Buff warhead damage/radius poll

[Nickizzy]

The purpose of this thread is to have a poll for buffing warhead damage. Just to see what people think. Right now they scratch the paint on an advanced armor block, and have a radius of 5(?).

You can post reasons why and why not to buff them, but stay on the topic of just damage and blast radius.

Warheads are an anticapital/frigate weapon that can bypass shields. They are usually mounted on torpedos and are propelled through push beams/push effect from the ship silo, or on a logic clock activating a push defensive effect on the torpedo. They are ususally dumbfire, but have the theoretical potential to be guided(it's really weird and an exploit right now, everyone chear for warhead torpedo mode!) to the target. Keep in mind that their damge fraction is even worse than missiles because of their blast radius(usually you will get only 50% damage, and manytimes even less), and are stopped quite well with armor.

Someone give me the base stats for warheads as well. Testing and pulishment of different damages and radiuses is appreciated.

 

[Madman198237]

Since I'm not sure on the stats, I'll avoid voting for now. However, an interesting idea might be to turn the present warhead into a sort of breaching device with a limited range but powerful directional blast, and create a new type of warhead that is expensive to craft, unusable in large numbers (Due to some debuff or another, maybe), and capable of single-handedly creating a proton torpedo-sized hole in an enemy vessel.

The second type of warhead came about as an idea based on giving bombers with torpedoes a really good one-use effect, allowing for the use of player piloted-bombers and corvettes with larger magazines to cause more damage.

Just like WWII naval warfare and PT boats/destroyers/light cruisers, really. You can put these things on a battleship, but be darn sure that somebody's gonna try to keep you away if they see you coming in a battleship with a potential torpedo armament.

 

[Az14el]

went with 20k by 10, I'd like to be able to choose 20k by 12 but ehh close enough

They're fucked to balance to please everyone, some will hate on your block config if they're any more more dangerous than your average posturopedic pillow, but look i think making a block that's a part of the game actually do something is a nice idea. 20kx10/12 feels pretty balanced to me.

That they can be used to conduct a neutral attack with no war declaration is a bit of a contentious one, Personally I love that shit, I think its a great option compared to an up front attack and the most effective way to make use of warheads.

 

[Madman198237]

It is a great option. I really want super-powerful warheads that come in limited supply to encourage the tactical use of limited-ammunition bombers to really take the hurt to any large vessel that doesn't invest in good armor.

 

[Reilly Reese]

50m 500k damage

 

[Sven_The_Slayer]

No. Several things need to happen before any buffs to warheads can ever be considered

1) Warheads do not trigger auto declaration of war. You can fire warheads all you like into an unmanned ship or station while the crew is offline without penalty. The only way to protect from this is home-base invulnerability.

2) AI needs to be able to identify warheads as a threat and be capable of responding. Even with a faction tag of a hostile faction AI ships and turrets will just sit there, look dumb and take a torpedo right into the face.

 

[Reilly Reese]

No. Several things need to happen before any buffs to warheads can ever be considered

1) Warheads do not trigger auto declaration of war. You can fire warheads all you like into an unmanned ship or station while the crew is offline without penalty. The only way to protect from this is home-base invulnerability.

2) AI needs to be able to identify warheads as a threat and be capable of responding. Even with a faction tag of a hostile faction AI ships and turrets will just sit there, look dumb and take a torpedo right into the face.

But that's what makes them fun. :D

 

[jorgekorke]

Warheards should benefit more from bigger groups, and also, they could have a bonus damage if the ship entity has a player inside.
I always wanted to go full allahu akbar on this game.

 

[Az14el]

But that's what makes them fun. :D

Griefing! Terrorism!! I bet you don't even bow to your opponent first you scoundrel.

 

[Reilly Reese]

Griefing! Terrorism!! I bet you don't even bow to your opponent first you scoundrel.

And yet here you are rating the post agree.

