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Starsector => General Discussion => Topic started by: Paragon Bane on July 02, 2020, 10:59:01 PM

Title: The most imba weapon?
Post by: Paragon Bane on July 02, 2020, 10:59:01 PM
What is the most imba weapon in vanilla in your opinion?
Title: Re: The most imba weapon?
Post by: Grievous69 on July 02, 2020, 11:17:11 PM
Honestly there are a few weapons that I'd call really imbalanced, and even those that are have pretty obvious downsides.

- Assault Chaingun comes to mind but it's a weapon that's only good on some SO ships. Also it's effectiveness drops off in late game, then it's mostly used for frigate and fighter swatting.

- Sabots, well are Sabots. I kinda hate this missile not gonna lie. It's almost essential on some high-tech ships, and on anything that has burst HE damage, it's basically a wall hack for shields. Sabots put Squalls to shame, a large missile weapon! Yes I get that they have limited ammo, the whole point of missiles is to turn the tides of battle on a whim but they're limited. But look at any other missile, they all have counters. Only counter to Sabots is a crazy amount of LRPD lasers. Sabots doing EMP damage when you drop shields would be the same as Harpoons doing bonus damage to shields when you try to avoid hull damage.

I guess imbalanced could also mean weapons that perform worse than the average so I'll name a few that are obviously weak.

- Thumper I guess is the one of those weapons that are intentionally bad so the early game enemies could be easier. I really don't know what else is it useful for.

- Devastator could be a bit better for a large weapon. I still use these on Conquests' right side, but that's only because it costs 10 OP because of the built-in hullmod. It's not too bad vs fighters but it's both a bit slow and unreliable.

- Mining laser speaks for itself.
Title: Re: The most imba weapon?
Post by: AxleMC131 on July 03, 2020, 03:33:19 AM

- Thumper I guess is the one of those weapons that are intentionally bad so the early game enemies could be easier. I really don't know what else is it useful for.


Have to disagree on your reasoning for the Thumper being bad. The Thumper is actually AMAZING, but it's extremely niche: it deals extreme amounts of damage to exposed hull, and nothing else. It's decent at fighter suppression, and is quite flux efficient (as frag weapons tend to be), and its burst damage output is not to be sniffed at - really it's a finisher, not a main damage dealer. While it's definitely a budget option that can be seen as a "bad weapon" for general purpose, I strongly recommend giving the Thumper a second chance - if used well it can really pack a punch in a ship's loadout.
Title: Re: The most imba weapon?
Post by: Grievous69 on July 03, 2020, 03:54:25 AM

- Thumper I guess is the one of those weapons that are intentionally bad so the early game enemies could be easier. I really don't know what else is it useful for.


Have to disagree on your reasoning for the Thumper being bad. The Thumper is actually AMAZING, but it's extremely niche: it deals extreme amounts of damage to exposed hull, and nothing else. It's decent at fighter suppression, and is quite flux efficient (as frag weapons tend to be), and its burst damage output is not to be sniffed at - really it's a finisher, not a main damage dealer. While it's definitely a budget option that can be seen as a "bad weapon" for general purpose, I strongly recommend giving the Thumper a second chance - if used well it can really pack a punch in a ship's loadout.
It's not really a budget option when it's 9 OP! Heavy Mortar is 7 btw. And most importantly, it uses valuable medium slots. Even before the armor changes it was quite sad, now when the minimum armor is a thing it's even worse. Being semi decent when you destroy the target's shields, wreck armor completely so your shots actually hit the parts with no armor (it's not super precise) and you still have enough flux on a low tech ship is not niche, it's outright crap. And I don't even get the fighter thing. Which fighter do you think it can suppress? Wasps maybe, Talons? I've just tried it out and it fails miserably at that role. Most of the shots don't even connect, and when they do they just tickle. You need multiple bursts to destroy a single fighter...

Testing was done on an Enforcer because that's the closest situation where I would put a Thumper. In reality I would never waste 9 OP for it.

