Nova Missiles? Good for anything but bombardment?

[TheMac]

I don't know if they would kill fighters? Alpha is low (70), DPS is low (2), and it looks to me like it's mainly for bombardment.

Anyone else use the successfully for other purposes? If so, where? Battleship? Bastion?

[Wraith_Magus]

You might want to keep in mind that these are both area weapons (which tend to do less damage for their size because of the chance of hitting more than one target) AND are much longer range than other area weapons without having any loss of damage over distance, which gets into the same issue that missiles have, as well. The v2 version also does 100 damage in a blast (basically +40% damage in the upgrade) compared to the riptide mines doing a hypothetical 120 damage, but only 64 damage at max range because it has range damage dropoff, and the nova has over twice the range. The AoE is also 400 compared to riptide having an AoE of 320. Novas have slightly better countermeasures, with 15% less chance of being shot down. There's also 20% shield bypass. The nova also has a better rate of fire, and doesn't cost 158 friggin' energy per shot, coming in at a still substantial 28 energy per shot, but at least you're not dedicating a whole reactor to that one weapon!

Basically, I think AoE weapons are pretty overvalued anyway, because they can't really perform their core function against anything but fighters, and long range isn't as important against those (although I guess blasting the fighters before they get in range is nice, although I'm not exactly sure if AoEs work normally when specifically targeting fighters). If the enemy for some reason clumps up while trying to fire long-range weapons at your stations, a bastion holding some of these is going to be able to launch AoE attacks from 14,000 distance units away, which is quite something.

It has a role, it's the best long-range AoE weapon. (Even the repeatable tech nova pulse wave loses 25% damage per 1000 Distance Units, so at 4000 DU (max range, which means the AI will fire the weapon at this range), it does literally 0 damage.) It's just that I'm not sure it's a role worth filling with the way that the game as it exists, like bombardment weapons themselves. Comparing to regular missiles, it does less DPS than a hunter missile battery, but if you're up against significant reactive ratings, a hunter is losing about 1/4th its damage to being subtracted by armor, and the concentrated bulk of 70 or 100 alpha damage is less affected. Basically, it's not crazy to throw them on battleships or carriers if your own fighters will stay out of the blast radius.

[Nightskies]

I think they're useless. Like bombardment weapons, even against v2 shields.

1. 92 space, and a high cost of around 2,900 credits, for one Nova.
   
   
2. The 20% bypass is more a detriment. Against equal tier defense, it'll do 54 damage to shields, and 6 to armor. V2 does 77 to shields and 9 to armor.
   
   
3. 300 blast area is knife range. Not likely to hit more than 3 ships in good cases at long range- not to mention friendly fire, and since its Bastions being primarily considered, it will happen to your fighters. Enemies are a lot more likely to cluster if crowding in on a station, where Area weapons will easily outperform it at closer range.
   
   (@Wraith: Riptides are Gravitic weapons! That means hull damage through defenses. 3 hits from v2 Riptides at that 3k range *can* make a Light Cruiser run away, or at least destroy several components.)
   
   
4. Other AoE weapons are much more likely to be used against enemy fighters, as Novas will likely target ships. AoE is effective against fighters. Off the top of my head, 5 mines will wipe out any clustered group of fighters of comparable tech tier.
   
   -note: torpedo fighters are more able to survive AoE against their target with longer ranged attacks, at least for a bit
   
   
5. Against a basic Escort of equal tier, it would take 14 near simultaneous Novas hits to bring it down, assuming they all fired at it (they won't). That's 1,288 space of Novas to kill a single escort every 28 seconds. 4 Bastions would use 368 space each to field that. That's most of its weapon capacity if using Fighter Bays and extensive shields. V2 against equal tier needs 17 missiles.
   
   
6. At 10k distance, a fired Nova will take 22 seconds to hit if it goes in a straight line. V2: 21 sec.
   
   
7. A ship will jump to desired range if over 10k distance (somewhere around that, anyway). This means that 10k range is only useful for overlapping long-range fields of fire around a colony, but... the damage output is so weak, that it's impractical.

A Hive on a Bastion has about 6600 range. That's really good range. A single Bastion using 368 space worth of Hive Missiles gets 70 DPS. A single Hive Bastion does more than double the damage output. Against equal tier defense (not counting PD or misses, like above with the Nova), the alpha of the one bastion is 3,192 against shields, or 2,234 against armor. That's enough to derb turn a Zenox Destroyer to debris with a bit of luck in one volley (tested), and its likely to focus fire with that volley.

