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Player Features and Ideas Discussion

 
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Defender missiles
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Puikko
Doomheim
#1 - 2014-04-11 11:58:24 UTC  |  Edited by: Puikko
Hey homies I got a pretty rad idea the other day...

What if defender missiles.. get this guys... what if defender missiles weren't, guys get this, what if they weren't useless?

To that end I got some other pretty coolio ideas.

For instance, currently they're pretty crap even for their intended purpose. Light defender missiles are completely pointless, they do 60 damage to missiles in flight, and even light missiles have 70hp so it takes two of them to kill anything. So do something about that. For instance torpedoes have 280HP for whatever reason so it'd take a completely unrealistic amount of even heavy defender missiles (which do 70 damage btw) to kill them.

Anyway more importantly, add another type of Defender Missiles that serve an anti-drone purpose. They'd be fired at targets like regular missiles but get bonuses from skills like Defender Missiles. They deal a tiny amount of EM damage, and on hit incapacitate or have a chance to incapacitate a drone for a while. When a drone is incapacitated like this, it won't shoot, move or respond to its owner's commands.

The chance would depend a little on the size of the drone and the size of the anti-drone missile. For instance light defender missiles would always incapacitate light drones, nearly always incapacitate mediums and half of the time incapacitate heavies/sentries. Heavies would incapacitate mediums always, and heavies often, and TORPEDO SIZED SUPER COOL ANTIDRONE MISSILES would incapacitate all the drones within a 5km area of effect from their point of impact!!!!! WOW!!!!!!!

Also please add defender missiles that can be loaded into rocket launchers because eg. the Rifter has an utility launcher slot and rocket launchers are easier to fit than LMLs but can't use defender missiles thx. (and because I trained rocket specialization but rocket launchers are so bad)

And yea before you ask I hate drones so I would really love being able to mess with them.
Arthur Aihaken
CODE.d
#2 - 2014-04-11 12:02:54 UTC
FoF missiles are already anti-drone (they'll always target the closest target).

I am currently away, traveling through time and will be returning last week.
Puikko
Doomheim
#3 - 2014-04-11 12:11:51 UTC  |  Edited by: Puikko
Arthur Aihaken wrote:
FoF missiles are already anti-drone (they'll always target the closest target).

So are normal missiles (you can target drones and kill them using them).

What I was proposing was something like ECM except for drones, though. Something that could be utilised by ships with "utility" launcher slots.
Dave Sidious
KarmaFleet
Goonswarm Federation
#4 - 2014-04-11 16:54:05 UTC
I experimented with these, everyone said they were useless but I like to test things for myself. They were right. They would be fractionally more useful if you didn't need to keep activating the module all the time. As it stands the module will only cycle if there is an active incoming missile and it can't change targets in flight. Whilst it would be a nice tool to mitigate some incoming damage if it was happy to just spew missiles into space with no valid target, it doesn't. It seems a simple fix to change the programming such that:

Is there a valid incoming missile.

Yes, then target that and guide the defender to it..

No, then fire the defender straight ahead and check again at the end of the cycle.

It's the same decision that currently switches off the module, but with a different outcome.



Another cool idea would be a laser point defense system, zaps hostile missiles out of the air at a short range. Maybe a mid-slot item but it would need to use tons of cap or something to stop it being OP.
Ix Method
Doomheim
#5 - 2014-04-11 17:04:33 UTC  |  Edited by: Ix Method
It'd be nice if they targeted any (valid) missiles within range but I dunno quite how practical that is.

TBH making them Rocket Launcher only could be fun given they're somewhat overshadowed by Light Missiles, might be an interesting niche for destroyers if combined with unterribling of FOFs, particularly in small gangs. Basically picks up the slack given the lack of Anti-Drone/Missile ewar.

+1

Travelling at the speed of love.
Arthur Aihaken
CODE.d
#6 - 2014-04-11 17:38:59 UTC
Ix Method wrote:
It'd be nice if they targeted any (valid) missiles within range but I dunno quite how practical that is.

Since most NPC AI use defender missiles, this could really impact mission running for missile-based ships.

I am currently away, traveling through time and will be returning last week.
Ix Method
Doomheim
#7 - 2014-04-11 17:46:56 UTC
Missiles are easy mode for PVE, with a bit of NPC tweaking to not totally break things that doesn't seem a huge issue.

Travelling at the speed of love.
Puikko
Doomheim
#8 - 2014-04-12 11:04:22 UTC
Hey interesting factoid I just noticed, defender missiles get hull bonuses for their appropriate size and damage type. So for instance light defender missiles on Talwar are better than Heavy defender missiles on an unbonused hull. Talwar Light Defender missiles do 76 explosive damage, enough to kill all missiles except torps in one shot (normally they do 60 damage while all missiles have 70hp with the exception of torps and citadel missiles).

So they're almost OP on the Talwar!