The interesting parts to me:
- Any missile type that is useful in small quantities but not worth spamming, e.g. mix-ins.
- Missiles which demand to be front-mounted.
- Defensive missiles.
Less interesting:
- Missiles which specifically counter PD. Balance nightmare and spam-encouraging.
I vote for EMP and torpedo with potential changes to HE, more below..
This is absolutely terrifying, the way fire works now no amount of fire extinguishers will save you from a barge full of flame missiles. Unlike HE missiles, a single hit to a PD starting a fire will shut down its resupply until the crew stops the fire. Continued hits keep the fire rolling. Fire is even more effective than EMP because it shuts down everything it touches, including parts that don't use energy.
Dalas120 Incendiary missiles have great potential for internal ship design, but with the current fire mechanics they would just encourage ultra-compartmentalization with minimal fire extinguishers.
Walt Any ideas on how fire mechanics could change to discourage (or at least not encourage) compartmentalization?
Firestarting should be a counter to modular design because you want to be able to bring in extra resources from other parts of the ship to pitch in. If there were some more centralized firefighting part which is expensive, effective, and ideal for countering flame attacks, this would discourage modules and gives flame missiles some counter-build. Like firefighting robots that respond automatically and work much better than fire extinguishers. (Then the question is, if you have robots why are they only fighting fires and not hauling ammo/energy all the time? 🤔 )
Because napalm missiles demand major rethinking of fire mechanics and have scaling issues, they are not so appealing for the next update.
This sounds like just a better HE missile for doing damage. What if we change the HE missile to do something more interesting..
What if this applied a "crew stun" concussion effect in proximity, to temporarily slow down crew movement? Or another "Concussion Missile" type which disrupts crew without all the complication of napalm spam.
This is a kind of missile that you might want "mixed in" on ships that otherwise use other weapons.
A good candidate for mix-in, because like EBs they aren't worth spamming. If the radius is big enough, this sounds useful for suppression, sort of a mixed offensive/defensive missile. Maybe the pulse should also destroy enemy missiles in the radius and allow it to be fired defensively, replacing the interceptor missile specialty?
Let's call it a nuclear torpedo. A guided but much less maneuverable super-missile for strike craft and artillery, very scary. Front mount encouraged. Yet another weapon for punishing slow ships. Needs to be better than an auto-firing missile wall. Maybe much longer guidance range? A good candidate for having a separate launcher, I don't see why you'd want to switch between this and any other missile type. Probably practical to reduce the firing arc.
Feels wonky, does the same kind of suppression that flame/EMP missiles could potentially do, except more specific.
Walt Question 2: Should different missile types use different numbers of missile parts?
Balancing production rate of the parts might be just as good? I think if you make good decisions about which missile types are included and how they work, this won't be necessary.
Walt Question 3: How should point defenses interact with the different missile types?
Maybe torpedos are a little harder to kill? Requiring two kill shots from PD or one interceptor missile?
Walt Question 4: Should missile range be changed to match its targeting range?
Don't think auto-fire is a problem, as long as missiles don't get much faster they are pretty easy to dodge. Easy to say now that missile walls are out of favor..
Walt Question 5: Should missile guidance be changed to be a bit more "aimable"?
The current mechanics allow side-firing launchers to hit parts on the rear of the target, when they're near the edge. It's not very intuitive to aim though, and missiles might be easier to use and balance if they tried harder to hit the targeted area directly instead of orbiting.
Walt Question 6: Should sensor arrays have any effect on missiles?
All of the proposals sound like "must-haves" where missiles are useless without the buff. It's not nearly as interesting as engine rooms.