It's funny Doctor, I don't consider Missiles useless in melee, simply because chances are you've already wiped out 2/3rds of their fleet, so you're now firing three times as many Missiles at each enemy. Even with the inaccuracy at that range, you're launching so many projectiles at each target you'll hit them enough to kill them. You mentioned them as a high risk, high reward weapon. I disagree with that. One can almost certainly guarantee themselves multiple kills in phase one, which means increased focus in phase two - which means more kills. Which amplifies the effect in Melee. Even though the accuracy degrades with each phase, missiles don't ever really get "weak". Beams are riskier even. Besides, if anything should be a high-risk, high-reward weapon, it should be Kinetics, especially with the way combat is set up.



As for the other two weapons types being spammed, they aren't a huge issue really. Beams and especially Kinetics are very easy to survive comparatively, even when spammed.

DeamonStorm wrote:
I was thinking that maybe, a way to get around this is limit the number of a type of weapon that a ship can carry. For example: A frigate could only carry 2 of each weapon type, maximum, leaving the rest for modules. A destroyer could carry only 4 of each type...so on and so fourth. This would force more strategy into the game.

Restricting or limiting the type of weapon that a ship can carry is definitely the last thing I would like to see in this game.

Never allow any freedom to be conficated !

Sleel wrote:
Why? Missiles carry their own targeting package. Why would they loose lock just cause the ship that launched them is gone? We have that now, don't see why they'd forget that with even better tech.



Don't play mp myself, don't care. But I get AI ships using all missiles all the time. Between pirates and enemy factions using a mix of weapons my ships always fly with all defense types. 2/2/2 for destroyers and scaling up 1/1/1 per hull tier type. Best type, deals with full load missiles just fine, especially with camouflage.

AI will change his ships weapons if you start building more anti rocket defenses on your ship, thats what I experienced sofar.

n18991c wrote:
Perhaps not very realistic but possibly a necessity nevertheless. One could argue, perhaps, that with the mothership destroyed the missiles' targeting systems don't function any longer...

Why? Missiles carry their own targeting package. Why would they loose lock just cause the ship that launched them is gone? We have that now, don't see why they'd forget that with even better tech.



Don't play mp myself, don't care. But I get AI ships using all missiles all the time. Between pirates and enemy factions using a mix of weapons my ships always fly with all defense types. 2/2/2 for destroyers and scaling up 1/1/1 per hull tier type. Best type, deals with full load missiles just fine, especially with camouflage.

Dropfish wrote:
I'm not playing mp for the reason mentioned above thus I don't actually have that problem. But thanks anyway!

I believe the idea is "perfect imbalance" meaning that some builds are better than others, but always have a weakness. Just stay flexible in your ship builds and you should be fine.

Realize this games combat is rock, paper, scissors but not just in the way you are thinking(i.e. between weapons), this was described very eloquently in a post during beta of rounds of evolving ship types(wish I remembered what it was called) but here is a bad summary:



Destroyers: out tank them(battleship/dreadnaught) OR vs missiles kill them instantly(beams/kinetic) OR build cheaper Destroyers that can trade(50% weapons, rest empty)



Cruisers: tank & wear them down OR trade with a full weapons Destroyer



Battleship: avoid their tank(switch weapons/multiple weapons) OR vs spread defense trade with full weapons Destroyer



Dreadnaught: tank & wear them down(cruiser/battleship) OR avoid their tank(switch weapons) with a Destroyer

Bridger wrote:
I'm confused. I thought the point of the game was to achieve victory? Are you not trying to win? If not, what are you doing? Futzing around in space with no goal? If you are trying to win, why would you purposefully handicap yourself? Is it because the game becomes boring and there is only one optimal solution? I believe this is your reasoning (correct me if I'm wrong). If so, the solution is not to simply handicap yourself, but to rather, stop playing a broken game and spend time playing deeper, non-broeken games. Alternatively, you could look into modding the game to fix it and make it a deeper experience.



If an all-beam destroyer is the most optimal design and there's nothing else close (I can't say if it is yet, myself), the game is broken. To me, broken games are not worth playing. I'd rather spend my time actually exercising my full potential on a deep game.





That having been said, the changes in the recent patch might alleviate this problem. They gave the larger ships proportionately more armor than the smaller ships. So even though 4 destroyers can carry more weapons than a dreadnaught, they now have 60% of the total HP (without any bonuses/modules). That should make a huge difference in a dread vs. destroyer fight. However, it still seems better to support a dread with smaller ships, rather than have a fleet of 2 dreadnaughts.

From what I can gather, the game still works like in Beta where small ships are best as glass cannons, and large ships as huge battle sponges.



Just get to cruisers and the game should work out fine.

Dropfish wrote:
So all will eventually play with beam-only destroyers? That's the reason why I never play mp, people always exploit game mechanics and build nothing but the one design which offers the best price/benefit ratio. I'm so glad that the AI doensn't force me to play like that!

I'm confused. I thought the point of the game was to achieve victory? Are you not trying to win? If not, what are you doing? Futzing around in space with no goal? If you are trying to win, why would you purposefully handicap yourself? Is it because the game becomes boring and there is only one optimal solution? I believe this is your reasoning (correct me if I'm wrong). If so, the solution is not to simply handicap yourself, but to rather, stop playing a broken game and spend time playing deeper, non-broeken games. Alternatively, you could look into modding the game to fix it and make it a deeper experience.



If an all-beam destroyer is the most optimal design and there's nothing else close (I can't say if it is yet, myself), the game is broken. To me, broken games are not worth playing. I'd rather spend my time actually exercising my full potential on a deep game.





