So, just to add a note here: I made, as I mentioned, some similar balance tweaks. Had a nice, well-intentioned justification for every change I made... and never released the plugin, because in final testing... well. While my adjustments indubitably made the choices more balanced, they also made them less fun.
And that was kinda demoralizing, so I never went back to re-tweak things and see if I could get improved balance without losing that hard-to-define fun factor.
That said, presented here are some of the changes I play-tested that I really think are improvements:
Light Autocannon improved accuracy. Gives the gun an (albeit small) niche compared to the otherwise-superior light dual autocannon.
Arbalest Autocannon drastically reduced flux cost (170/s to 130/s) so that the heavy autocannon & railgun aren't straight upgrades.
Storm Needler DPS reduced from 750 to 500 (i.e. damage-per-shot made the same as smaller needlers) and flux cost decreased from 650/s to 400/s (i.e. flux cost per shot made the same as the smaller needlers). The result is actually usable, where the current storm needler really isn't.
Mjolnir Cannon: Changed to a clip-based ammunition-using weapon, with a reduced flux cost to compensate. Again, a change made because the current Mjolnir just... doesn't have a good niche; you're basically always better off with a specialized weapon given their current stats. Going to burst damage with a lower sustained damage gives them a viable niche where they're not directly competing with autocannons or hellbores.
Mjolnir Cannon,mjolnir,2,0.4,10000,900,,400,200,10,25,24,10,0.65,5,ENERGY,300,,0,0.75,1,,0,5,1,10,,900,,,75,,"energy18, remnant",7.5
Thumper: Also changed to a clip-based weapon, with sustained DPS similar to the current Thumper; this gives it an (albeit still rather poor) niche as a jousting weapon or a sort-of-okayish option for ships like the Hound or Cerberus that really can't afford to go the specialized-ballistics route. It's -still- just about the worst possible choice for armament on anything with two or more medium ballistics, but it's somewhat less terrible.
Thumper,shredder,0,,700,700,,200,,1,25,9,40,2.5,20,FRAGMENTATION,40,,0,3.05,20,0.05,0,7,1,20,,800,,,30,,"he10, kinetic10",3.8
I won't share the specifics of the changes I made to the rest of the needler family (edit: and railguns), as that gets to the heart of where I had issues in gameplay testing... but I will say that I'm in favor of reducing range to 700 for all needlers, and increasing the overall DPS of the heavy needler a bit.
The other comment I'll make is that, if you're looking at weapon balance, the Heavy Mauler is really out of line - arguably more so than light needlers or railguns. I couldn't do anything to it in a simple rebalance patch, but I believe it should be split into two separate weapons: one that retains the current mauler's armor-breaking capability, but sacrifices its range, and one that keeps the range (and perhaps even the overall DPS), but with notably lower per-shot damage. Edit: Plus, it'd just be nice for AI ship management to be able to give, say, an Eagle, 2x Heavy Autocannon and some (currently nonexistent) range 800 HE weapon, or 2x HVD and a range 1000 HE weapon.
