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[intrinsic_parity]

I agree with SCC, nerfing minimum armor to make frag damage better also makes kinetic damage better while kinetics are already super good anti-shield specialists. I have trouble seeing frag damage really gain all that much after this change, you're moving the standard that frag weapons need to beat at the same time you're making them better. Needlers for example have the best shield efficiency in the game, and they also have the same armor penetration as the thumper, so they will see the same benefits in terms of hull dps. Don't get me wrong, frag damage will get better, but I still don't see it getting better enough to be a good choice as an assault weapon. But this doesn't just affect weapon balance in a vacuum, it also affects ship and Hullmods and skill balance. This change generally makes ships with heavy armor worse because all weapons are better against them (they effectively have less HP), while it doesn't really affect ships with light armor relative to the class. The onslaught, dominator and enforcer are all considered to not be the best ships in their class afaik, and this would make them worse. The heavy armor hull mod is generally considered to be a bit weak and this makes it worse. I just don't think this change has very good balance implications for all the things it affects outside of frag damage.

I don't like the idea of making changes with wide reaching balance implication just because the thumper underperforms. The thumper is the only non-pd frag weapon in the base game, why are we making such a wide-reaching mechanic change to make one weapon better?  Just make the thumper better directly, don't mess with a bunch of other stuff that is already reasonably balanced.

[Goumindong]

You said “ It also provides an unintended benefit to HE weapons, which already tend to be in the minority”

And i was confused. I didn’t think your further post clarified well so I continued.

That being said I dont think that hull DR has that huge effect on KE. KE tends to have relatively large hit strengths compared to frag and compared to minimum armor amounts. A railgun has a hit strength of 50 and so only has 50% DR against the hull of a ship with 1000 base armor. It still does 36% damage to the hull of a skilless onslaught. Only light autocannons and the Needler line have hit strengths that are significantly effected by hull DR. And many have hit strengths far in excess of mattering. Mark IX has a hit strength of 100(53% Dmg vs onslaught). HVD 137.5(61% vs onslaught) and gauss (350! 80% dmg Vs onslaught. better than all but the heavy mauler and Hellbore!)

These damage reductions aren’t inconsequential but they also aren’t effected a tonne by this change. The HVD vs the onslaught goes up to 71%.

Though KE could do to have the max armor DR cap removed or increased/hit strength reductions.

This is all rather huge, actually, except for gauss cannon. Armour-less Onslaught can last 2-3 times as long if you don't take proper tools against it. This won't help it if it's losing already, but it can be the difference between life and death, if it has to last just a bit longer. And, in general, it means that taking hits from kinetic guns (and energy guns smaller than a heavy blaster) is not that significant, so even with armour badly damaged you can still let shields down and win through sheer tenacity. Too bad AI won't do that.
And then there's Impact Mitigation 1 that slaps a flat 150 for all ships, making even the wimpiest frigate take only half the damage of a gauss cannon.
Also, you forgot mjolnir.

Mjolnir is energy damage.

Assume a frigate has 500 armor... 500x .05 = 25 +150 = 175

350/525 = 66%. So rather than the wimpiest frigate taking half, the beefiest frigate takes 2/3r'ds...

And well. Presumably impact mitigation wouldn't work on hull armor (if it even exists in the next version).

Another good thing about consistent hull DR is that it makes it far easier to manage hull HP balancing.

[SCC]

Assume a frigate has 500 armor... 500x .05 = 25 +150 = 175

350/525 = 66%. So rather than the wimpiest frigate taking half, the beefiest frigate takes 2/3r'ds...

And well. Presumably impact mitigation wouldn't work on hull armor (if it even exists in the next version).

Another good thing about consistent hull DR is that it makes it far easier to manage hull HP balancing.

Impact Mitigation works very much currently (though it replaces residual armour, rather than adding up to it) and it's going to stay, as far as I know, because even when dealing hull damage, there's still 5% of armour remaining. I don't understand what you mean by "hull HP balancing". I don't understand what's hard about it currently and how it would be undesirable.
I'm not sure where you get your numbers. I get 175/(175+150)=0,538 (since armour never goes away, damage types still apply for armour damage reduction, even though you deal damage to hull now), which I rounded to a half because I'm lazy.
I should play the game more, or at least use Gauss more often

[Mondaymonkey]

I think, we shouldn't fix what was not broken. Frag damage is OK to me. And if you think it is critical for Thumper, it is easier to remove/repurpose/rework it, not armor or damage model.

