Fixing Torpedoes and seeker missiles.

[DemiserofD]

Torpedoes and seeker missiles are largely useless at the moment, because of their low ammo stockpiles. Here is their entire ammo stockpile damage totals:

C1 Gimballed Multicannon	1752
C1 Seeker Missile Rack	480
C1 Torpedo Rack	120

As you can clearly see, they just don't have the sustain to be a practical choice. Even as a utility, this isn't even enough to kill a single enemy, let alone multiple!

Now, I won't say they are completely useless. I use four c2 lightweight torpedo racks on my beluga, for example, which is barely enough to kill a single enemy. But that shouldn't be the limit of their utility, and I think I have a solution.

The problem is that they are quite powerful, and they need to be powerful to be worth using at all. But this, combined with being able to sustain their use, would make them overpowered. The answer, I think, can be solved with Reload Time.

At present, Seeker Missiles have a clip size of 6, 6 more missiles as backup, and a reload time of 5 seconds. Torpedo Racks have a clip size of 1, 0 more missiles as backup, and a 4 second reload time.

I'd like to propose this be changed. C1 Seeker Missiles should have 12 missiles per clip, 24 missiles as backup, and a reload time of 90 seconds. C1 Torpedoes should have 1 torpedo per clip, 9 torpedoes as backup, and a reload time of 120 seconds.
This leaves us with the new totals as follows:

C1 Gimballed Multicannon	1752
C1 Seeker Missile Rack	1440
C1 Torpedo Rack	1200

However, due to the long reload times, they cannot be used in a single fight very effectively. They remain utilities, as they currently sorta are, but without the massive downside of requiring constant resupply.

This will leave them both balanced AND useful!

Thoughts?

 

[zikolach]

How about synthesizing the seekers? What about adding synthesis to torpedoes? Then the only missing thing in my opinion would be the balance of synthesis cost and time based on weapon class.

 

[DemiserofD]

How about synthesizing the seekers? What about adding synthesis to torpedoes? Then the only missing thing in my opinion would be the balance of synthesis cost and time based on weapon class.

Synthesis helps, but it doesn't solve the core issue. Synthesizing seeker missiles, for example, will cost a player 460% the materials over time. They need some degree of total damage parity, then synthesis could become a viable option.

 

[Disemboweled Ego]

For PvE content NPCs with point defence are a real problem too, in CZs or assassination/massacre mission POI's you get multiple ships at least a few of which will have enough PD to shoot down anything that isn't a swarm of packhounds so whether you actually get the damage off becomes essentially random. This applies to flechette launchers too.

 

[DemiserofD]

For PvE content NPCs with point defence are a real problem too, in CZs or assassination/massacre mission POI's you get multiple ships at least a few of which will have enough PD to shoot down anything that isn't a swarm of packhounds so whether you actually get the damage off becomes essentially random. This applies to flechette launchers too.

Torpedoes could actually be a solution to this, if they had more ammo. They're largely immune to point defense, so by firing one first, other missiles could be launched with some degree of protection. They'd just need some extra ammo to have enough to fire regularly.

 

[Trollymctrollerson]

I'm on your side for the most part. I think torpedoes need their velocity increased too.

 

[Kissamies]

Seekers (though I prefer to use Pack-Hounds) are great for one specialised thing: Taking out specific surface modules. Usually I take out the Chaff if I, or my wingmates, are using gimbals. I did have a defensive strategy for cargo ships of taking out the pirate's drives too, but I haven't have to do that lately. Having more ammo wouldn't ruin this, tho.

Torpedoes are trickier tho. They have the single use as an identity.

 

[DemiserofD]

I'm on your side for the most part. I think torpedoes need their velocity increased too.

Thanks! Interesting idea; maybe not an outright velocity increase, but instead having them start out inheriting your velocity? So you can aim towards a distant target and boost, then fire them off, and as long as they keep going that direction, they go that speed, only slowing down if they miss. That gives a greater opportunity for skillful play. Maybe?

Seekers (though I prefer to use Pack-Hounds) are great for one specialised thing: Taking out specific surface modules. Usually I take out the Chaff if I, or my wingmates, are using gimbals. I did have a defensive strategy for cargo ships of taking out the pirate's drives too, but I haven't have to do that lately. Having more ammo wouldn't ruin this, tho.

Torpedoes are trickier tho. They have the single use as an identity.

For sure, that's one of their best utilities. I also use them for Drag Munitions sometimes. The problem is they just don't last long enough in a fight to be terribly useful long-term. If they weren't coming at the cost of another weapon, that'd be one thing, but if you need to sacrifice another weapon for them, it gets really hard to justify!

Torpedoes would especially benefit from this change, I think. Right now they're forced to do only one thing because of the ammo limits, but they could do a LOT more if you could afford to fire more! Their internal module damage, for example, could be really cool and useful - if you could do it to more than just one ship before needing to rearm!

