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Starsector 0.97a is out! (02/02/24); New blog post: Simulator Enhancements (03/13/24)

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Author Topic: Mod question about ships and weapons...  (Read 9935 times)

Ishman

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Re: Mod question about ships and weapons...
« Reply #30 on: December 14, 2019, 02:27:29 PM »

I think plasma is the best energy weapon. HIL barely does more than a graviton against shields and costs 5x as much flux to fire.

Yeah absolutely, the old Plasma cannon was hands down the best energy weapon - but the current one? No way. Sure the HIL is flux inefficient like literally any other HE weapon against shields, but it has the distinction of being better than any comparable HE ballistic, and those are some good weapons - it's doing more dps than an assault chaingun at 3+ times the range with ITU and advanced optics, with pinpoint accuracy.

This is in addition to the fact that anything high tech that can fit it has the flux dissipation to fire it and anything else it can range indefinitely. This quickly snowballs into an absolutely overwhelming local flux advantage with basically any mix of similar ranged weapons (gravitons, ion beams, whatever), it's good enough to take on absolutely absurd ships like the Nova from seeker or BB from DME with 0 hull damage if you can corral the catlike AI to not split your ships and get defeated in detail.

Supported by kinetics and really good PD (flak and long ranged mod vulcan equivalents), I would argue it's the single strongest setup you can field for large fleet battles when you get to a (surprisingly small) amount of critical DP, even in comparison to drover spam.

Having access to an actual source of HE damage seriously tilts a lot of combat scenarios due to the fact NOTHING can afford to flicker shields against an HIL.
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Thaago

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Re: Mod question about ships and weapons...
« Reply #31 on: December 14, 2019, 02:46:02 PM »

I think the HIL is a fantastic specialist weapon - easily the most powerful anti-armor weapon in the game, and very good against hull as well - with the tradeoff of weak, soft shield flux damage. I very happily use it any time I've got sufficient other weaponry in the fleet to get those shields down, or can get a flank going. It + 2 gravs is my go to easy to equip Sunder variant.

I think the Plasma Cannon is a better generalist weapon though, and a very deadly one to face against: far far better than its old version as well. Anti shield, its bringing 750 DPS at 1.1 flux/damage: not the most efficient, but respectable and in line with other energy weapons. Its anti armor/hull is 750 DPS at 500 penetration: for comparison, a HIL is 1000 DPS vs armor, 500 vs hull, with 500 penetration! So while the Plasma Cannon is MUCH less efficient vs armor (1.1 f/d as opposed to HILs .5 vs armor and 1.0 vs hull), it is a similar armor breaker as the HIL: even heavy ships can't armor tank it for very long. Against hull its top of the line - possibly the best weapon in the game, though I haven't run the numbers on everything so could be mistaken.
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Goumindong

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Re: Mod question about ships and weapons...
« Reply #32 on: December 14, 2019, 03:17:54 PM »

New Plasma Cannon is by far the best weapon in the game.

1.1 Shield/Flux = decent shield damage. Not on par with KE but not too far.

500 Hit strength == Third highest hit strength of any non-missile weapon in the game behind the Hellbore(1500) and Tachyon Lance (2250?). Except the Hellbore has 2 shield/flux damage and a DPS of 250. The Tachyon Lance doesn't do hard flux damage.

This makes its vs armor efficiency on par with the best HE weapons in the game without sacrificing shield efficiency

Plasma Cannons have some of the best DPS/OP in the game, leaving more OP for supporting systems, flux, and cap at 25. (Hellbore is 15.6, Mjolnir is 22). Other weapons which have good DPS/OP like Heavy Blasters, Pulse Lasers, Assault Chainguns, Storm Needler, LAG's/LDAC's/DLMG's etc all have significant drawbacks in range, flux efficiency, or DPS vs hull.

Plasma Cannon Shots eat projectiles and pass through. Hidden feature. So OP. Plasma Cannons will eat missiles and still do 500 damage to their target.