Alternatively, at ~75% cost of 14 Novas alone, you could field a Hive Missile Light Cruiser with 80% of the missile firepower of the Hive Missile Bastion.

Hunter missiles are also useless in my efforts to use them. The M Hunter isn't competitive with Hive Missiles either. Its better shield penetration made me think it might have a place alongside Railguns, but it does too little damage to matter.

Though the Lance is shorter-ranged and has less DPS, its significantly smaller and cheaper and almost performs just as well as the Hunter. But even the Lance is almost useless.

In the end, I find that having just one included on large ships / stations is so weak, that if removed and not replaced with anything, the outcome of battles are the same.

Because of this, the AI suffers when using them or Hunters, just like when bringing Bombardment weapons.


Just had a thought... the only way to make this level of damage output useful is if the missile had Hyperjump capability: the ability to target (and hit) any hostile in the same system.

[TheMac]

Originally posted by Wraith_Magus:

You might want to keep in mind that these are both area weapons (which tend to do less damage for their size because of the chance of hitting more than one target) AND are much longer range than other area weapons without having any loss of damage over distance, which gets into the same issue that missiles have, as well. The v2 version also does 100 damage in a blast (basically +40% damage in the upgrade) compared to the riptide mines doing a hypothetical 120 damage, but only 64 damage at max range because it has range damage dropoff, and the nova has over twice the range. The AoE is also 400 compared to riptide having an AoE of 320. Novas have slightly better countermeasures, with 15% less chance of being shot down. There's also 20% shield bypass. The nova also has a better rate of fire, and doesn't cost 158 friggin' energy per shot, coming in at a still substantial 28 energy per shot, but at least you're not dedicating a whole reactor to that one weapon!

Basically, I think AoE weapons are pretty overvalued anyway, because they can't really perform their core function against anything but fighters, and long range isn't as important against those (although I guess blasting the fighters before they get in range is nice, although I'm not exactly sure if AoEs work normally when specifically targeting fighters). If the enemy for some reason clumps up while trying to fire long-range weapons at your stations, a bastion holding some of these is going to be able to launch AoE attacks from 14,000 distance units away, which is quite something.

It has a role, it's the best long-range AoE weapon. (Even the repeatable tech nova pulse wave loses 25% damage per 1000 Distance Units, so at 4000 DU (max range, which means the AI will fire the weapon at this range), it does literally 0 damage.) It's just that I'm not sure it's a role worth filling with the way that the game as it exists, like bombardment weapons themselves. Comparing to regular missiles, it does less DPS than a hunter missile battery, but if you're up against significant reactive ratings, a hunter is losing about 1/4th its damage to being subtracted by armor, and the concentrated bulk of 70 or 100 alpha damage is less affected. Basically, it's not crazy to throw them on battleships or carriers if your own fighters will stay out of the blast radius.

Thanks for all the info and the breakdown. I wonder about the effectiveness of the AOE attacks in this game, and the benefit of extreme ranges such as the 14,000 from the bastion. I guess if you have 10 bastions all covering each other then that's something, but maybe there's a better weapon in that instance?

Great analysis!

[TheMac]

Originally posted by Nightskies:

I think they're useless. Like bombardment weapons, even against v2 shields.

1. 92 space, and a high cost of around 2,900 credits, for one Nova.
   
   
2. The 20% bypass is more a detriment. Against equal tier defense, it'll do 54 damage to shields, and 6 to armor. V2 does 77 to shields and 9 to armor.
   
   
3. 300 blast area is knife range. Not likely to hit more than 3 ships in good cases at long range- not to mention friendly fire, and since its Bastions being primarily considered, it will happen to your fighters. Enemies are a lot more likely to cluster if crowding in on a station, where Area weapons will easily outperform it at closer range.
   
   (@Wraith: Riptides are Gravitic weapons! That means hull damage through defenses. 3 hits from v2 Riptides at that 3k range *can* make a Light Cruiser run away, or at least destroy several components.)
   
   
4. Other AoE weapons are much more likely to be used against enemy fighters, as Novas will likely target ships. AoE is effective against fighters. Off the top of my head, 5 mines will wipe out any clustered group of fighters of comparable tech tier.
   
   -note: torpedo fighters are more able to survive AoE against their target with longer ranged attacks, at least for a bit
   
   
5. Against a basic Escort of equal tier, it would take 14 near simultaneous Novas hits to bring it down, assuming they all fired at it (they won't). That's 1,288 space of Novas to kill a single escort every 28 seconds. 4 Bastions would use 368 space each to field that. That's most of its weapon capacity if using Fighter Bays and extensive shields. V2 against equal tier needs 17 missiles.
   
