This is a suggestion for a weapon that aims to solve one problem: long range straight line escapes by hounds and other ships exclusively in situations where they take no evasive action and merely try turbo straight away. It's an attempt to balance the use of these ships to ensure that their speed is more useful offensively than it is defensively as is originally intended.

The 'Ravenger' Interceptor Missile
Damage: 5,000
Speed: 480m/s
Power Drain: 550
Delay: 3.7s
Capacity: 4 missiles
Grid Usage: 6
Mass: 500kg
Safety Fuse: 1,500m
Manoeuvrability: Extremely Low
Detonates on contact only
Small port

Intended Use and Rationale
The idea here is to use the missile guidance system to solve the problem of quantization of the projectile over a long distance to make it a viable delivery system. The missile is only useful in pursuit because it must travel 1,500 meters before it detonates. I am unsure if this mechanic is available, even if it is not it's still worth a test. I presume it is a feature because it works on sunflares and as far as I know if you fire a sunflare and score a direct hit within the safety fuse it still doesn't explode so this mechanic would be useful so it can't possibly be used in close quarters.

The missile is essentially a rail, with much more damage and some low manoeuvrability. The manoeuvrability is key because it rules out use of the weapon as a regular missile. If you fire the missile past somebody it will be unable to turn around to hit them before its kilometres away, but if they're travelling in a straight line it will be able to compensate effectively for quantization and hit the target.

If your target makes any evasive actions this missile will miss and fly harmlessly past, a perfect example of this is the stingray missiles which you can basically have shot at you all day long but as long as you strafe they keep missing.

The only unintended side effect here would be the missiles effect on tridents and queens. Theoretically you could get a few mates together and drop a shield with some hornets, the grid power may need to be calculated a little more precisely. If this is an issue damage values could be tweaked in favour of more missiles, but I stand by the proposed stats as a good first pass worth having a test of.

The intention is to solve the problem using existing mechanics, I do not discuss new mechanics in this suggestion even though they would help solve the issue but for ease of implementation lets leave those discussions out of this thread.

The missile is only useful in pursuit because it must travel 1,500 meters before it detonates.

And how do you intend to execute pursuit if it requires 550 energy to fire 1 missile?
This means it can only be used with a fully charged heavy cell, if you are in a light ship with 55 or 60 turbo drain, you need to stop, let the cell recharge fully and then fire missile.
After firing missile your cell is completely depleted so you need to wait for about 4-5 sec for the heavy cell to recharge before you can fire again.

4 missiles total 20k dmg. This will not stop fleeing SCP or rag at full health and with proposed delay, it would never stop a hound at full health: 4-5 sec and he is out of the sector.

Imho ammo count would have to be 6 missiles, safety range 1000 m, energy drain 250 and delay 2,5 sec for this to actually be of any use.

However... there are some situations where this weapon would become a big game-breaking issue:

1. I can see this as a sniping weapon for ppl jumping in the sector in any ship, you just sit at 1500m from wh and snipe anyone in any ship that jumps in while he is still in jump animation.

2. Sniping slow loaded moths and xcs going for the dock from a safe distance, sniping and insta-killing any damaged ship jumping in station sector while in jump animation.

3. conq station defense - insta-killing bombing rags when they jump in sector or when they try to get away to jump distance

This is just on the top of my hat, given the resourcefulness of our players, I am sure more exploits would be found quickly.

P.S. "Ravenger" does not mean anything, I suppose you wanted to call it "Ravager".

The only logical explanation to this Inc style nerfing before it is even out of the gate is that TRS is actually Incs alt, and has been from the start </vo everyone's a cylon moment>

Questions:

1) How long before the projectile times out?

2) Is the speed set at 480 m/s or is it added to whatever velocity your ship is traveling at? If it's supplemental to the ship velocity (as I believe rails currently are), then a top speed of 705m/s could be achieved. If the velocity is cumulative, then the self-guiding ability should scale.

3) I assume there is no splash, despite being called a missile? Why not just call it a rail?

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Comments:

I don't agree with the premise for this suggestion (straight-line turbo-ing hounds escaping is a problem), but I also don't have a huge problem with adding such a weapon.

Regarding the premise, you really just need to accept that, past a certain point, your target has escaped.

Regarding the weapon proposal: It's rarely going to be used for the stated purpose because of a number of reasons. It hijacks a weapons slot with an easily counter-able, limited-use, grid hungry, and battery-depleting munition. The amount of potential for successful use is so limiting that it would really only be used on one of several hangar-ed ships stored in a combat-configured Trident, and maybe some light use in conquerable station battles as a long-range sniping weapon by hound-running noobs who can't fight well at close range.

Also, it's clearly a heavy weapon based on the damage potential of a single round. It should be large port and have greater weight. Not as much weight as the concrail (which btw is still way to fucking heavy), but definitely more than 500kg.

Bojan's "game-breaking" concerns are rubbish. This is not a "insta-kill weapon" by any stretch (as it requires the target to be already damaged for a kill). Existing faction penalties are still sufficient even if you can snipe from a long distance.

It would be nice to see mild self-guided ability added to an avalon variant alongside this suggestion (if implemented) as they are also something that has been awaiting such a feature for a long time.

