What is the future of missiles?

[Summin Cool]

Let's look at some of your points

Swarmer missiles do not work as advertised (drawing PD fire), as PD simply ignores them as unhittable and focuses on other targets. Swarmer missiles are also only available in one size.
.

Like I said, that an issue with Swarmer missiles not Missiles

1. Point defense is a defensive system masquerading as a weapon system, where a limited number of slots on a limited number of ships can more than counter any Accuracy advantage missiles have over kinetic/energy, and a few slots more can completely neuter any missile attack against an entire fleet, regardless of missile size or damage.

Talk about the strength of a hard counter.

1. Average damage per day is the primary balance point for the three main weapon types, but that's base damage only - only torpedoes (a specialist slot weapon, at that) gain any "versus" bonus, while kinetics and energy have weapons up and down their lists that do better versus their toughest defense and against their weakest defense. Those bonuses are also greater as weapon slot size goes up, while larger missiles are really only useful versus Corvettes as they lack the defensive depth that missiles can't punch through and missiles' tracking bonus only helps against ships that might otherwise avoid the other attack types.

You mean missiles are better in some areas and worse in others? Doesn't sound like a problem to me as the point is that they, in 1.4.1, under-perform in all cases and not as the situation dictates.

The whole point of my comments throughout this and other threads was to indicate that multiple changes are necessary to fix missiles across the board, as they currently underperform against kinetic and energy weapons in a number of ways. Just a flat increase in base damage will not fix those other areas, but simply paper it over and I'm not convinced that it would even do that well.

See the last point. All weapons are supposed to be better in some areas and weaker in others, but you have derailed the argument (ie moved the goalposts) for the change as it was based on the overkill issue which has been proven wrong. I could probably also prove to you that no matter the combination Missiles will underperform compared to it's equivalents but it's too time expensive to me. Along with that, we have been arguing over the same points for the last 4-6 posts so I'm giving up on the argument - If that can't convince you I don't know what will.

 

[BlackUmbrellas]

Square-cube law is related to SA:V, not distance.

While I misremembered the relevant law as the square-cube at first, I've consistently used the correct term (inverse-square) since. I even posted a helpful picture.

 

[Kat Tsun]

While I misremembered the relevant law as the square-cube at first, I've consistently used the correct term (inverse-square) since. I even posted a helpful picture.

It was more for benefit of other people.

Anyway the rabbit hole here ends at someone admitting that "space combat" is the realm of fiction and will be forever, though. People who don't know why wars happen might think it's realistic, but people who know what causes wars and why and what people fight over won't. In which case, the entire line of argument is meaningless.

Realism simply doesn't enter into the equation in a game where you have to pretend that economics matters when time travel exists. For example, why can't we just teleport everything where it's needed before its needed since we can travel to Barnard's Star in a month? Why do I need to manage minerals and energy when I have no unknown quantities to deal with? Why can people live on planets that have higher or lower gravities than their homeworlds without suffering crippling skeletal-muscular defects? Why selectively and disingenuously apply "realism" to things that are mostly irrelevant when there are more fundamental flaws that support the entire concept of the game?

In an ideal world, all arguments appealing to realism wouldn't be allowed. It's approximately the same level as reverse the tachyon beam polarity and multi-dimensional portal sliding. There are simply much better approaches than pointing arbitrarily to real-life physical laws. Some of which have actually been discussed.

 

[Cordane]

All weapons are supposed to be better in some areas and weaker in others, but you have derailed the argument (ie moved the goalposts) for the change as it was based on the overkill issue which has been proven wrong.

I think you're confusing overkill with regard to missiles as being "target only needs 3 missiles fired at it to kill it, but right now we're going to fire 10" instead of "there were already 3 missiles fired on the target, which should have been capable of killing it, but we're going to fire 3 more because we don't have any recollection of 3 missiles having been fired, and whoops now we have another three launchers ready to fire and, since the first two salvos haven't hit yet, let's fire another 3 missiles". THAT'S the overkill that missiles have to worry about that neither of the other two types do. Changing the damage amount (especially by the 5-10% you initially stated) on missiles only makes the overall battle a little bit shorter, but not near as short as fixing the extra salvo(es) overkill issue. Changing the speed on missiles would actually help in both reducing the number of salvos wasted in overkill and in killing targets before they can retaliate with an extra 1-3 launches of their own while waiting for impact - another problem kinetics and energy don't have to worry about.

Also:

However, missiles already have a counter to point defenses, it's swarmer missiles.

My response was that swarmer missiles don't do what they're supposed to do, and that they only come in a Medium slot (my inference being that only having a single place where you have any counter is pretty weak) - your reply was:

Like I said, that an issue with Swarmer missiles not Missiles

How is that an issue just for swarmer missiles? If the tech advance that's supposed to help out missiles doesn't work, then it's an issue for missiles in general.

Last thing: the fact that I mentioned a single situation where missiles might be at an advantage does not somehow equate to me espousing some "better in some areas and weaker in others" type of equivalence between missiles and kinetic or energy weapons. I've consistently said in my posts in this thread (and many others) that missiles underperform against their peers in many areas (and not enough advantage anywhere else to come close to making up the difference), but actually reading my posts here must have been "too time expensive" for you. I think you'll find if you spend the time to read the other comments in this thread, you've failed to convince them as well - it's not my fault your arguments aren't that convincing.

