quote:
Originally posted by KiloOhm:
OK, I did get the name wrong, it's "Anti-matter Torpedos" not Plasma Torps. So again I'll ask the question.
1) Why on earth would anyone wase research points on these? It seems that DUC's do about the same for a LOT less research.
2) Why are they called torpedo's and show a picture of a missle, but act like direct fire?
This is a long-standing balance problem with torpedos. Most beam weapons fire every turn and do lots of damage over time but less per single shot. Seekers fire less often but do HUGE damage per hit. Torpedos are meant to be intermediate between beams and seekers. They fire every-other turn and do more damage per hit than a beam but less total in those two turns than a beam and much less than a seeker. Think of it as a seeker that travels very quickly and so doesn't need to be represented on the combat grid. It's fired and reaches its target the same round.
I've been messing with torpedo abilites more than any other weapon while trying to balance my own custom techs. If you let them do a large amount of damage then they make seekers seem much less valuable. So, why bother with seekers? You can have direct-fire damage without the problem of PDC intercepting it... which could be corrected by massively increasing seeker damage, I guess, but then races that use seekers become too powerful. The same goes for range. If you give torpedos more range than beam weapons then they also begin to crowd-out seekers. The best solution I've been able to come up with so far is to give them a bonus to hit. Since it is a 'seeker' of a sort it ought to be able to correct its course and hit more often than a beam. 'Real' seekers will hit every time if they actually reach the location of their target, you know. So, with a +20 percent to hit a torpedo has some sort of advantage over a beam but does not make seekers seem useless. Since torpedos do not have 'range attentuation' like most beams this also enhances their use as "stand off" weapons.
Perhaps we will ultimately have to rebalance the whole system, inflating all sorts of things -- weapon damage, shield power, and even armor -- to give a broad enough range of effects for beams, torpedos, and seekers to fit properly.
[This message has been edited by Baron Munchausen (edited 10 March 2001).]