In early Starfarer/Starsector (before 0.6.5a), energy had unlimited ammo, but ballistics had limited ammo just like missiles. Energy weapons' main advantage was unlimited ammo. Around 0.6.5a, ballistics got clips like TPCs/autopulse, then got unlimited ammo, destroying energy weapons main advantage over ballistics.
Medium energy weapons are underwhelming. Heavy Blaster is good, if too inefficient. The only that really bothers me is Phase Lance. 600 range and no hard flux is terrible, burst or no burst. For a hybrid/universal, Heavy Blaster is a possible contender, maybe Ion Beam.
Small energy weapons that are not PD or AM Blaster are generally underwhelming. Not useless, just... not good.
Small and medium energy weapons could use more variety.
Solar shield will apply energy reduction to shields too, making energy weapons even weaker.
The biggest for me is low damage, efficient, hard flux medium energy for ships like the wolf and medusa that don't have the dissipation to support the existing hard flux medium energy weapons
There is a medium range beam that hits harder than a tac laser. The Ion Beam(200 ion damage vs hull) and Graviton Beam(200 vs shields) both do. Though in different situations. I think that is OK.No they do not. Graviton beam is kinetic. Against armor, it does less than Tactical Laser. Not sure about hull with minimum armor around. Graviton Beams main use to try to overwhelm dissipation if you can stack enough, not to damage armor and hull. If I cannot stack enough beams, then Graviton is useless. (For midline ships, I already have ballistics for anti-shield, and I want beams against non-shield defenses.) For Ion Beam, it does 50 damage. (The 200 is the ion damage.) Ion Beam is good if player wants an unblockable beam to EMP ships, but not if he wants raw damage after shields go down. Also, Ion Beam is a flux hog, and it is hard to stack more than one without getting flux problems. For long-range finisher beam with raw damage against armor and hull, there is no better option than Tactical Laser, and that hurts. For short range, there is phase lance or burst PD, but the range of those is too short if I want the likes of Tactical Laser (or HIL for heavy mounts). Phase Beam attempted this role in early releases, before it was redesigned into the modern Phase Lance. (Back then, Phase Beam was continuous instead of burst, had 700 range, did some EMP, costs 12 DP. Not very flux efficient. It was underwhelming.)
All that matters is armor pen and efficiency. And pulse lasers are pretty good on both. Alternatively you can always fit IR pulse if you just have to have more slots filledNot always. I tried Aurora with seven IR Pulse Lasers (anti-shield) and one Heavy Blaster (anti-armor). While effective, it was not as good as simply two Heavy Blasters in the turrets and all hardpoints empty. Even two pulse lasers in turrets and heavy blaster in hardpoint was better, though not as good as two heavy blasters in the turrets.
I remember when energy weapons also had the advantage of extra damage when at higher flux. Then that got removed and energy weapons got rebalanced (no idea what the numbers were and if any weapons were unchanged). Now there will be a skill that will do exactly that but I don't want to rely on a skill just to make them ''viable''. They should perform good regardless. So yeah I'm all for more generalist options (getting tired of strike weapons) and some rebalancing of current ones.AM Blaster went from 1200 to 1400 damage per shot. Mining Blaster likewise went from 600 to 700. (Mining Blaster was a loser, it used to be stronger than Pulse Laser.)
Graviton Beams main use to try to overwhelm dissipation if you can stack enough, not to damage armor and hull. If I cannot stack enough beams, then Graviton is useless.
Graviton also does nothing if I win the flux war against them with ballistics alone (like with Gauss Conquest or three needler Eagle), but unable to finish them off due to lack of anti-armor. I have medium mounts, and it feels lame that only Tactical Laser fits the bill.
Maybe then we could have another build for Paragon worth its crazy 60 DP cost along with 4 Tach lances.
Maybe then we could have another build for Paragon worth its crazy 60 DP cost along with 4 Tach lances.
That's funny, the 4 Tach Lance Paragon got it's ass kicked in round 1 of the tournament a week ago. And it had 3 carriers supporting it vs. the single Wolf supporting the other Paragon.
Regarding variations of the default eagle (3 Heavy Mortar, 3 Graviton): its not a terrible ship for AI hands, and I was pleasantly surprised by it when I did a default variant runthrough of forlorn hope. There aren't that many ships that can fire back effectively while under 600*shields additional flux, and the mortars are good enough HE to keep shields up. And its OP/flux cheap. I have my own favorite eagle build, but I've been thinking of giving this one a try more, or trying to find tweaks. The main issue is that kinetics + 1 ion beam is really, really good for lockdowns.
HILs are devastating weapons if they get through the shield. Compared to a Hephestus: the HIL has roughly the same DPS (500 vs 480), the same efficiency, and slightly more than double the armor penetration (500 vs 240). This is at the cost of soft flux instead of hard. As a specialist anti-armor/anti-hull weapon, very little can match it (tach lance does pretty god but is lower dps), and its a commonly found weapon. But its a specialist weapon: don't use it unless you can generate the situation where its amazing.
Well, If I could combine HIL with good kinetic ballistics, I'd do. But there are no such ships. All ships with large energy need to utilize it help their otherwise anemic anti-shield capacity, which makes TL always a better choice.Odyssey stuffed with lots of kinetic missiles (Sabots, Squalls, and Expanded Missile Racks) can do this. That said, AI has trouble keeping HIL on target long enough (only the player can do so reliably), so Tachyon Lance is probably better anyway.
Well, If I could combine HIL with good kinetic ballistics, I'd do. But there are no such ships. All ships with large energy need to utilize it help their otherwise anemic anti-shield capacity, which makes TL always a better choice.On Sunders it's actually really nice coupled with a pair of Gravitons and Railguns/Needlers. Not the best example of the kinetic-HIL combo but it exists.
Well, If I could combine HIL with good kinetic ballistics, I'd do. But there are no such ships. All ships with large energy need to utilize it help their otherwise anemic anti-shield capacity, which makes TL always a better choice.Odyssey stuffed with lots of kinetic missiles (Sabots, Squalls, and Expanded Missile Racks) can do this. That said, AI has trouble keeping HIL on target long enough (only the player can do so reliably), so Tachyon Lance is probably better anyway.
Or, if the enemy is weak enough, Odyssey can mount loads of IR Pulse Lasers, park next to sub-capital targets, and after the IR Pulse Lasers cap their flux, let the HILs rip. It was an effective pirate hunter loadout during 0.9a.
Well, If I could combine HIL with good kinetic ballistics, I'd do. But there are no such ships. All ships with large energy need to utilize it help their otherwise anemic anti-shield capacity, which makes TL always a better choice.On Sunders it's actually really nice coupled with a pair of Gravitons and Railguns/Needlers. Not the best example of the kinetic-HIL combo but it exists.
Yeah, I don't consider missile based ships for my fleet. Nice for duels or tournaments, but missiles not being reloaded in multi-round combat is too huge disadvantage. And even in single round combat it doesn't have ammo for half it's CR time.If I plan to use IR Pulse Lasers with HILs, I would use two HILs (or maybe one HIL and one lance), not one plus a hard flux heavy. That is either too much flux use and/or unable to punish no shield ships long distance when hunting pirates. Part of the point of IR Pulse Lasers is so Odyssey can use soft flux beams in the heavy mounts, instead of the other way around with small beam PD and autopulse/plasma.
HIL is somewhat useable on Odyssey, but flux balance & control doesn't work out nearly as well as for 2x Plasma build. HIL+Plasma+IR pulses is too much, HIL+ Autopulse + IR pulse doesn't utilize all dissipation (and part that goes to HIL is used extremely inefficiently when it's hitting shield). With 2x Plasma you have full manual controlled weapon that closely matches dissipation, easy to pause firing when dodging to dissipate some hard flux (though not enough time to vent).
If I plan to use IR Pulse Lasers with HILs, I would use two HILs (or maybe one HIL and one lance), not one plus a hard flux heavy. That is either too much flux use and/or unable to punish no shield ships long distance when hunting pirates. Part of the point of IR Pulse Lasers is so Odyssey can use soft flux beams in the heavy mounts, instead of the other way around with small beam PD and autopulse/plasma.
Sabot Pods with Expanded Missile Racks last enough to kill some ships with other weapons. Handy if an endurance loadout is not good enough.
Not fond of missile ships, but some ships need missiles to be good enough. I would consider shotgun Odyssey one. From what I see, two plasma cannon Odyssey under AI control burns to its death, and I prefer other capitals to two plasma Odyssey. Two plasma Odyssey piloted by player is decent, but I do not see it performing miracles that other capitals cannot do. If anything, Odyssey is more prone to fatal pilot error. If I want to give Odyssey to AI, I probably need the shotgun loadout so that it kites and not burn into a mob like an Onslaught to die.
Sometimes it can be hard to separate the weapon from the ship hulls that can mount them when discussing game balance.You can either have slow ships with long range, fast ships with short range and variety, or you can have everything be samey. There might be some AI issues and you are free to voice them, but what you think of as issues, I see as good game design.
I think you are overreacting. There's no variant in the game that uses solar shielding, thus AI will not benefit from this change at all.Solar shield will apply energy reduction to shields too, making energy weapons even weaker.
Yeah, that's death of high tech right there. Solar shield is way too cheap for something so powerful. At least I'm sure I won't even entertain anything that relies on energy weapons to get through shield in next version. It makes use of HB against armor dubious too.
Basically what I’m trying to say is the range of energy weapons is sub par, and the options of what you can even use is very limited
By the way - if I could take a HIL on a Conquest, I would. And the reason it doesn't have hybrid mounts is because the ship predates them.I think you are overreacting. There's no variant in the game that uses solar shielding, thus AI will not benefit from this change at all.Solar shield will apply energy reduction to shields too, making energy weapons even weaker.
Yeah, that's death of high tech right there. Solar shield is way too cheap for something so powerful. At least I'm sure I won't even entertain anything that relies on energy weapons to get through shield in next version. It makes use of HB against armor dubious too.
Weren't AI variants somewhat randomized? And Alex can change them in next release. Anyway, relying on enemies not bringing the obvious counter is kind of off.
As far as improving variety, though, I could definitely see adding a few more options at some point!Anything in particular on your mind, or do you just agree that currently you sort of need certain weapons for certain loadouts?
It's Diktat-only in vanilla, for flavor reasons. And I'm not 100% sure if autofit even mounts it on their ships.Ha!
Anything in particular on your mind, or do you just agree that currently you sort of need certain weapons for certain loadouts?
Ha!
To elaborate, I didn't mean that solar shielding being player-exclusive is a justification for it being balanced, but that it won't impact your energy weapons, so you can continue using them as before.
Paladin PD flux cost is too high. The only way I can use them is Paragon with flux skills and the like. The flux cost ruins novelty loadouts like all burst/paladin beams and two autopulses.
No they do not. Graviton beam is kinetic. Against armor, it does less than Tactical Laser.
