Are Missiles and Torpedos completly useless !?

[TargetLost]

... because they are shot down bevore getting to the target.

Do I do something wrong here?
I mean can it be that the whole missile research tree is for nothing?

Gave up on missiles early because of that but once I finished all the research I gave it one mor try with Antimatter-Tropedoes.

I had 4 dread with 2 Antimatter Tropedo weapons each and tripple ammo storage unit and 2 rail guns as distraction in front and 6 normal dread's with phaser and plasmas.

Result: Not a single Antimatter Torpedo made it through!

Byway that works both way the aliens thorw a bunch of slow missiles and tropedos all on one single target but if you intercept them all their ships are empty cannon food.

On the contrary phaser and plasma can't be shot down...
So does it makes sense then to have anything else !?

[Patrus]

If you really want to, you probably could use missiles in the middle and late game, but it seems like a waste of effort.

I've made some tests and my 3 dreadnoughs with 6 missile launchers each (+ some PDs) weren't able to kill one alien carrier with good defences, all missiles were shot down. 2 dreadnoughs with coilguns were able to kill it easily. When testing with different enemy ships with good PDs, results were similar. If you go against enemies with good PDs, you need at least 30% - 70% more ships with missiles, than with coils. So, why would I want to build 4 or more dreads with missiles, when 2 dreads can to the same job and still have a lot of ammo left after the battle?

It seems to me, that after you invent coilguns and plasma, missiles just become obsolete. I guess, maybe nukes are more effective at bombarding asteroid bases, I haven't tested that, but in battles they just seem generally worse, unless, possibly, when you do some god tier micromanaging (with is not easy, because the UI isn't really good in this game).

[corisai]

Originally posted by Patrus:

I guess, maybe nukes are more effective at bombarding asteroid bases, I haven't tested that

They're god-tier in bombardment (~70% to destroy base without taking damage) but if you have nukes on ships you can roll a nasty event leading to nuclear detonation in one of your capital. That's mean a massive damage to economics and permanent (?) -4% to pop growth to that country.

[Mistfox]

Originally posted by TargetLost:

Originally posted by ulzgoroth:

While I certainly do not play with that low a limit (default is 30, I haven't changed it), if you had 10 monitors you could have 30-40 missile launchers. 4-5 times what you brought. On 10 dreadnoughts? You could have 60 launchers easily. More if you wanted to push it.

Basically, missiles aren't something you splash. Go big or don't bother.


(This may not be completely true. A small number of missile launchers might be useful for intercepting small but evasive alien ships that don't have point defense loadouts. But if you're trying that you need to only use the missiles at the right time against the right target, not throw it into the teeth of a heavily defended ship or a destroyer cluster.)

Hmm my Limit is set to 30 too.. but for some reason it shows 10 of my ships and 20 of the enemy at a time and that's it.

(the enemy have a lot lot more ships though maybe it is proportional to the sizes?)

Don't forget though that some of the missile launchers are multi-shot ones, so the 30-40 missile launchers from monitors can generate up to 90-120 missiles in one volley flying at the enemy. I don't see anything other than massed PD being able to stand up against 120 missiles flying at them and even then it'll be close. And this is only the first salvo. Missile swarms are cascade failure events, if PD fails to stop the first wave coming in or stops them late, the 2nd salvo is going to have a lot more time not "under fire" to close in with the enemy ships. And once the enemy fleet starts losing ships, their integrated "field of fire" weakens and more and more missiles will slip through, hence why I say they are cascade failure events.

[onyhow]

You need a lot more coilguns. Mass the crap out of it so that it'll saturate enemy PD and so your missiles can sneak through. Missiles don't have enough mag size to serve as their own decoy. Honestly? Make all your 10 dreads coil/missile. That might work a lot better than just 4 you have right now

Originally posted by corisai:

Originally posted by Illyrien:

just finished with Exodus, and I did try some different kind of fleets. It seems that Plasma is the one to go for, and just tons of lasers. Especially once you get the green phaser with a 10sec recharge time.

No, plasma is trash - it's hard-countered by armor so viable only against smallest ships. It's look awesome only because currently aliens aren't using their end-game loadouts against player in campaign (you can check them in skirmish).

I thought one of the weapon build is laser/plasma, so that plasma can break armor for laser to burn hull, given that laser is a lot worse vs armor at range, so plasma is there for that job.

