Let's talk about missiles and countermeasures
- Thread starter CMDR DragonHorn
- Start date
I'm convinced that shield problem isn't so simple. It is actually rather complex one, including things like SB stacking, natural resistances that thrown outta window with engineering introduced, and I do have some mixed feeling about if shield should become weaker or not. Especially considering what weapons with some effects are capable of. In fact, HRP and MRP stacking is pretty bad too from balance perspective, and I do wish there was some big overhaul/re-balance of game systems, including workings of shields, hull and weapons, but we have to understand how extensive it is in terms of workload for dev team, and how many screwups can happen, completely ruining everything. If they do one step at a time, make at least relatively safe tuning for now, it would be very good already.
Wish someone form FDev could drop by and just share their stance on how missiles are these days, what is their vision is behind it and if there are at least distant plans on tweaking that system. I know, I know, but man can dream, right?
Wish someone form FDev could drop by and just share their stance on how missiles are these days, what is their vision is behind it and if there are at least distant plans on tweaking that system. I know, I know, but man can dream, right?
Watching The Expanse and this video
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YS4vzoQm_xw&ab_channel=Spacedock
made me think if torpedoes would start off slow and gain speed as they flew towards their target with a speed cap depending on the class of torpedoes used based on this old concept art
Turning them into long range weapons to differentiate them from seeker missiles. Larger torpedoes would have better damage, slower max speeds and worse turn rates than their smaller counterparts making them better against larger ships.
What would then be needed to be added is the ability to carry extra ammo in your cargo racks much like limpets. Synthesis has always been a band aid for explorers and never ideal for combat. You could add reload restrictions to torpedoes like say 1 tube per 30 seconds for the smallest ones and/or having to retract your hardpoints to initiate the reload sequence. Even doing something like canceling the reload if you start your FSD.
I do hope fdevs put some good thought into rebalancing combat after Odyssey is out. Its sorely needed.
made me think if torpedoes would start off slow and gain speed as they flew towards their target with a speed cap depending on the class of torpedoes used based on this old concept art
Turning them into long range weapons to differentiate them from seeker missiles. Larger torpedoes would have better damage, slower max speeds and worse turn rates than their smaller counterparts making them better against larger ships.
What would then be needed to be added is the ability to carry extra ammo in your cargo racks much like limpets. Synthesis has always been a band aid for explorers and never ideal for combat. You could add reload restrictions to torpedoes like say 1 tube per 30 seconds for the smallest ones and/or having to retract your hardpoints to initiate the reload sequence. Even doing something like canceling the reload if you start your FSD.
I do hope fdevs put some good thought into rebalancing combat after Odyssey is out. Its sorely needed.
Then we are back to the fact that there are only dogfights in ED. Even if they were to make them truly long range overnight, ED drops you out of supercruise directly into dogfighting range. There really is no way to introduce ship combat outside of the dogfighting paradigm without some serious changes to the game, changing the range of some weapons won't help.
You don't zoom around the edge of a combat zone or asteroid field sometimes? Or fly FA off orbiting a target at 4km? There's plenty of scenarios other than the drop off that interdictions put you in. Even then, ships flying 500 m/s can get pretty far away from each other in a few seconds in a joust.
Having torpedoes that gain speed would offer a different dynamic in combat other than just a more damaging version of what seekers provide.
4km is still dogfighting range. As you point out, that distance can be closed in seconds. The best 'Long Range' Sensors in ED can barely even register the low range of what could be liberally described as long range.
To compound the issue, if ED introduced weaponry that was actually long ranged and you built a long range combat focused ship, you would find yourself in trouble as ED dropped you right next to the dogfighters and left you to attempt gaining sufficient range before being able to engage.
ED, as-is, simply will not allow for long range combat. It is strictly designed to operate ala dogfighting circa WW2, but with cooler weapons. Hence Torpedoes having no place.
I agree completely, but you would need to be able to fire the torpedo from a health range for this to work, and then we are back to the lack of long range combat . . .
To be honest, we already have long range weapons with things like G5 long range rails.
