Missile Prototype 3

FireShredder24

Ultranova Oh yeah... forgot about that.

Oneye

Walt Ok, so missiles look awesome now but are way too fast and do a bit too much damage (3.1).
image https://i.imgur.com/oCZCQVz.png

Even if missiles are changed back to their normal speed i would love a longer trail btw.

also as flak is now its pretty much useless.

Walt

Oneye Ok, so missiles look awesome now but are way too fast

I'm confused, I haven't changed missile speed for H.E. missiles compared to 0.14.4.

Oneye

Walt well they seem really fast, did you just change the trail or something?

mystique

100th post! (lol)

Newish idea: torpedo! Like Kroom's torpedo, but has penetration of 5-accelerator railgun for structural, and just explodes in operational. I'll code an example part.

Walt

Oneye well they seem really fast, did you just change the trail or something?

I did change the trails, yes, but that's only a graphical change.

Lafiel They got much higher acceleration but same speed limit so their time on target is much better.

The only change I made is that acceleration is now expressed per-second instead of per-frame. The actual acceleration should be identical, and looking at the old-vs-new missiles side-by-side, I can't see any different in speed or acceleration.

Vess Here's a thought. What if, Instead of new factory's we make the missiles require mixed components. For instance, One EMP missile would require 4 Missile parts and eight Batteries to be brought to the launch tube. Or the mines would be 1 missile part and 12 ammunition. Basically utilizing multiple component types would enhance the Sim city aspect of building efficient routes while also giving you that mid battle option of changing munitions for tactical variety. With out the required burden of placing factories you may not use.

Yeah I've thought about this. Unsure about the extra complexity it would add.

Lafiel

They got much higher acceleration but same speed limit so their time on target is much better.

BattleCruiserCommander

I think the changes about pd (to me) are ok. The lock-on really doesn't help against multiple swarms of missiles, nor closely shot missiles. Maybe the minigun can turn 180 degrees, to compensate?

nobody

Personally, I liked pd prototype 1 more, but the minigun is cool. However, I don’t like that the minigun also is a flak weapon, and they don’t turn much. This is more like a nerf to the pd, and I didn’t mind the pd before. I liked the pd in pd prototype 1 because it was like a secondary option of the shield, and it provided decent protection for small ships.

Dibs

I love the little lock-on circle that pops up over the missiles and I love the minigun, it's a boat load of fun to use to shred ships up and addresses the minor niche of countering cinder block armor designs.

PD's themselves are significantly weaker now as i'm sure was intended and a lot of people have stated, looking at the length of this thread now. They are basically not worth the investment at this point. If we are going further down the rabbit hole with Flak ammunition being a thing, at this point just remove the PD part entirely if this is it's final iteration, and give flak ammo over to all the cannon parts.
The minigun and Large cannon as it stands are too valuable DPS to lose for anti-missile defense and they outstrip any usefulness the standard cannon can bring to the party. By removing the PD part and giving its current role over to cannon parts, the standard cannon can stay relevant to the game past sometimes being used in small ship designs

falcon500

There needs to be a new "torpedo" missile type with a 4/5x1 launcher, a small AOE, high damage, and the penetration of a three-accelerator railgun.

Vess

Here's a thought. What if, Instead of new factory's we make the missiles require mixed components. For instance, One EMP missile would require 4 Missile parts and eight Batteries to be brought to the launch tube. Or the mines would be 1 missile part and 12 ammunition. Basically utilizing multiple component types would enhance the Sim city aspect of building efficient routes while also giving you that mid battle option of changing munitions for tactical variety. With out the required burden of placing factories you may not use.

Vess

Vess Not to mention opening doors to munition variants of other weapons. Like bringing batteries to the Rail gun Makes a short range Penetrating EMP round. Or combining missile and ammunition in in the rail gun for a course correcting HE round. In general Using combined components would add a wonderful layer of variety, with out over complicating existing resources.

Vess

Blockquote Walt Yeah I've thought about this. Unsure about the extra complexity it would add.

Would you want to prototype a weapon that requires 2 components to use, to see if it's buggy?

Walt

Vess It's not bugs I'm concerned about (the railgun already uses both ammo and power), it's making things more complicated for the player.

Vess

Walt I'm glad you Focus so much on player conveyance, It is a great thing to keep in mind. though complicated can be good if it's not confusing. Currently, weapon wise you have A 3 unit Economy with two munitions requiring the based reactors to run. I could seen a 4th "Pulse" component fitting into the equation but currently the system is Basic and easy to understand. I feel modal weapons are risky but within reason. It's the Idle factories that concern me. so like the Rail gun having multiple dependencies for the higher tier weapons is a great way to balance cost and complexity. Though this might be a poll-able issue But I do feel the rail comparison is apt for the conversation.
Also I recognize that this Is very close to being it's own suggestion, outside the fact that it interceeds on the systems currently being tested.

CGDW

I think having some ammo types that require 3 ingredients (or more) is fine, but having played factorio a bunch it simply doesn't feel that complex to begin with...

samepage

Just want to bring this up since not much people had mentioned this in the discussion: Currently the missile launcher can take up to 12 crews while reloading. But in real it only needs 6 crews to completely drain a adjacent factory, which means 6 out of 12 crews were wasted on unnecessary task, forcing people to compartmentalize their ships in order to improve the crew's performance.

I think the crew's behavior can be largely improved if the number of crews that were assigned to reload each launcher is capped at 6 rather than 12, as adding more crews to the task only causes congestion without actually increasing the reloading rate. Similar case can be said for the large cannon where piles of crews just wait in line trying to refill the cannon. Their task management can really use some optimization.

CGDW

My test shows otherwise... the six crew factory will be filled up completely part of the time, meaning it's not producing rocket parts parts then, whereas the 12 crew factory never fills up, so is producing at 100%. The 12 crew factory does fully drain every now and then, so maybe 8-10 crew is enough? 6 definitely is not.
Also, because the factory holds 9 parts max, you will want at least 9 for the fastest burst reload.
image https://i.imgur.com/3KcrQKw.jpg

samepage

CGDW Both the launcher and the factory can hold up to 12 missile parts. Depend on the distance between the launcher and the factory the result could be quite different. Here is an example of having only 6 crews for reloading but still drain the factory at 100%.

image https://i.imgur.com/9RFXpId.png

However, you are probably right about having 6 crews is not enough. As this only works if the launcher is directly adjacent to the factory. So I agree with you that 8 crews is sufficient in most case. Having 8 crews for reloading means they can simutanously bring 2 missiles, and will not waste too many crews when the factory is depleted. (assuming the factory is not too far away)

CGDW

samepage
For some reason I never counted properly and always thought a single missile was 3 parts... thanks for correcting me.

Equalizer
That's a really good idea, I hope it's possible.