TORPEDOES DESIGN FROM BASE GAME OF 2015 IN COMPARISON TO TORPEDOES FROM GAME OF 2022
Issue Tracker to vote
Let's start with torpedoes as addition to a game, why they were added to the game with missiles, and why we have them in game at all.
Elite is almost 8 years old by now. Not all player's aware, but back in the 2015 there were no engineers. There were no upgrades. Even back then torpedoes were not popular, and most people were questioning "what are these for?". We had mines, which no one used, we had missiles, which were used by many pilots and are in use even today. And finally we had torpedoes, which no one knew what they were designed for, let alone to be used against anything because of ammo count.
Now let's talk about what FD initially wanted to achieve by adding torpedoes to the game, and if they managed to do it at all?
The main design point of torpedoes as a whole - high risk/high reward. You basically trading entire hardpoint slot for a very huge damage in a short period of time. The weapon was designed for specific missions of killing exceptionally strong enemy after it's shields are gone, back then it was Elite Anaconda. And it was designed with this exact ship in mind and nothing else. The Anaconda was some sort of "end game" content back then and main pirate issue back when you had not enough speed to outrun it after interdiction.
The second case for use of torpedoes are traders. It was designed to initiate huge alfa strike against some Anaconda pirate who bothers you. Traders usually don't have much shields or hull, so they are forced to rely on something that can deal lot's of damage as fast as possible. Torpedoes are a good choice in this case. Ships like trader T9 or trader Anaconda.
Trader T9 had up to 8 torpedoes and still have the same amount in 2022.
Trader Anaconda had up to 14 torpedoes in 2015 and able to have up to 22 torpedoes in 2022 thanks to class 3 torpedoes.
And finally the third most times unaccounted case - is power draw. Back in 2015 there were no engineers and we were forced to really make compromises with builds when it comes to weapons and power usage.
So, let's take a look at it's stats which are universal no matter the class, except for ammo.
Damage: 120
Armour piercing: 10,000
Shot speed: 250
Ammo clip size: 1/0 for class 1; 2/0 in class 2; 4/0 in class 3
Reload speed: 5 seconds
Let's start with damage. Why is it so low? The missiles are doing 60 damage, and torpedoes are doing only twice of this damage. Well, it's simple. It is able to target internal modules. Which is why making it anything more, than 120 was rather overkill. At least it was, back then.. And back then, there were no module reinforcement packages, there were no upgrades, so this damage was designed without considering engineers and module reinforcement packages that were added to game later and were never in planned. Very important mention to understand just how utterly outdated damage of this weapon is.
What about armor piercing? Does this silly number mean anything? No, it's just a placeholder. The weapon simply ignores armor parameter and FD had no other way to say that, but to up number to silly levels. We ignore that.
What about shot speed? Why is it so slow? What forced the initial design decisions to make it so slow in the end result? And here we have Anaconda issue again. The base maximum speed of anaconda is 260 m/s fully armed and loaded. As you can tell, torpedo's flying 250m/s is in quite good position of balance, right? That's because it was initial design in 2015.
So what happened since then? Well, engineers came to the game. And now we don't even consider base stats of ships, we consider upgraded stats only. So, let's take the same Anaconda and see what kind of speed it have today with engineers in comparison to back then without. We are looking at 360 m/s speed. That's a whooping +110 m/s difference since 2015. And torpedoes are still 250m/s while all ships like Anaconda, Corvette, T10 and even T9 are faster. You see where this is going, right?
Engineers and few more additions to the game, changed the rules of game, but no one corrected them ever after. Torpedoes were initially designed with base game in mind. The damage comes from the fact, that it can target modules, the speed comes from the fact that ships back in 2015 were not as fast as they are today. And ammo count comes from the fact it was designed around very different hull and module HP parameters. That's a main reason why we have this problem today.