Missiles, torps and mines all are pretty terrible at the moment in ED.
The first problem is that shields are all but immune to explosive damage, and shields got buffed through the wazoo by engineers.
As it stands, they can only affect ships when shields are down. Which is where the other problem appear : they just erase external modules
which makes PvP sad. MRP's can help a bit, but the outer module protection is weak, with two MRP's only mitigating ~50%
Torps are pure gimmick, useless in PvE, and only relevant in PvP as gotcha' anti-shields weapons. They only reason they are relevant is that
they are a high variance hard counter to the engineered shields insanity we have.
What can be done ? I'm unsure, but if they are to have a role, we need them to have their own niche and be able to stand on their own.
That being said, here is what I would do with them :
*What I mean is that it would become a poor idea to stack booster and shields cell banks and not fit any of : PDD, MRP's, AFMU or ECM. You could go lots of PDD's but no mitigation, or no PDD's but lots of mitigation or a mix. More variety in a nutshell.
As it stands, missiles cannot be made interesting without a large revamp of ED combat balance. (which is in a bad and uninteresting place IMO)
Missiles, torps and mines all are pretty terrible at the moment in ED.
The first problem is that shields are all but immune to explosive damage, and shields got buffed through the wazoo by engineers.
As it stands, they can only affect ships when shields are down. Which is where the other problem appear : they just erase external modules
which makes PvP sad. MRP's can help a bit, but the outer module protection is weak, with two MRP's only mitigating ~50%
Torps are pure gimmick, useless in PvE, and only relevant in PvP as gotcha' anti-shields weapons. They only reason they are relevant is that
they are a high variance hard counter to the engineered shields insanity we have.
What can be done ? I'm unsure, but if they are to have a role, we need them to have their own niche and be able to stand on their own.
That being said, here is what I would do with them :
- Put a hard cap on the number of shield boosters : 2 for S, 3 for M and 4 for L (or maybe lower).
- Double their range (or more), and give then a low starting speed, but a hefty acceleration.
- Change L slot missiles to be heavier and punchier anti-large weapons. Long range, good acceleration and moderate agility.
- Change AFMU behaviour, so that it can repair modules in an autonomous fashion without powering them down, and following power priorities. That way, you can repair weapons without fiddling while retaining the "debuff" effect on offensive capability in PvP.
- Rework the reverb effect so that it affects shield boosters first, then the generator and set MRP's to be effective at mitigating that damage.
- Give the reworked reverb effect to all missiles/mines/torps. I know, this sounds nuts, but think about it : if boosters are affected first, and are limited in number and MRP's mitigate it, then missile become effective against shields but in a different way than other weapons : they would be able to erode the max shield cap by putting boosters out of commission. With an AFMU rework, open slots for PDD and MRP's as mitigation, it would not be an all-or-nothing affair, but a rather gradual effect that can be soft-countered in different ways*
- Change mines from firing one amo to a cloud of small mines affecting an area. As they stand they are hopelessly bad beyond divebombing.
- Move torps from 1/0 to 1/2 for S and 2/4 for M with a long, long reload time (30s+ at least). Allow amo synthesis. Lower reverb damage, give them high pen, very slow initial speed with good acceleration and poor agility. True anti-large long range weapon.
- Increase PDD range to 5km, but can only fire at missiles detected by the sensors.
- Link ECM range to the sensor range. Better sensors, better ECM.
*What I mean is that it would become a poor idea to stack booster and shields cell banks and not fit any of : PDD, MRP's, AFMU or ECM. You could go lots of PDD's but no mitigation, or no PDD's but lots of mitigation or a mix. More variety in a nutshell.
As it stands, missiles cannot be made interesting without a large revamp of ED combat balance. (which is in a bad and uninteresting place IMO)
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Interesting suggestions. You say that missiles do small damage to shields, as they are explosives. Why do you think it's bad from combat balance perspective? Do you think missiles should be viable against shields too? The fact that they erase modules, gets mitigated by ability to stack some countermeasures that effectively make them useless. Don't you think high module damage isn't justified in that case? Feels like your main idea is to be able to fly ship without sufficient anti-missile defenses and still be able to defend itself, or I got it wrong?
