Missile Balance Suggestions

[Jorgen_CAB]

Please note that I'm trying to minimise the amount of work Steve would need to do. At this stage of development, I seriously doubt that any significant changes to the code and the database would be implemented and I'd rather see at least some of these come to fruition. Out of the five suggestions I've made, two should hopefully require only a simple parameter change, one just needs a tech line deleted, and the remaining two are the only ones that need any significant coding work. The ECM thing is negotiable, but I'd really like to see warhead size efficiency implemented.

I would be against removing agility... I would rather see it locked at a specific number or at least as Iceranger said lower its impact by making the progress smaller... say it start at 80 agility per MSP at tech level 1 and end at 120 agility per MSP at the highest level.. now the impact are much less of an issue and it becomes easier to balance the cost versus effect. Agility does have a use outside AMMs.

I also think that ECM and ECCM needs to be boosted in effect for missiles, so changing how it works in the calculation might be something to look at. A 10% reduction of hit rate is never really worth it consider the cost and size it require. ECM usually does not become useful until about 30% or so but can be quite devastating after this in terms of reducing hit rates of missiles. They do reduce the chance in an additive way so are more potent than one might think.

It is not fun to have ECM but not able to use it for missiles until about ECM 30.

I also think that full size launchers simply does not do what it is suppose to do because you need so little AMM to defeat them with just a rudimentary support of PD. The balance between full size and box launchers are not really good.

The best balance is when you need about 3-4 AMM to beat the same tech level ASM (without ECM/ECCM included). And that the cost should roughly say 100-125% AMM cost to ASM defeated. As you can also add effects of PD and shields to defeat ASM this is reasonable. I think that each tech level should try to end within this ballpark or roughly so. Increase the cost of using agility on missiles to make the cost of AMM a bit greater would be one good idea.

I'm not sure how you would make full size launcher more potent currently as beam DP simply is too efficient for them to be useful. Beam PD is fairly good to engage box launched salvos as a way to make it cheaper to do so, so beam PD is OK for fighting box launched missiles, but not full size ones.

[Jorgen_CAB]

If you want to test new settings for the missile agility you can edit the database... I edited mine so the Agility of missile range from 70-125 in agility, that is a small enough change over technology levels it should not really make a huge impact overall. I just add 5 agility per level starting at 70.

[Iceranger]

Making full size launcher fire faster really does not solve much as the bane of full size launcher is beam PD. Beam PD are too effective against full size launchers so it does not matter if full size launchers fire every five seconds or 30 seconds in terms of PD. Box launchers or reduced sized launchers would still be the only viable choice there the way the mechanic works today.

This is why I like fire-controls to have a limit on how many missiles they can control and targets they can track in a way you need multiple MFC to control large salvos. It would not solve the box launcher issue, but would be one step to changing the salvo mechanic to something a bit more dynamic.

Real world box launchers can' launch all missiles in ONE single salvo from ships, there are many reasons for why that is. Both physical and electronically... there might be some changes to how box launchers work in general so some of them becomes staggered over a few 5 second turns sometimes.

The current PD model is extremely binary. Either you have a vast salvo to overwhelm the PD, or your missile salvo does nothing. Unless that is changed, large salvo is always the sensible way to go and fast firing ASM salvos are useless. Your proposal of making large salvos more complicated to setup (a nerf) does not solve this at all. All it does is reduce the efficiency of the ASM system. And as I said earlier, without a significant change to the current PD model, there is no incentive to use smaller but fast firing salvos. If the full-sized launchers and the PD model are kept as they are right now, making smaller launchers less viable won't suddenly make full-sized ones more viable.

Essentially, beam point-defence and AMM defences should be good at different things - AMMs should excel at defending against saturation strikes (aka box launcher volleys), while beam weapons should be significantly better at defending against attrition strikes (aka full-size launcher volleys backed up with deep magazines).

I agree with you that some flavors are needed for each weapon. Except that without any changes PD is already good at defending against fast-firing missile salvos with full size launchers, while AMMs are good against saturation strikes. So I don't get your point.

My point is that full-sized ASM launchers don't need to be able to penetrate beam point-defence, they need to be able to penetrate AMM defences, thereby making it necessary to actually equip warships with significant beam point-defence.