Well, If I could combine HIL with good kinetic ballistics, I'd do. But there are no such ships. All ships with large energy need to utilize it help their otherwise anemic anti-shield capacity, which makes TL always a better choice.
Yes. Both beams do more damage in different situations. Graviton provides 2.6 times the shield damage and Ion Beam causes arc explosions.Which is totally irrelevant when I want a beam to damage armor and hull from long range. If I want a beam to do simple damage to armor and hull from 1000 range, the best there is for medium mount is Tactical Laser. I do not want Graviton Beam for anti-armor or anti-hull. (Anti-shield is a drop in the bucket when the loadout already relies on hard-flux kinetics for that.) I especially do not want Ion Beam if I only want damage. (Arcing from Ion Beam is unreliable, and too flux inefficient in any case.) Phase Beam range is too short. That leaves Tactical Laser, which works, but not very well, but still better than anything else.
A couple more potential options (a medium tac-laser like beam could be worth looking at).
Basically becomes a NO FRIGATES OR FIGHTERS ALLOWED ZONE heh.That is not a problem, especially against fighters. As for frigates, if it has shields, it would probably block it better than Graviton (if it is like old Phase Beam), so that is not a problem, except for enemy Hounds which we want dead. Such a medium beam should be between Tactical Laser and High Intensity Laser.
Medium Tac Laser:Not bad, except for the slow turn rate. It should be at least Medium. Slow turn hurts on mobile ships. Slow might be okay on powerful beams like High Intensity Laser (but still annoying), but for something that is not even a double tac laser, it would be too slow.
OP: 9
Range: 1000
DPS: 135
Flux/sec: 110
Accuracy: Perfect
Turn Rate: Slow
While this might be a bit presumptuous of me? I just want to mention Alex that a medium Tactical Laser'ish weapon? Is a very volatile concept, and I know as I been down this road myself while modding. The problem is that they are completely obscene at killing fighters, and frigates! The combination of enough raw damage output to pressure shields decently while also having much more armor penetration than a Tactical Laser? Basically becomes a NO FRIGATES OR FIGHTERS ALLOWED ZONE heh. To the point where not only is it overly effective when used by the player, it also becomes downright unfun to fight *against*.
That being said, my biggest issue with Energy has always been the lack of hard flux in Small Energy Mounts and the proliferation of Small Energy Mounts (some ships only have them). There just aren't good options to get through shields. I've suggested a few things in the past but I guess I'm in the minority as seeing this as the primary problem.
That being said, my biggest issue with Energy has always been the lack of hard flux in Small Energy Mounts and the proliferation of Small Energy Mounts (some ships only have them). There just aren't good options to get through shields. I've suggested a few things in the past but I guess I'm in the minority as seeing this as the primary problem.
Improving the IR pulse would hopefully do the job there, I think? It would never be as good as something like an LMG, of course...
(Re: medium tac - right, yeah, at least something would need to be substantially different.)
I actually think the IR Pulse is in a pretty good place it's just there is no alternative to it if you want do deal hard flux. It's a really good jack-of-all-trades weapon but even among generalists, we could use a small energy weapon with a.) more range (but less damage) b.) more damage (but less range/poor accuracy) or c.) something "special" that breaks normal Energy conventions but has a trade-off (high OP, poor flux efficiency outside its given role, etc.). I had a bunch of ideas (wow, it's been two years...!) (http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=12540.0) on this very topic.Amen. One of the best things in Starsector is experimenting with weapons. I have probably spent over a few hundred hours just testing builds and then simulating to see how it performs. It's kinda annoying when you have a ship and then think ''welp guess I need to get x weapon or else this won't work''.
I guess where I'm coming from is that no matter how well a weapon fills a role (IR Pulse is a good weapon!), it gets boring being relegated to it every. single. time. I don't think there should be a bunch of "not better but different" weapons in the game but Small Energy is in some desperate need of variety when it comes to straight-forward weapons that do damage.
(Re: medium tac - right, yeah, at least something would need to be substantially different.)How about raising non-EMP damage of Ion Beam from 50 to 75? That way, it is a Tactical Laser with lots of EMP as a rider (and high flux cost).
I don't think there should be a bunch of "not better but different" weapons in the game but Small Energy is in some desperate need of variety when it comes to straight-forward weapons that do damage.That is what I feel with medium weapons in beam variety. If I do not need Graviton's shield pressure (because I cannot stack enough), cannot afford Ion Beam's high costs, and need more range than Heavy Burst Laser/Phase Lance, then all that is left is small beams (i.e., Tactical Laser).
I actually think the IR Pulse is in a pretty good place it's just there is no alternative to it if you want do deal hard flux. It's a really good jack-of-all-trades weapon but even among generalists, we could use a small energy weapon with a.) more range (but less damage) b.) more damage (but less range/poor accuracy) or c.) something "special" that breaks normal Energy conventions but has a trade-off (high OP, poor flux efficiency outside its given role, etc.). I had a bunch of ideas (wow, it's been two years...!) (http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=12540.0) on this very topic.
I guess where I'm coming from is that no matter how well a weapon fills a role (IR Pulse is a good weapon!), it gets boring being relegated to it every. single. time. I don't think there should be a bunch of "not better but different" weapons in the game but Small Energy is in some desperate need of variety when it comes to straight-forward weapons that do damage.
If there is a weapon for every season then there is little differentiation between the sets.On the other hand, blatant gaps is not good either, much like that time with the only medium+ range medium HE ballistic option after Chaingun became a SO weapon was Heavy Mauler, when it was still rare and hard to acquire (no blueprints yet). Then came Heavy Mortar.
Phase lance is quite excellent, even with 600 range. Its just an anti-fighter/anti-armor weapon and is quite poor against shields - not a great match for high tech ships. On Eagles and Falcons though, its a really good choice.
When I'm thinking about 700 range phase lances, I'm actually thinking about how it would compensate for Eagle/Falcon's energy mount positioning.For that, I would like 800 range (or more) out-of-the-box (1000 with Advanced Optics). 700 would be handy for other ships, but for something like Falcon and Eagle, more!
Phase lance is quite excellent, even with 600 range. Its just an anti-fighter/anti-armor weapon and is quite poor against shields - not a great match for high tech ships. On Eagles and Falcons though, its a really good choice.
It's a good choice but I wouldn't call it really good. The issue is it's a 600 range weapon that's further exacerbated by how far back the Eagle and Falcon's energy mounts are compared to its ballistics, so you essentially have shorter range than a high tech ship with less mobility than a high tech ship. You can alleviate that with advanced optics but that's an extra OP tax.
When I'm thinking about 700 range phase lances, I'm actually thinking about how it would compensate for Eagle/Falcon's energy mount positioning.
Sweeping would kill it as a long-range weapon, unless it was very strong, stronger than Phase Lance, to begin with.That just isn't the case though, and lets have a talk for a bit Megas and I actually genuinely appreciate your criticism and theory-crafting. It prompted me to do more strenuous testing of the weapon when before it was mostly balanced by feel. As it turns out, my feel was right.
That is not a problem, especially against fighters. As for frigates, if it has shields, it would probably block it better than Graviton (if it is like old Phase Beam), so that is not a problem, except for enemy Hounds which we want dead. Such a medium beam should be between Tactical Laser and High Intensity Laser.
P.S. That sweeping beam video. Those sweepers were awful, missing the Talons and barely scratching them when the beams hit. The small PD Lasers in the back were more effective against those Talons! I probably would not want to mount those sweepers, instead of Tactical Lasers, on my Eagle.
Also, sweeping would kill the point of non-shield damage if target is heavily armored (and the beam is not as powerful as HIL). Medium already has Ion Beam if player does not care too much about breaking armor and hull after shields are down.
While this might be a bit presumptuous of me? I just want to mention Alex that a medium Tactical Laser'ish weapon? Is a very volatile concept, and I know as I been down this road myself while modding. The problem is that they are completely obscene at killing fighters, and frigates! The combination of enough raw damage output to pressure shields decently while also having much more armor penetration than a Tactical Laser? Basically becomes a NO FRIGATES OR FIGHTERS ALLOWED ZONE heh. To the point where not only is it overly effective when used by the player, it also becomes downright unfun to fight *against*.
Yeah, this is a large part of why the HIL ended up with HE damage! Sort of an opposite approach - doubling down on anti-armor, but making even weaker shields counter it well.
The "sweeping" is quite an elegant solution.
The other thing is, well, the Tactical Laser is already there as a possible beam option for medium slots. For ballistics (light AC -> heavy AC, say) at least the range is substantially different, and the heavy version is significantly burstier; generally speaking I don't love adding "exactly the same but bigger" weapons.That being said, my biggest issue with Energy has always been the lack of hard flux in Small Energy Mounts and the proliferation of Small Energy Mounts (some ships only have them). There just aren't good options to get through shields. I've suggested a few things in the past but I guess I'm in the minority as seeing this as the primary problem.
Improving the IR pulse would hopefully do the job there, I think? It would never be as good as something like an LMG, of course...
(Re: medium tac - right, yeah, at least something would need to be substantially different.)
Thank you Alex! I am quite happy with the sweeping myself both mechanically and "tech lore" wise since it is a souped up Mining Laser so it sweeping makes sense... Or something. Maybe my rambles and footage up above will inspire you to do something a bit unusual for vanilla if you end up doing a "med Tac Laser" in vanilla later :)I actually think the IR Pulse is in a pretty good place it's just there is no alternative to it if you want do deal hard flux. It's a really good jack-of-all-trades weapon but even among generalists, we could use a small energy weapon with a.) more range (but less damage) b.) more damage (but less range/poor accuracy) or c.) something "special" that breaks normal Energy conventions but has a trade-off (high OP, poor flux efficiency outside its given role, etc.). I had a bunch of ideas (wow, it's been two years...!) (http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=12540.0) on this very topic.
I guess where I'm coming from is that no matter how well a weapon fills a role (IR Pulse is a good weapon!), it gets boring being relegated to it every. single. time. I don't think there should be a bunch of "not better but different" weapons in the game but Small Energy is in some desperate need of variety when it comes to straight-forward weapons that do damage.
I feel like the range of the IR pulse is about the extent of what hard flux damage can have in small energy slots before there are problems. It'd also be nice if it was useful on something like the Wolf, which I don't think it currently is... hmm. (Made a note to have another look through that thread, btw.)
Regarding the IR Pulse Laser buff in theory? Keep in mind this is pure theory-crafting I did not try this nor put too much thought into it... What might be interesting to do Alex is make it fire in double tap bursts, but not like the Heavy Mortar. Give it a 2 shot magazine that also reloads in paired shot clips not a trickle and it could fire 1 or both shots (or more) back to back, this way it can also be souped up with the Extended Magazines hullmod. Overall DPS the same, but would get a bit of burst potential but not really that much. Might also need to be made slightly more flux efficient if something like this happened. Anyways this would not only buff it some, but it would also make it more *fun*, having a burst fire small energy weapon in vanilla and not just another semi-auto one.Two possible problems, if the burst means less sustained DPS. 1) Will it play nice with IPDAI hullmod? 2) Will the burst matter when damage is low enough that they need to be sustained for a while?