Originally posted by Patrus:

If you really want to, you probably could use missiles in the middle and late game, but it seems like a waste of effort.

I've made some tests and my 3 dreadnoughs with 6 missile launchers each (+ some PDs) weren't able to kill one alien carrier with good defences, all missiles were shot down. 2 dreadnoughs with coilguns were able to kill it easily. When testing with different enemy ships with good PDs, results were similar. If you go against enemies with good PDs, you need at least 30% - 70% more ships with missiles, than with coils. So, why would I want to build 4 or more dreads with missiles, when 2 dreads can to the same job and still have a lot of ammo left after the battle?

It seems to me, that after you invent coilguns and plasma, missiles just become obsolete. I guess, maybe nukes are more effective at bombarding asteroid bases, I haven't tested that, but in battles they just seem generally worse, unless, possibly, when you do some god tier micromanaging (with is not easy, because the UI isn't really good in this game).

Why not mix small number of nuke/AM torpedo with massed coil?

[Illyrien]

I wish the would just copy from the Honorverse books.
The way they got around the limited power of missiles is just a tons of missiles.

How? Well, having a missile launcher system on the ship took up a lot of space, required a lot of support to reload etc.

Their solution was just make single use missile pack, called pods. These can basically be dumped en mass out into space and then they can all be fired off at once. Creating massive salvoes.

[Mistfox]

Originally posted by Illyrien:

I wish the would just copy from the Honorverse books.
The way they got around the limited power of missiles is just a tons of missiles.

How? Well, having a missile launcher system on the ship took up a lot of space, required a lot of support to reload etc.

Their solution was just make single use missile pack, called pods. These can basically be dumped en mass out into space and then they can all be fired off at once. Creating massive salvoes.

Not all, they required a whole new line of ships that had a lot more fire control than previously existed and the limit is still fire control limiting the salvos. Not practical in TI because frankly, the armor and hull of TI ships are crap compared to the Honorverse, launching from "Packs" will probably damage the hell out of the hulls and sensors of TI type ships and don't forget, the pods were "attached" to the ships by "tractor beams", which TI does not have. The Honorverse uses a hugely different tech base than TI which still use carbide armor, nuclear/action-reaction drives and have ♥♥♥♥ all for shields/sidewalls and armor. A bomb pumped X-ray laser from the Honorverse would probably cause critical damage to a Titan from a single hit. The scale is simply that different.

[Charles]

I think the problem with missiles is just that you need so many that it is impractical. If you had around 4-6 dreadnoughts loaded with them all focus fire you might get a couple of them through. Then there is the problem that the ships are useless once that payload is gone, and magazines are a waste of a good utility slot. I would take an extra coil gun over a missile any day.

It seems hard to balance them because if they are stronger then missiles spam would be overly viable. Perhaps having higher tech misses that gain more ammo and speed would be a good solution. Another thing that would help make adding a missiles or two viable would be to add late game missiles that are like a MIRV. A really fast primary missile that breaks into multiple smaller missiles once its closer to the target. The tech tree for missiles feels a bit incomplete.

[qwerlancer]

I wouldn't they are completely useless but they are early weapon.

[dimm_ddr]

Originally posted by wei270:

ok to use those op anit matter torp at the moment you need to get creative. build a sucidie ship that can get real close to the enemy and fly infront of the enemy the closer the better, then unload your missiles. since those anitmatter torp destories anything in one shot lol if you pop out a bunch in from of enemy at close range it is still gonna hit.

Antimatter torpedoes are amazing against alien bases. With only a few ships, I think I have around 10 monitors, you will destroy whole base with alpha strike before its defenses will get a chance to shoot at you.

[ulzgoroth]

Originally posted by TargetLost:

Hmm my Limit is set to 30 too.. but for some reason it shows 10 of my ships and 20 of the enemy at a time and that's it.

(the enemy have a lot lot more ships though maybe it is proportional to the sizes?)

Yes, the limit set is the total number of ships, not the number of your ships. It's a performance measure, not a balance measure. (I don't think it's exactly proportional but it does scale based on the fleet sizes.)

[ulzgoroth]

Originally posted by corisai:

Originally posted by Patrus:

I guess, maybe nukes are more effective at bombarding asteroid bases, I haven't tested that

They're god-tier in bombardment (~70% to destroy base without taking damage) but if you have nukes on ships you can roll a nasty event leading to nuclear detonation in one of your capital. That's mean a massive damage to economics and permanent (?) -4% to pop growth to that country.

