Fractal Softworks Forum
Starsector => Suggestions => Topic started by: SCC on May 07, 2019, 03:25:54 PM
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New Plasma Cannon is an arguably more versatile and easier to use weapon than the old one... But it just isn't the Plasma Cannon anymore and nothing else can fill that 1000x3 damage void in my heart. It would be nice if some other weapon was made to be the boring but effective energy weapon and Plasma Cannon was reinstated to its alpha-striking glory.
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How about two-shots at 750 each? It originally did 750 damage per shot, before it was upgraded to 1000 per shot.
However, I doubt Alex will do that. Modern heavy energy seem to be designed that player is supposed to take Autopulse Laser/Expanded Magazines or Tachyon Lance if player wants alpha-strike, or HIL for anti-armor. I liked old plasma cannon for 1) raw DPS and 2) anti-armor. (I take Tachyon Lance for long-range and shield-piercing.)
I do not want the old plasma cannon back if it means no ship can use it except for vent-spamming playership with min-maxed flux stats, due to impractical flux costs.
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Yeah, Plasma Cannon kind of needs to be where it's at so it doesn't step on the HIL's toes as far as cracking armor; as is it's a middle of the road, ok-at-everything kind of weapon. Sorry :)
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I'm very happy with the new plasma cannon - Large Energy really needed a generalist brawling weapon with good enough efficiency and this does the trick really nicely.
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Yes, heavy energy needed a good brawling weapon. Autopulse does not cut it against either tough targets that can withstand a burst or multiple opponents when one burst is only enough to kill one ship out of several.
Until 0.9a, heavy blaster was a competitive option for heavy energy mounts at simply mauling things, and that did not feel right when ballistics had a variety of effective large assault weapons clearly superior to medium ballistics.
I wish plasma cannon had better shot power, but the rapid-fire rocket launcher that is modern plasma cannon is effective enough. At least it has something over Mjolnir (better DPS without being too hard to use).
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Heavy Heavy Blaster when
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I'm putting my vote in for new-Plasma. Old plasma was just too flux hungry to be practical. Having plasma cannons pointed at you is not as scary as it used to be, but honestly I think it trades that psychological impact for actual impact: It's a simple and effective (if not inexpensive) general-purpose weapon, and it fills that niche extremely well. I'd say it's even deadlier than old plasma, all things considered, just because ships can actually use it.
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Beside being a solid weapon overall, new plasma is the best manual PD: due to combination of decent fire rate and passthrough it can very efficiently counter massed fighters and overwhelm-type missile weapons like squalls, annihilators or bombs. With optimal positioning it doesn't even cost you anything since shots hit enemy ship after their passthrough run.
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Plasma Cannon is, unfortunately, better in it's current state as an oversized Pulse Laser than it was as an absurdly high damage burst weapon.
As fun as High Energy Focus Plasma Cannon volleys were, the current Plasma Cannon is overall better and more usable on a larger number of ships than the old Plasma Cannon was. Though it might be a bit expensive, compared to Heavy Blasters. Not certain.
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Yeah, Plasma Cannon kind of needs to be where it's at so it doesn't step on the HIL's toes as far as cracking armor; as is it's a middle of the road, ok-at-everything kind of weapon. Sorry :)
If I may just raise my hand here and point out that the High Intensity Laser is not a particularly engaging weapon? It's dull to use and extremely binary - you either do very little to shields or you obliterate armour, on a sustained, constant fire beam of very long range. I reckon it'd be more interesting as a burst weapon, or just a basic energy beam with some kind of onHit effect that does a little extra damage to armour, to close the disparity a little. Maybe even occaisional random bursts of extra damage, like how the Ion Beam does its EMP arcs?
Do note this is only partially my opinion - a few folks on the Discord have said they find the HIL a pretty poor weapon concept. But I am inclined to agree with them (and I think this is an okay point to bring it up again). Large weapons shouldn't just hurt good, they should feel good while doing it. The HIL is honestly pretty mediochre, and as such is a weapon I tend to shy away from, despite it being excellent at breaking armour.