No. The shorter range on eagles/falcons is an advantage it lets them more easily target/weapon discriminate between enemies they want to shoot their kinetic guns at and those they want to shoot their phase lances at. The phase lances then get held for anti-fighter/frigate work and not wasted into shields.I find the short range of Phase Lance very annoying on Falcon/Eagle (and other ships). I need Advanced Optics to get enough range, but then it might make other 1000 range beams (like Ion Beam) too long. For Falcon/Eagle, I try use Phase Lances (instead of Tactical Laser spam) as a finisher against big ships, but the range is too short without Advanced Optics. Also, their flux use means I use less ballistics for anti-shield. (Three Heavy Autocannons use too much flux, but two Heavy Needlers, or a combo of Arbalests/Railguns and Heavy Autocannon, is efficient enough to work with Phase Lances.) If Pulse Laser's flux/sec were not so high, I would use those instead of Phase Lances if I was content with 600 range.
If the phase lances were similar range as their main guns they would waste flux transferring their soft flux for less soft flux of the enemy (An enemy has to have shields OVER 1.2 in order for a flux trade into shields to be worthwhile for phase lances)
Yeah, there just doesn't seem to be a generally good medium energy weapon in the game. Phase lance is classified as such, but we all know it's a strike weapon. The issue is further amplified by the fact that a lot of high-tech small ships have medium energy mounts (wolf, tempest, brawler, shrike) without the flux capacity to properly use available options. AI is no good at using high-burst high-flux weapons, so having a medium tactical laser would just be a good alternative to simply putting pulse lasers on everything without thinking.This! Also, Phase Lance range is too short for anything aside from non-missile PD (which we also have Heavy Burst Laser) or hit-and-run strikes (from Hyperion, Harbinger, or SO ships).
Yeah, there just doesn't seem to be a generally good medium energy weapon in the game. Phase lance is classified as such, but we all know it's a strike weapon. The issue is further amplified by the fact that a lot of high-tech small ships have medium energy mounts (wolf, tempest, brawler, shrike) without the flux capacity to properly use available options. AI is no good at using high-burst high-flux weapons, so having a medium tactical laser would just be a good alternative to simply putting pulse lasers on everything without thinking.
I think Mining Blaster was supposed to be the cheap Open Market medium energy. Unfortunately, it has terrible range (for its size) and efficiency, costs 10 OP to mount, and is a borderline strike weapon. It is ill-suited for brawling. If mining blaster will stay so inefficient (1.7 or so, that is extreme), then it needs its DP cost lowered to match the likes of Arbalest or Heavy Mortar.
Pulse Laser would probably be more comparable to Heavy Autocannon.
For generalist use, pulse laser is the baseline hard-flux option, and it is a bit too flux-hungry and inefficient to use against ships with efficient kinetics. (I would not use it over ballistics for a hybrid mount.) It is on the efficient side for hard-flux energy, just not efficient enough for those with bad flux stats like Wolf, or midline ships looking for efficient energy options to compliment ballistics.
The mining laser is borderline useless IMO. 1.7 efficiency is just so painful. In order to get your enemy in a position where you can do hull damage, you have spend your capacity to win the flux war and you have no capacity left to use the mining blaster to crack armor which is the only thing it is remotely good at.
The mining laser is borderline useless IMO. 1.7 efficiency is just so painful. In order to get your enemy in a position where you can do hull damage, you have spend your capacity to win the flux war and you have no capacity left to use the mining blaster to crack armor which is the only thing it is remotely good at.
Mining Blaster is dedicated shield bypass weapon for Hyperion, since even a bit more damage per shot trumps other considerations, but AM blaster's wind-up makes it too slow.
At this point the only question is why is it called Mining Blaster... Name doesn't match actual niche.
Having a weapon that is literally only good on one ship is terrible design. Especially considering that the ship is super niche as well since it is exceedingly rare and costs as much as cruiser while likely not out cruisers levels of value unless the player pilots it and is also very good at piloting it. I disagree that this is a valid reason for it being the way it is.
I don't agree that HAC is similar to the pulse laser. I would say every ship with a medium ballistic mount is happy use the HAC, but many ships with energy mounts struggle to use a pulse laser. The short range and high flux cost just cause the AI too many issues on many ships. Graviton is the only medium energy weapon that is useful generally (i.e. any ship can use it), but it has super low output so it's a waste to put it on ships where medium energy mounts are their primary firepower.HAC is similar to Pulse Laser not by usefulness, but by design. Pulse Laser costs 10 OP, and not found at Open Market. Both appear to be the standard, unlike low-end Mining Blaster/Arbalest, or high-end Heavy Blaster/HVD/Heavy Needler.
Having a weapon that is literally only good on one ship is terrible design.I have similar complaints with other weapons. Most of all, dumb-fire large missiles (in part because Hammer Barrage is low-end and Open Market common). The only good ship that can use them well is the Legion (XIV), which we cannot buy, build, or farm. Gryphon is a bad ship, and the rest cannot use them effectively due to conflict design. Next release, Radiant may be an option, but that is AI only.
Heavy Autocannon is decent, but I do not use it very much for one among a variety of reasons: costs too much flux, range band does not match Heavy Mortar, too inaccurate, not as good as heavy needler. Still HAC gets the job done.
Phase Lance is a runner-up. Anything I might want it on, I prefer another weapon. For example, AM Blasters instead of Phase Lances on Harbinger.
I think HAC is fine if you are choosing between HAC + 5 vents vs Heavy Needler, or need to spent these 5 OP on some critical hullmod. If you've already maxed vents, then Heavy Needler is generally better.Sure, if I need to give up too many vents, and the ship can deal with the flux load, then sure, HACs go on instead. I have few alternative loadouts where I use Heavy Autocannon instead of Heavy Needler due to OP cost.
Thought I got quite accustomed to using HAC in 0.9 (since Needler had same 1.0 efficiency).
If FooF's new low-end, low DPS weapon is to be relied on shields (especially for something like Wolf who cannot use ballistics), it needs to have no worse than 1.0 efficiency (and have at least 600 range).
Heavy Blaster can get away with worse efficiency (than Pulse Laser) because of higher DPS, which may cause the enemy to lose the flux war faster and prevent more damage from hitting your shields, plus break armor faster, which can compensate for inefficiency. Less damage taken by shields by beating the enemy faster means less hard flux.
Pulse Laser is not only a bit expensive on flux, but its 1.1 efficiency is not great either, especially against other ships' 0.8 to 1.0 efficiency kinetics.
Hmmm. Energy weapons conversations seem to always run in circles, like Conquest conversations. You guys are crazy. Hmmm, may I join the fun ? ;D
... together with support kinetic weapon(s) and good mobility.
(Just wanted to say that even though I'm not responding a whole lot, I'm very much keeping up with the thread.)
Pulse Laser is the best medium size general purpose weapon in the game.This is only true because it is the only medium size general purpose weapon in the game. I've already stated why I think it's mediocre.
Mining Blaster is a very good medium size bust weapon. In case you have forgotten just look at the raw damage it does. Good to overload high flux ship when shot on shield and good to crack armor. One single MB works well on Pirate Shrike, Medusa, Falcon and Eagle - together with support kinetic weapon(s) and good mobility. It works well on player piloted regular Shrike. Now ... sure, you don't wan't to have that kind of weapon on auto fire - but would you put your Antimatter Blaster or torpedo launcher on auto fire ? MB is kind of an alternative to the AMB.Every other energy weapon that does something vaguely similar is better. Anti-matter blaster is better (even though you are downsizing the mount), phase lance is better, heavy blaster is better. It only does 700 damage for 1200 flux? Heavy blaster does 500 for 720 flux, anti-matter blaster does 1400 damage for 1500 flux, phase lance does 1000 damage for 1200 flux. There's literally no reason to use it if you have any other options.
Heavy Blaster can get away with worse efficiency (than Pulse Laser) because of higher DPS, which may cause the enemy to lose the flux war faster and prevent more damage from hitting your shields, plus break armor faster, which can compensate for inefficiency. Less damage taken by shields by beating the enemy faster means less hard flux.
As for medium tactical laser, just give phase lance more range. Medium taclaser won't be anti-shield, you have graviton for that. It won't be EMP, you have ion beam for that. It won't be a poke laser, we have small tactical laser for that. This leaves us anti-fighter and anti-armour beam, and burst. Sounds familiar? Well, there's an alternative of making it an expensive, high power anti-everything beam, but I'm not sure if it would be a good idea.Phase Lance with more range would be hideously overpowered... Due to the massive burst and being effectively histcan. This would be especially harmful to frigates, and don't most of them become effectively obsolete during a game run fast enough already? This is also in reply to later Phase Lance comments though I don't think I should go and quote a whole bunch of posts heh.
Megas, I literally said in my post that you also directly quoted that my theory-crafted IR Pulse Laser rebalance would retain the same overall sustained DPS. Though I also said I didn't spend a lot of time thinking about it heh, nor tested the concept at all.Regarding the IR Pulse Laser buff in theory? Keep in mind this is pure theory-crafting I did not try this nor put too much thought into it... What might be interesting to do Alex is make it fire in double tap bursts, but not like the Heavy Mortar. Give it a 2 shot magazine that also reloads in paired shot clips not a trickle and it could fire 1 or both shots (or more) back to back, this way it can also be souped up with the Extended Magazines hullmod. Overall DPS the same, but would get a bit of burst potential but not really that much. Might also need to be made slightly more flux efficient if something like this happened. Anyways this would not only buff it some, but it would also make it more *fun*, having a burst fire small energy weapon in vanilla and not just another semi-auto one.Two possible problems, if the burst means less sustained DPS. 1) Will it play nice with IPDAI hullmod? 2) Will the burst matter when damage is low enough that they need to be sustained for a while?
IR Pulse Laser plus IPDAI is passable PD, especially for Odyssey or Conquest. I find IR Pulse Laser more useful for bigger ships since they get more range after ITU and can afford to bully weaker ships with them. For something like Wolf, the range is too short, and it does not have the flux stats to support more than one or two.
@ MesoTronik:Is in your head Megas, I didn't change anything neither in stats nor scripts! A beam like that with those stats and doesn't sweep? Is incredibly overpowered against frigates and fighters but fine against larger ships. The sweeping is specifically meant to nerf them vs smaller targets but not change effectiveness very much vs larger ones along with just making it more interesting of a weapon. And yea 4 Tactical Lasers is too much but I did that so when comparing to dual Heavy Mining Lasers or dual Graviton Beams? Roughly equal OPs was being spent so it was a more fair comparison.
The sweeper appears better on the new videos. A beam like that, minus the sweeping, is close to what I had in mind. Four tactical lasers on Eagle is too many mounts taken, especially if I do not have burst PD. 8 DP is a bargain though, or maybe not since the sweeping makes it miss small targets at times. Your videos show why I do not want Graviton beam in the medium mounts if I want a long-range armor/hull breaker.
