Fix Missile Shield Module

For anyone who has played a Guard class frigate, you’re well aware of the missile shield module, essentially it an active ‘aura’ around you that will disable any missile or guided torpedo that comes in range. it has a 16 second cooldown so if you get spammed missiles, it won’t stop them all.  It uses a ‘auto aim’ system so it never misses in a 2500 meter range.

 

Let me be blunt, I don’t like this module, I think flares are more than enough; I can understand the value though because it protects anyone near you from missiles. What I REALLY don’t like about it is it can shoot down guided torpedos. what are guided torpedo’s? They are a special module, not a normal module that Jericho Frigates unlock at T3, essentially the player fires a torpedo that they manually aim by steering in a 10000 meter range. Its easy to turn at first but it picks up speed and also it hits everyone including your teammates for about 5000 thermal damage at the lowest level; its essentially that missile lock that doesn’t break even if you use flares. The user of the guided torpedo cannot move their ship while it is in flight however they can still operate their modules and detonate their torpedo early by repressing the special module key.

 

 

Ok, the missile shield has a faster cooldown than the guided torpedo, and if you have someone sitting on a beacon with the missile shield, its impossible for a Long range Jericho frigate to do its job which is to deny beacons and take out drones. a special module is completely countered by a normal module that any guard class can use; also this module requires almost no micro management because it ‘auto aims’ so people will just put it on and ignore it. Does that sound fair? 

 

I think the Missile shield module needs to be nerfed in regards to the guided torpedo, maybe not make it  so it doesn’t work on GTs. I’m thinking maybe a missile shield doesn’t destroy GTs, instead it maybe cuts its damage in half so instead of dealing 5000 thermal damage, it would deal 2500 thermal damage. Another idea would be to make it so when a missile shield destroys a GT, its drains like 800 energy from the player with the missile shield; its like it blocked big one not just another missile. Furthermore, the missile shield should drain an extra bit of energy for each missile it stops, say 100 per missile. What this will do is, the module will not be an ‘always on’ module but to be used in key moments where defense is more important than mobility. They’re Guard ships after all, they don’t move much anyway.

 

tl;dr

 

Ok, what I’ve spoken about here is the idea that the Missile Shield module is unfairly powerful when dealing with guided torpedos  I’ve offered fixes that could take place to balance the module so it doesn’t completely counter Guided Torpedos (GTs). I’ve spoken how this module should be about sacrificing mobility for defense. If you have an opinion, please share but try to speak in a civil manner. Thank you all for your time.

 

 

I’m guessing you’re a new entrant to T3? Yours is a fairly common complaint from people who exclusively played jericho frigates pre 0.8.x/sniper jericho frigates post 0.8.x.

 

AMS is very much balanced. The current iteration of the guided torpedo module is designed for very specific roles (undefended beacon drone cleanup, AoE suppression of incoming light ships prevention of beacon capture by fast enemy ships, etc). It’s not designed to be non-stop spammed at enemy force concentrations, and before the current “lol nuke” gameplay that was reinforced by the fact that torpedo did friendly fire damage. You are supposed be place your torpedoes very carefully, not use them as your main weapon. However this doesn’t work at T1 and T2 because AMS is not in game at those tiers yet, and that is one of the reasons why T2 is generally a very different beast from T3 and up.

And btw mk3 AMS have 10 sec cooldown, and experimental have 8.5. 

FYI AMS is T2 these days.

 

IMO this is more of a problem with the Jericho torpedo than the AMS. AMS is pretty balanced against normal missile use, it’s just a bit cheesy that it’s a 100% blocker against the Jericho LRF’s main trick, and since the role rebalance LRFs don’t really have much going for them except their special.

I think that the AMS should interfere with the guided torpedo’s visuals (like flares) and auto-detonate feature, perhaps slightly change it’s trajectory, too. 

This way the torpedo is diverted and travelling in a straight line for a few seconds, like stasis gen on a moving fighter, enabling you to deflect them away from beacons (unless you’re unlucky). It also gives the Jericho frig a chance to regain control.

I think this could work, because I stasis gen inty’s away from beacons on detonation with this method and it works.

Again, the torpedoes are not meant to be your main weapons. Shooting torpedoes into big concentrations of ships should not be feasible. Else you’ll get the old pre torpedo nerf T2 where half of the team was on jericho frigates and the main skill was for others was guessing which way the torpedo flying at you will go.