I did a quick check but I'm not sure if this has been mentionned or not for 2.5.1 yet. It's concerning two-stage missiles (both mines and two stage missiles with engines).

I've been trying stealth ships again to harass a nearby NPR and I've been confronted to a problem: my two-stage missiles don't work properly if I don't send them with an active sensor lock at the time of the launch.

The missiles I launched were a size 20 missile (total size) with a size 12 second stage. Launched at 50mkm, both stages with 3mkm range, résolution 100 active sensors and the second stage with 2.5mkm range and 2mkm séparation range.

What I tried to do is put down a waypoint and then fire the missiles at the waypoint (I tried keeping or deleting the waypoint afterward but it didn't change the result).

What I think should have happened is that, when the enemy ship entered the sparation range (I can confirm it was both in sensor and separation range), the second stage should have separated and attacked the target ship but instead it just continued on toward the original waypoint (even when it was removed), then the second stage separated at 2mkm from the waypoint and attacked it. I tried with the enemy ship both in range and out of range of the séparation range and sensor from the waypoint.

At another point, when testing mines I had the following problem: an enemy ship came into sensor range but did not come into séparation range and from that point on the mine stage perpetually locked on the ship (even when putside sensor range or destroyed) and did not aquire any other target. So it became unusable.

If the enemy ship entered séparation range then the mines worked properly (even if the stack of mines all targeted the same ship).

What I think is happening is that the missile (or mine) is aquiring the first available target possible (the initial target waypoint or the first détecter enemy ship) and this target seems to be inherited by the second stage in the case of the missile. From this point on, they will keep the target and will never aquire another one and never wipe the old target, even if it is destroyed or removed.

I couldn't do anything about the mine but for the missile my "fix" is to send a sensor probe to get active lock of the enemy ship before launching the missile.

I don't know if the same problem is présent for missiles with thermal sensors, I will try to test it.

The industrial-age NPR addition got me thinking again about warfare among races with a large tech disparity. I'm not saying conventional races should stand any chance of defeating a trans-Newtonic, interstellar empire, but as things stand, it might be impossible for any low-tech race to fight back at all due to how ECM penalty works, with any difference of 5 or above resulting in 0 chance to hit.

Conventional races are an extreme example, but I've generated Swarm races in my game that had ECM advantage of 3 or 4 over me, which forced me to turtle back and tech up until I could engage them, despite otherwise having access to tools that could allow me to fight significantly more advanced enemies (beam fighter swarms, massed missile fire, lance ships with incredibly overbuilt engines and shields would all be effective if not for their miniscule hit chance due to the ECM penalty). If the AI wasn't so meek, passive and easily deterred from assaulting jump points, there's no way I would've won that war. On the other hand, I've encountered a fair share of NPRs who were generated on small, subpar worlds, possessed very low technology and offered marginally more resistance than a Precursor ruin (also vastly outmatched in late-game), requiring no tactical finesse to conquer and presenting no danger, resulting in rather unexciting, tedious campaigns.

Honestly it kinda bugs _(haha) me how once the tech disparity is large enough, it becomes mathematically impossible for the lesser race to fight back, so I was wondering if you're willing to consider a different approach to the ECM penalty where the hit chance reduction is not additive, but multiplicative, as follows:



I think the 0.25 option would still penalize low-ECCM races enough (and make small penalties a little more meaningful while avoiding a twofold DPS reduction with ECM Penalty 3->4) but also give the underdog a semblance of a fighting chance. All of this pertains to the Missile/Fire Control Jammers, as far as I could see Sensor Jammers operate with a 0.1 additive penalty and while this makes them rather inconsequental, they're not breaking anything either. Using a larger multplicative penalty for them could be interesting as well though.

I think all the weapons should be turreted, however have some of them with some drawbacks.  I know turreted Railguns would be powerful, but maybe make them limited to only twin mounts.  Or buff gauss with the amount of possible shots

I'm also mildly annoyed how only some weapons can be turreted, because it could imply than every Railgun or Particle Beam is mounted in a hardpoint (so how does a retreating ship fire its railguns backwards then?) but I understand the game-necessity for it, as 10cm Railguns are already obscenely overpowered for point defense, reaching parity with Gauss only with Gauss ROF 4-6 depending on how fast your ships go, which is a rather large tech investment. In my headcanon, I get around this by viewing non-turreted weapons as mounted in large, battleship-style turrets that are only agile enough to track targets up to the ship's own speed, while a turretted Gauss or a Laser is mounted in a snappy CIWS-style configuration that can track as fast as its gear percentage and BFC speed allow.

Not sure there could be a solution for turrets that could make all these mental gymanstics unnecessary, but I think Gauss in particular could use a buff to its PD capabilities, perhaps a Size vs Caliber setting which would allow it to deal fractional damage in return for smaller weapon size. We already have fractional damage AMMs, having a half-size gauss dealing 0.5 damage per shot would be rather nice against an enemy with Size 10 (or below) missiles, challenging the 10cm Railgun meta. This would also enable one to make truly tiny low-accuracy, low-damage guns for use on tiny beam fighters (however with small fighters, BFC size always becomes a concern).