Full-sized ASM salvos are already trivially killed by beam PD, I don't see any reason for firing AMMs in this case.

AMMs are highly cost-effective against anything that isn't a micromissile, even at fairly low tech levels.

The best balance is when you need about 3-4 AMM to beat the same tech level ASM (without ECM/ECCM included). And that the cost should roughly say 100-125% AMM cost to ASM defeated. As you can also add effects of PD and shields to defeat ASM this is reasonable. I think that each tech level should try to end within this ballpark or roughly so. Increase the cost of using agility on missiles to make the cost of AMM a bit greater would be one good idea.

I'm totally fine for AMM being cost effective against ASMs. Attacking should be more expensive than defending. If it is the other way around, you would need more BP/fleet size to defend against a similar tech missile fleet, which is simply imbalance.
Similar to that, I have no problem with AMM taking over beam PD in terms of hit rate at higher tech. Afterall you have to pay to build those AMMs and arrange logistic chains to ship them to the front line. If after all these efforts you end up with an inferior defense, what is the point of having them anyway? Keep in mind shooting PD is basically free.

A 'slow' missile should be fine as long as it's still at least three times as fast as a warship. With base missile accuracy increased to 20% and good commanders, that should still be enough to achieve near-100% accuracy against warships. You might run into problems with superfast fighters, though.

Again, forcing the players to use the officer system to mitigate the inefficiency of your proposed missile system isn't a good game design concept.

Please note that I'm trying to minimise the amount of work Steve would need to do. At this stage of development, I seriously doubt that any significant changes to the code and the database would be implemented and I'd rather see at least some of these come to fruition. Out of the five suggestions I've made, two should hopefully require only a simple parameter change, one just needs a tech line deleted, and the remaining two are the only ones that need any significant coding work. The ECM thing is negotiable, but I'd really like to see warhead size efficiency implemented.

However easy these changes might be, unless they are good changes (to Steve), there is no point of doing them.

[Bluebreaker]

Isn't part of the missile/pd problem the fact there is no gameplay incentive to split fleets? So its very easy, even without dedicated ships, to overcome any number of missiles thrown your way.

[Kristover]

Isn't part of the missile/pd problem the fact there is no gameplay incentive to split fleets? So its very easy, even without dedicated ships, to overcome any number of missiles thrown your way.

This is an interesting point and one I have considered in my own regard.  Perhaps the introduction of a 'command rating' - every military ship counts as rating 1 and every 10,000 tons adds another capacity (1) (example:  A 50,000 ton ship has a rating of 5).  You can then make every rank level have an inherent command capacity of 2, where the rank level 1 could command a fleet total of 10K tons.  You could further more tie it to a new commander bonus - lets call it 'Command' then acts a percentage bump up for tonnage.   A commander with a Command 10% bonus at rank level 1 can command 11,000 tons - this obvious isn't a big deal at lower ranks levels but at higher rank levels that could mean squeezing in some escort ships.  This system could be further enhanced by adding multiples for a CIC and Flag Bridge - the CIC could multiply the commander's command factor by x2 and Flag Bridge by x3.  You could also variant it by limiting the command multiple to apply only to flag bridges while the CIC (which would be present in a lot of ships) halves the vessel's tonnage for command rating calculations.  It is a little rough and raises some questions like how do you handle fighters/LACs but perhaps something like this might be an indirect way to reduce fleet 'blobs' and spread out the PD game.  It would also make a bit more invested in selecting my fleet commanders and I personally like the personnel side of the game.

[Jorgen_CAB]

I'm totally fine for AMM being cost effective against ASMs. Attacking should be more expensive than defending. If it is the other way around, you would need more BP/fleet size to defend against a similar tech missile fleet, which is simply imbalance.
Similar to that, I have no problem with AMM taking over beam PD in terms of hit rate at higher tech. Afterall you have to pay to build those AMMs and arrange logistic chains to ship them to the front line. If after all these efforts you end up with an inferior defense, what is the point of having them anyway? Keep in mind shooting PD is basically free.

Yes... I agree that defending need to be cheaper than attacking... otherwise defence become more or less useless. That is why I like the AMM to be slightly cheaper so if you then also combine this with PD and shields you can have an effective defence even against a slightly bigger foe or technologically superior one.