I'm sorry but I just can't see the ''it's just a matter of playstyle'' thing, it is super bad for 9 OP. It had enough chances from me already, even before the armor changes.
Title: Re: The most imba weapon?
Post by: Megas on July 03, 2020, 05:59:45 AM
Pilums.  All that a dedicated pilum spam can do is make the enemy cower more and kill a ship or two before the Pilums run out (and take a long time to regenerate).  Meanwhile, a dedicated Spark fleet can solo one or more Ordos with Radiants fleets, depending on skill power.  (Unskilled can handle one, min-max skill power can handle several more.)

Re: Thumper.  It is passable early in the game, but gets overshadowed quickly when player finds better weapons.  It has an advantage of fast shot speed compared to slow Arbalest and Mortars players will likely have that early in the game.

I like Devastator on Onslaught for anti-frigate and anti-destroyer.
Title: Re: The most imba weapon?
Post by: SCC on July 03, 2020, 11:13:43 AM
Mining blaster is terrible, only a choice if you don't have anything better. Mining laser is even worse, because even nothing is better!
Thumper... On one hand, it's not terrible, but on the other, you basically need to have too many mounts and not enough flux to be using it, which happens basically only on Onslaughts.
Title: Re: The most imba weapon?
Post by: Mondaymonkey on July 03, 2020, 11:41:03 AM
Quote
Mining blaster is terrible,

It's not that terrible. It's a middle energy armor cracker. Yeah, phase lance and heavy blaster could be better, but phase lance is soft flux and heavy blaster is rare in early game.
Title: Re: The most imba weapon?
Post by: Megas on July 03, 2020, 12:33:47 PM
Mining blaster is the best weapon Apogee can use to solo one section pirate bases until plasma cannon (or maybe heavy blaster) is found.  Autopulse does not have enough ammo or armor penetration against the sheer bulk of a pirate base before it is reduced to a more flux efficient pulse laser.  Upgrading from pilums (which are useless) to locusts is higher priority than upgrading the mining blaster.  That said, mining blaster eventually becomes obsolete.  (It would not if Hyperion was any good, but it is not today in the age of capital spam and long endgame fights.)

Also, mining blaster is the best alpha Hyperion can use.
Title: Re: The most imba weapon?
Post by: Linnis on July 03, 2020, 03:39:13 PM
no to mining blaster because it takes so much effort.

Sabot and needle yes. Maybe if the AI was better not using shields vs them...
Title: Re: The most imba weapon?
Post by: intrinsic_parity on July 03, 2020, 03:39:59 PM
Thumper is pretty bad. Min armor really kills any hull dps advantage it had. 25 effective damage against armor means the damage reduction really hurts it. Even destroyer grade armor (hammerhead has 500 armor so minimum armor at 5% is 25) will get a ~50% reduction in damage. Cruiser and capital grade armor will make it flux inefficient (dmg reduction from min armor is ~70% or more), even against stripped armor. I think the heavy mortar might actually be better against hull (both dps and efficiency) against most cruisers and capitals but the heavy mortar is also good against armor. I'm pretty sure enemy skills make this much much worse as well.

Note, I could be wrong about how min armor works, but I think the damage reduction is calculated based on the anti-armor damage and then applied to to the hull damage (hull dmg * armor dmg / (armor + armor dmg)). Someone correct me if I am wrong.
Title: Re: The most imba weapon?
Post by: Wyvern on July 03, 2020, 03:59:48 PM
I'd say the most imbalanced vanilla weapon is the Heavy Blaster.  It's an extreme outlier for its slot size and type - essentially a large weapon that fits into a medium slot - and that distorts any attempt to mod in ships that can mount medium energy weapons, since you have to always stop and ask yourself "Okay, but is this reasonable if someone sticks a heavy blaster on it?".  All too frequently, the answer is "No."

This is not to say that the heavy blaster is overpowered, mind you.  But imbalanced?  Oh so very much.
Title: Re: The most imba weapon?
Post by: FooF on July 03, 2020, 07:16:36 PM
I don't consider the Heavy Blaster imbalanced: its flux cost is insane and very few ships can sustain it for long. It is powerful but you're paying an exorbitant amount of flux for it. For it to be imbalanced would mean that the pros vastly outweigh the cons, and that is not the case.

