Missile Failure.

[GRHayes]

No, the missile-missile system is designed to spew out many, many missiles. It's designed so that people can engage a large number of opponents at once. The downside is that it makes no distinction between friend or foe. JUST LIKE EVERY OTHER WEAPON. With the exception of lock-missiles, which are balanced a different way for being able to specifically target something and forget about it.

Sure, they could have coded a different downside to missile-missile systems. But it would leave them relatively overpowered simply because you could fire indiscriminately waves and waves of missiles with ease.

Don't like it? Don't use it. If you do use it, you have to be wary of how you engage targets.

So you are saying you have actually looked at the code to see there is no selective section intentionally targeting friendlies.
Or maybe you ran a study to see how many missiles went off on targets that where not even near by rather than targeting a near enemy instead it goes for a friendly off in a far sector.

I didn't think so! Which means you are talking from a point of you don't know.

Here is what I know it took increasing my sectors to a size large enough to prevent it from going after friendlies. In short I gave it no other choice other than local enemies before it stopped targeting friendlies. That spells selection system.
Or it is a hell of a coincidence that 3 out of 10 almost always go for a friendly. They could just gave us 7 missiles rather than 10 that would reduce it. How about 2 missiles rather than 10.

The big difference is I can choose not to point a cannon or beam at an friendly. I choose not to fire a dumb missile or lock on at an enemy.
This system once it is fired it makes the choice. Vastly different or is that really such a hard concept for you to understand.

If this is supposed to be a purely heat seeking missile it would lock onto the exhaust of the craft you are aiming at and or travel in a strait line till when it came in close enough proximity to lock on it. It would never ever lock onto something 2 sectors away in the opposite direction or enemies ships behind it. An IR sensor focus is in a cone out the front of the missile.

 

[Deserea]

No, the missile-missile system is designed to spew out many, many missiles. It's designed so that people can engage a large number of opponents at once. The downside is that it makes no distinction between friend or foe. JUST LIKE EVERY OTHER WEAPON. With the exception of lock-missiles, which are balanced a different way for being able to specifically target something and forget about it.

Sure, they could have coded a different downside to missile-missile systems. But it would leave them relatively overpowered simply because you could fire indiscriminately waves and waves of missiles with ease.

Don't like it? Don't use it. If you do use it, you have to be wary of how you engage targets.

I love when people say that, "Dont like, dont use it"...from what i know, isnt M/M one of the most useless weapons out there currently? and isnt one of its major problem the fact it can shoot friendlies? as it is right now, i only use M/M for decoy missiles, because hey, i dont want to build a massive M/M weapon and have it kill one of my allies. Get rid of the friendly targeting, and maybe id use it, would it need some other changes? definitely, do i have an idea as to what those changes could be, possibly, reduce the number of missiles fired, lower damage, less range, slower missile.....they can do many things to them if needed for balace, but im all for making more weapons usable, gawds knows we need them.

 

[Madman198237]

The thing is, people do use it. They just use it where it won't hit friendlies. As in, decoys and on titans running lone-wolf ops. Just like you don't use a DP when you need to stay at long range.

 

[Master_Artificer]

Problem is really how do you make swarmers a side grade and not just replace missile beam. 45 second reload vs 15 seconds and no targeting required.

 

[Nauvran]

I love when people say that, "Dont like, dont use it"...from what i know, isnt M/M one of the most useless weapons out there currently? and isnt one of its major problem the fact it can shoot friendlies? as it is right now, i only use M/M for decoy missiles, because hey, i dont want to build a massive M/M weapon and have it kill one of my allies. Get rid of the friendly targeting, and maybe id use it, would it need some other changes? definitely, do i have an idea as to what those changes could be, possibly, reduce the number of missiles fired, lower damage, less range, slower missile.....they can do many things to them if needed for balace, but im all for making more weapons usable, gawds knows we need them.

most useless weapon is damage pulse.
Missile+missile were used by many solo players in the B&S tournament whith great success, it's just bad if you're on a team.

