Fighter missiles are kind of
suppressors. If I fire a missile at somebody, they will turn away for a few seconds, getting me time to make ready with actually good dakka, and put 'em down for good (or at least for 2 hours). That's at range. Up close, fighter missiles are killer. The area damage they do means that if enough are used, hardpoints start going away on the other guy. This is taken up to 11 with the Fighter Torpedoes, which are designed almost exclusively for "in your face" style combat against larger vessels, with a deceptively long range making those that don't know how to fighter think that Torpedoes are best used at that distance. Think cerb gunboat turrets as they are now, and you get what I'm talking about.
(01-16-2016, 06:14 AM)Bruce Samson Wrote: [ -> ]Currently ships can outrun the missiles they shoot with one exception: the CD. This seems wrong. A ship should not be able to outrun a missile.
Why? The CD is sacrificing pain payload to instead deal anguish to the fool who thought they could escape.
Basically, the CD has little to no actual explosives to weigh it down, which means that it goes faster. I forget the exact equation behind it, but in a vacuum, you're burning through fuel to go Direction X and have little to no air resistance. The low weight means that, factoring in the no air resistance and/or gravity, the missile travels faster. In a way, it makes perfect sense. The missiles have timers set to go off as soon as the fuel runs out so we don't get live munitions ruining a random person's day at some undetermined point in the future. I think that was covered in some treaty at some point (*cough* and if it wasnt, hey House governments, make an in-RP treaty about weapons safety guidelines *cough*).
tl;dr Fighter missiles were built as short range firepower assumed to be blasted at their opposition at nigh point blank range with the other guy coming right at the user. Hence, they're relatively slow. CDs are designed with the view of the guy turning tail and running, which means that they're low damage in exchange for giving the guy an inducement to stand and fight.
The various types are there to appeal to the different mindsets of the fighters. Cannonballs are for those who want damage (usually against other fighters) NOW and are close-in enough to do it, Catapults are Gunboat killers that SUCK because they eat energy and do half-damage compared to the literally superior in every way save range, speed, and ammo count, and that's where they are equal to Catapults, Hellfire Rocket Pods, Firestalkers are the kiddie version of Sidewinders that fire more often, Sidewinders are a comfortable middle ground between Catapults and Cannonballs with tracking, Paralyzer Missiles are fairly decent shield killers and power drainers that have somewhat limited applicability due to their CD and low damage vs. capships.
But hey, this is (Discovery) Freelancer, the (pretender to the) king of acceptable breaks from reality (according to Tv Tropes). Don't think about it too hard.