That having been said, the changes in the recent patch might alleviate this problem. They gave the larger ships proportionately more armor than the smaller ships. So even though 4 destroyers can carry more weapons than a dreadnaught, they now have 60% of the total HP (without any bonuses/modules). That should make a huge difference in a dread vs. destroyer fight. However, it still seems better to support a dread with smaller ships, rather than have a fleet of 2 dreadnaughts.

In that case it might make sense to degrade their effectiveness after the original firer has been destroyed, but not to eliminate them altogether. I think that the post destruction strike makes perfectly logical sense and to remove it would force players away from missiles. Just because a weapon takes more time to hit its target doesn't mean the firing ship should lose the benefit of having fired it in the first place.

DeamonStorm wrote:
So, one solution to this would be that all missiles of a ship that is destroyed are also destroyed at that point. This prevents the guaranteed kill even if the missile fleet loses.

Perhaps not very realistic but possibly a necessity nevertheless. One could argue, perhaps, that with the mothership destroyed the missiles' targeting systems don't function any longer...

So, one solution to this would be that all missiles of a ship that is destroyed are also destroyed at that point. This prevents the guaranteed kill even if the missile fleet loses.

i would not say that missiles are overpowered, i would say its more that kinetics are vastly underpowerd as fights useualy end in the long range phase where lasers are king , i think the main thing folks have with missiles is that even though they could have destroyed the entire enemy fleet with no losses there could still be a massive volly of missiles still in space which then devistate there fleet right after they were given the victory when useualy it becomes a draw since both side were destroyed in the fight.



kinetics however are next to useless long range were most of the fighting takes place moderately useful in mid and then they decide to shine in the close range stage by that time most of the damage has usually been done.

Meltreness wrote:
AI will change his ships weapons if you start building more anti rocket defenses on your ship, thats what I experienced sofar.

Yeah they change their designs. I don't. Except to modernize. My ships are primarily designed to survive and pound for the first round. If the enemy loads out on all missiles, I'm loosing ships. I keep an equal amount of deflect/shield/counter-missile going. With buff cards aimed at aiding whatever needs aiding depending on what kinda fleet I face, I mostly come out ok. Don't like constantly redesigning my ships for each AI fleet type. Slight weighting one way or the other depending on if AIs end up leaning one way or the other. More or less %40 of ship space goes to support/defense, emphasis on defense. Most of extra space from cargo techs and the like go to defense too, so they keep getting harder to swat as I go. Mostly works, if I can keep ahead of the tech curve. Mostly. :} It IS harder to play my way since the trade changes. Pilgrim, btw. Always Pilgrim, so even harder without the cargo techs.

Actually, I do not think a maximum amount of weapons (or defences) would force more strategy into the game. I think it would actually be less, because in the end you'd have less choice what to build, so all ships opposing each other would be the same balanced.



Even though I do not really like the option of suicide fleets, at least it is a clear choice, strategic wise, for the builder. And there are counter tactics. So you have more strategy in the game the way it is, than to maximise options.

I've wondered about this too. As the sowers in SP, I built a few mega-beam dreadnaughts, costing 900 and tearing through my neighbors until I encountered a more technologically advanced neighbor.



At that point, I just filled destroyers with the lvl 1 missile with the Titanium monopoly and sent my suicide fleets in. Each destroyer held 20-30 missiles, no defenses, and cost 50. I was building 12 at a time from my production systems, and the suicide fleets traded with fleets with 10-20 times their power.





Is there a good counter to that? Even if a dreadnaught fills to the brim with flak, can it survive a volley of 300 missiles from an equivalently costed suicide-fleet? Could a suicide beam fleet be cost effective against a large suicide missile one?

I was thinking that maybe, a way to get around this is limit the number of a type of weapon that a ship can carry. For example: A frigate could only carry 2 of each weapon type, maximum, leaving the rest for modules. A destroyer could carry only 4 of each type...so on and so fourth. This would force more strategy into the game.

With the 20% discount on weapons that destroyers have and being the largest ship that only needs 1 command point, you can use that 20% space saving for defenses. In other words if the dreadnaughts the OP mentioned are carrying 40 missiles, you could put a total of 10 weapons on each destroyer and use the space the extra two weapons would have been in for some defenses and still bring as many weapons to the battle as that dreadnaught fleet. However since that dreadnaught fleet the op was talking about went with nothing but weapons, the destroyer fleets to counter it could easily take fewer weapons to do the job, thus freeing even more space for defenses, repair and health modules. For instance, using half the available tonnage for weapons and half for defenses, repair and health, the fleet should still be able to carry 6 weapons per ship. Since Destroyers, without health modules only have about 200 hp, smart wrenches is plenty of repair. A fleet of 20 destroyers with smart wrenches (+5 fleet hp per battle phase) would repair 100 hp per battle phase.

Igncom1 wrote:
Their using all beam destroyers? Use heavily shielded battleships, 1-3 weapons will easily pop destroyers.

I'm not playing mp for the reason mentioned above thus I don't actually have that problem. But thanks anyway!

Dropfish wrote:
So all will eventually play with beam-only destroyers? That's the reason why I never play mp, people always exploit game mechanics and build nothing but the one design which offers the best price/benefit ratio. I'm so glad that the AI doensn't force me to play like that!

Their using all beam destroyers? Use heavily shielded battleships, 1-3 weapons will easily pop destroyers.

So all will eventually play with beam-only destroyers? That's the reason why I never play mp, people always exploit game mechanics and build nothing but the one design which offers the best price/benefit ratio. I'm so glad that the AI doensn't force me to play like that!