Now, to clear up some points:
1. It's good suggestion, I'd like forced caps not only on SB, as previously mentioned, but on any other defensive reinforcements you can have. Although, it doesn't seem realistic that devs would go for it (hope I'm wrong on that account), and what do you think about my suggestion to force pilots install extra PDs and ECM, to make it soft counter for SB stacking issue?
2. Agree on longer range, might be cool, but with speed changes, could you please elaborate on that? How would that be more useful? From what I know, lock missiles already have incredible tracking, they just chase your ship and the only way to avoid hit is to outrun them until ordinance expires.
3. I'm afraid that with this change, bigger ships will have even more advantage over smaller ones, because they would not only be able to deal more damage, but could dedicate more hardpoints for missile systems, and have much more ammo. Feels a bit unfair.
4. To be honest, even with that, I still don't think that player, which is on receiving end, will have enough staying power, since speed of repairing would have to be increased significantly as well. Best option, when your weapons are wrecked, IMO, is just to run, because opponent can go full offensive and pound you quite hard.
5. That's curious to see how it works in practice. I'm not a big fan of Reverb effect in the first place, to be honest, but I'm not sure pilots will commit so many slots for missiles just to shave off some shield cap. It might work in conjecture with forced lower SB cap, but would still take helluva lot of ammo to take out each individual SB.
6. I'm just strongly against the idea that missiles should have any significant effect on shields in the first place and believe it will destroy balance even more. But I respect different point of view. In any case, won't know it until we see it. Would really like to participate in testing of any suggested tweaks, if that would be a possibility. I'm sure many do.
7. No comment here, don't have much experience with mines. Possibly good change.
8. Again, I'm strongly against idea of synthesis and firmly believe it has to go. Maybe kept for utility purposes only, for explorers, but any combat applications of it must be removed. Although ammo racks must become a thing. I have no idea why it isn't implemented yet. It won't affect balance for PVP, as far as I can judge, and will just improve presence for big PVE brawls.
9. That's actually very good change to PD, and I'd really like that to be introduced.
10. Not sure about this. I think low sensor ships should be able to defend themselves against missiles as effectively as any long range sensor ships, and in general kept fair for all the frames.
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I think that they should be somewhat effective against shields. Not great, but viable. At the moment you can fire a 100 missiles against a ship
and barely dent shields.
Kinetic weapons work great against hull, okay vs shields, lasers are reverse. Missiles are okay vs hull and trash vs shields.
I think having them being okay vs hull and shields (in the sense of being able to take out shield boosters with a reverb type effect) and long range would
give them a viable, interesting and balanced role.
and barely dent shields.
Kinetic weapons work great against hull, okay vs shields, lasers are reverse. Missiles are okay vs hull and trash vs shields.
I think having them being okay vs hull and shields (in the sense of being able to take out shield boosters with a reverb type effect) and long range would
give them a viable, interesting and balanced role.
IMO, missiles are perfectly viable in their current form, for the reasons @Morbad has already described.
A few additional points:
1) Missiles/torps are fine in PVE. Literally ALL weapons are fine in PVE, if the player knows what they are doing.
2) Some players believe that seekers are overpowered in PVP, for various reasons, and frown on their use.
3) Not all weapons need to be lethal to be useful. Missiles/torps can make excellent support weapons... even dumbfires (ie: FSD interrupt)
Certainly there are a few useless loadouts for missiles and torps, but that is true of all weapons.
I do agree with you on, OP, that electronic countermeasures need a rethink. Personally, Iād like to see ECM become automated but with a long reload time, almost like a slow-fire PDT.
PDT is mostly for missiles. A revamped ECM would be mostly for torps. Using a combination of both could be a good strategy for large trade vessels or miners flying in Open.
A few additional points:
1) Missiles/torps are fine in PVE. Literally ALL weapons are fine in PVE, if the player knows what they are doing.
