The main reason they aren't more prevalent is because of the dominance of shields...
Day of The Shield Nerf, please come!
The main reason they aren't more prevalent is because of the dominance of shields...
Turning them into long range weapons to differentiate them from seeker missiles.
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.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.
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?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 :
IMO it would make them much more interesting and "different". As a plus, a defending ship with screening shell frags with good sensors may have the time to turn and clean an incoming missile barrage fired from max range.
- 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)
Even heatsinks are relatively uncommon on most PvP loadouts, or have already been expended in conjunction with SCBs. Most CMDRs trying to leverage missiles also tend to have an emissive weapons. Evasion options are limited: they can run out seekers, in which case they aren't going to be dealing any damage, but will still be exposed to fire from their opponent's other weapons; or they can simply try to position their ship so the missile strikes away from something important, but the most common PvP vessels are mediums and there is almost nowhere a seeker can hit where it won't be damaging something critical to continuing the fight.
The main reason they aren't more prevalent is because of the dominance of shields and one of the reasons for the dominance of shields is because of how vulnerable PvP ships are to missiles. It's an unfortunate convergence of mechanisms that radically reduces the number of broadly viable options. There is a reason why the 5-6 booster, PA laden, FDL is the PvP metaship.
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?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.
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.
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?
A recent video from The Pilot might explain the general missile hate in the PvP community.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.
Overload munitions? It converts at least half the explosive damage to thermal.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.
AFAIK, only torpedoes will relock onto their target. I've never seen a seeker hit, or been hit by one, after using an ECM.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?
I did not know about āoverload munitionsā ... thatās interesting ..... may have to give those a go!
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.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.
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.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?
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.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.