Missile Failure.

[Livaria]

weapon: any instrument or device for use in attack or defense in combat,fighting, or war, as a sword, rifle, cannon, etc.

Starmade is not representative of reality but it shouldn't defy logic. It shouldn't even defy what the word "weapon" means. I'm talking to you Lukwan. I don't give a damn if the developers intended it to be this way. That shouldn't mean I need to trust their opinion.

If the purpose heat seeking missiles is to only sometimes attack the enemy. The player will only sometimes have a weapon. Players do not even need swarm missiles to overwhelm the AMS defenses. Theres a workaround. I can simply attain a similar result if I just made an array of smart missiles. They are numerous, and they perform exactly as intended.

 

[Winterhome]

If the purpose heat seeking missiles is to only sometimes attack the enemy. The player will only sometimes have a weapon. Players do not even need swarm missiles to overwhelm the AMS defenses. Theres a workaround. I can simply attain as much of a reliable result if I just made an array of smart missiles. They are numerous, and they perform exactly as intended.

The point of swarms as an offensive weapon isn't to overwhelm AMS. It's to be able to hit targets with your ship's primary armament no matter where they are in relation to your ship - including directly behind it.

You can get a swarm launcher with hundreds of thousands of modules and use it as a primary weapon, and be effectively immune to smaller and faster ships.

 

[Livaria]

There are people who are making all kinds of defenses for the current Heat-seeking missiles. It's ability to overwhelm AMS defenses is one of them.

Any weapon should always be able to cause damage to the enemy, that's the bottom line for me. I'm not terribly interested in any other story that doesn't discuss this very basic fundamental of weapons.

 

[Bladeriker]

While I agree that a weapon that deliberately causes damage to friendly ships is silly, there are other uses for M+M systems.

I for one use them linked with 100% stop/pull to hold fast moving targets still for my other turrets to kill. They make a fun Ion/Emp Swarm too.

For single ships that are not designed for fleet operations they M+M can be a life saver however, in fleet operations they have very little use other than to cause unnecessary damage to fleet ships given they target the closest heat source.

Yes they do target Neutral as I have more than once hit a trade guild station when in battle, or when weapons testing them (3.2km range will cause that to happen). while they will not target the firing ship or entities docked to that ship they will target everything else.

Would love a way to make these more viable in fleet operations. maybe some kind of (Identify Friend For) IFF block for faction ships.

 

[Livaria]

If people are really concerned for the the amount of missiles that can be fired. Theres always the solution of just reducing the maximum amount of missiles that M-M combinations can yield. 4 or 5 instead of 10.

 

[Winterhome]

If people are really concerned for the the amount of missiles that can be fired. Theres always the solution of just reducing the maximum amount of missiles that M-M combinations can yield. 4 or 5 for example instead of 10

that won't work
people just add more outputs to compensate

I've already seen people literally crash servers by firing off 5,000+ missiles at once

 

[Livaria]

The idea is intended for balance.
Not whether or not players are able to crash a server. That's always a posssibility, swarm missiles or not.

 

[Winterhome]

The idea is intended for balance.
Not whether or not players are able to crash a server. That's always a posssibility, swarm missiles or not.

Doesn't matter. The number of missiles fired per output is irrelevant, because people will just make more of smaller outputs to ensure they keep several hundreds of missiles in the air at once.

The only thing that'd fix that aspect of swarm missiles is implementing missile HP and point defense turret targeting prioritization.

 

[GRHayes]

A far better way to have balanced Missiles entirely would have been make them craftable and have to be stored in inventory.
Connect a storage area to each launcher. Rather than determine missile type by secondary systems. Determine missile type by what is place in the formula and how much. This would give much large numbers of options.
You could have IR with or without IFF, fly by wire, dumb fire, torpedo, nukes...
Firing system and secondary could be used to determine speed and range and quantity of missiles.
Different missiles have different weight. They take up inventory thus limit themselves.
No need at all to have a missile attack your allies without intent.

 

[Livaria]

Yeah, again, players have that possibility of throwing thousands of missiles into space. I'm not fixing that. Thats a different problem that I don't have a solution for yet.

People can still make smaller groups. I get that. The idea is that if players want higher damage per swarm missile; they will have to invest more blocks to get that result. This is less of a idea to solve the mass-missile problem and more-so an idea to change how players interact with the weapon when considering building a weapon system.

 

[Winterhome]

A far better way to have balanced Missiles entirely would have been make them craftable and have to be stored in inventory.
Connect a storage area to each launcher. Rather than determine missile type by secondary systems. Determine missile type by what is place in the formula and how much. This would give much large numbers of options.
You could have IR with or without IFF, fly by wire, dumb fire, torpedo, nukes...
Firing system and secondary could be used to determine speed and range and quantity of missiles.
Different missiles have different weight. They take up inventory thus limit themselves.
No need at all to have a missile attack your allies without intent.

decoys, detection systems, missile detection accuracy at the cost of materials and/or payload, and both LAMS and antimissile missiles would be greatly appreciated

stealth missiles when, schema

 

[Groovrider]

A far better way to have balanced Missiles entirely would have been make them craftable and have to be stored in inventory.
Connect a storage area to each launcher. Rather than determine missile type by secondary systems. Determine missile type by what is place in the formula and how much. This would give much large numbers of options.
You could have IR with or without IFF, fly by wire, dumb fire, torpedo, nukes...
Firing system and secondary could be used to determine speed and range and quantity of missiles.
Different missiles have different weight. They take up inventory thus limit themselves.
No need at all to have a missile attack your allies without intent.

