Is the missile specialization any good ?

[Leith]

Hello,

In the oringinal star wolves, I didn't care much for any sort of weaponary except lasers, which were the most effective weapons. I realised that pilots with low gun accuracy hit more often with lasers, even if they specalize in heavy or plasma guns.

In Star wolves 3, I noticed that rapid-firing guns can really make a few kills, unlike star wolves where lasers were obviously superior to any other weapons. As for missiles, I have not fully tested their efficiency but in the latest battle--where I was fighting a large pirate fleet blocking the portal (The second mission of the NESF)-- I equipped my fighters with medium and short range missiles of moderate quality yet the enemy ships avoided most of my missiles. I wonder if the result would have been the same were my pilots skilled enough in the 'missile' perks.

Lasers are still overpowered and the introduction of anti-laser modules only mitigates this a little since most ships don't equip them.

The missile perks help somewhat, although the lesser bonus of being more hardened against ECM is responsible for this; the primary bonus of damage is overkill - missiles are already pretty strong. The problem with missiles in the Star Wolves franchise is that you just run out of ammo too fast, and most of your missiles don't hit (ECM, shot down by AMS).

Low missile count is fine for the enemy; you the player are expected to plow through hundreds of enemies, so even if they pack 2-3 missiles each on average, the total is still a lot of missiles thrown at you. However, from the player side of the equation, 2 missiles is a waste of space. 5 seconds into the first battle and your ships have probably launched them both, so for the rest of the battle (not to mention the dozen of subsequent battles you get into before having a chance to dock and buy more missiles) your team will be flying around with empty missile launchers.

Which is why I modded them - I threw out the low-end missiles of each category and replaced them with a more reasonable supply. Enemies have access to them too though, which makes anti-missile defence a tad more important (read: if you fly around without protection, you're gonna get loved tenderly. lol). Feel free to download the mod linked in my sig. It only changes missiles so it should be compatible with the other big mods out there, and it's fully compatible with the unmodded game. If you've already got missiles loaded up you'll need to sell them, though - sorry. The replacements are more than worth it though, especially if you're playing on hard mode.

[Leith]

Thank you very much for your feedback and for your FAQ posted at WWW.GAMEFAQ.com! I have n't read all of it because I want to finish the game at least once without spoilers. No matter, I guess the missile specialization is still not worth taking, having played the game for 12 hours and having read your comments.

The lasers are, as usual, the weapons of choice even for pilots with low gunnery skills. Even though I love lasers but I think it's not fair for the other weapon specializations so I hope this imbalance will be considered by the devs while making the expansion and Star wolves 4.

You could go through the modules.script files and edit the gun definitions. Reduce other gun types' dispersion and cut down laser damage, especially for the pulse lasers - I freaking quartered laser damage output and although there's a considerable drop in single pass kills they're still quite nasty.

Balance needs working on imho, e.g. I'd up shield regen rate because it currently does very little even for system experts.

[sharien]

guys...you just got no frickin idea how to use missiles...
i built a missile spec on hard difficulty and he kicked more ass than anyone else
sure the standard short range missiles are crap...but hell who uses those
fire a LRM or a torpedo into a squad of fighters and theyre ALL gone
anyone remembers the pirate ambush in the mission when escorting those USS transports?
my rockets took them ALL out before they even were able to fire back(not to mention backup was still miles away...)
1 torpedo in the right place can take out multiple squads of fighters...in one shot
so yes missiles are actually quite good
endgame you even get hornets ARLM which have the firepower of the smaller torpedos at an incredible range...with quasar scanner you can nuke out enemies en masse without them knowing what hit em...and just resupply anytime youre empty
oh...and dont use hrimturs...that thing is crap...was always
btw...im missing a gen 5 missile carrier...sth like dragon for missiles(8 missile slots boooyaaa^^)

Damage was never the problem, in fact I mentioned quite the opposite if you bothered to understand what was posted in the missile thread. Learn to read. The fact that people think missile ships are "crap" means there is, in fact, something wrong with missiles.

You're simply exploiting the fact that the AI is broken and doesn't respond to damage from sources it can't detect / outside it's radar range. That's not "knowing how to use missiles". That's taking advantage of a bug. I bet if the AI did that to the player (hit you with missiles from far away before you detected them) you'd be crying how the game is stupid.