Fix missiles so they are actually useful.

[Planr]

Currently on StarMade, since the past two or so updates ago, a "fix" was implemented that "re-instated" group penalty power costs for weapons. However, this had a very adverse affect on both beams and missiles with beam slave, making multi-group arrays that previously only cost 2 million up to 40 million and more to use. Now in the most recent update, this "beam bug" was fixed for beam-beam, but it has yet to have a fix implemented for missile-beam.

Now, I know that we just got out of the whole "lock-on missiles being the meta" phase just a few months ago, but the problem is, they've now swung to the opposite side of the spectrum, being useless in almost all game environment circumstances.

Several precedent things to point out:

• Most big servers use large sector sizes, meaning missiles generally have to cover a lot of ground to reach their target, necessitating any missiles used to have longer ranges, lock-on, and faster speed in order to reach their target. This makes missile-beam the only viable option here.
• Point-defense has been greatly buffed over the past few updates to where the only way for missiles to get through is in large, fast-moving swarms. The only way to get fast-moving missiles is to use missile-beam.
• Missile-missile setups (swarm missiles) are frustrating to use because they attack virtually all nearby entities, regardless of faction (so if you are fighting with allies or neutrals in the vicinity, you'll end up accidentally creating a bunch of war declarations you didn't mean to). They also move slower and thus are easy to shoot down with PD. Because of this, lock-on missiles are the only alternative, since they're the only other missile type that can home in on their target, and at faster speeds.
• It is near-impossible to hit targets with dumbfire missiles at any range other than point-blank range, because the target is most likely moving too fast and there is too much jittering of the ships and weapons due to lag for you to hit them. This necessitates using lock-on missiles for virtually all scenarios.

Sounds a lot like missile-beam in many groups for a swarm effect is the only viable way to go for using missiles, right? That would be true, but unfortunately, missile-beam is now incredibly useless, because it can't be used in swarms, due to the fact that the beam bug was not fixed for it. This means that when you try to use missile-beam in groups of more than 1, you get ridiculously high power costs that kill power on virtually any setup. So why doesn't SCHINE fix the bug so missiles can work again like they used to? Because they don't plan to. I can confirm this. Schine apparently considers this a closed case with missiles. So if we don't say anything we will just have to be content with missiles being absolute crap.

But we can do something about that. Let them know that we want missiles fixed so they are useful again. So I propose that SCHINE fix the beam bug for missiles, however I want to know what you guys think about this.

I also feel that other missile types ought to be given more use, so some other propositions I have:

• Make dumbfire missiles (just plain missiles) move much faster so it's easier to hit things with them
• Make swarmer missiles (missile-missile) exclusively seek red enemy targets (if you don't want to hit neutral ships, you should be able to have that option, and it can easily be tweaked for you by having your faction consider neutral enemy or not)
• Make swarmer missiles move as fast as normal missiles
• Make missile-pulse more difficult to shoot down with PD somehow

 

[Keptick]

I agree that with the recent fix the multiple output power nerf is pretty overkill, even small amount of groups can increase power cost by a LOT. However, it's worth noting that the current situation isn't due to nerfing. Rather, it's caused by bugs being fixed that previously made missiles favorable, and a lack of balancing to adjust with these fixes.

 

[Lecic]

This isn't even a suggestion. Go make a bug report.

So why doesn't SCHINE fix the bug so missiles can work again like they used to? Because they don't plan to. I can confirm this. Schine apparently considers this a closed case with missiles. So if we don't say anything we will just have to be content with missiles being absolute crap.

Smells like bullshit to me. What's your source?

 

[Planr]

Smells like bullshit to me. What's your source?

Talked to AndyP about it myself. I can PM you skype logs if you don't believe me.

 

[Lecic]

Talked to AndyP about it myself. I can PM you skype logs if you don't believe me.

Go right ahead.

 

[Planr]

This isn't even a suggestion. Go make a bug report.