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I do agree that new plasma cannon is a more practical weapon, but at the same time it became more mundane, less scary. It lost its soul. It was a pretty scary thing in hands of ships with HEF. I have a feeling that it's overcosted currently, in comparison to Heavy Blaster; it costs a bit over two and a half times as much as it and Heavy Blaster can actually be more flux efficient if you spend OP on HB+vents, instead of PC. There is also the thing that sometimes, fun isn't about being optimal, it's about using something wildly impractical just because it's possible.
HIL is a better weapon, since the difference is that it does nothing when doesn't have to do well and it does amazing when it's in its element.
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Suggestion: The Thread Title isn’t flamboyant enough, change thread title to “Make Plasma Cannon Great Again!!” MPCGA :o
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There's nothing exciting about continuous beams but they do work well. I use HIL all the time. I use the new Plasma Cannon all the time. The old Plasma Cannon was pretty much unusable. They're both fine as they are now.
If HIL doesn't tickle your excitement button, there's always Tachyon Lance.
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I also miss the old plasma cannon. Although the new one is arguably better, more efficient, more reliable, safer. But firing what is basically a heavy pulse laser doesn't quite have the panache of the space BFG of old.
One of my most vivid Starsector memory was the first time i encountered a quad Plasma cannon Paragon. It was with Dynasector since variant randomisation wasn't a thing yet. I was used to bully standard Paragons variants with an Onslaught. And that day, i faced it, with its four big guns, slowly turning to face me.
"I think i should be able to take it, i'll go close to it and... Yeah, yeah, nope, no, definitely not! Change of tactics! Oh @$%& this isn't going as planned!"
It's not often when getting fired upon by a gun was a cathartic as firing it. Despite my nostalgia for the old BFG, i'm pretty okay if the new one stay. Moreover, if i'm really craving for something big, expensive, unwieldy that shoot death, some mods added their own plasma cannon variants that also scratch that same itch.
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HIL is basically an anti-pirate/anti-shieldless ship weapon, which is great when the most important endgame enemies are pirates and pathers due to them ignoring colony defenses. (Major factions must beat colony patrols and defenses before they can do anything bad.) When major factions become the primary enemies like they used to be, then HIL may not be so great. HIL will tear through vulnerable ships fast, which pirates and pathers have a lot of. Major factions and Remnants, not so much. HIL will also tear your ships apart if your ships are forced to drop shields, especially while fighting a Remnant Nexus.
Against major factions, Tachyon Lance is more effective than HIL overall. HIL when combined with Ion Beam becomes poor-man's Tachyon Lance that is not as good as the real thing.
I agree modern plasma cannon feels like an oversized pulse laser. It also feels a bit like a rapid-fire heavy blaster. While plasma cannon does not feel very powerful for its cost, I cannot deny it is significantly more effective - and more forgiving to use - than before.
I would not mind a new large energy weapon the fires a large shot that does big damage and some area-of-effect (like BFG9K is to plasma cannon). Perhaps a large version of the antimatter blaster with AoE, maybe something similar to the main gun of Blackrock's Nevermore.
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I think the new plasma cannon fills a really important niche, and does so well, but I also agree that changing it left another (maybe less important) niche unfilled. Perhaps a new weapon is in order? There are some other unfilled niches in medium and small energy weapons as well (particularly weapons with low flux cost that deal hard flux). In short: MOAR WEAPONS PLZ
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I like to see a stronger medium tac laser, designed to damage ships once shields are out of the way. Old phase beam (before it became modern phase lance) was kind of this, but costs too much OP (12) and has worse range than graviton beam. Today, there is only graviton beam, but unless player can stack enough, plain tactical laser is better for doing the same job at less OP cost. (Ion beam is great, but it is a flux hog and is good mostly for shield-piercing and disabling.)
I would not mind seeing a rapid-fire IR pulse laser for a high-end medium weapon. High sustained DPS and efficient (more efficient than heavy blaster), but short range (but not too short like Ion Pulser) and high OP cost.
For small energy weapon, the high delay versions of IR Pulse Laser and/or Ion Cannon used by various fighters. Make them cost 2 or 3 OP. Basically the energy light mortar (that can be found in Open Market). Mining laser is useless without tons of hullmod support and/or Advanced Countermeasures 3. On the ballistic side, Light Mortar has become very good now (for ships with lots of mounts but poor flux stats and/or OP totals) in 0.9a thanks to 600 range upgrade.