So, we finally can answer the main question. Did FD managed to achieve everything that torpedoes were designed for? Yes, back in 2015 it was potent, but had a very niche use. The main issue was always a base ammo count. It is also important to understand that class 3 torpedoes were added to the game only 5 years later. So it's a clear evidence that FD was aware of the ammo issue after all. And they tried to fix it by introducing class 3 torpedoes.
ENGINEERS AND HOW THEY CHANGED THE TIDES
As we already know, Engineers changed game rules entirely. You can't name a single place in game world and it's gameplay where engineers didn't changed something. They changed combat as we know it, they changed exploration as we know it, they changed mining, pirating, they changed pvp, pve and so many more. But we need to talk about how they upgraded torpedoes, and if it changed anything at all.
We start with what engineers brought to the table:
STURDY
was designed around.. honestly no idea what what would've been the initial design decision, but clearly the armor piercing increase was not the main goal, but a simple placeholder because FD decided to put the same upgrade to modules in different categories. Obviously the main reason why you would want to have this upgrade at all - is decreased thermal load.
LIGHTWEIGHT
Was designed around.. yes, once again it's a placeholder for you to get experimental effects. Torpedoes doesn't have capacitor draw at all.. the main reason why you would want to get this upgrade is either you don't have materials for sturdy, or want less mass, that's about it.
As we can see these upgrades were merely a placeholders in order for us to get ability to install the experimental effects, and this is from where things getting interesting. At least on a paper they should.
Experimental effects:
MASS LOCK MUNITION
Experimental warheads incorporating frame shift technology. Successful detonation significantly inhibits charging for super cruise.
It's a very interesting from a role play point of view experimental effect, which have no use in actual real gameplay because torpedoes are outdated for this. If you don't believe me, check your telemetry stats of percentage of players that using this effect right now. It will be less, than 0.1% of entire player base. Check it now, if you don't believe me. Because it's a very interesting type of effect, it deserves a complete rework.
PENETRATOR PAYLOAD
Deep cut munitions are guaranteed to penetrate upon impact with hull and are capable of damaging multiple internal modules.
It's a very interesting experimental effect which make torpedoes extremely potent in dealing with modules. I believe you can find at least 2% of entire player base who will use it. It's extremely niche, but a good option for missions to kill single target. It is often combined with the reverberating cascade torpedoes to deal with shields and then with power plant. But it's not good enough to be viable in most scenarios and it should be changed because of it.
REVERBERATING CASCADE
Experimental munitions that overload shields on impact, directly damaging the shield generator.
Today this is the main experimental effect and this is what torpedoes are known for. If someone have torpedoes, than you can be sure by 99% that these are reverberating cascade torpedoes. Addition of this experimental effect on torpedoes in the game inflicted fear into every soul that was relying on ship's shields. It's an extremely potent experimental effect and it should stay that way.
CHANGES THAT WERE DONE TO TORPEDOES BY FD SINCE 2015
First change was done in May 2016 with arrival of engineers and it was done in beta 3. I gathered enough of proof concepts of "no brain" point blank torpedoing of large ships in pvp and pve, and posted this on forum back then in beta of Horizons 2.1. Most players in community came to a conclusion that reverberating cascade is too dangerous to leave it as it is, but it needs to stay in game, because it's good for a gameplay. So FD noticed it and acted accordingly. Ever since then, torpedoes are now have arming time of 3 seconds. This change fixed the issue of "no brain" point blank torpedoing. And now all base torpedoes have arming time because of it. It was important and very welcome change, it also pushed torpedoes out of "no brain" use weapon class into more advanced high risk/high reward class.
Second change was done somewhere between 2018-2020 it was addition of new class 3 torpedoes. This was a huge change. 4 torpedoes in 1 class 3 module can't be underestimated. That's twice more than class 2. That was a very welcomed but a very late change.
Was it enough? No. The penetrator payload is still not good enough, and mass lock munition is still absolute trash. It only affected reverberating cascade. Still, it is much better than nothing, so i guess i should say thank you.
THE CONCLUSION
We have absolutely useless base weapon (without upgrades), and somewhat useful weapon with experimental effect known as reverberating cascade.
