As far as I can figure out, missiles simply aim themselves directly at the target, correcting their course as they go along so they're always pointed straight at the target they're trying to hit.

As they're trying to hit targets that are definitely faster, and generally more manoueverable, it's effectively impossible for them to strike home--I don't even worry about them unless they're straight along my path; a missile that's even just a few degrees off is more than likely to miss.

The most interesting way to have missiles become more effective, to me, is to have them operate in a more intelligent way. Having them plot an interception course would make them much more versatile.

Too versatile... they need to be dodgable...

I think they should be made faster, they should be dodgable, but even I can easily dodge the homers, and I have no fighting skills at all compared to most players... too easy.

I am probably the worst pilot in the game and I have dodged rockets.

Actually, they do to lead the target off. They don't go straight at it. Or they're not supposed to. But they have limited maneuverability and there's something not right about their approach when they're near you. I'm pretty sure they're intentionally easy to dodge, but I'm not sure what Waylon did to them, exactly.

It's not thier speed that makes them dodgable, its their poor turning rate. I agree with a1k0n, they don't quite 'think' right when they get close to the target leading to alot of near misses. But if that's intentional it doesn't burn my bread much - I've never much liked homing weapons.

you are right as usual, never used homers, but heeters on the other side, I used them frequently "mostly when my normal rockets where all used up, and because I didn't want to rearm during a normal fight/duel".

I found heeters much more difficult to dodge

PS: are they still existent or are they changed , and if so in what.

cheers

PPS: me really needs a survey of all the available ships/weapons, so I can figure some nice structures out to try when I'm back

Gemini = Heater Seeker.

I think they work identically, though I _think_ that gemini's do a little more damage than the HS's I remember (950 ea. rather than 750 ea.). I could be mistaken. In any event, the Gemini is a cool weapon and one of a handful that seems balanced to me. Incidently, it isn't the speed that makes HS dangerous - its that they seem to turn tighter and thier prox fuse overcomes the thinking problem homers seem to have at close range.

At present, you ship should be equiped with a mix of the following: tachyon's, gemini's, sunflares, adv. gatling's, swarm launchers, avalon torpedoes, and possibly lightning mine launchers. Choose a load out appropriate to your style and mission. Those are the 'good' weapons that don't need much if any tweeking now. The rest still need work.

Gemini's are an effective weapon vs. flag cappers and a good deterence weapon for low agility ship like the ragnarok. They work well as harassment weapons in combination with the advanced gatling, and are I guess standard on the (thuroughly unbalanced due to its medium agility) Prom.

heat seekers = large or small slot?

all the energy based weapons are small right

then the torpedo and the adv gatling and the other "gunrelated ones" are big slots only weapons

rockets = small

homers and others = large

so for a valk: best outfit : 1 tachyon and dual sunflare or 2 tachyon and 1 heet seeker for harassment

tradingship: "swarm or heeters, depends wich are the best",1 energyweapon and the rest filled with mines

capship: valk decked out as the first one or with 2 heet seekrs in place of dual sunflare
some medium ship with mines

haven't got an idea from the rest

cheers

A1k0n: I haven't seen them do a good job of leading the target off. I was chasing down a target at considerable distance (up to a kilometer in some cases) that was lobbing off missiles all day long (it was a Ragnarok completely laden with homers--there were a lot). Granted, the missiles were probably trying to turn 180 degrees, which took them well out of the path, but I was boosting pretty much in a straight line, so my path was very predictable--ideally, they might have just braked and let me overrun them, rather than trying to approach at speed.

Dave: They would remain dodgeable. Light fighters of any flavour have considerably more acceleration than even the Geminis. The missiles still would have to turn, being incapable of lateral thrust; even a reasonably skilled pilot in a medium-acceleration ship can dodge a few homers (and I've seen people do this ridiculous trick with barrel rolls that really screws up homer AI). Finally, heavy ships can still put down the hammer and outrun the missiles. It wouldn't change the dodging, but would reduce the missed-by-a-mile hits when fired from head-on, and perhaps remove the barrel-rolling stunt as well.

Nooooooooooooo don't remove the barrel stunt, It's my most effective dodging tactic.

me starts obliterating acierocolotl to kingdom come

grmbl, making me back a complete newbie, how does he dare "sniffs as if he has a high selfesteem of himself :D"

cheers

Renegade: No, there is at least one large energy weapon other than the gatlings but it sucks so noone uses it. There are two large rockets (one equivalent to the Type II's in 3.1 and another which is more powerful and faster, but has a lower prox radius), but no one uses them either it turns out because there is a bug which makes them slower than they should be. There is a large homing missile (the stingray) which is fairly fast and hard hitting and might be a good weapon if it actually homed on its target reasonably well.

I'm half interested in seeing the prox mine dropper turned into a small weapon just to get more people using it. It's a little weak for a large weapon.

Agreed. It should be a small weapon.

(imagines a Rag that could lay 30 prox and 8 lightning in one load)
Mmmmm

hehe

or 10 triple prox mine clusters...