Some issues about missiles

[projekcja]

1) Often I see a large number of missiles, enough to blast all my ships, in an unstoppable advance towards my fleet, only to have them magically disappear as combat ends due to all enemies dying to my missiles. I find this 'unrealistic' and would rather see combat end only once all missiles have hit their targets or have been otherwise destroyed.

2) Currently, all the defenses against missiles need to scale linearly with the amount of enemy missiles - i.e. if the enemy sends 4 nuclear missile, suppose I think I need ~ 10 pd lasers to shoot them all down, then for 40 missiles, I'd need ~ 100 pd lasers. I'd rather see some counter that scales better, like for example an area-effect weapon that destroys half the missiles in a certain area - no matter if there are 4 or 40. This would make the simplest direct mass-missile strategy ineffective eventually, as well as making positioning in combat matter a bit more. (sending missiles from different directions makes them all harder to intercept. When several volleys pass through the same tiles, targeting them with the aoe is particularly effective.) This will also turn an entire fleet targeting a single ship with missiles turn from a death sentence to that ship to an easily counterable move.

3) I know this has been talked about, still, in my opinion missiles are too fast compared to ship movement. For example enemy moves forward and launches missiles, my ship turns around and runs as far as possible, and still gets blasted in the very first turn (while moving!). This will not change if you reduce (missile damage)/(ship HP) ratio, as if the enemy has enough missiles, this will keep happening. Missiles hitting you on your own turn severely limit maneuverability, and makes me feel like I have no freedom to change anything about the way the battle goes.

In my opinion it would be best if missiles only moved during the firing party's turn, this way you would lose the very artificial ability to manipulate the missiles position relative to intercepting ships, you would be free to move your ship anywhere you wanted, and missiles would still hit as they'd still be much faster than ships.

[Arioch]

Missiles are problematic in that they're still too powerful and that the AI builds them to the exclusion of all else, including point defense. This means that if you build your own ships with missiles AND point defense, you can easily defeat almost any AI fleet. These are both things we intend to fix, in balance passes on weapons and improvements to the AI.

1) Often I see a large number of missiles, enough to blast all my ships, in an unstoppable advance towards my fleet, only to have them magically disappear as combat ends due to all enemies dying to my missiles. I find this 'unrealistic' and would rather see combat end only once all missiles have hit their targets or have been otherwise destroyed.

I agree that it would probably be better if combat didn't end until all missiles were dealt with.

2) Currently, all the defenses against missiles need to scale linearly with the amount of enemy missiles - i.e. if the enemy sends 4 nuclear missile, suppose I think I need ~ 10 pd lasers to shoot them all down, then for 40 missiles, I'd need ~ 100 pd lasers.

Point defense currently works very well against missiles if you surround the ship being targeted with all of your ships that have point defense.

3) I know this has been talked about, still, in my opinion missiles are too fast compared to ship movement. For example enemy moves forward and launches missiles, my ship turns around and runs as far as possible, and still gets blasted in the very first turn (while moving!). This will not change if you reduce (missile damage)/(ship HP) ratio, as if the enemy has enough missiles, this will keep happening. Missiles hitting you on your own turn severely limit maneuverability, and makes me feel like I have no freedom to change anything about the way the battle goes.

Ships can't and shouldn't be able to outrun missiles. If your ship is being targeted, stop moving it and surround it with other ships that have unfired point defense weapons.

[projekcja]

Arioch said:
Point defense currently works very well against missiles if you surround the ship being targeted with all of your ships that have point defense.

Only if you have a number of ships with PD proportional to the number of missile boats the enemy has. If you're outnumbered like some Loroi fleet in Naam, the PDs, and interceptors etc will get saturated, and will not be able to shoot enough of the missiles down to save a single ship being targeted.

For any amount of anti-missile systems, there exists a number of missiles that will be able to saturate the defenses, get through, and deal enough damage to kill everything. This fact may be fine as it is, but I'd really rather see the scaling on that to larger fleets having the needed missiles go faster than linear in the amount of defenses (exponential, or at least like the square) because the high range of missiles makes their use 'non-local' - the entire enemy fleet, including far ships, can target a single ship, while PDs are local -- once a certain number of PD ships try to defend a single ship, the space around that ship becomes crammped, and additional PD ships cant be moved there.