Megas, I literally said in my post that you also directly quoted that my theory-crafted IR Pulse Laser rebalance would retain the same overall sustained DPS. Though I also said I didn't spend a lot of time thinking about it heh, nor tested the concept at all.
Phase Lance with more range would be hideously overpowered... Due to the massive burst and being effectively histcan. This would be especially harmful to frigates, and don't most of them become effectively obsolete during a game run fast enough already? This is also in reply to later Phase Lance comments though I don't think I should go and quote a whole bunch of posts heh.Phase Lance is more armour-piercing than burst, simply because it does soft flux damage. You can't rely on it too much, unless you significantly dwarf your opponent. However, when paired with ballistics, it's easy to specialise it. Same can be said about Tachyon Lance, with the exception that there's no destroyer-sized Tempest.
If you're firing above your own flux you're losing the flux war against someone who isn't unless the shield damage efficiency of the weapon is better than the inverse of their shield efficiency.
If you're firing above your own flux you're losing the flux war against someone who isn't unless the shield damage efficiency of the weapon is better than the inverse of their shield efficiency.
This isn't really true either. You gain flux from your weapons at a rate of (weapon flux - dissipation), so if that difference is less than the dps*shield efficiency, you're building up flux in the enemy faster than your own (due to your weapons). Even if the weapon is inefficient, you can offset this with dissipation. For instance a weapon with 200 dps and 300 flux/sec has a 1.5 efficiency, but if my ship has 200 dissipation and the enemy ship has 1.0 shields, I am building up 100 flux/sec in my own ship and 200 in his in spite of the fact that 1.5>1.
This is the only reasons why energy weapons are viable vs kinetics: because the ships that can mount them have very high dissipations and capacities. Additionally, even if you are building up flux faster in your own ship, you will still win the flux war if you have sufficiently more capacity. Capacity is less dependable though because if you get a random spike of flux from elsewhere, you may suddenly switch to losing the flux war and you can't recover easily since you're actually gaining flux faster.
Ultimately they are also shooting you, so the equation is really (e. dps * f. shield eff. + f. (wpn flux - diss)) < (f. dps * e. shield eff. + e. (wpn. flux - diss)) where e and f are enemy and friendly. If that equation is satisfied, you're winning the flux war. High dps definitely helps in that case as long as you're not increasing your own weapon flux too much.
This isn't really true either. You gain flux from your weapons at a rate of (weapon flux - dissipation), so if that difference is less than the dps*shield efficiency, you're building up flux in the enemy faster than your own (due to your weapons). Even if the weapon is inefficient, you can offset this with dissipation. For instance a weapon with 200 dps and 300 flux/sec has a 1.5 efficiency, but if my ship has 200 dissipation and the enemy ship has 1.0 shields, I am building up 100 flux/sec in my own ship and 200 in his in spite of the fact that 1.5>1.Well, that's only true for weapons that deal hard flux, i.e. not phase lance. Beams build up soft flux that the enemy dissipates at their own dissipation rate with shields up. So you aren't building up 200 flux in their ship, you are building up (200-their dissipation after shield upkeep).
That isn't how it works. If you're firing above your own flux you're losing the flux war against someone who isn't unless the shield damage efficiency of the weapon is better than the inverse of their shield efficiency. The inefficiency of the heavy blaster is made up by the fact that its minimum damage versus armor number occurs at 2883 armor. Which means that at 500 armor its 37.5% efficient while the pulse laser against 500 armor is 15.1% efficient. That against a 500 armor target a heavy blaster takes 2 shots to strip it(for a total duration of 1 to 2 seconds) and consumes 1440 flux in the process(and does hull damage on top) while a pulse laser takes 19 shots to strip for a total duration of 6 to 6.3 seconds and consumes 2090 flux. And because a hammerhead has 500 armor.On paper, it looks bad, but it practice, sometimes heavy blaster is more effective than pulse laser at winning the flux war (against inferior or equal opponents), then finishing off the enemy after the war is won, because of the higher DPS (and better anti-armor). I tried both, and often, Heavy Blaster is more effective overall, especially if the ship can only squeeze so much on its mounts. Also, what intrinsic_parity said.
Ultimately they are also shooting you, so the equation is really (e. dps * f. shield eff. + f. (wpn flux - diss)) < (f. dps * e. shield eff. + e. (wpn. flux - diss)) where e and f are enemy and friendly. If that equation is satisfied, you're winning the flux war. High dps definitely helps in that case as long as you're not increasing your own weapon flux too much.This is a large reason why Heavy Blaster can be better than the more efficient Pulse Laser or (for some ships) the most efficient IR Pulse Laser. Energy weapon ranges are terrible! The ships using them WILL get shot back, and WILL take hard flux on shields from the enemy. Higher DPS can mitigate this because the enemy has less time to fire back before losing the flux war.
Phase Lance with more range would be hideously overpowered... Due to the massive burst and being effectively histcan. This would be especially harmful to frigates, and don't most of them become effectively obsolete during a game run fast enough already? This is also in reply to later Phase Lance comments though I don't think I should go and quote a whole bunch of posts heh.Even with Advanced Optics, Phase Lance is decently useful at best and a bit underwhelming at worst. Usually, I need hard flux support from other weapons to make it good. If anything, I feel like I pay too much OP for 800 range Phase Lance. 600 is so short than I usually take Pulse Laser over Phase Lance because the former does hard flux and the latter does not. Rarely is the burst more useful than hard flux.
Damage boost from flux is will be in the next release
At the very least I would like a way to disable this: the point where the projectile spawns glows in increasing intensity as flux values get higher... last time that mechanic was in place there was no way to get rid of it and it basically means I will have to remove energy weapons from my mod altogether. It gets so big it covers the whole weapon sprite.
We had completely different experiences with that - I found the high flux bonus to make sense, and be highly useful for the AI, and especially useful for boosting energy PD to a point where it's effective.
Thank you, made a note to take a look when I get a chance!
Just as a general note, a lot of this stuff is beyond what the AI can reasonably do - it has to deal with general cases; getting too specific often results in improved behavior for that one case and considerably worse behavior for things that kind of look like it but are crucially different in some what the AI doesn't pick up on. Still, definitely some things here to look at.
will AI officers get access to this, btw?
Yeah I brought it up because weapon efficiency doesn't directly contribute to the inequality, and you can easily devise scenarios where bad weapon efficiency is still winning the flux battle.If you're firing above your own flux you're losing the flux war against someone who isn't unless the shield damage efficiency of the weapon is better than the inverse of their shield efficiency....
Ultimately they are also shooting you, so the equation is really (e. dps * f. shield eff. + f. (wpn flux - diss)) < (f. dps * e. shield eff. + e. (wpn. flux - diss)) where e and f are enemy and friendly. If that equation is satisfied, you're winning the flux war. High dps definitely helps in that case as long as you're not increasing your own weapon flux too much.
I think this is what Goumindoing meant by saying "... firing above your own flux..." as in the portion of your own flux higher than your own dissipation, but your example and formula is mostly correct for constantly firing weapons (add in an absolute value on weapon flux - dissipation, as the hard flux can't be dissipated with shields up). As a further complication though: weapons don't always constantly fire, but instead have some duty cycle based on the situation, and that duty cycle factor is multiplied by both dps and weapon flux, but not dissipation, and is between 0 and 1.
In effect, the weapon flux wants to run higher even that what the situation above implies: when you can't shoot (or can shoot less than your dissipation) but the enemy's shields are up, you do not want to be stuck with a flux bar pinned to the hard flux limit. Instead, you want to be dissipating soft flux you've already pumped into the enemy as hard flux, and the perfect ratio is the average duty cycle. (This situation can happen by maneuvering, both on the part of the enemy or yourself, or by ion damage, or weapons being disabled, etc. Retreating to a range where you and the enemy can't hit each other, but you BOTH are still required to keep its shields up because of the threat, is an example of duty cycle manipulation: having the ability to do so means that you can run even MORE flux hot.) (Of course retreating to a range where the enemy has to keep shields up and you don't is just winning.)If I understand what you are saying here then I agree. I think you're saying that you're happy to drive your own flux up firing weapons if it means your drive the enemies hard flux up because you can back off and dissipate soft flux while maintaining enough of a threat that the enemy doesn't vent, thus gaining an advantage in the flux war even if you lose the flux battle (gain flux faster while firing weapons) so to speak. That's a way you can win the flux war, bit to sort of depends on your ability to prevent the enemy from dropping shields or venting. I guess torpedos and missiles actually do this quite well just by existing on you ship. It's an interesting idea that I've seen in other ability based PvP games as well: the threat of doing something is often more valuable than actually doing it because you force the enemy to always be prepared for your ability. I don't know if the AI actually works that way though.
Yeah I brought it up because weapon efficiency doesn't directly contribute to the inequality, and you can easily devise scenarios where bad weapon efficiency is still winning the flux battle.
If you're firing above your own flux you're losing the flux war against someone who isn't unless the shield damage efficiency of the weapon is better than the inverse of their shield efficiency.
Yeah I brought it up because weapon efficiency doesn't directly contribute to the inequality,
If you're firing above your own flux you're losing the flux war against someone who isn't unless the shield damage efficiency of the weapon is better than the inverse of their shield efficiency.
This is the quote I was taking issue with. Obviously less efficient weapons are worse, but the relation ship is not direct as stated by this quote.Yeah I brought it up because weapon efficiency doesn't directly contribute to the inequality,
Hence 'doesn't directly contribute to the inequallity'. Nothing in the relationship cares about the ratio directly, it cares about the flux generation relative to the dissipation and the dps, which are related to the efficiency but not determined by the efficiency. Im not trying to say that efficient doesn't matter, just that it doesn't determine if you will win the flux war as implied in the original quote.
No. If the flux efficiency of the weapon is worse than the inverse of the flux efficiency of the shield and you are over your standard dissipation then you pay 1 flux for >1 flux damage.
If your flux efficiency vs shields is 1.4 and their shield is .7(the inverse of which is 1.43) then you use 1 flux to do .98 damage. You only "win the flux war" here if you have more flux than what you're shooting at(and sometimes the sum of the things you're shooting at. This contributes to you losing the flux war.
No. If the flux efficiency of the weapon is worse than the inverse of the flux efficiency of the shield and you are over your standard dissipation then you pay 1 flux for >1 flux damage.
If your flux efficiency vs shields is 1.4 and their shield is .7(the inverse of which is 1.43) then you use 1 flux to do .98 damage. You only "win the flux war" here if you have more flux than what you're shooting at(and sometimes the sum of the things you're shooting at. This contributes to you losing the flux war.
Your flux increases at a rate of (flux generation - dissipation) which is less than flux generation. If you had no dissipation, then what you said would be true. But if you have dissipation, you're not generating the full flux amount in your own ship because some is being dissipated. So you're not paying 'full price' unless you have no spare dissipation.
