Missile Failure.

[Livaria]

If we do go with GR Hayes idea with an ammo count for missile launchers. How will that work? It's more complicated than it looks. I will attempt to ask and answer as many questions as I can. But please, feel free to add your own input on each of these topics.

1) Do players really want to craft missiles by themselves?

If it were up to me, I'd want less manual work when it comes to feeding missiles into missile launchers. If a block were to automatically manufacture and distribute missiles I'd have that. When combat begins, then the manufacturing will stop.

2) How will missiles be distributed when a computer is connected to several missile groups?

My best answer is that each missile group will have to have it's own missile storage to operate.

3) What will the storage be?

I hypothesize that a good way of doing letting the main missile computer create a virtual storage for each missile group that it's assigned to. No additional mass required.

4) Should the amount of missiles that can be stored have a limit?

My honest opinion on this is that there has to be limits. Players can't have gameplay balance and unlimited building freedom at the same time. They are both concepts that are mutually exclusive. Players will have to grow up and face the reality or otherwise continue to face the impossible.
[doublepost=1470785946,1470784946][/doublepost]I've come up with a solution for the mass missile problem and that idea is that single computers are no longer able to fire multiple missile groups. computers are only allowed to fire one missile group at a time. Logic blocks are also only able to be connected to one computer as well.

 

[Batavium]

Heatseekers kill servers. "weapon clock or ship with 200+ swarmers" Heatseekers on pirates example MM isanth just makes a horrible mess.

Not much to like about that.

Let Heatseekers target ships cores only.
Reduce the amount of missiles fired to one. The fact that it auto targets is awsome enough.
Drop the name Heatseeker just call it a Seeker.
The Seeker should target enemy or persons in a core set as enemy only. Neutral is hostile is valit to.
Let Cloak effect the Seeker. It can not SEE it's target. Let Radar Jam NOT effect the Seeker "optical missile no radar". Hence drop the Heat bit.
Do not remove missile missile from the game because that would break every blueprint that uses it. Just change how it works.

 

[GRHayes]

If we do go with GR Hayes idea with an ammo count for missile launchers. How will that work? It's more complicated than it looks. I will attempt to ask and answer as many questions as I can. But please, feel free to add your own input on each of these topics.

1) Do players really want to craft missiles by themselves?

If it were up to me, I'd want less manual work when it comes to feeding missiles into missile launchers. If a block were to automatically manufacture and distribute missiles I'd have that. When combat begins, then the manufacturing will stop.

2) How will missiles be distributed when a computer is connected to several missile groups?

My best answer is that each missile group will have to have it's own missile storage to operate.

3) What will the storage be?

I hypothesize that a good way of doing letting the main missile computer create a virtual storage for each missile group that it's assigned to. No additional mass required.

4) Should the amount of missiles that can be stored have a limit?

My honest opinion on this is that there has to be limits. Players can't have gameplay balance and unlimited building freedom at the same time. They are both concepts that are mutually exclusive. Players will have to grow up and face the reality or otherwise continue to face the impossible.
[doublepost=1470785946,1470784946][/doublepost]I've come up with a solution for the mass missile problem and that idea is that single computers are no longer able to fire multiple missile groups. computers are only allowed to fire one missile group at a time. Logic blocks are also only able to be connected to one computer as well.

First off we already have a means of distribution and sorting built into this game. So all it would take is a factory that could build them. You could as it is now pull up to a base and auto resupply without lifting a finger.
The current cargo system you can dock and have cargo automatically loaded onto your ship. You can specify exactly what will or won't be loaded. And what that same system would suddenly not be usable for a missile system attached to an inventory area.
You could set the missile system to pull what specific missile you want it firing. Just add the ability to the missile computer to pull what missile type you want. It could provide a list of available missiles and you select the type you want. It pulls from inventory till it runs out.
[doublepost=1470849108][/doublepost]

Heatseekers kill servers. "weapon clock or ship with 200+ swarmers" Heatseekers on pirates example MM isanth just makes a horrible mess.

Not much to like about that.

Let Heatseekers target ships cores only.
Reduce the amount of missiles fired to one. The fact that it auto targets is awsome enough.
Drop the name Heatseeker just call it a Seeker.
The Seeker should target enemy or persons in a core set as enemy only. Neutral is hostile is valit to.
Let Cloak effect the Seeker. It can not SEE it's target. Let Radar Jam NOT effect the Seeker "optical missile no radar". Hence drop the Heat bit.
Do not remove missile missile from the game because that would break every blueprint that uses it. Just change how it works.