FD didn't managed to fix main issue of base weapon, but at least to some degree tried to fix ammo issue by adding class 3 torpedoes.
Engineers of 2.1 made torpedoes as a weapon class completely obsolete because they were initially designed with base game in mind, not with Engineers of 2.1. That's important to consider.
FD never updated torpedoes damage even after adding to the game more module protection by introducing the Module reinforcement packages to the game. So Engineers + addition of module reinforcement packages completely destroyed the whole idea and concept by which torpedoes were designed in the first place, making it obsolete today.
HP of ships increased exponentially since 2015 and we are now facing extreme levels of survivability that torpedoes are now simply a dead weight on a ship.
And to add more, speed of all ships also drastically increased since 2015. The base design choice of 250m/s shot speed which could be explained back in 2015, is very questionable and extremely odd now in 2022.
The overall conclusion is - torpedoes are absolutely outdated and obsolete since late 2016-2017 to 2022.
PROPOSALS TO CHANGES AND WHAT CAN BE DONE TO FIX ALL TORPEDOES ISSUES
First of all we need to understand that fixing issues doesn't mean creating new, which is why we should start with BASE weapon stats and use them as a starting point. It's extremely important to change base of weapon, because this is from where all upgrades will come from. And it will make sense why it should be done that way.
Proposal to change base weapon without upgrades:
Damage from 120 to 160 - reasoning: to address addition of module reinforcement packages and increase of HP of every ship in game drastically since 2015. Also because we simply unable to increase ammo capacity, which can only be fixed by increasing damage of base weapon.
Shot speed from 250 m/s to a 350 m/s - reasoning: to address drastic increase of ships speed since 2015. Back in 2015 the speed of anaconda was 260 m/s and torpedoes speed was 250 m/s, while today the Anaconda speed is 360 m/s, while torpedoes still 250 m/s. Which is why shot speed should be increase to a 350 m/s. But it's important to consider that it's only for a base weapon without upgrades. You'll see what that mean bellow.
Ammo clip size - as much as it needed to be bigger.. FD really can't make it bigger i am afraid. That's a simple fact due to models of a weapon in first place. If you look closely, you'll see that it was designed in such a way from a start. Even class 3 torpedoes was designed that way. There is no way you can put 5 torpedoes into a 4 tube launch system that you see on a screenshot. There is also no indication on the model itself, that these can be loaded in combat from some ammo storage. So as far as i am aware, this can't be fixed unless FD will change model from scratch. And that mean not just changing the model itself, but also UI pictures, descriptions.. you get the idea, FD will never do it, so forget, we have to work with what we have in hands. And so are FD, if they will work at all.
CHANGES TO MASS LOCK MUNITION
The changes here will be huge. Game changer huge. We will start with a new name and description
MASS LOCK CASCADE MUNITION (FD, If you know anything better, you can name it whatever you like)
Experimental warheads incorporating frame shift feedback technology. Successful detonation significantly inhibits charging for super cruise and dealing extra damage to frame shift drive by cascade effect of immense mass stress on it trough opponent shields. Unfortunately the cascade effect in itself relies on using shields feedback energy loop to inflict damage on frame shift drive, however the mass lock still applies even without shields.
As we know the initial design and use of this experimental effect failed miserably. It happened due to 2 factors. First of all - speed. The speed of traders today is more, than 500 m/s sometimes (i am looking at you, broken Imperial Cutter), which is overkill for a torpedoes flying 250m/s. And even considering Imperial Cutter we can't just increase it to 500m/s because of how Imperial Cutter is broken, we need to focus on ships that are not broken and balanced.
Second factor - mass lock is useless, that's not something that anyone would be afraid of.
