Semi-Official 7.x Suggestion Thread

[linkxsc]

Remove the +10 maneuver rating that all missiles have default. This will hit both ASMs and AMMs rather hard. As to be honest, when is the last time you actually put agility into a missile, AMM or ASM? Maybe set it to 1

As it stands, we all know that tiny missiles going as fast as possible are by far the best. Very often even in AMM designs, you don't even see the addition of maneuver until the mid-late techs, when the speed lost by adding a couple more points becomes worth it. I figure this is primarily because all missiles by default start with a fairly large bonus to this. 10 maneuver rating at mid techs is still .1msp saved on an AMM, for a literal 10x to their tohit chance. Hell I can't honestly say I've ever felt the need to apply maneuver to ASMs either.

I feel that a change like this might help to reign in AMM spam a bit and comparatively buff turret based defenses because of these.
1. Missiles will need be a bit slower to hit anything because of the need to actually install some maneuver (especially at low techs), making them easier to track.
2. AMMs will need to devote a larger portion of their space to maneuvering, while still probably being the most powerful due to reload rates.
3. Larger missiles might actually see a surge of usage, due to the extra space needed to get the hit% up, forcing designers to step up a size in missiles. The rare size 2 AMM would also likely see a surge in usefulness as for the same range and speed it'd have 2x the hit chance. (at 1/4th the spam)


I dunno, it's just a thought. But it's always seemed odd to me that you can literally get away with never putting points into maneuver until the end.

[iceball3]

Remove the +10 maneuver rating that all missiles have default. This will hit both ASMs and AMMs rather hard. As to be honest, when is the last time you actually put agility into a missile, AMM or ASM? Maybe set it to 1

As it stands, we all know that tiny missiles going as fast as possible are by far the best. Very often even in AMM designs, you don't even see the addition of maneuver until the mid-late techs, when the speed lost by adding a couple more points becomes worth it. I figure this is primarily because all missiles by default start with a fairly large bonus to this. 10 maneuver rating at mid techs is still .1msp saved on an AMM, for a literal 10x to their tohit chance. Hell I can't honestly say I've ever felt the need to apply maneuver to ASMs either.

I feel that a change like this might help to reign in AMM spam a bit and comparatively buff turret based defenses because of these.
1. Missiles will need be a bit slower to hit anything because of the need to actually install some maneuver (especially at low techs), making them easier to track.
2. AMMs will need to devote a larger portion of their space to maneuvering, while still probably being the most powerful due to reload rates.
3. Larger missiles might actually see a surge of usage, due to the extra space needed to get the hit% up, forcing designers to step up a size in missiles. The rare size 2 AMM would also likely see a surge in usefulness as for the same range and speed it'd have 2x the hit chance. (at 1/4th the spam)


I dunno, it's just a thought. But it's always seemed odd to me that you can literally get away with never putting points into maneuver until the end.

Maybe to add on to this, we could make the Maneuver Rating per 1 Agility worth of maneuver points to be calculated as MR = Agility/(Size^0.9), to make it so agility point devotion gradually becomes better on larger missile sizes? The main reason for this being a sort of economies-of-scale, combined with the fact that by making bigger missiles you're trading off a huge amount in the sense of firing volume.

I am a tad worried about the -10 base maneuver rating making fighters really really hard to hit with anything you throw at them, given a tech level, though.

[linkxsc]

Maybe to add on to this, we could make the Maneuver Rating per 1 Agility worth of maneuver points to be calculated as MR = Agility/(Size^0.9), to make it so agility point devotion gradually becomes better on larger missile sizes? The main reason for this being a sort of economies-of-scale, combined with the fact that by making bigger missiles you're trading off a huge amount in the sense of firing volume.

I am a tad worried about the -10 base maneuver rating making fighters really really hard to hit with anything you throw at them, given a tech level, though.

Could be worth a try.
Though in the meantime changing missile armor so that it was worthwhile is also a thought.

[Sheb]

To be fair, making fighter harder to hit isn't a bad thing IMO. Right now, their only worthwhile use is to shoot missiles from out of detection range, or they get swatted like flies by AMM. It'd be awesome for fighters to be able to close in to beam range more easily.

[MarcAFK]

Fighters could just get a boost to evasion, doesn't high grade or fighter combat bonus or something affect this?

