May I have some decent missiles please

[CMS1302]

Seeking missiles! The very first weapon I could mount on my ships were seeking missiles. Back then, my human empire consisted of my home system only. I had no hyperdrives, no shields and pirate escorts used to be undefeatable opponents I'd never have dared to attack.

And now, hundreds of years later, My empire is the strongest in the galaxy. My fleet defeated the Shakturi (piece of cake) and my scientists have almost completed all the tech-trees available to my spieces. ..and the most advanced missiles I can use are still the very same old seeking missiles, without any improvement whatsoever! This is a joke, right? Or please tell me, Universe uses a random engine for techtrees and in my next game I'm able to use torpedos again or at least the good old Concussions or Assaults (The second appears in my techtree, but it is the last thing I can research and definitely too late in the game) .

I really like the idea of each species using individual weapon systems, but nevertheless I want some missiles worth being mounted on my ships and bases as these Seekings are anything but popcorn kernnels as soon as you got the first phasers.

[Retreat1970]

Don't feel bad, I'd like a good rail gun too. Funny thing is, I still use them depending upon what race I am (I like to role play). Rail guns can be quite nasty too as long as you can get close enough. I've found missiles work 10x better with upgraded targeting (at least 20%), but then again I guess everything would lol.

[Aeson]

Or please tell me, Universe uses a random engine for techtrees and in my next game I'm able to use torpedos again or at least the good old Concussions or Assaults (The second appears in my techtree, but it is the last thing I can research and definitely too late in the game) .

Universe does not use a randomized tech tree. The tech tree is the same in every game for every faction, outside of a handful of species-specific technologies (PulseWave Cannons, Shakturn FireStorms, Megadensity Fuel Cells, ShadowGhost ECM, Raptor Targeting, Velocity Drives, SwiftVectors, TurboThrusters, Starburners, NovaCore Reactors, and Megatron Z4s; the three superweapons do not appear in the standard tech tree and normally cannot be researched or obtained). Unless you have not bothered researching anything out of the missiles or torpedoes trees, there is no reason why you should not have access to any long range weapons better than Seeker Missiles. The Torpedo branch should be just above the Fighter branch and research in it is required for the Advanced Fighter Bay, while the Missile branch is located just below the Boarding Pod branch (which itself is just below the Fighter branch) and research in it is required for improvements to boarding pods and missile bombers.

Also, if you have ignored those branches of the tech tree, you cannot possibly have researched 'almost the entire tech tree,' as those two branches contain or are required for something like 30% of the techs in the Weapons tree.

If you're using a mod, then the above might not be entirely valid.

[CMS1302]

Well, Aeson, in all the previous versions of DS it was like you said. But in Universe all other missiles/ torpedos have a note on them saying they are jaust for some races available. Well at least I haven't found any others but the late Assults. But I'll check again tomorrow and let you know.

[Osito]

ORIGINAL: CMS1302

Well, Aeson, in all the previous versions of DS it was like you said. But in Universe all other missiles/ torpedos have a note on them saying they are jaust for some races available. Well at least I haven't found any others but the late Assults. But I'll check again tomorrow and let you know.

That's certainly not the case with the default theme, which also features concussion missiles and assault missiles (and also a load of torpedo types), as well as some improvements to them. I suspect you have a mod running, or something.

Osito

[CMS1302]

Guys, Problem solved! I was just about posting screenshots of my techtree when Osito's mod-idea started spawning in my mind:
in fact I don't play a mod, but I customized Universe with some new races and imagies. So I checked the races files and research.txt with no result and installed Universe anew on a second harddrive.

This Universe worked pretty fine (=techtree as it should be) even after I added the same new races and imagies as in the old version.

But when I load my saved games, the techtree is limited again, so I think it is either a problem with the old version (maybe I installed too many different types of DW in the same Folder, overriding the exsiting DWs to often), or it is just a problem with the saved game (tried to find an option during the "creating your own empire" starting routine to explain my Problem with no result).
Either, the next game I start will be with a working techtree, thus I don't really care what went wrong.

