X3 Missiles be like

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As25
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Re: X3 Missiles be like

Post by As25 » Sat, 25. Mar 23, 13:54

Flippi wrote:
Sat, 25. Mar 23, 11:03
Fighters with more than two weapons are really rare in X4, at least compared to X3 where the average M5 had 4 guns, while M4 had 6 and M3 had 8. Plus the turrets a few fighters could get.
This is very true. It is pretty odd that they decided to make the launcher something you have to actually equip on your ship when they give you so little room for weapons.
Flippi wrote:
Sat, 25. Mar 23, 11:03
This Problem could be somewhat fixed, if we could allocate the different cargo spaces for different things with a slider. So instead of having room for deployables, or a 'regular' cargo bay, all of that would go into the ammo bay if you wished. Especially ships with large cargo bays could benefit from it (Teladi). But even the other faction ships could now use their cargo bays for something useful, instead of it being a waste.
Again, odd that all fighters have room for 20 missiles. The Teladi should have room for more as a big cargo bay is one of their characteristics. The Falcon Hauler in X3 was a very good missile boat, it had a weak weapon reactor, but it could store plenty of ammo and missiles.

GCU Grey Area
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Re: X3 Missiles be like

Post by GCU Grey Area » Sat, 25. Mar 23, 14:39

As25 wrote:
Sat, 25. Mar 23, 13:54
It is pretty odd that they decided to make the launcher something you have to actually equip on your ship when they give you so little room for weapons.
Think it's more a case of giving the player the choice of how many launchers they want to fit on each ship, from none at all to all of them. Overwhelming majority of the ships I had in previous X games never fired their missile launcher even once. Would have gladly fitted an extra gun in it's place if I'd had the opportunity.

Conversely there are circumstances where it's decidedly useful to have a ship with more than one launcher. In most X4 games I end up building an M ship armed with just a single gun & every other hardpoint fitted with a torpedo launcher. This ship has a very specific role. I use it to flip sector control where it is contested & I I'd prefer someone other than the current owners to have control (e.g. prefer ARG to control Second Contact II rather than ANT).

I park at max heavy torpedo range & fire sufficient volleys to eliminate the admin module on each of their defence platforms. I use multiple launchers so the final volley can be launched before the first one hits & I can be well away before anyone even thinks of shooting at me. Often call such a ship the "Administrative Assistant".

Zloth2
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Re: X3 Missiles be like

Post by Zloth2 » Sat, 25. Mar 23, 14:42

Yeah, countermeasures in X3 were much more of a requirement. They are very rarely needed in X4.
LandogarX4 wrote:
Sat, 25. Mar 23, 09:41
Explosions in X3 unironically looked better than those in X4. What happened?
You have GOT to be kidding me! X3's explosions were just white blobs!
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As25
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Re: X3 Missiles be like

Post by As25 » Sat, 25. Mar 23, 15:26

GCU Grey Area wrote:
Sat, 25. Mar 23, 14:39
Think it's more a case of giving the player the choice of how many launchers they want to fit on each ship, from none at all to all of them. Overwhelming majority of the ships I had in previous X games never fired their missile launcher even once. Would have gladly fitted an extra gun in it's place if I'd had the opportunity.

Conversely there are circumstances where it's decidedly useful to have a ship with more than one launcher. In most X4 games I end up building an M ship armed with just a single gun & every other hardpoint fitted with a torpedo launcher. This ship has a very specific role. I use it to flip sector control where it is contested & I I'd prefer someone other than the current owners to have control (e.g. prefer ARG to control Second Contact II rather than ANT).

