Suggestion: Limited missiles for enemies

[Jason]

Hi just got my but kicked by a mantas fighter who kept launching this massive missile at me that i have not seen before it did 3 damage instant killed what ever sub system it hit and it kept firing it at me and as missiles travel through shields I had no defense against it.

For an enemy ship that battle is all its going to fight but for the player they have to manage there missile capacity carefully they can't just launch every missile they have till that one enemy ship is dead as they won't have any for the next battle unless they find or buy some more. This means that enemy with missiles are at an unfair advantage to the player, especially if they have massive missile launchers like the one I encountered.

What I suggest is to give a limit to the amount of missiles they have and for them to use them more tactically rather than just FIRE ALL WEAPONS like most enemies do in space games.

Or at least have a limit when they come equipped with some of those missiles i described.

It wasn't even a difficult ship to fight if it was not for that missile and I was not at low health or anything it was a really good run I was having and everything totally surprised when it wiped the floor with me.

[ezryder]

I've run into that sort of situation. The randomness of what you get access to for scrap and equipment can really suck. The only defense against missiles is a defensive drone and/or high evasion (engines and golden piloting & engineering crew members will get you to about 50%).

I don't like that defense drones don't shoot drones attacking your ship, but will shoot balls of energy (i.e. ion blasts) coming at your ship. :p

[Jason]

Bringing this up again as nearly every game I have played so far i have been killed by missiles and not when i have been weak either.

Currently missiles are overpowered for enemies.

Players have a limited supply of them so they have to use them carefully or they will run out which can happen in just one battle but for enemies not only do they have infinite missiles but each enemy you play against has infinite missiles.

As missiles by pass shields hit for a lot and usually destroy systems with each hit they can kill you in no time no matter how much you have spend on your ship.

Currently the only defense i have seen for missiles is either an anti missile drone if your lucky to find one in a shop or out in space which btw also means that you need drone control and extra power to activate it. Or really high level engines and a good pilot to evade them. The problem is that one of these defenses is based on luck the other is a mid to end game defense to be any good so unless you focus on engines with all your scrap every time you do a run you will be killed by anyone with a decent missile or sometimes not even a decent missile.

A good suggestion is to limit the amount of missile an enemy has and/or to add more anti missile tech like a point defense system.

[joshuabees]

Missiles are *WAY* overpowered for enemies right now.

It's far too easy to go from being decently well-off with a couple of ship upgrades to dead in a single encounter because the enemy ship has 2 shields and an infinite supply of missiles. If I don't have enough missiles to keep pounding their weapons system and/or miss a few times with my cannons, I'm screwed.

Bottom line - having to hoard your missiles because you're constantly short of them (and credits), while the enemy ship blasts away like there's no tomorrow is rough.

[Lucid]

I think the root issue here is that there's no good defense against missiles, and especially against missile hull damage.

I suggest: Increase (~double) dodge chance versus missiles, decrease it versus energy weapons.
This means that players have to make a choice: defend against missiles (engines), or defend against energy weapons (shields)?

Brainstorming some other possibilities:
1) Allow regular lasers or ions a chance to shoot down incoming missiles, if they're charged
2) Allow targeting of specific weapon hardpoints, so I can explicitly disable their missile launcher
3) Reduce hull damage on missiles across the board. Players can fix systems good as new, but hull damage sticks around (and destroys the ship)

Things like an ECM augmentation or weapons that are explicitly point-defense would also help.

[MrJLK]

I haven't played the game yet, but reading all these posts got me thinking. I know there is the anti-missile drone (Probably not actually called that), but what about a weapon that did the same job.

Kind of like how flares work in aircraft the weapon would be able to fire a mini laser that would destroy incoming missiles. That way for people that don't want to go the drone route of blocking missiles won't be left relying on luck to dodge the missiles.

[talhydras]

I like the idea of ECM augmentation. I also like the idea of an anti-missile turret - though in order for the balance not to shift totally away from missiles I suspect it would have to be either not very reliable, or a missile weapon itself (counter-missiles). Perhaps it would reduce incoming missile damage?

Some other brainstorming, in no particular order:
* A special kind of shield addition - thick shields, or hard shields - that reduces the damage the missile does to hull and to system by 1. That way enemy missiles can hurt you, but their ability to suppress your subsystems while doling out harsh damage is reduced without eliminating them as a potent threat. Suggested description text: "This shield modification bleeds off kinetic energy of incoming missile weapons. The visible slowing effect coupled with the mechanics has led to this modification being dubbed 'thick shields'." This modification will also make the SPOILER at the end less vulnerable to missiles if it receives it automatically, which IMO is no bad thing considering how horribly effective the Pegasus missile is against it.

* Special new Defense Turret system. Price similar to the shields and cloak (150), this turreted laser will attempt to engage incoming missiles. I envision three upgrade ranks like cloaking. The upgrades increase the number of shots w/ 50% hit on incoming missiles from one to three. Making it a system has some complications: drone control + defense schematics still costs less (80+50) and the same 2-power drone control can power an anti-ship drone. On the other hand, this would stack with cloak or defense drone to provide nearly foolproof missile defense. This could allow the construction of a nearly invincible ship when combined with high evade and good shields.

* 'Smart' Missile use on AIs: Each ship will be allocated a number of missiles - 6-16 sounds good to me as a range. Then it will compare its health to your health every time it has a missile launcher charged. If you have more health and more weapons, it will use missiles freely. If you have the same/less health and weapons, it will use up to half its missiles. This means you could have a two-stage fight, where as you defeat an enemy it gets desperate and its pilot somewhat realistically decides to use its missiles up. Or, if the enemy recognizes that all other things being equal you will likely win, it will also freely use its missiles.