More types of Tactical Missiles?

In supcom, you could say their was 2 types of missiles, tac missiles, and stratigic missiles. I felt like tac missiles where never that usefull, because the AoE on them was pitiful. I was hopeing that there would be a "larger" type of tac missile, meaby doing the same damage as its less AoE partner, but cost a little more and have a longer build time, as this would let us deal with approching masses of armys a little easyer, and with more accuracy.

Tac missiles are designed for taking down enemy shields, defenses and any possible slow moving experimentals and ships.

They don't make good anti-unit weapons.

Artillery fills that position.

However a greater variety of units using them and using variations of them would also be cool.

Tac missiles are sniping weapons. Got one in range of enemy mexes? Spotted a high value unit just sitting there? TML win.

So much fun sniping a unsuspecting ACU with a TML.

I kind of wish the tactical missiles in SupCom could have been set to auto fire. Every time you wanted to fire a tactical missile you had to select the silo, click launch, then click on the target.

Also if you wanted to make tactical missiles more interesting you could say that a missile and it's payload are two separate options. So the missile itself would determine it's range and then you'd have different warheads that determine it's effect.

So you could build a tactical missile with a nuke on it, and a strategic missile with a nuke on it. When they land they'll produce the same type of explosion but the tactical missile will have a shorter range, and probably be a bit cheaper. Or you could build a strategic missile with a normal bomb on it which would allow you to produce a normal explosion at a further range.

You could have a few different types of missiles that would allow you to hit at different ranges (for different build costs): tactical missiles, strategic missiles, maybe interplanetary missiles.

Then you'd have a few different types of warheads (that also effect the build cost): a nuke, a regular bomb, a bunker buster, napalm, etc.

I like how you guys are talking about SupCom/FA's Tactical Missiles without actually know anything about them.

The Manual fire was one of the key balancing factors? Do you guys even know how much damage each missile did?(PS, It's a lot!)

TacMissiles in Supcom/FA were implemented very well, you had a high damage capacity and it was the manual fire that played a big part in making it balanced for several reasons, but I don't think you guys are interested in that kind of talk are you?

zachb, that's just complicated a system that already works and actually makes it worse.

Your system is similar to SupCom2's research, in that in many cases until the attack is launched you have know idea what they actually have and that's just no fun.

Mike

I saw a UI mod for missile autofire for SupCom. Don't know how well it works, though.

Zero-K tactical missile silo has 4 slots, and can build any of 4 different missiles for each slot. There is a tactical nuke (high damage, small aoe), a napalm missile (large zone, lasting fire), an EMP missile and a terraform missile (smoothing the zone of impact, to fast-terraform a path for your units for example - rarely used).
It is a bit of a hassle because each missile then becomes a physical unit in the silo slot, that you have to select and order to attack (instead of just selecting the silo), and there are 3 others just next to it in addition to the silo itself.
Also, the 4 missiles have different ranges, and all 4 ranges are displayed when you place the silo.

I'm not saying that the same system should be used, but it is indeed nice to be able to fire several types of missiles from the silo, it gives it an appreciable versatility (though you still have to plan it well here, as you have to choose which missile you build).

Well said OrangeKnight.

An automatic TML would be incredibly terrible idea with supcom damage and range, and if you remove either of those you just end up with a defensive weapon that costs mass and energy to fire.

Back on subject though, what else do you need out of a TML than high damage? I wouldn't want to see a type of TML that is good for suppressing units (think large area, lowish damage)

How would an automatic TML work in SupCom?
It would just waste all its missiles on mobile units not hitting anything unless you had an AI telling it to only fire at stationary targets worth more than the missile itself.

A homing tactical missile would be cool though.

I would like to play Missile Annihilation some day.
Where the power of one use missiles have to be balanced with airunits and antimissile defences.

If they could home in, then even the limited AOE of tac missiles would be enough to replace tactical artillery.

No it wouldn't, it just as broken as auto-fire and such, just a different mechanic breaking the balance.

The point to making it manual fire/manual target is to give you this really powerful weapon(again anyone know off hand how much damage the missiles do? you might be surprised how much each missile does) but you need to not only give the order to launch, but also where, which isn't a big deal for structures sure, but what about mobile units or experimentals?

You take these aspects away and all you end up with is a slightly Arty turret.

Mike

Isn't it possible to use autoclickers to click faster, making them rapidfire for the "technologically savy" and giving them an edge over an "average joe" player?

I never seen it, but it sounds possible to me.

Anyway, I am sure, new game new balance. Build-a-Missile sounded cool, building a rocket and a warhead and making many combinations.

No, the weapon still had a limit on how fast they could fire overall.

Mike

Indeed, as with how quickly the silo could reload while also opening and closing.

However a greater number of warheads for tactical missiles might be interesting.

Such as AA and AO weapons for taking down extremely quick aircraft and enemy satellites.

A anti-sub missile might also be a good idea for static missile emplacements, allowing bases to defend from enemy subs without requiting torpedo launchers.

Artillery shells would be much harder to stop compared to missiles. Missile defences shouldn't work against artillery shells in my opinion.

6000-7000 damage in Supcom?
Auto-fire would still miss a moving experiemental so I don't see how autofire makes it easier to actually kill an experimental.
Anyway, remember Mercy?
The introduction of a homing missile definetly broke balance in SupCom.
You would actually have to balance the game differently if homing one-use missiles where in the game.

Hence it would be Missile Annihilation.

"Tactical missiles do so much damage! The only way to balance them out is by forcing the player to individually click on each missile silo and launch a tactical missile when it's cooldown is up!"

sounds a lot like:

"Psychic lightning does so much damage! The only way to balance it out is by forcing the player to individually click on each protoss wizard and cast magic lightning when it's cooldown is up!"

If the only way to balance out the awe inspiring damage of tactical missiles is by introducing micro management through repetitive clicking, then maybe we should implement tactical missiles differently.

I agree that TMLs should have their behaviour changed, but I don't think that line of logic should be applied to everything.

Otherwise, you have to apply it to nukes and asteroids.

I think it's a matter of how many of the item is going to be used. The less of them you are expected to have, the more sensible it becomes to have manually activated behaviours.

How about an approach like the T3 Tactical Submarines in SC/FA? They also had an (i think "weak") auto-TM and a manual build/launch nuclear-TM.

These are some nice ideas, however i´m not sure if this would make TMLs (Tactical Missile Launcher) an allrounder weapon with no weaknesses, since it can compete nearly all types of enemies, just by changing warheads.
Furthermore, if your opponent could not see what types of warheads your TMs have, it would be even harder to counter.

I actually think, this is a bad idea. Because launching ICBMs from TMLs makes it nearly impossible to detect and destroy the ICBM launching facilities, while SMLs (Strategic Missile Launcher) clearly identify this.

\Edit
Just recognzed that T3 Tactical Sub launches nuclear-SMs, not TMs. So better think of the nuclear-TM of the UEF commander upgrade, even if this is a rather special situation.

Don't they do both?

But I will say SupCom2 had auto Tac missiles, they were not as powerful as the originals but were also much easier to shoot down, even with units specifically to shoot at them.

I guess we could have 2 types, light and heavy Tac missiles. (Actually SupCom2 had these launched from silos and ships, they act like the originals but are still free, and auto fire.).