So I was thinking about the figbee thread, Wing Commander, etc., and was wondering if this might not be an improvement: reduce SRM anti-base missile damage by half, give them a blast damage equal to their new damage, and a blast radius of, say, 700/800/900 (increasing with tech level).
The consequences of this are that if you launch too early, instead of doing no damage you do half damage or less. You could start launching at 2k instead of 1.3k, but your first missile would do negligible damage, the next few wouldn't do a lot, and you'd have to carry more racks of SRM AB. We've all seen bombers run out of ABs trying to kill multiple targets, or just driven by a voob. Flying between the bomber and your base would be more dangerous, but not excessively so, I don't think. A figbee could, with a carefully timed launch or direct hit, cause serious damage to an entire bomb run. If the missile hits the bomber, it would knock down the shields or cut the hull in half as it currently does. In addition, all the nans close enough to be nanning would lose their shields and some would take damage, but not even basic scouts pushing the bomber would take enough damage to die.
AoE for SRM AB
TBH I am not sure how that is relevant, Andon. >_> What do you mean? O_o
Seems like a neat idea. So, you can shoot ABs a little earlier at the cost of reduced damage, you have a chance to damage defending ships that are very close to the base, and you can use ABs to kill bomb-runs better in a FB... I dunno, these don't seem like huge results for the magnitude of the change, but it seems cool. AB spiking bombruns ftw.
Er, another thing: Would a missile with AOE damage actually *cause* that damage if it expires? I mean, if it dies before hitting anything, in empty space, would it still cause AOE damage, or would it just do nothing at all? >_>
Seems like a neat idea. So, you can shoot ABs a little earlier at the cost of reduced damage, you have a chance to damage defending ships that are very close to the base, and you can use ABs to kill bomb-runs better in a FB... I dunno, these don't seem like huge results for the magnitude of the change, but it seems cool. AB spiking bombruns ftw.
Er, another thing: Would a missile with AOE damage actually *cause* that damage if it expires? I mean, if it dies before hitting anything, in empty space, would it still cause AOE damage, or would it just do nothing at all? >_>
Last edited by Makida on Fri Jul 03, 2009 2:21 am, edited 1 time in total.
I'm pretty sure there's a bug with giving missiles AoE damage. I think it's the fact that the AoE only kicks in if the missile reaches maximum range... if it actually reaches its target it doesn't 'explode'.
Usually though, "skill" is used to covertly mean "match the game exactly to my level of competence." Anyone who is at all worse than me should fail utterly (and humorously!) and anyone better is clearly too caught up in the game and their opinions shouldn't count.
AOE's always worked well in my tests, regardless of if the missile explodes due to target impact, being shot down, or maximum range.
QUOTE TBH I am not sure how that is relevant, Andon. >_> What do you mean? O_o[/quote]
I'll simply quote:
QUOTE In addition, all the nans close enough to be nanning would lose their shields and some would take damage, but not even basic scouts pushing the bomber would take enough damage to die.[/quote]
Taken with a half-read, it looks like this is applying to the bomber's own bomb run.
QUOTE TBH I am not sure how that is relevant, Andon. >_> What do you mean? O_o[/quote]
I'll simply quote:
QUOTE In addition, all the nans close enough to be nanning would lose their shields and some would take damage, but not even basic scouts pushing the bomber would take enough damage to die.[/quote]
Taken with a half-read, it looks like this is applying to the bomber's own bomb run.
The only thing missiles lack as far as AoE goes is a proximity option, as far as I can tell. I have noticed that the AoE at a timeout seems to be centered a little farther than where I expect it, depending on the missile's terminal velocity. That is, a missile with range 1000 that's going 600 m/s when it times out will have an AoE centered at perhaps 1200-1400m, even though I launched at 0 mps ship speed.
Any job worth doing with a laser is worth doing with many, many lasers. -Khrima
Beyond a shadow of a doubt if you don't watch them like a hawk they will stack their collective balls off - MrChaos on Alleg players
Beyond a shadow of a doubt if you don't watch them like a hawk they will stack their collective balls off - MrChaos on Alleg players
It sorta makes sense, as IRL you'd expect the explosion to be affected by the velocity of the missile. I just don't know how it works exactly. From skimming the code, I don't think the explosion actually moves, but I'm not a coder. I think it may just be lag, that is, the missile continues updating position for a while even after it runs out of lifetime. For example, I notice that the missile trail often continues for a bit after the missile hits something. So the only formula you could use is to say that you can expect approximately half a second of lag, so the missile will effectively travel for an additional half second longer than it should, and that's where the explosion will be centered.
Any job worth doing with a laser is worth doing with many, many lasers. -Khrima
Beyond a shadow of a doubt if you don't watch them like a hawk they will stack their collective balls off - MrChaos on Alleg players
Beyond a shadow of a doubt if you don't watch them like a hawk they will stack their collective balls off - MrChaos on Alleg players
Is it possible to gen accurate reading of how far away the missile is exploding? Using a couple of different datapoints we should be able to figure it out. The center of explosion deals full damage right? If so Perhaps we could set up a core to have 1 ship with health=95% of the missiles damage? plug in 5 different missiles with the same amount of damage, and with 99 per rack, we could find out where the center actually ends up. Should be a matter of fitting a curve then.
Last edited by slap on Fri Jul 03, 2009 7:29 am, edited 1 time in total.