[Haji]

when is the last time you actually put agility into a missile, AMM or ASM? Maybe set it to 1

I always put agility into anti-missiles. Just look at the chances to hit of those two, one which has as big an engine as possible, and the other having smaller engine but additional agility:

Code: [Select]

Missile Size: 1 MSP  (0.05 HS)     Warhead: 1    Armour: 0     Manoeuvre Rating: 10
Speed: 37400 km/s    Engine Endurance: 5 minutes   Range: 10.5m km
Cost Per Missile: 0.718
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 374%   3k km/s 120%   5k km/s 74.8%   10k km/s 37.4%
Materials Required:    0.25x Tritanium   0.468x Gallicite   Fuel x50

Code: [Select]

Missile Size: 1 MSP  (0.05 HS)     Warhead: 1    Armour: 0     Manoeuvre Rating: 22
Speed: 28800 km/s    Engine Endurance: 5 minutes   Range: 8.8m km
Cost Per Missile: 0.8404
Chance to Hit: 1k km/s 633.6%   3k km/s 198%   5k km/s 126.7%   10k km/s 63.4%
Materials Required:    0.25x Tritanium   0.5904x Gallicite   Fuel x50
As you can see the second missile is much slower but has nearly twice the chance to hit. Both missile are made with ion engine level technology (basically everything that costs 10k RP or less have been developed) with the first one having engine size 0.78, 4X engine power while the latter has engine size 0.6, 4x engine power and 0.18 agility. The difference is massive.

I admit however that I rarely put agility into anti-ship missiles, as those are usually fast enough to have decent hit chances.

[bean]

As to be honest, when is the last time you actually put agility into a missile, AMM or ASM? Maybe set it to 1

Quite often.  My AMMs always get agility (and in fact, it was recently proved that you need quite a lot of agility in high-level AMMs.  Some of my ASMs get it, too, although not as much.

[Paul M]

I also use agility in both my counter missiles and especially in the anti-shipping missiles.  It makes a major boost in their base line effectiveness.

But one thing is that the speed of missile to speed of target isn't a linear relationship.  A very fast missile has a problem that the warhead is only effective at about 1 km (after that the plasma is probably to thin to do anything) so basically 1 km divided by the speed of the missile is the time the detection, and detonation system has to work.  Otherwise basically the missile detonates ahead of or behind the target.

In game terms this means up to a certain speed you should have a constant chance to hit (basically more about catching the target) and then after that the missile should start to fall off as it is too fast compared to the target. 

Unfortunately this is a major simplification of a complexer situation and I'm not sure what the exact mathematical relationship between chance to hit and missile speed should be.  But the relationship that is used now is appropriate only to tracking speed versus missile speed. 

At the end of the day I'm not wholey happy with the way it is done now, but I'm not sure what to suggest as an alternative.  I dislike the current system since it basically keys off "speed" and this results in a total distortion of the game around the question of speed.  At some point for missiles speed starts to be deterimental in reality.

[bean]

But one thing is that the speed of missile to speed of target isn't a linear relationship.  A very fast missile has a problem that the warhead is only effective at about 1 km (after that the plasma is probably to thin to do anything) so basically 1 km divided by the speed of the missile is the time the detection, and detonation system has to work.  Otherwise basically the missile detonates ahead of or behind the target.

It's a pretty trivial problem, all in all.  Modern engineering is capable of making systems that do just that on a daily basis, with a bit of predictive software.  Also, that's not how nuclear weapons work in space.  They do damage via X-rays, not plasma, and there isn't a hard limit on the range of their damage.  But given the consistency of the damage we see in the game, they're clearly detonating at a set standoff.

At the end of the day I'm not wholey happy with the way it is done now, but I'm not sure what to suggest as an alternative.  I dislike the current system since it basically keys off "speed" and this results in a total distortion of the game around the question of speed.  At some point for missiles speed starts to be deterimental in reality.

The only case I know of of speed being detrimental was the AA fire control system of Bismarck, which had a minimum speed that was faster than the speed of the Swordfish.  In practical terms, a faster missile is generally better.  Particularly because this is Aurora, and things don't have momentum like they do in real life.

[ChildServices]

I want to be able to fit massive carronades into strike craft at later tech levels. Is there the possibility that carronades could be allowed to benefit from a size reduction tech the same way lasers do?

