Make torpedoes useful in PvE conflict zone scenarios

[Screemonster]

Torpedoes, as it stands, have little to no use in PvE combat, as with the exception of some niche assassination builds with reverb cascades it's not worth giving up a regular hardpoint for a one-shot non-synthable weapon.

What I suggest is giving capital ships some subtargets that can specifically only be damaged by torpedoes with the effect of reducing the general effectiveness of the ship in combat, and opening up alternative rout conditions and possible bonus victory conditions for greater rewards than you'd normally get just by driving the ship off, with the ultimat intention that someone who is going out specifically to cripple a capship can gear up accordingly and actually get something worthwhile out of their reduced general combat effectiveness. Ideally this would be something for wings, but a solo player might find a use for it too. (lob a couple of torps at key structures then take the heat relays out with less threat from the rest of the ship)

If these subtargets are damaged but not destroyed, the relevant feature of the ship will suffer reduced effectiveness and periodic malfunctions.
If they are taken down to 0% integrity, they are crippled and forced to shut down while the crew attempt to repair them. This is similar to a player using an AFMU - integrity is restored over time but the module doesn't restart (and clear the "crippled" status) until the repairs are finished. Possibly only repair up to a certain threshold then reboot in a damaged state just to get them online. Of course, if you have more torps you can just smack them again to make sure they don't actually complete those repairs.

The sorts of subtargets we could see are things like:

Fire Control - when damaged, increases jitter on all weapons, malfunctions having a similar effect to the dispersal field weapon effect. When crippled, the crew are effectively firing blind with a permanent dispersal field effect until repaired.

Power grid - Effectively reduces the WEP capacitor of all weapons, reducing their firing rate. Malfunctions periodically stop all weapons firing. When crippled, it can only support half the weapons (chosen randomly) until repaired.

Bridge - damage hampers coordination of repair efforts on other systems. No effect for malfunctions. If the bridge is crippled, internal module repairs are greatly slowed and further module destruction (even external modules like turrets, and especially the heat relays) may prompt a rout even if there are heat relays remaining. (alternate victory condition: destroy the bridge then just pound the ship until the demoralised and leaderless crew just fire the engines and bug out)

Engines - No effect for damage in combat, BUT if all engines are crippled when the ship is forced into a rout (such as by the destruction of the heat relays) then it can't leave. If your side then wins the CZ by destroying all hostile ships before they manage to get the engines online and bug out, your side is awarded a major victory/rep bonus with the ol' "heave to and prepare to be boarded". Don't dally though because they will be pulling out all the stops to get back into witchspace before the last of their escorts pops.

tl;dr I really liked the torpedo bomber missions in the wing commander series where taking out a capital ship rested on you and the big bombs. Let's have more things like those.

 

[CMDR Cosmic Spacehead]

Good suggestion

If they implemented some kind of PvE conflict zone "rearming" ship, then you could run back and forth torpedo bombing stuff, without messing up PvP torpedo balance too much.

 

[space voyager]

Torpedoes, as it stands, have little to no use in PvE combat, as with the exception of some niche assassination builds with reverb cascades it's not worth giving up a regular hardpoint for a one-shot non-synthable weapon.

What I suggest is giving capital ships some subtargets that can specifically only be damaged by torpedoes with the effect of reducing the general effectiveness of the ship in combat, and opening up alternative rout conditions and possible bonus victory conditions for greater rewards than you'd normally get just by driving the ship off, with the ultimat intention that someone who is going out specifically to cripple a capship can gear up accordingly and actually get something worthwhile out of their reduced general combat effectiveness. Ideally this would be something for wings, but a solo player might find a use for it too. (lob a couple of torps at key structures then take the heat relays out with less threat from the rest of the ship)

If these subtargets are damaged but not destroyed, the relevant feature of the ship will suffer reduced effectiveness and periodic malfunctions.
If they are taken down to 0% integrity, they are crippled and forced to shut down while the crew attempt to repair them. This is similar to a player using an AFMU - integrity is restored over time but the module doesn't restart (and clear the "crippled" status) until the repairs are finished. Possibly only repair up to a certain threshold then reboot in a damaged state just to get them online. Of course, if you have more torps you can just smack them again to make sure they don't actually complete those repairs.

The sorts of subtargets we could see are things like:

Fire Control - when damaged, increases jitter on all weapons, malfunctions having a similar effect to the dispersal field weapon effect. When crippled, the crew are effectively firing blind with a permanent dispersal field effect until repaired.

Power grid - Effectively reduces the WEP capacitor of all weapons, reducing their firing rate. Malfunctions periodically stop all weapons firing. When crippled, it can only support half the weapons (chosen randomly) until repaired.

