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[MesoTroniK]

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.

[Plantissue]

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

[Megas]

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.

Re: Ion Pulser
The one ship that seems best suited for it is Aurora.  Its hard point is some distance ahead of turrets, so two Heavy Blasters and Ion Pulser is an option.  Beyond that, ion pulser is a stinker - too short ranged, too inefficient.

[Plantissue]

Megas, I was testing as Apogee as a fleet ship as I do small starts. I assumed it wouldn't be flagship as I tend to use phase ships as the piloted ship instead, but I can understand your reasoning.

I was thinking a bit more about the Ion Pulsar and I suppose a SO Medusa, like the Aurora is just about the only other ship than might want to use it as it can jump in and out with its Phase Skimmer. Looking at the ship variants for an insight to inteded role, only Aurora, Harbinger, Conquest and Paragon has variants with it. Aurora (Assault Support) variant is hilariously emp focused with 6(!) ion cannons and 2 pulsar, the Harbinger can have better layouts, and the other two will never use it.

__________

As a thought experiment, is there a mod that simply replaces all ships in the game with energy weapon variants? How much of a change in ship stats for Flux Capacity, Flux Dissipation, Shield efficiency and Speed is needed before turning a pure ballistic ship into a pure energy ship is considered equal?

On an assumption that "normal" energy weapons are a combination of a Kinetic weapon and High Explosive weapon which are always paired together with a 1:1 Flux / damage, the KE and HE ballistic weapon combined together actually have a 0.8 Flux / damage against shields. This suggests that assuming energy and ballistic weapons are equal (which they are not due to range, accuracy, weapon speed, armour effects), energy weapons should have a 0.8 Flux/damage, or energy ships should have 25% more flux dissapitation if otherwise exactly the same as ballistic ships.

Of course, neither weapons nor ships are otherwise exactly the same, and I've ignored armour effects where the paired KE and HE weapons will do better than a shield dps, but that energy weapons should have a 0.8 Flux / damage is a good starting point for comparison. For point of comparison, the IR Pulse Laser is 1, the Pulse Laser is 1.1 and the Autopulse Laser is 0.833 flux / damage.

[Megas]

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.

[Igncom1]

I suppose it's a do all weapon that technically doesn't need assistance. Which is rare for ballistics to possess.

Otherwise nah, it's expensive and rare that makes it worth only as a collectors item. In my opinion.

[Plantissue]

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 don't like Mjolnir, because as an exception to normal ballistic rules, it makes most large energy weapons seem so pointless by comparison.

[Thaago]

Mjolnir just needs to be a little bit more efficient and it would be competitive again - not too much or it would dominate. Its shot size is large enough to be decent against moderate armor, the EMP is nice, and its still ok vs shields.

I kind of like it as is on a Conquest when paired with kinetics for hunting highly shielded ships (Remnants). It gives extra shield breaking compared to an HE option.

[Megas]

I like Mjolnir on Conquest because I can rely mostly on 900 range ballistics.  Mark IX for kinetic, and Mjolnir for all-purpose (anti-shield and anti-armor) use.  Maybe Heavy Needler or Autocannon in-between the two, but it only has 800 range.

On Dominator, Mjolnir and Heavy Needler on hardpoints is an (somewhat more accurate) alternative to HAG and Mark IX, provided I can accept 800 range for the needler.  Ditto for Legion for the heavy mounts.

On Onslaught, I need all of the kinetic damage its flux can support, plus missiles or TPCs for anti-armor.  No room for Mjolnir.

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.

[TaLaR]

MarkIX + Mjolnir is nice on Conquest. You don't need much to get through armor of most cruisers and below, especially with character skills, and it's obviously better than MarkIX+HAG against shield. Fast and accurate projectiles are nice bonus too.

[Goumindong]

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.

Absolutely. Besides OP, Range, Accuracy, Mount Numbers etc... which are all reasonable reasons for picking a weapon since that translates to real damage and these are all similar advantages of other energy weapons for which weapons could not be considered weak there is the raw numbers which put the value of the Mjolnir at similar to a combination of kinetics and HE.

A combination of Mark IX and HAG for instance has a shield efficiency of .9407 flux/damage(better than the Mjolnirs 1.25) And a flux/hull damage efficiency of 1.78 vs 1600 armor base no skills (worse than the mjolnirs 1.5). And the breakeven point against armor is almost inconsequential. So the Mjolnir is pretty indistinguishable from a combination of KE and HE aside from all the other advantages like accuracy, projectile speed, recoil, and EMP damage.

So the Mjolnir is pretty even in terms of flux efficiency compared to two weapons. Using the HE/KE weapons you can more easily scale your DPS to the damage type for better efficiency. But you also cannot as easily overflux when you want to penetrate armor faster because each weapon collectively uses less flux. You don't get EMP damage. And the accuracy is a significant contributor. I ignored armor kill flux values because i don't want to write an algorithm to figure it out and it should be incredibly similar.

Mjolnir:
Flux to Kill Onslaught shields : 21250
Flux to Kill Onslaught Hull: 30503
Total: 51,753

HAG+MkIX
Flux to Kill Onslaught shields: 15,991
Flux to Kill Onslaught Hull: 36,796
Total: 52,787

HAG only:
Shields: 34,000
Hull: 23,645
Total: 57,645

MKIX only:

Shields 9,770
Hull: 63,218
Total: 72,988

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.

As others have noted MK IX and Mjolnir is a good combo as well. But mainly for the non-dps attributes of the mjolnir. Either way if you're discounting the Mjolnir because "it doesn't do enough damage compared to kinetics and HE" you're mistaken. It does just as much before the other weapon advantages.

[SCC]

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.

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.

[Megas]

The biggest limiter is dissipation.  It might be a choice between Mjolnir+Heavy Needler vs. HAG+Mark IX.  (Not Mjolnir+Mark IX because something like Dominator/Legion does not have the dissipation to support that much comfortably.)  I tried several SIM tests and while HAG+Mark IX kills a bit faster than Mjolnir+Needler, it is only by within about ten seconds (out of from 90-120 second fight against something like SIM Onslaught) so it might as well be even.  I did get closer to the enemy to use Heavy Needler.

I tried Mjolnir only, but it does not break shields fast enough.  If it did, I would use them much more.  If I mount Mjolnir, I cannot mount much more before lack of dissipation kills the loadout.

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?

As for mixing damage types, I might hand the ship off to AI, and I have no control of it mixing guns or not.  Maybe it will juggle groups, or maybe not, or maybe it is impossible due to five groups being not enough.  Best to assume all guns can be fired at will, unless it is playership-only loadout.

• 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!

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.

[Grievous69]

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.

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.

[Megas]

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.