The Plasma Cannon, on the other hand, is a Heavy Blaster on steroids with better range, equal armor penetrating power, and much higher efficiency. It's only 15% more expensive flux-wise than the Heavy Blaster but it's 50% more powerful. It's only downside is its 30 OP cost and rarity. In terms of flux profile, it's relatively efficient for something that hits so insanely hard. Yet, I still don't think it's "imbalanced" because its still hard to sustain and the cost is so high.

The Assault Chaingun is really the only outlier, to me. When it was 400 DPS for 400 flux, it was powerful but expensive. Now that it's 600 DPS, it's brutally efficient. Its downside is its range but once it gets into range, it murders armor. I used to use the ACG as an example of "bad against armor" because it's damage/shot was so low but since it got bumped up 50%, it outshines even true armor busters. Yet, at the same time, I'm glad that the weapon exists because it does give knife-fighting some teeth. Personally, I'd prefer the ACG go back down to 400 DPS but just reduce the flux cost to 267 flux/sec. Same efficiency ratio but the DPS wouldn't be as insane.
Title: Re: The most imba weapon?
Post by: Wyvern on July 03, 2020, 07:27:00 PM
For it to be imbalanced would mean that the pros vastly outweigh the cons, and that is not the case.
You're using a different definition - and that's why I clarified my statement to add that I don't think the Heavy Blaster is overpowered.

It is, however, an extreme outlier that is very difficult to balance around; a weapon whose mere existence can cause an otherwise reasonable ship hull to be overpowered.
Title: Re: The most imba weapon?
Post by: Megas on July 03, 2020, 07:30:58 PM
High-tech sort of needs Heavy Blaster if it is the best it can use.  Midline cannot afford to use it and usually have better things to use.
Title: Re: The most imba weapon?
Post by: intrinsic_parity on July 03, 2020, 08:02:23 PM
I don't think the heavy blaster is unbalanced at all. If a ship has the dissipation to use a heavy blaster, it could easily use multiple other weapons to get much higher dps and efficiency. HB is a clear downgrade from large energy weapons so if you have a large slot, you are building around those weapons (probably plasma cannon) and probably leaving mediums to PD or support beams, and if ships have access to ballistics, then HE/KE weapons are way way more efficient. Usually the answer to 'what would happen if someone stuck a HB here' is 'the ship will flux out and die very quickly'. It seems hard to make a ship where the answer is 'totally broken things' unless the ship can do totally broken things with other weapons as well.

I'm definitely not a modder so I could be completely wrong, but it really doesn't seem that egregious to me. Big weapons are only good if you have the dissipation to back them up, so HB is really limited in terms of what ships can practically support its immense flux cost. It seems like you'd have to go out of your way to make a ship with tons of dissipation and only medium/small energy before HB would seem broken. Even the aurora, which seemingly has tons of dissipation and limited mounts, really doesn't want more than 1 or 2 HB and is happy to use other medium energy weapons.
Title: Re: The most imba weapon?
Post by: Wyvern on July 03, 2020, 08:34:29 PM
I don't think the heavy blaster is unbalanced at all. If a ship has the dissipation to use a heavy blaster, it could easily use multiple other weapons to get much higher dps and efficiency.
This... does not match my experience; you're overlooking the heavy blaster's vastly superior armor penetration.  If you've got a ship that can reasonably support one or two pulse lasers (but doesn't have a large energy slot), it's likely to perform better with a single heavy blaster, even if that means leaving one of its medium energy slots empty.  This doesn't change until you get up to the Aurora, where you can reasonably install a heavy blaster alongside other more efficient guns.
Title: Re: The most imba weapon?
Post by: FooF on July 03, 2020, 09:21:24 PM
It does penetrate armor very well but unless you have another weapon to get through shields, the HB hurts you more than it hurts the enemy due to its vastly inferior efficiency. Most ships will flux themselves out before they get through a roughly equivalent enemy's shields unless there is a lot of venting involved.

