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[Grievous69]

I think ideally every weapon should have its "i'm the best" spot.  One of the big areas for this, that allows for weak weapons, would normally be "I need 5000 of these". So a light motar might make sense if you're going to have a swarming fleet of 20 frigates, because it's cheap to get vs say a light autocannon.

Unfortunately the economy is kind of a mess, especially for ships/weapons, so scarcity rarely (if ever) limits you except in a few niche cases, and thus such weapons don't really shine and just feel like filler.

YES! Just as weaker units in rts games fall off in late game, they can still be good in large numbers. Megas often says that 2 Light mortars are better than 1 LAG so there's at least some of that decision making in Starsector. The problem is other damage types and energy weapons as a whole (because you're always better with any beam PD other than Mining laser).

[Eji1700]

I think ideally every weapon should have its "i'm the best" spot.  One of the big areas for this, that allows for weak weapons, would normally be "I need 5000 of these". So a light motar might make sense if you're going to have a swarming fleet of 20 frigates, because it's cheap to get vs say a light autocannon.

Unfortunately the economy is kind of a mess, especially for ships/weapons, so scarcity rarely (if ever) limits you except in a few niche cases, and thus such weapons don't really shine and just feel like filler.

YES! Just as weaker units in rts games fall off in late game, they can still be good in large numbers. Megas often says that 2 Light mortars are better than 1 LAG so there's at least some of that decision making in Starsector. The problem is other damage types and energy weapons as a whole (because you're always better with any beam PD other than Mining laser).

Yeah light motar isn't the best example, and it's way more obvious with ships (Condor vs Drover), but it's certainly a way weapons could be balanced that is pretty heavily underused right now.  I'd much prefer weapon/ship acquisition be a bit harder so that decisions (such as getting a commission or specing into industry for more salvage) matter more, as right now there's very few things that are actually hard to acquire in whatever number you need.

[AxleMC131]

... Antimatter blaster will always be taken by phase ships piloted by player because there is not much else those ships can use well.  As a general purpose assault weapon, it stinks.  The only reason it cost is somewhat justified is AI exploitation, which usually means outright paralyze a ship for twelve seconds after hitting its shield when its flux is nearly capped.  Kind of a lame reason.  If not for stupid tricks like that, it would be bad because its stats on paper are worse than IR Pulse Laser.

(... and further AMB discussion...)

I can't agree with this at all. The Antimatter Blaster is a highly useful strike tool in my arsenal. I'm a big fan of kitting a Wolf out with it, for instance. Doesn't have to be player-piloted, I find it does great work as a hit-and-run strike weapon. It's like a torpedo that costs a bunch of flux, but pays for itself in the ability to ignore PD fire. I've used it to great success on a particularly aggressive Sunder build too - dual Antimatter Blasters + High Energy Focus is a recipe for destruction.

Sure, it's good on phase ships. Lots of things are. I'm not sure why you would compare it to the IR Pulse Laser when they're very different weapons? One is a steady-fire assault weapon, one is a shock-and-awe strike weapon.

[intrinsic_parity]

AM blaster just builds up so much flux in your own ship. The AI will fire it into shields where it is actively hurting you in the flux war. I don't think it is very good on AI ships. My problem with high flux cost finishers is also that you frequently have to spend a lot of your flux capacity to put the enemy in a 'finishable' position meaning you have little left to use the finishing weapons. A lot of times in a fleet battle, you can easily put yourself in a more compromised position than you put the enemy.

[Thaago]

I really like the AM blaster on any ship capable of leveraging the cooldown of the weapon to their own benefit: IE when the weapon is on cooldown, the enemy cannot fire back. My list under AI command of ships that can pull it off are: Wolf, Medusa, Phase ships, Hyperion (but there are usually better choices), Paragon (fortress shield).

It is also excellent on any ship that can take advantage of situations where you DON'T need to trade flux (the enemy is already fluxed up from another ship, you can target the enemy's engines around the shield, etc). Ships under AI that can pull it off: Wolf, Medusa, Phase Ships, Hyperion. I might be missing a few, but on all those ships I mount AM blasters with large success.