 

[Exarian]

I think you're confusing overkill with regard to missiles as being "target only needs 3 missiles fired at it to kill it, but right now we're going to fire 10" instead of "there were already 3 missiles fired on the target, which should have been capable of killing it, but we're going to fire 3 more because we don't have any recollection of 3 missiles having been fired, and whoops now we have another three launchers ready to fire and, since the first two salvos haven't hit yet, let's fire another 3 missiles". THAT'S the overkill that missiles have to worry about that neither of the other two types do. Changing the damage amount (especially by the 5-10% you initially stated) on missiles only makes the overall battle a little bit shorter, but not near as short as fixing the extra salvo(es) overkill issue. Changing the speed on missiles would actually help in both reducing the number of salvos wasted in overkill and in killing targets before they can retaliate with an extra 1-3 launches of their own while waiting for impact - another problem kinetics and energy don't have to worry about.

Significant (100-200%) movement speed buff to missiles will greately reduce this problem.

My response was that swarmer missiles don't do what they're supposed to do, and that they only come in a Medium slot (my inference being that only having a single place where you have any counter is pretty weak) - your reply was:

How is that an issue just for swarmer missiles? If the tech advance that's supposed to help out missiles doesn't work, then it's an issue for missiles in general.

Swarmers do not counter Point Defense, they are just NOT AFFECTED by PD. Just like energy/kinetics... No advantage here
Swarmers able to counter Point Defense should take fire from PD, "shielding" other missiles and still be able to do some damage. None of this is happening

Last thing: the fact that I mentioned a single situation where missiles might be at an advantage does not somehow equate to me espousing some "better in some areas and weaker in others" type of equivalence between missiles and kinetic or energy weapons. I've consistently said in my posts in this thread (and many others) that missiles underperform against their peers in many areas (and not enough advantage anywhere else to come close to making up the difference), but actually reading my posts here must have been "too time expensive" for you. I think you'll find if you spend the time to read the other comments in this thread, you've failed to convince them as well - it's not my fault your arguments aren't that convincing.

Missiles are inferior weapon type in many areas. Weapon with multiple unique disadvantages may be still balanced and fun to use, only If it have some superior unique advantages. Missiles have none. Main part of turning missiles into something useful, is giving them some unique characteristic, specific niche no other weapon is able to fill. Like superior range (L missiles outranging X, M missiles outranging L kinetics and L energetics, S missiles outranging M kins and engs), splash damage or something else no other weapon have.




Please also don't forget of Strikecrafts, which status is currently very close to missiles.

 

[ashbery76]

Missiles in 4X games are like fighters.Cause massive balance issues rarely solved and is really not worth having in.

 

[indika_tates]

After five pages of posts no response from developers. You can still post a lot of solutions, but you are wasting your time. They don't care about this post.

 

[scaper12123]

Missiles will probably be completely reworked after a while, but not for Banks. They have been saying the focus is on internal politics.

 

[Summin Cool]

snip

but actually reading my posts here must have been "too time expensive" for you. I think you'll find if you spend the time to read the other comments in this thread, you've failed to convince them as well - it's not my fault your arguments aren't that convincing.

Rude.
I don't actually have the time. It's a miracle that I waste it arguing about crap on the internet.

My mistake about the overkill issue.

I still don't think the overkill is actually a problem. It's an effect, but it's far easier to just buff damage, particularly when buffing speed may ruin the aesthetic.

On top of that I reckon that missiles don't deal enough damage to beat out lasers or Mass drivers. Whatever you do. Along with that the tracking, accuracy, armour Penetration, and other stats are just the design compared to damage in this. Ultimately I use the design stats to determine the role of a weapon, and use damage to balance it.

I'm refusing to argue about the rest, my argument is that adding damage will fix the overkill issue fairly neatly. Like I said before, The argument is about the overkill issue, not the PD issue, which is an issue with the Strength of PD's and that Swarmer missiles are broken.

 

[Pavane]

After five pages of posts no response from developers. You can still post a lot of solutions, but you are wasting your time. They don't care about this post.

They might if this thread wasn't just the same people posting over and over. I think that most players use missiles without ever worrying that they are not perfectly balanced.

 

[Kayden_II]

After five pages of posts no response from developers. You can still post a lot of solutions, but you are wasting your time. They don't care about this post.

What should They say ? ...
"Yeah - You're right !" to get some Sort of a Response like "Good - Fix It !" or ...
"No - You're wrong !" to get a Thread with 20 Pages of "Arguments"/Complaints without Suggestions to solve this Issue ? ...

By the Way - Suggestions into the Suggestion-Forum !

 

[Summin Cool]

After five pages of posts no response from developers. You can still post a lot of solutions, but you are wasting your time. They don't care about this post.

They rarely post in these type of threads for reasons said before. You can see their thoughts in the patch notes if you wait long enough.

 

[Almond_Brown]

Download a Missile MOD while you wait fcol. And if your all about the "MP Aspect", then just don't use the bad Missiles, you opponent likely isn't.

And to the guy who wants the Dev to jump into every thread, that apparently has 5+ pages, 4 of which are 2 guys arguing back and forth endlessly, about Sci-Fi War in Sci-Fi space all the while using Atmospheric based Math's, then what would you have them say?

"It is on the To-Do List!" Well News Flash. They said that already and unlike many of the Forums posters, the Dev are not ones to "repeat themselves, ad nausea", thankfully.

 

[Morbid Gerbil]

don't know why but thread title made me think of temporal missiles

fire them & they blink out of existence
reappearing not 'where' the enemy is but 'when' the enemy is

shame temporal mechanics is most likely outside the scope of the game