   
6. At 10k distance, a fired Nova will take 22 seconds to hit if it goes in a straight line. V2: 21 sec.
   
   
7. A ship will jump to desired range if over 10k distance (somewhere around that, anyway). This means that 10k range is only useful for overlapping long-range fields of fire around a colony, but... the damage output is so weak, that it's impractical.

A Hive on a Bastion has about 6600 range. That's really good range. A single Bastion using 368 space worth of Hive Missiles gets 70 DPS. A single Hive Bastion does more than double the damage output. Against equal tier defense (not counting PD or misses, like above with the Nova), the alpha of the one bastion is 3,192 against shields, or 2,234 against armor. That's enough to derb turn a Zenox Destroyer to debris with a bit of luck in one volley (tested), and its likely to focus fire with that volley.

Alternatively, at ~75% cost of 14 Novas alone, you could field a Hive Missile Light Cruiser with 80% of the missile firepower of the Hive Missile Bastion.

Hunter missiles are also useless in my efforts to use them. The M Hunter isn't competitive with Hive Missiles either. Its better shield penetration made me think it might have a place alongside Railguns, but it does too little damage to matter.

Though the Lance is shorter-ranged and has less DPS, its significantly smaller and cheaper and almost performs just as well as the Hunter. But even the Lance is almost useless.

In the end, I find that having just one included on large ships / stations is so weak, that if removed and not replaced with anything, the outcome of battles are the same.

Because of this, the AI suffers when using them or Hunters, just like when bringing Bombardment weapons.


Just had a thought... the only way to make this level of damage output useful is if the missile had Hyperjump capability: the ability to target (and hit) any hostile in the same system.

Talk about a cool idea - hyperjump missile!

Thanks for the extra info about the Hunter as well. I did refit my bastions from the blasters to Hive missiles since I researched them for my cruisers after reading your post on LR weapons (from the other forum), and I'm interested to see how they do.

Looks like the game throws in a few super long range missiles that don't contribute much to the battles other than being able to hit a ship from a long distance. My experience with the Hunter was also disappointing, watching the targeted ship simply regenerate its shields in time for the second volley while closing the distance.

I haven't had enough time to play with any of the new blaster or missile weapons at my current tier and I'm looking forward to some combat to help me understand their place.

Thanks for the analysis and additional thoughts. It's always good to learn more than less.

[TheMac]

Am I missing something? Is the weapon cost listed somewhere I simply have't seen, or are you calculating based on the cost of the ship in the fitting screen?

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3230305998

[Wraith_Magus]

Originally posted by TheMac:

Am I missing something? Is the weapon cost listed somewhere I simply have't seen, or are you calculating based on the cost of the ship in the fitting screen?

It's not listed as actual cash, it's listed as material components. The hunter missile battery (L) there costs 56 steel, mebnar, kaasian crystals, and aculon. Each of those has a market price (which has a pseudo supply-and-demand-based value based upon resource availability in your empire), and that is added to the cost of the ship, and from there, to the maintenance costs. Steel, for example, is worth 1.5 credits each, mebnar 1.8 credits each, kaasian 5.4, and aculon 3.6. Totaled, that's 688.8 credits in my current game's prices for a hunter missile, but for whatever reason, you multiply the value of the components by 4 to get the actual build cost it adds (I guess the devs felt they needed to increase costs without increasing resources consumed? Probably affected by difficulty, too.), so that hunter missile would cost 2,755.4 credits each at my empire's current prices. (A nova is 2558.4 in my empire's prices - in spite of more component resources that cost more, the nova uses half normal quantities for its size and tier. (Tier 6, so base 14 materials, times four for large size, so 56 is "normal".) You can check it yourself in the materials menu, adding every component together then multiplying by four, or just add the weapon then take it off and see what it does to the build cost/maintenance of the ship on the top right.

Originally posted by Nightskies:

I think they're useless. Like bombardment weapons, even against v2 shields.

I mean, yeah. I don't think AoE weapons are very good in general, and if you're comparing an AoE weapon hitting a single target against any non-AoE weapon hitting that same target, the single-target weapon is going to blow it out of the water, except maybe missiles. (I missed the gravity mine part on riptides, though.) The problem is that AoE is basically impossible to use on anything but fighters (and risks blowing up your own). Again, I think it's trying to fill a specific role, but like bombardment weapons, but it's not really a role worth filling (at least, without significantly inflating its impact in that role or trying to make that role more valuable). Maybe if, because it was really long-range, it had a much larger AoE (like 600 and 800 instead of 300 and 400), where ships in formation are actually in range, it could have some value?

