[TomShak]

Hello everyone,


I was wondering what people's thoughts were on how missiles and torpedoes should work in the game. Should they primarily be anti-starfighter weapons or anti-capital weapons?

Personally I was very disappointed with how they worked in X-Wing, TIE-Fighter etc. My view is that in those games concussion missiles were far too powerful against star fighters. It wasn't so obvious in the single player games, because the AI basically refused to use them. However in XvT missiles were just ridiculous. You and your wingmen could pick one target each and just unload your entire cache of missiles against that single target. It was virtually complete destruction guaranteed, every time.

To me concussion missiles and proton torps were always anti-capital weapons, too slow to hit a fast moving starfighter. This would also be nice from a gameplay perspective, as star-fighter combat would be laser based. And bombers would be ships carrying powerful anti-capital weapons .. rather than just being somewhat rubbish fighters ...
 
The other common option (according to wookiepedia at least) is that missiels and torpedoes were anti-starfighter weapons, but very expensive, so not used often. Personally I find this rather a poor explanation for rather a lot of reasons. Still it does work from a gameplay perspective ...

What do other people think? And also is there much canon material on whether these are anti-capital or anti-starfighter weapons?

Cheers

[Narvi]

You can use missiles against starfighters and capital ships, you know. What's wrong with the existing Freespace model?

[brandx0]

Well, Proton Torpedoes and Concussion Missiles are just types of weapons, it's like saying today are missiles anti-fighter or ground target weapons?  Being just a type of weapon, there are plenty of different models of each which are more suited to different roles, but in general I do prefer the idea of starfighter combat being mostly laser based.  Missile based combat is just so... impersonal.  Also doesn't feel very Star Warsy to me (considering no fighter has ever launched a missile at another fighter.  The prequels and their buzz droid missiles don't count, as I've all but erased that scene from my mind, the same way I've erased Jar Jar Binks, R2's rockets and hayden Christensen - Aka Darth Emo.)

As for the existing Freespace model, that comment pretty much doesn't apply anywhere towards this mod.  This is a true total conversion, not just a facelift.

[SpardaSon21]

I always thought that concussion missiles were anti-fighter weapons and proton torpedoes were primarily anti-ship weapons.  Concussion missiles are more maneuverable, faster, and have a smaller payload, whereas proton torpedoes are anti-ship weapons similar to a Trebuchet/Cyclops hybrid.  Usable for anti-fighter duty due to long range, but better spent on harder targets like corvettes or frigates.

[brandx0]

That's a game mechanic, non canon.

In the X-wing series of computer games, proton torpedoes were slower than concussion missiles but more damaging. However, this contradicts information in many canon sources which show that both proton torpedoes and concussion missiles are just general types of weapons with various yields. Because of that, this fact should be dismissed as a mere game mechanic.

In Star Wars the words "Proton Torpedo" and "Concussion Missile" are as generic as today saying "Guns" and "Missiles".  All they describe is a method of doing damage, nothing about their power or other characteristics

[TomShak]

Well, Proton Torpedoes and Concussion Missiles are just types of weapons, it's like saying today are missiles anti-fighter or ground target weapons?  Being just a type of weapon, there are plenty of different models of each which are more suited to different roles

This is certainly true, perhaps my question would be better phrased: Will concussion missiles or proton torpedoes commonly be launched at star-fighters in the game.

in general I do prefer the idea of starfighter combat being mostly laser based.  Missile based combat is just so... impersonal.

Good to know

As for the existing Freespace model, that comment pretty much doesn't apply anywhere towards this mod.  This is a true total conversion, not just a facelift.

Yes, I also seem to remember that Freespace multiplayer also suffered from excessive death to everyone launching entire racks of missiles ...

[Galemp]

You can use missiles against starfighters and capital ships, you know. What's wrong with the existing Freespace model?

[TomShak]

Personally for me what's wrong with the freespace model (and the X-Wing games model) is that being able to use missiles against starfighters quickly made laser cannons irrelevant in well balanced battles.

It wasn't a big problem in the single player campaigns because the player has to single handedly kill about 20 ships a mission, and you didn't get that many missiles. And the AI were generally very reluctant to use their missiles for some reason ...  However, multiplayer was an entirely different story. Battles in multiplayer typically had even numbers on each side, which meant that if everyone on your squad had 16 missiles they could afford to each fire all 16 missiles at a single target. This simply meant instant death, since it was impossible to avoid so many missiles. I remember we ended up banning the use of concussion missiles in the end in a lot of our games, because they simply made it a missile fight and not the laser cannon battles everyone expects from Star Wars.