I really like HIL's, but they're not as good as Plasma Cannons
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Daynen

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Re: Mod question about ships and weapons...
« Reply #33 on: December 14, 2019, 05:50:36 PM »

I see folks often forgetting the biggest advantage HIL has over plasma: it's a constant beam.  Once plasma fires its orbs, it has to reload.  As long as the firing ship has flux to spare the beam NEVER drops.  Against plasma, you can flicker shields and manage flux.  Against a HIL or two, you drop those shields for a second and you're seeing explosions on your ship...at a higher typical range too, since advanced optics provide a range boost for which plasma is ineligible.  HIL's also have a secondary benefit of being far less dangerous to your own ships as even basic fleet AI is smart enough to stop shooting the instant a friendly crosses its arc.  Once plasma is in the air though, anything that drifts into its path is going to be hurting.  i'm a big fan of giving my fleet weapons that they CAN'T kill themselves with.  HIL is also fairly devastating to fighters if you catch them in a cloud.  A sunder can actually do serious damage in your hands by sweeping a trio of beams over an incoming swarm of fighters and missiles.  Plasma cannot do that.

Plasma WILL outdamage HILs if both are fired constantly against a shielded target and never miss, but HILs simply do things plasma cannot.  both are great weapons that require very different technique and application.
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Igncom1

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Re: Mod question about ships and weapons...
« Reply #34 on: December 15, 2019, 02:14:16 AM »

I'm going to be that stick in the mud and say that, while the plasma is a good individual weapon for all cases it's far too expensive for anti-shield work alone. A Pulse Laser is far superior in my anecdotal experience vs remnant battleships.

I've found that for anti-shield work in the large energy world, Pulse Lasers are simply better at cutting them down. As for armour damage, t-lances and hight intensity lasers are about as good enough for those jobs, leaving the plasma as an inefficient shield killer for the slot, and merely a draw if not lesser in anti armour roles.

When you are also being shot at, it's simply too hot to use. Unless you have far less weapons to use at all anyway. That cruiser with the one large energy slot can use them fairly well as often it's the only weapon to be used at all (Plasma plus 2 ion cannons is sick though!). But my sunders struggled to use them effectively as support. Everything else needed the best anti-shield weapons available and could afford to use Pulse Lasers on armour over time so long as the enemy lacked the capacity to shoot back or shield themselves.

This is all anecdotal and in my opinion however, I've found that outside of punching inferior opponents, they are simply too risky to use.
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Serenitis

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Re: Mod question about ships and weapons...
« Reply #35 on: December 15, 2019, 03:16:41 AM »

Plasma vs. HIL

One thing that is seldom mentioned that often very heavily influences my choice between these two, is that plasma cannot be left alone. It needs constant supervision due to it's huge flux generation.
AI ships cannot be trusted with plasma, and will almost always run up thier flux, and die due to overload.
Enemy ships with plasma are somewhat easier than any other large energy for the same reason.

It may be the better weapon for raw damage output. But I consider the HIL to be the better general purpose weapon because it can be left to do its thing in an automated group, or on an AI ship and still perform very well with easily managable flux generation. Plasma can't do this, and is relegated to specialist (usually player only) loadouts which are built around the weapon.
Also, HIL is hitscan, or very nearly. And the beam can be steered into things (even when being fired from automated turrets) which is not something projectiles are capable of.

There's also micromanagement to consider.
If I want to control the missiles on my ship, then that ship will almost certainly not have a plasma cannon on it. They create too much flux to be automated, and undermine any shield tanking ability the ship may have. And if the ship has a mobilty system this can have an odd interaction with the projectiles which mean shots routinely miss, wasting flux.
Conversely, if I want plasma on my ship, the rest of the loadout will be either empty slots or PD.

I'd consider them to be the other way around to most people.
HIL = general purpose
Plasma = specialist


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Grievous69

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Re: Mod question about ships and weapons...
« Reply #36 on: December 15, 2019, 06:30:01 AM »

@people arguing HIL is the best thing ever

That largely depends on who you're fighting. Of course HIL is gonna shine vs pirates and low tech ships. But against everything with decent shields (especially Remnants) it's just a huge waste of flux since AI loves firing it 24/7. Yeah eventually it's gonna strike armor but you just gimped 50 vents on a ship just to tickle someone's shield. That can't be a general purpose weapon in any universe.
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intrinsic_parity

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Re: Mod question about ships and weapons...
« Reply #37 on: December 15, 2019, 11:09:23 AM »