[Plantissue]

I don't see why anyone would try to use the antimatter blaster as a general purpose weapon and compare it to such weapons. There are plenty of other energy weapons to fulfil that role. Not to mention antimatter blaster is limited by ammo so you can't use it as as general purpose weapon anyways. Surely as a weapon instead of proclaiming it overcosted, you could increase its cost to see where the tipping point where you would stop using it. lets see. For antimatter Afflictor, it'll have to be something ridiculously high like 20 OP.  There aren't any alternatives for that afflictor playstyle of repeatable spike damage so that playstyle will simply disappear for the Afflictor. For Harbinger, as it has three other good alternatives in Heavy Blaster, Mining Blaster and Phase lance, it'll depend on preference, but lets say 12 OP. Underpriced the anitmatter blaster is not.

I say it is overpriced because outside of strikes from phase ships or overloading shields with it, I see no reason to use it.  Has ammo (no good for multi-round fights), horrible range (400), horribly slow rate-of-fire (missing hurts), massive flux spike(s), and even minor windup (no good for Hyperion with maybe a single frame to act between teleports without getting shot).  It is an awkward weapon that is the best at some special teams stuff (likely flagship only too) and bad at nearly anything else.  It is nearly as expensive as mining blaster.  I probably would not put it at 5, though.  It feels at the level of burst PD, so maybe 7 OP.  I do not think it is as versatile as mining blaster.  Can the AI use AM Blaster well?  AI seems incompetent with smaller phase ships.  Is there a good reason to use AM Blasters on more conventional ships the AI can use better, like say maybe Medusa or Aurora?

The only other viable small energy hard-flux option is IR Pulse Laser, which is mediocre except maybe on capitals.  (Aurora can use lots of IR Pulse Laser, but it is not as good as two heavy blasters and nothing else).  AM Blaster is even worse for brawling, and I certainly would not want to use it as PD if that is even possible.

I would only use AM Blaster on non-Doom phase ships, mostly because they cannot brawl.  (I would prefer old cloak to come back so phase ships can brawl with autocannons and assault guns, something AI can do.)  I guess I would use it on Scarab flagship, except Scarab stinks in 0.9a.  (It was great in 0.7.2a, though.)  Ever since invulnerability frames were removed from decloaking, I am not fond of AM Blaster on Afflictor because low range and health gives little room for error, and Afflictor can cheese fights with Reapers (for now).  For now, Harbinger flagship is the only ship I use AM Blasters with.  Mining Blaster and Phase Lances are options on Harbinger, but they are not as good as AM Blasters.  Phase Lance is competitive, but AM Blaster might be a bit better.

You say Antimatter Blaster is overpriced because it works very well in situations intended for its use and performs in cases outside of that? In that case every weapon is overpriced.

Wtf is brawling? Is that different from general purpose? Why would you see a weapon with massive 1400 damage, shoots once every 6 seconds, range 400 and then complain it's not like an IR Pulse laser and not a good PD? It's not even a PD weapon. It has an obvious use case and performs successfully within that usage as a strike weapon. It even has limited ammunition just to make sure you don't think of it as a general purpose weapon. Would you also say that Assault Chaingun is overpriced because it can't be used successfully outside of safety override builds? Or Tachyon lance because it can only produce soft flux? Or all the Kinetic weapons because they are poor at damaging armour? No of course not, as you can only compare them with the weapons within their own use. And so you must consider, does antimatter blaster in afflictor or in harbinger or in any other ship deserve to be cheaper? No it does not. Its cost can be risen in comparison.

[AxleMC131]

Easy Plantissue. Keep it civilized. This is a sharing of opinions, not a place for personal attacks.

Wtf is brawling? Is that different from general purpose?

Sorta? To my understanding, "brawling" is staying toe-to-toe with an enemy for a prolonged period of time, and usually involves tanking a bit of enemy fire on armour while you keep consistent fire down on them to pressure them. It's much more aggressive and daring than what I would consider "general purpose". Does that help?

It is also excellent on any ship that can take advantage of situations where you DON'T need to trade flux (the enemy is already fluxed up from another ship, you can target the enemy's engines around the shield, etc). Ships under AI that can pull it off: Wolf, Medusa, Phase Ships, Hyperion. I might be missing a few, but on all those ships I mount AM blasters with large success.

This is how I tend to use it, as a punishing blow to cripple an unshielded target - or overload a high-flux target. I don't use the AMB as a combat opener, but I guess you could depending on your competition? That being, if the flux cost is worth it for the damage output provided in a single shot. Against something like an Onslaught or Dominator that you've approached from behind, sure, open up with an AMB. For most situations though I like to have a target sweating before nailing them with the blaster. It couples well with things like Sabots for just that reason.

