Missile reaction time

[mjolnir]

You know people in this country eat sheep heads ?;)

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Well I do dodge the best I can.. and spam CMs..in a Falcata... and I can dodge the missiles... but then I can never hurt the GB.. if I decide to hurt it... I get hit by missiles.

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Igiss says: Martin, you give them a finger, they bite off your arm.

[chopper]

Actually, I have experienced some GB missiles on me..

It's easy to dodge them, yes, if you decide to dodge..
For example, if there's 4 of you, you can dodge them.
However, if there are 2 fighters, and he's flying straight, they have to be on his tail.
And that's when he can fire them backwards, and pwn fighters.
It is very hard for 2 fighters to take on a GB with dual missile launcher.
Especially vanilla fighters.

I am also for ammo on these things.

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It is every Corsair's responsibility to die a beautiful death in defense of Crete, regardless of how OORP or how capwhoring the opposition is. Launch your fighter, joust the battlecruisers and die a beautiful death. Then, drink it down in the bar.

Can't let you bash folks in your sig Chopper-Del

[Jinx]

cap missiles are strange, imo. ( atm, i only have one single launcher on the persephone - that would be used to "spam" missiles to keep the fighter semi busy - without a chance to actually hit ... but then, i don t have pvps - and i don t use the missiles in pve, cause they explode my loot )

in beta 3 and 4, i tried them in pvp - and i was able to destroy tripple bombers in a destroyer easily - just flying a straight line with a few evasive manouvers and spamming 4 missile turrets. - the bombers would do their usual dodging, but the missiles ( so many of them ) would hit eventually while the turrets could keep their shields down rather easily.

end of the story - a damaged destroyer and 3 destroyed bombers - sort of, how it "should" look like when you apply minimal terms of realism. ( BHG destroyer with only 8 guns and poor armor ). the space was full with missile trails - most of them flying odd circles, but hte point is - the fighters would fly into them here and there anyway - and were not able to make straight attack runs anymore, cause there was no "gap" between salvos.

then there is another engagement. i was flying a rheinland cruise with 8 missiles, 1 inferno and solaris turrets - one could say, a pure anti fighter ship. this was on the main server with the usual lag ( compared to the beta with only like 2 people ).
non stop firing, - the enemy was one sabre with full krakens and inferno. - 8 missiles would NOT hit the sabre a single time. - the inferno picked the shields away and the krakens did the rest to the armor. - i was able to keep the sabres shields down all the time easily but wasn t able to hit the ship ( i allways have the problem - hitting the shield is easy - but then hitting the hitbox of the actual ship...... ) - anyway, no missile hit the sabre.

so - its hard to balance missiles. besides - capship missiles dont have a reaction time, i think. - they fire into the direction they are supposed to fire ( turrets ) and can turn - or overturn - instantly. they have a problem with targets that use E-kill ... that make like zick-zack flights.. but with no lag, the fighter flies into a missile sooner or later, - with even a bit of lag, the fighter can dodge the missiles easily it appears.

a way to use missiles on the current server is - to use them to cripple equipment. - i don t imagine to score a kill with them - they are too poor for it, - but they can if htey hit a bomber do quite some damage, especially to the purse of the bomberpilot. - one missile hit can damage the supernova that much, that the repair is like in the millions ( too bad, its still good manners to suicide )

missiles on capital ships are not what they are supposed to be ( anti fighter ) - they can keep a fighter pilot busy, but do not pose a deadly threat to them. - it would be nicer to see the general weaponry of warships to be less antifighter - but the missiles to be more - and it would help the balance if missile turrets came with a reduced fire arc ( like foreward guns ) so that a warship cannot spam missiles from like every angle.

that means, a gunboat with a dual launcher ( one left, one right ) would only fire when the fighter was in the firing arc - once the missile is on its own though - it should be hard to get rid of it.

like i said, no idea how to balance those. - personally, i d like to see a greatly reduced refire rate, but much tougher missiles. so that one missile would allready be a troublemaker - but the space wouldn t have to be spammed with dozens of them. - oh, and the fuel of those missiles should run out quicker ( with a nice explosion when it runs out )

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Shipdesigns made for DiscoveryGC

[Varyag]

I have noticed you have to fire fighter missiles at a distance or at point blank. For cap missiles there is a fun side effect. The missile will throw off the other caps targeting system giving you a few seconds to blast away unhurt. Problem is the energy usage of cap missiles is insane. I can get about 4 or 5 salvos out with the Varyag before my energy is depleted.

As for missiles for anti-fighter defense, they do work on occasion to keep them distracted and to hurt fighters but they rarely kill 'em. For that nothing works better then a fighter escort and your primary guns.