Thanx to all, without you I'd still be without decent missiles/torpedos.


Ingo

[CyclopsSlayer]

My problem from a silly out of game view point is that Missiles and Railguns suffer from a common ill. Ammunition.

In a system where the rounds would need to be bought you are effectively killing your targets by throwing money at them.

The Evil Overlord says - Bwahaha we fired a wave of 100 missiles at them, see if they survive that.
The Overlords Accountant says - That was 5.2 Billion credits for that wave. And you were wondering why we taxed the peasants so hard...

[Aeson]

My problem from a silly out of game view point is that Missiles and Railguns suffer from a common ill. Ammunition.

In a system where the rounds would need to be bought you are effectively killing your targets by throwing money at them.

The same argument can be made for every type of weapon in the game. Where does the power for your lasers come from? The fuel you burned in the reactor, which you purchased and shipped out to your warships, and which you presumably had to burn at a higher-than-normal rate in order to power the weapons in combat. Where does the plasma for the torpedoes (and possibly the blasters) come from? I don't know, but it might be something to do with the fuel which you purchased and shipped out to your warships, or it's another ammunition-like thing.

At some point, it's all just a question of what is appropriate for the mission and has a justifiable cost. If my railguns and my lasers are equally suitable for the mission, and the extra fuel and reactors I need to power the lasers will cost me about as much as the ammunition for the guns, are the lasers better? They might simplify logistics, depending on what maintenance on the reactors, lasers, and guns looks like, and assuming that my lasers don't need some other special fuel or something, but then again they might not. Or it could be that the savings in logistics are balanced out by the increased operating costs or the higher level of infrastructure needed at the fleet bases. Or they might provide some advantage over what the lasers have to offer, such as the ability of the railguns to bypass shields. Clearly in Distant Worlds, the answers to these questions come down on the side of making missiles and railguns viable enough to show up in the tech tree, even if they are not necessarily optimal.

[CyclopsSlayer]

True, that every weapon requires some form or value of fuel. It is just a matter of portability and energy density.

Take a modern naval nuclear carrier for example. It can stream along for years on its pair of Reactors. Adding a purely electrical/optical pumped Laser system would in theory allow continuous damage output with minimal or no resource costs. Mostly just coolants.
However, make that Laser a Dynamically or Chemically pumped one and the tanks of difficult to store reactants, or large volume requirements would make them as expensive per shot as any Ship-to-Ship missile ever was, if not more so. (personally I dread the thought of something like 100 liters of liquid Hydrogen/Deuterium Fluoride for every single shot... /shudder )

nb: the below are what I remember off the top of my head. Take with a grain or two of salt

Theoretical energy density.
Helium 3 Fusion - 120,000,000 MegaJoules per Kilogram
Uranium - 80,000,000 MJ/Kg
Deuterium+Deuterium Fusion - 60,000,000 MJ/Kg
Gasoline - 44 MJ/Kg
TNT - 5 MJ/Kg

EDIT: Sorry was interrupted mid post.

The point about Energy Density was this, assuming a perfect transmission a Laser could Send out ~80M MJ,
A single Missile like a modern Harpoon. Masses ~700Kg and can in theory carry a 1 KT Tactical warhead for roughly 50M MJ, or some 70K MJ per Kg.

I would assume similar scale of efficiency in future techs.

[NephilimNexus]

Actually... energy collectors work so long as you're not moving, and orbiting a planet is considered to be "not moving." This is why my bombers carry generous arrays of energy collectors, because that lets them bomb planets without using any fuel.

(Also why it's a good idea to put energy collectors on everything, because many ships - especially AI controlled ships - spend a lot of time just sitting around & doing nothing. Construction ships are the best example, and not running your gas supply down while doing a long construction job is a good thing.)