That is why it should: - would not be a default item - use 1 or 2 missile slots - Not be completely effective, a percentage of the time it will not work - 1 flare will deflect only 1 missile, if you end up in a 10 turret farm and fire a flare, it will deflect 1 missile but the other 9 will hit you. - Slow reload time: you cannot fire 10 flares at the same time but one every... i dunno 5 seconds...
for what do you need this flares? its not that 1 missile hit will kill you...I cant even say how less 1 missile turret bothers me when driving a heavy or even medium tank, and if you dont want to get hit you can easylie take out the turrets from a distance within second. The only thing flares could be usefull would be light tanks with plain armor...and the moment you have plain lights but researched flaires your commander has failed verry verry badly
so you propose that you have it from the beginning? I might agree that it would be nice to drive arround in a light and not worriing about the 1-2 MLs at refs and forward raxes that tend to annoy but this will pretty much make the early turrets absolut useless Anyway the moment you get armor, MLs are needed to be in huge farms to effectivly harme a decend tank driver. Using it in tank vs tank combat flares would heavily nerf NF since they are the "only one" using missiles
it's more for missile turrets I think, NF heavies spam so many missile flares would be overwhelmed here's how I think it should be done -flares are default, built into every tank, maybe even jeeps ---this way you can just have a keybind for it, and not worry about including it in the build menu - flares have 3 ammo so you can go "pop pop pop" which would look hella cool, and using blizzerd's 2 seconds of effectiveness, would provide up to six seconds of missile "immunity" - all missiles in range of the flare when it bursts are drawn to it, so it is heavily skill based (could be smallish effective range) --- this is not OP because missiles from turrets tend to arrive in a staggered fashion, and missiles from tanks are either dumb or have the ability to put out what like 10 homing missiles? The capacity of homing could be increased if flares pwn them too hard. It's a good idea cause it's flashy and rad looking, and interesting, and would be pretty unique and cool as fuck.
We could also "shoot" the incoming missile with something similar to "Trophy", This would require some user input to aim, this could be fun: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trophy_(countermeasure) http://defense-update.com/features/2010/june/israeli_aps_09062010.html FTFA: """The kill mechanism used by the Trophy utilizes Multiple Explosively Formed Projectiles (MEFP). Mounted on an aimable pedestal, this module is pointed at the direction of the incoming threat and explodes, sending an ultra-fast sheath of melted fragments destroying the threat. This hard-kill countermeasure is effective against all types of Anti-Tank Guided Missile (ATGM), Anti-Tank Rockets or High Explosive Anti-Tank (HEAT) projectiles. The APS is considered the only effective countermeasure against warheads containing tandem warheads, designed to penetrate reactive armor systems. Relying on a highly directional explosive for both propulsion and kill mechanism, the Trophy APS delivers response time and kill probability significantly higher than other systems. The Trophy system can simultaneously engage multiple threats arriving from different directions and is effective on stationary or moving platforms.""" Instead of an automatic system, we could let the pilot to aim and fire to the incoming missile in a shotgun style.
I should say I don't like this idea at all. Missile turrets aren't buffed significantly that they are a large danger to a medium or heavy tank. Most often, they are dangerous to vehicles with standard and apc's, which is pretty much the only thing they're good defending against. Homing is also not used significantly enough to really require this research.