Ha Ha. Making them consumables would be an interesting change. I could get on board with that.

 

[Livaria]

Well at least all of this is being discussed. I'm happy enough for that.

 

[GRHayes]

You could also then add in anti missile systems like flares, chaff.
Hell Jammers already exist. If I remember correct works against swarms as well reducing the number that target you.

 

[Winterhome]

You could also then add in anti missile systems like flares, chaff.
Hell Jammers already exist. If I remember correct works against swarms as well reducing the number that target you.

I'd be in favor of decoy flares screwing IR swarms and radar jamming screwing radar seekers, with image recognition missiles being resource heavy or otherwise bulky.

 

[Matt_Bradock]

A far better way to have balanced Missiles entirely would have been make them craftable and have to be stored in inventory.
Connect a storage area to each launcher. Rather than determine missile type by secondary systems. Determine missile type by what is place in the formula and how much. This would give much large numbers of options.
You could have IR with or without IFF, fly by wire, dumb fire, torpedo, nukes...
Firing system and secondary could be used to determine speed and range and quantity of missiles.
Different missiles have different weight. They take up inventory thus limit themselves.
No need at all to have a missile attack your allies without intent.

I made a thread some time ago about it... I had different missile types with different recipes all fired from the different launchers. Even had recipe suggestions for them - for example, the basic dumbfire missile would have been made of a warhead (payload), thruster block (propulsion) and power capacitor (power for propulsion). A Bobby AI would have been added for guidance, and effect modules for desired weapon effects(instead of connecting effects to the launcher). Missiles wouldn't have been stackable and missile launchers would have had limited inventory space depending on number of outputs and number of blocks in the system. Power would have been still required to launch a missile to charge the warhead and the capacitor for propulsion. The main+secondary system would only determine the type of missiles required/launched, and if you don't use missiles with guidance system in the guided missile setups, they would still only dumbfire

MIRV (Multiple Independent Re-Entry Vehicles) - missile/missile heatseeker swarm (guided missile) or "shotgun missiles" (unguided)
LRM (Long Range Missile) - missile/beam long range lock-on
High-yield torpedo - missile/pulse short range lock-on
Unguided - dumbfire missile/- or missile/cannon

In the end I think it was scrapped because they wanted to keep weapons uniform in terms of base mechanics and resource consumption.

 

[GRHayes]

I made a thread some time ago about it... I had different missile types with different recipes all fired from the different launchers. Even had recipe suggestions for them - for example, the basic dumbfire missile would have been made of a warhead (payload), thruster block (propulsion) and power capacitor (power for propulsion). A Bobby AI would have been added for guidance, and effect modules for desired weapon effects(instead of connecting effects to the launcher). Missiles wouldn't have been stackable and missile launchers would have had limited inventory space depending on number of outputs and number of blocks in the system. Power would have been still required to launch a missile to charge the warhead and the capacitor for propulsion. The main+secondary system would only determine the type of missiles required/launched, and if you don't use missiles with guidance system in the guided missile setups, they would still only dumbfire

MIRV (Multiple Independent Re-Entry Vehicles) - missile/missile heatseeker swarm (guided missile) or "shotgun missiles" (unguided)
LRM (Long Range Missile) - missile/beam long range lock-on
High-yield torpedo - missile/pulse short range lock-on
Unguided - dumbfire missile/- or missile/cannon

In the end I think it was scrapped because they wanted to keep weapons uniform in terms of base mechanics and resource consumption.

They could make missile development with a special factory that allows you to set various parameters for each missile.
parameters being things like, thrust components, damage/explosive, do you want to add an IR module, IFF module, added armor, modules could be added in with a check box the rest with numerical indicator. Then you produce till the material runs out that you put in or you stop the factory.
That way you could make any combination of missile and expanding it would be easy.
You could give missiles and torpedoes warp capability for example.
Or fly by wire - you fly it to target.
Stealth - self explanitory
Nav system - enter a coordinate and it flys to it if in range then seeks out enemies.
It short it would allow expanding it as much as devs do or don't want.

 

[Mork2]

With the changes on missile speed the 10x heatseekers move so slowly they should be fairly easy to outrun. Max speed at 100% slave is 1.24x server speed. Small ships their usual target, can get to 3.0x server speed with a 2.5x thrust to mass ratio. When I do use heatseekers I have 0% slave so I get one missile per output with 2.48x server speed.

I would like however for heatseekers to not home in on faction astronaunts and npcs aligned with (walking around in) the launching ship.

 

[Comradecolonel]

Swarmers aren't totally useless but as for their primary function they are not effective except when used solo. This is limiting to gameplay. Friendly fire is still very much possible with other weapons but is not a way of life like the swarmer. If you don't see how that effects fleets (which are an integral part of the game), then I suggest you try playing with other ships around. I'm sure you'll see how big of a stumbling block it can be. There is no reason to limit players for what feels like a stopgap mechanic for balance. I'm fine with not using swarmers for now but I'll be dissapointed if I can't use all the weapon types just because I want to use more than one ship.

I feel that once there are new mechanics like missile health and better point defense options swarmers will be easier to deal with. As of right now if you could choose a target everyone would use them as a primary weapon. Not having to aim is a huge advantage that is hard to negate. I agree that this must be balanced by other factors. Too far down the road I think to be specific.

 

[Dire Venom]

So we have 2 sides here:

The "I think this is a mechanic that should be changed"
and
The "Change it over my dead body"

If we had more weapon options then I dont think this would be such a big issue.
Also making shotguns and pulses actually worth using would be great imo.