 

[Gasboy]

I love when people say that, "Dont like, dont use it"...from what i know, isnt M/M one of the most useless weapons out there currently? and isnt one of its major problem the fact it can shoot friendlies? as it is right now, i only use M/M for decoy missiles, because hey, i dont want to build a massive M/M weapon and have it kill one of my allies. Get rid of the friendly targeting, and maybe id use it, would it need some other changes? definitely, do i have an idea as to what those changes could be, possibly, reduce the number of missiles fired, lower damage, less range, slower missile.....they can do many things to them if needed for balace, but im all for making more weapons usable, gawds knows we need them.

No, it's actually a great weapon for dealing with large numbers of enemies. I use it on many of my larger ships.

But when there are friendlies? Guess what? I don't fire those weapons. I don't get mad because I can't spew missile spew everywhere, I just refrain from using it. AMAZING!

They will likely change the M-M weapon so that it doesn't hit faction members. Which I wouldn't mind. But if they don't? Oh well.

EDIT: So do you use beams or cannons? Because those can hit friendlies too, if you're careless. Are you going to campaign to get those weapons not doing damage to friendlies too?

 

[MacThule]

I'd honestly completely rework how they function. Instead of having them choose their own target make the player aim them, there's still the niche of being able to missile spam with less power investment to override AMS.

We already have lock-on missiles, so I really like the idea of re-working Mm firing a loose cluster of semi-seeking mini-missiles.

I'd love to see Mm fire a directional shotgun/cone of missiles or something along those lines. Especially if each warhead locked on to any ship or station entity if it came within a certain proximity, but simply continued on its trajectory if it never enters proximity of a ship or station.

This would result in a percentage of the weapon's damage being applied to targets depending on aim, lead, Anti-Missile Systems / Point Defense, and other factors. It would make it the perfect weapon for overwhelming AMS/PD, or splattering grouped foes with moderate damage, would give users the ability to substantially mitigate the friendly fire aspect through piloting skill and trigger control, but sloppy use could still result in substantial team hits. It wouldn't turn back on astronauts in your own ship though, and that would be very nice progress.

Advantages would be area effect, small-area heat seeking, and a meaningful degree of resistance to AMS/PD.
Disadvantages would be that you're very rarely going to see the entire damage total applied your target(s).
Balance is easily managed through specifics of damage, speed, range, and power consumption, and is probably best left to the dev team to finesse.

This would be more in-line with the effect missile slaves have on other weapons, and would be fairly easy to code.

It would also make Mm less dangerous to allies, and less conceptually absurd.

It would also finally terminate AFK ratting, where boring players park their giant Mm shield tank near a pirate base and flip on their logic-cycled Mm arrays, then walk away or window out to do other stuff for 10 minutes before coming back to sweep up all the free cheese (personally I wonder if attachment to exactly this activity by an outspoken minority of players isn't the main reason strong objections exist to altering Mm as it is).

 

[Master_Artificer]

I am on board with missile missile acting as a mix between missile cannon and missile beam.

 

[Edymnion]

I love when people say that, "Dont like, dont use it"...from what i know, isnt M/M one of the most useless weapons out there currently?

No, its just situational.

They are hands down the best anti-pirate weapon in the game. They are hands down the best anti-carrier weapon in the game.

They are the best weapon in the game any time you don't have friendlies in the area.

Hell, even my carriers have M/M on board as an emergency "All my drones are dead, BRING THE RAIN!" backup weapon.

Just because some people don't understand how to use them correctly, or have a bug up their butts about them doesn't mean they aren't useful.

 

[Gasboy]

Just because some people don't understand how to use them correctly, or have a bug up their butts about them doesn't mean they aren't useful.

Sometimes it's a case of having to change the weapon.

But in this case, it's a case of people having to change. People need to adapt to the weapon.

 

[Comradecolonel]

I'm not saying that M/M doesn't do effective damage and it does have its uses. What really bothers me about it is that you have no way of choosing your target. Friendly fire is a good feature to have as it forces you to make interesting considerations. That being said it is silly to me for a guidance system that operates on a simple premise to be given complete control of target selection. I have no problem with heat seekers automatically flying to a target. I just feel the player should have some sort of input on what the target should be.

Also the argument that players need to adapt to the weapon are contradictory because the current camp that think that heatseekers are perfect the way they are refuse to adapt to any changes. I'm sure we can find some sort of middle ground that will satisfy the majority of players.

