So, for whatever reason, I never have made a new style balance sheet for torpedoes. Their stats are all pretty random at the moment, just whatever numbers people happened to type in over the years. Especially since they are so pretty in SS2, I want to start thinking about how torpedoes can be more useful.

The thorax-type ones are probably decently balanced, but weapons like Torpedo and Torpedo II are currently worse DPS and worse DPE than all their contemporary weapons, plus they have the down side of the torpedo getting deactivated if someone runs over it in the arming stage.

While I could just up the stats on these across the board to make them more viable, I think something more interesting would be a lot better. So, throw out your ideas -- what could be the defining characteristic of non-thorax type torpedo weapons?

Why not make all torpedos like the tech 20 ones? IE, roughly 2.5x the DPS of most weapons, but they're hard to aim and have bad DPE?

That's whats great about the t20 ones, they fill a niche that nothing else does.

Light Torpedo - 1.75x more damage than normal weapons, somewhat hard to aim, good DPE, but requires some heavy tracking to be of use*

Heavy Torpedo - ~2.5x more damage than normal weapons, harder to aim than LT, medium DPE, kinda large, many have splash effect or other debuffs.

Do it that way. It allows SD's to use small torpedoes(like the few SD locked ones) better if they have some augs dedicated(like an alby) to tracking.

But it would also allow Gunners to be the "Mobile-Artillery" class you spoke of.

Might be complicated (or impossible) to code. But something where torpedos damage increases the closer the target is when hit. I.e. something like looses 20dp every 50pix. But have as massive damage to start, and huge range. This becomes a double edged sword. For the attack to do much dps they have to get close enough to their target. But it also works the other way in that if your trying to 'fly over' the torpedo to deactive it, but aren't fast enough, you've got major damage for the attempt.

Except...missiles=/=Torpedos.

Torps are a sniper type weapon, sometimes SD, but almost certainly not gunner.

The whole point of this post was to get new ideas for torpedos, that's one idea. Personally I think we need a whole new type of wep designed around gunners, but lets not get off topic

What about remote aiming for a torpedo. You need to keep the target illuminated in order for it to stay guided to target. If you switch targets the torpedo switches targets.

Who says they can't? Zerks use things like KMW's and Dark Fists(that last one works pretty well), which were the realm of FC and Sniper, previously.

Ahh, the thread I have been waiting for at last. You are quite right that torpedos currently have worse DPE than comparable weapons, and often don't even have the DPS to justify it. There are a few exceptions to this rule:

1. (Primal) Lion Quick Snap has DPE 1 which makes it useful for Speed Demon.
2. (Primal) Zebra Hooves Torpedoe has enormous DPS which makes up for its poor DPE.

All other torpedos I know of are worse than thoraxes in every respect except for range and arming time. Dark Fist is a perfect example: with 500 DPS, 400 range, and 0.44 DPE, it's practically never used over Mad Thorax (625 DPS, 200 range, 1.33 DPE) since the difference in range is either irrelevant (on Sniper) or can be overcome by tractoring the target properly. This doesn't even touch on the fact that torpedos are typically huge compared to thoraxes.

If you want to rebalance a torpedo to make it useful, either boost its DPS and keep the DPE around 0.4, or boost its DPE to close to 1 while keeping the DPS above any comparable mag-type weapon and keeping range above, say, 350. FInally, you can try reducing the arming time judiciously, especially if it's intended to be used on a mobile platform such as Speed Demon. I personally feel that thorax/torpedo play on Speed Demon is a highly underrated art, but it would surely be a lot more fun if we had more viable weapons to play around with.

Stuff I'd like to see rebalanced:
1. Dark Fist: boost the DPS to 750 and keep the DPE near 0.4. It still won't be used over Mad Thorax without an Engineer present, but it will at least be comparable to Zebra Hooves Torpedoe for Sniper (don't forget the physical damage class bonus).

2. Brutal Thorax: it's useless as a SD-locked Dark Fist. Either make similar changes to (1) or - my preference - boost the DPE to 0.7 while keeping the DPS around 350. It's important to note that a lot of this weapon's range goes to waste when you are on SD, since torpedoes stop tracking halfway through their flight and tend to miss when fired from a mobile platform. Reducing the arming time would help solve this problem.

Let's not get carried away and insist that Torpedos are meant for one class or another. Most types of weapons can be used to great effect on many or all classes, and this should be true for torpedoes as well.

Torpedoes in SS don't work like Torpedoes in RL. Also, a Submarine in RL is not a Seer in SS.

Exactly! Although, I don't have any idea why you would associate a Seer with a Submarine, of all things

Seer is a thief/submarine hybrid, ofc. =)