I also agree with intrinsic_parity's opportunity cost argument. The HB is only the "best" option for a given medium Energy mount if the ship you're putting it on can reasonably support sustained fire. Most ships can't. A Wolf, Tempest, or Shrike, all built around a Medium Energy, are hard-pressed to use a HB. Even a Medusa or Sunder can only reasonably use 1. A Phase Lance or Pulse Laser is usually a better fit because of the lowered flux profile.

The real litmus test is what you would put in a Medium Universal on a Destroyer or Cruiser. I don't the the HB out-competes a Heavy Needler, HVD, or Heavy Mauler on most of my ships. Heck, I might put in a Dual-Flak, Sabot Pod or Reaper Launcher over a HB. That's not to say the HB is bad but I don't think it competes favorably against most elite Ballistics and some Medium Missiles.

Title: Re: The most imba weapon?
Post by: Wyvern on July 03, 2020, 09:45:51 PM
Wolf doesn't really have the flux stats to support a single pulse laser, nevermind a heavy blaster.  Shrike's debateable.  Tempest?  A tempest with a single heavy blaster (and literally no other weaponry) performs very well indeed; in my experience, much better than one that uses other vanilla weaponry.

As for medium universals?  Well, yeah, if you've got more than one such, or other medium weapon slots, then specialized ballistics (or -maybe- missiles) are the way to go (for a ship with sane flux stats, at least).  I mean, that's obvious.  Not a good 'litmus test' there.

Now, consider instead a hypothetical destroyer with one medium universal and a handful of small slots.  What do you want there?  Well, if you're looking for a specialized role, then a ballistic or missile weapon will work nicely.  If you want something that's just generally going to kill things?  Heavy blaster has no serious competition (short of maybe an SO build with an assault chaingun).  And this is what I mean about the HB constraining design space: a ship that would be reasonable with other weaponry becomes very quickly unreasonable when it's suddenly doing 500dps with high armor penetration instead of the tradeoffs you'd have to have with literally any other weapon.

There are no destroyers with that weapon layout in vanilla, so it's not a vanilla balance issue.  But it's a good example of what I mean about the heavy blaster's existence skewing what's safe to design when you're modding.
Title: Re: The most imba weapon?
Post by: intrinsic_parity on July 03, 2020, 10:31:25 PM
I mean the problem with a destroyer with only one medium slot and enough dissipation to fire a heavy blaster in sustained fire is that you haven't given it enough weapon slots to utilize all of its dissipation, so the heavy blaster represents a way to dump flux through a single mount (which is exactly what it is meant to do). That's just a poorly balance ship IMO (basically has destroyer+ dissipation but frigate mounts, which doesn't make much sense to me). Even then, with a single universal and small energy, I would still probably go for a heavy needler and use small slots for AM blasters or something like that, and for a medium universal with small ballistics, I would go for an assault chaingun and light needlers/railguns. It would depend on maneuverability and other stats though, but I don't even think the heavy blaster is the best load out for that hypothetical ship in a lot of cases.

I actually prefer pulse laser + phase lance to single heavy blaster on a tempest. That's my goto SO tempest load out. It has slightly higher raw DPS, lower flux/sec and the phase lance works better with the ship system IMO (and has very good armor pen). I've also used single HB a lot and I think the loadouts are very comparable.

I guess the heavy blaster theoretically is unbalanced on ships with much much better dissipation than mounts (who are also limited to energy mounts), but that just seems like a very small subset of possible ships, and its easily solvable by adding an extra mount or two to allow for other loadouts. It just doesn't seem like such a big problem to me, but I guess we can agree to disagree.
Title: Re: The most imba weapon?
Post by: Grievous69 on July 04, 2020, 12:11:25 AM
@Wyvern
I think the word you were looking for the Heavy Blaster is game changer. As was already established, it is in no way imbalanced. I honestly both love and hate the weapon at the same time. Because on some ships HB just works really well, but you're gonna be really hurting with flux. Some people call it the HE medium energy weapon in disguise, which I kinda agree with. In my mind it's ''what if Safety Overrides was a weapon'', and there you have it. Weapon clearly not on par with other medium options, yet not really a large weapon either. Someone already tackled this ''problem'', ships with few mount options. If a ship has enough dissipation, why would you not put Heavy blaster on it? For me that ship is Shrike, everywhere else I can see doing some other medium energy combos but here I always roll with this: Heavy Blaster, Sabot Pod and PD all around. Now the question is why am I going with HB everytime if it clearly has 3 small energies also pointing forward, it's not really a mount problem on paper. But in reality all small energies suck for assault, and having PD in them is far far better. This is just due to the energy options with have, with HB being a ''controversial'' energy option that can get what you want but for a price.

