Torpedo ammo.

[Logan-Wolf-]

Morbad, your "any novice can get a clipper...", is tragically flawed.
By the time a player has done the credit, Imp rank, and Engineer grind to purchase, outfit and mod a clipper, not, too mention the hours of YouTube "how to" videos watched, they are no longer a "novice".
I'm basically, trying to provide an improvement to an underutilized weapon, that if used with proper teamwork, there are already too many "I'm a one man army." attitudes in the game, to promote an "incentive" for newer and less experienced players to form wings and work cooperatively.
I, myself, and other players, would probably join wings more often, at this point having played for 4 months, I've only joined a wing once.
From what I have seen in various videos joining a wing, really doesn't benefit anyone.
There's 3-4 pilots off doing their own thing and not really working as a team.
If you have better examples, by all means, share the links.

 

[Bunkerkind Anni]

Right now torpedoes are only useful for the reverb mod.

Literally nobody will ever even blink at a single-shot weapon that does 120 damage to their hull or shields. It's only the ability to apply that damage directly to the shield gen that makes it useful.

As far as big ships using them on small ships, I'm not worried about that. Any ship that isn't a tub of lard can outrun them, and the arming distance will ensure that you have plenty of time to hit boost.

actually, pre-engineers, it was not "120 damage to the hull":

anyone without reactive armor bulkheads would have recieved 100 damage to the hull, and almost guaranteed 100 damage to any internal module within the explosion radius (explosion resist -40% and breach damage 50%).
torps have 100% chance to breach and looking at an A-Grade conda - no internal has more then 160 hitpoints. two torps should have dealt with any internal if the shields been down

my math may be not 100% accurate, but the point is:

Torpedos had been balanced around having -40% explosive resists - and they should have been reviewed like PA's (=Absolute damage ignoring resist) when HRPs and Engineers got introduced.

 

[Logan-Wolf-]

I'll admit, I could be basing my views and opinions off a lot of my observations and experiences on playing on the PS4 version.
And, there may be better co-op effort on other platforms.
On the PS4, there just seems to be a large number of players with the GTA attitude, and just want to ruin other players days, in their heavily modded expensive ships.
And, at the same time cost them millions in rebuy cost.
And, then to add insult to injury, they invariably send a friend request.
Which I find completely baffling and ironic.
I went off topic, damn, ADHD.
Now, if that player in the modded, shield tanking ship had to really worry about having the tables turned on them.
Due to several players using "specialised" armaments and munitions designed to defeat shield tanking, wouldn't that put some semblance of balance in the game?
Or, this could just be the ramblings of an old school gamer.

 

[Morbad]

Morbad, your "any novice can get a clipper...", is tragically flawed.
By the time a player has done the credit, Imp rank, and Engineer grind to purchase, outfit and mod a clipper, not, too mention the hours of YouTube "how to" videos watched, they are no longer a "novice".
I'm basically, trying to provide an improvement to an underutilized weapon, that if used with proper teamwork, there are already too many "I'm a one man army." attitudes in the game, to promote an "incentive" for newer and less experienced players to form wings and work cooperatively.
I, myself, and other players, would probably join wings more often, at this point having played for 4 months, I've only joined a wing once.
From what I have seen in various videos joining a wing, really doesn't benefit anyone.
There's 3-4 pilots off doing their own thing and not really working as a team.
If you have better examples, by all means, share the links.

There are plenty of CMDR's I've encountered in Cutters where 'novice' is the most polite descriptor I can think of for their abilities. Despite all the grind you mention, I'd wager the average time to get a Cutter for someone who really wants one, is less than the time it took me to get a Cobra early in the game's history and fast tracking one's self through credits and ranks to the exclusion of most other activities hardly leaves one with a significant breadth of knowledge about the game, or much in the way of piloting ability.

As for teamwork, most any wing PvP video you can find will show a great deal of coordination. Coordination also requires significant experience to leverage well in such scenarios...expecting new players to be able to pit torpedoes, or any other weapon combination that cannot be used effectively without help, against aggressors with any success is asking a lot.

Even in PvE there are significant advantages to being in a wing (breaking enemy focus, wolfpacking dangerous single enemies, cutting through SCB use on larger ships, using effects like concordant to get wingmates back in combat sooner, et al), and this is especially true with lower end vessels.

I'll admit, I could be basing my views and opinions off a lot of my observations and experiences on playing on the PS4 version.
And, there may be better co-op effort on other platforms.
On the PS4, there just seems to be a large number of players with the GTA attitude, and just want to ruin other players days, in their heavily modded expensive ships.
And, at the same time cost them millions in rebuy cost.
And, then to add insult to injury, they invariably send a friend request.
Which I find completely baffling and ironic.
I went off topic, damn, ADHD.
Now, if that player in the modded, shield tanking ship had to really worry about having the tables turned on them.
Due to several players using "specialised" armaments and munitions designed to defeat shield tanking, wouldn't that put some semblance of balance in the game?
Or, this could just be the ramblings of an old school gamer.

I have no idea what the community/environment is like on PS4. I've been playing exclusively on PC since September 2014.

Anti-shield armaments can be and are indeed used as counters to overly shield focused setups. Feedback cascade rails are very common, and reverberating cascade misnes/torpedoes are common enough that people have to be wary. However, these things aren't advantageous to newer players, as more experienced ones can employ them more effectively and are also better able to counter them.

The only time I've ever gone out of my way to destroy CMDRs in weaker ships I used a shieldless Clipper (which was tied with the Cobra III as the fastest ship in the game at the time)...because it was the most efficient commerce raider I could build. Were I to do the same sort of thing today (not likely as I'm considerably more jaded about the ability of any player to affect any meaningful change, or break through Frontier's apathy about certain problems), I'd probably still be using a shieldless vessel and it most certainly would not be one of the big three.