Personally, I'd prefer them to spend the time adding new and interesting content rather than the vast amount of effort it would require to rewrite the game engine just to include one new damage mechanic.
Give AOE/splash to missiles and swarm missiles
- Thread starter Exarian
- Start date
-
We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.
Personally, I'd prefer them to spend the time adding new and interesting content rather than the vast amount of effort it would require to rewrite the game engine just to include one new damage mechanic.
The real problem with that is that the inverse-square law hits that idea like a truck. There is simply no way that a tiny warhead would ever affect another ship, considering the distances between ships. The only reason they can affect their target is because they are right next to it. Even a tiny astronomical distance away, other ships could easily eat it with passive armour and shields. After all, these things don't care about most of the radiation that usually endangers space ships, why would they care about the miniscule radiation waves from missiles?
That whole thing is rendered moot by the fact that the engine doesn't support AoE damage and, AFAIU, can't be made to support AoE without significant modifications. So it basically won't happen, and if it will, it won't be for a long while.
I think the best thing they could do to missiles is making them switch targets if their current one is destroyed. Sadly, I've understood it's yet another thing that won't be done.
Missiles are kind of in an awkward situation now.
But you need to consider that ships in stellaris can already survive concentrated high energy radiation beam aka laser. Radiation damage can also be significantly reduced via high density armor, and distance from source. AOE will only make sense at small distance. And shrapnels don't make sense either. These ships can survive direct impact by KE rounds from a rail gun, let alone small shrapnels from uncontrolled explosion.
Torpedo should be the last projectile to receive AOE. It has armor penetration, which implies it utilizes some kind of shaped charge, and the HE yield of a shaped charged warhead is much lower than a HE warhead at the same weight.
To buff missile we can nerf CIWS, increase speed and payload and most importantly add retarget ability.
I'm keen on ideas like this, but it would make sense to introduce fleet formations as well so that you can select a scattered formation as a counter to missile weapons among others.
Torpedoes to physically hit and penetrate ships and missiles for blast radius
Depends on if ships blow up on destruction and on how close together you pack you ships (you would think they would be a fare distance away but maybe not). No one can really make a realistic decision on actually engagement ranges and fleet density.
I'm not advocating (yet) any of the other stuff in that SFU, but the Honor Harrington books had their ships operate in fleets where the individual ships were separated by many thousands of miles (even the mile-long ships were invisible to the naked eye at that distance). That's actually not even close to the immense distances between ships in formation in Stellaris, if the visual representation is anything to go by (and considering that it's counted as actual range in the combat calculations, I'd say it's intended as legitimately that far apart), but it starts to give you an idea.
The warheads of nuclear missiles in Stellaris aren't likely to be that much more effective than similarly sized missiles IRL - I'm not expecting a S-size missile mount to fire a missile much bigger than about 15-25 feet long (no longer than a PATRIOT anti-ballistic missile) and the L-size being no bigger than the Thor that carried Starfish Prime. Even switching over to an exotic explosive and using an XL-size missile isn't going to catch more than 2-3 ships at once, certainly not enough damage on the secondary targets to mean much. And programming the game to have missiles target arbitrary in-between points among the enemy ships to somehow maximize the splash should be real fun.
Doomstacks aren't going to be any more affected by a splash damage missile than any other fleet in formation, as there is currently no difference between the formations of any size fleet. And there's nothing stopping the doomstack from firing the same types of missiles into the opposition fleets, either. And would we even think about the possibility of friendly fire on the splash damage, especially during the furballs?
I think there are enough issues with the actual game programming to keep any idea along this line from going forward, but I don't see it being helpful regardless of any technical feasibility.
.png){kind=avatar}
Ok, if there are huge programming issues, then I see simple "hotfix" to missiles via simple 2-step stats adjustment:
1. 100% movement speed for missiles (and swarms)
- critical thing to reduce overkill
- number of kinetic/energy salvos before missiles hit their target will be reduced
- point defense effectiveness will be reduced
2. 20/30/40 range boost to S/M/L missiles (Swarms considered as M)
- 130 range L missiles outrage every weapon in game (including X ones)
- 100 range M missiles outrange (or equal) every L weapon in game, making them viable alternative to KA/Plasma spam
- 70 range S missiles outrange every M weapon in game, becoming interesting weapon for corvettes and destroyers.
- 80 range Swarms finally get some potential
1. 100% movement speed for missiles (and swarms)
- critical thing to reduce overkill
- number of kinetic/energy salvos before missiles hit their target will be reduced
- point defense effectiveness will be reduced
2. 20/30/40 range boost to S/M/L missiles (Swarms considered as M)
- 130 range L missiles outrage every weapon in game (including X ones)
- 100 range M missiles outrange (or equal) every L weapon in game, making them viable alternative to KA/Plasma spam
- 70 range S missiles outrange every M weapon in game, becoming interesting weapon for corvettes and destroyers.
- 80 range Swarms finally get some potential
Interresting one. Range could be the real niche for missiles. That would pair well with system wide AoE PDs.
Seriously I feel there's significant perf gain to get by removing missiles as bodies and suppressing PD targetting, considering 1/3 of the AI personalities use missiles. War in Heaven would be less of a chore even when not participating.