Hi folks,
It's me again, harping on about ADSs and small missile turrets. This time I have good reason though:


So, I have created the following spreadsheet:
Small Missiles and ADS Skills v1

Here's a TL; DR for the spreadsheet:
- Current turret has a blend of anti-vehicle and anti-infantry power but is slow, more about endurance than fast application of damage.
- Rapid Fragmented turret which excels at anti-infantry application, but has low endurance, making it about very fast actions. Multiple weaker missiles per second, requiring many repeated hits to destroy infantry targets, but a higher ROF to enable such.
- Rapid Shaped turret which excels at anti-vehicle application, with high direct damage but low endurance, meaning it must destroy its target quickly. Multiple weaker missiles per second, lower ROF than the Fragmented, much higher direct damage, compensated by a vastly reduced splash effectiveness.
- Both rapid turrets have low ammo reserves making supply depot trips common and limiting the engagement times.
- Long reloads on the rapid turrets make them very 'burst'-y type weapons: they do damage above the current turret in their niche during the firing time their clip entails, but the long reload makes hovering over a target less useful as much time will be spent reloading.
- The rapid fire rates make strafing runs much more feasible but the balance between ROF and damage is such that the DPS is relatively restrained and an 'extended run' is more what is use: essentially the ADS would drop in, hose an area for a few seconds then fly away to reload.
- Higher fitting costs than the current turret make it less appealing to fit on a higher endurance vehicle such as a normal dropship or HAV, but still possible without entirely destroying the fit.
- Change to the racial ADS skills giving a turret fitting bonus instead of the reserve ammo bonus to promote multiple turrets on an ADS/making it less penalising to fit multiple turrets.

The basic premise is that there will be three variants of the small missile turret (possibly two, if the current turret is removed) that operate with different designs: the current turret is a good blend of anti-infantry power and reasonable AV efficacy but with slow application, making it an endurance weapon; a rapid fire anti-infantry turret capable of saturating an area quickly but suffering when exposed to long engagements; and a rapid fire anti-vehicle turret capable of applying a lot of direct damage but suffering from vastly reduced efficacy against targets that can evade direct impacts.

There are a couple of additional changes that I am suggesting that go hand in hand with my proposed turrets:
- Altering the racial ADS skill, such that one of the downsides of the new turrets is maintained (low reserve ammunition, making endurance an issue) and to promote the use of the new turrets on the Python (since it is a missile platform.)
- The changes to missiles are predicated on the small blaster turret being optimised/balanced such that the Incubus is capable of running an anti-infantry weapon, otherwise the balance between the two remains improper. That is the ideal that the missile suggestion is based upon, though the implementation of the new missile types would also somewhat balance the Python's ability to engage multiple targets

I am open to feedback and welcome comments and criticisms. I've tried to make the spreadsheet as accessible as possible and have added notes to some of the cells to explain what certain stats are and what they represent. If anyone has a wish to collaborate on the creation, please send me an in game mail to 'Halla Murr' (which is my main character) with your email, and I can add you with editing rights.

Possible counterbalance changes that may be necessary to implement:
- Reduce the base HP of ADSs (possibly just the Python, as the primary recipient of the turrets) since time in a danger zone would be reduced.
- Agility/top speed reduction, such that setting up a run effectively is more important, since the ability to alter path once committed would be reduced.
- Reduction to either and/or both the direct/splash damage of the current missile turret such that it is less powerful, promoting the use of the rapid turrets while maintaining its middle ground (albeit without as much effectiveness.)
- Other that I can't think of right now.