Another concern I have about PDs, is that I believe currently they're uneconomical, in the sense that when in the same slot I can put either PD or more missiles, the number of PDs in that slot will intercept less than the number of missiles that would go on that slot, meaning a fleet of 'pure missileships' will still beat a fleet of the same size of 'missile+PD' ships. I may be wrong about this, especially once you have the RF improvement for PD lasers, but that was my general impression so far.

As I see it, PDs are a weapon that allows a larger fleet to beat a smaller fleet without taking much damage, so the main tactic in the game seems to be pointing towards 'whoever amasses a larger fleet, wins'. I'd rather see the possibility of some 'guerrilla warfare', where a smaller fleet can sometimes deal good damage to a large fleet, slowly wearing the large fleet down with such attacks, and also some kind of paper-rock-scissor mechanics, where matching the right systems to the enemy composition is highly effective. Currently, I don't see these, yet....

Arioch said:
Ships can't and shouldn't be able to outrun missiles. If your ship is being targeted, stop moving it and surround it with other ships that have unfired point defense weapons.

I completely agree that ships shouldn't be able to outrun missiles, but I still feel like missiles are too fast, as IMO they should not hit their target on the very first turn of combat, especially in the absence of a way to set your formation, as you have no control of 1st turn ship positions.

[Arioch]

Arioch said:
Point defense currently works very well against missiles if you surround the ship being targeted with all of your ships that have point defense.

Only if you have a number of ships with PD proportional to the number of missile boats the enemy has. If you're outnumbered like some Loroi fleet in Naam, the PDs, and interceptors etc will get saturated, and will not be able to shoot enough of the missiles down to save a single ship being targeted.

If point defense were effective enough that a fleet could defeat 100% of the missiles from an enemy force three times as large, then missiles would not be viable weapon and nobody would build them. Missiles in Stars in Shadow are not meant to model the mechanics of torpedoes in Outsider. In Outsider, torpedoes are not very effective as weapons, and are used primarily as a decoy to draw fire off of ships, or at close range in which there is reduced time to intercept them.

As for the rest, I think the weapon balance problem is better solved by nerfing missiles rather than buffing point defense. Offensive beam weapons should be viable, and currently they aren't. Once we've filled in some of the tech gaps, we will do a balance pass on weapons to try to bring them into a better state.

I completely agree that ships shouldn't be able to outrun missiles, but I still feel like missiles are too fast, as IMO they should not hit their target on the very first turn of combat, especially in the absence of a way to set your formation, as you have no control of 1st turn ship positions.

Missiles can't hit a target on the firing player's first turn; they may hit the target on the defending player's first turn if he moves right into them. If the defending player doesn't move the targeted ship, then the missiles won't arrive until he ends his turn, which means that he has time to move other vessels with point defense into position to aid in the defense of the targeted ship.

[echo2361]

If point defense were effective enough that a fleet could defeat 100% of the missiles from an enemy force three times as large, then missiles would not be viable weapon and nobody would build them. Missiles in Stars in Shadow are not meant to model the mechanics of torpedoes in Outsider. In Outsider, torpedoes are not very effective as weapons, and are used primarily as a decoy to draw fire off of ships, or at close range in which there is reduced time to intercept them.

As for the rest, I think the weapon balance problem is better solved by nerfing missiles rather than buffing point defense. Offensive beam weapons should be viable, and currently they aren't. Once we've filled in some of the tech gaps, we will do a balance pass on weapons to try to bring them into a better state.

I think I'm in agreement with Arioch on this one. I could see area-of-effect anti-missile systems being something like a late game tech meant to counter mid-to-late game higher level swarm-type missiles, but in general a certain amount of missiles will almost always get through even a good PD screen.

The best way to balance them out is through nerfing missile damage to ensure that even if one or two get through a really well put together PD screen they aren't insta-kills on whatever ship they hit. I could see a destroyer or maybe even a light cruiser taking one or two missile hits to kill, but big ships should be able to shrug off a few missile hits and keep going.

