Do pulse weapons have any potential to work as point defense?

[KuramaFox]

The idea being that you slap some pulse-beams on a point defense turret or something, and potentially get something that can trigger as a backup when missile swarms threaten to overwhelm your defenses otherwise.

Has anyone actually tried this? Or does the pulse shockwave not hit missiles?
.

 

[Winterhome]

It doesn't hit missiles, sadly.

 

[HorribleHedgehog]

Yep, cannons are the only weapon capable of destroying missiles.

 

[Madman198237]

I really wish other weapons could hit missiles as well.

The problem with changing this, of course, is that beams are basically unavoidable, and can be almost perfectly accurate...provided your AI is set right. It'd make missiles obsolete. Add that to a couple of DP turrets set near the ship, and you can't be hit with missiles (DP keeps any away from the hull, beam AMS shoots down dozens of missiles in rapid succession)...so, for now, cannons-only is a decent (If not great) way to go about this.

 

[jayman38]

I would like other weapons to hit, but maybe only hit for one damage, regardless of the actual weapon system size. That should only happen if missiles get an HP count higher than 1. (I had an idea once upon a time about giving missiles variable HP counts that never goes lower than 2, depending on weapon system size.)

 

[KuramaFox]

If we went with that system... maybe logarithmic, rounded down?

So a missile with 1-9 blocks is 1HP, 10-99 is 2HP, 100-999 is 3HP, 1000-9999 is 4HP, etc. With Heat Seekers having 1 less than normal for a system that size, to a minimum of 1. Perhaps Damage Pulse missiles get +1 HP due to their "large size" (and slow speed).
.

 

[jayman38]

Right. Could be block count of the source system. Could be based on damage potential.
I generally think people like the idea of missile HP greater than one, at least on larger missile systems.
Then it should be reasonable to let any weapon system hit a missile.

 

[KuramaFox]

Another downside of beam weapons could be: High hit rate, but AI cannot change direction of the beam during firing. Which means at best, a beam PD can only shoot down one missile a second at the very best.

 

[MacThule]

In most other sci-fi games beams seem to be the ideal PD weapons. I'd love to see both pulse AND beam expanded to work as forms of point defense... but I'd settle for just beams. I know they've had no luck making beams actually hit missiles, but it'd be easy enough to allow beams to calculate a certain probability for auto-hit against missile targets within range.

 

[Sgtwisky]

My vote is for allowing missiles to target missiles from ams. Imagine AMS swarmer missiles...

 

[alterintel]

anybody remember anti-missile rockets from Master of Orion?

 

[Crashmaster]

Yeah, but I didn't use them all that much. Now mentioning anti-missile missiles only reminds me of getting front-line ships sandblasted away by Aurora's npc ai overwhelmingly spamming AMM's at ships.

 

[Madman198237]

Anti-missile missiles are basically what modern AMS like the Aegis system are all about. So yes, we need some AMS missiles. And it needs to be a setting for swarmers that launches many small missiles that will only attack missiles.

 

[Sgtwisky]

Agreed. The AMS Missiles should NOT attack anything but missiles. Though It might be cool to allow their explosion (on impact with another missile) affect ships within their radius. The explosions would be small, and mainly just cause shield effects when they intercepted a missile a little too late.

Actually come to think of it, it would be cool to have missiles explode when hit by AMS. Then if other missiles are in their radius they would explode as well. It might be unbalanced, but would be a cool effect. Maybe set as a server option?

But I think I am getting away from the OP a bit too much now. Using pulse as AMS might work if there were some down side to spamming lots of small pulses along your hull to defend from missiles. Using my above idea of missiles exploding when destroyed, then you still run the risk of destroying a missile too close and taking damage. But it would need some balancing.

Come to think of it... balance wise missile HP would be a great way to reduce some of the AMS ideas thrown around. I like this thread. It makes me think of crazy stuff and how it might work.

 

[Lukwan]

Decoy/heat flares are long overdue.

 

[Madman198237]

They could explode, but I don't know how often they do in real life. In real life, most missiles intercept their targets at high velocity and detonate into a cloud of shrapnel as well (Patriot missiles ram and detonate with shrapnel cloud)....which would not always detonate the missile, instead destroying detonation or propulsion systems, causing the missile to either fail to detonate or fail to reach its target.

That said, if the missile does explode (Configurable chance of detonation when shot down by any means?), it should take out any missiles that receive enough damage from it to explode.

 

[AtraUnam]

They could explode, but I don't know how often they do in real life. In real life, most missiles intercept their targets at high velocity and detonate into a cloud of shrapnel as well (Patriot missiles ram and detonate with shrapnel cloud)....which would not always detonate the missile, instead destroying detonation or propulsion systems, causing the missile to either fail to detonate or fail to reach its target.

That said, if the missile does explode (Configurable chance of detonation when shot down by any means?), it should take out any missiles that receive enough damage from it to explode.

I'm pictureing a logic missile spammer being destroyed by a cartoon-esque chain reaction of missiles exploding all the way back to the source.

 

[Sgtwisky]

which would be amazing LOL.

 

[Dire Venom]

They could explode, but I don't know how often they do in real life. In real life, most missiles intercept their targets at high velocity and detonate into a cloud of shrapnel as well (Patriot missiles ram and detonate with shrapnel cloud)....which would not always detonate the missile, instead destroying detonation or propulsion systems, causing the missile to either fail to detonate or fail to reach its target.

That said, if the missile does explode (Configurable chance of detonation when shot down by any means?), it should take out any missiles that receive enough damage from it to explode.

Ah so it could emit a damage pulse when destroyed:?

 

[Madman198237]

No, the missile should just explode as usual, affecting other nearby missiles. And I mean extremely nearby missiles. As in, missile-on-missile damage is nerfed to the 3rd or 4th power. (As in, effectiveness decreases by the 3rd or 4th or even 5th power with distance)

I just read your post, Atra. NO, it should not be that effective. EVER. Although, now that I think about it, if you're spamming logic-based missiles anyway.....You probably deserve some accidental suicide.