How about guided “bullets” instead of guided missiles? Essentially something similar to a flak cannon, an AOE bullet that doesn’t need to hit spot-on to cause (at least some) damage.
Or some sort of semi-guided bullet that can make small course corrections, something like a fat or expanding bullet.
That could be useful in solving the ranged fighting problem, because otherwise pilots need to zoom and make incredibly minor adjustments and incredibly lucky predictions. That way, someone can still dodge, but someone moving at a distance doesn’t become impossible to hit and jousting becomes a slightly less profitable tactic.
Plus, it reduces the niche beam/hitscan weapons fill, allowing someone who likes space-sniping to simply replace their ammo type instead of their weapon hardpoint, perhaps with a damage reduction for balance reasons.
In science fiction, the goal is to make everything consistent and entertaining. I see no problem with dogfights developing if the movement system possesses the right traits. The warp prototype allowed for dogfights at ludicrous absolute speeds because it ensured that the relative speeds were always kept low. That’s one way to tackle one of the bigger problems of space dogfights.
The reason for staying away from guided anything is that such systems reduce the skill demands of the shooter. I don’t want all players being interchangeable because they’re all using low-skill systems.
Solve the ranged fighting problem by closing with your target. Shooting something you can’t even see is terrible entertainment in my book. As for sniping, I’d never design a system that supported it in any way in a multiplayer game.
Poorly implemented guided missiles can be very dull. However, dismissing them completely is missing an opportunity. Guided missiles are best balanced to be a tool to force the movement of enemy ships into avoidence patterns, which are a bit more predictable and therefore easier to hit with your main guns. Additionally if they dont dodge, they take a lot of damage, which motivates the avoidance to begin with. Guided missiles are also good for special effect type tools, things like EMP’s, physical disruption(rotational force imparted to ship to disorient). Then you have slow, guided torpedo type things which can be fun in games as anti capital weapons that can be intercepted by fighters
Couldn’t we tweak missiles to such an extend that they would behave more like a “smart cannon” gameplay wise.
That video gave me that idea. Tweak missiles to be short range, high speed, low accuracy. low tracking and high fire rate and you got yourself all the gratuitousness while having it still balanced.
*Also, I’d go with an explosive charge on the side of a conventional shell on-top of a short-duration rocket rather than missiles.
Explosive would fire just before reaching the target to make any ‘fine adjustment’ required and ensure the shell hits its mark. Spinning of the shell would mean the charge could be fired in the direction it needs to be in order to adjust its course. Could be set up for shells to burst into shrapnel when used against smaller/softer targets.
