Missles (and rockets)

I really like that diagram too. I never realised the ships were so huge. The command section's cockpit is off scale just a little, and makes everything else look smaller. Thanks for straightening that out Shane.

It seems many people are saying missiles should or would be very powerful, and fearsome weapons. I wonder whether this isn't because of the current and longstanding imbalance between the strength of armor and the destructive power of explosives/warheads. Currently, the technology of Torn Stars (perhaps not EoC) has taken the route that most components of a ship are made of nanomaterials. I am no expert in this field, but since nanomaterials are/would be composed of atoms making covalent bonds, and thus cumulatively forming materials that are in a sense giant molecules, couldnt' the protective strength of armor of ships actually, and finally, equal or even surpass the destructive power of missiles? Even nuclear/fisson missiles? I am under the impression that they would. If this were the case, it would greatly alter missiles roles in ship to ship combat.

Please note that the above comparison was done with a correctly-sized humanoid figure. Cal was upsized (most likely along with the Storm Petrel) and, if placed next to the model would stand much taller.

I had originally created this pic to argue that the drone should be much smaller than it currently is, but when faced with the resizing problems (resize the drone and then we can't use the stock missile launchers or cannons), I felt it best to keep things as they were.

The only way to fix the scale problems in EoC is to alter the sizes of everything across the board. Which would cause issues in other areas. Big Can-O-Worms.

Stumbled on this idea from long ago:

Another way to make missiles weaker is to create situations where they are nearly useless. LDSI missiles destroy other missiles. It would be very easy to write a script so that all missiles inside an LDSI field are destroyed.

This allows dogfighting near stations, but missiles become the weapons of choice away from stations.

We can also equip cruisers and carriers with LDSI generators. This would make them immune to missile attacks. To destroy a capital ship you would have to get to close range, and fight it out with beams and PBC weapons.

The technology can be justified by saying that missiles use a form of LDSI drive. It is the only kind of drive that is small and efficient enough (no mass needed for propulsion) to drive a missile at high rates of acceleration without a fusion reactor.

Our best chemical rockets have drives that produce 6 g's (about 60m/s/s) of acceleration. The Deadshot missile has 48 g's (480m/s/s) of acceleration. Which brings up another possible modification, chemical powered missiles. These weapons are immune to the LDSI effect, but have very low accel values and very short lives. They would be useless at attacking fast turning ships. But they could have great value in striking unmoving stations and capital ships.

The reason I like this kind of design, is that it creates variety for the player. If attacking a pirate base with an LDSI field the player would choose totally different weapons and tactics than if
they were attacking ships with no such defense. Any game design that opens new choices is good.

Otherwise it is just level your way up to the best stuff and never change loadout.

Missiles do have an arm_time value (just looked). If increased to several seconds, this would open up room for point blank range fights.

Originally posted by GrandpaTrout
In any "real world" they would totally dominate, just as they do modern naval warefare. No ships would ever see each other. Which might be true, but is not much fun. So the real trick becomes how to disable them so you can get into some close combat and do some dogfighting. It is hard for something to be deadly, and yet harmless.

I believe the key lies in missile specialization. You're asking: “Should missiles be hard or easy?� I feel the solution is “Some should be hard. Others should be easy.� This would not only support the 'fun gameplay' aspect, it also addresses the 'immersion/realism' factor.

I agree with GrandpaTrout on LDS fields destroying missiles but only around stations.
Anti- capital ship missiles should be slow and unguided (like a hammer or blizzard) but pack huge penetration and damage on a 1,5 km radius. Anti-capital ship station defense should be a slow rotating beam turret of 2.5 km range. I’ll make one for the patcom gun platform I made earlier. I am also thinking of a missile turret.


When a boss says “Go!� the leader says “Let’s move out!