No. If the flux efficiency of the weapon is worse than the inverse of the flux efficiency of the shield and you are over your standard dissipation then you pay 1 flux for >1 flux damage.
If your flux efficiency vs shields is 1.4 and their shield is .7(the inverse of which is 1.43) then you use 1 flux to do .98 damage. You only "win the flux war" here if you have more flux than what you're shooting at(and sometimes the sum of the things you're shooting at. This contributes to you losing the flux war.
Your flux increases at a rate of (flux generation - dissipation) which is less than flux generation. If you had no dissipation, then what you said would be true. But if you have dissipation, you're not generating the full flux amount in your own ship because some is being dissipated. So you're not paying 'full price' unless you have no spare dissipation.
Yes but what does dissipation have to do with firing over dissipation?
OK lets say you have 1000 flux dissipation. You can fill this in two ways, with heavy blasters or with pulse lasers.
Pulse lasers eat 999 flux dissipation for 909 DPS. Heavy Basters eat 1440 dissipation for 1000 DPS or 2160 dissipation for 1500 DPS.
Who wins the flux war? A: The pulse lasers. Not only are the heavy blasters shooting 440 OVER dissipation for 278 extra DPS(or 1160 over) -> .694 efficiency which makes this a loser against anything but 1.44 shields or higher but if they fired in time such that they did not fire over dissipation they would do 694 DPS. Which we might note is less than 909. So they lose the flux war either way.
Now you might be saying "DUH" but apparently not because this is the kind of thing that you have to ignore in order to come to the conclusion that you had. This is because these considerations happen when youre fit. And every ship can fill out its flux dissipation with weapons. There are no ships that have excess dissipation to fire all of their weapons and they just don't have enough slots. This means that you can always move to more efficient weapons in more slots in order to keep your flux rate tied to your dissipation rate.
And it means that the purpose of "flux inefficient" weapons like the heavy blaster is not because they're going to win you the flux war, they're not, they're going to make it harder to win. Its because they're going to kill armor faster, when the flux war is already won.
@intrinsic_parityYes, inefficient weapons that fully utilize dissipation are better than efficient weapons that fail too. I could also concoct a scenario where inefficient weapons leverage a major capacity advantage when an efficient weapon would not, even if the inefficient weapon exceeds the dissipation limit. Basically, inefficient weapons with high dps can allow you to leverage advantages in flux stats to win the flux war (particularly when weapon mounts are limited). None of this accounts for range either. Basically the whole point I was trying to make is that it's more complicated than just comparing weapon efficiency to enemy shield efficiency.
Easier way to describe the situation is 'wasted dissipation'. If you have any, you are doing it wrong. Most builds should have primary weapons flux + shield maintenance >= dissipation. Examples 2&3 break this rule in their lose scenario.
Yes, you've constructed a scenario where the ship with bad weapon efficiency loses, but it didn't lose because 1.44>1, it loses because of a combination of factors including the two ships dissipations, dps, flux generation etc.
example 1:
ship 1: 10000 capacity, 100 dps, 150 wpn flux/sec (.66 weapon efficiency), 150 dissipation, 1 shields
ship 2: 10000 capacity, 175 dps, 100 wpn flux/sec, 100 dissipation, 1.6 shields (1.6 > 1/.66)
result: ship 2 overloads in 62.5 seconds, ship 1 overloads in 57.1 seconds so ship 2 wins. The weapon .66 efficiency weapon is not winning the flux war even though its efficiency is better than the inverse of shield efficiency.
Also notice that if I replace the 100dps/150fps weapon with a 500/750 weapon (that has the same efficiency), ship 1 overloads in 12.9 seconds and ship 2 overloads in 12.5 seconds meaning ship 1 wins by increasing dps without increasing efficiency.
example 2:
ship 1: 1400 capacity, wpn1: 100 dps 100 fps, wpn2: 100 dps 140 fps, dissipation 200, shields 1
ship 2: 1000 capacity, 200 dps, 200 fps, dissipation 200, shields 1
results:
case 1: ship 1 only fires weapon 1 --> ship 1 overloads in 7 seconds, ship 2 overloads in 10 seconds so ship 2 wins
case 2: ship 1 fires both weapons --> ship 1 overloads in 5.83 seconds, ship 2 overloads in 5 seconds so ship 1 wins
in this case, firing a 1.4 efficiency weapon into 1 efficiency shields results in a win when the ship would have otherwise lost, so firing the weapon wins the flux war compared to not firing the weapon
this demonstrates that firing a more inefficient weapon with higher dps in place a of higher efficiency weapon with lower dps alows the ship to win when it otherwise would have lost, so firing the 1.1 efficiency weapon into 1 efficiency shields is better than a 1 efficiency weapon in this case
But you should be able to look at your examples see how thin the margins are here. This is why, in the second post i explained it more fully. That rather than simply looking at the weapon efficiency and shield efficiency you had to look at the ratio of percentages of flux cost versus the percentage of flux damage. But the "dumb algorithm" is otherwise pretty good. This is because its harder to judge relative capacity when you're fitting and because player ships should tend to have more capacity than AI ships and the even dumber algorithm (don't fire <1.0 shield efficiency weapons into an enemies shield unless you have spare dissipation) is still pretty good for understanding what is going on since 1.0 is a pretty decent baseline for shields.
As for double tac laser overpowered? Are you kidding me?! Even the test results shown by your videos seem a bit on the slow side, but acceptable for the job they do, which is a long-range finisher after shields are defeated. Tactical laser spam is not overpowered against the enemy (beams are slow at killing PD threats like those fighters and frigates, or stripping armor of big ships), and I seriously doubt one that is roughly double (somewhat less DPS, but better anti-armor) is too, if on a medium mount. If it was, I would not be clamoring for a long-range simple damage medium beam effective against non-shield defenses. (Could be new weapon, or could be phase lance or burst heavy laser getting at least 800 range.) I guess a double beam would be overpowered if it was in a small mount, but this is a valuable medium mount. Tactical laser in medium mount is underpowered, but it is the best option for long-range non-shield damage.I am not kidding you, I am deadly serious. I know Megas as I been there, the Heavy Mining Laser didn't always sweep and some other mods add what is basically a double power Tactical Laser with no special mechanics. You are not looking at the whole picture, a weapons effectiveness is more than just time to kill it also involves Player Agency on both sides of a fight.
When you factor in the enemies damage to your shield, faster DPS weapons put you at a higher advantage when facing enemies with more efficient weapons themselves. If you are up against heavy/storm needlers for instance, you aren't going to beat those in terms of efficiency, but if you can do enough damage fast enough they stop firing sooner.
No. If the flux efficiency of the weapon is worse than the inverse of the flux efficiency of the shield and you are over your standard dissipation then you pay 1 flux for >1 flux damage.
If your flux efficiency vs shields is 1.4 and their shield is .7(the inverse of which is 1.43) then you use 1 flux to do .98 damage. You only "win the flux war" here if you have more flux than what you're shooting at(and sometimes the sum of the things you're shooting at. This contributes to you losing the flux war.
Your flux increases at a rate of (flux generation - dissipation) which is less than flux generation. If you had no dissipation, then what you said would be true. But if you have dissipation, you're not generating the full flux amount in your own ship because some is being dissipated. So you're not paying 'full price' unless you have no spare dissipation.
Yes but what does dissipation have to do with firing over dissipation?
OK lets say you have 1000 flux dissipation. You can fill this in two ways, with heavy blasters or with pulse lasers.
Pulse lasers eat 999 flux dissipation for 909 DPS. Heavy Basters eat 1440 dissipation for 1000 DPS or 2160 dissipation for 1500 DPS.
Who wins the flux war? A: The pulse lasers. Not only are the heavy blasters shooting 440 OVER dissipation for 278 extra DPS(or 1160 over) -> .694 efficiency which makes this a loser against anything but 1.44 shields or higher but if they fired in time such that they did not fire over dissipation they would do 694 DPS. Which we might note is less than 909. So they lose the flux war either way.
Now you might be saying "DUH" but apparently not because this is the kind of thing that you have to ignore in order to come to the conclusion that you had. This is because these considerations happen when youre fit. And every ship can fill out its flux dissipation with weapons. There are no ships that have excess dissipation to fire all of their weapons and they just don't have enough slots. This means that you can always move to more efficient weapons in more slots in order to keep your flux rate tied to your dissipation rate.
And it means that the purpose of "flux inefficient" weapons like the heavy blaster is not because they're going to win you the flux war, they're not, they're going to make it harder to win. Its because they're going to kill armor faster, when the flux war is already won.
@Johnny Cocas
Those are some pretty good arguments and you're right, that would be kinda crazy vs frigates. But you completely ignored that beam weapons have stats such as turn rate and flux cost. Just becuase people say "bigger tac laser basically" it doesn't mean it should be fast and low flux cost. Also your big part of the post assumed that every single ship would have those beams and that they would crush anything. That's simply not true. Beam spam works if you have overwhelming numbers, but in campaign it's the opposite. It's easy to counter beam spam, unless the opposing fleet is full of weak frigates and fighters.
Also your big part of the post assumed that every single ship would have those beams and that they would crush anything. That's simply not true. Beam spam works if you have overwhelming numbers, but in campaign it's the opposite. It's easy to counter beam spam, unless the opposing fleet is full of weak frigates and fighters.Agreed.
In regards to the original topic, the idea of a medium mounted long range energy weapon must be handled with care as not to be overpowered. Medium weapon mounts are arguably the most commonly used weapon mounts for most ships in order to deal damage, as many don't even have large mounts, so a medium weapon will be something that will be used very frequently.In that case, that will go mostly to the short-ranged hard-flux, high damage, or EMP weapons for the high-tech ships. Some are fine due to mounts that can use kinetics or special systems that can bypass shields, but others need Sabot spam, except Wolf who is screwed.
- A beam with 1k range or more has a large enough range for it to be able to still turn and manage to hit the enemy ship, even if it has a low turning rate.Ship turning speed can interfere with beam use. If the weapon turns slowly enough, it cannot offset the ship's speed. Tactical laser is fast, but not so fast as to always keep up with a fast turning ship. I would expect a medium beam having Medium speed, unless it is a PD beam. For a tactical laser to do its work, the ship should be as steady as possible (i.e., no sudden turns).
- There's always the ship turning speed to compensate for low weapon turning rate.
- You don't need an entire fleet to beam spam a long range beam because you wouldn't even need that many of them to be effective.That is the point. Instead of needing six or more tactical lasers just to burn a hole through armor and do more than tickle hull of one ship, you only need about three. Six tactical lasers may be enough for anti-shield against frigates, but if I was interested in that, I would either get Graviton Beams instead or shoot them with hard-flux ballistics (or spam Sabots in case of high-tech ships).