And that's why it is now incorporates the same ability as reverberating cascade, but against FSD instead of SHIELDS. So basically a weapon designed against FSD. Like Grom missiles, but different approach, strategy to use and takes much more hardpoints and effort to use. A kind of weapon you need in order to force opponent to stay in combat. Such torpedoes can be easily countered by single ECM or by using AFMU in a combat after being hit. Will most likely force traders to use ECM on their ships for once and will put AFMU to a good use on a combat ships. It will also result in most of large ships to have 1 ECM in utility. Sort of how it should be overall to fix shield booster meta. Also, this effect will not work against ships without shields and because damage is rather low, it won't be effective enough to take out FSD, so it will only inflict mass lock factor on shieldless ships. For gank we still have Grom missiles and they should stay that way.
Overall stats of MASS LOCK CASCADE MUNITION torpedoes will be:
base/upgrade
Damage: from 160 to 60 - less damage because of speed change in order to minimize use of this experimental effect in other ways.
Shot speed: from 350 to 450 +28% shot speed in order to make these torpedoes dangerous enough for ships without ECM and to catch up with fast moving targets.
Time on lock: 8 seconds to 12 seconds to time on lock. The reasoning for this is simple. This experimental effect is not for gank, it's for wing combat, or for these moments when you are having issues with forcing opponent to stay in the area with you till the end. Which is why it's time on lock should be increased to 12 seconds, so any trader will have a window of 12 seconds to charge their FSD and to use ECM after 10 seconds in the process to guarantee safety from any gank attempts.
As for FSD damage from torpedoes, that i will leave for FD to decide. By my estimations the 3 of such torpedoes should be enough against 6 class FSD and 4 should be enough against 7 class. That's because after all these changes ECM will be extremely popular and it won't be so easy to hit someone with a torpedoes when ECM will became popular. And it will became popular. Because balance will demand it.
CHANGES TO PENETRATOR PAYLOAD MUNITION
Deep cut munitions are guaranteed to penetrate upon impact with hull and are capable of damaging multiple internal modules, but as a side effect the payload is far heavier than base munition, which resulted in decreased shot speed.
Overall stats of PENETRATOR PAYLOAD MUNITION will be like:
Base/Upgrade
Damage: 160 - no changes
Shot speed: 350 m/s to 300 m/s (-14%) this is important change, because for a weapon that is able to deal immense damage to modules, there should be a line in which player will be able to counter it with ECM or even with fast flying ship. But 250 m/s was outdated, so we changed base to 350 m/s and then decreased speed to 300 m/s in this experimental effect to not overstretch it's capability but also to keep it updated.
CHANGES TO REVERBERATING CASCADE
Experimental munitions that overload shields on impact, directly damaging the shield generator.
As we already know, this is the main experimental effect and this is what torpedoes are known for today. If someone have torpedoes, than you can be sure by 99% that these are reverberating cascade torpedoes. Addition of this experimental effect on torpedoes in the game inflicted fear into every soul that was relying on ship's shields. It's an extremely potent experimental effect and it should stay that way.
Which is why we decreasing all stats from base weapon to what reverberating cascade was before, there will be only one change to update it to today standards and it will be speed.
Overall stats of REVERBARATING CASCADE will be like:
Base/Upgrade
Damage: from 180 to 120 (-33%) The reason is simple. If it works, don't touch it.
Shot speed: from 350 to 300 (-14%) The reason is simple. It was outdated since late 2016.
ON LAST NOTE
I believe these changes are needed, because weapon in itself was outdated for last 6 years. And it's upgrades were bad from start. The fact that FD added to the game class 3 torpedoes, proves, that there are issues with them. Obviously class 3 didn't fixed the issue. All issues are coming from engineer and the fact that game was updated lot's of times and torpedoes were never adjusted in accordance with game progression. I gave my view on the issue, i gave my perception of design around that issue, and i gave you proposals about how to fix it all and make torpedoes worth it in gameplay for more than just shield breaking capability. I gave you a reason to think about other options. And i really hope that you will use this knowledge in next rebalance patch in 2023.
Thank you for game, and thank you for reading it.