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"I looked up and all I saw was green death"

[S2000Gan]

I know this is off-topic, but on the topic of GB weapons, What about the Battle Razors? I just got 4 and they seem kind useless even on GB and anything smaller can evade too easily.

[wrathkin]

What is the problem here? That fighters cannot take out Gunships?

The purpose of a gunship is anti-fighter coverage, no?

Large caps > Hard counter for gunships, soft counter for capships, can ignore fighters
Bombers > Hard counter for large caps, soft counter for gunships
Fighters > Hard counter for bombers
Gunships >Hard counter for fighters, soft counter for bombers

I fail to see a problem here. If you want to take out gunships, bring larger ships or a bomber wing.

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John Johnson - Master of Synth.Foods-Convoy|049
Hans Adler - Synth Foods escort wing

Sebastian Wrath - Zoner in a Temporary Autonomous Zone ([TAZ]Punchin'Seb)

[mjolnir]

Problem is.... even two bombers can have big problems with an agile gunship with a lot of missile turrets... since they blast their guns off in one ht..and it can fire them indefinitely that's the main headache for me.

So your bombers>gunships actually doesn't work at all.


And yeah... bring a capship certainly works... but wasn't there something about not encouraging capwhoring?

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Igiss says: Martin, you give them a finger, they bite off your arm.

[wrathkin]

Of course the gunship can hurt the bombers - that's why I listed it as a soft counter.

I would rather make gunships slower and/or less maneuverable and/or more expensive, to make them less attractive as general purpose craft, then take away them as a hard counter to fighters.

In my opinion, the gunships should be a support craft for capships, with the possibility of using for fighter/bomber support where 'proper' capships cannot go. In the rock fields, the gunships should be the top dog at least until a full wing of bombers come around.


To up them in price won't do that much, but lower speed and agility would discourage overuse of them.
Also, I think all capships need to be _very_ vulnerable to bombers - but I have not flown either bomber nor capship, so I don't know how much this is already the case. I think that two bombers should have about equal odds against a gunship - both able to hurt the other, none having any real defense against the other. Soft counter, as I said. I also think a lone BB, BC or CA should have only limited chance to survive any bomber attack (freak hit kind of thing).

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John Johnson - Master of Synth.Foods-Convoy|049
Hans Adler - Synth Foods escort wing

Sebastian Wrath - Zoner in a Temporary Autonomous Zone ([TAZ]Punchin'Seb)

[mjolnir]

It's almost like this... Cruiser and BS can't take two bombers (if they know what they are doing)
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Notice that I'm not saying that GBs should be nerfed.. just that the missile ammo for them should be limited

There are bombers around that have same size as some Gunships.. and same agility... yet the gunship can spam missiles forever on them... that's what doesn't fit for me. Yes bombers can spam SN... (every 30seconds)...and it's not guided

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Igiss says: Martin, you give them a finger, they bite off your arm.

[wrathkin]

Well... in that case they should be given chain guns with high RoF, range and velocity, since they _should_ be able to kill anything smaller than themselves.

Actually, I would prefer that, no missiles, and no anti-capship weapons.

That would also leave room for missile boats with multiple heavy long-range missile hardpoints (with ammo!) for long-range strikes against, for example, gunships to remove the anti-figther/bomber screen and, say,a couple of lvl5 turrets for last-ditch defense against fighters and bombers. They should preferably be able to put serious hurt on at least everything smaller than a BC, but be able to soak significantly less damage than a gunship. A 'pure' support craft, but effective when in that role.

The thing is, we (or at least I) don't want that matches should be 'fair', but that every class has a conceivable use where it cannot be replaced.

A proposal:

Remove GB missile turrets altogether.
Remove GB anti-capship weapons (GB vs GB will become painfully slow)
Raise velocity, range and RoF of GB weapons, lower damage to match
Introduce new class 'Missile ship' with longest-range heavy, high-speed, slow-turning missiles, ammo, weak hull and a few medium-level turrets.

That would make:
Fighters: Hard counter to bombers, soft counter to fighters, missile ships
Bombers: Hard counter to capships, missile ships, soft counter to gunships
Gunships: Hard counter to fighters, soft counter to bombers
Missile ships: Hard counter to gunships, capships at range
Capships: Hard counter to gunships, missile ships up close.

Now, a 'hard counter' can expect to take out what it is countering rapidly and with small expected losses at similar skill level. A 'soft counter' can take out what it is countering, but expect to take substantial losses or take a while to do it.

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John Johnson - Master of Synth.Foods-Convoy|049
Hans Adler - Synth Foods escort wing

Sebastian Wrath - Zoner in a Temporary Autonomous Zone ([TAZ]Punchin'Seb)