I think some counter measures that are not mines should be in the game. Whether it be a super expensive jamming device or a little chaff thingy, slow transports need a way to prevent the advanced turret, seeker missiles, or any auto targeting weapon from owning their precious cargo. Mines work okay against a close follower, but often leave behind unused mines that piss people off. These would just disable or misguide any auto targeting, not dealing any real damage.

Another idea (already mentioned before) is having a turret actually be a real turret with a 360 degree firing radius. Youd be able to go into a rear view with the same targeting abilities of the front view. Kinda like how you can switch to zoom mode. Maybe this option would only be suitable for a really large, unturning ship if it ended up being really cheesy.


I like the countermeasure idea since it cant be over used for evil purposes and only effects some wepons. A very balanced idea...

>homing missiles are the ultimate in 'takes no skill to use' weapons

That's the whole idea. Homing missiles should be primarily defensive.

We need some kind of large port homing missile that takes skill to dodge and has a lot of fuel. So fire your 'relentless missile' at that pirate valk. Run away while he busy dodging it.

It should have very high top speed > 200m/s so that you can't just turbo away from it, but limited accleration and manuvering speeds. Also, it'll remain active for a minute or more. The pirate will have to barrel roll to avoid it. If the pirate just tries to turbo and chase the trader, the missile would catch up with him.

The idea is to distract the pirate long enough for the trader to escape.

I agree with this idea. Also think that homers should be reduced damage since the chance they hit is so much greater than other weapons.

As far as the turrents go, i think some weapons labeled "turrents" should be attached to the actual viewing turrent (the cross hair) these would probably deal less damage, but would enable faster aiming on slow ships.

<rant>THERE'S NO FARKING N IN "TURRET"!</rant>

"Also think that homers should be reduced damage since the chance they hit is so much greater than other weapons."

I'm sorry, but what are you smoking wolfman12? Can I have some?

Yellowjackets: These won't even hit a target when it's *stationary* half the time, let alone trying to dodge.

Geminis: Sometimes these hit if the target is A) heavy and can't maneuver or B) is stupid and boosts right into them. Geminis can be dodged 99% of the time in a Valk or a Vulture simply by doing the barrel roll.

Swarms: These will hit a target if there are *three* or more swarms in the air. Otherwise they are also fooled by the barrel roll most of the time. Not only this, but they don't do *nearly* as much damage as they should, because the first missiles in the chain set off all the ones behind it for reduced damage.

Stingray: They're fast, they do 3,000 damage, but only explode on contact. Easily dodged by doing the barrel roll or by boosting. I've fired 6 or 7 of these at a hog without scoring a single hit.

IMO I think it would be great if missiles were much faster (perhaps with an acceleration period), had slower turn rates, did more damage, and had less ammo. Only the most advanced missiles should circle around and make a second pass at the target.

As it stands when someone fires homers at me the first thing that goes through my head is "poor sap."

Heh. My understanding is that the code for the homing missiles isn't quite right (the fact that they sometimes miss a target that isn't even trying to avoid them), but its apparantly not a high priority to fix it.

Homing missiles are tricky. There is a very fine line between 'nearly impossible to avoid' and 'almost never hits'. I'm happier with the 'almost never hits' part than I am with the 'nearly impossible to avoid' because homing missiles are the ultimate in 'takes no skill to use' weapons. Most games deal with 'nearly impossible to avoid' by giving the player a countermeasure widget with a limited number of uses, but I don't find that sort of chicken pecking game play extraordinarily interesting either. So basically, I don't like homing missiles and don't want to ever see them as anything but support weapons.

That said, they could be a wee bit better than they are now, and I've some ideas for faster ones on the toys thread.

As for countermeasures, a detailed discussion was started in this thread:

http://vendetta.guildsoftware.com/?action=msgboard&thread=2402

"It should have very high top speed > 200m/s so that you can't just turbo away from it, but limited accleration and manuvering speeds"

Er, What about the reverse? Go pirating in a hog with one of these bad boyz and watch the Mauds/Cents/Proms fall like flies...

Since its a large port weapon, you'd have to pirating in a hog in the first place. Most pirates currently prefer tri-flare-valks.
Further, it'd have very few shots, probably 2 or 3, and be very expensive, making it uneconomical for pirates.
Ideally, the armor of heavy ships also needs to be upped so that they can sustain a couple of hits with this, but valks can't.

allstrox: Pirates don't pirate to make money. They pirate to increase up thier player kills.

"increase up?"

That's not the Celebrim I know. Who are you? Bring him back.

Ouch.

Yeah, I don't know what I was thinking. The only explanation I can imagine is that I originally wrote 'bring up', and then decided 'increase' was better and forgot to remove the 'up'.

My sincerest apologies. I'll try not to let it happen again.

you say sorry? wow.....


nice idea i want!


/me says this is good