 

[Sgtwisky]

I chose 20K damage and no range buff. I did testing a while back, and it will still take multiple direct hits from torpedo's (Even advanced versions like my "Lance" or the "MIRV" versions ive seen) to breach a 2 thick advanced armor hull. BUT... Assuming you can Get multiple direct hits with a dumb fire weapon on the same spot, you can start doing some real damage to the squishy insides. But your also still limited to the small raidous of the charge, so your not going to blow a huge hole into the middle of the ship. But if you cut a few power lines you likely have had a large effect on that ships combat effectiveness.

The following is technically "Off Topic" but I wanted to address Sven's concerns.

No. Several things need to happen before any buffs to warheads can ever be considered

1) Warheads do not trigger auto declaration of war. You can fire warheads all you like into an unmanned ship or station while the crew is offline without penalty. The only way to protect from this is home-base invulnerability.

2) AI needs to be able to identify warheads as a threat and be capable of responding. Even with a faction tag of a hostile faction AI ships and turrets will just sit there, look dumb and take a torpedo right into the face.

I do agree that a few changes need to be made to allow them to be buffed. But I don't think the changes need to be that huge.

Change 1:
I think AMS turrets should aim at any warhead they have a clean line of sight to, which is NOT factioned or is not an ally or one of your faction. If you don't have AMS, and your offline, then yes, someone can mess up your shit (Assuming no homebase protection).

Change 2:
A factioned warhead/torpedo should Cause a ware deceleration, while unfactioned should not.

This would cause the following:
1. You could defend from them while offline, even from a neutral player.
2. It still allows for covert ops using warheads. Including backstabbing and such. I know some people don't like this but (IMO) its part of politics, and PvP and seems natural to me. Keep your friends close and your enemy's closer and such. Yes, an ally could screw you over... you shouldn't have had them as an ally.
3. IF you have AMS turrets that are ON and you don't want them to shoot your warhead out of the sky, you need to faction it. If you faction it , your no longer running (Covert Ops) but you don't have to worry about turning your AMS off.

 

[AtraUnam]

I chose 50k because what everyone choosing 20k doesn't realise is that even to get their current paltry level of damage warheads are still bugging and detonating multiple times on impact.

 

[Winterhome]

500k because it takes over a million damage to reliably get through more than two or three layers of advanced, and 2-3 layers is what's nowadays considered "lightly armored"

 

[Nickizzy]

[
QUOTE="Sgtwisky, post: 284977, member: 321889"]The following is technically "Off Topic" but I wanted to address Sven's concerns.[/QUOTE]
Totally fine, thats actually really important to warheads. Backstabing warriors galore!

And make this change too: unfaccioned "warheads ships" are disabled, you must faction the "torpedo" to activate the warhead, if not warhead can´t damage anything.

Nice config option, but in regular play that would be annoying and drive up the cost of already expensive torpedo systems. Hmm....

super-powerful warheads that come in limited supply

50m 500k damage

500k damage and 50 meters

limited supply

super-powerful

Pardon of the focus on you Madman, but you have the heart of the issue. People want warheads to be really powerful and awsome, but even with the skill gap needed to make warheads(I think this is good, one of the few cases where experience is worth more than grinding. Something we should look for more of) and the semi hard cost of making each torpedo, torpedos themselves are about as expensive as 1.5 weapon modules(Someone should make a diagram of the costs of different types of warheads. Ship lauching, self propelled, and (bugged/exploited)seeking). Somehow, they need to be either

come in limited supply.

Or be super expensive(like computer expensive, not like a station or anything extereme). Because otherwise warheads are only 10k(or less) each. Big cruise missiles can cost more, but those are usually Tony Stark style splitters or attempt to be multistage or something.

The minimum blocks for a warhead are:
Ship propelled: core, warhead, docker. Might be troubles with slowing down and spinning, but only like 25-27 hundred each. Contact will proably result in explosion.