I am looking forward to read some ideas or examples of using torpedoes today and what you think these changes will make to your play stile.
o7 CMDRs.
Issue Tracker to vote
Let's start with torpedoes as addition to a game, why they were added to the game with missiles, and why we have them in game at all.
Elite is almost 8 years old by now. Not all player's aware, but back in the 2015 there were no engineers. There were no upgrades. Even back then torpedoes were not popular, and most people were questioning "what are these for?". We had mines, which no one used, we had missiles, which were used by many pilots and are in use even today. And finally we had torpedoes, which no one knew what they were designed for, let alone to be used against anything because of ammo count.
Now let's talk about what FD initially wanted to achieve by adding torpedoes to the game, and if they managed to do it at all?
The main design point of torpedoes as a whole - high risk/high reward. You basically trading entire hardpoint slot for a very huge damage in a short period of time. The weapon was designed for specific missions of killing exceptionally strong enemy after it's shields are gone, back then it was Elite Anaconda. And it was designed with this exact ship in mind and nothing else. The Anaconda was some sort of "end game" content back then and main pirate issue back when you had not enough speed to outrun it after interdiction.
The second case for use of torpedoes are traders. It was designed to initiate huge alfa strike against some Anaconda pirate who bothers you. Traders usually don't have much shields or hull, so they are forced to rely on something that can deal lot's of damage as fast as possible. Torpedoes are a good choice in this case. Ships like trader T9 or trader Anaconda.
Trader T9 had up to 8 torpedoes and still have the same amount in 2022.
Trader Anaconda had up to 14 torpedoes in 2015 and able to have up to 22 torpedoes in 2022 thanks to class 3 torpedoes.
And finally the third most times unaccounted case - is power draw. Back in 2015 there were no engineers and we were forced to really make compromises with builds when it comes to weapons and power usage.
So, let's take a look at it's stats which are universal no matter the class, except for ammo.
Damage: 120
Armour piercing: 10,000
Shot speed: 250
Ammo clip size: 1/0 for class 1; 2/0 in class 2; 4/0 in class 3
Reload speed: 5 seconds
Let's start with damage. Why is it so low? The missiles are doing 60 damage, and torpedoes are doing only twice of this damage. Well, it's simple. It is able to target internal modules. Which is why making it anything more, than 120 was rather overkill. At least it was, back then.. And back then, there were no module reinforcement packages, there were no upgrades, so this damage was designed without considering engineers and module reinforcement packages that were added to game later and were never in planned. Very important mention to understand just how utterly outdated damage of this weapon is.
What about armor piercing? Does this silly number mean anything? No, it's just a placeholder. The weapon simply ignores armor parameter and FD had no other way to say that, but to up number to silly levels. We ignore that.
What about shot speed? Why is it so slow? What forced the initial design decisions to make it so slow in the end result? And here we have Anaconda issue again. The base maximum speed of anaconda is 260 m/s fully armed and loaded. As you can tell, torpedo's flying 250m/s is in quite good position of balance, right? That's because it was initial design in 2015.
So what happened since then? Well, engineers came to the game. And now we don't even consider base stats of ships, we consider upgraded stats only. So, let's take the same Anaconda and see what kind of speed it have today with engineers in comparison to back then without. We are looking at 360 m/s speed. That's a whooping +110 m/s difference since 2015. And torpedoes are still 250m/s while all ships like Anaconda, Corvette, T10 and even T9 are faster. You see where this is going, right?
Engineers and few more additions to the game, changed the rules of game, but no one corrected them ever after. Torpedoes were initially designed with base game in mind. The damage comes from the fact, that it can target modules, the speed comes from the fact that ships back in 2015 were not as fast as they are today. And ammo count comes from the fact it was designed around very different hull and module HP parameters. That's a main reason why we have this problem today.
So, we finally can answer the main question. Did FD managed to achieve everything that torpedoes were designed for? Yes, back in 2015 it was potent, but had a very niche use. The main issue was always a base ammo count. It is also important to understand that class 3 torpedoes were added to the game only 5 years later. So it's a clear evidence that FD was aware of the ammo issue after all. And they tried to fix it by introducing class 3 torpedoes.
