Missile Prototype 2

Dalas120

Lafiel IRL nukes are ten times faster than any ordinary missile.

I think that's more a range/size thing than anything specific to a nuclear payload. Modern nukes are designed to fly clear across the planet, so they'll definitely be faster than a ship-to-ship cruise missile or shoulder-mounted dumbfire.

Lafiel Making them short range and powerful seem logical but will lead to barrage type tank-brawlers. I'm not sure if that is desired.
Lafiel Making them slow reloading would solve this issue.

Yeah, I agree. That's pretty much what I had in mind.

Bombers and strike craft are a huge part of space fantasy, and having a super-powerful, close range, long-reloading weapon might make them viable. Or it might not, I'm not sure.

Walt

Dalas120 Dumbfire suggestion: what if dumbfire missiles became nuclear torpedoes? Some reasons why this might make sense:
- Dumbfire missiles are already big, slow, powerful weapons, like nukes are
- IMO dumbfire missiles should be slow to manufacture and fast to load, with huge alpha strike power but low sustained RoF. Nuclear missiles fit this concept perfectly.
- It helps differentiate from high explosive missiles, which so far has been an issue with dumbfire
- Different warhead from HE is a plausible explanation for being dumbfire
- Nuclear weapons are really cool

I also strongly suggest decreasing the range for dumbfires. We already have autofired HE missiles as long-range dumbfire artillery, and current dumbfire promotes kiting.

I'm generally in favor of this, though I feel like if it's literally "nuclear" then that demands some kind of fire-like radiation effect, which is kind of a big can of worms to open, both technically (need support for multiple kinds of fires) and design (how does radiation work? do fire extinguishers become hazmat suits?)

Even if not nuclear, making them much shorter range is probably a good call.

Dalas120 I would support this for dumbfire. Not enough guidance that they can be fired from side-facing missile launchers, but enough that they behave more like a turreted cannon than an ion beam.

I'm not a huge fan of partial guidance, only because that's kind of unintuitive. (Why is this missile suddenly not homing anymore?)

Something I could do to achieve a similar effect is give them permanent but very bad guidance (very low turn rate, low drag, low acceleration) and also reduce their targeting arc to something like 90 degrees (other missiles are currently 270) and require line-of-sight.

Dalas120 Make nuke factories extremely expensive and slow-producing

I smell a 4x4 factory coming...

Dalas120 Significantly reduce the number of missile parts required to fill a launcher with a nuke (this makes loading faster)

Not convinced 12 parts (what is currently required for the dumbfire missiles) is too much for an even-more-powerful nuclear torpedo.

Dalas120 Possibly add extra effects to the explosion, like EMP and/or fire (both of which are generated by real-life nukes)

Fire for sure, and probably radiation as I mentioned above. I'm a little skeptical about EMP if I'm also adding a dedicated EMP missiles, though I guess their use cases are so different that's probably not a big deal.

nop

Walt Not convinced 12 parts (what is currently required for the dumbfire missiles) is too much for an even-more-powerful nuclear torpedo.

If the weapon takes a lot of ammo work to reload, the "start empty" option has a bigger balance swing. Most of the other weapons don't have so much damage potential on a single magazine. I like the idea of a high alpha torpedo, just imagining what casual elimination MP games might be like.

Walt Something I could do to achieve a similar effect is give them permanent but very bad guidance

A sneaky thing about this is that it lets you focus multiple launchers on a single point, where complete dumbfire has the same limits (and advantages e.g. tunneling) as the other spinal weapons.

Walt "nuclear" then that demands some kind of fire-like radiation effect

It could be similar to the "stun" crew debuff, except turning their skin green is the visual indication we were looking for. Report to sickbay for a rad hypo, ensign.

Ultranova

Walt

I think that incendiary missiles, however cool they are, aren't exactly the best. For one, the damage they cause is often caused too slowly for it to be compared with the rest of the missiles, especially AOE missiles. For the incendiary missile to be useful, it would have to have it's own, separate variant of fire, which burns faster, kills crew faster and overall is more devastating.

Pros:

It would make sense lore-wise to make it that the fire caused by the incendiary missiles be more destructive because the chemicals used in fire-making weapons (specifically Napalm) typically cause fires that are more fierce than your normal kitchen fire.
It would require support for more fire, which is something modders have been wanting for a long time

Cons:

Support for more fire types might not be worth the time it takes, from what I gather from this comment:

Walt hat demands some kind of fire-like radiation effect, which is kind of a big can of worms to open, both technically (need support for multiple kinds of fires)

The incendiary missile has already proved not to be as useful in combat as other missiles because of the lack of damage it does. Buffing the initial damage it does upon exploding may also prove to be counter-intuitive.

Not sure what anyone else thinks, but personally, I'm not sure that incendiary missiles are needed in the base game at this point in time.

clojelo

Walt if it's literally "nuclear" then that demands some kind of fire-like radiation effect, which is kind of a big can of worms to open, both technically (need support for multiple kinds of fires) and design (how does radiation work?

off-topic: more-fire a pandora's box?