- a single ship with a HIL can kill you if you down your shields if you are on a destroyer or anything smaller than that, because that is a large HE damage beam, now imagine a single ship with two or three beams that deal energy damage... It won't care if you have your shields up or not, it will simply fire away and kill both your shields and then the hull. Sure, it generates soft flux, but it generates flux, and it wouldn't be a low amount of it!Energy damage is not all that it is cracked up to be. Not as long as the most difficult and rewarding fights are against Ordos with Radiants in them. (Nearly anything else is weaker than full Ordos.) It can be useful as anti-armor in a pinch, but unless it is overwhelming like plasma cannon, ships are better off with mostly kinetics plus enough anti-armor of some kind. For some high-tech ships like Shrike and Aurora, that probably means Sabots and Expanded Missile Racks. Wolf is out of luck.
Low enough to impractical.
Beams, on the other hand, unless they are lances and/or fire in bursts, are effective against everything, the only thing stopping people from using anything but beams on all high-tech ships is that beams are situational right now...The reason why I do not use beams on high-tech ships for non-PD purposes is they have low DPS and deal only soft flux, and most ships cannot fire enough to overcome dissipation. The ships I am mostly likely to use beams as assault weapons are midline, and usually to compliment ballistics.
@ MesoTroniK: It is not all theory-crafting. I try some of this stuff in battles. For beams, not exactly a medium double tactical laser, but I tried the six tactical lasers with Eagle. (Basically the three medium beams without supplimental PD.) Not terribly impressed. Decent anti-armor, but not powerful enough to steamroll fights, and the flux load was not insignificant. I would not expect a new 200 damage/flux, and even 150 is pushing it, due to better anti-armor than 2x75 (and tougher flux load), assuming continuous beam. Meanwhile, something like phase lance has too much flux load (and very likely too effective if it had 1000 range out-of-the-box). Does not help that some other things you consider overpowered, I consider perfectly fine or at least not unbalanced enough to be a problem. Simply put, we will disagree on some of this stuff.
Quote from: Grievous69Also your big part of the post assumed that every single ship would have those beams and that they would crush anything. That's simply not true. Beam spam works if you have overwhelming numbers, but in campaign it's the opposite. It's easy to counter beam spam, unless the opposing fleet is full of weak frigates and fighters.Agreed.
- How do you counter a beam spam of long range Energy damage beams? Mind you I'm talking about the hypothetical medium sized beam.
As for Johnny's points...
In that case, that will go mostly to the short-ranged hard-flux, high damage, or EMP weapons for the high-tech ships. Some are fine due to mounts that can use kinetics or special systems that can bypass shields, but others need Sabot spam, except Wolf who is screwed.
On midline ships, if my ship is short on OP, missiles are the first thing to go, closely followed by energy mounts not needed for PD. On Conquest, the medium energy mount is either empty or has more burst PD. On Sunder, if I use tachyon lance or plasma cannon, the energy mounts are empty because none of the weapons are good enough, and I need the OP to support the heavy weapon plus possible railguns.
Beams are perfectly accurate, but those continuous beams smaller than heavy are slow frigate killers. Painfully slow if the frigate is shielded, and none of the beams are Graviton (but then Graviton will not crack armor fast enough). An Eagle with six tac lasers against a group of frigates? Eagle may kill one frigate, then needs to shake off the other four before they swarm and kill it. Easier said than done. I even tried them against fighters. They do not kill as fast as shorter-ranged pulse lasers or phase lance.
Ship turning speed can interfere with beam use. If the weapon turns slowly enough, it cannot offset the ship's speed. Tactical laser is fast, but not so fast as to always keep up with a fast turning ship. I would expect a medium beam having Medium speed, unless it is a PD beam. For a tactical laser to do its work, the ship should be as steady as possible (i.e., no sudden turns).
That is the point. Instead of needing six or more tactical lasers just to burn a hole through armor and do more than tickle hull of one ship, you only need about three. Six tactical lasers may be enough for anti-shield against frigates, but if I was interested in that, I would either get Graviton Beams instead or shoot them with hard-flux ballistics (or spam Sabots in case of high-tech ships).
Low enough to impractical.
Energy damage is not all that it is cracked up to be. Not as long as the most difficult and rewarding fights are against Ordos with Radiants in them. (Nearly anything else is weaker than full Ordos.) It can be useful as anti-armor in a pinch, but unless it is overwhelming like plasma cannon, ships are better off with mostly kinetics plus enough anti-armor of some kind. For some high-tech ships like Shrike and Aurora, that probably means Sabots and Expanded Missile Racks. Wolf is out of luck.
The reason why I do not use beams on high-tech ships for non-PD purposes is they have low DPS and deal only soft flux, and most ships cannot fire enough to overcome dissipation. The ships I am mostly likely to use beams as assault weapons are midline, and usually to compliment ballistics.
When you factor in the enemies damage to your shield, faster DPS weapons put you at a higher advantage when facing enemies with more efficient weapons themselves. If you are up against heavy/storm needlers for instance, you aren't going to beat those in terms of efficiency, but if you can do enough damage fast enough they stop firing sooner.Not if their flux efficiency is worse than the targets shield efficiency. You will flux out faster if you fire inefficiently over your capacity compared to if you had not.
It is by no accident that the Heavy Mining Laser has been tweaked the way it was, always remember that.Yes, and it makes sense from a lore perspective, but as a gold standard or paragon of balance for all other beams to remember, I disagree with that.
I don't think you are understanding my point... I don't want a strong long range beam, the fact that I wouldn't even need that many of them in a fleet for them to wreak havoc is the main reason they are already strong enough. Personally, I favor specialised weaponry over all-purpose weapons, stuff that either deals Kinetic or HE damage will always be better regarded by me than a weapon that deals Energy damage because the specialised ones are fun, a lot more fun in fact, but the important thing to take note here is that tac lasers should not be used as a main damage dealing weapon, nor expected to be, and yet you use them as defense to justify the existance of a medium sized version of them...I do not think an upgraded tac laser or whatever form it takes is all-purpose, just anti-armor/anti-hull. If I want shield pressure, there is graviton. If I want... weird stuff, ion beam. If I want a simple damage beam to attack the enemy from afar while he is vulnerable, there is nothing... except tactical laser, which is too weak on a medium. (Few ships with many mounts can make it work, but it is sub-optimal compared to other options.) A medium damage-only beam is not all-purpose, unless damage is too high. An all-purpose beam would be something that deal 200+ damage per second. Even then, the flux load would probably be as high as ion beam or phase lance, which will probably make it kind of specialized because the flux load is too high to comfortably support more than few.
However, having shorter range means that the amount of time you have to fire on your target is also shorter. The Aurora has to dive into longer ranged weaponry, get shots on target, then back off while potentially still taking fire. This is why hard-flux energy weapons have high DPS and/or high burst damage; they need it to make the most of the short engagement times inherent to the ships they're mounted on, as well as to help compensate for the poor efficiency. If hard-flux energy weapons need to be buffed (they don't), they should be given higher DPS or higher burst damage, not longer range or better efficiency.Unfortunately, high-tech ships' flux stats are not that much better than other ships, and weapons smaller than heavy are so inefficient that high-tech ships without ballistics need to either spam sabots to make up for inefficient weapons or spend a lot of OP getting all of the flux and shield hullmods to make energy weapons usable enough, and doing the latter will probably means gutting the ship's weapon loadout because all of that OP has to come from somewhere. Doing the former probably means getting Expanded Missile Racks to have enough Sabots to paralyze then kill few ships. It also does not help that the ships seem to be priced as if used by a skilled player instead of AI. AI does dumb things and probably needs an Aggressive officer (or Eliminate) to behave properly.
A Conquest with a large energy would be terrifying and overpowered, just because it could provide both HIL and kinetic burst on its own.Nevermind that! How about Tachyon Lance instead? That would be partially unblockable with the kinetics Conquest can pump out. This is one of the tricks Prometheus 2 can do, with Heavy Autocannons and lances, and it is quite effective for a sub-par capital. I do not think four lance Paragon would be so great without HVDs or Heavy Needler putting hard flux on shields from long range (to enable lances to shield pierce) in a pinch.
You are correct that small energy weapons are not good outside of specialized roles, but I think that's mostly fine. The only ship that is really hurt by this is the Scarab; every other ship that can mount small energies can also mount either similarly sized ballistics, or larger energy weapons. This is mostly a problem with the Scarab not having high enough numbers, not with small energy weapons.The biggest problem with Scarab is dissipation. Once Temporal Shell is on, it has enough flux left to support one or two IR Pulse Lasers (or one IR and one Ion Cannon). Scarab may be able to use short-range weapons well with its system, just not enough of them. Does dissipation slow down when time shift is active? If so, maybe dissipation can be sped up to offset the time shift, or flux cost reduced like for Accelerated Ammo Feeder.
Unfortunately, high-tech ships' flux stats are not that much better than other ships, and weapons smaller than heavy are so inefficient that high-tech ships without ballistics need to either spam sabots to make up for inefficient weapons or spend a lot of OP getting all of the flux and shield hullmods to make energy weapons usable enough, and doing the latter will probably means gutting the ship's weapon loadout because all of that OP has to come from somewhere. Doing the former probably means getting Expanded Missile Racks to have enough Sabots to paralyze then kill few ships. It also does not help that the ships seem to be priced as if used by a skilled player instead of AI. AI does dumb things and probably needs an Aggressive officer (or Eliminate) to behave properly
Let me get this straight. High tech ships dont have enough flux to be competitive unless they spend a bunch of OP on flux enhancing skills, but high tech weapons use too much flux in order to fire a full compliment....That's right, at least the typical one with high mobility, inability to use ballistics, and sometimes overpriced. Whenever I try less optimized loadouts, I cannot win the flux war, or I win by a slim margin and cannot finish off the enemy (or inflict enough damage to break a stalemate condition). This is not always one-on-one combat, but one against group. Given their inflated costs (for some), they need to punch above their weight, but they do not if not built right. Then there is the matter of AI, if player wants to pass it off AI while he grabs another ship. For AI to use the ships, it should be close to flux neutral, if it has no dirty tricks to stack the deck.
Basically the royal you needs to stop seeing the high flux usage on energy weapons and the high shield costs on high tech ships as a curse and start seeing them as a blessing.Why? Why should bad things be a blessing? High flux use hurts all ships, not just high-tech, although high-tech often lacks ballistic mounts for better weapons. Some high-tech can take the costs, but not all, and definitely not most midline (although midline can use ballistics instead). Why should I need to pump up flux on energy users while I do not need to for most ballistic users?
Wolf, +1Random numbers are random? Explain please.
Tempest, +4
Omen, +2
Shrike, -2
Medusa,+2
Apogee, -4
Aurora,+8
Odyssey, +5
Paragon,+20
Apogee is definitely atypical. It can use a heavy weapon (and a heavy missile), and it has other goodies. At its best, it punches like a 20 or 22 DP cruiser for the low cost of 18 DP.At worse it dies to a couple of frigates as it can't ward off frigates as easily as other cruisers can.