I park at max heavy torpedo range & fire sufficient volleys to eliminate the admin module on each of their defence platforms. I use multiple launchers so the final volley can be launched before the first one hits & I can be well away before anyone even thinks of shooting at me. Often call such a ship the "Administrative Assistant".
The problem I see with this is that it works the other way around too. In my video you can see I'm using Scimitars with Spectre missiles. Spectre missiles are not even the strongest missile in X3, yet they are more powerful than X4 torpedoes ever could hope to be, doing 260.000 damage per hit. For reference, the PPC (the equivalent of plasma turrets on X4) does 11,340 damage per hit, not even 1/10 of a Spectre missile can do. A Torpedo in X4 does 17.246 damage and an Argon plasma turret does 2.420 per hit, the difference is still pretty high, but far more closer. A torpedo in X3 does 1.000.000 damage lol. Now, I'm using 30 Scimitars, each can fire 1 missile at the time, imagine if I could remove the guns and they could launch 6 at the same time each.

The problem with the ability to fit multiple launchers is that if you balance around it, then single missiles are too weak, and if you balance it around single, powerful missiles, then those powerful missiles become ridiculous when you can fit multiple launchers. Example, light smart missile does 657 damage, that it is too weak, but if you have a frigate with 4 launchers, now you are doing 2648 per salvo, that's basically a plasma hit, although you only have room for 25 rounds. A fighter with 4 launchers would only have room for 5 rounds.

If we buff the damage by 5 times, 3285 damage would be fine on its own, but with 4 launchers it is too much.

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Re: X3 Missiles be like

Post by GCU Grey Area » Sat, 25. Mar 23, 16:02

As25 wrote:
Sat, 25. Mar 23, 15:26
The problem I see with this is that it works the other way around too. In my video you can see I'm using Scimitars with Spectre missiles. Spectre missiles are not even the strongest missile in X3, yet they are more powerful than X4 torpedoes ever could hope to be, doing 260.000 damage per hit. For reference, the PPC (the equivalent of plasma turrets on X4) does 11,340 damage per hit, not even 1/10 of a Spectre missile can do. A Torpedo in X4 does 17.246 damage and an Argon plasma turret does 2.420 per hit, the difference is still pretty high, but far more closer. A torpedo in X3 does 1.000.000 damage lol. Now, I'm using 30 Scimitars, each can fire 1 missile at the time, imagine if I could remove the guns and they could launch 6 at the same time each.

The problem with the ability to fit multiple launchers is that if you balance around it, then single missiles are too weak, and if you balance it around single, powerful missiles, then those powerful missiles become ridiculous when you can fit multiple launchers. Example, light smart missile does 657 damage, that it is too weak, but if you have a frigate with 4 launchers, now you are doing 2648 per salvo, that's basically a plasma hit, although you only have room for 25 rounds. A fighter with 4 launchers would only have room for 5 rounds.

If we buff the damage by 5 times, 3285 damage would be fine on its own, but with 4 launchers it is too much.
Can't really compare the numbers in different games meaningfully without considering context. Missiles in X4 may do a lower amount of damage than their counterparts in X3, however ship hulls have fewer hp too. If I recall correctly X3AP's Xenon K had a 6,000,000 hull, in X4 it's got 165,000.

As25
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Re: X3 Missiles be like

Post by As25 » Sat, 25. Mar 23, 17:22

GCU Grey Area wrote:
Sat, 25. Mar 23, 16:02
Can't really compare the numbers in different games meaningfully without considering context. Missiles in X4 may do a lower amount of damage than their counterparts in X3, however ship hulls have fewer hp too. If I recall correctly X3AP's Xenon K had a 6,000,000 hull, in X4 it's got 165,000.
True, and that's why I used each game's plasma as a reference. Perhaps hull points would've been a better reference point. Still, why can't we fit torpedoes launchers on turrets? Because if we did, that would make missile based destroyers too powerful. Just imagine a Raptor with a 100 torpedoes launchers. Even with light missiles, as weak as they are, a Raptor is too strong. So pretend with me, the day has come, Egosoft has decided to make a missile balancing pass. They look at the average amount of launchers of L ships (let's say it's 10) and they make sure that it is not too powerful. This automatically makes any ship with only 1 or 2 launchers too weak because the damage of the missiles has been made with 10 launchers in mind. If they go the other way around and say, ok, we need to make each missile powerful enough to be worth carrying around. How many points does the average fighter have? Let's make missiles 2 shot that. Now that damage is fine if it is just 1 launcher, it makes missiles powerful and worth the hassle, but if we put them on a ship with 10 launchers it is not fine anymore.

