the topic of the thread is "slightly" derailed ... it was about ballistic missiles that i believe are unguided, high payload missiles ( as it was mentioned before - sort of ... minirazors with ammo on gunslots )
a dumbfire missile may really be an option, - and no one can say that its overpowering much as long as the damage is somewhat reasonable.
about missiles on warships. - turrets are turrets - and allthough i don t know how to mod those things... i don t think its possible to have turrets eat up ammo. - missiles and torpedos however are a different hardpoint. - and we won t be able to redesign hardpoints on all warships.
if it was possible to add ammo to guns ( which turrets are ) - we could aswell design really really powerful battleship anticapship turrets with huge projectiles and awesome damage and a superior range.... that use ammo ( like burning out a circuit upon firing or eating up a special high capacity battery - however one wants to justify an energy weapon to use ammo )
all in all, i agree with mcneo though... of course gunboats range from 4 ( kusari GB ) to 8 turrets ( keepers GB ) - so its hard to set a reasonable limit for a gunboat, especially as it cannot really be set into the rules.
a little piece of nastyness there...
factions promoted the view that "smaller ships = better RP" .... and so, many a players fly fighters. - the natural and perfectly logical reaction is that those that want to fight those factions use weapons that can overwhelm those ships. - and so, a gunboat with 4 missile turrets is perfect to take down those people, - but is useless against a bigger ship ( which those factions are reluctant to fly or do not have at all ) - but that is not the fault of the one in the gunboat... he cannot make the decission that his enemies fly fighters... and he cannot be blamed if he attacks a group of fighters. ( one cannot say that its unsportive to attack 2 - 3 VHFs in a single gunboat )
so, i do not htink that gunboat missiles are overpowered. - i am really afraid to say that ... in order to fight such a vessel, one must deploy a gunboat with anti warship guns. ( yes, that is slightly promoting the purchase of capital ships )
so, being in a pure fighter group and being attacked by a pure antifighter gunboat is - bad luck. ( if the gunboat had anti warship weapons, the fighters would most probably eat it up ) - however, i wonder how many gunboat captains complain that they had been attacked by anti warship loadouts while they had only missiles. ( in that case, one would blame the gunboat captain for his lack of foresight ) - but thats the other side of the coin.