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Quick note: Plasma Cannon costs MUCH less OP than an upscaled heavy blaster. Upscaled heavy blaster (to match DPS) costs 18 OP and has 1080 FPS. To bring that down to 825 FPS costs 25.5 vents, for a total of 43.5OP... Except that ships usually cannot add 25.5 vents as they are allready at max.
So compared to a heavy blaster, the plasma cannon saves 13.5 OP and has the efficiency 'baked in', not requiring the use of vents.
I think the HIL is a devastating weapon and don't want it changed at all. Its sustained, un-ignorable beam that forces shield attention is a different gameplay than other weapons.
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I would not mind seeing a rapid-fire IR pulse laser for a high-end medium weapon. High sustained DPS and efficient (more efficient than heavy blaster), but short range (but not too short like Ion Pulser) and high OP cost.
Is this not a Pulse Laser :-X
Perhaps a Pulse Laser plus spending some OP on vents, to match the "high-end" and "high OP cost" parts
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I think the HIL is a devastating weapon and don't want it changed at all. Its sustained, un-ignorable beam that forces shield attention is a different gameplay than other weapons.
Almost anything forces shield attention against the AI, which is why hard flux is usually a big deal. AI will happily tank HIL like nothing, if they can. For those that cannot, like many pirates, HIL really hurts. During 0.8a, I considered HIL sub-optimal due to most relevant endgame threats (deserters or major factions) shield-tanking HIL without much effort. Today, due to change of most dangerous endgame enemies (now pirates and pathers), HIL is useful because those enemies cannot shield-tank beams as well as major factions.
The one who really needs to pay attention with shield use is the playership.
Is this not a Pulse Laser :-X
Perhaps a Pulse Laser plus spending some OP on vents, to match the "high-end" and "high OP cost" parts
Pulse Laser is just a green IR Pulse Laser with more range and damage per shot, though the fire rate is the same. That is not a high-end weapon, but the baseline.
What I meant is for the high-end weapon is a faster IR Pulse Laser, much like Heavy Needler is to Light Needler. Basically an IR Pulse Laser that shoots faster. (How much faster, I don't know.) A weapon with high DPS and better efficiency, but with a drawback that is not high flux cost.
People try to max vents by default, so spending OP on vents is not really an upgrade, just keeping up with standard performance.
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I think the HIL is a devastating weapon and don't want it changed at all. Its sustained, un-ignorable beam that forces shield attention is a different gameplay than other weapons.
Almost anything forces shield attention against the AI, which is why hard flux is usually a big deal. AI will happily tank HIL like nothing, if they can. For those that cannot, like many pirates, HIL really hurts. During 0.8a, I considered HIL sub-optimal due to most relevant endgame threats (deserters or major factions) shield-tanking HIL without much effort. Today, due to change of most dangerous endgame enemies (now pirates and pathers), HIL is useful because those enemies cannot shield-tank beams as well as major factions.
The one who really needs to pay attention with shield use is the playership.
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I find this not to be true - the AI will happily lower shields against minor damage sources when their flux is mid to high (as long as they are not very light ships like kites). HIL does not allow any flickering and rapidly punishes it - no ballistic or missile weapon does the same. Tachyon lances can sort of do similar, and while they have their place as burst damage that can overwhelm a target, I find them inferior to HILs for both armor breaking and hull damage, while costing more OP and having worse flux efficiency.
The other thing that makes HILs so good is that they can be cheaply mounted on Sunders. HIL + 2 gravitons is excellent fire support for kiting larger targets.
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I should have wrote attacks that are not minor. I see AI will drop shields against most lone kinetics and light beams. (Tac laser poking is not very effective.) If I attack with anything more than a poke, shields will (usually) be up or raised. I do not remember if AI is still careless against hitscan attacks in 0.9a. As for attacking, at least as a playership, if the attacker has a way to put hard flux on shield against decently shielded enemies, tachyon lance has always given faster time-to-kill over HIL for me, thanks to hitscan, burst damage, and shield penetration (for significant damage, unlike Ion Beam). As for my AI ships, I do not know (since I have not timed or tested those).
