Fractal Softworks Forum

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Advanced search  

News:

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

Pages: 1 2 [3]

Author Topic: Antimatter Blaster rant  (Read 4805 times)

Grievous69

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 2975
    • View Profile
Re: Antimatter Blaster rant
« Reply #30 on: May 26, 2020, 01:29:47 PM »

A huge amount of kinetic damage is good enough to punch through. Anyone remembers the old Sabots? ''Kinetic''
« Last Edit: May 26, 2020, 01:39:06 PM by Grievous69 »
Logged
Please don't take me too seriously.

Igncom1

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 1496
    • View Profile
Re: Antimatter Blaster rant
« Reply #31 on: May 26, 2020, 01:36:57 PM »

Hell sabots STILL delete smaller ships.
Logged
Sunders are the best ship in the game.

Thaago

  • Global Moderator
  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 7173
  • Harpoon Affectionado
    • View Profile
Re: Antimatter Blaster rant
« Reply #32 on: May 26, 2020, 01:50:45 PM »

1400 Kinetic... lets see, with no skills that would do 408 damage against pristine 500 armor, 288 against 1000 armor. Thats... not bad tbh. Obviously not as good as current, but it will get through in a few shots, and the massive 2800 shield spike is going to overload a lot of things.

Against stripped 500 (IE 25) it will do 1352 damage; stripped 1000 will do 1307. So as a hull killer its basically full powered, though a lot of skills massively reduce kinetic damage to armor (including stripped armor for mitigation purposes), so it would have quite inconsistent performance. An enemy with Impact mitigation 1, evasive action, and defensive systems is only goes to take ~750. Huh thats still not bad for a skilled up enemy.

I'd play around with that AM blaster. Sounds brutal!
Logged

Megas

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 12117
    • View Profile
Re: Antimatter Blaster rant
« Reply #33 on: May 26, 2020, 03:07:08 PM »

A huge amount of kinetic damage is good enough to punch through. Anyone remembers the old Sabots? ''Kinetic''
Depends how far back.

Original, they were a more reliable Harpoon since PD generally could not stop them.  It was slow enough that it could be dodged, and often, the AI dropped shields to take a hit... which is exactly what you want if you wanted it mainly to do hull damage.  Unfortunately, AI did not use them that way and wasted them on shields if you wanted a reliable hull smasher.  It could also crush the armor of weaker ships like frigates or even Medusa.

Second iteration, shotgun spread.  More total damage but totally useless because spread was too wide and AI always dropped shields.  Damage to armor was minimal.  Only the player would ever take a hit on the shield, and only if he was inexperienced.

Third iteration, back to the original, but much faster.  This was the most lethal incarnation.  Just as lethal as the first version, but was so fast they were impossible for AI to dodge, and they do not always lower shields.  It was an all-purpose missile with low ammo being its only weakness.

Afterwards is probably the modern iteration.
Logged

TaLaR

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 2794
    • View Profile
Re: Antimatter Blaster rant
« Reply #34 on: May 26, 2020, 06:43:39 PM »

Oh, a kinetic AM would be just as lethal vs frigates/and low armor DEs. And simple enough that even AI could use it - no need to bypass shield after all, just punch through it (too simple actually, strictly for anti-frigate role, that would be very overpowered).
Against larger ships though Afflictor would be just an anti-shield kinetic support.
Logged

bobucles

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 532
    • View Profile
Re: Antimatter Blaster rant
« Reply #35 on: May 28, 2020, 04:32:41 AM »

A weapon that is great on some ships and terrible on others is a good thing. There should be more weapons that feel weak in some situations, yet overpowered in the right place. Don't forget the assault chaingun, that thing is dope on Hammerheads.

Megas

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 12117
    • View Profile
Re: Antimatter Blaster rant
« Reply #36 on: May 28, 2020, 04:50:31 AM »

Kinetic AM Blasters would probably be too powerful if it makes it too easy to overload most ships for twelve seconds.  In any case, kinetic AM Blasters would become the anti-shield weapon of choice for the likes of Wolf, Scarab, Shrike, and Aurora because they have no efficient anti-shield energy weapons.  Pulse lasers are mediocre at the job.

Alex said chainguns will be weaker.
« Last Edit: May 28, 2020, 04:55:54 AM by Megas »
Logged

Schwartz

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 1452
    • View Profile
Re: Antimatter Blaster rant
« Reply #37 on: May 28, 2020, 09:41:16 AM »

Alpha damage is the measure for guaranteed and long ship overloads because the AI can't handle these well with shields. Clearly making AMB kinetic would be extremely unbalancing. All things considered AMB is probably just fine as-is. The modifications I tried also didn't really make it any better or worse, just more usable.
Logged

bobucles

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 532
    • View Profile
Re: Antimatter Blaster rant
« Reply #38 on: May 28, 2020, 10:48:36 AM »

Kinetic AM to instantly overload a ship, Reaper reaper. Wow easy game guys.

Grievous69

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 2975
    • View Profile
Re: Antimatter Blaster rant
« Reply #39 on: May 28, 2020, 10:53:20 AM »

It's like I didn't even say ''a crazy thought''. Of course it would be stupid, I wasn't genuinely suggesting that change. It's just fun to think about how will it impact current gameplay and phase ships.
Logged
Please don't take me too seriously.

Igncom1

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 1496
    • View Profile
Re: Antimatter Blaster rant
« Reply #40 on: May 28, 2020, 10:56:12 AM »

Another crazy thought, medium and large versions of the antimatter blaster!
Logged
Sunders are the best ship in the game.

Megas

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 12117
    • View Profile
Re: Antimatter Blaster rant
« Reply #41 on: May 28, 2020, 11:26:04 AM »

It's like I didn't even say ''a crazy thought''. Of course it would be stupid, I wasn't genuinely suggesting that change. It's just fun to think about how will it impact current gameplay and phase ships.
As for me with phase ships...
No change for Afflictor since I use it to abuse Reapers like no other ship can for cheese kills.  (AM Blaster loadout is tricky to use well.)
I do not use Shade.  It is inferior to Afflictor flagship in every way for the same cost.
May grumble about Harbinger.  Would need to switch to triple phase lance, which is not quite as good as current triple AM blaster.
No change for Doom, just use my preferred loadout of four burst PDs and two heavy blasters since mines do much of the work.

On the other hand, I probably would replace the sabots with kinetic AM Blasters on the conventional high-tech ships like Shrike.
Logged

Goumindong

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 1886
    • View Profile
Re: Antimatter Blaster rant
« Reply #42 on: May 28, 2020, 04:06:02 PM »

If there is a problem with the AMB its that its very expensive in terms of OP. This makes it quite hard to fit on ships you might want it on. You could have 1 AMB or you could fit 4-5 reaper torpedo's. Since you're unlikely to ever shoot your AMB more than 10 times this seems an easy trade if you have the slots.

The upside is that its much easier to find a small energy slot than 4 missile/1 med missile. And that its got a much better projectile speed and cannot be killed by anti-missile defense.

I am not sure that is really enough though. Its good on like... the Omen? And they're OK on the Aurora as well.
Logged
Pages: 1 2 [3]