2) Some players believe that seekers are overpowered in PVP, for various reasons, and frown on their use.
3) Not all weapons need to be lethal to be useful. Missiles/torps can make excellent support weapons... even dumbfires (ie: FSD interrupt)
Certainly there are a few useless loadouts for missiles and torps, but that is true of all weapons.
I do agree with you on, OP, that electronic countermeasures need a rethink. Personally, Iād like to see ECM become automated but with a long reload time, almost like a slow-fire PDT.
PDT is mostly for missiles. A revamped ECM would be mostly for torps. Using a combination of both could be a good strategy for large trade vessels or miners flying in Open.
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This is inline with my experiences as well. I generally kick around in a Challenger with a couple of C1 Seekers [Drag+Emissive] and any player I get the shields down on is usually effectively mission-killed before they can get their shields to start recharging if they don't immediately run away as fast as they can into the distance.
The few times I've done testing vs an Engineered Corvette outfitted with plenty of MRP's and AMFU's using a mix of Reverb Cascade torps and Dumbfires setup with Penertrator munitions, the moment the shields have gone down I've basically had the ship stripped of almost all its armaments and internal modules. A combined rack and a half of C1 rockets (engineered for high capacity), if memory serves.
Similar effects vs hull surface targets if a Packhound or two are in the mix.
Missiles just aren't an HP threat, and yet mission kills happen blindingly fast with them once shields are down. There's not a lot of recourse to dealing with how fast they rack up module damage for most ships hence, as pointed out by Morbad, the meta is "Big shields, go fast, live and die by overwhelming firepower 'cause that's the only thing that can threaten those shields which are your only defense against endlessly having to reboot your ship to bring your thrusters back online."
We stray too much into PVP kinda argument, which is different. You may "win" engagement because opponent 99% of times simply doesn't expect to deal with any missiles. If ECM would actually work or they would have at least one PD just-in-case, success rate of such wins would go down drastically. We also shouldn't overlook very important factor, such as skill difference between two pilots engaged in PVP. In certain scenarios, dedicating even just 2 hardpoints won't make much difference, as one pilot will still crush another. If player on receiving end is more skilled, difference in having less all-or-nothing weapons like missiles can be quite devastating. But as I mentioned previously, in certain, I imagine very-very narrow slice of gameplay, some people might make some use of missiles as they currently are. But they are nowhere near meta for ANY PVE or PVP loadouts. And I believe there's reason for it. Good pilots, in vast majority, wouldn't be overlooking system with some hidden incredible potential that can win them many fights.
It is true that not all weapons must be lethal to be useful, several are already quite lethal, and with so many hard-counters, I just don't see any other way, really... I mean, you can't equip thingy that will be reliably shooting down PA charges fired at you (which deal ton of damage on each hit), you can only rely on your flight/evasion skills.
I can't honestly say that ALL weapons are viable for PVE. Most regular ones I listed in OP are, and frankly, because of useful experimentals or plain damage potential. Could you give any examples on why would you prefer, purely out of ammo efficiency/kill speed aspect, to switch, say, Rail Guns/PAs/Cannons, which can also be considered as amazing support weapons, for missiles in such content as High CZ/Haz RES/Installation Events/Pirate Signal Sources?
It is true that not all weapons must be lethal to be useful, several are already quite lethal, and with so many hard-counters, I just don't see any other way, really... I mean, you can't equip thingy that will be reliably shooting down PA charges fired at you (which deal ton of damage on each hit), you can only rely on your flight/evasion skills.
You are correct that they are not meta, nor are they āincredible,ā but thatās not the point. The point is just that they are viable weapons that do not need a buff.
Iāll be frank: Part of the problem in these PVP discussions is that people put waaaaaay too much faith in meta loadouts.
Yes, <insert cookie cutter> is very powerful, but it isnāt invincible. There are weaknesses in meta defenses and offenses that can be exploited. Missiles and torps can provide one way to help leverage those weaknesses.
I wonāt list those weaknesses here. People can figure it out on their own.
