Anti heat seeking for smaller ships

[supernoob0122]

I know people will say
"Just build a anti missile turrent!"
or
"Just cloak!"
but what if we had smaller ships that cant support a cloaking system or is to small for a turrent?
well i have an idea that adds a new block to the game to counter the heat seeking swarm.

this block is....
___________________
Flair block

what the flair block does is that it adds the ability to fire Flairs into space if a heat seeking missile is targeting the ship. but it has a cool down of 30 seconds and its only able to deflect up to 5 missiles.

___________________

 

[Rokiyo]

Hah... What if heat seeking missiles sought any source of heat? So heat seekers become just as likely to chase down enemy missiles as they are enemy ships?

Would make for some hilariously ineffective fireworks displays. :p

 

[Jaaskinal]

Chaff.

 

[takethispie]

I think it might be a good Idea

 

[Comr4de]

to small for a turrent?

Good lord, how small are you building? A minimalist antimissile turret takes like what, 14 blocks?

 

[Rokiyo]

Good lord, how small are you building? A minimalist antimissile turret takes like what, 14 blocks?

I can get it down to 10 if you don't use any hull blocks and abuse the fact that the blocks on the turret base don't have to be physically touching each other...

But even then, I think his underlying issue might be that just one or two PD turrets aren't going to fare well against swarms, and small ships don't really have an alternative method to avoid being hit by the swarmers launched from a big ship.

Should they have one? I don't know. This probably falls under that "should bigger always be better?" debate that seems to have been bouncing around for a while.

 

[EricBlank]

Well, the devs intended to add a minelayer weapons system at some point. If the minelayer+missile combo spits out a series of chaff mines that heat seekers follow, that solves this without an extra block system beyond what was already planned (kinda)

Although I am highly amused by the posted idea of heat-seeking missiles going for other missiles. Also makes them useful as an AMS system in their own right. Too many incoming missiles? Fire the missiles!

AMS turrets can totally go on anything bigger than themselves, definitely.

Perhaps a compromise?
What if pulse weapons could be used for AMS? As a docked bobby module craft with a basic pulse system that fires when an enemy missile enters the pulse's radius of effect. Doesnt need to rotate, fires based on distance. That would make a truly microscopic AMS system (6 blocks minimum) that isn't OP simply because the pulses' radius and reload time is undesirable and it doesn't fire until the last second anyway, and so probably won't catch more than one missile. Still, useful for very tiny drones/fighters.

 

[Comr4de]

I'm pretty sure that the minelayer weapon type has been nixed. Don't quote me on that though but I'm pretty sure the devs said as much in an interview a while back

 

[cyberus111]

Actually nowadays flares on mini parachutes are most commonly used for defense against heat seekers.

IMHO that could be simulated by adding a Burn or Heat effect (like the torch used to burn pilots out of cores) that could be added to weapon systems.

If said effect were added to missile or cannon it would create a hot projectile with a % chance to cause a heat-seeking missile to change targets, perhaps % based on size of missile vs size of flare ie: a flare produced by a 10 block system would have a 100% chance of misdirecting a heat seeker produced by a 10 block missile system.

A small ship could, in theory, have a rear firing non-turret weapon that would produce these flares, how effective the flares are would be up to the shipbuilder as to how many block he wishes to dedicate to the system.

 

[godmars]

are you playing with a modded server speed? in vanilla you can literally thrust backwards and outrun them if you have high enough acceleration

 

[DivineEvil]

If your ship is so small, that you can't sport a pair of AMS systems, then it doesn't deserve to survive any missiles.