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i wouldn't call 500 flux/sec for 250 dps into shields flux efficient. If you are using HIL to force shields to stay up (and the shields are actually able to stay up) you're not getting anywhere near the maximum flux efficiency they can achieve (.5 damage per flux into shields vs 2 dpf into armor).
If the HIL is actually hitting hull/armor, it is a good weapon, but as long as the enemy ship has shields up, it is essentially a massive flux dump. The question then becomes can you win the flux war without the HIL (since the HIL is actively losing the flux war if you fire it into shields). If yes, then it's a good choice, but if not, then you have spent a large portion of your available weapon space and dissipation on a weapon that is only good against hull and armor without the ability to get through to hull and armor.
If the other ship does not have great shields/flux stats, and you are already winning the flux war, then HIL is great for dishing out lots of damage and forcing fights to end. I agree with Mega's assessment. HIL is great vs poorly shielded ships and mediocre otherwise.
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What I meant is for the high-end weapon is a faster IR Pulse Laser, much like Heavy Needler is to Light Needler. Basically an IR Pulse Laser that shoots faster. (How much faster, I don't know.) A weapon with high DPS and better efficiency, but with a drawback that is not high flux cost.
Dual IR Pulse Laser, perhaps?
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There could always be more weapons to fill every single niche for every damage type and mount type. Do we have to have that? The only weapon that's missing right now is the "oh s***!" weapon that used to be the Plasma Cannon. What we got is an actually usable, reasonably efficient hard flux projectile weapon. Heavy Blaster's big brother. It still hits like a truck. HIL also hits like a truck.
The reason you may think HIL is bad is because you look at it as a single thing. But that's not how you fit ships effectively. If you go for a beam loadout, you take advantage of the high range and stack beams. This means it's not just a HIL on a Sunder, it's a HIL and two Gravitons. It's not just a pair of HILs on a Paragon, it's four HILs, Gravitons and a bunch of Tac Lasers. You take advantage of your own deep Flux pool to overwhelm shields with HIL firing. And it works very well. Not just against low-tech scum. I use beam ships successfully against Remnants all the time, and these shouldn't be an ideal match - but it works.
I'm not against adding new weapons. But they should be a meaningful addition. There are gaps and advantages for each weapon type for a reason.
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No one said HIL is bad... just that it's not very effective against ships with good shields as compared to other large energy weapons.
Saying 'my loadout worked in a situation where it's bad' doesn't mean much. There are plenty of suboptimal load outs that still get the job done, but I like to min/max a bit, so I look for the strongest thing in each situation, and then choose the thing that is strongest in the most/most common situations. 4xHIL is 2000 flux/sec for 1000 dps (into shields). You could instead use 3x plasma cannon for 2474 flux/sec and 2250 dps, or 4x auto pulse for 1000 flux/s and 6000(1200) dps burst(sustained). If you are spending a lot of time shooting into shields, there are waaaay better choices.
Weapons fill roles in your loadout/fleet and the HIL fills the anti armor role very well, but it is quite bad at shield break. You need varying amounts of these roles in different fights. In fights that needs lots of anti armor, having HIL is a strong choice. In fights that require anti shields, HIL is a bad choice. As megas said, since the scenarios where shields break is not important are much more common in the current patch, HIL has become a much better choice, because it fills the role that is required by the fights more often not because it is good in all roles.
HIL is not a generalist weapon, it is only a noticeable better choice than other weapons in specific scenarios, but since those scenarios are now very common, it becomes a decent general choice since it works well in more common situations.
If you can overwhelm a ships shields with HIL then your ship has such a massive flux stat advantage that you would have won with any weapon (but perhaps HIL lets you do it faster). The HIL isn't the strong thing in this scenario, it's the massive flux stats that win the fight. The HIL just lets you leverage that advantage to win faster. I call this bullying. Weapons like the heavy blaster also have this effect where they let you leverage your flux pool advantage to bully smaller ships very effectively, but they struggle (without help from more efficient weapons/other ships) to deal with similarly sized or larger ships equipped with more efficient weapons.