Just my 2 cents

[Snail]

It's damned easy to dodge even the fastest missiles in a decent fighter with countermeasures.

[CountBuggula]

I think part of the problem with missles in the lucasarts X-Wing games was that they had far too long of fuses and were WAY too maneuverable.  If one missed you, you still had to spend the next 2 minutes dodging as it came around at you again and again.  In order to keep the feel of dogfighting we're going for, missiles should have greatly reduced maneuverability so you actually have to line up a shot behind your opponent's tail in order to have a decent chance of hitting, and either shortening the fuse or giving them proximity instead of contact fuses, like modern military missiles do.

[Herra Tohtori]

It's damned easy to dodge even the fastest missiles in a decent fighter with countermeasures.

Quoted for the truth.... in FreeSpace. Missiles are more of a distraction than anything else as long as you don't also have to mind the Dragon wing on your six, but they do prevent you from getting a lock on enemy capital ships if you're on a bombing run.

However, the warheads in Star Wars games have traditionally been more annoying because they don't lose the lock, they just keep tracking you until they're destroyed (by a weapons fire, hit on something or a life-time counter). Imagine if all the Hornet missiles had about 1-2 minute lifetime and they would keep tracking you even if you initially dodged them. I remember many missions where I had to engage a Victory Star Destroyer and it kept launching three missiles at me every time I targeted it... it was rather annoying, to say the least.

I don't even know if this would be even possible to do on this game engine, and more importantly it's a valid point that we haven't actually seen ship-to-ship missiles being used apart from the prequels which are a far cry from authentic star wars feel for me (protip: I don't want to play minigame called "Hit the Center Eye" when I'm playing a Star Wars fighter sim). The strike force against the first Death Star used proton torpedoes, and Falcon fired concussion missiles at the Death Star II reactor core (along with Wedge's proton torpedoes) but I don't think any secondaries were used in the limited ship-to-ship combat scenes we saw during the movies. Their use in the games is pretty much pulled from a hat, though I suppose the EU books have mentioned the use of secondary weapons on starfighter combat, so...

[aRaven]

well, in modern aerial combat, missles have proximity sensors. even if the miss, but are near the target, the will explode and the shockwave/shrapnells are still powerful enough to destroy the aircraft.

remembering the aethersprite vs slave 1 battle in the asteroid field, obi wan had a hard time defeating jango's missile. I still don't understand why they hadn't any countermeasures in modern spacecraft. The missile technology itself seems dumb and intelligent at the same time. It is smart enough to evade obstructions like asteroids but still is dumb enough not to distinct between ship and spare parts.

I would say make starfighter 2 starfighter missile combat possible, but every starfighter/bomber should be able to avoid them even without countermeasures.

[chief1983]

I have a feeling no matter how we set up the missiles, the community will still want guns-only maps, so I wouldn't lose any sleep over it

[swashmebuckle]

I think part of the problem with missles in the lucasarts X-Wing games was that they had far too long of fuses and were WAY too maneuverable.  If one missed you, you still had to spend the next 2 minutes dodging as it came around at you again and again.  In order to keep the feel of dogfighting we're going for, missiles should have greatly reduced maneuverability so you actually have to line up a shot behind your opponent's tail in order to have a decent chance of hitting, and either shortening the fuse or giving them proximity instead of contact fuses, like modern military missiles do.

Word--these things would go a long way towards steering the TG feel into more movie-like territory.  I also think that Cap ships have to be beefed up considerably from their TG counterparts so that the damage done by fighter-carried missiles is put back in its place.  It's pretty silly to have a single X-wing be able to kill two Corvettes without breaking a sweat (one with torps, one with blind spot exploitation).  Maybe if an "average" starfighter torp did about the same damage as an "average" cap ship turbolaser smack (that is, enough to kill a fighter but not nearly enough to threaten a big ship's shields alone), you could work it so that a full squadron of 12 B-wings with their more plentiful and higher yield torps would pose enough of a threat to kill a couple corvettes or drive off a Nebulon B.  Really, if cap ships were as flimsy as they are portrayed in the games, a military would be crazy to build anything but one-man ships.

But getting back to using torpedoes on fighters, I'd say it's best if their utility is limited to forcing evasive action from beyond cannon range so you can close the distance, and maybe some occasional point-blank dumbfire pwnage  .