[linkxsc]

The only case I know of of speed being detrimental was the AA fire control system of Bismarck, which had a minimum speed that was faster than the speed of the Swordfish.  In practical terms, a faster missile is generally better.  Particularly because this is Aurora, and things don't have momentum like they do in real life.

Well TBH, there isn't much that's slower than the swordfish.


But my point still stands, that missiles in general get FAR too much maneuver by default. And because of this, are also intrinsically much faster than they really should be, because it's better to max their speed bonus over putting stuff into agility.

[bean]

Well TBH, there isn't much that's slower than the swordfish.

There are lots of things slower than the stringbag, but very few are airplanes.

But my point still stands, that missiles in general get FAR too much maneuver by default. And because of this, are also intrinsically much faster than they really should be, because it's better to max their speed bonus over putting stuff into agility.

I wouldn't totally disagree with that.  But there's a difference between suggesting that we reduce the basic maneuver bonus and suggesting that faster missiles should have a lower chance to hit.

[Haji]

Currently CMCs are only being put on bodies with high accessibility duranium or sorium. What I'd love to see is for them to be put on any body with high accessibility minerals, even if those don't include duranium or sorium.

But my point still stands, that missiles in general get FAR too much maneuver by default. And because of this, are also intrinsically much faster than they really should be, because it's better to max their speed bonus over putting stuff into agility.

As I showed in my previous post agility is critically important for anti-missiles. They may not be as important for shipkillers, but isn't it fine to have a statistic useful for one type of ammunition and useless for other? I mean I use sensors on my missiles quite often, but I never put them on anti-missiles, so I'd say their fine.

[linkxsc]

As I showed in my previous post agility is critically important for anti-missiles. They may not be as important for shipkillers, but isn't it fine to have a statistic useful for one type of ammunition and useless for other? I mean I use sensors on my missiles quite often, but I never put them on anti-missiles, so I'd say their fine.

True... But missiles don't start default with a sensor rating. If they did, AMMs would actually be quite a bit more effective, because if a salvo is destroyed, and the other salvos from other ships were close enough by, AMMs would redirect onto the other salvos. Effectively making the multiple AMM fire controls we regularly use worthless, as you'd just fire at 1 salvo and let the missile's onboard sensors handle it from there..
Meanwhile missiles start with a default maneuver rating, that at ion tech, would take about 20% of the missile to create, before adding agility after that.

Why should maneuver get a bonus. Missiles don't get free fuel, free armor, sensors, or warhead. Why then free agility?

I mean if missiles got a free sensor included, and this scaled with the missile size, then there'd be something to counter the bonus that AMMs get from all that maneuver. But there isn't.
And as it's been stated that tere are no plans to tweak the armor system to make larger missiles more practical. There must be SOMETHING to make it worthwhile to load a missile larger than size 6.

[iceball3]

Why should maneuver get a bonus. Missiles don't get free fuel, free armor, sensors, or warhead. Why then free agility?

They do, actually get free engine efficiency. To elaborate, a 1.00 multiplier on engine efficiency at MSP 5, the max missile engine size, and one fourth the size of the smallest engine drive, while also requiring no crew onboard.

And I also figure that the built-in maneuver rating DOES have some rationale. Specifically, the idea that missiles are fully-designed to intercept a target, whereas ships aren't, then missile would simply be ten times better than ships at doing so, at the least.

That, and I think you're overthinking the base maneuver rating as something "earned" or a "resource", rather than just "base chance for missile-like object to hit, without agility tonnage devoted beyond 'be a missile'".

I mean if missiles got a free sensor included, and this scaled with the missile size, then there'd be something to counter the bonus that AMMs get from all that maneuver. But there isn't.

A sensor being added just for it being a missile seems superfluous. There's already a reason to design really big missiles with sensor space heavily devoted; they're called buoys.

The argument "why don't they get free (other thing?)" should be looked over carefully, because the answer will likely be "because they'd change the function of the missile where it otherwise should've been optional".

And as it's been stated that tere are no plans to tweak the armor system to make larger missiles more practical. There must be SOMETHING to make it worthwhile to load a missile larger than size 6.

Shock Damage? Long Range missiles? Long Range MIRV-style short-range-missile carrier stage? Armor penetration? Mines? Sensor buoys?