Interceptor missile balance...

[Jorgen_CAB]

I'm pretty sure this weapon have been overlooked in how it works. First of all the 360 degree firing of PD weapons have a much less of an impact as most slots you put PD weapons into usually have very good fields of fire. Obviously range is and should have some impact on this weapon.

But it seem to be in a very strange place... it has roughly 30-40% of the impact of other similar PD weapons. It also is strange that overall other missiles, especially the medium version have very good PD effect versus other similar weapons, then it is very strange the weapons that is specialized are so weak?!?

The Interceptor missile for example have roughly the same intercept strength as a medium Concussion Missile mount. When you compare other similar mounts for other weapons the difference usually are more a 1:10 (or worse) ratio of effectiveness.

In my opinion the range of the missiles and the 360 degree fire arc is not worth (even remotely) the very low efficiency of the missile PD tree.

In my game I basically halved the fire rate of all missile PD weapons and that seem to put them in a good place. When comparing to the Sentinel beam you now get the following which to me seem acceptable.

Sentinel Beam / Intercept Missile
Intercept Fighter: 18.00 per second / 15.60 per second
Intercept Seeker: 18.00 per second / 10.40 per second
Intercept Range: 950 / 1250

The missile also have a slight targeting advantage and less damage reduction for range.

It was only worse when you compared for example the Hive missile and the AEGIS missile system. He medium Hive missile mount actually was better at intercepting than the AEGIS system, that is more than twice only taking up twice the size?!?

[Nightskies]

Worse, it likes to target ships, so their improved range makes them do their job less.

[Jorgen_CAB]

Worse, it likes to target ships, so their improved range makes them do their job less.

Are you sure... they only seem to do that if there is no fighters or seekers in range... but I can be wrong though.

[Nightskies]

Verified to be a mostly erroneous statement. As you said, they'll target ships in lieu of fighters and seeking in immediate range, but when such weapons are employed, this is rarely possible. Tested on bastions and small fleets armed with Hive missiles and few fighters. It appears that they highly prioritize fighters.

[Jorgen_CAB]

Verified to be a mostly erroneous statement. As you said, they'll target ships in lieu of fighters and seeking in immediate range, but when such weapons are employed, this is rarely possible. Tested on bastions and small fleets armed with Hive missiles and few fighters. It appears that they highly prioritize fighters.

I think they should prioritise fighters since they are better at engaging fighters than seekers. But I get the impression all PD prioritise fighters in general, not sure yet... need to collect more data on that first.