4.87 fighter missiles finetuning

[Ursus]

You could make flak CD and CM, travel a distance then explode. I made a CD with the flak warhead for testing, and it was really good for detonating missiles and mines, while doing nothing to take cruise offline. Flak CM could also work but it seemed like it would be too powerful compared to other CM types. Maybe you guys can make these work.

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Discovery 24/7 Negotiating Tactics:

[Blodo]

Firestalker needs a speed nerf. You're looking for CM dropping to be a timing skill, but when you've got a missile flying towards you at close enough to 700m/s (both ship speeds plus missile speed) there's not a lot you can put down to timing. You either get a CM out before it hits or you don't. CDs don't work too, because the missiles are way too far away from your opponent before they'll detonate, or have even already got in damage range of your own ship.

Well for me it shouldn't be just about the timing, missiles should force you to steer away from the joust as well to preserve your shield - or risk it with CM which may or may not catch it. It shouldn't be as simple as "enemy fires missile + I fire CM = I win joust". The idea for missiles is that they are dangerous but not gamebreaking.

Anyway some speed reduction to FS may be necessary, but I need to gather some more data myself to figure out how much if at all. Instead of the speed I might just reduce ammo counts as proposed in earlier post (in addition to the refire rate nerf), and that should help it.

You could make flak CD and CM, travel a distance then explode. I made a CD with the flak warhead for testing, and it was really good for detonating missiles and mines, while doing nothing to take cruise offline. Flak CM could also work but it seemed like it would be too powerful compared to other CM types. Maybe you guys can make these work.

Well I'm not too keen about foolproof defence against missiles, would rather there remain a bit of a worry about them and instead only provide very specific timed defence combined with carefully monitoring enemy ammo counts. Missile needs to be tactical support weapon, it's not very useful if in a group fight you can just bring a flak cder who will nullify any advantage missile users may have (considering it's a temporary advantage until they run out of ammo - at which point they are at a disadvantage due to one less gun).

I guess we can think about it for later though.

[Govedo13]

Fighter guns need slight hitpoints buff. Now 20 missiles make them to fall off.
Torpedoes are even more lethal 5-6 torpedo hits remove the guns. Ursus idea is really nice as well, gives LFs and other fighters secondary defensive purpose, after all if the said missile does not do damage and does not disrupt the engines it is fair trade-off for the loss of the CD slot. In order to balance it give the Flak CD 30-40 shots if you think that it would hurt the group fights so much.. Also does not forget that in group fights the other group members can also carry missiles for their mates making your point kinda moot.

About the missile damage- can you use the shield reduction in order to create missiles with more hull damage and less shield damage?

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Official faction players that are often accused of elitism, never deploy them and have those weird, immersion killing "fair fight/dueling" suicidal hobbies. (yes, i've seen enough of those lolduels, where house military with overwhelming force on the field willingly loses a pilot in a duel. ffs.)

[Ursus]

You could make flak CD and CM, travel a distance then explode. I made a CD with the flak warhead for testing, and it was really good for detonating missiles and mines, while doing nothing to take cruise offline. Flak CM could also work but it seemed like it would be too powerful compared to other CM types. Maybe you guys can make these work.

Well I'm not too keen about foolproof defence against missiles, would rather there remain a bit of a worry about them and instead only provide very specific timed defence combined with carefully monitoring enemy ammo counts.

Flak CD in my testing wasnt foolproof. You had to face the target which meant there was limited opportunity window, and when both ships are approaching each other head-on the window shrinks rapdily. Flak CM was much more reliable, and why I said it was potentially OP (and maybe something you can fix), but the CD is not.

Missile needs to be tactical support weapon, it's not very useful if in a group fight you can just bring a flak cder who will nullify any advantage missile users may have (considering it's a temporary advantage until they run out of ammo - at which point they are at a disadvantage due to one less gun).

Come on now, you are arguing against teamwork here.

Anyway I dont want to derail your thread. Just something to consider as a balance option. You can use flak CD as a way to counter missile spam, and it is even a little self-balancing since you give up the ability to break cruise.

edit--found my original post http://discoverygc.com/forums/showthread...pid1231066

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Discovery 24/7 Negotiating Tactics:

[tothebonezone]

(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)

They were useful and hilarious. More hilarious though.

Also if the nomad missiles weren't buffed in the update, I'll own you with them too, since they're still the same as 4.86 missiles.

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[Blodo]

They were useful and hilarious. More hilarious though.

Yea I saw that video

Also if the nomad missiles weren't buffed in the update, I'll own you with them too, since they're still the same as 4.86 missiles.

We'll get to nomad tech soon enough.

Regarding fighter flaks: we can think on them when missiles are balanced and ready to go with current things. I'm not sure how useful they'd be straight away since it seems like trying to use hammer to chop down a tree... but with a good enough concept I guess it could be done. Though a flak cd that uses impulse wont knock around just missiles but also players... might be a tad unbalanced/annoying for 1v1.

On a related note: update 1 is here, and changed CMs are available to test now. They should work roughly as follows:
Fortress CM Dropper:
(low range (350m), high effectiveness (95%), medium lifetime (3.5 secs), 60 ammo)

Sentinel CM Dropper:
(high range (1000m), low effectiveness (65%), high lifetime (5 secs), 80 ammo)

Silencer CM Dropper:
(medium range (650m), medium effectiveness (80%), low lifetime (2 secs), 70 ammo)

Each for different style of trying to catch missiles. Some people prefer to spam them out as soon as they see missile launch, so they will use sentinel cm. Other people who want to be more precise can wait until missile gets close and drop one surgical fortress cm. Silencer cm is a middle of the line version. All people who currently had enh. cm mounted will have it changed to silencer, but they can buy other cms from basically any base. Go check them out.

[Ursus]

One other thought, if these are going to be fast accurate and high-damage then they should probably have a long refire delay so that they are used opportunisticly instead of as spam

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Discovery 24/7 Negotiating Tactics:

[GrnRaptor]

Each for different style of trying to catch missiles. Some people prefer to spam them out as soon as they see missile launch, so they will use sentinel cm. Other people who want to be more precise can wait until missile gets close and drop one surgical fortress cm. Silencer cm is a middle of the line version. All people who currently had enh. cm mounted will have it changed to silencer, but they can buy other cms from basically any base. Go check them out.

Uh, what about all of those who had Enh. CM on our caps and other non-snub ships? We're all going to get anti-snub missiles CMs now? Are you looking to split CMs into snub & freighter, transport, and capital lines?

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[Blodo]

You have Heavy CM for caps etc. that still functions the same way it has with its high range and stuff. Most transports can fire it just fine as well.

[Durandal]

My issue with all high damage stuff is that it becomes fear based weaponry, forcing a defensive style while fighting instead of allowing you to focus on how to outsmart and out maneuver your enemy. It basically just takes the fun out of something when you have no time to react and have to constantly be flying a certain way to win, which is also my problem with bombers having SNACs with variable arcs,

FL Missiles are inherently bugged and until you can find a way to make them have a lock on timer and lock on warning for the target I'd just say remove them. It's possible to get them to a point where they are balanced and provide a degree of time for the opponent to react, but is it really worth it for a mod like Discovery? Probably not.

The general consensus with me and every other pilot marginally better than a sack of hammers is that we don't want 'em, get rid of them and keep fights skill based rather than fear based.