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Of the heavy energy weapons, the one I fear most used against me is Tachyon Lance. It is not too hard to defend against if you see it coming and do not have significant hard flux on shield. But, if caught while shields are down or burdened with hard flux, it will hurt and likely knockout some engines. Maybe runner-up would be twin autopulse from Paragon or other similar enemy. If that target cannot shield-tank the burst, it will probably die or take a bunch of damage.
Older 1k plasma cannon was only somewhat intimidating during the 0.7a era when player had better skills (to mitigate plasma cannon's inefficiency), although it did not matter since Mjolnir was all-powerful back then, and big low-tech were the best ships, especially Onslaught. (On mod ships with heavy universals up-front, Mjolnir was a no-brainer option over every heavy energy except maybe Tachyon Lance.) During 0.8, weaker skills made the horribly inefficient plasma cannon impractical (except maybe for SO Sunder thanks to that bug that let fading plasma shots hit for hard flux.)
HIL only hits like a truck if not stopped by shields. If stopped by shields, HIL is horribly inefficient weaksauce that cannot hit for hard flux.
Beam spam needs a force advantage to work well, like Eagle against a frigate, or Paragon against most other ships, or a fleet dedicated to it. What I notice is a fleet that can win with beam spam, wins faster with weapons that hit for hard flux (against major factions).
Speaking of gaps, wished there was a better medium HE weapon. Heavy Mauler used to be it, but not anymore (DPS too low for general use now, if extra range will be wasted). Now, it is Heavy Mortar or bust. (Before Heavy Mortar was added, it was Heavy Mauler or bust, but Heavy Mauler was rare.)
It feels lame when the best option for a medium mount is often a small weapon, like tactical laser in medium energy (when I want a beam), or (before 0.9) heavy blaster in heavy energy.
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I don't disagree with y'all about downsides of beams, but it's not such an easy calculation. Range is huge and informs AI behaviour and the ability to hit a target en masse. When you outrange an enemy, venting is essentially free. Beams also have the advantage of an uniform range, whereas combinations of other weapons suffer from being an imperfect fit.
Yeah, Heavy Mauler's pretty weak now. I put Heavy Mortar on an Enforcer since it's a brawling ship anyway. Dominator gets by using medium kinetics and heavy HE. Basically, whereever possible, I find an excuse not to use medium HE. I predicted Mauler nerf was overkill and would like to see the penalty at least reduced.
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*raises hand*
I didn't say HIL was bad at all. I said it was boring. ;) But, in hindsight, sometimes when the game is getting a little overwhelming, you need a little boring, right?
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Isn't Tachyon Lance technically better than the HIL in terms of armor penetration?
HIL is a 500 DPS HE Beam, which means it does 2x damage to Armor, so 1000 DPS effective vs armor. From the Starsector Wiki article on Armor, damage by beams is 1/2 the sustained DPS of the beam. So the HIL would have an armor reduction value equivalent to a 500-damage energy projectile against armor.
Tachyon Lance's beam itself had a 1500 DPS effective burst back in 0.8a, but I haven't checked the weapon_data.csv file to see if that's the same in 0.9, but if it's similar/the same, then it's an equivalent armor reduction value to a 750-damage energy projectile against armor.
HIL wins on sustained damage vs armor easily but its superiority against hull is significantly narrower. Also, for pure armor-killing purposes, I've found a single burst (or two, with a properly-equipped Paragon) is sufficient to shave off most or all armor at a specific point, with an exception of maybe an Onslaught, but then a second burst usually solves that issue. Other advantages of using Tachyon Lances are that its burst beams can easily push a high-flux opponent's shields to overload, and the secondary EMP effect is also very helpful, so I usually end up using that as my armor buster even though HIL's supposed to be in that role.
I don't dislike the HIL beam per sey, but I hadn't had a good experience with it at all when I tried to outfit a Paragon with them (+ smaller beams and supporting hullmods, like Schwartz suggested). After that, and especially after 0.9, I went to Projectile-based loadouts for Paragon in general and Tachyon Lances for large energy armor killing + general use, and never looked back.