If you really want to counter missiles well, I suppose investing in ECM technology modules could be included to "jam" missile tracking. A multi-layered defense is the best way to stop missiles. Having ECM jam some of them, while your PD handles the ones that made it through the jamming sounds like a good system to me. It also encourages tech upgrades on both sides as the enemy can invest in ECCM to counter the jamming to get more of their missiles through. Creates a nice back-and-forth dynamic as far as tech priorities go which encourages diversification.

[projekcja]

I realize this could be simply because this game's not done yet, but I expect from such a game offer have several technologies that entirely revolutionize combat, making a ship with some 'revolutionary' tech totally unbalanced against most ships before it, only to be countered by some other technology.

Examples of such 'revolutions' in MOO:
* Most initial weapon systems (non-heavy lasers and rockets) dealt up to 4 damage per hit. Shield class N techs reduced damage by N per hit, so class IV shields were enough to make a ship invulnerable to low tech weapons. Of course, researching better weapons solved this problem, but the shield-vs-weapon armsrace continued all game long. Weapons kept getting rapid fire or MIRV version of their low-techs, making a system that was devastating against ships that hadn't invested in shields.
* Repulser beams prevented ships from getting in range 1, completely preventing all short range weapons (normal beams) from ever being able to attack, and possibly keeping bombers away from planets (if deployed around it, and the enemy's not fast enough to go around in 1 turn)
* Automated repairs on huge ships made them practically invulnerable against fleets that cant deal enough damage per turn to overcome them.
* Ionic pulsars and Ionic stream projectors dealt damage to all ships in a stack, when facing a huge fleet of small ships, this could be extremely cost-effective.

Things like that were unbalanced, and that was a good thing - it gave the player a chance to excel, to use a technological gimick to beat a stronger opponent, to press the advantage before it's countered to make territorial gains, and of course, it also created challanges, as your awesome game-winning fleet could still face insurmountable surprise obstacles.

Currently I don't see this game offering such bold revolutions, and with missiles being the main weapon from the start, it's hard to see it coming.
Missiles do a good job at planetary bombardment, meaning there's no need to get close to the planet. There's no need to get close to enemy ships, and an economically viable solution to every counter (i.e. PDs and interceptors) is just 'shoot even more missiles'.

I'd like to see techs negating missiles effectively, only for missiles to make a comeback with counter-techs, i.e.
ECM ==> ECCM,
beams that can intercept missiles very ecomonically ==> reflective coatings on missiles, or thermally insulated missiles.
Anti-missile rockets ==> ECM on missiles.
PD coilgun ===> armored missiles.
ships fast enough to outrun missiles (or at least keep away from them for a few turns while shooting beams at them) ==> make faster missiles
etc.

[Arioch]

While we have a variety of special-purpose weapons systems, most of which are not fully or at all implemented in the game (limpets, leech missiles, EMP, ECM, cloaking, shield capacitors, tractor beams, weapons with bonuses vs. shields or armor and the like), I don't think it's necessarily a good idea to allow certain techs to be "totally unbalanced" until countered by an opposing technology. You say that this is "expected", but I know of very few games in this genre that are deliberately unbalanced in this way. MOO was infamous for these imbalances, but not in a good way. I agree that in a single-player game perfect balance is not always required, but I personally dislike it when there are obvious "cheese" strategies.

Specialty techs can give you an advantage in your preferred style of play, but to allow such a tech to dominate unless specifically countered sounds pretty broken to me.

[Gilleous]

I agree with Arioch here. Even in the RTS genre the concept of hard counters are falling out favour and there is even pushes for maintained utility (so no more we have tanks so infantry is useless now). 4X games are different but they are still strategy games and these concepts are seen as better to game flow as they make strategy aspect more interesting instead of falling into: get A before enemy gets B... WIN!

Even back then, such things were not popular. They were criticized then and criticized now. Nostalgia is dangerous when we forget the flaws and imagine the classics as divine perfection, we start thinking the criticisms of the past were compliments too.

Flaws can be endearing at times, but they are still flaws.

