Question: Why are heatseekers still the way they are?

[solarapple]

Seriously. Has this game been around for maybe 2-3 years? And heatseekers literally target anything that isn't you to this day. Why? Is there any specific reason for this? I know Schine is working really hard on optimization and bug fixes and new content but could they atleast take a few seconds out of their day to make heatseekers recognize friendlies and enemies? Is there some super hard coding behind this that would take forever?

 

[timmymorrison1]

I believe heat seekers are kind if an fuck all kind of thing i like how it goes for anyone its called heat seekers for reason it seeks anything out that's heat

 

[BDLS]

Swarmers are already a super lame no skill weapon type used by lame players (mostly on big doomcubes).

Making them work better would make them even lamer.

 

[StormWing0]

I use them for ship killing traps in planet sectors.

 

[karkinosz]

Pretty much the balance mechanism for heatseekers is that they are indiscriminate in their targeting. Ie it's intended that they go for enemies and friendlies alike. After all, they are a weapon that requires no targeting and not even having to look in the direction of your target. Which can easily overwhelm the majority of players pd.

 

[jzimmerman4]

I believe giving them the ability to recognize friend from foe but severely limiting their range would be a good balance.

 

[karkinosz]

I believe giving them the ability to recognize friend from foe but severely limiting their range would be a good balance.

I'd just keep them the way they are, a weapon that requires as little effort as heatseekers shouldn't be widely usable. Ofc imo.

 

[Reilly Reese]

HE weaponry is always indiscriminate. What you want is similar to the Covie Needler from Halo though.

 

[Krougal]

I'd just keep them the way they are, a weapon that requires as little effort as heatseekers shouldn't be widely usable. Ofc imo.

Yeah, it's a game-balance thing. Otherwise everyone would just use nothing but swarmers. As they are they are only situationally useful but when they are, they are very useful.

 

[Jchung]

They're called heat seeking missiles, not auto lock onto enemy missiles

 

[StormWing0]

They're called heat seeking missiles, not auto lock onto enemy missiles

This'd be too funny to watch. XD

 

[Krougal]

This'd be too funny to watch. XD

I would imagine real heatseekers still have IFF mechanisms, but if your definition of funny to watch is everyones server performance going down the shitter, then yeah, it would be.

So everyone would be using tons of heatseekers to saturate PD, and of course everyone would have tons of PD, and more tons of heatseekers and so on. Which is not unrealistic. What is unrealistic is the server loads that will generate. That's less in response to you, and more to the inevitable person who is gonna come in here screaming the realism argument.

 

[Edymnion]

Yup, as others have said, its a balance thing.

Heatseekers are instant fire and go after everything in range that isn't you. Friend or Foe, so you have to be careful when you use them.

Lock-on Torpedoes let you pick your targets, but are slow to fire due to the lock-on process.

Its game balance. Fast firing no-brainer weapons have to have drawbacks.

 

[Gristle]

...heatseekers literally target anything that isn't you to this day. Why? Is there any specific reason for this? ... to make heatseekers recognize friendlies and enemies? Is there some super hard coding behind this that would take forever?

Because they are heatseekers and no smarter than that. If they had FOF recognition they would be no different than lockon and easier to use.

 

[Master_Artificer]

Point defense can deal with swarmers now though. The only think that works for allowing the Missile Beams to slip through is massive amounts of weak dumbfires, IE the missile-cannon kinda, because point defense tries to shoot down EVERY missile, including the ones that missed you by a mile and the ones that are behind you.
:P

Logic swarmers are good for traps and surprises, as well as hostile drone clearing. The last one also can be done better by multiple cannon+cannon or beam+cannon turrets. But they are kinda falling out of favor hard, and generally becoming more and more useless.


This is not a bad thing though.

 

[solarapple]

Ah, okay.

 

[Lecic]

Point defense can deal with swarmers now though.

To an extent. It's pretty much impossible to take down the absurd amount of missiles some people use.

 

[Dire Venom]

To an extent. It's pretty much impossible to take down the absurd amount of missiles some people use.

Agreed. Its relatively easy to saturate a players ship with hundreds of low-power missiles.
A number of servers also have an entity limit per ship, thus building enough pd turrets to handle hundreds of missiles at a time is simply not practical.