I do not see that missiles are broken either, in fact I consider them powerful yet very well balanced.
If you take missile/pulse for example, you get the single, most devastating weapon in the game. If you just build 80 blocks total of that combination, you get a missile that deals 140,000 damage in a single hit, enough to completely erase small ships from the game, and at a range outside most other weapons. To balance that, power cost is insanely huge (740,000 power if I remember correctly), and so is the reload time, but this just has to be in place, otherwise those would be the dominating weapon system.
Yes missile defense systems exist, and that is all fine and dandy, because that promotes smart play vs block-stacking. And then you still have enough options available to still get your killer missile to hit:
- Fire several heat-seekers as decoys first.
- Use beams to take out missile defense turrets first.
- Fly close enough so that your missile hits before the turrets can destroy it. You can still always fire guided missiles as dumb-fire if you want to.
Dumb-fire missiles (missile/cannon) and long-range missiles (missile/beam) also play valid roles in combat, and feel very balanced to me at this time. You just have to find the right tool for your target in both offense and defense, and none is a "can do everything" solution, exactly as it should be.
