Is anyone still disappointed as to how useless missiles are?

[GunnerBill]

I am and it baffles me (well not really) as to how FD haven't made them so much better.

By better I don't necessarily mean OP ship killers but from my experience they're completely useless. Useless against shields and useless against hull and mediocre against hardpoints.

Surely a decent missile strike should be able to one shot a stock Eagle with no shields and take some chunks out of bigger ships but to my mind they just seem to bounce off.

 

[galahad2069]

Considering that (seeker) missiles are literally zero skill weapons, it's a good thing that they are useless against anything shielded (still it's not fun to fly against drag munitions).
BTW missiles are far from mediocre against hardpoints, seekers (especially packhounds) are actually way too OP against shieldless ships.

Anti-missile defences like PD turrets and ECM modules are pretty useless anyway, the only reliable counter is TLB, but then again, TLB can only be applied to PAs and unlike seekers, it actually takes skill to keep landing PA volleys (not to mention that TLB was nerfed a couple of years ago).

Or you can go silent and cook yourself (and get deleted regardless, if the opponent has a single emissive laser).

 

[Drelthar]

I use packhounds to disable ships thrusters or strip various surface modules.

Missiles are highly effective against modules, so much so that hull tanks became massively less popular and PVP Bois started crying OP after the changes to missiles.

You are right about not being good against shields, or hull, but that's the idea.

 

[SCiARA]

depends how you use them, I got the two fixed-mount Class 2 Seeker Missile Racks with double-engineered high capacity, increased fire rate and drag munitions from the yuri grom CG and stuck them on my type 9, really work a treat when I'm interdicted, anything bigger than a krait and i get enough time for security to show up and join the party and I get bounty's when doing trade runs

 

[Old Duck]

I'm much more disappointed in torpedoes, which are pretty much useless compared to missiles (unless you engineer them in a very specific way for a very specific task).

 

[St0rmFury]

Seekers are in an ok place right now.

Dumbfires could use a little more love.

 

[Bigmaec]

Considering that (seeker) missiles are literally zero skill weapons, it's a good thing that they are useless against anything shielded (still it's not fun to fly against drag munitions).
BTW missiles are far from mediocre against hardpoints, seekers (especially packhounds) are actually way too OP against shieldless ships.

Anti-missile defences like PD turrets and ECM modules are pretty useless anyway, the only reliable counter is TLB, but then again, TLB can only be applied to PAs and unlike seekers, it actually takes skill to keep landing PA volleys (not to mention that TLB was nerfed a couple of years ago).

Or you can go silent and cook yourself (and get deleted regardless, if the opponent has a single emissive laser).

This.

Missiles are quite ok, it's shields that is a problem in FD.

Now if we talk about Torpedoes, that's a different matter.
Torpedoes without reverb are totally useless. They should get a buff like automatic shield skipping (Wing Commander I'm looking at you)

 

[Spacerschoice-00]

I Don't know, my recommendation, don't fit 100% Missiles.

 

[Old Duck]

Seekers are in an ok place right now.

My pirate Dolphin is outfitted with just seekers, and they pack a surprising punch, especially when used to take out a target's thrusters. I've chased off much bigger and better armed ships (PvP) using just seekers along with superior maneuverability and stealth tactics. If anything, one might argue missiles are a bit OP considering how they allow small ships to punch above their weight.

The biggest negative to missiles is their limited ammo, but that's realistic and I actually prefer having this "handicap" for realism and balance.

 

[Deleted member 110222]

They are not for destroying ships outright.

If you are trying to do that with them, you're doing it wrong. They're module killers.

 

[Codger]

I've never been disappointed with them, thus it's impossible for me to be still disappointed. So, no.

 

[Xae]

Because Frontier doesn't want the game to be just lock and fire they have balanced missiles to be not very good. Not terrible, but not great either.

Because any type of weapon can be fit into any hard point the game will always favor a single weapon and stacking as many of that type. And since missiles aren't that type they are simply not that useful.


There is a principle of game design that, if a player is trying to play optimally, having all options is often the same as having no options. Because inevitably one option will be better than the rest. And if you allow optimizing players all options they will all choose the best option.