I already address the issue of why it kills servers and how to fix it. The two big reasons they kill servers is the AI path computations of so many being done at a time. And the biggest of all is their current explosion calculation system.

Instead of calculating each missile path calculate a swarm and assign missiles a swarm position. That way you make one calculation for 10 missiles.
For the explosion issue. see this post suggestion I gave them for calculating explosions faster.
Better and faster explosion calculations

 

[Livaria]

So each missile entity is considered separate but they all follow the same path. Is that correct? If so, i suppose i'm fine with that.
I'm also fine with explosions that take less to process.

But then players are also making the defense that players are able to launch too many missiles for any ship to handle in a combat scenario which is different from the server issue. So that's where my solution would help. As well as overall being a quicker fix. This gives a limit to how many missiles can be launched and increases the demand for swarm missiles over having an array of smart missiles.

[doublepost=1470938023,1470935116][/doublepost]

Now back to your munition concept:

I'm still unsure how players are going to specify what missiles is going to be fired. Though you did explain how they can be stored and distrubuted. Will computers be used to decide? or will the missile type be determined in some other way?

As for your missile loading and distribution solution that's fine. It works in theory. The part that I would rather have are players opinions on whether or not if they would rather want to take the time to travel in order to get their ammo. Or the ability to eventually re-arm as long as you are not in combat. Is convenience or is resources valued more?

My biggest concern is if storages can be linked together to make a bigger storage. If I can make an infinitely big storage; I can infinitely have as much ammo as I can manufacture. Adding more mass onto a ship is currently not intrinsically detrimental at the moment (Except for mobility). So in theory; I could have a massive storage and overcome the intentional limitations of ammunition.

This is why I'm considering having a virtual storage for each missile group. So players can have a finite storage unlike the storage we have now.

 

[Edymnion]

If missiles were able to destroy missiles, and maybe some other things came into play, like accidental detonations and per-ship and per-fleet limits on the number of simultaneous missiles, then we might get IFF-enabled heat-seeking swarmers.

You can do exactly that.

Set the Bobby AI to aim at Missiles. Thats the basis of Point Defense Turrets (PDTs). Most effective PDT is a 1 block cannon/cannon because the tick rate is higher than a beam, and the AI leading the cannon shot has the same accuracy as the AI doing an instant lock on with a beam.

Heh, if you really wanna piss your players off, give your custom pirates a PDT.

 

[jayman38]

You can do exactly that.

Set the Bobby AI to aim at Missiles. Thats the basis of Point Defense Turrets (PDTs). Most effective PDT is a 1 block cannon/cannon because the tick rate is higher than a beam, and the AI leading the cannon shot has the same accuracy as the AI doing an instant lock on with a beam.

Heh, if you really wanna piss your players off, give your custom pirates a PDT.

Missiles cannot destroy missiles, right? Currently, I think only cannonfire can destroy missiles. My thought, when I mentioned missiles destroying missiles, was a chain reaction where one missile in the swarm is destroyed, and the explosion sets off another in the swarm, and so on, destroying part of the swarm by swatting just one missile.

 

[Mork2]

Chain detonation. What your suggesting is any missile destroyed by defensive cannon fire would also destroy any other missile inside its blast radius when it was killed.

 

[GRHayes]

So each missile entity is considered separate but they all follow the same path. Is that correct? If so, i suppose i'm fine with that.
I'm also fine with explosions that take less to process.

But then players are also making the defense that players are able to launch too many missiles for any ship to handle in a combat scenario which is different from the server issue. So that's where my solution would help. As well as overall being a quicker fix. This gives a limit to how many missiles can be launched and increases the demand for swarm missiles over having an array of smart missiles.

[doublepost=1470938023,1470935116][/doublepost]

Now back to your munition concept:

I'm still unsure how players are going to specify what missiles is going to be fired. Though you did explain how they can be stored and distrubuted. Will computers be used to decide? or will the missile type be determined in some other way?

As for your missile loading and distribution solution that's fine. It works in theory. The part that I would rather have are players opinions on whether or not if they would rather want to take the time to travel in order to get their ammo. Or the ability to eventually re-arm as long as you are not in combat. Is convenience or is resources valued more?

My biggest concern is if storages can be linked together to make a bigger storage. If I can make an infinitely big storage; I can infinitely have as much ammo as I can manufacture. Adding more mass onto a ship is currently not intrinsically detrimental at the moment (Except for mobility). So in theory; I could have a massive storage and overcome the intentional limitations of ammunition.