The attacker usually holds all the cards usually...

This is why I like the balance of missiles, PD and shields at roughly mid technology as it is in the game.

How to make full size launchers usable in a ship to ship engagement I don't even know how to do, question is if we even want it. Full size launchers are best against smaller ships with little defences such as fighters, FAC or other ships acting in smaller groups or alone. So they should have a place as it is... I think.

I'm more concerned about large versus small missile spam. If a fire control would be made to control a certain number of missiles in conjunction with damage yield being better in larger missiles and the fact that larger missiles have better range and place for more electronics then larger missiles perhaps could finally get a place.

I think that we probably need multiple ways to tackle the problem.

Another issue is that NPR mainly use full size launchers on missile ships which make combat them quite easy when using a balanced defensive doctrine. It is only fighters and FAC that is armed with box launchers. NPR ships should probably use reduced size launchers.

I would also like to see changes to how hangars work to make it harder to reload box launchers on larger military ships... but hangars probably is worth its own thread...

[Jorgen_CAB]

Isn't part of the missile/pd problem the fact there is no gameplay incentive to split fleets? So its very easy, even without dedicated ships, to overcome any number of missiles thrown your way.

Outside of scouting there probably are not... although in a multi-faction game there are more reasons to split the fleet. Both tactically and politically. Against NPR and devoid of political pressures there probably are very few reasons to split a fleet normally.

[SevenOfCarina (OP)]

Full-sized ASM salvos are already trivially killed by beam PD, I don't see any reason for firing AMMs in this case.

Would it make sense to double the cost of all tracking speed technologies? That would nerf beam point-defence a bit at higher tech levels, though railguns may end up outperforming gauss cannons even at RoF 4.

I'm totally fine for AMM being cost effective against ASMs. Attacking should be more expensive than defending. If it is the other way around, you would need more BP/fleet size to defend against a similar tech missile fleet, which is simply imbalance.

It'd be fine if you needed maybe 20% greater BP in ASMs to overcome AMM defences, but right now it's more like 300-500% at high tech. That is absurd - you shouldn't need to outmass an opponent 4 to 1 to actually be able to hurt them.

Again, forcing the players to use the officer system to mitigate the inefficiency of your proposed missile system isn't a good game design concept.

You will have to account for it, though, since it exists and it'll massively skew the effectiveness of literally everything. If the AMM/ASM equation was balanced assuming zero accuracy bonuses, then the moment a reasonable command chain comes into the picture, AMM defences become impenetrable (a 1.5x accuracy modifier is no joke, and it's easy to get 1.2x from the commanding officer and tactical officer alone, which requires no interaction with the mechanic other than turning auto-assignment on).

Any reasonable missile will have zero problems hitting targets without officer bonuses. There is no inefficiency involved that needs to be compensated for since I'm asking for the base manoeuvre rating to be increased to 20 from 10 as well. Slow missiles are only useful right now to reduce cost when taking down undefended vessels; they become totally useless against even light defences and I can't think of any other use case.

I'm actually fine with Jorgen's proposal to simply reduce the range of agility techs instead of outright removing them, though I'd prefer a range of 40-80 instead of 80-120.

[Iceranger]

Full-sized ASM salvos are already trivially killed by beam PD, I don't see any reason for firing AMMs in this case.

Would it make sense to double the cost of all tracking speed technologies? That would nerf beam point-defence a bit at higher tech levels, though railguns may end up outperforming gauss cannons even at RoF 4.

Nerfing PD tech further is ... problematic, since they are already (more and more) inferior to AMMs at higher tech. The issue here is full-sized launchers are ill suited for penetrating PD unless the whole PD mechanic changes. Not buffing or nerfing, but change the way it is right now, that either you have enough missiles, or not enough missiles. Full-sized launchers have their niche uses anyway so no need to buff them anyway...

I'm totally fine for AMM being cost effective against ASMs. Attacking should be more expensive than defending. If it is the other way around, you would need more BP/fleet size to defend against a similar tech missile fleet, which is simply imbalance.

It's be fine if you needed maybe 20% greater BP in ASMs to overcome AMM defences, but right now it's more like 300-500% at high tech. That is absurd - you shouldn't need to outmass an opponent 4 to 1 to actually be able to hurt them.