 

[Gasboy]

I'm not saying that M/M doesn't do effective damage and it does have its uses. What really bothers me about it is that you have no way of choosing your target. Friendly fire is a good feature to have as it forces you to make interesting considerations. That being said it is silly to me for a guidance system that operates on a simple premise to be given complete control of target selection. I have no problem with heat seekers automatically flying to a target. I just feel the player should have some sort of input on what the target should be.

Also the argument that players need to adapt to the weapon are contradictory because the current camp that think that heatseekers are perfect the way they are refuse to adapt to any changes. I'm sure we can find some sort of middle ground that will satisfy the majority of players.

You don't get input on target selection, except by ensuring that only your target is present. The friendly fire is there because the weapon would be massively overpowered. Think about it. A weapon that spews massive amounts of missiles that can overwhelm targets, even with anti-missile turrets, that automatically lock onto a target, and only damage enemies. That's ridiculous. It's a fire and forget weapon. There has to be a drawback, else there's no reason to choose any other weapon. There is absolutely no drawback to people just spamming missiles without a care.

And no, it's not contradictory. If Schine changes how M-M work, those of us who believe M-M to be fine as is will adapt to its new usage. There's no problem with doing that.

It might be that people don't understand what's so difficult about using the weapon? Don't shoot it while friendlies are around. Do you shoot your friends in the back with cannons, damage beams or damage pulse? It's fairly easy to oopsie, sometimes. How hard is it to not use the weapon while friendlies are around?

 

[Malacodor]

Think about it. A weapon that spews massive amounts of missiles that can overwhelm targets, even with anti-missile turrets, that automatically lock onto a target, and only damage enemies. That's ridiculous. It's a fire and forget weapon. There has to be a drawback, else there's no reason to choose any other weapon. There is absolutely no drawback to people just spamming missiles without a care.

Did you read the thread? Not a single post claims that swarmers would not be OP in that case. What certain people (including myself) want, is a different kind of nerf than friendly fire, not an OP weapon.

 

[Crashmaster]

Loosly skimmed the proceding text and was reminded of a game's missile where a single missle was dumb fired then at a set range it split into five or so missiles that independantly locked on the the nearest targets and spread out.

 

[GRHayes]

No, the missile-missile system is designed to spew out many, many missiles. It's designed so that people can engage a large number of opponents at once. The downside is that it makes no distinction between friend or foe. JUST LIKE EVERY OTHER WEAPON. With the exception of lock-missiles, which are balanced a different way for being able to specifically target something and forget about it.

Sure, they could have coded a different downside to missile-missile systems. But it would leave them relatively overpowered simply because you could fire indiscriminately waves and waves of missiles with ease.

Don't like it? Don't use it. If you do use it, you have to be wary of how you engage targets.

You are missing the point you can be fighting a base with a dozen or more close by enemies and no allies with in sectors. Some of those missile will absolutely head for allies that far away. This action is proof of intent.

Consider the simplest means of finding a target is create a sphere at max range and target ships down the list. The problem is the likelihood is none of those ships may be involved in the battle and you will most likely not target those who are threats and it makes for large target lists. In short it is the worst possible solution besides looking for your own people and shooting them.
The second simplest form of searching for a target is the expanding sphere. You create a sphere around you if another ship is in it it becomes a target. If there isn't a ship you expand sphere again until you find the target. This while it doesn't provide IFF will targets ships in close to you and will never ever end up targeting those out side of the sphere of combat less you fire the missiles after the last ship is destroyed.

If they were using the first method - Well that is beyond stupid and I tend to give them more credit than that. Secondly the missiles do not appear to be exhibiting that behavior or pattern. Depending on how the list is ordered would determine how ships are hit and targeted.
Such as near to far or far to near or heavy to light or light to heavy it could be a counter clock wise speed or clockwise or order of name...
There is always an order to how ships are found and listed. If it was purely random you wouldn't hit so many of the enemy in battles it would be more even or more of which ships number are larger. It just math and statistics. The split seems to be about 70/30 70% will target an enemy the other 30 will if in ranger target an non-hostile.
If they were using the expanding sphere we wouldn't see non-hostiles being targeted in BFE.
So that leaves them using an altered version of the expanding sphere in which they are intentionally looking for friendly targets.