In practice, I've found Wolf wanting indeed. The difference between it and Lasher is not big. Lasher has 90% of the Wolf's flux stats, while being able to use absurdly more efficient weapons. It can't do much before it has to disengage. Omen and Tempest have similar (better than Wolf's!) flux stats, even though Omen doesn't need nearly as much of it (EMP emitter is its main gun, which uses 500 flux to deal certainly more than 500, maybe even more than 1000 damage, giving it excellent efficiency! And without spamming it, there's still 0.6 shields) and Tempest has two flux-free IR lasers and HEF to help it win flux wars. And Wolf is good at staying alive and that's it.Wolf is more useful than Lasher, and for longer. The phase system helps. Sometimes stats don't tell the whole story.
Aurora, I'm not sure if it's good enough for its cost, or not. I typically use it as a missile cruiser, with missiles in question being sabots, and while it's great for bullying smaller ships, it typically has to dump all the missiles to tackle same size opponents or even bigger. I should take it for some AI testing, since borderline all of my experience with it is with my own piloting, but unfortunately I'm very short on time currently and I have no idea when will that happen. Odyssey is in a similar spot, since... Well, actually, it's absurdly rare and I have no idea how competitive it is lately, in comparison to Conquest. I liked the ship a lot, once, but carrier rework made flying it busier than previously.Under player control, it can solo a mob of smaller ships, that other lesser cruisers cannot do, but it requires some finesse or else Aurora will take too much damage or die from one mistake. Doom or a capital can just flatten them with less finesse required for only a few more OP. Aurora under AI control is incompetent. Meanwhile, AI can use Doom well, and can use a capital more easily than Aurora. Aurora is probably worth 25 to 27 DP.
But we might notice that these are not problems with energy weapons these are problems with like... 2 frigates maybe.Aurora too, but that could be fixed by lowering the DP cost closer to other cruisers.
I see thanks for the quick replies. But why mention it compared to baseline? For instance my "baseline" for frigates is 5. If you are talking about flux capacity or dissapitation, a more useful metric would be flux / DP would it not?
Re: megas... but the doom is a high tech ship...They're in their own category. Some time ago I said a similar thing and Alex responded that they're a thing for themselves, just fancy phase ships.
Re: megas... but the doom is a high tech ship...They're in their own category. Some time ago I said a similar thing and Alex responded that they're a thing for themselves, just fancy phase ships.
Blasters and even missiles aren't Doom's primary weapons, mines are. Blasters are just for convenient frigate cleanup, you don't even get to use them when fighting a capital like Paragon (which can be soloed by skill-less Doom).
I think it's worth considering that ships with ballistics can fire above dissipation more easily than ships with energy weapons because ballistics are super efficient. Comparing high tech to other ships is tricky because over-gunning a high tech ship does nothing in the flux war and is probably even detrimental, but over-gunning a mid/low tech ship with kinetics will probably make it better in the flux war since it is doing ~2 damage/flux for most kinetic weapons (and maybe even better for something like a needler). The .5 shield efficiency mark is actually very interesting because that is the point where the average kinetic weapon is detrimental when firing over the dissipation limit.
I think dissipation gives a less complete picture of firepower on ballistic based ships than it does on high tech ships because ballistics ships can over-gun past the dissipation limit with efficiency weapons.
Apogee does alright with (IR) Pulse Lasers in the smaller rear mounts to defend against small flankers. Thanks to flares and shield, it does not need PD as badly as other ships. Unskilled Apogee can deal with five SIM frigates (Lashers, Vigilance, Brawler, and Hound; should be comparable to early game fodder). If it sticks with what it starts with (PD Lasers and Pilums, I think), then sure, Apogee will be in trouble.Apogee is definitely atypical. It can use a heavy weapon (and a heavy missile), and it has other goodies. At its best, it punches like a 20 or 22 DP cruiser for the low cost of 18 DP.At worse it dies to a couple of frigates as it can't ward off frigates as easily as other cruisers can.
On another note, I wish that I could test against ship variants that I've made. The default cruiser load outs are so bad in the sim that testing against them doesn't really tell you anything.
Mining blaster should cost 8 OP, have 600 range and deal 500 damage instead of 700 with better flux efficiency. Damage nerf is so it doesn't get used by certain high tech ships as a superior burst weapon: it just doesn't sit right that the most advanced warships would actually prefer to use a *** mining blaster instead of a sleek, weapons-grade blaster.
Mining blaster should cost 8 OP, have 600 range and deal 500 damage instead of 700 with better flux efficiency. Damage nerf is so it doesn't get used by certain high tech ships as a superior burst weapon: it just doesn't sit right that the most advanced warships would actually prefer to use a *** mining blaster instead of a sleek, weapons-grade blaster.Right, let's nerf already struggling Hyperion further into oblivion...
Mining blaster should cost 8 OP, have 600 range and deal 500 damage instead of 700 with better flux efficiency. Damage nerf is so it doesn't get used by certain high tech ships as a superior burst weapon: it just doesn't sit right that the most advanced warships would actually prefer to use a *** mining blaster instead of a sleek, weapons-grade blaster.Right, let's nerf already struggling Hyperion further into oblivion...
When a ship's "balance" is based solely on a single weapon, where do you think the issue lies...?
Hyperion as a ship, clearly just a thin wrapper around it's system. It's not even a frigate in typical sense, just entirely different category as in normal ships/phase/hyperion.
And without Mining Blasters it's toothless.
Sorry, I should have clarified player piloted with no personal skills. (Did have Loadout Design.)
I did not try starter Apogee, because it would probably be dead. (PD lasers would not do much against a shielded Lasher or the like.) However, all of the weapons it needs are not too hard to get, except maybe plasma cannon. (Locusts are more accessible since pirates use and sell them.)
Ion pulser... needs to decide what it wants to be. For an ion weapon it is too flux inefficient and has less range than the light version. For a damage dealer it is also quite flux inefficient and thanks to weak and spreading shots performs poorly against armour. The only thing it does better than others is burst against shields, which is questionable given its short range and flux inefficiency. For starters, it should have 500 range, a bit less spread and cost 90 flux per shot. Might still need further buffs on top of that.It will basically turn off an entire broadside of a capital ship with *one* good salvo. What else does it need lol? The spread is actually beneficial for that. Anyways any buffs would make it far too easy to declaw everything it shoots at.
This might sound weird, but I've used mining blasters to decent effect on very early game fleets. A wolf with a mining blaster sucks right up until you need to crack the armor of something, where it suddenly becomes useful.Mining blaster is just a bad Heavy Blaster. It's always worth finding using that extra 2 OP for normal combat ships. Mining Laser is only really worth it as a piloted ship and even then you will probably prefer the aforementioned heavy blaster or Phase Lance.
IR pulse lasers are not enough if by smaller rear mounts, you meant the medium rear mounts. Apogee really feels like it does extremely poorly vs frigates; you should try testing against purely Wolfs and Lashers instead. I suppose you could try making an anti-frigate Apogee, but that's just negating the strength of the Apogee. Don't know what you mean by what it starts off with. Who would test their fleet ship by using the sim ships as the ship being tested and using personal ships as the opponent? That's just reverse of normal.Apogee does alright with (IR) Pulse Lasers in the smaller rear mounts to defend against small flankers. Thanks to flares and shield, it does not need PD as badly as other ships. Unskilled Apogee can deal with five SIM frigates (Lashers, Vigilance, Brawler, and Hound; should be comparable to early game fodder). If it sticks with what it starts with (PD Lasers and Pilums, I think), then sure, Apogee will be in trouble.Apogee is definitely atypical. It can use a heavy weapon (and a heavy missile), and it has other goodies. At its best, it punches like a 20 or 22 DP cruiser for the low cost of 18 DP.At worse it dies to a couple of frigates as it can't ward off frigates as easily as other cruisers can.
If anything, Eagle struggles more than it should (against the above five frigates) unless it has the right loadout. (Classic three Graviton Eagle will not work, but Thaago's phase lance Eagle does.) Eagle costs more than Apogee. 22 DP vs. 18 DP.
It's more of a case that there aren't that many ships that can use the Ion Pulser. It seems built to be a weapon used with Saftey Override Hullmod but there aren't that many suitable ships to take the shield out in the first place. Perhaps Harbinger? SO Eagle? In theory an AI ship can take out shields and dart in to burst fire. Maybe Shrike? Might work since it only has 1 medium gun. But the DPS is low. Wouldn't the AI simply normally not use it for most ships since the Ion Pulsar is short ranged or when it does use it, it will waste its ammo on shields? Only time I would put an Ion Pulsar on a ship is if I intended to pilot it myself.Ion pulser... needs to decide what it wants to be. For an ion weapon it is too flux inefficient and has less range than the light version. For a damage dealer it is also quite flux inefficient and thanks to weak and spreading shots performs poorly against armour. The only thing it does better than others is burst against shields, which is questionable given its short range and flux inefficiency. For starters, it should have 500 range, a bit less spread and cost 90 flux per shot. Might still need further buffs on top of that.It will basically turn off an entire broadside of a capital ship with *one* good salvo. What else does it need lol? The spread is actually beneficial for that. Anyways any buffs would make it far too easy to declaw everything it shoots at.
I was agreeing with you :p. If the royal you had used the sim apogee and discovered it did poorly against frigates this would be because the fit is bad not because the ship lacks the tools to deal with flanking frigates.There is no SIM Apogee, unless you mean start with Apogee and immediately enter simulation. I suppose you normally play with mods that add more ship to the simulator. (I have played completely unmodded since 0.9a.) I do not find it unreasonable to equip fairly common weapons on Apogee. What would a starter Eagle look like? Full of Mining/PD Lasers and Arbalests/Heavy Mortar/Thumper?
I think the mining blaster should have reduced flux cost and a longer firing delay. Efficiency should be like 1.5, maybe even a but better. I think reducing damage would make it too similar to the heavy blaster, just worse. Lower dps but better armor cracking and lower OP cost seems like a more interesting choice.At least better efficiency, maybe 1.5.
IR pulse lasers are not enough if by smaller rear mounts, you meant the medium rear mounts. Apogee really feels like it does extremely poorly vs frigates; you should try testing against purely Wolfs and Lashers instead. I suppose you could try making an anti-frigate Apogee, but that's just negating the strength of the Apogee. Don't know what you mean by what it starts off with. Who would test their fleet ship by using the sim ships as the ship being tested and using personal ships as the opponent? That's just reverse of normal.IR Pulse Lasers in the smalls, normal Pulse Lasers in the mediums (although I guess IR Pulse Lasers can work in the mediums). Those are not too hard to find early. I guess I could try Pirate Wolves. Player will probably fight mostly pirates early. I was not testing for AI use as part of your fleet, but flagship, because you probably will pilot your starter Apogee or your first Eagle yourself.
EMP? Reliability to ships where ballistic mounts might be at different distance to the opponent? You basically listed all the reasons as exclusions, and then declared that you only care about damage and dissapitation alone, so of course by those reasons you wouldn't want to use it.I wrote "If I all I cared about damage and dissipation..." The reasons to use Mjolnir over others are those that cannot be casually observed from paper.