You see what I'm getting at? You can't balance it around one without f*kcing over the other. In X3, the only ships that had more than one launcher were designated missile ships, and they were "balanced" around that by making them use specific missiles exclusive to them. The damage was too much, but the idea was there. So unless they implement something like that in X4, there is no middle ground between 1 launcher and multiple. It is going to inevitably be too weak or too strong.

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Re: X3 Missiles be like

Post by GCU Grey Area » Sat, 25. Mar 23, 17:56

As25 wrote:
Sat, 25. Mar 23, 17:22
You see what I'm getting at?
Not really. I use both approaches (single & multiple launchers) & they both work well enough for what I need them to do.

My personal M ships tend have a single torpedo launcher fitted for when I need to take out enemy capital ships (& because boost-launched torpedoes are far too much fun to miss out on). Wouldn't want more than one however because I also want it to carry a selection of guns for situations where a torpedo isn't appropriate (e.g. shooting mines, opening lockboxes, etc). Very much general purpose ships with a weapon for every occasion. Then I've got my Administrative Assistant for when I want to mess with geopolitics - single function ship with lots of launchers, but I really would not want to take it into a dogfight (but then whole idea is I can be on my way long before anyone realises what I've just done).

Many ships in my fleets use missiles too. Generally two categories, S ships to harass enemy capitals while my destroyers finish them off & interceptor frigates which fill the sky with a constant barrage of light smart missiles. Here the balance is how rapidly I want them to fling missiles at their respective targets (i.e. number of launchers) vs how frequently they need to return to carrier or aux to rearm, with any non-launcher hardpoints filled with backup guns. Has been interesting exploring all the various permutations, fun I would not have had without the flexibility to choose how many launchers to fit on each ship.

jlehtone
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Re: X3 Missiles be like

Post by jlehtone » Sat, 25. Mar 23, 20:04

As25 wrote:
Sat, 25. Mar 23, 17:22
If they go the other way around and say, ok, we need to make each missile powerful enough to be worth carrying around. How many points does the average fighter have? Let's make missiles 2 shot that. Now that damage is fine if it is just 1 launcher, it makes missiles powerful and worth the hassle, but if we put them on a ship with 10 launchers it is not fine anymore.
Lets suppose that we "solve" that by setting a limit: max one launcher on a ship. Therefore, I have hundred launchers ... :gruebel:
The player can always have way more than "enough" and the NPC hardly ever will have and use barely enough, regardless of the number of launchers per ship.


Back in X3AP, when entire Terran fleet in Jupiter (all the RRF included) was beelining at me, the hardest part was to reload the bombers quickly enough.

Even further back, when Bonuspack did add group management hotkeys to X3R, I did test the key with a Raptorful (60?) of fighters, all launching Wasps at my target on every press. That really lit up the Teladi Phoenix that was the practice target, although the greatest casualty was the frame-rate. 8)
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As25
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Re: X3 Missiles be like

Post by As25 » Sat, 25. Mar 23, 20:50

jlehtone wrote:
Sat, 25. Mar 23, 20:04
Lets suppose that we "solve" that by setting a limit: max one launcher on a ship. Therefore, I have hundred launchers ... :gruebel:
Yes, but if you had 5 launchers you would have 500. With a limit of 1 launcher if you wanted 500, you would need 500 ships.

Why not add 10 beams to the Asgard. I mean, I can have 10 anyway if I go and capture 10 of them. I only need 1 to one shoot an I out of existence, but with 10 per Asgard it would give me the flexibility of only using 1 beam per capital. That way I can fire one, switch to another beam, shoot another capital, switch to another beam, and well I basically can make sure I can always shoot one while the rest are recharging. It also comes handy for station bashing.

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