Plasma vs cap ship missle
 

I would appreciate some oppinions on plasma missiles vs cap ship missiles. I just completed the tech for missiles 3. So I now have capital ship missile 3 and plasma missle 1. cap ship missile 3 seems like a fairly good weapon, but plasma 1 seems fairly week. If I increase tech a couple levels in missiles I will obtain a better plasma missile, but the research is fairly expensive. My questions are essentialy..." Are plasma missiles good? Are they actually better then cap ship missiles? If they are better why?" Thanks
Tuchuk

Re: Plasma vs cap ship missle
 

Hey,


Speaking as someone who doesn't use a lot of missles, and doesn't really know the tech, I can tell you that a high tech plasma missle may be slightly better than a Capital missle V, but not much. If it is better, it will be better by being slightly quicker (higher speed to target). Unless you are a missle specialist, don't bother with plasma.


P.S. If you research ionic tech high enough, you will get engine damagine missles. Those are very cool, especially when combined with normal missles (point defense seems to target normal missles first, before specialty missles).


P.P.S I've had a few beer, so please forgive me if I give you bad advice. Personally, I find missles to be very effective early on, but to be gradually beaten by some of the high tech beam techs, especially Phased beams. But don't listen to me, listen to the elite players who have much more experience. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif As an relative newbie, though, I can tell you that I never use high level missles myself. For what its worth http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif


[This message has been edited by Mad_Lear (edited 21 August 2001).]

Re: Plasma vs cap ship missle
 

Your opinion is appreciated. And as for Beer, at times I think it helps makes thinking easier.

Tuchuk

Re: Plasma vs cap ship missle
 

I remember researching missles a long time ago and I believe plasma missles eventually outrange capital missles, but they do less damage the farther away a target is.

My personal advice is to not bother with missles at all unless you're up against AI because a human player will whip out point defense ships fast, and you can just kiss your missles goodbye. S/he will also most likely gain a legendary fleet too.

Re: Plasma vs cap ship missle
 

I use missiles only in the early game and I don't research till plasma missiles, because when your enemy has effective PDC their use is very limited.
I would also hesitate to use missiles heavily on sats or weapon platforms in the later game. If the enemy attacks with fighters, you have a lot of completely useless weapons!

Re: Plasma vs cap ship missle
 

Well, that would also apply to WMGs, Hellbores, and the like. Besides, just make and used a dedicated anti-fighter WP.

Phoenix-D

Re: Plasma vs cap ship missle
 

As they are defined in the default game, Plasma missiles are not really worth the extra research cost. They are a little bit faster than standard missiles, but not much, and they have a slightly greater range but as others have pointed out their damage declines at extreme range. I have modded them in my techs to use the "Quad Damage to Shields" damage type. This makes them actually different from standard missiles and in some circumstances a really devastating weapon.

But they still suffer the problems that everyone else here has pointed out. A human can easily counter them by adding more PDC to his ship designs or just building dedicated PDC ships to escort his direct-fire warships. I've modded the AIs in my game to use more PDC and when these ships form up into a tight formation they can be quite effective even without 'dedicated' PDC ships in the mix. I've fired volleys of 30-50 missiles at ship formations containing only 15-20 ships and seen them all zapped without a single hit. I've considered making missile components smaller so you can cram more into a ship, or making them fire more often, but this makes them MUCH too powerful in the early game or against someone who doesn't have PDC yet. We need some sort of change in the way seekers work in order to achieve a reasonable balance. There has to be some sort way to enhance the ecm of seekers, and/or the seeker damage resistance. Maybe their range could be extended and speed increased. Since mounts can make a direct-fire weapon have nearly the range of a CSM V the value of seekers is much reduced. If we could go back to the mathematical formula or have an extra 20 range (another row of boxes) for seekers this might help give them a real advantage again if they were even faster than fighters. They'd need a speed of 10 or so to be really effective, I think.

But the other statements about missiles are true. The best way to use them is to put them in WPs and Satellites. Since the component is so large it's hard to get a good rate of fire with ships unless you outnumber your opponent. This is not something you can count on, of course. Also, you're paying maintenance on the ships but not on the units. So a stack of units with missiles is the best way to deploy them.

