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[Sheb]

Yeah, the general idea is that missiles outclass everything (their range is typically a couple of orders of magnitude above beam weapons), but their logistics can be a nightmare. If you spend all your ordinance in an engagement, it might take a few years before you're ready to venture out of your system again.

[Raddish]

I have the default extra stuff and ran into 2 NPRs next to Sol which led to some conflict a few years in but has been safe for a while now.  It might be time for me to start another game with the new thigns I have learnt from this one anyway.

[Flying Dice]

I keep having my game only do 2 or 4 hour turns and very rarely getting past an entire day.  Not slow just annoying...

Which specials are running in your game.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Swarm and Invaders tends to lag the game enormously, for example

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Invaders specifically, IIRC they don't actually fight Precursors or Swarm, but they still run intercept checks on each other. Also they're bloody everywhere detecting everything, even after you turn them off.

Honestly I am starting to wonder if missles are overpowered.

Atleast in the sense that they outclass everything in everyway except ammo amount (but that is only because Aurora doesn't take into account how much energy something like a Particle projection cannon would take).

There's no real wondering for me, they are. The only reason to use E/KW as your primary offensive armament is for RP purposes. Give me TL6 stuff and I can build ships capable of reaching out and touching an alien from >1b km away. The engine changes just made it worse, especially at lower TLs, as E/KW armament has always been about closing the distance without dying to missiles, and lower average velocity doesn't exactly help that. 

That said, if you manage to get E/KW ships into their range of engagement, they're deadly. But the problem, as the Spartans suggested, is with the "if".

[Metalax]

It could also be precursor minefields causing the slowdowns. They are being removed in 6.3.

For the missile/beam weapon comparison it essentially boils down to; can the beam ships mount sufficient PD to prevent themselves from taking effective damage(damage to shields that is regenerated before the next impact is not effective) long enough to close to engagement range with the missile ships. If yes then they can simply drain the missile ships stockpile of missiles leaving them defenceless. If not then it comes down to if the beam ships can be produced faster or cheaper than replacing all the missiles it takes to destroy them.

NPR's are really poor at exploiting the limitations inherent in using only missiles, conflict between two player controlled races with one using beams and the other missiles is much more even.

[Karlito]

can the beam ships mount sufficient PD to prevent themselves from taking effective damage(damage to shields that is regenerated before the next impact is not effective) long enough to close to engagement range with the missile ships.

To achieve this you either need an advantage in tech or fleet mass (probably tech if you have to be fast enough to catch them), so you'd probably have the same results just building missile ships.

[Neonivek]

There's no real wondering for me, they are

I only wonder because I know they are the outright best but that doesn't always make something "overpowered". Though if it quite essentially eliminates all other weaponry I guess it is.

[Iosyn]

yeah, I'm kinda sad about the energy/kinetic weapons being so damn inferior to missiles. then again, my first kill was made with beam weapons. They really do wreck havoc when they get into close range. I'm planning on some Microwave FACs for specifically targetting anything with sensors, but dear lord trying to fit a beam weapon into a fighter is lolsome. I mean a railgun takes up like what, 60% of the fighter total tonnage? :|

Whereas my current fighter-bomber has 5 size 3 box launchers and with my missile tech I can jam all of those with a size 4 WH.
Also I managed to specialize my fighter missile design a tad-- my standard missiles were pretty damn slow (16000km/s) and the new ones are up to about 24,000km/s. It's only got about 35mkm range, but it's good enough.

[Flying Dice]

There's no real wondering for me, they are

I only wonder because I know they are the outright best but that doesn't always make something "overpowered". Though if it quite essentially eliminates all other weaponry I guess it is.

It's less that they render E/KW useless and more that if you want to fight pure missile vessels with pure E/KW ones, you have to use a very specific build type, which isn't really possible in lower TLs, and which rarely if ever is used by NPRs. It's possible to effectively do so, but it's extremely difficult at ~<TL5-6 or if the missile-using faction has equal or better tech. All a missile ship has to do to render an E/KW one useless is be able to outrun it or kill it before it can close the range. E/KW ships can generally do either speed or toughness, and this is even more pronounced with the current engine model.

Missiles in Aurora are sort of like Oddjob in Goldeneye multiplayer. Everyone can use them, and it's possible to win without using them, but it's a pain to do so.

[Neonivek]

Actually I find Oddjob to be a liability with good players because of how the autoaiming system works... but that is off topic.

Missiles also seem to be the only weapon that can actually take on FAR supperior opponents.

