Let's discuss Torpedoes

Crewman87

Hey all,

I am writing this not as complaint necessarily, but more of a discussion of the practicality of the current torpedo system and what it's pro/cons are. This has likely come up before but my search-fu is a bit fruitless on this forum, so if it is a repeat topic I apologize in advance.

In my personal opinion:
I don't like them. I do not find myself in many situations that would even make them worth dealing with, and for any kind of effectiveness you need to be preemptively ready. My main qualm with this is the inventory space. I don't understand why they need to be so bulky inventory wise, but then loading them into the torpedo bay reduces them from 2x2 to 1x1. I can understand the idea of a Torpedo being a larger object to carry, but I feel gameplay wise this hurts their intention.

My other qualm is not being able to reload them while piloting. It's tedious to be defending yourself and having to get out, open a storage hatch, grab the torpedoes (hoping you have 16 slots available in your personal inventory) and then swim to the launcher and reload. I find this to be unnecessary and could be simplified.

So for those reasons, I just never use them. My next question is, how do you use your torpedoes? I am looking for other reasons of why using them can be handy at a moments notice, and why its worth the inventory space.

Again, these are my personal opinions, and if you disagree that's fine. I am interested to hear the arguments for and against them.

0x6A7232

@Crewman87

For reference:

Crewman87

@0x6A7232

I know they aren't as small lol. I am implying this more in the sense of gameplay. Meaning with limited inventory space is it worth the sacrifice as they are.

0x6A7232

Crewman87 wrote: »

@0x6A7232

I know they aren't as small lol. I am implying this more in the sense of gameplay. Meaning with limited inventory space is it worth the sacrifice as they are.

I see. I mean... I guess what I'm trying to say is realistically, they'd take up all of your inventory space, yet for a vehicle, they'd still not really be that huge compared to available capacity. Devs probably though personal inventory @ 2x2 for humans and 1x1 for vehicles was a reasonable exchange. Although.. dat coffee machine, though... and the SeaGlide, and O2 tanks... it really should take up more than 2x2, although no one said they were full-on warheads (or you'd be able to lock on, fire at, and destroy a Cyclops from across the map! lol)

ThunderShock27

I literally never use torpedoes. They seem fairly useless. As you said, they are very tedious (and dangerous if you're facing a reaper) to reload. Vortex torpedoes are a tad bit more useful than gas torpedoes but you have to be extremely accurate for them to be of any importance and even then they don't last very long. Besides, why use torpedoes when you can make a Seamoth perimeter defense system? I didn't think it was possible to do this, but a few days ago, I was exiting the Aurora in my Seamoth when a reaper spawned and came after me. I charged up the defense system and let loose. I assumed that it would just stun or make the reaper turn away as I have not used the system that much. However, when the electricity shot out of my Seamoth and made contact with the reaper, he turned to the right and vanished in a tiny poof of yellow blood near where his head was. Apparently the defense system can actually kill reapers? I honestly wish the devs would re-look at torpedoes and the seamoth PDS. Here's how I think they should work: The PDS should be like a built-in crowd control version of the stasis rifle only stunning the targets for a while. Then, the torpedoes should be the only weapons in the game that can actually KILL the reaper. So if you just want the best way of avoiding reapers, you go for the PDS, but if you actually want to kill the reaper, you use torpedoes. Along with this, the devs can buff the torpedoes, making them faster, more accurate, loadable in the cockpit of the Seamoth, and do more damage. This gives torpedoes an actual use.

Errer404

well, given the dev's shy away from anything overtly lethal, something i personally don't agree with, but can respect, some utility torpedoes would be nice. say one that acts as a really powerful light source for 10 minutes or so. one that could light up an entire cavern, or one that when launched would track the biggest creature, latch on, and sudate it for a time.

possibly a temporary repair drone that can patch up any damaged vehicles, or buildings before expiring. or, more combat oriented, a torpedo that ether lures monsters to it, and away from the player, or one that repel's creatures away from were to torpedo stops for a time, leaving you free to collect/explore/molest the wildlife.

maybe even have one based on the stalker. once deployed it will systematically look for titanium scrap, and bring it back to you.

Fathom

I wish they were faster, like almost twice as fast, so you could fire them with some accuracy. With the velocity they have now, whatever you're aiming at is long gone by the time the torpedo gets there.

ThePassionateGamer

0x6A7232 wrote: »

@Crewman87

For reference:

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If you reference real life torpedos, you have to consider their payload, range and damage also. Because they do this to a rather big ship:



Considering a little bit of Sci-Fi and the fact that gameplay always comes before realism, I'd say let's make them smaller and give em a realod from storage bay(s) option. That way they could be a little more useful. I rarely use them because I prefer to use the PDS instead.

