just played the demo.. missile question!

[Sniper99]

Hey all, I just downloaded the demo, played the tutorial and continued until my turn limit hit.

I must say I like the looks of the game except for one thing... combat!

It seems combat is completely dominated by missiles and that direct fire weapons are near useless. All you do is fly around, fire a missile, run from the enemy's missile and repeat. Battles seem long, drawn out, and boring. Not to mention the expensive orbital battery (space station) I created is easilly killed by a tiny ship since it simply shoots and runs!

The other problem is if an enemy gets a single missile tech level ahead of you your in SERIOUS trouble even if your direct fire techs are better.

I am used to games like MOO where missiles have limited shots (1 or 2 per combat) - to me this is a lot more fun - it means you open with missiles, but then close for direct battle.

So that brings me to my questions:

1)Does the massive superiority of missiles go away as tech improves? Do stationary and planetary defenses ever become viable?

2)And is there an option or could one mod in limited shots for missiles (I know you can turn off the whole missile tech tree, but Id rather just limit the shots per battle).

Thanks all,
Jim H.

[Master Belisarius]

No way!
The missiles are near to useless after the first turns! Believeme!

After research PDC (Point Defense Cannons), and make several ships using this, you will see that the missiles are not good...

[Sniper99]

OK this is what I figured.. and that shuld make stations more useful too - if they get in range to shoot the station, it can shoot back (unless its guns are crap).

So, missiles are "low tech weapons" that are the best in the beginning but quickly fall behind? This actually makes sense.

What do you researd for PDCs?

[Master Belisarius]

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Sniper99:
OK this is what I figured.. and that shuld make stations more useful too - if they get in range to shoot the station, it can shoot back (unless its guns are crap).<hr></blockquote>
Yes. Also, the space stations have a range bonus for the direct fire weapons. Anyway, usually I dislike to use space stations (I prefer to spend the resources building ships).

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Sniper99:

So, missiles are "low tech weapons" that are the best in the beginning but quickly fall behind? This actually makes sense.<hr></blockquote>
Yes. Anyway, some AIs use the Missiles as main weapon during all the game.

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Sniper99:

What do you researd for PDCs?<hr></blockquote>
Research Military Science, and after this, you can research PDC.

[ 28 April 2002: Message edited by: Master Belisarius ]</p>

[Instar]

Good thing with stations is that they have enough room for big mounts, giving a nice range bonus and tell you waht, a maxxed out WMG does serious damage. (Of course, it takes up so much space that its ridiculous)
Another good strategy for stations is to save a little space for Last, and then put on some really big repulser beams. Any ship that you can't deal with will get pushed very far away, if you want.

[Taz-in-Space]

Repulser beams are good to use on bases - especially when combined with engine destroying
weapons. Burn his engines and he's just an
immobile target. This works really good at warp points! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

[capnq]

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr> is there an option or could one mod in limited shots for missiles (I know you can turn off the whole missile tech tree, but Id rather just limit the shots per battle). <hr></blockquote>This could be modded by increasing the reload time for missiles in Components.txt . There are already several weapons that can only be fired once per battle, with a reload of 30.

[Suicide Junkie]

The other alternative is to increase their supply usage dramatically.

In the latest patch, weapons cease to function when you're out of supply, so with something like 500 supply usage per missile, you'd get 6 shots from a standard ship, no matter how many launchers. Adding one shot's worth of supply to the launchers would make this 6+#of launchers, plus any additional supply storage you've added.

This would be good for a serious Planet Buster missile, or a really tough & powerful ship smasher.