ENGINEERS AND HOW THEY CHANGED THE TIDES
As we already know, Engineers changed game rules entirely. You can't name a single place in game world and it's gameplay where engineers didn't changed something. They changed combat as we know it, they changed exploration as we know it, they changed mining, pirating, they changed pvp, pve and so many more. But we need to talk about how they upgraded torpedoes, and if it changed anything at all.
We start with what engineers brought to the table:
STURDY
was designed around.. honestly no idea what what would've been the initial design decision, but clearly the armor piercing increase was not the main goal, but a simple placeholder because FD decided to put the same upgrade to modules in different categories. Obviously the main reason why you would want to have this upgrade at all - is decreased thermal load.
LIGHTWEIGHT
Was designed around.. yes, once again it's a placeholder for you to get experimental effects. Torpedoes doesn't have capacitor draw at all.. the main reason why you would want to get this upgrade is either you don't have materials for sturdy, or want less mass, that's about it.
As we can see these upgrades were merely a placeholders in order for us to get ability to install the experimental effects, and this is from where things getting interesting. At least on a paper they should.
Experimental effects:
MASS LOCK MUNITION
Experimental warheads incorporating frame shift technology. Successful detonation significantly inhibits charging for super cruise.
It's a very interesting from a role play point of view experimental effect, which have no use in actual real gameplay because torpedoes are outdated for this. If you don't believe me, check your telemetry stats of percentage of players that using this effect right now. It will be less, than 0.1% of entire player base. Check it now, if you don't believe me. Because it's a very interesting type of effect, it deserves a complete rework.
PENETRATOR PAYLOAD
Deep cut munitions are guaranteed to penetrate upon impact with hull and are capable of damaging multiple internal modules.
It's a very interesting experimental effect which make torpedoes extremely potent in dealing with modules. I believe you can find at least 2% of entire player base who will use it. It's extremely niche, but a good option for missions to kill single target. It is often combined with the reverberating cascade torpedoes to deal with shields and then with power plant. But it's not good enough to be viable in most scenarios and it should be changed because of it.
REVERBERATING CASCADE
Experimental munitions that overload shields on impact, directly damaging the shield generator.
Today this is the main experimental effect and this is what torpedoes are known for. If someone have torpedoes, than you can be sure by 99% that these are reverberating cascade torpedoes. Addition of this experimental effect on torpedoes in the game inflicted fear into every soul that was relying on ship's shields. It's an extremely potent experimental effect and it should stay that way.
CHANGES THAT WERE DONE TO TORPEDOES BY FD SINCE 2015
First change was done in May 2016 with arrival of engineers and it was done in beta 3. I gathered enough of proof concepts of "no brain" point blank torpedoing of large ships in pvp and pve, and posted this on forum back then in beta of Horizons 2.1. Most players in community came to a conclusion that reverberating cascade is too dangerous to leave it as it is, but it needs to stay in game, because it's good for a gameplay. So FD noticed it and acted accordingly. Ever since then, torpedoes are now have arming time of 3 seconds. This change fixed the issue of "no brain" point blank torpedoing. And now all base torpedoes have arming time because of it. It was important and very welcome change, it also pushed torpedoes out of "no brain" use weapon class into more advanced high risk/high reward class.
Second change was done somewhere between 2018-2020 it was addition of new class 3 torpedoes. This was a huge change. 4 torpedoes in 1 class 3 module can't be underestimated. That's twice more than class 2. That was a very welcomed but a very late change.
Was it enough? No. The penetrator payload is still not good enough, and mass lock munition is still absolute trash. It only affected reverberating cascade. Still, it is much better than nothing, so i guess i should say thank you.
THE CONCLUSION
We have absolutely useless base weapon (without upgrades), and somewhat useful weapon with experimental effect known as reverberating cascade.