[This message has been edited by Baron Munchausen (edited 21 August 2001).]

Re: Plasma vs cap ship missle
 

Perhaps Modding in a Multiple Missile Launcher Component to represent a large volley of smaller missiles that are hard to shoot down. (Increasing the damage resistance significantly)
I could see this being true for Plasma Missiles too. Very dispersed and hard to kill/stop.

------------------
"I apologize. I'm ... sorry. I'm sorry we had to defend ourselves
against an unwarranted attack. I'm sorry that your crew was stupid
enough to fire on a station full of a quarter of a million civilians,
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did before I blew them straight to hell. ... As with everything else,
it's the thought that counts." -- Captain John Sheridan, Babylon 5

Re: Plasma vs cap ship missle
 

Plasma is one MP faster than CSMs
Max-Tech Plasma does more damage from range zero out to 5 or 6, and fades continously.
Plasma has a higher max range (IIRC), but will do almost no damage there.

If you are playing P&N, you can use heavy bombardment missiles to help punch through PD, and Devnull has some mini missiles/ PD decoys to use as well.

Giving your enemy legendary fleets is always a problem with missile use.


I will usually just get missile tech from captured ships, or research it later on if I have to.
Missiles are good on planets & sats, since you can stack 100's of sats on your critical wormholes, launching insane numbers of missiles in each volley.

Re: Plasma vs cap ship missle
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>There has to be some sort way to enhance the ecm of seekers, and/or the seeker damage resistance.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

You mean like this?

Weapon Seeker Dmg Res :=30

Straight out of components.txt. Does it work, I wonder? I'll test it.

EDIT: It works.

Phoenix-D

[This message has been edited by Phoenix-D (edited 22 August 2001).]

Re: Plasma vs cap ship missle
 

That's amusing, Phoenix-D. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif Yes, you can set it higher, but then you can just set the PDC damage higher, too. I meant some way within the game to scale damage. Like a MOUNT setting that lets you make seekers stronger. Currently, mounts do not affect seekers. I suppose we could make a very involved tech-tree for missiles with "armored" missiles available for a combined tech requirement of missile tech with armor tech. And maybe make faster missiles available as higher levels of propulsion are researched. But if you multiply the levels of propulsion by the levels of armor you'll end up with a HUGE grid of missile types. That's a lot of bloat in the components.txt file. There must be a better way.

Re: Plasma vs cap ship missle
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Baron Munchausen:
That's amusing, Phoenix-D. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif Yes, you can set it higher, but then you can just set the PDC damage higher, too.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

If the idea is to fix a problem, WHY would you do that?!

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>There must be a better way. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Or if you think it's imbalanced..

..just fix it. Boost the missile damage resitance, leave the PD alone. PD isn't affected by mounts either, I think.

Want a mount for missiles? How about one that kicks the range up?

Phoenix-D

Re: Plasma vs cap ship missle
 

Been fooling around with Star Trek: Starfleet Battles lately. I like how they handle missiles. (Yellow Alert: STSB has a strategic component but mainly is real-time tactical. So it is a bit opposite to SEIV. But I still think this may be helpful.) Anyway, in STSB, missiles do a lot of damage if they hit, just like SEIV (but maybe even more so). There are fast, medium, and slow missiles. The slow ones are free, but ships at full speed can outrun them. And there are small and big ones. You can carry twice as many small ones, but of course they don't do nearly the damage of the large ones (half?). Your launchers can only launch a certain number of missiles at each load, regardless of type. Missiles reload FASTER than most other weapons, even faster than PDC. (HUGE difference from SEIV.) Ships will automatically use tractor beams to hold missiles off if they are charged. Ships will also automatically use phasers as backup PD if they are charged. (You can probably turn that auto-defense off, but I don't know how yet. Anyway, I like it.) Missiles run out of fuel and disappear after a certain amount of time. Like SEIV, they never simply miss.