One thing that is seldom mentioned that often very heavily influences my choice between these two, is that plasma cannot be left alone. It needs constant supervision due to it's huge flux generation.
AI ships cannot be trusted with plasma, and will almost always run up thier flux, and die due to overload.
Enemy ships with plasma are somewhat easier than any other large energy for the same reason.
Plasma cannons don't inherently run up flux, they just requires a large amount of the total dissipation to be utilized properly. I would say the plasma cannon needs the loadout to be designed around it, but a good loadout can comfortable auto fire the plasma cannons without worry. A plasma apogee probably leaves all of its other mounts empty or with some light PD, and maxes out it's dissipation with vents and hull mods. If you do that, the ship can fire the plasma cannon continuously without fluxing out. My plasma paragon builds leave two of the large energy slots empty so that the paragon can fully utilize the plasma cannons. The odyssey also has to leave many many small mounts empty to use double plasma properly. If you design the loadout properly, plasmas can be fired continuously without concern, and IMO those loadouts are often stronger than ones that use all the slots with weaker weapons.

They're not specialist in what enemies they can fight (like how the HIL is mostly useless against shields so it struggles against well shielded enemies), which is how other people are using the word. I would agree that they require a more specific/special loadout on your own ship to utilize, so maybe that's what you are trying to say? HIL still has a really large flux cost and can easily run up your flux as well, but I would agree it's easier to fit into a loadout.
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Thaago

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Re: Mod question about ships and weapons...
« Reply #38 on: December 15, 2019, 11:27:44 AM »

Re: Plasma flux: That was the old plasma cannon. The new one, with 1.1 efficiency, is perfectly reasonable for an energy weapon efficiency. Its also OP efficient and mount efficient for damage output, and the large shot sizes eliminates the need to mount any anti-armor weapons. Its actually so mount efficient for damage output that filling all the other mounts leads to a grossly overgunned ship...
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Lucky33

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Re: Mod question about ships and weapons...
« Reply #39 on: December 15, 2019, 01:29:17 PM »


It's easy to add custom variant to sim. You could do the same if you wanted to. Anyway, here is my mini-mod

Thats cool. Thank you very much.
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Goumindong

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Re: Mod question about ships and weapons...
« Reply #40 on: December 15, 2019, 02:06:51 PM »

I'm going to be that stick in the mud and say that, while the plasma is a good individual weapon for all cases it's far too expensive for anti-shield work alone. A Pulse Laser is far superior in my anecdotal experience vs remnant battleships.

Pulse laser and Plasma cannon have same shield efficiency
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Igncom1

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Re: Mod question about ships and weapons...
« Reply #41 on: December 15, 2019, 02:09:10 PM »

I'm going to be that stick in the mud and say that, while the plasma is a good individual weapon for all cases it's far too expensive for anti-shield work alone. A Pulse Laser is far superior in my anecdotal experience vs remnant battleships.

Pulse laser and Plasma cannon have same shield efficiency

And?
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Thaago

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Re: Mod question about ships and weapons...
« Reply #42 on: December 15, 2019, 02:13:10 PM »

I'm going to be that stick in the mud and say that, while the plasma is a good individual weapon for all cases it's far too expensive for anti-shield work alone. A Pulse Laser is far superior in my anecdotal experience vs remnant battleships.

Pulse laser and Plasma cannon have same shield efficiency

And?

Well as shields don't care about shot size, having the same efficiency and damage type means that they are identical vs shields, barring misses. Plasma is a bit longer ranged and slower projectile (I think) so it might have more misses against nimble targets, but shouldn't against a battleship. So plasma and pulse laser are identical in anti-shield performance.
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Igncom1

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Re: Mod question about ships and weapons...
« Reply #43 on: December 15, 2019, 02:14:54 PM »

I'm going to be that stick in the mud and say that, while the plasma is a good individual weapon for all cases it's far too expensive for anti-shield work alone. A Pulse Laser is far superior in my anecdotal experience vs remnant battleships.

Pulse laser and Plasma cannon have same shield efficiency

And?

Well as shields don't care about shot size, having the same efficiency and damage type means that they are identical vs shields, barring misses. Plasma is a bit longer ranged and slower projectile (I think) so it might have more misses against nimble targets, but shouldn't against a battleship. So plasma and pulse laser are identical in anti-shield performance.

Perhaps on paper. I wouldn't agree in practice.
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intrinsic_parity

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Re: Mod question about ships and weapons...
« Reply #44 on: December 15, 2019, 02:26:31 PM »

@Igncom1 Were you referring to the auto pulse laser, or the pulse laser?
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