If hard points were split into say gun mounts and pylon mounts this would remove choice from the total available configurations, but end up increasing the choice in the effective configurations.

TL;DR: Its a side effect of the way fitting works.

 

[Tividar]

Considering that (seeker) missiles are literally zero skill weapons, it's a good thing that they are useless against anything shielded (still it's not fun to fly against drag munitions).
BTW missiles are far from mediocre against hardpoints, seekers (especially packhounds) are actually way too OP against shieldless ships.

Anti-missile defences like PD turrets and ECM modules are pretty useless anyway, the only reliable counter is TLB, but then again, TLB can only be applied to PAs and unlike seekers, it actually takes skill to keep landing PA volleys (not to mention that TLB was nerfed a couple of years ago).

Or you can go silent and cook yourself (and get deleted regardless, if the opponent has a single emissive laser).

Why not "balance" them via [ammunition] credit cost?

 

[Danieros]

In my opinion they give this sour feeling because there are no engineering options for their damage. It means that they have completely missed out on the power level that engineering introduced. Extreme blueprints like short-range and overcharged are 75% and 70% damage boosts.

 

[GraphiteGB]

There built as EXPLOSIVE weapon and explosive is for hull and splash damage at default ...extreme close range frags,, Lasers and PA are for shield removal...
Once shields are gone you release the missiles and exposed weapons, hull and drives reach zero and go offline... you then pick off the target PP and FSD if you want with any weapon class...
Then there dead...

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92Cq5MYPzIk&ab_channel=GraphiteGB

Once the shield is gone, running does not help as it just exposes the drives to missile attack.. Target has to enable jump before shields drop...

 

[galahad2069]

Why not "balance" them via [ammunition] credit cost?

"Balance" is something like:

• weapon requires next to no skill to use -> low damage, only useful as utility AND/OR easy to counter (there's at least 1 reliable defence module against it)
• weapon requires skill to use -> very rewarding

Credits are meaningless.

As things stand now, missiles are only useful as utility, but only as long as you have shields. Once the shields are down, sadly there isn't really a reliable way to defend your external modules against missile spamming (which is one of the reasons why hulltanks are extremely rare).

 

[rrobes]

It's a theme for FD, you want to get something done, you have to eat the cake layer by layer, no short cuts.

So as GraphiteGB illustrates, you have to peel several layers BEFORE missiles can have an effect.

I tried missiles a long time back and found them unsatisfying. They're stored somewhere under layers of space dust.

As a hypothesis, if you rig your ship with missiles, you sacrifice hardpoints, reducing firepower, in turn this lengthens time to critically damage you target, when you get to the point where missiles inflict significant damage, have you saved any time in killing the opponent? I imagine, considering FD's interest in "balancing" you don't kill quicker, just differently.

I've suggested before, wouldn't it be refreshing to have a possibility of "lucky hits" where the target has a catastrophic failure and explodes without going through the bullet sponging and chaff streaming. One can dream.

 

[S0rkvild]

In pvp a missile rack is like bringing a kniofe to fist fight. In pve - yeah missiles are useless, most npc medium to large ship cary 2-4 pdt + ecm which is overkill against missiles.

 

[Vingtetun]

on the basis that we can fit point defence and have ECM (though I'd be surprised if ANYONE ran ECM as it's a pain) - i wouldn't say no to an improvement in the missile meta...
especially with payloads that for instance did cunning things like disabled ships a bit like the thargoid tech does....

I'd also LOVE it if mines were more effective. I remember them being better. maybe a little AOE effect on them. a thwomp and a radius effect like the killed thargoid scouts.

defensive munitions that help people escape difficult situations etc....

 

[Agony_Aunt]

Its worth remembering why missiles were nerfed in the first place. A knee jerk reaction by FD to griefers abusing missiles and torps.

I blame both FD and the griefers equally for the current state of missiles. They used to be useful, and i'd perhaps say too useful, but they didn't need nerfing as bad as they were.

On the other hand, they are not useless. They do have a use, a very good use when you're doing piracy (especially seekers) and can also be useful for doing planetary stuff.