In practice, a well-rounded ship will be able to beat off the first attack from a same-size missile-dependent ship, and do some damage as well. But she'd better get away fast, otherwise the next wave of missiles will hit before her PDC and phasers recharge. Turning on tractor beams will stop some but not all of the next wave, and will slow down phaser recharging. Also, that's risky, because then if you lose the tractor beams before the missiles die ... BOOM! It's loads of fun to knock down the shields and beam marines on to such a ship, with orders to destroy the tractor beam! ("Beam us back, and I mean NOW!") Of course, it's also fun to hold off missiles with your tractors and then bLast a missile ship at point-blank range with full overloaded phasers that the enemy thought you'd need for backup PD. ("Taste my vengeance, you fool!")

Does anyone else like the sound of this?
What could be done to implement this in SEIV (as much as currently possible)?
Has anyone already made a mod like this?

Re: Plasma vs cap ship missle
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Want a mount for missiles? How about one that kicks the range up?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>If you do that, you can launch the missiles from farther away, but the missiles still run out of fuel and vanish at the same distance.

EG. a +10 range mount on a CSM 1 will let you launch from range 18.
The missile will still travel 8 squares, then die.

Re: Plasma vs cap ship missle
 

Aaron could always add Mechwarrior-style weapon temperature rules...

Hrm. A pity that missiles aren't implemented as very cheap non-retargettable units, and missile launchers as bays. That'd allow for fast, large salvos as well as customizable missiles, but gives you the reasonable drawback of having a finite supply.

------------------
-- The thing that goes bump in the night

Re: Plasma vs cap ship missle
 

dmm - if you try the Mirak (Kzinti from the SFB board game) you can see what the missiles (actually called drones) can really do. The reason for the fast reload rates is that the drones are fired from racks, which either carry 4 or 6 single space drones, or 2-3 double space drones. One of the 4 space racks has the capability to fire two drones per turn, the other can fire 1 drone per turn. Once all drones located on the rack have been fired, additional time is required for reloading the drone rack. An additional feature of the drones in the Star Fleet battles board game is that there are additional types of warheads, including one shot phasers, and that drones can be custonized with each different component assigned a size (in half-spaces) and also assigned a speed setting, allowing you to use armored drones, ecm drones, etc... Personnally, I would like to see SE4 drones implemented similar to them, essentially customized and build like fighters, but fired from special 'drone rack' components.

Re: Plasma vs cap ship missle
 

Taqwus and Atraikius -- Thanks for the good thoughts. I wonder if it is possible to mod SEIV fighters in such a way. You'd have to change the tech tree, of course, but that is do-able in principle.
Good: You could get the limited launching per turn. You could have the number limited separately from general supplies. You could restock at any planet. (Is that right? You don't need a spaceyard to make fighters, right?)
Bad: The problem that stumps me is how to limit their range during combat (ships don't use fuel during combat), and how to keep them off the strategic map (unlike real fighters).
Somewhat bad: The AI wouldn't know how to use them.
Possibly bad: Players could retarget them in midflight. (Personally, I like that.)

Re: Plasma vs cap ship missle
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Bad: The problem that stumps me is how to limit their range during combat (ships don't use fuel during combat), and how to keep them off the strategic map (unlike real fighters).<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>Just give the drone rack 1 fighter launch in combat, and zero outside combat.
There may be an entry in settings.txt to control how may fighters a planet can launch, too.

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Re: Plasma vs cap ship missle
 

The previous Posts got me thinking about mines in combat. Is it hard-coded that mines have zero movement, or can that be modded? If moddable, then that would make mines very interesting for tactical combat.
I guess you could also mod a missile to do that. The range is limited by hard code. A moving mine could be a max-range "missile" that is hard to destroy, does damage like a mine, moves one/turn. The ship component would be the size of a minelayer component (or maybe smaller since multiple mines can be laid each turn, but only one missile fired), would use up supplies slowly, and would fire every turn.

Re: Plasma vs cap ship missle
 

Star Fleet Battles includes a cruse drone variant for long range bombardment, from that standpoint having them move outside of combat would be fine.