Guided Missile Blocks

[Lord Raso]

Custom guided missiles are a hideous amalgamation of scaffolding, gryos, warheads and batteries. I love that we have this new AI block dedicated which we can use to easily make guided missiles, but the lack of proper blocks to make missiles is frustrating.

I know we had a few mods that gave us modular missile kits and that used scripts to make them track.... has anyone found (or considered making) an up-to-date mod that gives us build-able missiles that are not ugly which includes a new AI block?

[Dan2D3D]

Hi, in my opinion, AI missiles / "Kamikaze Drones" are more for a cool Perso challenge at finding a working solution but not good in PVP Battle, because 6 turrets is enough to destroy "Kamikaze Drones" coming at 100m/s.

[Dan2D3D]

I will add :

You will have better results by making Offensive Drones because they can be very very aggressive :

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3038805560
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3029910746
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3029910629

Edit
2-3 Offensive Drones like mine will destroy your enemy in a few seconds.

[~WiFiEmoPurrletarianNekoGirl~]

I agree with Dan2D3D.
Realistically, missiles would be better. But Space Engineers, being Space Engineers, Offensive Drones would be your best bet for short-ranged swarm.. something.

There are different type of traditional missiles:
ICBMs, MRBMs, SRBMs, for ballistic missiles.
Cruise missiles.
Anti-ship missiles.
Anti-Aircraft Missiles, or SAM.
Anti-Tank Missiles, or ATGM at some points.
Surface-to-Surface missiles.
Air-to-Air missiles.
Air-to-Surfance missiles.
Submarine-launched missiles.
Land-attack Missiles.
MIRV missiles.
Hypersonic issiles.

aka

BM
CM
ASM
SAM
ATGM
SSM
AAM
ASM
SLBM
LAM
ICBM
SRBM
MRBM
MIRV
HSM
These are the abbreviations of them.

Uh anyway, so my point is there are many different traditional missile types in military and defense contexts. What Dan2D3D mentioned is great for something, so offensive scenarios specifically.

Sorry, my point is that you can make non-ugly missiles. ICBMs, MRBMs, are two that you may use more often. MIRV is difficult to make but useful, although these offensive drones are probably easier and more useful.

ATGMs, SSMs, ASMs (often refered to as torpedoes in Space videogames, though this is partially correct), and similar, are probably useless in this game. The ingame missile turret would easily bypass the defensive turrets where any custom ATGM/SSM/ASM would just be shredded, a waste of time.

SUMMARY and ANSWER(?):
I love missiles. In Space Engineers missiles are sadly quite useless (custom missiles). Unless you have a medium-ranged/long-ranged missile, smaller missiles will be outperformed by offensive drones using swarm tactics and such. Custom missiles are complicated to make and are not great for PVP; so save your time and resources on high-end missiles or rockets instead of cheaper/smaller missiles that could be outperformed by "offensive drones."

Realistically, this would not be the case. But this is Space Engineers, so forget missiles and do other things. The engineering of a missile is very difficult due to what you (OP) listed, but the physics also make missiles technically worse than things like "offensive drones."

The best you could do is make a ICBM or MRBM, these would be the only uses of a rocket in a military context. HSM would technically be the best, but the speed limit destroys the concept of hyper-sonic lmao. Rockets in a more economical context would be the 2nd best. This is, according to me, it could vary with people, the tactics they use, and other things; in my experience ICBM/MRBM were the best missiles in SE.

(Aditional info)
SRBMs could be useful too, but I never really used them. It is easier and better to just have a small carrier vehicle with a host of swarm drones. MIRVs are fantastic, especially for bases (overwhelming defensive turrets), but I found them very difficult to make and a prolonged construction experience. I still have not found a way to find MIRV to be constructed automatically; so while MIRVs are great, they are usually overshadowed by ICBMs or MRBMs in both resources and time spent.

[Lord Raso]

The practicality is debatable, for sure, but I think the cool factor is more important from my stand point. I mean, in weapon core missile barrages are viable. you overwhelm the CWIS with volume or confuse them with mixed ordinances. Those aren't made of 5 to 10 different blocks, they're just munitions and I'm, frankly, not sure how the game engine handles those differently.

But surely a set of missile blocks could be designed to overcome CIWS and armor. Heavy, non-deformable tips for soaking up fire and penetrating light armor, warheads with varying fuses.

Space missiles can be any shape, really, so they could have umbrella shaped tips to protect the missile control surfaces and thrusters. They could be barrel shaped to pack many into a small area for launching. They could be multistage with a bulky, armored sleeve which launches sub munitions when it gets closer. Would absolutely need to balance HP and weight of some of the missile's nose cones. Not sure if it makes sense to make the nosecone a heavy duty decoy or to place it behind the nose.... would also need to place a camera on the missile somewhere. Ideally no the front.

