Utility Slot Missiles

[CMDR Rabbit]

I'd rather go the other way and be able to stock my hardpoints with utility modules.

 

[CMDR Deano The Imperial]

For some builds, specifically the ones that don't stack large amounts of shields, you can end up with excess utility slots to spare and little to use them on. More than 2 point defense is generally useless, ECM is generally useless, more than 2 chaff isn't worth having, and heat sinks are of relatively low utility for any build that doesn't run hot or use exorbitant amounts of power.

At the same time, seeker missiles are generally only used for utility purposes; IE, for drag munitions, or for 1-5 shots to kill external modules.

Which gave me a great idea! Why not introduce a line of independent missile types that go into utility slots instead of standard hardpoints?

These could have reduced overall ammo totals compared to dedicated hardpoints, serving as utility boosters rather than as outright dps.

Here's a few examples of possibilities:

Tarpit Missile(12 missiles per utility slot) - Deals 50 damage, and activates the Drag Munitions effect. (basically a C0.5 homing missile)

Havoc Missile(3 missiles per utility slot) - Briefly(3-6s) disrupts the engines of anything within its large(~500m) splash radius, sending them tumbling helplessly. Does thermal damage.

Imp Missile(5 missiles per hardpoint) - An anti-shield missile; does some thermal damage, and for 10 seconds after hitting its target, the target is forced to behave as if it has zero pips to shields.

Screamer Missile(30 missiles per hardpoint) - A pod of 30 dumbfire semi-automatic missiles. Fire as fast as you can press the button, dealing 30 damage each.

If you came at me with that amount of missiles in your utilities I would equip more point defences in my utilities to counter that effect, rendering them useless and then just hit you with regular Hardpoint seekers to which you would have no defense except a regular shield.

 

[DemiserofD]

Showing a startling unawareness of how useful heatsinks are here: they zero gimbal cones down to nothing if they don't drop you from the radar entirely, they break missile locks and make them impossible to reaquire for the duration, they provide a buff to your WEP capacitor allowing you to fire for longer. They are pretty much the most universally effective countermeasure, whereas chaff and PD are hard counters to one thing each (and the latter not even particularly effective at that). The only reason not to take them is because you can only carry 4 per launcher, whereas a single chaff launcher will last a lot longer. If you have 'spare' utility slots though, absolutely take heatsinks.

Oh I'm aware, it's just that their very low ammo counts makes them generally less useful than other alternatives.

Using them as a WEP capacitor booster, for example, ends up running into the same problems as Torpedoes, namely that you run out of them after about one target and then you're forced into a reload. Given that most of the time you only even need them if you're running weapons without ammo like beam lasers(as they tend to have the highest distro consumption), that ends up with an unfortunate sacrifice for minimal benefit. I've tried several builds that rely on heat sinks for dps, but for the most part they're gimmicks rather than effective builds. Largely because the ships that benefit the most from a bonus 2MW of distro power don't have enough utility slots for sustain, while those that do have enough utility slots don't have anywhere near as large a benefit.

As far as Gimbals are concerned, you'll always be better off with Chaff, and even if you're facing both gimbals AND missiles at the same time, you'll probably be better off with a chaff and a point defense, considering most builds that need to worry about missiles at all will need far better sustain than you can get from a heat sink. A hybrid or total hull tank, for example, has their shields go down regularly, so will need to resist missiles most of the time, not just in 10-second intervals. Meanwhile a shield tank doesn't need to worry about missiles at all.

The only real place where heat sinks are truly effective is against thargoids when using gauss cannons, but that requires a fair bit of synthing, even with multiple heat sinks stacked, so again, not exactly an excellent use case for the long term.

With the caveat that you are referring to, after launch, I agree with you. However, I was referring to tracking while still on the pylon. Specifically, the idea that the weapon would be an addition to a tracking platform. The nearest example already in the game would be a Wake Scanner or Kill Warrant Scanner, but with a weapon hanging off of it.

I would also point out that the combat environments are not synonymous because you are comparing fighter technology to "ships" that measure equivalent to actual warships. The proper comparison should not be an aircraft mounted Air to Air missile, but, rather, a cruise missile such as a Harpoon.

To a certain extent you're right; elite ships are MUCH bigger than modern fighters. But on the flipside, elite combat actually takes place significantly closer than even modern dogfighting missiles are intended for. A Harpoon Missile, for example, has a range of nearly 300km, while elite missiles have a range closer to 5km. And a Harpoon missile can be launched from a truck scarcely larger than the missile itself!

I can't honestly say how large the actual lock-on aspect of the hardpoint would be, but given utility slots are capable of handling and powering a kill warrant scanner that takes more power than TWO huge beam lasers, I think it could probably handle this!