Why missiles are simply not used (often)

[lightbringer]

Truthfully we can't deny that missiles in CC are rarely used and if they are normally right at the beginning of the fight. I think this is because of the fact missiles by design require a lot of teamwork between players to be effective.

Firstly there is the issue of who will buy them? Assuming you have a captain of your ship who presumably is very busy doing something else during the time one would consider getting missiles aka later in the game when you can spare the money. This leads to a often debilitating situation where you have one player sitting in the hangars asking over and over if he can get missiles while the captain is busy doing something else. This can also lead to the opposite effect where one player takes it upon himself to buy and load missiles without asking and potentially throwing off the carefully laid plans the captain had in store. This tends to lead players to avoiding buying missiles altogether for fear of upsetting their fellow crew.

Another aspect of why missiles are rarely used is because of the fact they tend to only be viable right when the fight begins. This is because of the fact missiles fire straight ahead and the game is designed in such a way where you must be using broadsides. Also if you just look straight at the enemy bc besides just ramming into him which truthfully I don't feel is in the spirit of the game you also lose your ability to retreat effectively as opposed to when your both just firing broadsides at each other.

Also another aspect of the game serves to discourage the use of missiles and that is the fires/debris that appear on the ship when it starts taking hull damage this makes it nigh impossible to be able to walk around the ship and load missiles and often players would better serve the ship by simply sitting on the science station and purging the core and reloading the yamato cannon then actually loading missiles. This to me seems like a waste that we have such a good mechanic being woefully underused because quite simply it is not feasible. I would like to hear the thoughts of fellow players and maybe some suggestions how to make missiles more viable for this amazing game.

[Red-Rocket]

Missles are used alot in high level of play because they are good sheild smashers and high level players have a better understanding of them. They arent often used because missle stacking (by the means of having more then your 6 loaded missiles, extra waiting to be loaded by a player or drone) is expensive and people want to use cheaper and more SUSTAINABLE damage by the form of lazers and kinetics, yamato is easy as the navigator uses it but the weapons guy has to rely on the navigator to 'point' the BC which only pros with good communication effectivly do.
And as of the moment, Missiles (except kermaculite but they are expensive for their worth) are sort of underpowered and an upgrade penta burst volley does more damage then all of the missles except the kermaculite, at only the cost of power, with missiles its almost like you are firing silver and gold

[Siretu]

I agree with this and I'd like to implement changes to make missiles more viable, but I'm still not sure of the best solution.

The easiest fixes would be to either make them cheaper or increase their damage. I dont want to buff the damage to much if I can avoid it, because it feels like I alternate between buffing weapons and buffing defensive capabilities over and over.

[Red-Rocket]

i think that besides kerm (as it is good now) they should be cheaper and the top 2 (not light missiles) should get some buffs like more projectiles for 1 and the other that just drains alot of energy, the emp missile should do more core dmg but drain very little, like go to 250

[Tempest]

Siretu, dont increase the damage of missles they do plenty already and many players are pleased at the current length of time battles take with the bc with full dps and decent power operators, making the missles cheaper would not only make them more viable but would also encourage reloads and repeated fire of the missles which will add more depth to combat as the navigation and weapons would have to coordinate even more often. The current problem as discussed is the damage / cost ratio so you have to increase one or the other and id choose the cost as it would make combat more interesting.

[Red-Rocket]

i also agree that lowering the cost is a better idea (except kermaculite missiles) it will get more missiles and making it more strategic on when to turn BC to fire missiles and turning back

[Caladbolg]

we should change the BC interior and have missiles fire left and right

missiles 1-3 would fire left, missiles 4-6 would fire right

[Red-Rocket]

Na, thats not how missles worked, in WC3 there where no broads and ships just rammed in to eachother spamming everything they had, with broads it introduced a new element, an element i think players overthink. missles should fire straight so that there is more accuracy with them for long range encounters

[Tempest]

having them fire straight also requires teamplay with nav and weapons, if they fired from the sides the offense would shift more in navigations favor. weapons console needs that extra complexity just to relieve some from nav.

[Karl913]

Quick suggestion here: Add option to nav to switch where missiles fire from: Science Console, Weapons, or Nav itself? Probably won't be the best, but it's an idea. Another idea l have though: Maybe have missiles act kind of like.. RaynorCommando in the nydus worm mission in the campaign with the Snipe ability, and have a width range of fire that would be 45 degrees from center on both sides? Might help somewhat with broadsides and missiles working together better. Or, last suggestion, try and make use of Inertial Nullifier.