If you think that design is a bit weird, imagine a destroyer with a single large ballistic mount, just with some small ballistics around. If the ship had enough dissipation for a Mjolnir, would you not use it every time? I'm sure you could make it a support ship with a Storm Needler or something but having a ship that can do everything with high DPS is just the easier way.
Title: Re: The most imba weapon?
Post by: Burvjradzite on July 04, 2020, 01:10:50 AM
Heavy needler, anti-matter blaster, pulse laser, ir pulse laser
Four harpoons pod on falcon (P), four harpoon racks on drover
Double hurricane
Dagger/trident
Sparks, ofc
Title: Re: The most imba weapon?
Post by: Grievous69 on July 04, 2020, 01:13:40 AM
Heavy needler, anti-matter blaster, pulse laser, ir pulse laser
I seriously can't tell if you're saying these are OP or UP. Neither with Hurricanes actually.
Title: Re: The most imba weapon?
Post by: Megas on July 04, 2020, 06:29:09 AM
Re: Heavy Blaster
It was much better with more OP, stronger skills (more flux and dissipation), and various exploits (fading shots did hard flux among others) in previous releases.  Today, with weaker stats, cowardly AI, and tough enemies like Radiants, flux inefficiency is a real killer.

As a Wolf playership I prefer Heavy Blaster over Pulse Laser.  It cannot support either well, but HB can punch through armor and no windup makes it better for hit-and-run.  AI is a lost cause and should just use beams.  (In old skill days, it could handle one HB without too much trouble.)

For Tempest, I consider the HB and Tactical Laser combo superior to two pulse lasers because DPS is close and costs less OP (16 OP instead of 20 OP).

Shrike and Medusa can handle one heavy blaster.  I like Shrike (P) for being a budget Medusa.  Normal Shrike needs to graduate to being a Shrike (P) with five more OP.

Aurora can handle two if built for it.  It lost flux stats in 0.9.x, so it really needs to sac other weapons and min-max flux stats to support those two.  (In the old skill releases, Medusa could handle two.  Today, we pay 30 DP to do the job of what 12 DP used to do.)

Doom can handle two.  That and some burst PD to pick off missiles, that is all it needs, thanks to the mines system doing a lot of the work.

Apogee, Sunder, and capitals should get plasma cannons instead.  Well, Paragon might want blasters if player wants the four lance loadout.  (I like four lance playership against any enemy that does not have Radiants in it.)  Conquest should stick with more efficient 800+ range ballistics.

The real litmus test is what you would put in a Medium Universal on a Destroyer or Cruiser. I don't the the HB out-competes a Heavy Needler, HVD, or Heavy Mauler on most of my ships. Heck, I might put in a Dual-Flak, Sabot Pod or Reaper Launcher over a HB. That's not to say the HB is bad but I don't think it competes favorably against most elite Ballistics and some Medium Missiles.
For a ship with only one significant mount (such that mixing kinetic and HE is impossible), Heavy Blaster is good enough to pass the test.  Before with better skills and fighters-as-ships, it was a good all-purpose weapon for Heron.  Heron was super Wolf back in the day (when Wolf was strong enough to solo capitals).  Today, with weaker stats and good fighters costing OP to equip, Heron cannot afford HB loadouts (at least not without destroying the point of using it, which is use good fighters).
Title: Re: The most imba weapon?
Post by: FooF on July 04, 2020, 08:15:10 AM
My last comment on the Heavy Blaster:

To be clear, if a ship can sustain the Heavy Blaster's flux profile, it is by far the best single Medium Weapon: not just Medium Energy, Medium Weapon. The only downside it has, if flux is no longer the limiting factor, is its lower range. No other weapon can pull double-duty as well as a HB in terms of getting shields down and punching through armor. However, as we've said, most ships can't reach flux parity with even a single HB so using it against shields is wildly inefficient. With SO, sure, but that has its own downsides independent of the Heavy Blaster itself. That's why I still call it balanced: the flux profile is such that you either need to devote the entire build to the HB (which has opportunity costs) or the ship can naturally support it (i.e. Aurora) which is more of an issue with the ship being an outlier than the Heavy Blaster.

