gun
New Member
Posts: 21 
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Post by gun on Jul 19, 2018 17:04:08 GMT
Hey, are missiles still 100% broken? I started up the game for the first time in a year because of the update, but in the first level* with missiles I hit the same problems as always: (1) Enemy missiles are impossible to stop, because if I shoot counter-missiles against them, my identical intercepting missiles always run out of dV first. (2) Assuming my missiles didn't run out of dV first, they're still not homing in on the enemy missiles 1-on-1 the way they ought. (3) The only way to stop the enemy missiles is if the enemy starts changing trajectory repeatedly to avoid my counter-missiles until the enemy run out of dV, before anything intercepts anything. (4) Another way to stop missiles is to exploit how stuff teleports through other stuff if many engagements are supposed to happen at once, since there's no queue nor any multi-group engangements. (5) But, of course, if the enemy missiles reach my ships, I simply pop flares and the enemy has zero probability of hit... which is crazy unrealistic for any number of reasons.
Are there any ways around this? By playing with the missile controls, or anything that works?
* = Orbital Fallout and Retaking Ceres are affected by this. Retaking Ceres seems almost impossible to complete without exploiting the AI some way.
Edit: a part of the problem appears to be that the engagement starts when the missiles are only 20 km away from one another, so they cross in about 20 seconds and this isn't enough for my missiles (with more dV) to manouevre correctly? |
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ghgh
Full Member
Still trying to make kinetics work.
Posts: 136
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Post by ghgh on Jul 19, 2018 18:20:18 GMT
Missiles that are currently in use could beat the COADE flares. Our missiles are purely heatseeking which is why countermeasures are so effective in this. However, a nuclear reactor would be giving off more than just heat, infrared for example. Unless you plan on shutting down all other equipment and shooting out a reactor/radiator combo with a slightly larger signature than your own reactor and crew compartment, you are toast. In addition you would have to shut everything else off, that includes PDS and engines, both of which are much better at breaking missiles then blowing mega credits worth on decoy reactors/radiators.
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gun
New Member
Posts: 21
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Post by gun on Jul 19, 2018 18:42:56 GMT
Honestly, this is why nobody plays this game. Retaking Ceres is essentially impossible because you're only armed with missiles and they're adversely affected by all of this and can't hit anything ever.
Edit: I got it! The only elegant way to complete the level seems to be to out-manoeuvre the enemy missiles by wiggling the capital ships, which eventually strands the missiles in orbits around Ceres, leaving you to have to clean them up after you deal with the enemy capital ships, which is yet another bug that really bogs these levels down. |
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Post by Punginator on Jul 20, 2018 8:07:44 GMT
1) missiles against missiles and/or against drones could be more effective if a wider range threshold could be set, or if a missile out of dV would simply explode when it's closest to some enemy target.
2) in engagements against carriers i noticed that missiles seem to always seek for the drones instead of seeking the much stronger signature of the carrier. Is this working as supposed to?
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Post by AdmiralObvious on Jul 20, 2018 20:54:17 GMT
A large portion of the missile homing issue can be fixed with nose forwards as the command for them when they are on approach to the target. If the gimball is low enough, it's effectively using the old pure pursuit homing the game originally had.
As for missiles homing in on drones and not the capital, I think that's possibly an issue with "fuzzy/swarm homing" more than an issue with the way the game sets targets.
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gun
New Member
Posts: 21
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Post by gun on Jul 21, 2018 8:30:10 GMT
A large portion of the missile homing issue can be fixed with nose forwards as the command for them when they are on approach to the target. If the gimball is low enough, it's effectively using the old pure pursuit homing the game originally had. As for missiles homing in on drones and not the capital, I think that's possibly an issue with "fuzzy/swarm homing" more than an issue with the way the game sets targets.
THANKS! After a lot of experimenting in Orbital Fallout, with the different missiles (Devastators and Strikers), different intercept velocities (100, 150, 200, and 300 m/s), different salvo sizes, and different kinds of manual control, what I finally found was this:
At 100-200 instead of 300 m/s, the engagement starts when the missiles are 30 seconds apart instead of only 10… once (100 m/s), I was able to leave my missiles in homing and they automatically did what they’re supposed to: accelerate, coast, and then wait for terminal adjustments. But in general, it’s best to order them to nose forward until they’re about 10 seconds apart from the enemy missiles and if they don’t trigger, then you trigger them manually instead. Forcing phases is almost useless in this situation, so the only relevant controls are nose forward and homing, really, as well as timely self-destruction. Strikers cannot effectively counter Strikers, but 2x2 Devastators can knock out 50 Strikers no problem with the above strategy and flying at 100-200 m/s.
In other words, to get the record on Orbital Fallout, restart until you start about 150 km away from the enemy and immediately start launching Devastators in salvoes of at least 4 (4 is ideal against the Strikers, while 8 is probably ideal against the enemy capital ship), one minute apart, then start launching Strikers in salvoes of 20, all going at 100-200 m/s in order for all or most of them to reach the missile schooner before 22 minutes.
I guess I shouldn’t have expected the missiles to be able to intercept other missiles, like hitting a bullet with a bullet, but I don’t really understand why… if they’re coming straight at each other, shouldn’t one just be able to mirror the course corrections the other does? Since Strikers contain flak, I would expect them to be able to do this reasonably well.
But Devastators is the way to go here.
The problems of “distributed targeting” apparently not working, stuff teleporting through other stuff when they should be in the same simultaneous engagement or queued engagements, and the questionable realism of purely heat-seeking missiles and flares centuries into the future remain.
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