No matter what anyone says, I will always find the Antimatter Blaster an incredibly satisfying weapon to use.

[Serenitis]

I think someone already gave the perfect description of the Antimatter Blaster: A PD immune torpedo.
It's an excellent weapon that's very good at what it does, and literally nothing else.
A simple Wolf with an AM Blaster in the nose and an otherwise standard loadout does a good enough job of poking holes in things if you want to play with this early on.

I don't get the hate for the Devastator though. It's not a weapon I've ever been disappointed with.
Maybe it comes from comparing it to the other large ballistics, which behave like assault rifles and machine guns.
Of course the Devastator is going to be disappointing if you're using it with that kind of expectation, because it can't reliably hit things at range. But if this is the case I'd like to suggest that maybe you're not thinking about it in the right way.
Devastator is a shotgun. The closer it is to its target, bet better it performs. The fact it can also pull double-duty as point defence makes it a very flexible weapon. Maybe not the best for any given situation, but a decent compromise between all of them.

Also, Safety Overrides has an interesting interaction with the Devastator; all the shells burst in almost the same place.

[Plantissue]

I don't see where I have placed a personal attack on anyone.

[Igncom1]

I find the Devastator to be too flux expensive to use as a PD weapon. It's not as accurate as a flak gun which makes it waste shots.

Otherwise you really don't need an anti-frigate weapon and the other HE large weapons have you covered for HE.

Really not for me unless you are doing some kinda "large is the only PD you can use" kinda challenge. Which does sound fun.

[intrinsic_parity]

Devastator for me is best at fending off smaller ships and providing finishing dps. The main place I would use it is on the backside of an asymmetric conquest. It also does have a quite high dps and decent damage per shot so if you get in close, it can be decent for finishing things. It has higher damage per shot and dps than a hephaestus.

[AxleMC131]

I don't see where I have placed a personal attack on anyone.

Your last comment sounded very aggressive and my "argument radar" was pinging a warning.

Would you also say that Assault Chaingun is overpriced because it can't be used successfully outside of safety override builds? Or Tachyon lance because it can only produce soft flux? Or all the Kinetic weapons because they are poor at damaging armour? No of course not, as you can only compare them with the weapons within their own use. And so you must consider, does antimatter blaster in afflictor or in harbinger or in any other ship deserve to be cheaper? No it does not. Its cost can be risen in comparison.

If that wasn't intentional then I apologise, but perhaps it might be worth double-checking over your messages for tone before posting. I've seen you comment on a few things around the forums recently and a few of them have read somewhat aggressive. Tone is quite difficult to portray accurately in pure text, I find it takes a bit of finesse, so watch out for that in future. Just a bit of advice.

[Plantissue]

Thanks for the advice. They were points of comparison. About how comparing a weapon based on a single standard would make all other weapons outside of that standard seem underpointed, so there would be no special reason to point out antimatter blaster in particular, but rather all other wepons. I don't regard it as aggressive. Do you think it is that I try to reply to every signle point megas has made? Or is it the question marks?

[AxleMC131]

Do you think it is that I try to reply to every signle point megas has made? Or is it the question marks?

I think a bit of both, the last few lines felt quite snappish. The listing of "would you also say X? And Y? And Z?" are almost like a challenge to disagree, y'know? And those questions being rhetorical came off as quite passive-aggressive (I know, I find myself falling into that trap a lot).

It's also worth bearing in mind that thread isn't about the discussion of individual weapon balance per se, it's for (as far as I can tell) people to share opinions on their least favourite weapons in the game (and why), presumably with the goal of finding a common trend towards particular unfavourable weapons. Don't stress out too much about people with different opinions - even if you believe their opinions to be factually incorrect, you can gladly try to correct them, but there's a point where you just have to agree to disagree and leave it there.

[Grievous69]

Good thing others reminded me because I've been *** on Heavy burst laser as the worst energy medium and completely forgot about Ion pulser, that's how much I care about it. I can't remember ever using that on something, apart from testing the weapon when it came out. I think I put one on Aurora (front hardpoint), I was so damn disappointed, one of the few weapons that bring up the question ''why is this a thing?''. So yeah at least the Heavy burst laser has SOME use, even tho I hardly used it, but Ion pulser takes the cake.