P.S.: You actually read that?

What is the flight ceiling? I know I often can't lock on because DS are too high, that is 175 meters, if all the DS has to do is go 75-100 meters to outrange a swarm they are not going to be shot down.

I applaud your efforts, and I love your workings out especially considering the lack of definitive information about the subject.

Would it be possible to look at further narrowing the turn angle? My thinking is that dodging a Swarm volley needs to be reliable enough that it's a reasonable option for the pilot to choose, otherwise, as Alena said, the better option is always to retreat out of range of the lock-on and return again once fully repaired.

So, what would 40 d/s look like? What about a higher initial velocity too? From the SDE over at Stuff514 Swarms have a 5m/s initial velocity. A higher initial velocity might space the volleys out enough that a pilot has a greater time to react to follow up volleys, making evasion a more likely course of action.

Regardless, I always appreciate the time and effort you put in Stefan, so thank you for doing this :)

First of all, thanks for the kind words.

The lower the turn rate the better the chances for the DS. Qualitatively nothing changes, you just get more leeway as a pilot and the Swarmer ragequits faster. Personally, as a NDS pilot I'd love to also have the option to dodge, but I'm trying to be cautious here. I don't want a unreasonably large change to cause HAVs to become unhittable on uneven terrain or AB'd Pythons being able to dodge three consecutive volleys of missiles. My philosophy is taking many quick babysteps in the right direction rather than sweeping changes.
(Such as buffing armor hardeners by 60% while simultaneously nerfing shield hardeners. )

[Edit]
Here's the plot for 40 -¦/s.

[quote=Stefan Stahl]What about the initial velocity? How would a change to initial velocity affect lock/refire rate and reaction windows? My thought is that it would space them a little more, giving pilots a bigger reaction window between volleys.

Oh, and quick question: how easy is it for you to knock out different simulations? Do you just need to modify a few numbers and bam, or do you need to rebuild each one? If the former, great, easier; if not, then I won't pester you about doing more simulations

Thanks for actually taking the time to read.

I agree with your conclusion that evading missiles isn't something you can do all day. At best, after an impact, you can set yourself up to dodge the third volley, hopefully with a shield booster ready so you can then face the Swarmer at full health.

This limited usefulness is actually why I think it's a good idea. If the new standard way of dealing with SLs would be to dodge them continuously we'd have very unhappy SL users and a new FOTM. This seems like something very skillfull pilots could get an extra kick out. It also looks like something that will make SLs less thoughtless as you'll actually have to think about whether your missiles are going to make it to their target in this situation.

I am concerned that there could be 3 sets of swarms in the air before I know they're incoming, but if swarmers have to face the target when firing it could increase the time between the 1st and 2nd volleys.

Could you model 2 swarmers in the new versus current setup? I wouldn't want that ttk to increase

One thing that might be a problem is how swarms actually track their target.

Your models, I assume, show the swarms consistently tracking where the target is at the moment. However, and I'm not sure on the specifics, swarms seem to have a "tick" between changing directions. I've also heard it described that they will go to where ever your ship was and follow that path so long as they're able. (If someone else knows a bit more, I'd appreciate the additional input)

Again, I'm not sure exactly how missiles operate, but it might change how we approach this problem. Your ideas are really good, and I appreciate the effort. Hopefully we can find some balance.

Instead of shortening the range, alter the turn radius to 20 degrees per second, forcingwide-angle turns that arelikely to result with terrain collisions and running out of flight time before they can rebound, while still qualifying as a "guided" missile.

But here's the thing: If I try to dodge the volley, I have a decent chance at making it, but also a decent chance at getting hit. And even if I dodge the swarm, by the time I have stopped my momentum and repositioned, the swarmer has reloaded and the process begins again. Or I can simply fly out of range and be clear of the threat of the swarmer. Running is still by far the best option.

Honestly, the only way I see a way to handle swarms that doesn't involve running from them is to add countermeasures like flares or lock-on jammers. Other than that, running will always be a better option to preserve your dropship.

In my opinion, swarms versus ADS is not that imbalanced.

With a single Swarmer those suggested numbers shouldn't change anything about how much damage you have to tank if you decide to flee. Two swarmers (right next to each other) firing at a hovering DS would also behave the same under the new and current speed parameters. You will eat at least 4 volleys of Swarms if you AB away after the first impact. So no change there.

During one of the posted catmaDB dumps it was revealed that Swarm Launchers appear to have a parameter that dictates how far away you can look from a target after lock on before said lock is lost. It's currently at 90-¦. On top of that there was a parameter that appears to dictate how quickly the lock is lost after the first criteria is struck, which is at "1.0" if I remember correctly - I interpreted it as seconds when I read it. Fumbling with those parameters would surely help make SLs more logical to operate.
I'm sorry but I don't have a link to that source right now. Maybe somebody else knows what I'm referring to.

[...]
It'd be difficult to ask a DS pilot to maintain angular momentum towards SL launchers he doesn't even know exist yet, so this isn't something that's easy to implement. It'd be awesome in conjunction with directional launching though (*shameless plug*), as it'd make hitting near targets difficult and hitting far away targets comparatively easy - very good behavior for a Caldari AV weapon.

I'm also giving you 48 hours to necro your own thread / remake it or else I will do it for you, because that is the best swarm launcher operation model I've seen so far suggested. I missed it the first time around.

Thanks for the kind words. I don't think I'm going to revive it though. I came up with an idea. I detailed how it should work. I validated the effect. I published in in the right place. I'm sure the devs read it. Either they implement it or they don't. *shrugs*

The Swarmlauncher has been working like this ever since this game became public. Personally I assume it works this way because in the first implementation of Swarmlaunchers the constructor for swarm missiles was of the type
"SLMissile SLMissile(Vector3d StartPosition, Entity* PointerToTarget)"
instead of
"SLMissile SLMissile(Vector3d StartPosition, Vector3d Direction, Entity* PointerToTarget)"
(there's probably an overwrite where the PointerToTarget is a 3d vector that was originally used for dumb-fire mode).

There is a limited chance that it'd actually be a very complicated change, but I find it much more believable that it's about a day's work from checking out the sourcecode to checking it back in after debugging, but nobody's bothered to do it in the past 3 years.
(Yes, I have a slightly negative outlook - but in my defense I'm not being nonconstructive with my feedback, hence the above suggestion that only requires simple parameter changes.)

[Edit]
I will necro this thread after Fanfest though so Rattati may be able to take a look at it.