[Suggestion] Cruise missiles for L turrets and potential L missile main weapons

[Raptor34]

Preface: You can skip this part, but the background might be interesting.

I've been thinking about missile sizes recently and came to the conclusion that X4 relative missile sizes are fairly realistic, so to speak.
To see what I mean, let's compare two real world missiles. The AIM-174B and AIM-120 family, both from the US. Their stats are for range: 240km vs. 120km, warhead weight: 64 vs. 20kg, speed: 1.2km/s vs. 1.4 km/s. So as you can see, if translated to X4 terms, the former would be the heavy variant and the latter would be the light variant, yet unlike X4 the heavy variant has more than twice the range with 3 times the warhead speed while only being slightly slower. For comparison in X4 for the smart missile, heavy vs. light, the range is the same, damage: 3378 vs. 647, speed: 170 vs. 782 m/s. As we can see in X4, while the heavy has a significantly larger warhead, it is still stuck at the same max range while the heavy is only a quarter the speed of the light.
And that's what I mean by the sizes making sense, because in the real world, the heavy AIM-174B is a whopping 860kg while the lighter AIM-120 is only 161.5kg, therefore the heavy pays for that superb performance by just being that much larger. If you have time, google both those missiles on the F-18, you'll see just how big the AIM-174B is, after all, it was originally a ship-launched missile. But coming back to X4, all missiles are the same size, that's why you can see the heavy as trading a larger higher performance engine for a smaller more efficient one and in return packing a larger warhead. That's why it's so much slower and only has the same max range as it's lighter counterpart. Or to put it another way, unlike what most of us may think, heavy/light exclusively refers to warhead size, not missile size.

Actual suggestion:

Therefore, I think we should also have some actual large ship-borne missiles too, big missiles which takes up significantly more volume, and more importantly, can only be LAUNCHED from L trackng turrets or any hypothetical L main battery, they might be able to be CARRIED by S/M sizes, but they cannot be LAUNCHED from it. This is to facilitate being able to in-field reload them with S/M ships as per my other suggestion.
These big missiles would of course in return have longer ranges and higher speeds, along with larger warheads, though in return they'll have slower ROF and because they are bigger, you can't carry that many of them.

Superclass:
Speed: 6-700m/s
I think that's around the speed of the faster light missile, these are meant to be fast after all.
Toughness: Fairly tough
They shouldn't just pop easily of course, but a fighter with a single pulse laser can make short work of it. Or maybe missiles or something. Ideally rather than relying on your turrets, we get a new command for fighters which just go out and shoot them down. Like Intercept/Bombard, but for missiles. These missiles are either meant to be layered in among other attacks, or to provide a tactically simple but logistically complicated method to engage stations. Of course it's not just to kill stations, see subvariants below for further details.
Launcher: L Tracking turrets only
These would have minimal tracking, but also act as a balancing method, they are very powerful, but you can't carry many of them. Not an M7M here. More of an M8 I guess.

Normal variant:
Engagement range: 30km
It's actual range would be longer, but the AI since all turrets are AI controlled, would engage at 30km, the idea would be you can see the launch vessel and appropriately counter it.
Size: 10-12
All current missiles have a size of 1, that is they take up 1 slot in your missile capacity, these big missiles would take up around 10 times the normal slots.

Extended Range (ER) variant:
Engagement range: 50km
It's actual range would be longer, but the AI since all turrets are AI controlled, would engage at 50km, the idea would be that these would be launched from beyond sensor range, so either have pickets out seeing, or scramble interceptors to intercept them.
Size: 15-18
All current missiles have a size of 1, that is they take up 1 slot in your missile capacity, these big missiles would be around half again as large as the normal variant but have the same performance, the increased size is for bigger engines.

Subvariants:

Standard all-rounder:
These would have an average warhead, decent agility and toughness. These are what you pack when you don't know what you need to kill, they'll work well against most threats. Which of course that means that these can engage most medium and heavy fighters well. Light fighters on evasive can outmaneuver these. Others would need to manually kill the incoming missile.

Cluster:
These pack say a dozen light smart missiles but generally have really bad tracking, only good enough to get it to the vicinity of the target then it splits apart and it's payload goes on to engage. These are for engaging fighters.
I've considered a heavy variant, but I don't think that they'll be that useful with such limited numbers. Maybe one packing heavy swarm set to auto-target subsystems? Could be interesting.

Anti-ship:
Larger warhead, lower agility since ships don't dodge that much. Decent toughness to handle some anti-missile fire from turrets. But would still go down to an interceptor on it's tail. A lone ship would probably be easy prey to these, unless you have good turrets and maybe anti-missile missiles. But in a fleet you'll need a bunch of these and other things to punch through.

Anti-station:
Biggest warhead, enough agility so you don't miss a stationary target, decent toughness, ideally tougher at the front than rear if there is such directional damage resistance. The idea is that a station with fighters/drones can easily swat these down, but one without defenses would just die.
Basically as mentioned above, tactically simple, just park your destroyers like 10-20km away and wait, but logistically complex as rearming missile boats.
These would be bigger too, like size 20 or something.