@ThunderShock27 I guess the Reaper you killed got damaged before somehow, because the last time I used the PDS against a Reaper with a single maximum charge it didn't kill it. They may have changed that since then because that was quite a while ago. But my guess is, that they did not made the PDS that powerful. Have you tried to repeat that result? Did it happen everytime?

WelcomeToAccord

This is an important post. Thanks for creating it, @Crewman87 . My opinion:

Torpedoes are a waste of game-space at the moment. They take up too much space and have no practical use. I can kill a Reaper Leviathan and Sea Dragon with my PRAWN suit. Since Torpedoes don't do damage, I never bother making them. I think that they should be reworked or completely removed in order to keep new players from rage-quitting after creating a useless Torpedo Launcher and wasting resources.

Moral of the story: Always bring metal fists to a fish-fight, not a gun.

Fathom

While the Fabricator settings do not allow you to create Torpedos with explosives, you could circumvent that by using the Gas Torpedo template (with an alternative payload design) on the Modification Station with a Crashfish. The Crash is embedded in the front of the torpedo like in a Crash Plant feeling all nice and snug, until you fire it and it gets the impression of having left the Crash Plant and is on its way to explode after a while. As they explode on a timer and not on impact, you have to more carefully aim those Crash Torpedoes.

It's basically just a more convenient way of launching Crash than using the Propulsion Arm/Cannon.

ThePassionateGamer

@Fathom Without starting another deadly weapons yes or no discussion here, I think we can asssume that an exploding crash-fish-torpedo won't find it's way into the game according to the things we got so far. And yes the Gas Torpedo is damaging and I wondered as that one made it into the game.

If you go the route of alternative Torpedos I think we might rather see a Stasis-Torpedo creating a big Stasis-Field-Bubble on Impact or a kind of Amp-Eel-Torpedo, that shocks targets in its path and explodes in a bubble of static discharges on impact and or after a certain time.

Hehe maybe even a Floater-dispensing-Torpedo, that carries a few floaters to his targets and attaches them to the target to make it rise to the surface and keep it there for a short time. All would keep aggresive Fauna in check without killing it right away.

Crewman87

Loving the suggestions for revisions to their variety. Sad to see nobody give any pros. I guess if no further updates to them were made, they will likely remain a sparsely used feature. If they don't want to change anything as they currently are, then I would at least support longer durations and a much more improved speed for accuracy.

jamintheinfinite_1

Well he Seamoth's perimeter defense system can kill anything. I used it to kill some sea dragons on creative since they end through the wall of my underground aquarium.

EvilSmoo

I don't use them. They're slow, hard to use, hard to reload, hard to target, and don't do damage effectively.

As a weapons system, they fail at making things dead.

As a utility system, they fail at making significant differences in the movement of hostile creatures.

Beyond that, I can't think of any pressing reasons to fit them to a minisub.

LordSinguloth

I think large utility ones for the cyclops would be cool but I think having them on the Seamorth is quite pointless as you are pretty well fast enough to avoid anything without any kind of an issue

TheLordEternal

with the current emotions to torpedoes it might just be better off if torpedoes are instead assembled in the launcher directly from raw materials from a internal storage, The moon-pool modification station changing to instead dispensing blueprints that are inserted into the launcher to specify what kind of torpedoes it fabricates.

Crewman87

I would even be okay with them keeping the x3 stack instead of splitting them into individuals. That would help a lot with the inventory space.

Fathom

Crewman87 wrote: »

I would even be okay with them keeping the x3 stack instead of splitting them into individuals. That would help a lot with the inventory space.

Or increase the capacity of the launchers themselves from 4 to 6 or even 9. This would make reloading more a maintenance thing at home base than something you (have to) do on the fly.

scifiwriterguy

Personally, I'd recycle the resources currently devoted to the torpedoes and their launchers into new tools. They give very little bang for the buck (pun intended) and those textures could be replaced with something more useful. Like the Sunflare (right @0x6A7232?).

As for reloading, let's ignore real-world torpedoes for reference because they're MUCH bigger than either the PRAWN or Seamoth bodies in their entirety. (Seriously: the Mk.48 ADCAP is 19 ft. long and weighs almost two tons. That's the torpedo that destroyed the Ex-HMAS TORRENS in the photos above.) It's more appropriate to look at the M2 Bradley as our reference image, because Subnautica torpedoes are about the size of a TOW missile. And that two-tube launcher on a Bradley can only be loaded - yep - from the outside.