Additionally, the whole small Gauss thing could be tied into the planned (or at least that was something I remember discussing here) rework of Ground Support Fighters, in regards to the possible deprecation of Ground Support Pods and the use of existing weapons by fighters for both space fights and Ground Support missions. In this case, an anti-infantry fighter weapon would be needed, and a small, rapid-firing Gauss would be a perfect fit.

In regards to anti-ship capabilities of fractional damage weapons, I think it'd be nice to give them a chance to deal damage corresponding to their weapon strength (0.25 damage = 25% chance to inflict 1 damage, or if deemed too generous, use damage^2) rather than keep them completely ineffectual. The only reason I phased out my own sub-1 strength AMMs was my desire to use them in anti-ship support roles, especially by old ships relegated to garrison duty where they would mostly encounter Raiders who possess neither shields nor missiles. A weapon incapable of penetrating a single layer of armor still being able to inflict damage to it occasionally could easily be explained by metal fatigue, weak projectiles striking the same spot enough times to overwhelm its structural integrity.

Also, while you got me yapping about weapons, I think Particle Beams (and especially Lances) not fitting into Spinal mounts is a crime. A Spinal Lance is such a widespread sci-fi trope, it honestly feels weird not having access to them. Not to mention how this would fit the Lances' implementation (tremendous penetrative damage, agonizingly long reload) absolutely perfectly.

Thanks for all the low-tech changes, Steve!

For players who like conventional starts (me), it also means that any units built at game start and during the buildup to TN tech aren't automatically near useless since their damage will be based off of minimum base 10.

The bonus generated by a scientist doing research in their field is 4x the listed percentage. The bonus for any project outside of their field is the listed percentage.

So a PP scientist with a 25% bonus will research Railgun tech at a 125% rate, whereas the same scientist will research Engine tech at a 200% rate (4 x 25% = 100% bonus).

If I understand it correctly, the current formula for PD working on a missile with decoys is:

Chance to hit missile = 1 / 1 + 0.2*(# alive decoys)*clamp(Missile ECM - PD ECCM + 5, 0, 5).

In effect, it means that if you aren't confident your ECCM is better than their ECM, you might as well strip ECCM from your PD dedicated BFCs (especially point blank rail/gauss), since the decoys will operate at full efficiency regardless.

So far my testing confirms the upper clamp, that is, a decoy cannot be MORE effective than "the same as a missile," and the lower clamp is fairly obvious.

If that's correct, I find it a little weird. Not difficult by any means, but yet another thing that's a little unintuitive, that i'll have to update all my designs for. If I could tweak the numbers myself I would, but I'm totally unfamiliar with C# decompiling and tweaking so that's a no-go unless there's relevant numbers in the DB... which I doubt, but I'll see soon.

There's two "simple" changes that can be made to make this behave more intuitively. Either, or a combination of both, could be used. Or neither, if this little quirk is desired behavior.

1. Allowing decoys to be bigger than a missile, aka removing the clamp on the upper end. Maybe just swapping clamp 0,x,5 for max 0,x. Maybe making it so that it scales slower when it's "bigger", so maybe 2 ECM vs ECCM advantage is required to make the weight go from 5 to 6, so to speak, then another 2 to go to 7, or maybe another 3 to go to 7. All subject to tuning.

Under this regime, ECCM is a losing game but not playing it is even worse, and by a lot. Not putting ECCM basically makes the PD BFC useless, and turns amm into a decoy sweeper.

2. Shifting the center of the linear section closer towards equal ECM/ECCM. AKA, keeping the clamp 0,5 but changing the base to 3 or 4, so having 1-2 level higher missile ECM gives max bonus and having even ECCM gives tangible (but small) benefit compared to running 0 ECCM.

Under this regime, Missile decoys are worse to begin with, but ECCM now can actually be significant at equal tech (20% reduction if the timings happen to line up well for you and a much higher chance of doing nothing is not "significant" in my eyes). You CAN choose to give up the electronic war if you know you're VERY behind, but if you think you're competitive you can try to fight on this front as well.

For example at C = 3, if you think you're equal tech but actually you're 1 behind, you still reduce decoy effectiveness by 20%. If you ARE equal tech, you reduce decoy effectiveness by 40%. If you're AHEAD, you get even better results. As the missile party, you still get some effectiveness from decoys even at ECM 1, but ECM 2 and 3 now get additional importance as "sealing the deal" vs 0 ECCM skimpers.

Having said all this, once again I stress: if this design quirk is intended behavior, then feel free to ignore this post. I'll look for solutions on my own, because I'm a dials/knobs addict, I can't stop poking at them until it feels just right, and giving up entirely on the electronic war entirely just because your tech isn't strictly better feels VERY wrong to me.

EDIT: Also, ECCM is double RP cost compared to missile ECM. If a species is teching hard into missiles, they will very likely be on par or at most 1 tech (1/4 RP cost) behind on ECM tech. I don't need to point out how this is especially brutal late game or low research, where it basically means you can't really "win" even on the tech side before BFC manufacturing cost comes into play.