For warheads and fuses you could have different kinds such as proximity and large AOE for taking out fighters or to use as interceptor missiles, warheads that effectively act as "single use cannons" to simulate a shaped charge, warheads that shoot jets in directions other than forward for massive internal damage, cluster warheads meant to damage external equipment like thrustser and weapon systems, etc.

I would assume any mod for making these custom missiles would also want to include stuff like merge blocks..... a merge block that has spooky collision so it looks like the missile is in a missile tube would be great. You would have tube pieces that are not merge blocks and missile pieces that look like other parts that are also merge blocks and they would let yo control how deep into the missile tube the missile would sit based on where the missile's merge block and the tube's merge block are placed. Could similarly make parts that are welders and projectors that look like normal parts of the launch tube which can make new missile. And a custom hatch so we're not using doors to close off our launch bays.....

I think it seems kinda silly that the stuff fired from vanilla and modded weapons is so much more effective than buildable missiles...... and also irked most buildable missiles are so ugly. I also have zero modding experience so I'm basically asking if anyone has the same passion I do about this.....

[Dan2D3D]

That is a very good part, the game is open at large for Modding so we can set/modify to our liking, SE would not be my favorite sandbox game without :)

I played with a lot of Mods at the beginning, now I am at finding the Vanilla solutions and noticed that it gave me new gameplay so more playing time.

+
If no Modder reply here on Steam, you may also ask the SE Modders Community Helper on the Keen discord, one may be able to share a missile Mod.

All can join the SE community from the Discord permalink added to this pinned :
https://steamcommunity.com/app/244850/discussions/0/4622335767039372629/

Once on the Keen Discord -> Go to the Role selection channel to choose PC role to unlock the proper community -> go to the "modding-art-sbc" channel to ask the Pros.

[Lystent]

Originally posted by Lord Raso:

The practicality is debatable, for sure, but I think the cool factor is more important from my stand point. ...

IKR. I mean, why even do close-up drones when you could just snipe with a rail gun or offload until your out of shells without having to worry about your drone getting turned into space confetti before it reaches the target, if all you are worried about is practicality.

Missiles offer their own challenge/reward.

Originally posted by BearBrigade:

...
Hypersonic issiles
...

Those are out of the question for vanilla SE, let alone supersonic flight.

[Lord Raso]

Originally posted by Dan2D3D:

That is a very good part, the game is open at large for Modding so we can set/modify to our liking, SE would not be my favorite sandbox game without :)

I played with a lot of Mods at the beginning, now I am at finding the Vanilla solutions and noticed that it gave me new gameplay so more playing time.

+
If no Modder reply here on Steam, you may also ask the SE Modders Community Helper on the Keen discord, one may be able to share a missile Mod.

All can join the SE community from the Discord permalink added to this pinned :
https://steamcommunity.com/app/244850/discussions/0/4622335767039372629/

Once on the Keen Discord -> Go to the Role selection channel to choose PC role to unlock the proper community -> go to the "modding-art-sbc" channel to ask the Pros.

I will definitely check that out, thank you for bringing those communities to my attention.

I think overall what I am unequivocally asking is that a modder see this deficiency in available blocks, streamlined construction methods and viable designs and is spurred into action to produce something. If I had the time to teach myself to mod I'd absolutely do it myself, but I work full time and have hard enough time even finding time to play these days (mostly playing on consoles these days, even, since it's more convenient for spending time with family).

[Lupo]

I have only really seen Missiles effective 1-2 times in base SE PVP, both times devastatingly effective. 1 time against a space station, 1 time against a capital ship, both times they 'rammed' the ship with the missile so the warhead(s?) Detonated inside the ship/station. In both cases that single missile crippled the target, and in the case of the ship, cut it in half (detonated something inside). I think its a decent gamble, if it works you knock out a ship, if it doesn't you lose 1-2 fighter craft worth of materials. (Keep in mind this was a vanilla pvp server so limitations were put on total size and amount of weapons on a ship to keep the server alive)

[Jack Schitt]

Function over form. They go boom and disappear. I don't care what they look like

Originally posted by Dan2D3D:

Hi, in my opinion, AI missiles / "Kamikaze Drones" are more for a cool Perso challenge at finding a working solution but not good in PVP Battle, because 6 turrets is enough to destroy "Kamikaze Drones" coming at 100m/s.

Turrets being able to defend the target and take the missile(s) out depends on how the missiles are built and what's on them. I've mentioned before I don't put warheads on missiles because I found if we just load it up with armor blocks making a big ugly flying pole and send a group of them simultaneously defenses don't get through all the armor before the target gets smacked.

We could win wars _and_ provide aid to the opposition so they can rebuild after their smacking if we used canned food donations as ammunition.