Forums » Suggestions

Missile defence

Nov 22, 2004 TCoops link
The fact that the only defence i have against missiles is either avoid being shot, or dodge them, makes me a little uncomfortable.

People dont like spams or missile monkeys. They argue that it takes no skill to dump a salvo of missiles on somebody and run. Perhaps rightly so, but missiles are fun. And half the combat. It could be balanced out by defensive measures which also take skill to time correctly. This would make missile duels fun and skillful too.

The defensive module would occupy another slot common to all ships named "utility". Which would be a slot that could house all types of things like radar boosters, asteroid coolers, jammers, stealthy modules ect ect. You could go commando and without any missile defence at all, relying on pure manoevring and skill. BUt you could sacrifice the utility slot to give you an edge. There could be several different ways to spoof a missile. But no method would be absolute. Only improve your chances of survival, and there would be limited "charges". Some that spring to mind are:

Jammer: massive drain on battery. But while activated prevents missiles from target ship tracking at all. Requires recharge period between successive uses. You will be open to missile attack in those periods of vulnerability.

Blast wave module: only holds 2 or 3 charges. Sents out a weak blast wave that does not damage ships, but enough to knock down any missiles in the immediate vacinity of your vessel. Takes skill to time correctly; if you activate too soon the missiles will not be affected. A last second defence.

Old school counter measure: Decoy. 5 or 6 charges that offer a CHANCE of missile homing in on the decoy instead of you. Chance increases depending on range, and whether you can get the countermeasure between you and the incoming missile.

Defender missiles: slowfire small missile launcher that targets incoming missiles one at a time. Must be fired from aft. Limited ammo and effectiveness. However the longest range of all defence systems.

Anti missile gun: Forward facing machine gun that can be used to spray down an incoming missile . Limited ammo. Not that easy to shoot down missile - must know its position and fire accurate.

mm thats all i can think of at the moment. Some of those may be completely impractical or upset balance. One or two of them might be worthy.

Its a shame to label missile users "monkeys" without any skill. Its a completely valid (and fun) weapon. With proper balance in place, such as missile defence, it could make this part of combat fun and skillful. Instead of frustrating. It would also force missile users to fire a good shot and work their ways around the defence strategy, instead of just dumping a salvo and running.
Nov 22, 2004 thginkrej link
I applaud your ethusiasm, but you've stumbled onto another dead-horse topic without searching for similar posts. The older posts may be buried a bit, I admit, but they say the same things you do, except in more detail. I can't speak for the devs, but I know they know about the missile situation, and I'm sure they have something up their sleeve to balance the situation.

BTW, not to be too picky, but it's "defense." Unless you're using the UK alternate - in that case, I apologize.
Nov 22, 2004 SPUcipher link
If you can dodge a missile you can dodge anything:) But you are right: AMS (AntiMissileSystem) would be nice. Like a gattling gun mounted on the ship.

It would be nice too to have some gun turrents on a freighter shooting automaticly on targets. But then there is a need for pirates, otherwise there are not many targets to shoot at. And to have players acting as pirates we need something lucrative for pirates.

For my self: I'll be the first one smuggling and pirating Serco and Itani :) But there is no gain at all in it.
Nov 22, 2004 TCoops link
Yeah i use UK english. Im Australian. Its a bit annoying how the dictionaries somehow separately evolved from eachother.

Good to know its being considered.