This is why I'm considering having a virtual storage for each missile group. So players can have a finite storage unlike the storage we have now.

You know in the current inventory system how you can determine what items a storage can pull. Well you could do the exact same thing with missiles. Just link the missile to a cargo storage and it pulls what ever you see it to pull. You fire the system the same way you always have.

Storage also has mass. So no you couldn't have an infinite amount. Your ship couldn't move with it.
Secondly, missiles would be far more costly to shoot. They would require material to build them.
That means time and effort gathering resources. We all can see now how many battles people get in wanting to rebuild ships even with ship yards to do the work. So the chances they want to be building missiles any more so isn't that likely.

 

[Madman198237]

The problem is that shipyards are terrible. Every time you use one, you risk ships vanishing into nothingness the next time you create a ship in the shipyard...and that's only one of the glitches that they have. So, no, shipyards do not help encourage people to get into combat. Once they work as intended, then they'll be an excellent choice.

 

[jayman38]

Chain detonation. What your suggesting is any missile destroyed by defensive cannon fire would also destroy any other missile inside its blast radius when it was killed.

Exactly. Serving as one of the nerfs to replace the No-IFF nerf of current seeker swarms.

 

[GRHayes]

The problem is that shipyards are terrible. Every time you use one, you risk ships vanishing into nothingness the next time you create a ship in the shipyard...and that's only one of the glitches that they have. So, no, shipyards do not help encourage people to get into combat. Once they work as intended, then they'll be an excellent choice.

No disagreement there. You can add the issue with turrets popping off and so on.
The point was shipyards was supposed to be something to help in that line. However, this entire crap of having to go to a shop to repair your ship is a stupid annoyance. I mean if you build a car yourself you don't run over to ford or chevy to have them work on it and repair it hell not that would be stupid. You should be able to effect repairs any place. Just like if I have mechanical trouble I don't always take it to a shop. Hell I rebuilt my own cars several times.

So here you are a persons smart enough to design and build a space ship and you can't repair it. WTF kind of logic is that.
Any enough of my bitching.

But in this case the missiles analogy holds true because the nature of most people is just set that way.
If you give them free bullets they will shoot the crap out of them. If you charge them a dollar a bullet they will tend to only shoot when they need to. That is unless they can afford to throw money away.

 

[Edymnion]

Missiles cannot destroy missiles, right? Currently, I think only cannonfire can destroy missiles. My thought, when I mentioned missiles destroying missiles, was a chain reaction where one missile in the swarm is destroyed, and the explosion sets off another in the swarm, and so on, destroying part of the swarm by swatting just one missile.

Anything can take down a missile that can do damage to it, I believe. Problem being that the missile isn't an actual object so lock on missiles can't hit it, has to be dumb fired. And the AI doesn't have a good aim when it comes to missiles, so there will be lots of misses before one finally hits it.

So I think it boils down to "Anything CAN hit and destroy a missile, but cannon/cannon and beam/cannon are the only ones that can do so even semi-reliably". And out of that, the cannon/cannon can throw more shots down field at a faster rate than the beam/cannon, making it the best choice overall.

 

[Livaria]

I do not consider mass a good enough limitation especially when it comes to bigger ships, they might as well be big and slow anyways. Big ships can mount huge amounts of ammo.

Putting more items in the storage doesn't increase the mass of a ship. I've tested this. The storage itself may be mass; but it's .1 mass. How much volume are these missiles going to take? If it's going to be of any consequence it'll probably be a lot. Unless if storages suddenly have a much larger mass then they have now.

Most large ships can afford the space to have enough ammuntion to last several battles without going back to resupply. These storages are an easy way to overcome the ammo limitation and without sacrificing much at all. The limits of ammuntion has to be meaningful in combat.
[doublepost=1471027071,1471026017][/doublepost]

- If a single storage can store 5 missiles then I can place 10 storages for 50 missiles. For the cost of 1 mass.

- If my ship is 5000 mass that storage consists of .001 % of my ships mass and I'm already at 50 missiles.

- If these storages are going to be anything meaningful when it comes to mass. Then they would have to be heavier.

I'm going to bring up the server crash issue again actually. If players aren't using swarms and they decide to fire 5000 smart missiles. Then theres is once again, a lot of trajectory that needs to be calculated. unless your concept applies to every missile group that a computer is assigned to.

