Abstract
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Fighter missiles in 4.87 have been redesigned from the ground up in accordance with the concept of a damage/risk vs ammo count ratio (e.g.: high damage equals high risk and low ammo). Tracking for missiles has been greatly improved in general, however lower damage missiles will still have slightly better tracking than higher damage missiles. All fighters can now mount only one missile launcher, so they have to pick their loadout in accordance to their tactics.
This said, at this stage missiles are not yet fully balanced. Right now we're at the proof of concept stage, so feedback will be necessary to finetune them so that each launcher is useful for different tactics.
At this point 4 launchers have been changed: Cannonball (high damage/risk, low ammo count), Firestalker (low damage/risk, high ammo count), Sidewinder (middle of the line choice), Paralyser (pulse missile).
Discussion
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Here are things I specifically want to discuss (but before you reply, review list of planned/carried out changes at the end of this post):
Synergy of loadouts - current balance changes are designed to let fighters deliver a lot more damage than they could in 4.86, so that we can make fights shorter. Most possible shotgun loadouts have been considered and ok'ed for now, that said if a particular loadout is too OP (in that it outclasses everything else), it should get looked at.
Defence strats - dodging works against guns, not that much against missiles. I want well placed CMs to be the defence against missile users just as good dodging defends against guns. Take note that CM should not be a foolproof defence either, it should be fired at a specific time to allow a skill curve to form. Reports on CM effectiveness and ideas on how to improve them without making them a foolproof defence will be considered.
Missile damage against components - specifically how many missiles does it take for an opponent to start losing guns in a typical fight, how many should it take. Now that missiles actually do damage, I guess this will start happening again so the discussion on whether this is desired or not (and if it is then to what extent) is open.
And really anything else that is related here, that hasn't been put into the list below already.
Here is list of things that wont be considered because of various issues (I'll add to it as we go along with reasons why not, do not use this thread to discuss them, feel free to open another if you really want to):
One launcher per ship limit - this is done because due to the simplistic way freelancer handles missiles I am fairly convinced that it is impossible to balance missiles in such a way that they are useful, but also are not better/worse than guns. An additional (if small) problem is that of ammo limits, and that they are shared between launchers, and there is nothing we can do about this at this time. But a bigger problem is the fact that if you were able to mount 2 CBs at the moment rather than 1, you'd be able to instakill people so they'd have to be reduced in damage... at which point it would be useless to mount less than 2 and so on until we reach the point where they are just stupid. So they will remain as a support weapon of choice, and guns will always be the main battle weapon, sorry for ruining your dreams of missile boats.
Returning them back to 4.86 balance - kind of obvious why not, but in case it isn't let me just say that having missiles that nobody uses (other than 3 noobs on the server who didn't yet realise that they were useless in 4.86, and will likely try to convince me otherwise anyway) is not a nice thing.
Changes in Update 1
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Refire delay increase for all launchers to reduce spamminess.
Countermeasures redesigned for tactical use (infocards may still be out of date).
Ammo counts reduced slightly.
Changes in Update 3
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Muzzle velocity for all missiles removed (note: they will still retain the current ship speed upon launch), small motor delay introduced (may be buggy, needs testing on server), missile motor acceleration increased in varying amounts to preserve missile top speed. Note that this is an important change, as it changes drastically the way missiles perform upon launch (slow to start instead of starting at mid speed, etc.).
Countermeasures effectiveness slightly reduced to account for the increased response time.
Cannonballs now have a larger explosion radius as well as a slight impulse effect for anti slide tactics.
Catapult missile introduced (non seeking, decent ammo capacity, middle of the line damage)
Planned changes for next update
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Missile tracking cones and max angular velocity slightly decreased.
Countermeasures ammo limit largely increased.
Fortress CM range and refire rate slight increase.