Bridge - damage hampers coordination of repair efforts on other systems. No effect for malfunctions. If the bridge is crippled, internal module repairs are greatly slowed and further module destruction (even external modules like turrets, and especially the heat relays) may prompt a rout even if there are heat relays remaining. (alternate victory condition: destroy the bridge then just pound the ship until the demoralised and leaderless crew just fire the engines and bug out)

Engines - No effect for damage in combat, BUT if all engines are crippled when the ship is forced into a rout (such as by the destruction of the heat relays) then it can't leave. If your side then wins the CZ by destroying all hostile ships before they manage to get the engines online and bug out, your side is awarded a major victory/rep bonus with the ol' "heave to and prepare to be boarded". Don't dally though because they will be pulling out all the stops to get back into witchspace before the last of their escorts pops.

tl;dr I really liked the torpedo bomber missions in the wing commander series where taking out a capital ship rested on you and the big bombs. Let's have more things like those.

X-Wing series had cool missions like that, too. I hope this knowledge doesn't show my age too much. Both were completely scripted, naturally, but if there was a mission to destroy a capital ship torps would be useful in Elite PvE.

 

[Jimmy Joe]

I loved plying X-Wing, but TIE fighter was my favorite.

 

[Jaylem]

I love capitol ships, they are beautifully designed, but lack purpose or use. it would be nice to have events circle them like this to expand on their complexity.

It would also be nice if they STOPPED STEALING KILLS as 3.3 is out... you can't really farm off a random asset, if you do it is for a short while before the battle is over. be nice to have capitol ships as something to look forward to in battle, not dread.

 

[Killnine]

Definitely +1 to this idea.

 

[fus roh potato]

I'm pretty sure the whole reason why missiles and torpedoes suck (or are so disliked) in this game is because nobody in Frontier has any knowledge of guidance law. That and the game also has no trace whatsoever of Newton's second law. Gameplay around missiles in general becomes so overtly simplified that they had to be nerfed into oblivion despite still being considered cancer in PvP. Creating torpedo targets on capital ships sounds ok, but hardly addresses any of the major problems with missiles nor does it make them better.

The game has the most simplest of guidance laws possible (if it can even be called that), in where the tracking object points directly at the target and always has a consistent velocity. It does not drift, it does not accelerate, and therefore requires nothing more complex than the most basic of tail chase logic.

If Frontier had instead:

1. Implemented a basic lead-target guidance law. This is actually not as simple as it sounds mathematically, but is much more simple in terms of calculation. It would require an extra 6-12 additional operators but does not require anywhere near as many cycles per second as the current method. IE it's less calculation intensive. Similar programs were used in the Apollo missions before computers even really existed yet produced very accurate guidance despite spitting out results once every few seconds.
2. Established linear momentum properties of the missile, of which can either be simulated real time or simply be integrated through the guidance law.
3. Imposed thrust constraints.

Then what would have resulted is a system in where missiles could be much faster, be used at much higher range, and can provide good excuse to apply a lot lot lot more damage BECAUSE the imposed thrust constraints to a lead-target guidance mean that sharp maneuvers would allow ships to dodge missiles. So long as rotational inertial effects are ignored and the missile can rotate instantly, the chance of success for a missile will be explicitly dependent on the missiles thrust to mass ratio, and the target's velocity vector.

It's hard to prove this verbally, but the consequence would be that a missile would have limited curvature to its flight path. If a ship changes its vector suddenly in such a way that pushes its flight path beyond the missile's curvature envelope, the missile will miss and be forced to make a second pass.

The performance of a missile under such law would be bench-marked based on their thrust and mass ratio. Changes like this would be highly welcomed in PvP because avoidance skill developed around a realistic guidance law with constraints can be easily learned. The outcome would actually bring a lot of gameplay complexity, where facing missiles nearly head-on would result in higher chance to avoid where previously it would be a guaranteed hit. A tail chasing scenario would be far more dangerous, because the missile would have a big advantage against ships stalling and playing reverski.

It has often been argued that seekers are cancer, primarily because they completely shut down hull tanks by destroying their weapons. I agree with this, because it currently is only partially avoidable with ECMs, and completely unavoidable without sacrificing all offensive pressure to utilize 600+ m/s ships to run away. It's a major factor towards defining the FDL (and now + Mamba) meta.

Since PvE ships follow scripted flight paths, it's far more likely that said changes would allow for missiles and torpedoes to be much more effective in PvE than PvP, so long as their top speeds and damages are increased. Otherwise, simply increasing their ammo and damage potential under the current 'guidance law' wound just make missiles more cancerous in PvP, a game mode which is already extremely fragile to cheesy mechanics and poor gameplay ideologies.