I already made a bug report on this about a month ago and it was rejected. I've submitted another one just now, but I'm concerned that it will not be considered a valid bug by SCHINE (it gets frustrating when the large majority of bug reports you submit get rejected).

 

[Keptick]

I already made a bug report on this about a month ago and it was rejected. I've submitted another one just now, but I'm concerned that it will not be considered a valid bug by SCHINE (it gets frustrating when the large majority of bug reports you submit get rejected).

It gets rejected because it's not a bug. That's the grouping power nerf actually working. There's a 10% power increase for every additional group being used (it's not compounded btw, so a weapon composed of 3 groups will require 20% more power). Afaik this applies to all weapons.

What needs to be done is for the nerf to get rebalanced, as 10% per group is way too steep a cost imo.

 

[Planr]

It gets rejected because it's not a bug. That's the grouping power nerf actually working. There's a 10% power increase for every additional group being used (it's not compounded btw, so a weapon composed of 3 groups will require 20% more power). Afaik this applies to all weapons.

What needs to be done is for the nerf to get rebalanced, as 10% per group is way too steep a cost imo.

Except the power cost isn't 10% additional per group with missile-beam. Test it for yourself and see. It's WAY steeper than that.
[DOUBLEPOST=1439493441,1439491672][/DOUBLEPOST]Maybe we could have Lancake look into this bug.

 

[Lancake]

Except the power cost isn't 10% additional per group with missile-beam. Test it for yourself and see. It's WAY steeper than that.
[DOUBLEPOST=1439493441,1439491672][/DOUBLEPOST]Maybe we could have Lancake look into this bug.

I tested the power penalty system out once for all weapon combo's, for each fix attempt (and there were 6). It should work as intended now or I'm going crazy.
Power penalty never worked before except for cannons, now it does for everything.

Actual power consumption = power consumption * (1 + 0.1 * (group count-1)) => power consumption + power consumption * (group count - 1) * 0.1


Example 1:

• 200 missile blocks + 200 beam blocks, 8 groups
• 1 800 000 base power consumption
• 3 060 000 actual power consumption = 1 800 000 + 1 800 000 * 0.7

Example 2:

• 200 missile blocks + 100 beam blocks, 8 groups
• 900 000 base power consumption
• 1 530 000 actual power consumption = 900 000 + 900 000 * 0.7

There's a very minor issue remaining where power penalty is slightly off for non 100% supports. Error margin of actual power consumption is roughly 1-2%

EDIT: and those are the real values I get in game, example 2 gives me 1 509 600 power consumption, so within expected error margin.

 

[Planr]

So that's it then? Missiles are not going to be fixed because "there's nothing wrong with them"?

If this is the way they're supposed to work, you guys need to seriously reconsider what you're doing to the state of combat in this game. As stated in the OP, missiles are nearly useless now in almost all circumstances; the number of people using them each day is decreasing, and I bet that soon, barely anyone will bother using missiles on their ships at all. There's barely a reason for them to even be in the game anymore 'cause they've been nerfed to death.

 

[Lancake]

So that's it then? Missiles are not going to be fixed because "there's nothing wrong with them"?

If this is the way they're supposed to work, you guys need to seriously reconsider what you're doing to the state of combat in this game. As stated in the OP, missiles are nearly useless now in almost all circumstances. There's barely a reason for them to even be in the game anymore.

Ok

 

[StormWing0]

It's a calculation bug and yes they need to fix it and make it stay fixed, than come back through and make the end result power usage a tad more reasonable.

 

[Lancake]

Most of your points are valid but you did not list any positive sides of missiles. 1 very important thing is that they have 1:1 damage to block damage convertion. They do perfect damage. Meaning if you deal 50 000 damage on a wall, you'll deal 50 000 HP damage.

