How about a gunner aura that gives +50% multifiring? That would be cool.

Also, consider that maybe gunner's shouldn't HAVE to buy MF bots? I mean, zerkers don't.

I want a Devmin response to Churchy's ideas.

A few pages ago I stated my opinions which are quite in line with some of Churchill's. However, currently with the C2 push and other things being more important there is no time.

As soon as there's time, it shall be done!

Missile Reboot

This is a Reboot. That means that it will change the ways missiles work. There is a reason for this. Frankly, missiles are really, really boring; they are used for one of two things.

1: They are used to block incoming bullets, an essentially transforming credits into shields. Personally, I don’t think this is any better than buying your way through the game, although, I must admit, it takes some degree of skill to manage it correctly.

2: Close range spamming to attain maximum DPS. Because missile launchers can only deal with a limited number of missiles out at once, the best way to do any reliable DPS is to fire your missiles from as close of range as possible. The problem with that is that it essentially becomes no different from using a battle scoop; why not just give gunners a spammable battle scoop that does 10k mining damage a shot and forget about missiles altogether?*

• This information is judged from watching one of the best gunners in the game, as well as from my own experience. I didn’t agree with you on everything, so sorry about this…but hey, I can only roll with what I believe myself. Whatever.

Therefore, I have a few separate ideas for how to make the use of missiles into a more competitive skill, and hopefully you will like them.
First off, and most important, is the way in which missiles are fired. No other class in the game can only have 5 bullets out at once. Therefore;

Change 1: Remove Missile Firing Limitations

Remove the 'deployed missile' limits, and rebalance launchers with balanced launch times. In other words, you will be able to launch a missile every time the missile bay reloads, as many as you want, for as long as you want. The amount of missiles out at once will not effect you at all.
Of course, missiles themselves will blow up after a set period of time, in the same way they do right now; with upcoming changes, this would be less of a strain on the server than it is at the moment. This leads us to…

Change Number Two: Increase Missile Velocity!

Missiles, honestly, go pitifully slow. When your missiles are being outrun by heavy fighters, you know there's a problem. To be fair, ‘heavy’ missiles should be able to catch heavy fighters, but not light fighters; ‘light’ missiles should be able to catch light fighters. At the moment, the heavy and light correspond to AP and vulture missiles on one end, and kinetic and UZ missiles on the other.

All missile speeds should be (roughly) doubled, and at the same time their time outs should be halved(again, roughly), letting them travel the same distance. On top of this, the launch ranges should be based on the missile, not a hard 2k firing cap. An AP missile, for example, might have 2k range like right now, while a Kinetic missile might have a 3k firing distance.

Change Number Three: Missile Launchers

The trouble with missile launchers is that while there are a great deal of different kinds of launchers, they all essentially do the same thing, albeit to different degrees. On top of this, many of them are never even used, like the Light Fighter missile launchers. Because it will already be made useless by prior changes, this system of hull limitation will be scrapped.

The primary facet of these changes, is based on the missiles leaving your ship while already at high speed(at least in most cases.)

Instead of what it is right now, all launchers should perform a different purpose;

Stiletto launchers should fire missiles at full speed directly forwards, in a similar way to the way missile launchers do at the moment. These missiles would, however, launch from the “wings” of your ship, rather than the pointy tip, for realism purposes. Ideally, each ship would have its own launch points.
Stiletto Missile Launchers can launch kinetic missiles only.

Rapier Launchers : would shoot a spam of 3-5 missiles at once, exploding from the back and sides of the ship and arcing towards the target, Macross-style.
Rapier Launchers can launch Kinetic or AP missiles.

Scimitar Launchers: The most similar to right now, they would fire a missile at the target; however, the initial missile velocity would be somewhat lower than full.
Scimitar Launchers can launch any type of missiles, but at lower rates of fire.

Broadsword launchers should fire broadsides of missiles, shooting from one side of the ship, depending on which side of the ship the target is on.
Broadsword launchers can launch all types, including Kinetic, AP, Heavy AP, and Flak Missiles.


Any combination of these launchers could be equipped onto your hull, in whatever way you prefer, limited only by the missile launcher slots on your ship, which already exist. This leads us to our next part…

Change Number Four: Setting your missile launchers, and toggles.

Each one of your launchers would be set with a certain type of missile, after which using that launcher will fire that type of missile. This is necessary to keep the correct missiles firing from the correct launcher, because you hardly want to shoot 5 Heavy AP Missiles out of the sides of your ship and have them likely be destroyed before they come back into damage range. Not a major change really.

In addition to this, (this part is still experimental) using a missile launcher would toggle it on until you toggle it off again, or the target dies. This would have the side effect of allowing you to simultaneously target multiple targets, allowing a practiced gunner to set his ship to attack a boss with one set of launchers while pick off spawn with his ‘light fighter’ launchers.

Of course, we will need a CRAPLOAD of new missiles. I mean, major amounts of new missiles, and their visages will need to be different sizes. How it would be now is this:

Kinetic Missiles: Extremely high speed, Physical damage usually, and have a noticeable turning radius. Weak to pulses, resistant to lasers(except point defence type). They will be about 1/3rd the size of current missiles.

AP Missiles: Half as much speed or lower than kinetic missiles. I’m only calling them AP missiles for comparison to right now; they could be any damage type. They would be about 5/8ths the size of current missiles.

Heavy AP Missiles: Slowest of the missiles, maybe about the same speed as right now, but not in the same way; rather than having a low set speed, they would be heavy; they would accelerate throughout their flight, but they would do heavy damage when they hit. They are the same size as current missiles, or slightly larger.

Flak Missiles: Between AP and Heavy AP in speed, they have Area of Effect damage. They are the largest of all missiles, at around 2x the size of current missiles, but fat instead of long.


Change Number Five: Missile Aug Controllers.

Pretty much identical to Drone Aug Controllers, they would provide missiles with boosts that would be useful to their missiles. However, because missiles are more limited in their scope than drones, many effects would be either combined on not available.

In addition, the effect would take place when the missile is fired, and stick; in other words, you couldn’t equip the resistance controller, wait till the missile goes through a hail of bullets, and then equip the rose aug controller.

This isn’t all that needs to be done, but it’s at least a good start.

Commentary is very much desired.

Cheers,
Cyg.

tl;dr ; Add more missiles, remove # of missiles out limit, make new missile launchers that do different things, rebalance all existing missiles, remove missile launcher hull restrictions, etc, etc, etc.

I'd also like some higher TL Freighter launchers.

Every hull class has missiles launchers up to 20.

My take on Gunner, after interviewing shawn_mccall, Masterful, and Laptop Boy.

And a bump to this.