I was wrong about torpedos

sinkarma

S
So some time ago... a long time ago...
I said torpedos were useless and not worth it and needed to be rebalanced.

Weeeeeel... i kinda still stand by that statement when looking at the small and medium torpedo mount... but my opnion changed when I decided "hey! Lemme stop saying stuff on the forums without bases and do some tests"

Some time later I made "The Hangover"
...
A krait mk2 with a fighter, two medium beams for taking out shields, 3 large torpedo racks and a KWS

12 torpedos in total.

And so I went out to hunt some npc pirates.
Was it successful? Yes.
Was it effective? Define effective...
After all a single torpedo engineered with penetrator payload was all I needed to basically rip about 90% off of their module health off of a single target.
I could take out 6 to 12 pirates before running out of torpedos, no problem.
And in some cases the torpedo hit just right to take out their FSD and life support at the same time. Which is hilairious.
Was it efficient? No.
Although one could argue that... I did manage to kill an asp with 1 torpedo from a lucky shot where the torpedo killed his power plant and he blew up at 50% hull remaining.
Was it fun? Yes.
Oh yes. Most certainly.
Is it pvp capable? No.

Most certainly not a build for serious buisness but it was fun.
You remember fun?! Fun?! Its a game remember?!
And I would reccomend people who have some spare time and materials to go try it out. Make a ship with 3 large torpedo racks with penetrator payload and your flavour of shield removal and have some fun.
It surprised me and maybe it surprises you too.
 

here_it_comes

here_it_comes
Yeah, it is fun. But only in it's novelty. Having to head home for restock so often gets old and back into the closet the ol' torp tubes go.

RC Torpedoes work great for Wing Assassinations but you need to land 4 to do the job, which is a lot of hard pointage for one shield. I enjoyed it for an evening and dumped em.

I'd say they 'd be worth using on a build that ya pull out occasionally for fun if they didn't require engineering to be not useless.
 

Kenneth McGrew

Kenneth McGrew
Small torpedoes are terrible, you may as well fit iceberg lettuces to your hardpoints and throw them at enemy ships, you will do more damage

if you look closely you can see this is a class 1 lettuce.

snapshotimagehandler_815223756.jpeg
 

CMDR D Noize

CMDR D Noize
I've been having a similar revelation with Plasma Accelerators recently.
First tried them very early on in my game. Didn't like them, too slow, too hard to use, meh...

Finally got round to unlocking Bill Turner (with the help of my FC Market) about a week ago, the last bubble Engineer on my list.
Thought I'd buy & engineer some PAs just for the heck of it, I've gone to all this effort so why not and OH MY GOD do I love playing with PAs now!

That "THWIP" noise they make when a shot connects and the nice chunk of damage they do is SO satisfying.

It's not quite the same as your Torps, but I totally relate to rediscovering previously dismissed weapons.
 

Trollymctrollerson

T
CMDR D Noize said:
I've been having a similar revelation with Plasma Accelerators recently.
First tried them very early on in my game. Didn't like them, too slow, too hard to use, meh...

Finally got round to unlocking Bill Turner (with the help of my FC Market) about a week ago, the last bubble Engineer on my list.
Thought I'd buy & engineer some PAs just for the heck of it, I've gone to all this effort so why not and OH MY GOD do I love playing with PAs now!

That "THWIP" noise they make when a shot connects and the nice chunk of damage they do is SO satisfying.

It's not quite the same as your Torps, but I totally relate to rediscovering previously dismissed weapons.
Click to expand...
Plasma is the lifeblood of combat in elite for me. The other day i tweaked the plasma on my corvette and watched it totally erase the powerplant of an NPC anaconda in 1 shot. 100% to 0% powerplant was shockingly satisfying. A couple MC bullets and it went boom. Torpedoes are a tough sell to me because of how well plasma wipes out modules and carries waaaayy more ammo.
 

Kenneth McGrew

Kenneth McGrew
Trollymctrollerson said:
Do the NPCs make any attempt to evade the torpedoes?
Click to expand...
NPC point defense magically ruins torps day... and of course if you have torps outfitted RNG will guarantee NPCs have Point defense, just like EVERY npc carries chaff if you outfit gimbals, and EVERY npc carries shield cell banks and MRPs if you're a rail boat.

crafty RNG yet not quite random....
 