Currently (0.14.x), fire is a unique effect in its own render layer, indicator, and controlled by fire-specific parameters. It would be a deviously-delicious-can-of-worms if fire effect were converted to a moddable anti-crew event/effect type, similar to triggers or hit effects, with counter-event/effect mechanism.

Cosmoteer already has a versatile hit effect system -- maybe adding a HitCrew group?! On 2nd thought, , there might be a humane/rating factor in design decision where crew mortality is concerned.

Once the ground work is laid, additional crew event/effect like radiation damage, stunned, emo, etc might be within reach..

Walt

I'm currently leaning towards adding these missiles for 0.14.5:

Cluster missiles with reduced damage but with added fire. I'm leaning towards changing them back to their original "standard" size with 5 clusters per missile. Maybe increasing HP per mini-missile to 2 to make them better at distracting PD.
EMP missiles, more-or-less as-is.
Nuclear missiles/torpedoes more-or-less as described above.
And maybe interceptors, with their ability to be shot at by PD & other interceptors removed.

I'm wondering whether there should be two missile launcher variants ("standard" and "heavy") rather than having the one missile launcher physically transform to handle the larger missiles, which would be a bit weird.

I'm also thinking about consolidating missile factories into the following:

Explosive Missile Factory (manufactures both HE and Cluster missiles)
EMP Missile Factory
Nuclear Missile Factory (possibly combing HE+EMP missile parts?)
Interceptor Missile Factory

NullEndornSol

Walt I'm wondering whether there should be two missile launcher variants ("standard" and "heavy") rather than having the one missile launcher physically transform to handle the larger missiles, which would be a bit weird.

I'm also thinking about consolidating missile factories into the following:

Explosive Missile Factory (manufactures both HE and Cluster missiles)
EMP Missile Factory
Nuclear Missile Factory (possibly combing HE+EMP missile parts?)
Interceptor Missile Factory

An explosive EMP hybrid is a good idea for such high burst damage. If a nuke does too much damage to one area of a ship, it could make it useless. This would promote close range nuking with suicide ships. EMP hybridization is a way to keep the damage high and meaningful while avoiding this possibility.

For reasons of style and the like, Cosmoteer has slow, short range projectiles. Doesn't mean it should become a ramming fest.

Suggestion: Two nuke types. One for EMP damage, the second for fire damage. No need to make damage complex until most of the core of Cosmoteer combat is finished. Suitably, more complex options can be added in, to spice the game indefinitely.

samepage

Walt Should nuclear missiles always deal friendly fire? I mean it will be weird if they don't.

culanns_hound

So, I still can't seem to get the missiles to show up

Walt

culanns_hound So, I still can't seem to get the missiles to show up

Build a missile launcher, exit build mode, click (or ctrl+click) on the missile launcher, and you'll be able to change what type of missile it shoots.

culanns_hound

Walt It's so easy, why didn't I think of that 😛

Ultranova

clojelo Cosmoteer already has a versatile hit effect system -- maybe adding a HitCrew group?!

Initiate crew sniper towers

Lafiel

clojelo Currently (0.14.x), fire is a unique effect in its own render layer, indicator, and controlled by fire-specific parameters. It would be a deviously-delicious-can-of-worms

there might be a humane/rating factor in design decision where crew mortality is concerned.

This is ~~Spart~~a war simulation there's no place for ethics. The dogs of war are already on the loose here. And frankly the demons are just waiting for it to happen. And soon enough the cries of the female crew can be heard.
There's no reason to hold back now.

I think those specialized factories should just produce war heads to be combined with the ordinary missile factory parts. I would make more sense to have a larger factory for the larger missile parts, though. It would keep cost reasonable and allow reasonable expansion to an all purpose missile ship. Otherwise it would be prohibitive and ships would be more specialized in certain missile types.

That_Angry_Man

Oh wow cluster missiles are just like the Cluster Torpedo from EPD.

Oneye

Lafiel So smaller warhead factories that you just combine with the existing HE factories? That seems reasonable, although it would make the other missile types harder to add to your ship.

Oneye

Dalas120 This would add a lot of variety to the game and especially missiles, I really like this idea already.

SpaceCat

Hi,

Glad that the firing angle of PD is 120degrees. This reduces the fear of missiles becoming OP (a bit) and is a plus for more flexible ship-design.
With different missile factories missiles will also be harder to handle, so this is a nice "background nerf" also.

@Walt : Wonder, will the next update already have a "max missile in air limit - per launcher"?
Is the idea of a seperate missile "bait/flare" countermeasure still there?

Walt

SpaceCat will the next update already have a "max missile in air limit - per launcher"?

I am not currently planning to do this.

SpaceCat Is the idea of a seperate missile "bait/flare" countermeasure still there?

Probably not for the next update, but maybe in the future.

DanielTheMooCow

Walt multiplayer wont work so is it possible to remove

BaseMe2

Walt In the finished version, my plan is for each missile type to use its own factory.

Keep in mind that letting us switch the missile they produce gives us a deeper level of strategy and mid fight adjusting. I personally would let people switch whenever they want. As a compromise you could add like 2 - 3 factories and each allows you to switch between two type of missile. Like a damage dealing and a more defensive one. My 2 Cents

DanielTheMooCow

how to remove it because multiplayer wont work with it