Missles (and rockets)

I am currently chipping away at a complete rebalance of the ships, weapons and systems for Torn Stars. Things are progressing nicely, but I am a little unsure of how to deal with missles.

What are everyone's thoughts on what missles roles in the game should be? Currently I am looking at either scaling back their potency drasticaly, or splitting them into two categories: anti-fighter and anti-capitolship. I am still open to any ideas however.

The problem I have found is that if weapons are too strong, then the game becomes too deadly. Ships are destroyed too easily and quickly, player included (as AI ships are stocking lots of missles. This could change with a fleet rebalance as well).
However, reducing missles strength renders them relatively ineffective, when compared to energy or beam weapons.

So what does everyone see the role of missles being? Keeping in mind of course that in our rebalance we are looking for much longer, more drawn out and strategic battles, with hopefully many many fewer ships being destroyed.

hum,
I think that having 2 main categories (anti-cap / antifighter) might be good
some kind of heavy torpedo wich could only be useful on slow ships (unable to hit fighters)
but still would require a lot of them to take down a very heavy ship
and their heavy weight would mean that you could ship very few with a single ship (one or two perhaps)
(which would mean that a fleet of x ships equipped with anti-cap might be needed to vaporize the capital ship quickly)
moreover you would probably need some LDS missiles to complement, because those "torpedoes" would be slow & the capital ship could escape

ho and I think a small area damage for those torpedoes could be good
because it could prevent their use against freighters (it would destroy cargo altogether)

So no other thoughts on missles, hmmm? I thought there might be more...perhaps I will just go with the split type then.

I think the big thing is to prevent the "machinegunning" of missiles that occurred in the regular Edge of Chaos. Combat came down to one of:

A) Get behind your opponent within the first few seconds of combat, before they have the opportunity to fire missiles, and blow them apart with rapid-fire assault.
If above fails, dodge enemy's volley of missiles, if you can, and then unleash your own volley.

The damage overhaul that was mentioned a couple of times here and there with probably be more important -- then missiles can be the "dessert" and the guns can be the "main course". Guns take down shields, missiles actually cause the real damage but are useless against shields.

Thus, you can fire missiles off at a target in the opening stages, but countermeasures should be relatively effective. If, however, you soften up the target a bit with your cannons and damage their thrusters, systems, countermeasures, etc., then the missiles will finish them off soundly. The same applies to games like Star Trek: Starfleet Academy and/or Star Trek: Klingon Academy -- there is no feeling more satisfying than softening up a target with your disruptors and then unleashing a full spread of torpedoes directly into its hull, transfixed on your viewscreen like a deer in the headlights. (Also note that torpedows in SFA and KA are nowhere near as lethal as the torpedoes featured on the TV shows. Even after a full volley into a downed shield facing, your target will only likely be reduced from 100% hull status to about 65% hull status.)

It might be hard to hack the engine enough to do something like that, though...

Is there any way to control how fast a vessel can ramp up its LDS? The problem with games where survivability is high is that ships can decide they're outmatched and bug out long before an effective retaliation can be made against them. In Klingon Academy, for instance, your ship was helpless for at least five seconds before your out-system warp drives engaged fully, and even then it was difficult to prevent you from escaping. Of course, the amount of damage you received before you escaped would usually be enough to prevent you from completing any of your remaining objectives, even after repairs were made during inter-system travel.

_______________

"The art of flying is to throw yourself at the ground and miss." --Douglas Adams

Originally posted by Cambragol
So no other thoughts on missles, hmmm? I thought there might be more...

Do you have access to the stuff I originally did on missile reblance? And if not, would you like me to send a copy along?

I have access to a 'rebalance packet' which contained quite a bit of commentary and discussion, mainly from you and GrandpaTrout I believe. There was also some rebalace material in it. Though, I can't be sure that any specific missle commentary from yourself was included. I might have overlooked it, and or failed to notice the author/source. So, any stuff you have wouldn't hurt if you sent it. I have a preliminary 'mini-rebalance' finished, save missles, but I am holding off on it until I finish building the new Unstable Space cluster, economy, models and environments...and until we get US out. But that should be too long now, so send it along any time.