Plasma vs cap ship missle

[Tuchuk]

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

[Mad_Lear]

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. As an relative newbie, though, I can tell you that I never use high level missles myself. For what its worth


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

[Tuchuk]

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

Tuchuk

[Shoujo]

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.

[Q]

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!

[Phoenix-D]

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

Phoenix-D

[Baron Munchausen]

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).]

[Rich04]

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,
including your own people. And I'm sorry that I waited as long as I
did before I blew them straight to hell. ... As with everything else,
it's the thought that counts." -- Captain John Sheridan, Babylon 5

[Suicide Junkie]

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.

[Phoenix-D]

quote:

---

There has to be some sort way to enhance the ecm of seekers, and/or the seeker damage resistance.

---

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).]