Missiles (Lightning) underpowered?

[Mánagarmr]

Am I the only one that feels this way? The AI had a blob of some 400 ships sitting on a wormhole, drooling at the prospect of owning me, when I sent a full cap  MK I lightning warheads (biggest range) through and blew them up in their faces.

Now, I remember from back in the days that a lightning missile essentially put a HOLE on that blob. Not so much this time, these four missiles took a part of the ships down to roughly 30% health. That's it. A full cap of missiles and it did...that.

Is that really the intention? It makes missiles look a bit weak, really.

[x4000]

Note that the old lightning warheads are the new mark III ones.  Hence the weaker stats on the mark I ones.  IIRC.

[Mánagarmr]

Ah, yeah well that would explain the damage loss, but the MK III also have an extremely short range in that they essentially can hit two-three ships at tops, so I'm kinda reluctant to use them :/. In fact, even the Mk I range is a bit short.

[Lancefighter]

mk2 are the old lightning turrets - 250k damage at 1k range

mk3 are more 'i really want to blow up that ship'.. less area effect.

What you really want are martyrs >.>

[x4000]

Ah, that's right -- thanks Lance.

[Mánagarmr]

Okay, so my understanding is that "this is intended, this is the way it's supposed to be and we have no intention of buffing them, because it's not needed". Am I right in assuming this?

Personally, I feel they are a bit on the weak side when even a full cap of warheads can't knock out a single ship :/

[zebramatt]

I'm inclined to agree.

Although I understand that they're not supposed to be an obvious choice for the player to use, at present the MkIs at least are a very obvious choice not to - they basically do nothing!

[Mánagarmr]

I'm glad someone agrees. I thought I was going completely nutty. I'm Mantising this, for better tracking and visibility.

[PineappleSam]

How do lightning missiles compare to Spire Martyrs damage wise?

[Mánagarmr]

Mantis link

[Suzera]

Permanent disadvantage, temporary gain (sometimes not even that).

[lanstro]

Mk IIIs aren't that great at killing a single high value target either - I remember one game several weeks back when we tried to use two of them to take down a clump of spire starships (we were fighting a starship commander) and they barely scratched them: the damage couldn't punch through the spires' armour