What I will say is that I am not a top pvper, yet I regularly tear apart meta opponents using missiles and torps as support weapons. I have even received hate mail for it. So yes, they are perfectly viable.
None of this really matters in PVE, because NPCs are so weak to begin with.
If your only goal is efficiency, then combo lasers and multicannons are the way to go for PVE. But if your goal is to have fun, then using missiles, torps, rails, plasmas, frags, and cannons as support weapons are all perfectly fine, and youāll only see a negligible drop in speed.
Personally I always use my PVP loadouts for PVE. Itās just target practice, and I donāt care about spending an extra few minutes in a CZ or whatever.
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I certainly would welcome seekers being more effective. Every NPC seems to have PD these days meaning only a fraction of your missiles get through and, when they do, itās just a few percent hull damage on a lot of ships. Very underwhelming! To be honest, I really only really have āem for the Drag Munitions effect to help my slow-ass Corvete catch up with fleeing ships ... but some extra potency wouldnāt go amiss in my book.
Some kind of anti-shield engineering whereby the warhead explodes early āEMPā style and does damage to shields (but is poor against hull) might be interesting to mix things up a bit.
I think Reverb Cascade on Torps is a bit daft, though. That could happily be removed from the game as far as I'm concerned. Along with Shield Cell Banks ... but thatās another topic.
Some kind of anti-shield engineering whereby the warhead explodes early āEMPā style and does damage to shields (but is poor against hull) might be interesting to mix things up a bit.
I think Reverb Cascade on Torps is a bit daft, though. That could happily be removed from the game as far as I'm concerned. Along with Shield Cell Banks ... but thatās another topic.
Wait wait wait, you said ecm missiles can relock? What are you talking about here? Whenever an npc that actually has an ecm I watch my missiles get shot away at random directions, NEVER seen them ever come back and hit the target, ever, what are you talking about with that?
A recent video from The Pilot might explain the general missile hate in the PvP community.
Apparently the hardcore meta PvPers use outfits that have high 60s for kinetic resistance and up near 80% thermal resistance.
They do this by meta-gaming how resistances are calculated, resulting in positive resistances not obtainable without exploiting the resistance formula, meaning a Chieftain can effectively have 14k hull vs thermal damage.
They claim it's absurd that this is possible, yet in the video a massive weakness is right there, front and slighty off-centre, yet they ignore it completely.
Nearly a negative 70% resistance to explosive damage.
That huge 14k thermal hull is a tiny 1.6k vs dumbfires and seekers.
No wonder meta PvPers hate missiles and want them nerfed, a single seeker would do ~65 damage, enough to cripple even a C4 hardpoint with malfunctions, MRPs or not. Two or three would straight up destroy it.
Not a single ECM or PD to be seen on their ships either.
As for how fun I personally find missiles; I normally use beams and multies but absolutely love my triple C3 high-cap, penetrator payloaded, dumbfire Krait MkII. Between 2-5 pulls of the trigger and nearly all NPCs will be exploding because of an overloaded powerplant. NPCs in CZs, pirate activity POI, and wing pirate lords use MRPs, necessitating a few more shots.
My cleanest shield down to kaboom record is an Elite Conda going up at 94% hull remaining.
Simply beautiful.Overload munitions? It converts at least half the explosive damage to thermal.
I use it on advanced C1 high-cap dumbfires on a Viper MkIV to support C2 efficient TVent beams. They knock out shields over four times faster than the beams alone and will strip its thrusters with just a few more hits. I then shoot out the ship's PP or hull (whichever pops first) with the beams while it helplessly tumbles through space.
AFAIK, only torpedoes will relock onto their target. I've never seen a seeker hit, or been hit by one, after using an ECM.
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I wouldn't waste your materials on something that will ruin your missiles, just get lasers to deal with those shields, I toyed around in my head with something like that but you are already using an extremely limited ammo, watching them being used on shields that will regenerate during those times you lose lock and when they come back is kinda painful to imagine.