[Scourge of Ages]

I don't know what games you all were playing, but as far as I remember, you were only likely to kill a fighter with a torp if the craft were a bomber or not manuvering. And even the AI evaded concussion missiles on a regular basis. And cap ships and most turreted transports had an uncanny knack or kocking down any warheads at maximum range. (Hate those ETR-3s SO MUCH!)

What was my point? Except for the hideously long fuse that has been mentioned a few times already, I think they functioned quite well. Though I would like to see a more FreeSpace-esque targeting and firing model: no switching to warheads and then waiting.

[swashmebuckle]

In TIE Fighter (on medium difficulty), an advanced concussion missile took you completely out of the fight until it timed out unless you played chicken or managed to hit it before it got behind you.  Even with full evasive action in a TIE Advanced they sometimes got me, especially if there were two or three of them out there.  Regular concussion missiles and torps were less ludicrous, but you still had to chase them down in loops to knock them out, wasting time that should have been spent fighting.  Cap ships did not target your torpedoes with lasers (though on later levels some of them inexplicably launched missiles to intercept them), but your missiles got shot down by the blasts coming for you if you launched within laser range because they had absurdly large hitboxes.  I guess I just think that warheads should be scaled back down to their original movie role: allowing a small ship to deliver a one-time big hit on a fixed target.  Shooting them at other one-man ships seems like an intrusion of modern beyond visual range fighting into a setting that's supposed to be about sweeping in close and blasting the guy of your buddie's six.  I agree with you about not having to wait around after switching to missiles though, that never made sense.

[FUBAR-BDHR]

I have a feeling no matter how we set up the missiles, the community will still want guns-only maps, so I wouldn't lose any sleep over it

Then they will complain about host advantage, not being able to hit things,  and end up not want to play them because they don't have missiles.

[chief1983]

Well that didn't stop people from playing XvT, and during Week of War/DJO Cup it was almost always no missiles.  Perhaps its netcode didn't give the host such an advantage though.  If we get enough dedicated servers we won't have to worry too much.

[Pred the Penguin]

Out of curiosity, what do you have planned? Or is still under debate? Or is it classified.

[EtherShock]

I think missiles should be made as suggested, to have a more modern feel to them: nearly fatal on impact (of course, this doesn't take into account deflector shield technology, does it? If your shields are charged pretty strong, they should be able to take one missile, I think, with a second hit being instant death. Obviously real fighters don't have shields...yet). And also as previously suggested, they should be capable of varying yields...and any "advanced" projectiles should be rare. I hated having to dodge advanced missiles for 90 seconds. Ships should have a chance of shooting down certain projectiles, but with a very low success rate. Didn't ships try to blow up torpedoes heading for them in WWII if they couldn't evade them?

I don't know what games you all were playing, but as far as I remember, you were only likely to kill a fighter with a torp if the craft were a bomber or not manuvering. And even the AI evaded concussion missiles on a regular basis. And cap ships and most turreted transports had an uncanny knack or kocking down any warheads at maximum range. (Hate those ETR-3s SO MUCH!)

What was my point? Except for the hideously long fuse that has been mentioned a few times already, I think they functioned quite well. Though I would like to see a more FreeSpace-esque targeting and firing model: no switching to warheads and then waiting.

I think the time and effort needed to acquire a lock was meant to encourage dogfighting with guns. In Freespace, you didn't have to make an effort to acquire a lock, so you could try gunning down the bandit while waiting for a lock and then, if you wanted to, you could spam them if you like. In the X-wing series, you would be forced to dumbfire if you wanted to place one up the exhaust nacelle, unless you were much more maneuverable than the enemy. Although, they seemed to be able to acquire locks while using guns (which wasn't fair and I never understood why I couldn't). If you want to encourage gun combat, I would suggest devising something that discourages missiles, long reload time maybe. However that's directly struck down in RotJ with the A-wings shooting concussion missiles at the sensor globes on the Executor. The alternative is using the existing SW model. Otherwise missiles would have to be totally nerfed. They are too powerful in the SW universe to be spammed like they are in FS.

However, the warheads in Star Wars games have traditionally been more annoying because they don't lose the lock, they just keep tracking you until they're destroyed (by a weapons fire, hit on something or a life-time counter). Imagine if all the Hornet missiles had about 1-2 minute lifetime and they would keep tracking you even if you initially dodged them. I remember many missions where I had to engage a Victory Star Destroyer and it kept launching three missiles at me every time I targeted it... it was rather annoying, to say the least.

There's an easy workaround for that, don't target the ship until you take out it's warhead launcher (little harder on a Vic though). Also, don't launch from too far away for the smarter captains that intercept torpedoes with missiles.