Ship Builds & Load Outs What with mines, missiles and mining lasers?

We have them, but we don't use them. They failed to make us happy and they got nerfed.

So, how about we think out of the box and find them something new to do?

1. Mines
They suppose to help people defend. Must they? They could be bombs instead. After releasing, they could roll straight forward, until they hit something. Good for huge slow moving targets. Or keep them as they are, but give them nice deshielding power. Like deployable ECM devices. Or something. Anything's better than keeping them under the carpet.

2. Missiles
Why would any space power develop missiles? They have lasers, plasmas, railguns... Missiles should do something else than damaging things. Like jamming sensors, or even FSDs. Or something.

3. Mining lasers
They crush rocks, but do no damage to ships (except Zeminas' paint scratchers). I guess developers hope miners will interact with other players to guard them while mining. I don't think it'll ever happen. Players interact to shoot other players. Shooting rocks is one-man job, imho. So, giving mining lasers some nice power (at very short range, ofc) could make more players mine actually. Or they can overheat targeted subsystems. Or something.


Your suggestions will be more than welcome, so shoot. All thread is for that ;)
 
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We have them, but we don't use them. They failed to make us happy and they got nerfed.

So, how about we think out of the box and find them something new to do?

1. Mines
They suppose to help people defend. Must they? They could be bombs instead. After releasing, they could roll straight forward, until they hit something. Good for huge slow moving targets. Or keep them as they are, but give them nice deshielding power. Like deployable ECM devices. Or something. Anything's better than keeping them under the carpet.

2. Missiles
Why would any space power develop missiles? They have lasers, plasmas, railguns... Missiles should do something else than damaging things. Like jamming sensors, or even FSDs. Or something.

3. Mining lasers
They crush rocks, but do no damage to ships (except Zeminas' paint scratchers). I guess developers hope miners will interact with other players to guard them while mining. I don't think it'll ever happen. Players interact to shoot other players. Shooting rocks is one-man job, imho. So, giving mining lasers some nice power (at very short range, ofc) could make more players mine actually. Or they can overheat targeted subsystems. Or something.


Your suggestions will be more than welcome, so shoot. All thread is for that ;)
I don't really like any of these suggestions. It comes off as just fluff.

Mines should be a deterrent. If you want to attack with a mine, use a torpedo.

What's wrong with missiles? We have chaff for jamming tracking sensors, etc. When a missile is fired, the expectation should be that it seeks its target and delivers its payload.

Mining lasers really should be just that: lasers for mining. They cut rocks, not ships.
 
Mining lasers are fine.

As for Missiles, Torpedoes, and Mines...
Nobody uses them because they are bad at their job. Period. They need to be buffed, and countermeasures need to be nerfed.
 
Apparently it's coming soon, and I believe two small torpedoes are enough to destroy a python. So those are fine, I'd think.
 
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Apparently it's coming soon, and I believe two small torpedoes are enough to destroy a python. So those are fine, I'd think.

I honestly dread the day when missiles and mines are buffed and NPCs probably use them more often. NPCs have infinite ammo. They do not need to be conservative about when to fire their missiles or torpedoes, they can just plink away.

And yes, I am jealous of those NPCs who use fragment cannon turrets as a close range defense, because it is effective when you have infinite ammo but completely useless when you only have 33 shots.
 
Please, dudes... it's not yet another boring buff/nerf thread. The real subject is: how to make weapons mentioned do something new. Something out from infinite balancing them up and down, something that would make us happily use them.

Something crazy, like miniaturising missiles, so they do no damage at all, but can hit Shield Cell Banks instead and temporarily disable them. This is not a suggestion, but just an example how to use this thread, please. Your suggestions would be appreciated here, not mine.
 
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We have them, but we don't use them. They failed to make us happy and they got nerfed.

So, how about we think out of the box and find them something new to do?

1. Mines
They suppose to help people defend. Must they? They could be bombs instead. After releasing, they could roll straight forward, until they hit something. Good for huge slow moving targets. Or keep them as they are, but give them nice deshielding power. Like deployable ECM devices. Or something. Anything's better than keeping them under the carpet.

2. Missiles
Why would any space power develop missiles? They have lasers, plasmas, railguns... Missiles should do something else than damaging things. Like jamming sensors, or even FSDs. Or something.

3. Mining lasers
They crush rocks, but do no damage to ships (except Zeminas' paint scratchers). I guess developers hope miners will interact with other players to guard them while mining. I don't think it'll ever happen. Players interact to shoot other players. Shooting rocks is one-man job, imho. So, giving mining lasers some nice power (at very short range, ofc) could make more players mine actually. Or they can overheat targeted subsystems. Or something.


Your suggestions will be more than welcome, so shoot. All thread is for that ;)

I don like any of these suggestions.

Mining lasers are an economic tool, as it is a cargo hold or a collector drone. Giving them firepower out of an specialized power special is simply nonesense. You claim that "players only interact to destroy each other" is completely false. Even before the Wings update, I did offer my protection services to miners for a 20% of their final cargo, and usually they accepted and risked themselves to heavy extraction areas filled with pirates.

What you are suggesting is to convert the mine in a rocket. Dot. Mines are good for what they are: Run away and leave a tray of mines behind you so your pursuer must break the chase and dodge them. True, they don't do much damage themselves, but if you keep releasing them you will force your enemies to stop chasing you (it would not be the first time I lost all my shields against a fleeing ship with mines).

Misiles: The problem is that the PDSs are too OP. They need to increased damage to hull and nerf the PDSs.
 
I honestly dread the day when missiles and mines are buffed and NPCs probably use them more often. NPCs have infinite ammo. They do not need to be conservative about when to fire their missiles or torpedoes, they can just plink away.

And yes, I am jealous of those NPCs who use fragment cannon turrets as a close range defense, because it is effective when you have infinite ammo but completely useless when you only have 33 shots.
As an avid frag cannon user, I can attest to exactly how not useless they are. It's just a one fight kind of deal.

With the AI getting stronger and with shieldtank/longevity meta becoming weaker as a result, ammo kinetics will very likely become more common, including the fearsome frag cannon.

However, I'd love to be able to loose missiles with reckless abandon. There's a suggestion thread about increasing the ammo amount when fitting a smaller module on a larger hardpoint. I'd be the first to put seekers on an FDL.
 
There's a suggestion thread about increasing the ammo amount when fitting a smaller module on a larger hardpoint. I'd be the first to put seekers on an FDL.

Missiles and torpedoes already work like that. C1 and C2 missiles both do the exact same damage, because it's the same missile. It's just that a C1 seeker launcher gives you 12 missiles and a C2 gives you 24. I think if they upped the damage they did, or upped the ammo count, both missiles and torpedoes would be fantastic weapons. As it is now, it seems they're just marginally more effective than cannons for way less ammo, and their main strength over cannons; long range and tracking, is often nullified by needing to be close to not lose to point defense.
 
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I want to see something like in Angels Fall First... flashbang mines.

They do no damage, but blind you. It's seriously annoying, and amusing, all at the same time.
 
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