 

[Trollymctrollerson]

I'm a little hesitant to buff the seekers too much. Unlike a multi cannon which is designed to be a sustained damage hull stripper, seekers are a burst damage module breaker. They are also a fire and forget weapon that doesn't really require much skill in the aiming or flying department. I think buffing total damage to something approximating multi cannons would be a little over the top but I do support a modest increase to either ammo, projectile speed or resistance to point defence.

 

[Kissamies]

For sure, that's one of their best utilities. I also use them for Drag Munitions sometimes. The problem is they just don't last long enough in a fight to be terribly useful long-term. If they weren't coming at the cost of another weapon, that'd be one thing, but if you need to sacrifice another weapon for them, it gets really hard to justify!

Torpedoes would especially benefit from this change, I think. Right now they're forced to do only one thing because of the ammo limits, but they could do a LOT more if you could afford to fire more! Their internal module damage, for example, could be really cool and useful - if you could do it to more than just one ship before needing to rearm!

The way I use the missiles, as exactly the sort of utility discussed above, depletes them at the rate that makes them run out about the same time as my multi-cannons, but I always use the high capacity engineering on them. I suppose there is some idea to increasing the default ammo.

I think the torpedoes should ideally be silver bullets that really hurt if they catch you no matter what you are flying. Perhaps they should go straight through the shields and have innate high yeld shell effect if they already don't. For velocity, I would make them start slow, but accelerate at range with worsening turning radius. Maybe one could double or triple the number of tubes the launchers have, but no more.

 

[DemiserofD]

I'm a little hesitant to buff the seekers too much. Unlike a multi cannon which is designed to be a sustained damage hull stripper, seekers are a burst damage module breaker. They are also a fire and forget weapon that doesn't really require much skill in the aiming or flying department. I think buffing total damage to something approximating multi cannons would be a little over the top but I do support a modest increase to either ammo, projectile speed or resistance to point defence.

That's basically their only good use at the moment, true; but that's because of their limited ammo. They have other effects like drag munitions or thermal cascade which are heavily reliant on constant fire, which could potentially also be useful, but due to lacking ammo, that can't currently be the case.

Hopefully, by giving them greater reserves, but locked behind a longer reload time, it could allow wider varieties of use for these missiles, without making them overpowered at their current main use!

I think the torpedoes should ideally be silver bullets that really hurt if they catch you no matter what you are flying. Perhaps they should go straight through the shields and have innate high yeld shell effect if they already don't. For velocity, I would make them start slow, but accelerate at range with worsening turning radius. Maybe one could double or triple the number of tubes the launchers have, but no more.

I agree that Torpedoes should be heavy-hitters. The problem is, even with double or triple the ammo, you're still looking at running out of ammo after 2-3 enemies, which simply isn't enough for practical use.

What I'd love is a weapon that requires very careful setup, and can generally only be used once or twice per enemy, but which can still sustain you throughout a conflict zone. That's why I'm advocating for the very long reload time. By the time you've got it reloaded(following your first shot), your current enemy should be mostly dead.

Torpedoes should be a weapon that makes players need to very carefully time when and where they should be used, but not so much that they forget they even have them!

 

[zikolach]

Thanks! Interesting idea; maybe not an outright velocity increase, but instead having them start out inheriting your velocity? So you can aim towards a distant target and boost, then fire them off, and as long as they keep going that direction, they go that speed, only slowing down if they miss. That gives a greater opportunity for skillful play. Maybe?

What if their velocity would not be limited by 250m/s and instead they have variable speed based on trajectory changes? So if it is has to fly straight forward it could eventually reach target flying away at 500m/s and more. And the more its speed the bigger the radius of its turn (easier to evade) and higher the damage.

 

[Danieros]

So many weapon types struggle to last for even a single CZ.

I feel that ammo ammount in general needs to be looked at, with missiles and torpedoes deserving the most changes. Maybe allowing for extra ammo to be carried in cargo racks.

 

[CMDR Hagglebeard]

Torpedoes and seeker missiles are largely useless at the moment, because of their low ammo stockpiles. Here is their entire ammo stockpile damage totals:

C1 Gimballed Multicannon	1752
C1 Seeker Missile Rack	480
C1 Torpedo Rack	120

As you can clearly see, they just don't have the sustain to be a practical choice. Even as a utility, this isn't even enough to kill a single enemy, let alone multiple!

Now, I won't say they are completely useless. I use four c2 lightweight torpedo racks on my beluga, for example, which is barely enough to kill a single enemy. But that shouldn't be the limit of their utility, and I think I have a solution.

The problem is that they are quite powerful, and they need to be powerful to be worth using at all. But this, combined with being able to sustain their use, would make them overpowered. The answer, I think, can be solved with Reload Time.

At present, Seeker Missiles have a clip size of 6, 6 more missiles as backup, and a reload time of 5 seconds. Torpedo Racks have a clip size of 1, 0 more missiles as backup, and a 4 second reload time.

I'd like to propose this be changed. C1 Seeker Missiles should have 12 missiles per clip, 24 missiles as backup, and a reload time of 90 seconds. C1 Torpedoes should have 1 torpedo per clip, 9 torpedoes as backup, and a reload time of 120 seconds.
This leaves us with the new totals as follows:

C1 Gimballed Multicannon	1752
C1 Seeker Missile Rack	1440
C1 Torpedo Rack	1200

However, due to the long reload times, they cannot be used in a single fight very effectively. They remain utilities, as they currently sorta are, but without the massive downside of requiring constant resupply.