Superweapon:
A hypothetical OP one. Probably shouldn't be added but...
Size 30, TD equipped. The hypersonic missile of X4.
Basically some absolute madman has decided that things aren't fast enough, but travel drives are pretty fast, so they grafted one onto a cruise missile. Of course just like normal TDs, you can just shoot them to disable TD, but can you even hit them in time?
Engagement range of 50km to be extra evil since that's out of normal sensor range.

Closing notes:
These would imo further enhance missile combat in X4, while also giving us some decent, if expensive longer range options. And also act as a basis for further differentiating missiles rather than how currently all missiles are basically the same size.
Also the ER variants would work well with the new station Sensor Array since they can hit out to 50km. You can even add some Extended Extended Range missiles too just for stations to hit even further out. Though I imagine these would be cluster subvariants to basically just be to send out normal missiles that far.

[Feloidea]

Would make a nice addition, I've had suggested such things too. Though my take on this was less a turret form as much as it was a VLS module that takes the spot in place of a turret which can launch a number of tracking missiles in rapid succession. A version that deploys bigger missiles for anti-capital work would be a logical. So whilst the "normal" VLS module might launch a dozen or so missiles before reloading the magazine, the anti-capital version could maybe only launch four before reloading.

The actual VLS magazine and launch plus missiles parameters would obviously be subject for balancing testing.

But yeah, I'd love the idea of kitting out a destroyer to turn it into an M7M, albeit with the wish that we'd get a better way of replenishing ammunitions for ships that doesn't involve either micromanaging or slapping an auxillary ship on everything (or multiple ones if you have a bigger throughput of missiles since the cargo space on the auxillary ships is quite limited). A special S and M trader variant that can haul missiles in bulk and a refill missiles behaviour or subordinates command you can set to keep destroyers and carriers stocked up on missile reloads would be amazing!

[Raptor34]

I want to make it clear though, this isn't an M7M, or at least not the one's you know of. M7Ms are basically a solo weapons system and can just do everything themselves, these are meant to work as part of a fleet, that's why it has limited ammo and in a vacuum it's missiles are easily intercepted by the weakest of fighters and weapons. But when the enemy is already entangled in a furball, or when their fighter escorts have been stripped away one way or another, then these would allow you to bombard them with fast hard hitting missiles from far away.
In that sense these are more M8s than M7Ms.

Oh and also these would be perfect for the boring task of beating down undefended stations at the cost of needing to rearm.

[Feloidea]

That's why I said the actual paramaters would all be subject to balancing. M7M were overtuned as hell, you could clear an entire sector with the press of a button. Doesn't change that being able to fit a destroyer with lots of missiles and adding new ones specifically to attack large ships and stations would still give them the same role and same gameplay feel.

[flywlyx]

Superclass:
Speed: 6-700m/s
I think that's around the speed of the faster light missile, these are meant to be fast after all.
Toughness: Fairly tough
They shouldn't just pop easily of course, but a fighter with a single pulse laser can make short work of it. Or maybe missiles or something. Ideally rather than relying on your turrets, we get a new command for fighters which just go out and shoot them down. Like Intercept/Bombard, but for missiles.

The AI currently struggles to chase ships that are even slower than themselves, so I doubt fighters will be able to catch anything traveling at 600 m/s anytime soon.
This essentially acts as an "I win" button that any capital ship can equip, giving players a significant advantage over the AI given its current limitations.

[Raptor34]

Superclass:
Speed: 6-700m/s
I think that's around the speed of the faster light missile, these are meant to be fast after all.
Toughness: Fairly tough
They shouldn't just pop easily of course, but a fighter with a single pulse laser can make short work of it. Or maybe missiles or something. Ideally rather than relying on your turrets, we get a new command for fighters which just go out and shoot them down. Like Intercept/Bombard, but for missiles.

The AI currently struggles to chase ships that are even slower than themselves, so I doubt fighters will be able to catch anything traveling at 600 m/s anytime soon.
This essentially acts as an "I win" button that any capital ship can equip, giving players a significant advantage over the AI given its current limitations.

I took that number from light smart. But that can be tweaked.
Also these aren't player only...

[flywlyx]

I took that number from light smart. But that can be tweaked.
Also these aren't player only...

NPC capital ships lack target prioritization, meaning they rarely get the chance to fire first.
In your setup, the one who fires first essentially wins, and that will almost always be the player.
I don't believe referencing modern warfare is a good idea. "First look, first shoot, first kill" isn't fun, especially when your opponents are complete idiots.

[Raptor34]

I took that number from light smart. But that can be tweaked.
Also these aren't player only...

NPC capital ships lack target prioritization, meaning they rarely get the chance to fire first.
In your setup, the one who fires first essentially wins, and that will almost always be the player.

Not insurmountable, I hope giving them target prioritization wouldn't be too taxing on the performance.
Also can't remember if I've mentioned it, you should be able to have anti-missile missiles too, so even if you only give each capital ship one M tracking turret, they would be able to mitigate to a certain extent a missile barrage in 1v1 situations.
I'll say the currently underused EMP missile would be a good candidate for this. But any tracking missile can do double duty.