[Flying Dice]

Well, with two major exceptions.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Hive Queens and Invaders are both far more easily handled with E/KW, the former by standing off at your ideal laser/mass driver range, and the latter with meson cannons. It takes obscene numbers of missiles to break either, especially at lower tech. I ran a test game once, taking on Invader cruiser-type ships with TL4 missile ships. It took something like 2,000 WH-4 missiles to give a decent assurance of a first-strike kill.

[PTTG??]

What's really fun are 299,000,000 km/s missiles with photon drives. Really, those things shouldn't need warheads...

[Flying Dice]

By the time you're at that TL, your warheads are the size of the head of a pin and powerful enough to immolate a small planet, so it's something of a moot point. 

[Another]

Fighters are also not without problems similar to missiles. Even beam opponents outrange them and can usually down a fighter every 5-10 seconds. To be maximally effective you have to assemble enough fighters to kill all enemy ships in a single point-blank volley. I suspect it would mean that total fighter tonnage would have to be much bigger than the enemy’s.

Spoiler: on invaders (click to show/hide)

How does cost of 2000 missiles compare to the cost of all the meson fighters you will lose approaching a medium-sized group of Invaders? (AFAIK they try to keep the distance about 1600 000 km if they can and are not slow.) Long range platforms that only fire once every 180 seconds or so are not a problem, but what about their escorts with lots of small rapid fire torps?

Spoiler: slightly spoilery question (click to show/hide)

What is the minimum tonnage of a TL5 missile ship (at least 1 year deployment time and at least 1000 km/s) that is required to kill a group of 120 TL5 gunships (800 tonnes each, meson cannon, armor 5, I don't know their precise speed in the recent version)?

[foarl]

Here's what I don't get. Why would you bother making a FAC meson ship when you can easily make a decent Meson Fighter? Sure you lose range, but they require less research down the meson tech tree, and you can field them at 400t within 25 years of start (this is actually my current military build for shiggles). Since the damage never scales it just makes more sense to me to double your guns and hope to lose less than 50% of your fleet before you enter range.

Edit: I'd say end game lasers and point defense systems at least close the gap with missile fleets. You need to spend a lot of minerals per engagement and advanced missile tech scales the cost with the damage/power output. And shield tech can help you handle the kiting phase when approaching a missile fleet.

But mid game there's no doubt missile based systems are superior.

[Flying Dice]

Fighters are also not without problems similar to missiles. Even beam opponents outrange them and can usually down a fighter every 5-10 seconds. To be maximally effective you have to assemble enough fighters to kill all enemy ships in a single point-blank volley. I suspect it would mean that total fighter tonnage would have to be much bigger than the enemy’s.

Spoiler: on invaders (click to show/hide)

How does cost of 2000 missiles compare to the cost of all the meson fighters you will lose approaching a medium-sized group of Invaders? (AFAIK they try to keep the distance about 1600 000 km if they can and are not slow.) Long range platforms that only fire once every 180 seconds or so are not a problem, but what about their escorts with lots of small rapid fire torps?

Spoiler: slightly spoilery question (click to show/hide)

What is the minimum tonnage of a TL5 missile ship (at least 1 year deployment time and at least 1000 km/s) that is required to kill a group of 120 TL5 gunships (800 tonnes each, meson cannon, armor 5, I don't know their precise speed in the recent version)?

Or you use missile fighters. Even with ~25m km SRMs, your fighters will usually strike without ever being detected. I rarely/never use E/KW fighters, and then only as a cleanup crew or similar role.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

As above, I don't really use E/KW fighters. My normal approach to Invaders was to, if I wasn't high tech enough to missile them to death efficiently, build ships that were essentially a big blob of armor with an engine on one end, shield generators in the middle, and a cluster of spinal mount 10cm meson cannons on the front. Track the Invaders with a dedicated sensor ship and send the meson ships in. Though frankly fighters are also a good way to deliver meson goodness to Invaders, as their small size means they won't be detected until they're practically at point blank range, unless their target has an anti-missile AS.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

That's a bad idea in general. What you want is a laser-armed ship that's fast enough to outrun the Soldiers. More generally, you don't want to use normal ships against them if you can avoid it, as armor and shields are irrelevant. All you need is something which can keep them in a zone of fire where you can hurt them but they don't have the range to hit back. All that aside, without precise information on all your relevant technologies I couldn't begin to tell you, and if I wanted to exacerbate my headache I've got plenty of easier ways to do it. I will tell you that you won't be doing it with a single missile ship.