[TheMac]

Ahh. Thanks for explaining the price. Thought I had missed seeing it posted somewhere. A person has to be pretty serious about the game and maybe set up a spreadsheet if they want to calculate costs of each component. Enjoy the game!

[Wraith_Magus]

Originally posted by TheMac:

Ahh. Thanks for explaining the price. Thought I had missed seeing it posted somewhere. A person has to be pretty serious about the game and maybe set up a spreadsheet if they want to calculate costs of each component. Enjoy the game!

The problem is it's a moving target because of that supply-and-demand function, although I think that most prices settle to a fixed minimum if you have sufficient supply (it's not "yellow frame" around the material, although stuff like steel and mebnar have ridiculously high quantities it takes to no longer be "yellow frame"), so I'm pretty confident some of those are fairly stable prices. I'm sure someone could put out a spreadsheet of prices presuming sufficient supply if they wanted to do so, however.

I just looked at the prices, and put them into my phone calculator for this one. Simply adding and removing repeatedly and comparing build cost is also what most people do to get the computer to tell them the price, I'm sure.

The important thing to remember is that it's based on material costs, and it scales based upon the first tier where that weapon appears and size. This is why (Ftr), (S), and (M) concussion missiles are dirt cheap, as they take just nekros and double steel x (Tier + 2) x (size modifier), or 3 as a base for (Ftr), 6 for (S), 12 for (M). When (L)-size concussion missiles are added, they're a tier 3 weapon, so they have more component resources (although not double steel anymore), are multiplied by 5 (tier 3 + 2), and are L size, so x8 size mod, resulting in 40 per component. (288 credits.) If (L) concussion missiles were available at tier 1, they would cost 24 steel and 12 nekros, instead. (54 credits.) The lightning missile (M) comes online at Tier 2, so it has the same components as the concussion (L), but is (tier 2 + 2) x 4 for (M) = 16. The components get replaced as you go higher tier, typically to more expensive ones. (Like 1.5 credit each steel being replaced with 4.5 credit each hexadrium.) The various "upgrade" techs don't actually increase the cost of a module, and are just auto-magically upgraded on the ship without need for a refit, so they're generally a great deal (although some of them will screw with you by having more power requirements). This is why things like advancing the fission reactors are a good idea - the fission reactors are dramatically cheaper than the fusion or quantum reactors, so they're good for ships where you want cost-effectiveness over raw power, like basically all non-combat ships to keep your maintenance costs low. (Remember - base maintenance is 5% of build cost.) Maintenance costs and what number of ships can pathfind before your CPU explodes are the only caps on your military, so the "naked corvette" strategy of deliberately using cheap crap weapons has merit. You can make a bastion that only has lances or concussion (M)s in the smaller slots and save a quarter to even half (versus the higher-tier weapons) of the price of the bastion (or more likely, smaller ships like frigates), which can go into just buying more of the cheaper ships. Unlike the real world, they put an extreme price premium on high tech that doesn't actually translate into incomparably better performance. High-tier armor eventually mitigates too much damage for low-tier weapons to really be effective, but like how ion rules until the enemy gets capacitors, if you have a tech advantage, just building cheap en masse is often more effective than high tech.

[Nightskies]

To keep you on your toes about component costs, that's a soft rule—many exceptions.

Yeah, I made a spreadsheet. Hey, I had fun... comparing prices and graphs!

[TheMac]

Glad you two both enjoy the game so much, as well as the preparation and research. There aren't enough brain cells available after a typical work day for me to engage in this type of detailed analysis, though I love to read the end results and learn the methods.

The one thing that keeps coming up in the various Steam threads is the variety of playstyles this game supports, from an "every credit counts" type of desperate situation to "I just want to farm and have fun." Amazing that such a range is available in one title.

Thanks for the help!

[Navy~]

you can use Nova missiles as long range PD. you can make a ship to target the fighters and bombers that cluster on their way to your ships. Simply target a fighter and the aoe will kill every fighter/bomber in range. I think 2 missiles needs to hit to completely wipe a group.

[TheMac]

That's a very creative use of a LR area weapon. You must be the master of micro-managed battles. Glad this isn't a multiplayer game. ;)

[jorgen_cab]

I modded almost all area weapons with about +50-100% bigger blast areas. This has actually made them worthwhile. If you can consistently hit several targets at the same time they become an interesting choice... especially for larger battles.

Manually targeting fighters is very effective use of area weapons, but this does not help the AI in any way so I don't really consider this as a benefit for the weapons when comparing their use in the game.