[flywlyx]

Not insurmountable, I hope giving them target prioritization wouldn't be too taxing on the performance.
Also can't remember if I've mentioned it, you should be able to have anti-missile missiles too, so even if you only give each capital ship one M tracking turret, they would be able to mitigate to a certain extent a missile barrage in 1v1 situations.
I'll say the currently underused EMP missile would be a good candidate for this. But any tracking missile can do double duty.

It hasn’t been added even after six years, so I doubt if it ever will be.
The current loadout system is based on percentages. In your proposed system, a "missile defense turret" would be essential for a capital ship's survival, making it mandatory. This would require a much more significant change than simply introducing a new missile type.

[Raptor34]

Not insurmountable, I hope giving them target prioritization wouldn't be too taxing on the performance.
Also can't remember if I've mentioned it, you should be able to have anti-missile missiles too, so even if you only give each capital ship one M tracking turret, they would be able to mitigate to a certain extent a missile barrage in 1v1 situations.
I'll say the currently underused EMP missile would be a good candidate for this. But any tracking missile can do double duty.

It hasn’t been added even after six years, so I doubt if it ever will be.
The current loadout system is based on percentages. In your proposed system, a "missile defense turret" would be essential for a capital ship's survival, making it mandatory. This would require a much more significant change than simply introducing a new missile type.

I guess I shouldn't use the M7M argument considering they basically eliminated that ship class lol.
But normal M turrets should be able to deal with enough of the incoming missiles too. Because again, these aren't M7M with Flails providing cover for Hammers. These are basically just the Hammers themselves.
The Xenon M Impulse turrets should be able to deal with them well enough, because they are already have high projectile speeds and turn fast. And these aren't maneuvering targets like fighters, these are targets coming right for you, the simplest target possible. And the same would apply to faction turrets.

Actually, the more I think about it, practically speaking, there isn't much difference between these and torpedoes currently, excepting these are restricted to L and above, can launch from longer range and are faster, you'll still need to actually cover the missiles coming in. They would be much bigger than torpedoes too, with a correspondingly larger hitbox, so despite the speed, it should in theory be easier to actually hit.

Of course a whole barrage of these from multiple L ships would basically render stations defenseless, but I don't consider that an issue. Unless you think AI destroyers derping into range of short range turrets or the same for an Asgard which outranges any possible station defense is balanced and intended.
Although there is the issue where stations can pack these too, it would make killing faction stations dicier. But we'll need to see how that supposed M turret improvement in beta works. I can see gunboats with batteries of M beam turrets be the perfect anti-missile screen. This would be interesting, just like how people manually position their destroyers so they don't derp into Graviton range, you can also manually position your gunboats between your capitals and enemy missile stations, they don't need to move and it's best they don't move to give their M beams the best chance to destroy incoming missiles.

[flywlyx]

Actually, the more I think about it, practically speaking, there isn't much difference between these and torpedoes currently, excepting these are restricted to L and above, can launch from longer range and are faster, you'll still need to actually cover the missiles coming in. They would be much bigger than torpedoes too, with a correspondingly larger hitbox, so despite the speed, it should in theory be easier to actually hit.

The current heavy torpedo travels at only 67 m/s, while your new missile is 10 times faster. Even if it’s 10 times larger than the current torpedo, unless its hull points are significantly lower, it would still be harder to land hits compared to the current torpedo.
And t he current torpedo is already overpowered enough. Unless they enhance the AI capabilities, I don't think adding L/XL class torpedoes will benefit anyone.

[Raptor34]

Actually, the more I think about it, practically speaking, there isn't much difference between these and torpedoes currently, excepting these are restricted to L and above, can launch from longer range and are faster, you'll still need to actually cover the missiles coming in. They would be much bigger than torpedoes too, with a correspondingly larger hitbox, so despite the speed, it should in theory be easier to actually hit.

The current heavy torpedo travels at only 67 m/s, while your new missile is 10 times faster. Even if it’s 10 times larger than the current torpedo, unless its hull points are significantly lower, it would still be harder to land hits compared to the current torpedo.
And t he current torpedo is already overpowered enough. Unless they enhance the AI capabilities, I don't think adding L/XL class torpedoes will benefit anyone.

Do current destroyers just die to torpedoes when the torpedoes are the only thing incoming? That honestly says more about how bad turrets are than anything, I mean they are bad, but I didn't know they are can't hit something coming directly at you bad.

[flywlyx]

Do current destroyers just die to torpedoes when the torpedoes are the only thing incoming? That honestly says more about how bad turrets are than anything, I mean they are bad, but I didn't know they are can't hit something coming directly at you bad.

I haven’t tried it in the recent version since devs said they have improved turrets, but back in 6.0, my Kuraokami with 5 torpedo launchers could easily destroy Xenon Ks.

[Raptor34]

Do current destroyers just die to torpedoes when the torpedoes are the only thing incoming? That honestly says more about how bad turrets are than anything, I mean they are bad, but I didn't know they are can't hit something coming directly at you bad.

I haven’t tried it in the recent version since devs said they have improved turrets, but back in 6.0, my Kuraokami with 5 torpedo launchers could easily destroy Xenon Ks.

I see. That would be an issue.