FD didn't managed to fix main issue of base weapon, but at least to some degree tried to fix ammo issue by adding class 3 torpedoes.
Engineers of 2.1 made torpedoes as a weapon class completely obsolete because they were initially designed with base game in mind, not with Engineers of 2.1. That's important to consider.
FD never updated torpedoes damage even after adding to the game more module protection by introducing the Module reinforcement packages to the game. So Engineers + addition of module reinforcement packages completely destroyed the whole idea and concept by which torpedoes were designed in the first place, making it obsolete today.
HP of ships increased exponentially since 2015 and we are now facing extreme levels of survivability that torpedoes are now simply a dead weight on a ship.
And to add more, speed of all ships also drastically increased since 2015. The base design choice of 250m/s shot speed which could be explained back in 2015, is very questionable and extremely odd now in 2022.
The overall conclusion is - torpedoes are absolutely outdated and obsolete since late 2016-2017 to 2022.
PROPOSALS TO CHANGES AND WHAT CAN BE DONE TO FIX ALL TORPEDOES ISSUES
First of all we need to understand that fixing issues doesn't mean creating new, which is why we should start with BASE weapon stats and use them as a starting point. It's extremely important to change base of weapon, because this is from where all upgrades will come from. And it will make sense why it should be done that way.
Proposal to change base weapon without upgrades:
Damage from 120 to 160 - reasoning: to address addition of module reinforcement packages and increase of HP of every ship in game drastically since 2015. Also because we simply unable to increase ammo capacity, which can only be fixed by increasing damage of base weapon.
Shot speed from 250 m/s to a 350 m/s - reasoning: to address drastic increase of ships speed since 2015. Back in 2015 the speed of anaconda was 260 m/s and torpedoes speed was 250 m/s, while today the Anaconda speed is 360 m/s, while torpedoes still 250 m/s. Which is why shot speed should be increase to a 350 m/s. But it's important to consider that it's only for a base weapon without upgrades. You'll see what that mean bellow.
Ammo clip size - as much as it needed to be bigger.. FD really can't make it bigger i am afraid. That's a simple fact due to models of a weapon in first place. If you look closely, you'll see that it was designed in such a way from a start. Even class 3 torpedoes was designed that way. There is no way you can put 5 torpedoes into a 4 tube launch system that you see on a screenshot. There is also no indication on the model itself, that these can be loaded in combat from some ammo storage. So as far as i am aware, this can't be fixed unless FD will change model from scratch. And that mean not just changing the model itself, but also UI pictures, descriptions.. you get the idea, FD will never do it, so forget, we have to work with what we have in hands. And so are FD, if they will work at all.
CHANGES TO MASS LOCK MUNITION
The changes here will be huge. Game changer huge. We will start with a new name and description
MASS LOCK CASCADE MUNITION (FD, If you know anything better, you can name it whatever you like)
Experimental warheads incorporating frame shift feedback technology. Successful detonation significantly inhibits charging for super cruise and dealing extra damage to frame shift drive by cascade effect of immense mass stress on it trough opponent shields. Unfortunately the cascade effect in itself relies on using shields feedback energy loop to inflict damage on frame shift drive, however the mass lock still applies even without shields.
As we know the initial design and use of this experimental effect failed miserably. It happened due to 2 factors. First of all - speed. The speed of traders today is more, than 500 m/s sometimes (i am looking at you, broken Imperial Cutter), which is overkill for a torpedoes flying 250m/s. And even considering Imperial Cutter we can't just increase it to 500m/s because of how Imperial Cutter is broken, we need to focus on ships that are not broken and balanced.
Second factor - mass lock is useless, that's not something that anyone would be afraid of.
