Missile role

[LienRag]

Since 0ad is a historically-themed (if not historically realist) game, the way missile work as of now (being the main weapon) is really bad and harming the gameplay a lot.

What are the solutions ?

What is the role that we want for missiles and how to do it right ?

[Outis]

1 hour ago, LienRag said:

What is the role that we want for missiles and how to do it right ?

The historical reason for missiles not dominating is friendly-fire. One should not be able or willing to fire missile in a melee due to fear of hitting own units. Missiles should be for skirmishing and harassing.

[real_tabasco_sauce]

Changing unit speeds and giving units more specialized roles. This is made quite difficult by citizen soldiers, and by unit availability by civ, but i believe it is possible. 

[LienRag]

2 hours ago, real_tabasco_sauce said:

Changing unit speeds and giving units more specialized roles. This is made quite difficult by citizen soldiers, and by unit availability by civ, but i believe it is possible. 

????

I don't understand what you mean ?

[LienRag]

2 hours ago, Outis said:

The historical reason for missiles not dominating is friendly-fire. One should not be able or willing to fire missile in a melee due to fear of hitting own units. Missiles should be for skirmishing and harassing.

I heartily agree with the last part, but note that using bows to shoot over one's own soldiers is AFAIK a historically attested practice.

So not something we should forbid.

And I mean, shooting over one's own melee soldiers was probably done to shoot on the soldiers engaging in melee with such melee soldiers...

[Outis]

3 hours ago, LienRag said:

shooting over one's own melee soldiers

I have no problem reg shooting over units. When i say melee, i dont mean in game jargon like any hand to hand combat. I mean when the hand to hand combat matures, there is no more clear battle lines, and units from the different sides are disorganized.

 

3 hours ago, LienRag said:

So not something we should forbid

We should definitely not forbid, but make it costly and a tactical decision: is it critical enough for me to destroy the target quickly so that i accept losses due to friendly fire.

Edited Wednesday at 20:51 by Outis

[Perzival12]

The best solution, in my opinion, is to enable friendly fire for ALL missiles, just like real life. Then, if you want to have a squad of archers, you actually have to think: Is it worth the risk of my soldiers getting hit by arrows? Is it better to put my archers to the side, and have them shoot at reinforcements? Or should I train a whole bunch of guys that are resistant to pierce, and have my archers fire into the melee? These would make the game much more exciting, and also more realistic.