This is of course the case when you are comparing AMMs to larger ASMs. Larger ASMs are much more expensive but still takes only 1 AMM hit to shoot it down. Buffing its HTK can mitigate this issue, and make larger missile competes better with smaller ones.

I'm actually fine with Jorgen's proposal to simply reduce the range of agility techs instead of outright removing them, though I'd prefer a range of 40-80 instead of 80-120.

40-80 is too low based on my calculations, it could potentially nerf AMMs with ECCM onboard to far below beam PD level, which I consider unacceptable since AMMs cost stuff.

[Arwyn]

I agree with the OP that missiles have a pretty wild swing in power, with the trend going downward fast. I do think that rather than go through a major rewrite of code, that one of the previous mentioned solutions would be a good place to start.

Modern fire control systems have an upper end on the number of targets tracked, and missiles that they can reliably control. I think that would be an easier path to chase rather than dropping agility and changing accuracy across the board.

Cheesing missiles by sandpapering a target with Size 1 ASM's have been around since the VB6 version. The reason its so effective is because its cheap, and you can lob massive salvos that can swamp PD, no matter how sophisticated.

If you look at the history of air to air, or naval missiles, the original fire control systems were one for one. In other words, a single radar fire control would 'lock up' a single target and then guide the missile in. These early missiles were "beam riding", or they follow the firing plane or ships radar to the target. This worked, and is still used for certain applications, but suffered from attenuation over distances. These early systems had limited numbers of missiles they could control, and were not especially effective (example; the early Sparrow series of missiles).

The ability to track multiple targets, and engage them only started to really develop in the 60's in a limited format, and then really develop in the 1970s with the advent of microprocessors. During this period, missiles were dependent on the launching platform to maintain a radar lock to guide the missile in. Later missiles changed to Semi-Active Radar homing, which meant that the launching platform still 'locked up' the target, but the missile could follow the radar reflections to target itself. This made it easier to launch and control multiple missiles.

This was also one of the driving factors in "fire and forget" weapons, that could take target information and track the target themselves.

How this translates to Aurora:
Limit the number of missiles controlled per Fire Control. So for example, if the control limit is 12 per FC, then a ship could launch three salvos of 4 and could control them, or a single salvo of 12 and control them all the way to target.

UNLESS;

The missiles have their own sensors. So, for the example above of 12, in which case the firing ship can program and launch up to 12 missiles per salvo continuously.

In that way, missile cheesing is throttled by the FC limit, and since size 1 missiles wont mount active sensors, the box launcher sky barfing method is nerfed. No other changes needed.

It also incentives the use of active sensors on missiles, for those who want maximum rate of fire and salvo sizes, which in return is going to mean bigger missiles to mount those sensors. Missile agility is still a viable trade off.

This also reflects the way missiles are used today. Anti-missile missiles, like the SIM-2, still use beam riding technology, since they are made to be cheap, fast, and short ranged defensive missiles. Larger anti-shipping missiles are either pre-programmed and fired and seek their own target (like the Tomahawk) or they are semi-active and guided in until they are within range of their own internal radar.

[Jorgen_CAB]

How this translates to Aurora:
Limit the number of missiles controlled per Fire Control. So for example, if the control limit is 12 per FC, then a ship could launch three salvos of 4 and could control them, or a single salvo of 12 and control them all the way to target.

UNLESS;

The missiles have their own sensors. So, for the example above of 12, in which case the firing ship can program and launch up to 12 missiles per salvo continuously.

In that way, missile cheesing is throttled by the FC limit, and since size 1 missiles wont mount active sensors, the box launcher sky barfing method is nerfed. No other changes needed.

It also incentives the use of active sensors on missiles, for those who want maximum rate of fire and salvo sizes, which in return is going to mean bigger missiles to mount those sensors. Missile agility is still a viable trade off.

This also reflects the way missiles are used today. Anti-missile missiles, like the SIM-2, still use beam riding technology, since they are made to be cheap, fast, and short ranged defensive missiles. Larger anti-shipping missiles are either pre-programmed and fired and seek their own target (like the Tomahawk) or they are semi-active and guided in until they are within range of their own internal radar.

I think missiles should get a special guidance system rather than relying on an active sensor. It should more function like a directed radar and a fire-control all in one system so its range can be increased substantially for self guided missiles at decent distances.