For clarification, the Power Drain refers to the power it drains from the enemy ship. It uses no power to fire.

Regarding naming, yes I was pretty drunk last night and just needed a fucking name, we can call it something else lol.

For clarification, the Power Drain refers to the power it drains from the enemy ship. It uses no power to fire.

lol Yes, let's effectively implement what happened when missile turrets accidentally dropped their launchers. I had a lot of fun with that, I'm sure THIS won't be abused at all :D

The missile turret missiles have insane manuverability, this missile basically travels in a straight line. How is it anything like that.

If it doesn't have an energy cost to fire it needs more nerfing. Too OP, especially for a small port weapon, lol.

It travels in a straight line with minor self-guidance at 480m/s...it's the ADV rail from Hell. WH camping would become this thing's primary use about 5 seconds after it was implemented.

I mean...5k damage, S-port, only 500Kg? I would be back in a fucking Valk in a heartbeat just to pirate with these.

It's moronic to have a cost to fire for a chasing weapon. The manuverability alone would be enough to balance it, any evasive action would be enough to skirt it.

Please feel free to camp my wormhole with a 1 shot weapon from 1500m away any day lecter. Lol. Good luck.

You will miss if your opponent dodges, do you pirate with rails? No. These aren't much different except a straight shot will actually hit over 2000m rather than miss because of quantization.

Three of these, standing off 1500m, and tagging you as you warp in? Sure, be happy to.

+1

"Three of these, standing off 1500m, and tagging you as you warp in? Sure, be happy to."

You can do that with rails anyway.

We may wish to adjust the grid power so you can't equip 3.

Also, since when are you against effective piracy?

straight-line turbo-ing hounds escaping is a problem

No more than fleeing valks.

You can't do it with rails, because you can't hit shit with a tri-rail valk at 1500m, it sucks up 300 energy just to fire them, and big surprise, three of these weigh what ONE ADV rail does.

This wouldn't be effective piracy, it'd be a retarded enhancement to the spam & scram approach.

I now have a moment to respond to some of these queries:

1. I can see this as a sniping weapon for ppl jumping in the sector in any ship, you just sit at 1500m from wh and snipe anyone in any ship that jumps in while he is still in jump animation.

You can do this with rails, why is that game breaking?

2. Sniping slow loaded moths and xcs going for the dock from a safe distance, sniping and insta-killing any damaged ship jumping in station sector while in jump animation.

The manoeuvrability of the missile has to be so low that it only makes minor corrections and travels extremely fast, even a behemoth should be able to strafe it unless it's extremely overburdened. I don't really see exploding behemoths as a game breaking issue. Under any circumstances behemoths are not going fare well.

3. conq station defense - insta-killing bombing rags when they jump in sector or when they try to get away to jump distance

In this scenario they almost always have time to strafe, unless they don't strafe, in which case they deserve to explode.

1) How long before the projectile times out?

Would be subject to testing, perhaps 10 seconds? either way with extremely poor turning the missile will never get a second pass, it will be incapable of turning 180degrees in it's lifespan let alone effective range.

2) Is the speed set at 480 m/s or is it added to whatever velocity your ship is traveling at? If it's supplemental to the ship velocity (as I believe rails currently are), then a top speed of 705m/s could be achieved. If the velocity is cumulative, then the self-guiding ability should scale.

All missiles travel at their set speed, so it would travel at exactly 480m/s. Twice as fast as a turboing ship.

3) I assume there is no splash, despite being called a missile? Why not just call it a rail?

Because it's a missile, it's guided and as per above it travels at the fixed speed.

Regarding the premise, you really just need to accept that, past a certain point, your target has escaped.

I suggest that a target has escaped when they are past 1500m. The reason the safety fuse is set at that distance is because the missile is intended to be used in pursuit, thus it will travel 1500m without you actually being 1500m away from the opponent. Effective relative range would be somewhere between 400-1000m, adjustments may need to be made to achieve this.

Also, it's clearly a heavy weapon based on the damage potential of a single round. It should be large port and have greater weight.

I don't agree that it should occupy a heavy slot for utility reasons, the only interceptor ship that has heavy ports is the greyhound and I suppose now the UDV raptor.

This wouldn't be effective piracy, it'd be a retarded enhancement to the spam & scram approach.

In your view, what is required for a weapon to discourage straight line-fleeing and not 'enhance the spam and scram approach'?

+1 if it deters valk fleeing. Could you use this for deshielding?

It's still way too over powered. High damage, high velocity, full battery power draining, low weight, no energy consumption to fire, AND guided? Are you kidding?

This would be acceptable:

Damage: 2,500
Speed: 480m/s
Power Drain: 275
Delay: 2s
Capacity: 8 missiles
Grid Usage: 18
Mass: 500kg
Safety Fuse: 1,500m
Homing Maneuverability: Extremely Low

Much like the widowmaker, equipping such an elite weapon should rule out using any other addons other than scanners. An advanced rail MK2 essentially, with extended range (longer timeout, as you suggested) and slight homing ability.

When greenwall and I have identical reactions to a suggestion, it should be a red flag there's a serious problem with it.

what is required for a weapon to discourage straight line-fleeing

A competent user, something your suggestion is clearly attempting to make optional.