Self propelled: core, docker, warhead, push computer, push module, "not" logic and "and" logic, (optional power block, +20 cost but it works forever)(for a couple of doors and a few logic blocks you can make it protected from contact unless they hit straight on. Not that useful because that is usually how it hits you.). Goes in a straight line unless contact. Contact may result in explosion. Around 9k each, give or take a few hundred because I don't remeber prices.

Seeking: uses a weapon computer and module to make an AI block target it. Unrelyable. Same as self propelled except for 1 block weapon system and AI. Around 30k each but depending on your aim and how far out you're firing they can be worth it, if they don't go after you.

At these prices, how much damage should a warhead do? And how expensive should warheads be to do the massive amounts of damage that 500k+ and 50 radius suggest?
[DOUBLEPOST=1462309521,1462308931][/DOUBLEPOST]

500k because it takes over a million damage to reliably get through more than two or three layers of advanced, and 2-3 layers is what's nowadays considered "lightly armored"

Actually, could you actually show that with screenshots or something? During the week I don't have access to starmade. (No offense) I'm having trouble visulizing how thats possible. Did the ship have like a billion ahp or some effect or something?

 

[Madman198237]

Perhaps do as I suggested, with an important modification---a new, very expensive computer to wire to the new, very expensive explosives. This computer will cause a BOBBY AI to attempt to ram enemy vessels (Torpedoes will require faction blocks) and then (If necessary) force-detonate the blocks. But only if they don't detonate on impact.


And then use the warhead as a breaching device of some kind.
Bonus damage vs. doors?

 

[Nickizzy]

Perhaps do as I suggested, with an important modification---a new, very expensive computer to wire to the new, very expensive explosives. This computer will cause a BOBBY AI to attempt to ram enemy vessels (Torpedoes will require faction blocks) and then (If necessary) force-detonate the blocks. But only if they don't detonate on impact.


And then use the warhead as a breaching device of some kind.
Bonus damage vs. doors?

Like it would be a computer that would override AI(hopefully at a set point like when shields go down or below x% hp) to make it target it's target with a weapon with zero range? I think that could work. And then the next time it registered a collision* it would fire/detonate? It would only work while undocked(for torpedos). Great for suiside and secret keeping, it just all depends on the price.
Hm...
...
What about 10k for the computer and 1.5 k for each module? Idk, spat out some probable numbers. This would make it semi expensive to build torpedos, but it would take out the logic/rail experience needed to do it. I think thats sorta important.

*With a nonallied ship? Maybe if it still detonated the modules on block contact like warheads.


[EDIT] about the damage vs doors thing, maybe the explosion mechanic is made so that if it gets a wall with open air on the other side it does more damage? Just plain doors only doesn't account for logic hangar doors amd stuff like that.

 

[Madman198237]

It detonates on contact, but will also detonate if the warheads glitch and don't detonate on contact, or if the contact is too gentle.

The computer CONSTANTLY overrides AI, and disables shielding, I think. That'd give it some balance. You can't protect this warhead from enemy PDT fire.

Perhaps other disadvantages to make it a simple and efficient means to replace knowledge of logic.

However, modules of these explosives could still be used in a conventional logic-based drone or any other sort of present-day warhead torpedo, because without the computer these modules remain as high-powered warheads (I.E., capable of detonating on contact)

Using logic might allow for the use of basic shields or something, or perhaps a logic-based torpedo would not be targeted by PDT.


By the way, the idea is for PDTs to target this new type of computer, and/or the new warheads in general. However, not targeting warheads in general would allow for the use of logic and experience with logic to give a real advantage over the basic version.

 

[Az14el]

Spoiler: valid opinion on why guerilla tactics should be removed from the game or considered griefing

F*CKING FORUM DADS RUINING EVERYTHING ACTUALLY GOOD AUUURGHRGHRGFHGEUFUISDAHGUIGHSUIGHFUSDIWQGUGWFIGHWSDF

 

[Keptick]

And yet here you are rating the post agree.

Yes, because his post was satire...

 

[Reilly Reese]

Yes, because his post was satire...

So was mine...