of the core, warhead itself, rail docker, logic, and power generator. You end up with a 675 capsule, 9 block torpedo, that does absolutely minuscule damage (even with a 10x damage boost), and now you want it to not even break through shields unless they're partially down?

 

[Criss]

in that regard i would like to state that the current implementation of armor and hp system just acting as additional shields kinda did not really improove combat.

This isn't about the HP system though, this is about warheads and their damage. HP system can be adjusted if it needs to be but the only thing that has to change for warheads to be viable is to increase their damage in comparison to similarly sized weapon groups.

To the rest of the thread readers, how would you feel if warhead damage was increased the more the shields were down. Even with 100% shields I think warheads should still be able to get through.

 

[Lecic]

This isn't about the HP system though, this is about warheads and their damage. HP system can be adjusted if it needs to be but the only thing that has to change for warheads to be viable is to increase their damage in comparison to similarly sized weapon groups.

To the rest of the thread readers, how would you feel if warhead damage was increased the more the shields were down. Even with 100% shields I think warheads should still be able to get through.

If you're already getting enemy shields down, you can probably just mount a normal weapon for more reliable, effective damage at that point. I don't see why I would use a warhead based weapon at that point when a normal missile (or any other weapon system) would be more effective.

 

[Criss]

If you're already getting enemy shields down, you can probably just mount a normal weapon for more reliable, effective damage at that point. I don't see why I would use a warhead based weapon at that point when a normal missile (or any other weapon system) would be more effective.

Yes however we can set them to be devastating with shields already up. The point is that they need to and should be more powerful than the 6 block setup for another weapon.

In the end that is their purpose, so it needs to be just as justified as any other weapon. Think not "why bother" when you should be asking "how do I want to approach combat".