Black Widow Shot Speed

[chemical_art]

Another night, another few questions:

Black Widows sound like awesome fleet stoppers. While frail, their abilities are relatively long range and meant to stop enemies before they come into range. However, the speed of their projectiles is "shell" and very slow. This slow speed also makes the 50x shots hurt less as sometimes a few are wasted before the shot hits their targets while other ships pummel each other. Is this slow projectile speed a balance tweak?

I understand some long range units have slow projectiles, but these units engage only a few units over a long period of time. The black widow is meant to engage many, and this lag hinders it.

Also, is it possible to make engine destroying units (spider snipers, black widows, etc.) prioritize engaging units with any engine damage over those who are shot out? I know it sounds CPU intensive, but is it too much?

[keith.lamothe]

Black Widow shots seem slow because their targets are generally immobile.  Base shot speed is pretty low, and is increased with the speed of the target (if it's being "towed" that still counts as zero).

Also, is it possible to make engine destroying units (spider snipers, black widows, etc.) prioritize engaging units with any engine damage over those who are shot out? I know it sounds CPU intensive, but is it too much?

Spiders, Spider Turrets, and Riot Control Starships (and their modules) already have a very sophisticated alternate target sorting algorithm to prioritize engine damage.  I don't think the Black Widow is doing this, though I'm not entirely sure it should since it does a fair bit of normal damage too.

[Kjara]

I've also complained about this, mainly because although these targets are tractored, they could be moving at the speed of the black window away from the black widow (or more accurately, away from the position the black widow was in when it fired).  I suggest treating these units as if they have the speed of the unit they are tractored to for shot calculation purposes (which would be 0 with turrets, but higher with the various mobile tractors).  If not you get the situation where the optimal way to use the black window is to have it zigzag back and forth to make each round of bullets actually hit the targets infront of you which ends up being rather micro intensive.

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