I'm not arguing the Heavy Blaster isn't terrifyingly effective, it's just that vast majority of use-cases can't use it to its full potential. I think that's the point: you fire it in bursts or at times of opportunity. To just open up with indefinite sustained fire, it's on the verge of being overpowered (i.e. maximally efficient: no other alternative competes) but I still don't think it's imbalanced (i.e. pros vastly outweigh cons).
Title: Re: The most imba weapon?
Post by: Igncom1 on July 04, 2020, 08:36:16 AM
Yeah it's basically a midpoint between being a large energy weapon and a medium one in damage, while being as expensive or sometimes more then a large in flux costs. It's horrifically over the top for a medium mount, but is still weak and underpowered for a large slot.
Title: Re: The most imba weapon?
Post by: Megas on July 04, 2020, 09:18:40 AM
The only downside it has, if flux is no longer the limiting factor, is its lower range.
That is a big weakness.  It was when more ships could use it to its full potential in earlier releases.
Title: Re: The most imba weapon?
Post by: Daynen on July 05, 2020, 09:49:27 AM
Sounds to me like the HB isn't imbalanced.  There's enough experiences in every direction here leading to various conclusions and we all agree that the significant cost and lowered range make it a demanding weapon, albeit frighteningly effective when used properly.

Sounds kinda balanced to me.

Now, the thumper on the other hand...that thing is outright junk.  By and large, I see people pretty much agree that it's strictly worse than any other weapon in its class for virtually every case yet does NOT cost less of your build than any other weapon in its class.  THAT is a balance problem, simply because there's basically a consensus that there's NEVER a practical reason to use the thumper if ANY other choice is available.
Title: Re: The most imba weapon?
Post by: Igncom1 on July 05, 2020, 09:52:58 AM
Sounds to me like the HB isn't imbalanced.  There's enough experiences in every direction here leading to various conclusions and we all agree that the significant cost and lowered range make it a demanding weapon, albeit frighteningly effective when used properly.

Sounds kinda balanced to me.

Now, the thumper on the other hand...that thing is outright junk.  By and large, I see people pretty much agree that it's strictly worse than any other weapon in its class for virtually every case yet does NOT cost less of your build than any other weapon in its class.  THAT is a balance problem, simply because there's basically a consensus that there's NEVER a practical reason to use the thumper if ANY other choice is available.

But that's the thing, you don't always have better choices. Not that I would reccormend it as it can't really deal with anything other then fighters. But yeah early for a player, and the pirates/luddites, rarely have access to the kind of equipment that they might like, if enough of it to properly outfit their fleet.

So long as it's better then nothing, which I am not convinced it is or is not, then it should be fine.
Title: Re: The most imba weapon?
Post by: Megas on July 05, 2020, 09:57:14 AM
Thumper is bad, but not so bad that it is worse than nothing.  It will shred early-game pirates, or my weakened starter ships for that matter, that lost armor.

Few weapons may be so bad that no weapon is better than equipping them due to OP saved.  I consider Pilums to be one of them.
Title: Re: The most imba weapon?
Post by: Goumindong on July 05, 2020, 11:43:45 AM
I don't even know about the Thumper. Does it really shred hull compared to a Heavy Mortar?

Low end on the "armor" scale of frigates is 300(for ships where armor matters, this is a Lasher, many other ships have 500 armor). For 15 minimum armor before skills. So a thumper does  25/40 x(506 DPS) = 316 DPS /9 OP = 35.13 DPS/OP

A heavy Mortar does 220/235 x 220 DPS = 205.95 DPS / 7 OP = 29.42 DPS per OP.