Related: For ballistic ships, is there any reason to use Mjolnir instead of Hellbore/HAG and more kinetics? There are reasons, but part of them involve OP, range, number of mounts, and/or accuracy, rather than damage and dissipation alone. If I all I cared about damage and dissipation, I probably would use HAG and more kinetics, because of greater damage. Sometimes, Mjolnir and somewhat fewer kinetics can be at least as good, despite less total damage.
If you're going to mix damage types its probably better to run Mjolnir and simply eat the higher fitting cost. Otherwise you should stack kinetic and kill with other forms of HE like missiles.HE Missiles do not last long enough in long meat-grinder fights. Onslaught would be very happy if its Annihilators lasted more than two minutes. I try to squeeze some more reliable anti-armor (that will not run out) if I can. The question is in what form? Mjolnir or other heavy weapon?
If that means flux cost also goes higher, it probably just make it too hard to support more than a few. I agree that the likes of light autocannons already compete with it. IR Pulse Laser needs something if it is supposed to be a frigate weapon frigates can win with.
- IR Pulse Laser: damage per second from 152 to 200 or 220: it needs more bite, when even a dual autocannon gives it a run for its money!
The way I see it, the main use of Mjolnir is its high damage per shot, combined with high velocity and accuracy. Hellbore is good against significant armour, HAG is better against smaller ships, Mjolnir is good against both.There's really no need to change the Phase Lance as it is now, since it fills a nice role of short range burst armor stripper. Would be kinda crazy with that much range. Agree with everything else.
If I were to change energy weapon stats...
- Mining Laser: flux per second from 35 to 10, possibly also OP from 2 to 1: low power, high efficiency PD, a slot filler.
- IR Pulse Laser: damage per second from 152 to 200 or 220: it needs more bite, when even a dual autocannon gives it a run for its money!
- Phase Lance: range from 600 to 800, OP from 10 to 14: making the phase lance a medium tactical laser, if it's really needed. Otherwise, medium taclaser would end up dominant on midline ships, while heavy blaster would remain as the burst option for high tech ships.
- Mining Blaster: range from 500 to 600, OP from 10 to 7: heavy mortar provides excellent value for its OP, so this one... can at least be cheap, if nothing else.
- Heavy Burst Laser: OP from 11 to 9, flux per second from 500 to 300, ammo reload from 0.5 to 0.67 per second: it might be just mine opinion, but a PD gun in medium energy mount has to be really good to be worth using.
- Paladin PD: flux per second from 1500 to 750: similar deal as with HBL.
There's really no need to change the Phase Lance as it is now, since it fills a nice role of short range burst armor stripper. Would be kinda crazy with that much range. Agree with everything else.I like to see phase lance be more efficient (no worse than Pulse Laser), if nothing else changes.
There's really no need to change the Phase Lance as it is now, since it fills a nice role of short range burst armor stripper. Would be kinda crazy with that much range. Agree with everything else.I like to see phase lance be more efficient (no worse than Pulse Laser), if nothing else changes.
It might be a good idea to rename its role to something like Defense (anti-ship), seems it is good at picking off fighters and small ships that try to swarm the defender. It stinks for general-purpose assault on its own (except as a strike weapon for Harbinger), unless it has extra range and help from other weapons. Rather use pulse laser for assault.
Phase Lances already ARE more efficient than pulse lasers.Only for anti-armor as you point out, which I guess is fine if anti-armor is the only reason to mount them.
It will basically turn off an entire broadside of a capital ship with *one* good salvo. What else does it need lol? The spread is actually beneficial for that. Anyways any buffs would make it far too easy to declaw everything it shoots at.
QuotePhase Lances already ARE more efficient than pulse lasers.Only for anti-armor as you point out, which I guess is fine if anti-armor is the only reason to mount them.
They do not miss and absolutely shred fighters.If they are locked on target, then yes. If not (I move the ship the moment it fires) and the whole burst misses, it hurts.
*Tachyon lances have the same raw flux efficiency but cost 2.5x the OP for only 60% more DPS. They do have more range(and EMP) but 2 phase lances has more burst than a single tachyon and their lower range can be an advantage due to target discrimination.I like the range and especially shield penetration. Tachyon Lances are a near automatic choice for ships that can mount ballistics, due to being semi-unblockable. Unlike Ion Beam, the damage and EMP that leaks through is significant.
QuotePhase Lances already ARE more efficient than pulse lasers.Only for anti-armor as you point out, which I guess is fine if anti-armor is the only reason to mount them.
1.2 efficiency is not good if I am looking for a cheaper weapon than Pulse Laser to support (because Pulse Laser eats a bit too much flux for comfort), and the next thing that could substitute for it, Phase Lance, is nearly as flux-hungry. High-200s is less than 333, but may still a bit too high for comfort.
No hard-flux and 600 range really hurts, so unless I have ways to mitigate the weaknesses (like kinetics on the ship, bypass shields like Harbinger, overpower weak shields due to lance spam) or really desperate for lower flux load, I rather use pulse laser for general-purpose use. At least pulse laser will put hard flux on shields and make it easier to win the flux war against (AI) targets that can tank a lance strike or two on shields, then dissipate the soft flux if I cannot keep the pressure up.
You want weapons that are good againt armor and shield and deal hard flux.That is energy's gimmick, at least those that do not exceed 500-700 range. I want one my ship can use without filling up on flux too fast, especially against ballistics users or enemies with tough shields that would have no problem winning the flux war unless two or more ships gang up on it. All of the medium weapons are a bit too flux hungry for some ships (midline, some high-tech with bad flux stats). Heavy weapons do not have this problem. The medium ones are really annoying due to bad efficiency. (Pulse laser is the closest, but not all ships can support it comfortably.) Small only has IR Pulse Laser, which is too short-ranged for assault (but is decent as PD for big ships).
**as a semi-aside, stacked tac lasers are really powerful. Especially on fast ships. The damage is low but the accuracy and range mean you have trouble getting away and an ease of dealing damage. Each tac laser deals a minimum of 11.25 armor damage/second. Which doesnt seem like a lot until you try to take a 10 second vent getting hit by 5 of them. A 150 dps tac laser would just destroy ships. It would be hilarious.This is where I disagree with the others that brought this up before. Few ships can stack that many on their own, and even those that do, they are not that strong, especially to give up other weapons like PD to make it work. Six tactical laser Eagle is one, and the kill speed is not very fast. If it was very effective, I would use it more. As it is, I prefer other loadouts partly because I do not like giving up PD, and the sacrifice is not powerful enough for the trade to be worth it. (No IPDAI to add PD. IPDAI on Tactical Lasers kills the stacking, and is too slow to work well.)
**as a semi-aside, stacked tac lasers are really powerful. Especially on fast ships. The damage is low but the accuracy and range mean you have trouble getting away and an ease of dealing damage. Each tac laser deals a minimum of 11.25 armor damage/second. Which doesnt seem like a lot until you try to take a 10 second vent getting hit by 5 of them. A 150 dps tac laser would just destroy ships. It would be hilarious.
Sorry by "good" i mean better. Because if they do, according to you, do good armor and shield damage and hard flux, with great shot speed and accuracy and recoil... then what are you complaining about?QuoteYou want weapons that are good againt armor and shield and deal hard flux.That is energy's gimmick, at least those that do not exceed 500-700 range. I want one my ship can use without filling up on flux too fast, especially against ballistics users or enemies with tough shields that would have no problem winning the flux war unless two or more ships gang up on it. All of the medium weapons are a bit too flux hungry for some ships (midline, some high-tech with bad flux stats). Heavy weapons do not have this problem. The medium ones are really annoying due to bad efficiency. (Pulse laser is the closest, but not all ships can support it comfortably.) Small only has IR Pulse Laser, which is too short-ranged for assault (but is decent as PD for big ships).
Sorry by "good" i mean better. Because if they do, according to you, do good armor and shield damage and hard flux, with great shot speed and accuracy and recoil... then what are you complaining about?They do good damage, but when it comes to tough shields (or enemies with lots of 1.0 and under efficient kinetics), "good" is not good enough unless the weapon is efficient enough. I have no problem with heavy energy weapons, but for smaller ones, bad range and efficiency (and high flux cost for some ships) brings them too far down. This is a reason why high-tech warships that cannot use ballistics have either many Sabots and Expanded Missile Racks (Shrike, Aurora) to mitigate flux war disadvantage or many mounts empty to maximize flux stats via hullmods (Aurora, Odyssey, maybe Apogee) to hopefully get an edge in the flux war when I use them. (Tempest, I use as a pursuit ship to kill wimps or cripples it can overpower.) If I try anything else, they either lose the flux war or get in a stalemate.
They use too much flux? Fit fewer of them! They aren't efficient enough? I thought you just said they did good armor and shield damage...
Perhaps if you don't use a mostly warships fleet and it dies vs Ordos, you aren't the best judge of warship weaponry?Do not think that matters when ships do not fire weapons at all due to being too scared of hitting each other, or allied ship directly between attacker and enemy, but will die anyway if they do nothing. And the ones (that I tried) that died most were Onslaughts, while trying to find and test loadouts for them that worked against Ordos. That was the biggest problem with all warship fleets, or at least all-battleship fleets, against Ordos, unable to focus-fire against the enemy. A more balanced fleet does not need to worry about allies in the line-of-fire much.
I should clarify the all warship fleets I tried against Ordos were all battleship fleets (like five Paragons). The only other warships I had available at the time that were not capitals were two Eagles and two Apogees (and one Tempest reserved for pursuit). I had plenty of carriers and phase ships, though.
My character only has points in five personal skills (half in Technology) and only four officers.
If your ships cannot fire weapons, then weapon balance is irrelevant because weapons that do not fire do nothing. It is more like I had bad fleet composition. I cannot judge weapons' performance against Ordos if they do not fire. Five battleships got in each others' way, and could not support each other from getting mobbed.Good to know, weapon balance is irrelevant because you had a bad fleet composition. Lets just delete all your posts where you write with utter certainty on weapon balance.
You implied that because I used a bad fleet composition that cannot fire their weapons against the strongest recurring challenge, I cannot judge weapons that I used over a long time in simulations and general campaign play from start to end.
@ Plantissue: Do you honestly think a single fight against a recent enemy that I tried recently (with a fleet I normally do not use - five battleships and nothing else) and blew up in my face represents all of the combat I have done over the past recent releases? Most weapons have not changed much since 0.8a aside from light needler and some heavy energy weapons (and maybe few others). The only thing I did not do much until recently was fight Ordos with Radiants in them. (Radiants were added in 0.9a, and I did not use cores back then.) I had no reason to fight them until late in 0.9.1a. In the meantime, I have played much against other opponents. I had to try much (maybe not everything, but still a lot) before I settled with ships and weapons I like to use.I don't really see the point you are making about your whole business that you prefer a fleet full of carriers instead of deploying 5 paragons. (With 500 battlesize, they should win with the deployment point advantage irregardless.) What has that got to do with energy weapons?
And, yes, I will continue to write with certainty about weapon balance.