Aircraft loadouts

[Gazz]

Been musing about the miniaturisation thing.

Miniaturisation research would allow you to produce the Nano Toolkit item. You produce that item and that's where a one-time cost of Alienblah or other resources comes in.

The possession of that item allows you to research smaller (higher ammo count, possibly weaker) variants of specific missiles.

In the case of "free" missiles like the Sidewinder, they could replace the standard version. For improved ones you may want a choice to produce either.

[xilacnog]

Those are all good ideas, however after doing a test run to get 3x ammo Sidewinders I've lost 10 F-17 to 12 enemy fighters, every once in a while when I launched 3 F-17s against 3 UFO Fighters, this 1st wave is easily destroyed, but if another 3 UFO Fighters are near, they go after my F-17s that no longer have missiles and so I lose at least 2 while taking them down with the AC. In the first game I played I lost all 3 F-17s while trying to cover a dropship after, needless to say I've also lost the dropship.

If the purpose is to save Earth, then I suggest that we start with at least 2x ammo Sidewinder (light) and 4x or 8x (overkill?) ammo Sidewinder (heavy) and do the same for every other missile.

As for the torpedoes, they should always have 3x or 4x ammo, I also think that any aircraft that has heavy slots should only have on heavy slot in the underbelly, 2 lights on the wings, a cannon and should evade, after all, any aircraft can do a barrel roll, right?

[Tam Elbrun]

Multiple missiles are treated as a single missile with reloads basically.

A 2x sidewinder mount wouldn't fire two missiles at the same time, it would just allow you to fire a second one when the cooldown/lock on timer expires.

Ooh! that gives me an idea. New missile type with it's own firing mechanic that DOES spawn multiple projectiles from one launch. CLUSTER MISSILES! Useless against small targets as the warheads spread too much and the main warhead is weaker than normal to make room for the cluster launch mechanism, but against big targets, LOTS of secondary damage from the spread.

think the game engine would be able to handle those?

[Tam Elbrun]

Well Tam, if you have enough alien materials and your scientists can efficiently develop techniques to shape them. Then there is no point in upgrating your old fighters, which were designed around different material physical limitations, and just develop an alien tech based interceptor.

except that refitting an existing machine that's still in working condition is faster and cheaper than building a completely new one from scratch in a lot of cases. what if the player doesn't have the funds/extra hangars/down time, to build all new craft? This gives them an alternative.

[Max_Caine]

Tam Elbrum, regarding cluster missiles? Having played around with the xml files, the current answer is no. You can set up a missile slot to fire a stream of missiles, but it will fire them one at a time.