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Well its a bit tricky - the Tachyon lance does have better penetration during its burst, but its raw DPS against armor is only 346 vs 1000 (albeit that 346 comes in 2250 damage bursts). It also has .75 damage/flux, vs 2 damage/flux for the HIL.
Against say a 1500 armor dominator or paragon, a HIL does 25% damage at the start, rapidly increasing as armor gets cut away. A Tachyon lance does 33.3% damage at start, again increasing as armor is stripped. So it has a lead, but that lead is not enough to bring the total dps after the burst nor the flux for armor stripped up to par.
Vs hull the HIL now has 500 dps and 1 damage/flux, but realistically both penetrate residual armor completely, so its 500 dps vs 346 at better efficiency.
Not to say Tachyon Lances are bad: they are fantastic, much more capable of overloading shields than the HIL, and worth every bit of their price tag in OP, cost, and rarity. But as a pure anti armor, anti-hull tool the HIL is superior, as it should be as a specialist weapon. (But then again, as you noted, the Tachyon lance is good enough in most circumstances).
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My philosophy has been to go for the 'good enough vs armor and better vs shields' load outs as opposed to the 'good enough vs shields and better vs armor' because armor only needs to be destroyed once while shields need to be repeatedly overcome, and shield damage also ties into the flux battle which is the core of combat, while armor penetration does not help the flux battle. This has served we well, but the beauty of the game is that there are many different viable play styles. It's certainly fun to obliterate pirates and pathers with insane HE. As more end game content is added, I'm sure the best load outs will change, and we will get to figure these things out again.
I definitely agree that range bands are an important consideration. Pretty much the only reason I still use the heavy mauler is to match HVD range on eagles/falcons, and I usually complement them with beams since they all have ~1000 range.
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I was always on the 'kinetics/anti-shield are better' bandwagon, but I've been mounting a lot more anti-armor and anti-hull lately and been getting even better results.
It might mean that I just don't have enough strike missiles, but when I go heavy kinetic the enemy just doesn't die fast enough. With more HE and/or high dps hull crackers, it takes a bit longer to push the enemy flux up but the kill is so much faster. If I'm going through the work of fluxing out an enemy, I want to do some real damage on top.
This could also be a result of me almost always going heavy combat skills: I can safely sacrifice some weapons that would help the 'flux duel' because only a very very rare enemy officer, in a unusually well equipped ship, could possibly win a flux duel with my own ship. And also the fact that as often as possible I'm attacking vulnerable ships that are under fire from my allies (and the same goes for my allies, I order them to gang up on lone targets). If the ship is already high on flux kinetic weapons are a bit of a waste.
For example, my current Eagle loadout is: 2x heavy autocannon, 1x heavy mortar, 2x phase lance, 1x ion beam, 3x lrpd, 2x pd, ITU, IPDAI, Hard Shields, and turret gyros. A few months ago I would absolutely go 3x HAC, but I'm simply getting better results with the heavy mortar in there in real combat.
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Any time I have 3 same size ballistic slots, I go 2 kinetic 1 HE. It used to be mostly 2xHVD + mauler but now I often do 2x HAC + mortar. When I go for HVD, I generally compliment with beams to match 1000 range, but I did try phase lances with he HAC's (I think because thaago mentioned them in another post), and was pleasantly surprised, at least for a player ship.
I generally still outfit the AI with lots of kinetics. They are just so much more survivable (because they generally avoid flux trouble). For the same reason, I love to use annihilators inAI load outs because they are zero flux HE damage and the AI uses them quite ammo efficiently as well. My player ship tends to have more finishing power (generally missile/HB aurora or paragon). I like to take the risks required to finish ships myself, and I want my AI companions to keep enemy ships occupied and fluxed so I can swoop in and finish them. I might try mixing in a few more ships with lots of finishing power in my fleet.
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Yeah, Plasma Cannon kind of needs to be where it's at so it doesn't step on the HIL's toes as far as cracking armor; as is it's a middle of the road, ok-at-everything kind of weapon. Sorry :)
Don't be sorry. New Plasma Cannon is civilization