[sven]

Examples of such 'revolutions' in MOO:
* Most initial weapon systems (non-heavy lasers and rockets) dealt up to 4 damage per hit. Shield class N techs reduced damage by N per hit, so class IV shields were enough to make a ship invulnerable to low tech weapons. Of course, researching better weapons solved this problem, but the shield-vs-weapon armsrace continued all game long. Weapons kept getting rapid fire or MIRV version of their low-techs, making a system that was devastating against ships that hadn't invested in shields.
* Repulser beams prevented ships from getting in range 1, completely preventing all short range weapons (normal beams) from ever being able to attack, and possibly keeping bombers away from planets (if deployed around it, and the enemy's not fast enough to go around in 1 turn)
* Automated repairs on huge ships made them practically invulnerable against fleets that cant deal enough damage per turn to overcome them.
* Ionic pulsars and Ionic stream projectors dealt damage to all ships in a stack, when facing a huge fleet of small ships, this could be extremely cost-effective.

Well, an automated repair system is certainly one system I'd like to add to the game.
Damage soak mechanics are another piece that you'll probably see more of as we start balancing the weapons/shields/armor stats.

At a higher level, I do think it's certainly possible to over-balance a strategy game. Getting a decisive tech edge on your opponents, and then exploiting it ruthlessly, can be a lot of fun. And games of this sort are more interesting when there is the potential for strong synergies between different systems (like the extra armor + automated repair combo in MOO).

But I also agree with most of what we're hearing from Arioch and Gilleous -- and I think we can have techs that revolutionize space combat without resorting to hard counters.

[echo2361]

But I also agree with most of what we're hearing from Arioch and Gilleous -- and I think we can have techs that revolutionize space combat without resorting to hard counters.

Good way to put things. While I agree that hard counters can be going slightly too far, getting a competitive edge over an enemy through technology can be a lot of fun and should be something the player is encouraged to do. I love the idea of technological arms races, as demonstrated by ECM vs. ECCM technologies and missile vs. anti-missile tech in general. But if a tech comes out that makes even a massive swarm of missiles useless, that kills some of the fun.

[TheDeadlyShoe]

I think the virtue of reasonably hard counters is countering tech rushing, and otherwise monotonous ship design. For example, if someone just goes straight to fusion missiles and ignores all other weapons systems, a strong anti-missile option enables other players to counter all-missile fleets - forcing that player to diversify. Ideally, using a hard counter should impose a significant cost on the effectiveness of the ship using it, making it very difficult to field hard counters for everything.

It also creates some tactical diversity. If one fleet is fielding a dedicated anti-missile cruiser, the other fleet might try to knock that ship out with non-missile weapons so that they can use their missiles efficiently.

[sven]

It also creates some tactical diversity. If one fleet is fielding a dedicated anti-missile cruiser, the other fleet might try to knock that ship out with non-missile weapons so that they can use their missiles efficiently.

One of the problems I think we have in the current mechanics is that point defense lasers are far too useful in an anti-ship role. Defense lasers are intended as a fairly "hard" counter for missiles, and they're also intended to be anti-missile / anti-small craft specialists. In a ship vs. ship fight, getting many small hits with a 1-3 damage defense laser should be significantly worse than getting half as many hits with a 1-10 normal laser -- but right now, that's not the case (the normal laser averages 5.5 damage per hit, while twin PD lasers average 2+2=4). Giving titanium armor a 1 damage soak would make PD weapons dramatically weaker in ship-to-ship combat -- and I suspect that would be a pretty good adjustment to the current tactical balance. As you say, it would encourage a bit more tactical diversity.

[evil713]

I actually see missiles as somewhat weak, the very low ammo reserves of ships dictate that either a ship strips off most of its passive defenses in order to carry enough ammo for long (or multiple) combats or use a mixed ordnance ship limiting there use to kill strikes or harassment.

Fighters are a better option to go with then ordnance using weapons.

even the missile cruiser is carries woefully to few missiles (experience only with stargate using race, I do not know other races layouts well enough).

My recommendation is that ordnance is a function of a ships size, something like a station, planet or large ship would have large ordnance reserves, smaller ships would have much fewer, like currant ammo sizes.