And that's why it is now incorporates the same ability as reverberating cascade, but against FSD instead of SHIELDS. So basically a weapon designed against FSD. Like Grom missiles, but different approach, strategy to use and takes much more hardpoints and effort to use. A kind of weapon you need in order to force opponent to stay in combat. Such torpedoes can be easily countered by single ECM or by using AFMU in a combat after being hit. Will most likely force traders to use ECM on their ships for once and will put AFMU to a good use on a combat ships. It will also result in most of large ships to have 1 ECM in utility. Sort of how it should be overall to fix shield booster meta. Also, this effect will not work against ships without shields and because damage is rather low, it won't be effective enough to take out FSD, so it will only inflict mass lock factor on shieldless ships. For gank we still have Grom missiles and they should stay that way.
Overall stats of MASS LOCK CASCADE MUNITION torpedoes will be:
base/upgrade
Damage: from 160 to 60 - less damage because of speed change in order to minimize use of this experimental effect in other ways.
Shot speed: from 350 to 450 +28% shot speed in order to make these torpedoes dangerous enough for ships without ECM and to catch up with fast moving targets.
Time on lock: 8 seconds to 12 seconds to time on lock. The reasoning for this is simple. This experimental effect is not for gank, it's for wing combat, or for these moments when you are having issues with forcing opponent to stay in the area with you till the end. Which is why it's time on lock should be increased to 12 seconds, so any trader will have a window of 12 seconds to charge their FSD and to use ECM after 10 seconds in the process to guarantee safety from any gank attempts.
As for FSD damage from torpedoes, that i will leave for FD to decide. By my estimations the 3 of such torpedoes should be enough against 6 class FSD and 4 should be enough against 7 class. That's because after all these changes ECM will be extremely popular and it won't be so easy to hit someone with a torpedoes when ECM will became popular. And it will became popular. Because balance will demand it.
CHANGES TO PENETRATOR PAYLOAD MUNITION
Deep cut munitions are guaranteed to penetrate upon impact with hull and are capable of damaging multiple internal modules, but as a side effect the payload is far heavier than base munition, which resulted in decreased shot speed.
Overall stats of PENETRATOR PAYLOAD MUNITION will be like:
Base/Upgrade
Damage: 160 - no changes
Shot speed: 350 m/s to 300 m/s (-14%) this is important change, because for a weapon that is able to deal immense damage to modules, there should be a line in which player will be able to counter it with ECM or even with fast flying ship. But 250 m/s was outdated, so we changed base to 350 m/s and then decreased speed to 300 m/s in this experimental effect to not overstretch it's capability but also to keep it updated.
CHANGES TO REVERBERATING CASCADE
Experimental munitions that overload shields on impact, directly damaging the shield generator.
As we already know, this is the main experimental effect and this is what torpedoes are known for today. If someone have torpedoes, than you can be sure by 99% that these are reverberating cascade torpedoes. Addition of this experimental effect on torpedoes in the game inflicted fear into every soul that was relying on ship's shields. It's an extremely potent experimental effect and it should stay that way.
Which is why we decreasing all stats from base weapon to what reverberating cascade was before, there will be only one change to update it to today standards and it will be speed.
Overall stats of REVERBARATING CASCADE will be like:
Base/Upgrade
Damage: from 180 to 120 (-33%) The reason is simple. If it works, don't touch it.
Shot speed: from 350 to 300 (-14%) The reason is simple. It was outdated since late 2016.
ON LAST NOTE
I believe these changes are needed, because weapon in itself was outdated for last 6 years. And it's upgrades were bad from start. The fact that FD added to the game class 3 torpedoes, proves, that there are issues with them. Obviously class 3 didn't fixed the issue. All issues are coming from engineer and the fact that game was updated lot's of times and torpedoes were never adjusted in accordance with game progression. I gave my view on the issue, i gave my perception of design around that issue, and i gave you proposals about how to fix it all and make torpedoes worth it in gameplay for more than just shield breaking capability. I gave you a reason to think about other options. And i really hope that you will use this knowledge in next rebalance patch in 2023.
Thank you for game, and thank you for reading it.
I am looking forward to read some ideas or examples of using torpedoes today and what you think these changes will make to your play stile.
o7 CMDRs.
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