 

[Madman198237]

Actually, Edymnion, only cannons can hit missiles right now, for whatever reason.

 

[GRHayes]

I do not consider mass a good enough limitation especially when it comes to bigger ships, they might as well be big and slow anyways. Big ships can mount huge amounts of ammo.

Putting more items in the storage doesn't increase the mass of a ship. I've tested this. The storage itself may be mass; but it's .1 mass. How much volume are these missiles going to take? If it's going to be of any consequence it'll probably be a lot. Unless if storages suddenly have a much larger mass then they have now.

Most large ships can afford the space to have enough ammuntion to last several battles without going back to resupply. These storages are an easy way to overcome the ammo limitation and without sacrificing much at all. The limits of ammuntion has to be meaningful in combat.
[doublepost=1471027071,1471026017][/doublepost]
If a single storage can store 5 missiles then I can place 10 storages for 50 missiles. For the cost of 1 mass.

If my ship is 5000 mass that storage consists of .001 % of my ships mass and I'm already at 50 missiles.

Mass I believe has been changed to 0.01 actually.
That said. If you consider a missile is made of multiple components and those could be added up.
Just think one of the ships I have right now has a 2500 block missile in it. which creates a 750K damage rocket
That is a lot larger than a single rocket tube.
If you are crafting rockets then they should take more material to make larger rockets. Larger rockets should also weigh more then.
You could base the weight of the rocket on the amount of materials to make it.
While a the smallest dumb fire may take 2 components or some number a lot larger one like the 2500 block size should take close to 5000 components for a pure dumbfire. That would mean each at that size would way 50. Consider a 6x5x5 inventory space can only hold 15000 mass. That would mean that space can only hold 300 rockets of that size. Doing so would add 15000 mass to the ship.

You could also add another factor to inventory. Make it ignitable. So if you hit an ammo cache it can detonate. So it wouldn't be something you want to fill the entire ship with other wise one penetrating shot could vaporize the entire ship.
Just think how bad it would be to hit something like those 300 rockets with 750K damage each and they all go off.

But like I said it is also the material cost of building those rockets that also is going to count and add up.
[doublepost=1471029038][/doublepost]

Anything can take down a missile that can do damage to it, I believe. Problem being that the missile isn't an actual object so lock on missiles can't hit it, has to be dumb fired. And the AI doesn't have a good aim when it comes to missiles, so there will be lots of misses before one finally hits it.

So I think it boils down to "Anything CAN hit and destroy a missile, but cannon/cannon and beam/cannon are the only ones that can do so even semi-reliably". And out of that, the cannon/cannon can throw more shots down field at a faster rate than the beam/cannon, making it the best choice overall.

Sorry, currently only cannons can hit rockets and take them down.

 

[Livaria]

So you're saying that materials should weigh something in your concept? I don't know. This doesn't really seem worth it. But I'm done now; agree or disagree. I don't care anymore.

Just change the heat-seeking weapon. All I could ask for at this point.

 

[MacThule]

It's a stupid weapon system, IMO.

No one criticizing the Mm combo has questioned whether it was deliberate or said it's a bug, but all the responses have been limited to asserting that it's intentional as if that were in question.

It being deliberate makes it no less stupid; no one would build such a weapon IRL. In no real life scenario would a weapons manufacturer or user get say to themselves "I really want a weapon that attacks my own troops."

We have better firing systems IRL today. To say it's a necessary balance is also not convincing. Damage, range and power can be adjusted instead to make it less OP. That would be more sensible balancing than making a totally absurd weapon that would never ever exist in any a science-fiction or RL scenario except maybe as a failed prototype.

Deliberate. Yes, yes, but a poor approach to balancing, IMO. Not to dog the devs, it would just be better if it wasn't like that.

 

[Livaria]

It's limited to asserting as if it were intentional because there are players that believe it's intentional. It's difficult to argue against something that someone arbitrarily believes in.

All I can say is: "Don't believe that, it's stupid." I can give reasons but not proof. In the grand scheme of things; it's not important either. Whats more important is the weapon itself.

 

[Groovrider]

Land-mines, mines, cluster bombs and other types of distributed types of weapons have been killing friendlies and non combatants for a while. We also currently have no weapons system that, without any targeting, will distinguish between friend or foe with no input. What some are asking for is indiscriminately fired self propelled self guided mines that will never target a friendly.

 

[Livaria]

Cluster mines and bombs aren't guided by anything. These missiles will follow and hunt down friendlies if that's their closest target. I don't think we have a weapon that does that either.