Now the Thumper is slightly more efficient in terms of flux (if we ignore the 2 free OP) but isn't so much better vs hull that you should think "oh yes i would definitely prefer this over another early game kinetic or HE weapon". You would have to literally have nothing else, not an arbalest, or a mortar, or even a small weapon to make the thumper look particularly good.

And if you run into an officer that has some armor tanking skills? Well then your thumper really really suffers.

Over all i think that Frag Damage for non-PD roles really suffers and should probably be taken out of the game* If you want to chew through hull/armor you want HE. If you want to chew through shield you want Kinetic. If you want to hit both you want energy.

*Or restored to its old hull shredding glory of the pre-minimum armor days by making its hit strength vs minimum hull armor non-penalized. The "PD" only structure however can kind of work in that you can make the weapons specifically anti-fighter, as fighters have very little armor(highest is 200, second highest is 100) and so very little minimum armor, and no skills that boost their armor. This lets you have very efficient anti-fighter weapons without significantly threatening frigates and above with their current paradigm.  But the Thumper neither has the AI profile nor the accuracy nor the turn rate in order to be a good anti-fighter weapon (especially compared to flack)
Title: Re: The most imba weapon?
Post by: Megas on July 05, 2020, 12:11:49 PM
I don't even know about the Thumper. Does it really shred hull compared to a Heavy Mortar?
It does when Thumper hits because shots are very fast (or very hard to see and try to dodge if the ship I am piloting is the target), while Mortar and Arbalest miss because they are slow and mildly inaccurate.  I have seen Thumper kill weakened ships multiple times early in the game.  Pirates has finished off my ships (flagship and AI alike) after they were severely injured.  I have used Thumper few times when I was frustrated with slow Arbalest and Mortar combo (especially before I get Gunnery Implants and Fleet Logistics 3), or when I needed to stretch my limited guns.  (I do not want to throw all of the kinetics on one or two ships and the rest have nothing.)

Early-game fights with pirates are unskilled or low-skilled, and the targets are flimsy.  Thumper is viable during this part of the game.

I do not disagree that Thumper is sub-par and it eventually becomes obsolete.  Mining Blaster is much the same way (since Hyperion is no longer an endgame asset).

Quote
Over all i think that Frag Damage for non-PD roles really suffers and should probably be taken out of the game
I make an exception with Locusts.  The damage is so overwhelming that it is often an unavoidable auto-kill against frigates, and even capitals lose a big enough chunk of hull if all of the missiles hit there.
Title: Re: The most imba weapon?
Post by: Aereto on July 11, 2020, 01:19:03 PM
I don't even know about the Thumper. Does it really shred hull compared to a Heavy Mortar?
It does when Thumper hits because shots are very fast (or very hard to see and try to dodge if the ship I am piloting is the target), while Mortar and Arbalest miss because they are slow and mildly inaccurate.  I have seen Thumper kill weakened ships multiple times early in the game.  Pirates has finished off my ships (flagship and AI alike) after they were severely injured.  I have used Thumper few times when I was frustrated with slow Arbalest and Mortar combo (especially before I get Gunnery Implants and Fleet Logistics 3), or when I needed to stretch my limited guns.  (I do not want to throw all of the kinetics on one or two ships and the rest have nothing.)

Early-game fights with pirates are unskilled or low-skilled, and the targets are flimsy.  Thumper is viable during this part of the game.

I do not disagree that Thumper is sub-par and it eventually becomes obsolete.  Mining Blaster is much the same way (since Hyperion is no longer an endgame asset).

Quote
Over all i think that Frag Damage for non-PD roles really suffers and should probably be taken out of the game
I make an exception with Locusts.  The damage is so overwhelming that it is often an unavoidable auto-kill against frigates, and even capitals lose a big enough chunk of hull if all of the missiles hit there.
Frags still have a place as finishers or dealing with ships of significantly smaller classes. Locusts are terrifying to face, especially when armor is already spent. Even if it runs out, the kill count is enough to turn the tables after the missiles are gone. Or just stick it to a Gryphon and turn it into a frigate/fighter sweeper.