Comparing that to cannons and beams and you get a different story, their penetration depth is limited to 50-100. Their damage is weighted and spread out but it's not accurate. On high alpha weapons there's a LOT of wasted damage. A 100 000 cannon could destroy 1 000 HP worth in blocks which is nothing compared to a missile.

Missiles on their own also have a large amount of damage (and power consumption) per block (DPS is the same of other weapons of course) meaning that high alpha damage is easily accomplished on missiles, most of the time you won't even need beam support at more than 0% to deal a reasonable amount of shield and hull damage.

Last not but least, the config is subject to change all the time, we listen to the community but it's hard to take your original post serious when you're throwing in "So why doesn't SCHINE fix the bug so missiles can work again like they used to? Because they don't plan to." and "So if we don't say anything we will just have to be content with missiles being absolute crap." You said something and we did listen, but apparently schine isn't planning to "fix" missiles?

Feels disrespectful at best, considering myself and the testers team always tried to help everyone the best we can...Also, your bugs reports have always been rejected for a good reason, the same we reject other bug reports for. It was either:

• not a report of a bug
• a duplicate of an already existing report

You also had reports that were valid and we appreciate your time spent on making those.

It's a calculation bug and yes they need to fix it and make it stay fixed, than come back through and make the end result power usage a tad more reasonable.

See my previous post, there is no calculation bug but I'm not dismissing that the current missile config values are badly chosen or not. This is however a config concern and not a mechanic one.

 

[Planr]

Most of your points are valid but you did not list any positive sides of missiles. 1 very important thing is that they have 1:1 damage to block damage convertion. They do perfect damage. Meaning if you deal 50 000 damage on a wall, you'll deal 50 000 HP damage.

Comparing that to cannons and beams and you get a different story, their penetration depth is limited to 50-100. Their damage is weighted and spread out but it's not accurate. On high alpha weapons there's a LOT of wasted damage. A 100 000 cannon could destroy 1 000 HP worth in blocks which is nothing compared to a missile.

Missiles on their own also have a large amount of damage (and power consumption) per block (DPS is the same of other weapons of course) meaning that high alpha damage is easily accomplished on missiles, most of the time you won't even need beam support at more than 0% to deal a reasonable amount of shield and hull damage.

All of this about missiles being good is completely irrelevant because it's dependent on missiles actually hitting their target, which is the issue here. The buffs to point defense AI and now-frequently-used large sector sizes have essentially nullified nearly all risk of missiles actually hitting your ship. The only decent way to hit targets with missiles nowadays is conveniently the combination/setup that's the least usable in the game (multigroup missile-beam).

Whether you want to acknowledge it or not, missiles are screwed up and need some sort of buffing.

 

[aceface]

I personally see missiles to be okay the way they are and possibly as of the recent update made them finally not so OP.

 

[Lancake]

All of this about missiles being good is completely irrelevant because it's dependent on missiles actually hitting their target, which is the issue here. The buffs to point defense AI and now-frequently-used large sector sizes have essentially nullified nearly all risk of missiles actually hitting your ship. The only decent way to hit targets with missiles nowadays is conveniently the combination/setup that's the least usable in the game (multigroup missile-beam).

Whether you want to acknowledge it or not, missiles are screwed up and need some sort of buffing.

1. Balance is not easy to do for a sandbox game where everyone can adjust settings. Both the distance of weapons and their velocity are based on 2 server settings: sector size and max speed. This makes it hard to balance for every possible combination.
2. People are using decoy missiles to flood anti missile turrets. Basically 50 ish groups of single missile blocks that keep their turrets busy while your real missiles are completely safe from being hit. The power penalty at least made this in huge numbers less possible and there's another thing I have in mind to make decoy/flares less OP.
   
3. Those anti missile turrets efficiency depends on the accuracy of the server setting, which is again hard to balance when most servers use their own setting. Basically put it on a bad number and they won't be able to hit a missile even when it's 10 meters in front of the turret

Side note, if you are shooting at ranges from 10 000, lockable is indeed the way to go, but you can do this at 0% support if you just want the lock system. Hitting cannons at that range is impossible, or close to at least...and beams have a limited range.