Bringing PVP into argument isn't entirely correct, and would need different topic to discuss the situation around it in particular. When you say you used missiles to destroy someone in PVP, half of the problem why this happens has been covered by GolderSilver484. That not to mention, incredibly small, almost nonexistent, part of playerbase even participates in any form of PVP. Another part is that we don't know what the skill gap between you and the other pilot was. We can easily measure NPC capabilities a and we know how they built in general, but player skill gap is very diffiucult thing to measure, and if one flies meta, it doesn't mean they do know how to fight. Maybe you could use toothpick to blow up their ship, and without missiles you could do it much easier? I mean, realistically, if you engage someone in PVP, they run this braindead meta and see missiles in your loadout, which they have not a single thing to counter, wisest course of action would be just to wake out. Fight to the death in that scenario is incredibly stubborn. But just as I mentioned in OP, it goes directly in category of ultra-niche usage of the weapon. There is a reason why PVP meta looks the way it does, right? If missiles would be truly viable to the point of threatening, such builds wouldn't exist. But threat is so low, that majority simply won't give up another booster for single PD, that could completely shutdown that "strategy". All-or-nothing weapons are way too risky to bring in the real fight.
On account of PVE, don't you think that saying "missiles are viable" and "if your goal is to have fun, then using missiles..." is a bit contradictory? And no, from, say 5 hardpoints, dedicating two or even one for missiles would cut utility or straight up damage of my firepower quite significantly. See, I don't need to drag NPC, at all. I don't need to destroy their guns, because when NPC loses more than 50% of it's weapons, it starts FDS charge sequence immediately. I don't need to disrupt their FSD, and more so, I would need to work around their PDs to use that missiles for utility I absolutely have no use for. In PVE, your only goal is to straight up blow up their ships, nothing else matters, and time it takes for you to do so, along with shutting down their defensive capabilities, with things like feedback cascade, is the only thing that matters. On "fun" note, I already use SLF on my PVE Krait, although it's utterly and completely useless in any combat situation, I still use it, because I don't have to sacrifice something significant, and it is cool to have SLF for me. But for using missiles, I would need to sacrifice helluvalot of DPS, which isn't worth it. I run Python with x3 Beams and x2 seekers, time it take to destroy targets almost twice as long as on my Krait.
Now imagine if changes I propose would go through. In PVP, maybe players wouldn't be so reckless and dedicate at least one slot for anti-missile? The moment shields drop, it would really heat things up. Stuff like firing single missiles as a bait for them to fire off ECM, f.e., than follow up with another that hits. More active usage of temp manipulation and changing flight patters to avoid being locked in the first place until shields go back up. It could definitely shake things up, it would introduce more skill and tactical thinking, what people looking for challenge seek. Of course meta will mostly stay the same, but that feeling of danger, being overexposed to weapon that can really do harm, and you know that more pilots would be willing to use it. That will definitely create some tension, and in a positive way, IMHO.
As for PVE, it is very stale at the moment. If player would be forced to use ECM/PD more actively, looking for angles to work around NPCs PD arcs to deliver that missile, because it would actually hurt, being a lot more exposed and easily killed themselves if they get distracted and eat those missiles from NPCs to the hull, crippling or outright instantly killing them. Adds that bit of depth, combat desperately needs in this game. Right now, all you can really do is point your guns at NPC, and steadily melt them away.
Torps always relock, as mentioned above. With seekers, I suppose it depends on munition life cycle. If they are shot from certain distance, and then hit by ECM, they might simply expire. I've been hit several times with seekers after using ECM. Dumbfires never re-lock. It's just inconsistent, is all. Making it work more reliably will go a long way.
In my experience, NPC deaths from 0% PP have been very inconsistent. Can't count how many times, I reduced PP to 0% in CZs on Condas and other biggies at ~50% hull, and they didn't blow up, until their hull went to 0, me shooting at PP with multies all that time. Not sure if it's a bug with NPCs in particular, but I rarely go for modules these days because of it. x3 OC MCs with Corrosive and Rails melt away even thickest hull just a bit slower than they supposed to die from PP failure anyway, and I have much better combat presence, due to ammo capacity.