As of the current 'dev' build (soon to migrate to 'stable') energy torpedoes are now in the game.

Right now, energy torpedoes have the following combination of traits:

1) They can be intercepted by point defense.
2) They don't use munitions.
3) They do have firing arc restrictions.
4) They don't persist over multiple turns -- thus, like direct fire weapons, they effectively have a limited range.

The intended niche of energy torpedoes is to give you a knife range weapon that's a bit stronger than beam weapons, but, can be countered by automated point defense.

There's a real problem with the core balance right now, however, as standard torpedoes are already fulfilling that niche quite nicely. In the not too distant future, (non-energy) torpedoes will probably get a nerf that makes them far less effective against fast moving targets (i.e., destroyers and light cruisers).

Another idea is to make regular torpedoes or missiles have an area of effect explosion when hit by PD while energy torpedoes wouldnt. This would encourage people to not fire regular torpedoes at close range due to the risk of taking damage.

echo2361 wrote:Another idea is to make regular torpedoes or missiles have an area of effect explosion when hit by PD while energy torpedoes wouldnt. This would encourage people to not fire regular torpedoes at close range due to the risk of taking damage.

The way things are currently setup, it would need to be a pretty large AOE for this to work as a deterrent.

But I do think the idea of taking damage from a "near miss" is something that makes sense with most of the torpedoes. For example, we might say that rather than having a chance to avoid any damage, faster ships attacked by torpedoes would have a chance of avoiding a direct hit, but still take some damage due to having had the warhead go off in close proximity to their hull / shields. I don't think this would require implementing a true AOE effect, it could just be an excuse for reducing the damage of a torpedo hitting a destroyer to 10-20% of it's base.

Eeeeee new effect, liking it!

Need to get that second viper tech working, stock vipers are short!

I think energy torpedoes overall may need a damage boost a solid 6 and a solid 30 is ok but I'm thinking the viper needs 10-12 and the pulsar needs to be better than fusion torpedoes at least. At least following the logic shorter range equals more damage.

I'm also wondering if maybe energy torpedoes could be inherently rapid fire?

Hmm. I'll take a look at these when I can.

As far as carving out that niche goes, it might make more sense to give regular torpedoes an effective or absolute minimum range - RP-wise, consider it a safeguard against premature detonation. The battlemap may need to get bigger over time to help compensate for this, as its pretty easy to close the distance with small & medium ships currently (it was like that in MOO2 as well), especially in three-way battles where you start right beside the other two fleets.

Another avenue aside from adding in an accuracy modifier would be to gut torpedoes' turn-rate on the battlemap and modify their tracking behaviour. This would give a very clear advantage to faster ships that would suddenly be able to slip inside the turning arc of the munitions, causing a clean miss. It'd also be good to have anything that misses like this self-detonate after a couple turns. Torpedoes would still be very effective against slow ships and static targets (by adding some built-in PD-defense, or an MIRV-like mod that gives this), and it'd take a little more strategic planning to deploy them effectively.

The regular pulsons were envisioned as high-tech replacements for regular missiles. They were not meant to compete with other missiles, but to replace them.

The Gremak-specific vipers were intended as short-range early versions of the pulson, which would compete with regular missiles. The idea was that they would synergize well with distortion fields, allowing the the Gremak to get up close and personal.

Vipers should at least be better damage wise than nuke missiles, being a short range assault weapon and a gremak unique tech. Pulsons are an antimatter unlocked tech and as such should at least have some asymmetrical equality with antimatter torpedos.