 

[Keptick]

Except the power cost isn't 10% additional per group with missile-beam. Test it for yourself and see. It's WAY steeper than that.
[DOUBLEPOST=1439493441,1439491672][/DOUBLEPOST]Maybe we could have Lancake look into this bug.

I thought it was too at first when refitting a turret, calculated it. Turns out it's not. I quadruple checked with Lancake in chat and we both came up with the same results as what was in-game.

As I said earlier, it was previously balanced around bugs. Those bugs got fixed but the balance wasn't adjusted, that's why it seems so messed up (and it really is). I 100% agree that something needs to be done about the grouping power nerf since it was firsf created to adress issues that no longer exist and now does nothing more than break balance.

There's also a rather simple and low cost method to completely mess up enemy point defense, but I'll let you figure that out on your own

 

[Valiant70]

• Make dumbfire missiles (just plain missiles) move much faster so it's easier to hit things with them

• Make swarmer missiles (missile-missile) exclusively seek red enemy targets (if you don't want to hit neutral ships, you should be able to have that option, and it can easily be tweaked for you by having your faction consider neutral enemy or not)

• Make swarmer missiles move as fast as normal missiles

• Make missile-pulse more difficult to shoot down with PD somehow

I have no objection to these changes, although I still think cannons and beams should be the go-to weapons. I think missiles should be situational.

 

[Panpiper]

I have had a few teething pains as I adjusted my understanding of the game while trying to use missile/beam weapons. I have it nailed down now finally and have my turrets working properly. My ship will now salvo fire no less than 24 * 200missile/200beam sniper missiles fired from turrets. They also fire at the same time 80 1missile/1beam sniper missile 'decoys' designed to help swamp point defense. I do not consider this to be an 'underwhelming' attack. I do not therefor consider missiles to be useless, far from it.

I was in fact for the longest time 'very' concerned about the ability for such sniper missiles to be used by griefers to make one shot kills of equivalently sized ships. It used to be 'very' easy to create a ship that could loose such an overwhelming barrage of sniper missiles that even an equal mass ship that had devoted itself 100% to shields would be destroyed in a single shot. 'That' was a problem.

With the increasing of weapon power requirements, the beefing up of shields (a little while back), the new HP system, etc., such a one shot kill sniper is no longer possible, and for that I am extremely grateful. Someone sniping me now had better be able to handle 100 sniper missiles incoming in retaliation, with ensuing waves of course. I don't like one trick ponies.

 

[Lancake]

I have had a few teething pains as I adjusted my understanding of the game while trying to use missile/beam weapons. I have it nailed down now finally and have my turrets working properly. My ship will now salvo fire no less than 24 * 200missile/200beam sniper missiles fired from turrets. They also fire at the same time 80 1missile/1beam sniper missile 'decoys' designed to help swamp point defense. I do not consider this to be an 'underwhelming' attack. I do not therefor consider missiles to be useless, far from it.

I was in fact for the longest time 'very' concerned about the ability for such sniper missiles to be used by griefers to make one shot kills of equivalently sized ships. It used to be 'very' easy to create a ship that could loose such an overwhelming barrage of sniper missiles that even an equal mass ship that had devoted itself 100% to shields would be destroyed in a single shot. 'That' was a problem.

With the increasing of weapon power requirements, the beefing up of shields (a little while back), the new HP system, etc., such a one shot kill sniper is no longer possible, and for that I am extremely grateful. Someone sniping me now had better be able to handle 100 sniper missiles incoming in retaliation, with ensuing waves of course. I don't like one trick ponies.

And most importantly, missiles don't deal ridiculous damage anymore ^^. They almost always blew up their entire first stage, which was 10-ish in radius. Something with 10 000 damage could destroy 1 000 000 HP worth in blocks.