You don't need to have nukes on your ships for that.

And given that the other factions will have nukes on their ships I'm doubting that your non-proliferation will help anyway.

Originally posted by Charles:

I think the problem with missiles is just that you need so many that it is impractical. If you had around 4-6 dreadnoughts loaded with them all focus fire you might get a couple of them through. Then there is the problem that the ships are useless once that payload is gone, and magazines are a waste of a good utility slot. I would take an extra coil gun over a missile any day.

Magazines for missiles are maybe the absolute strongest combat use of a utility slot.

Also, dreadnoughts have a lot of utility slots. What are you worried about not having space for? I usually wind up stuffing spare batteries in, and a missile boat doesn't need those.

[Charles]

Originally posted by ulzgoroth:

Magazines for missiles are maybe the absolute strongest combat use of a utility slot.

Also, dreadnoughts have a lot of utility slots. What are you worried about not having space for? I usually wind up stuffing spare batteries in, and a missile boat doesn't need those.

They are a waste, in my opinion, because missiles are the only thing that really needs them. They are strong for missiles but everything else can fight for hours with a single load of ammo. I would rather beef up my armor and slap on a spiker with some hydrogen containment, then some component armor with a side of ECM3 and maybe some laser pumps. Heck I even will forgo a heatsink on many of my smaller designs once I have tin droplet rads. Not to say mags with missiles isn't viable, I am just saying I have had much better luck using designs that completely neglect missiles. I can better use the slot in other ways to produce ships with more combat endurance.

[mrolli]

@charles:
it's farily simply: you fight for hours.
i sent in the coilnose, 4 pd, 2 missile, 2 nemesis dreads, with magazines, and it's all over for the aliens in minutes. (or 3 pd, 3 missilies, 2 nukes)
if i want to fight a second battle without refueling, i turn of the missiles + nukes after the first volleys. but with a little planing, there is a refuel/repair station on their way to the next target, and since i generally wanna go full tilt, you need to refuel anyway as in the outer system u easily use pver 1k kps for fast transfers.
coilers do take mostly care of enemy pd + lasers and still score hits.
but you do want to have some missilies with the nukes,. otherwise, ships with very good pd manage to switch to the nukes and back to the coils and get all nukes.
what often is overlooked: if you speed up towards the enemy, you can stack up multiple salvos of missiles. so dread speeding up for 2 nodes with about 2G will just have the right speed to stack up about 5 salvos by the time you're at close combat distance. (so it's actually 10 coilround, 20 lanceheads (or 30 something lighter) and 10 nukes per dread. arriving in a very short timespan. (with 3 mags, you still have a second full wave in store for another battle.)
it's important to keep them cheap, so you can throw them in en mass.
even if anything survives that first encounter you still have the double coils in the nose to finish of stragglers.

[TargetLost]

Originally posted by Illyrien:

I wish the would just copy from the Honorverse books.
The way they got around the limited power of missiles is just a tons of missiles.

How? Well, having a missile launcher system on the ship took up a lot of space, required a lot of support to reload etc.

Their solution was just make single use missile pack, called pods. These can basically be dumped en mass out into space and then they can all be fired off at once. Creating massive salvoes.

Well a bunch of decoys would help.
1 Expensive Antimatter-Torpedo accompained with 10 decoyes.. I think that would be a practical and modern solution. That's done in RL too.
But also the defence always hitting 100% as it is in the game is a bit unrealistic.

Anyway I can fight without missiles and torpedos so no problem.
Like the Pew Pew more anyway. :)

[mrolli]

almost forgot: there is one other use for nukes. deterence: the boost combat power value like crazy. aliens decide where to attack based on combat value (and value of the target)
so as i passend MC limit, i put 16 nuke BB into serivce. 850 combat power each. 5 kps chemical drive. almost useless in combat.
aliens woke up to: they got 10k combat power. lets retreat to our stations and try build more ships. THE NEVER attacked anything but earth LEO, and that only because they're scripted to.
with a 1/3 of the combat power of the aliens ratio, they seems too scared and try to strenghen their forces first. combat power of nukes allows cheap deterence, as you pur your resources rather in economy and research until you get the good stuff.