It should be sepparated from the active, passive type sensors and integrated into the system of fire-controls and target acquisition.

[Jorgen_CAB]

Nerfing PD tech further is ... problematic, since they are already (more and more) inferior to AMMs at higher tech. The issue here is full-sized launchers are ill suited for penetrating PD unless the whole PD mechanic changes. Not buffing or nerfing, but change the way it is right now, that either you have enough missiles, or not enough missiles. Full-sized launchers have their niche uses anyway so no need to buff them anyway...

I also think that nerfing PD is the wrong way to go, it would be pointless against large salvos. I think that finding more ways to utilize full size launchers would be better. As there still are areas where they are effective and finds use.

I wonder if it actually is such a bad idea that box and reduced size are king in ship to ship combat. You can combat it with a combination of PD, shields and AMM, so it is not impossible to fend off even with lower cost.

I think we should concentrate more on micro missiles being overly abusive as that cuts into beam territory where beam weapons should be king and not spamming micro ASM missiles. I think this is more of a game balance thing than anything else.

40-80 is too low based on my calculations, it could potentially nerf AMMs with ECCM onboard to far below beam PD level, which I consider unacceptable since AMMs cost stuff.

I think around 100 is a relatively good place for agility to be a balanced mechanic, that is my experience.

I will run with a range of 70-125 in my next campaign and see how that feel.

[Arwyn]

How this translates to Aurora:
Limit the number of missiles controlled per Fire Control. So for example, if the control limit is 12 per FC, then a ship could launch three salvos of 4 and could control them, or a single salvo of 12 and control them all the way to target.

UNLESS;

The missiles have their own sensors. So, for the example above of 12, in which case the firing ship can program and launch up to 12 missiles per salvo continuously.

In that way, missile cheesing is throttled by the FC limit, and since size 1 missiles wont mount active sensors, the box launcher sky barfing method is nerfed. No other changes needed.

It also incentives the use of active sensors on missiles, for those who want maximum rate of fire and salvo sizes, which in return is going to mean bigger missiles to mount those sensors. Missile agility is still a viable trade off.

This also reflects the way missiles are used today. Anti-missile missiles, like the SIM-2, still use beam riding technology, since they are made to be cheap, fast, and short ranged defensive missiles. Larger anti-shipping missiles are either pre-programmed and fired and seek their own target (like the Tomahawk) or they are semi-active and guided in until they are within range of their own internal radar.

I think missiles should get a special guidance system rather than relying on an active sensor. It should more function like a directed radar and a fire-control all in one system so its range can be increased substantially for self guided missiles at decent distances.

It should be sepparated from the active, passive type sensors and integrated into the system of fire-controls and target acquisition.

So, something like the following?

Direct control/'beam riding'- Short ranged, no sensors on missiles, limited number of missiles per FC

Track while scan/Semi-Active- Short/medium ranged, limited sensors on missile, more missile control per FC

Active sensors- Medium/Long ranged, full sensors on missiles, highest missile control per FC

[Iceranger]

40-80 is too low based on my calculations, it could potentially nerf AMMs with ECCM onboard to far below beam PD level, which I consider unacceptable since AMMs cost stuff.

I think around 100 is a relatively good place for agility to be a balanced mechanic, that is my experience.

I will run with a range of 70-125 in my next campaign and see how that feel.

I happened to calculated something like that last time we discussed this




I proposed 100-210 last time based on my calculation, so AMMs can be effective earlier, while not too overpowered in the late game. Also, BFC tracking speed could use a buff so it increases faster. Again, in my opinion, since we have to pay for AMMs, having their hit chance lower than equivalent PD is unacceptable.

[dag0net]

Can I just say.. that... AMM's are missiles..



Arguments re: the cost of AMM's vs beam PD should just be dropped, PD cannot reach millions of km, cannot destroy warships with no threat to the vehicle, cannot be left as zero maintenance minefields, cannot scale output to relative threat, often give their vehicles one chance to fail... and need a refit or redesign of entire fleets when tech improves, as opposed to new missiles which are hot-swapped.



The 'obvious' way to improve the utility of reloading launchers, seems to me, is with tot barrages.

If you want to play with new techs, add different types of warhead