 

[Malacodor]

The second simplest form of searching for a target is the expanding sphere. You create a sphere around you if another ship is in it it becomes a target. If there isn't a ship you expand sphere again until you find the target. This while it doesn't provide IFF will targets ships in close to you and will never ever end up targeting those out side of the sphere of combat less you fire the missiles after the last ship is destroyed.

Or give targets a weight according to their distance. A target 10 times further away than another one would have a 10 times lower chance of being selected as a target.

 

[Comradecolonel]

You don't get input on target selection, except by ensuring that only your target is present. The friendly fire is there because the weapon would be massively overpowered. Think about it. A weapon that spews massive amounts of missiles that can overwhelm targets, even with anti-missile turrets, that automatically lock onto a target, and only damage enemies. That's ridiculous. It's a fire and forget weapon. There has to be a drawback, else there's no reason to choose any other weapon. There is absolutely no drawback to people just spamming missiles without a care.

And no, it's not contradictory. If Schine changes how M-M work, those of us who believe M-M to be fine as is will adapt to its new usage. There's no problem with doing that.

It might be that people don't understand what's so difficult about using the weapon? Don't shoot it while friendlies are around. Do you shoot your friends in the back with cannons, damage beams or damage pulse? It's fairly easy to oopsie, sometimes. How hard is it to not use the weapon while friendlies are around?

Again, I have no problem with effectively using the weapon. I think almost everyone in the thread is capable of understanding how to use the weapon. I simply don't use it because many of my ships are made to work in a fleet and I don't want to gimp them. I would like if this would cease being a talking point. Nobody said that they are a difficult to use weapon, simply unreliable.

Just wait until the game introduces mission where you have to save people under attack or defend a friendly faction. It's a fact that once there is a lot more to shoot at in the universe swarmers will become less and less effective. Target discretion is a huge factor in large battles and that is something that swarmers or their operators do not have.

The argument that changing that mechanic will make it OP is to assume that Schine isn't going to have some way of balancing the weapon while keeping the role the same. This is not an urgent matter so I'm sure that when Schine does get around to tweaking this the variables will overall be very different.

 

[Zekester81]

I think a very simple fix would be to make it exclude targets within the person firing them's faction. Otherwise I feel the system is fine the way it is, my opinion. I have no problems with further changes as long as they prevent this from becoming the end-all of weapon systems.

On large ships I use them with 100% ion so they don't kill my ships if they hit, just reduce shields. My other uses are on fighters. Large volume of fire for a small ship, and if you fire them at point blank on a large ship, they will all hit that target. I also have no thrust drones that are nothing but a swarm pack. Perfect to dump out the back then jump out of system, I call em party poppers. In their current iteration, knowing when and where to fire them is key.

 

[GRHayes]

I think a very simple fix would be to make it exclude targets within the person firing them's faction. Otherwise I feel the system is fine the way it is, my opinion. I have no problems with further changes as long as they prevent this from becoming the end-all of weapon systems.

On large ships I use them with 100% ion so they don't kill my ships if they hit, just reduce shields. My other uses are on fighters. Large volume of fire for a small ship, and if you fire them at point blank on a large ship, they will all hit that target. I also have no thrust drones that are nothing but a swarm pack. Perfect to dump out the back then jump out of system, I call em party poppers. In their current iteration, knowing when and where to fire them is key.

Another way to make use of them is simply to distract anti missile turrets so that you can fire a more powerful missile and keep it from being easily shot down. Pop off 30 or 40 small missiles single tube is enough to Wait 2 seconds then fire your large missile by that time the AM is locked on targets and your missile if faster can probably hit home before they can switch. Especially when talking to large ships.

 

[Livaria]

Well this topic has become an information overload. With no discernible agreed solution we may as well discuss this topic for eternity. It may help to just get quickly to the point and ask: How many players actually want friendly fire? It might just be simpler to do that and move on.

GRHayes; do you mind making a poll at some point? Even though I'm fully against a weapon with an extremely high chance of friendly fire, it could be useful to know which opinion holds the majority.