Crimson Kaim

Crimson Kaim
Torpedos are still the least powerful weapon in this game.
Let's look at its mechanics and stats:

  • 250 m/s fixed flight speed
  • arming time
  • Can be countered by ECM
  • Can be countered by seeker missiles
  • Can not be synthed
  • Very limited ammo pool
  • Garbage blueprints available
  • Very low base damage
  • Tracking (requires lock-on)
  • Relatively high heat generation
With this many negatives, it stands at the top amongst the worst modules available in the game. It is a combat module that is both, inefficient in PvE and even more so in PvP.
While torpedos may serve as a noob hammer in PvP against greenhorns, any half-way experience player that has heard about torpedos will know how to avoid them.
To make them viable, they'd need a massive buff and prolly a rework in the way they work too.

A good approach in my eyes would be to offer different torpedo ammo types. First of all, add a dumbfire variant that doesn't require lock on or allow us to shoot seeker torpedos as dumbfire without lock-on.
Then, greatly increase ammo pool with reloads available (1/2/4 per magazine + 4/8/16 in reservoir for S/M/L variants respectively).
Going on, offer munitions that give torpedos a more tactical approach. Examples are EMP-torps that cause a similar effect to the thargoid EMP which could very well be solved with adding ion disruption as a secondary effect to torps. Or a big bang torp that deals massive AoE damage when detonated (can be shot to trigger it). Cyto-torps that deal massive damage against shields but none to hull. Swarm torpedos that release a cluster of mines/seekers/whatever when being close to their target. Perhaps an even more radical approach: feedback cascade torps that disable shields when hit during SCB spin-up? That was the original mechanic for rail guns.

Anyways, with a possible rework in mind, we still need to generally address the major downsides listed above by giving it a generous stat buff.
Increase the base damage of torpedos significantly (multiply by factor 10 or so). Increase torpedo's flight speed to something around 300-400 m/s. Make it untargetable by tracking weaponry and lower its heat generation (it's a frickin' missile why does it run hotter than a T7 firing a PA?).

There are many ways to buff them but as it stands now, they have been the worst weapon module in the game and will remain so until FDev ever decides to take a look at game balancing again, which currently is not the case.
 

Webgear

Webgear
Crimson Kaim said:
Torpedos are still the least powerful weapon in this game.
Let's look at its mechanics and stats:

  • 250 m/s fixed flight speed
  • arming time
  • Can be countered by ECM
  • Can be countered by seeker missiles
  • Can not be synthed
  • Very limited ammo pool
  • Garbage blueprints available
  • Very low base damage
  • Tracking (requires lock-on)
  • Relatively high heat generation
With this many negatives, it stands at the top amongst the worst modules available in the game. It is a combat module that is both, inefficient in PvE and even more so in PvP.
While torpedos may serve as a noob hammer in PvP against greenhorns, any half-way experience player that has heard about torpedos will know how to avoid them.
Click to expand...
So most everything you list as a negative with Torps is true. Torps are this game's "high risk/high reward" module. They have to work; if they don't, you're F'd in the A. But when they do work, the salt can fill an ocean:
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFZnjSTmMj8
 

DemiserofD

D
Imo they should remove reverb cascade from them and just make them ignore shields. Then you can just target whatever module you like.
 

Crimson Kaim

Crimson Kaim
Webgear said:
So most everything you list as a negative with Torps is true. Torps are this game's "high risk/high reward" module. They have to work; if they don't, you're F'd in the A. But when they do work, the salt can fill an ocean:
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFZnjSTmMj8
Click to expand...
I mostly stick to mines, also because it allows me to bomb a whole wing instead of just a single target.
However, I wouldn't call torps a "high risk" weapon as they are fire and forget form a distance mostly. Since torps are getting fired at the start of the engagement, the firing ship will most likely be at full health when they may or may not hit so proper following actions can easily be done without any risk of ship damage or loss.

Watching your video I realized I forgot one more negative for torps: longer lock on time than regular seekers.
Still would like to see a rework of torps, especially dumbfire variants would be much appreciated.
 

here_it_comes

here_it_comes
CMDR D Noize said:
I've been having a similar revelation with Plasma Accelerators recently. . . . It's not quite the same as your Torps, but I totally relate to rediscovering previously dismissed weapons.
Click to expand...

Yeah, the difference being PAs are usable for nearly any combat loadout, are always effective, and don't send you home after a fight or two.
 

Mrat13

M
It probably works better with an FC to restock from. Anyone want to explain why we still don't have a baby FC, or, as I like to call it, Escort Carrier?
 
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