This will leave them both balanced AND useful!

Thoughts?

I disagree with the seeker change. When the game first came out, without engineering, they were solid weapons against hull, because no power creep (in the form of ridiculous shield/hull stacking) existed. The game's moved in a direction where you have really inflated ship stats, and now everything else has to be changed to fit. I think the solution is to finally balance engineering. No god ships. Engineering should be used to specialize a ship, not to make a ship outright better than a standard equivalent.

Also, note that seekers don't do great damage, but their primary utility (at least, the way I use them) is for external module damage - killing thrusters and disabling weapons, which they're very good at.

tl:dr don't buff ammo amount, nerf engineering so ships cant be as strong as they are.

 

[Tividar]

I think your reload times are too long. 30 seconds on the torp would still dramatically limit their usefulness on single targets but allow them to be used effectively in a CZ. Also, using a Gimbled MC is a reasonable baseline but it’s much easier to keep up time on target with Gimbles than it is to get a lock and breach the ECM/PD screen. Total potential damage could certainly be increased without making seekers and torps the new meta. Finally torp and missile speeds really ought to be rebalanced given the monolithic over-presence of dirty/drag thruster engineering. Something as simple as synthing a speed boost from tritium would work.

 

[DemiserofD]

I disagree with the seeker change. When the game first came out, without engineering, they were solid weapons against hull, because no power creep (in the form of ridiculous shield/hull stacking) existed. The game's moved in a direction where you have really inflated ship stats, and now everything else has to be changed to fit. I think the solution is to finally balance engineering. No god ships. Engineering should be used to specialize a ship, not to make a ship outright better than a standard equivalent.

Also, note that seekers don't do great damage, but their primary utility (at least, the way I use them) is for external module damage - killing thrusters and disabling weapons, which they're very good at.

tl:dr don't buff ammo amount, nerf engineering so ships cant be as strong as they are.

Unfortunately, I don't think a wholesale revamp of durability is happening in this version of elite. Maybe in Elite 2: Electric Boogaloo, but that's at least 5 years off, and I'd really like to see some balance improvements before then!

 

[DemiserofD]

I think your reload times are too long. 30 seconds on the torp would still dramatically limit their usefulness on single targets but allow them to be used effectively in a CZ. Also, using a Gimbled MC is a reasonable baseline but it’s much easier to keep up time on target with Gimbles than it is to get a lock and breach the ECM/PD screen. Total potential damage could certainly be increased without making seekers and torps the new meta. Finally torp and missile speeds really ought to be rebalanced given the monolithic over-presence of dirty/drag thruster engineering. Something as simple as synthing a speed boost for tritium would work.

What I was aiming for was timing that would make them definitely difficult to use more than once on a single target. The last thing we want is constant torpedo spam.
But I agree, there's definitely some room to adjust upwards, it would need to be tested a bit in combat to figure out exactly where the balance point is. It's a shame we don't have a PRT where we can test out different things and see what works and what doesn't.

 

[Kissamies]

I disagree with the seeker change. When the game first came out, without engineering, they were solid weapons against hull, because no power creep (in the form of ridiculous shield/hull stacking) existed. The game's moved in a direction where you have really inflated ship stats, and now everything else has to be changed to fit. I think the solution is to finally balance engineering. No god ships. Engineering should be used to specialize a ship, not to make a ship outright better than a standard equivalent.

Also, note that seekers don't do great damage, but their primary utility (at least, the way I use them) is for external module damage - killing thrusters and disabling weapons, which they're very good at.

tl:dr don't buff ammo amount, nerf engineering so ships cant be as strong as they are.

You are, of course, correct but it's close to impossible to put that genie back to the bottle. Perhaps it could be done better in a possible sequel.

 

[V'larr]

At the same time as doing this, I'd really like to see the clearly PvP-gank-enabling Torpedo Engineering effects removed or at least replaced.

 

[V'larr]

I disagree with the seeker change. When the game first came out, without engineering, they were solid weapons against hull, because no power creep (in the form of ridiculous shield/hull stacking) existed. The game's moved in a direction where you have really inflated ship stats, and now everything else has to be changed to fit. I think the solution is to finally balance engineering. No god ships. Engineering should be used to specialize a ship, not to make a ship outright better than a standard equivalent.

Also, note that seekers don't do great damage, but their primary utility (at least, the way I use them) is for external module damage - killing thrusters and disabling weapons, which they're very good at.

tl:dr don't buff ammo amount, nerf engineering so ships cant be as strong as they are.

I just tried using a Seeker again recently, because I remember fondly how fun they were pre-hitpoint inflation.

I was barely dealing 2% damage to a Viper IV's hull per-hit. About the only opponents it was viable for, were Eagles and Viper IIIs that melt in a matter of moments to focused laser fire anyway.

It really makes me sad every time I think about it.