[Goumindong]

I don't understand what you mean by "hull HP balancing". I don't understand what's hard about it currently and how it would be undesirable.

Its not hard currently but its also not changed to be hard. That is if you think ships would be negatively impacted by slightly increased hull damage for kinetics you could increase their hull HP to compensate.

[xenoargh]

Just an aside:

I solved the problems with Frag in Rebal by making Frag do normal Flux damage vs. Form Shields.  This gave Form Shields (universally used by Fighters in Rebal) a signal disadvantage vs. Frag, which in turn gave Frag a distinct point... as well as letting players use Thumpers (which are kind of auto-shotguns in Rebal) to spank enemies using Form Shields with very efficient counters.  All of this fixed the major problems with Frag's concept and balance; I think it's worth using there.

To solve this in a more Vanilla-ish way:

Have a special rule for Frag, where they do quad damage vs. fighters (including Armor and Shields) and missiles and double damage against normal Hull, but aren't efficient for Flux-trading or killing Armor.  This would be in line with the other weapon types' special rules, and therefore less confusing, while making it totally clear what Frag's designed to do.

I.E., you could take a Thumper, make it 0.75 efficient (before miss-rates and all that) so that it's an unattractive weapon except against the targets it's meant to eat alive.  Nobody will use it for anything but the stated purpose; killing Fighters.  But it could be very good at that (IDK whether 4X damage would get it there, but probably).  The problem with the Thumper is there's absolutely nothing it's good enough at that I'd use one, period; having a straight-up Ballistic solution to fighters sounds like a good solution.

This would, of course, require a completely different set of stats for Frag weapons, especially the AOE stuff, but it's the AOE (reducing miss-rates very considerably) that has to be accounted for, not the damage per se, but it's not a big deal, honestly.

I think this is the right way to solve this problem.  Frag's been kept the same since Fighters largely didn't have Armor, let alone Shields; as time has passed, it's become almost entirely about its role as Flux-efficient PD.  Give it a bonus vs. Fighters and missiles explicitly and now it's a nice solid niche.

The other possible Vanilla-ish solutions would be:

Remove the Thumper or change it to another type entirely.  The Thumper has been on the list, of "top 10 weapons I'd never mount for serious play" since 0.54, lol.  Other than nostalgia, nobody will miss it.

Buff Thumper for no particular reason, then nerf again in 9 months when somebody figures out a niche build that works, like shieldless Enforcers with five of them or something equally ridiculous, lol.

Get rid of Armor for Fighters, buffing hitpoints where it's reasonable to keep Low Tech viable.  High Tech Fighters still have a major advantage vs. Low Tech PD, but it's not as egregious and they'll get killed if they run out of Flux.


Oh, and whoever said that Locusts aren't the best missile... honestly, I think you may want to mess with them more.  They're the best missile atm.  Really.  Because they do the two things missiles should be really good for:  killing smaller threats and wasting enemy Flux killing them off.  That second part is why they're pretty awesome, honestly; a Locust swarm in the midst of the enemy can lay waste to more Flux indirectly than any weapon in the game, other than perhaps a perfect Sabot strike, can directly.  In a game where Flux-locking is the main objective, that's a win.

[Megas]

Oh, and whoever said that Locusts aren't the best missile... honestly, I think you may want to mess with them more.  They're the best missile atm.  Really.  Because they do the two things missiles should be really good for:  killing smaller threats and wasting enemy Flux killing them off.  That second part is why they're pretty awesome, honestly; a Locust swarm in the midst of the enemy can lay waste to more Flux indirectly than any weapon in the game, other than perhaps a perfect Sabot strike, can directly.  In a game where Flux-locking is the main objective, that's a win.

Another reason:  Lots of ammo!  With Expanded Missile Racks, it has enough ammo to last several minutes in (the first round of) a long endgame fight.  That helps mitigate trigger-happy AI that wastes missiles like no tomorrow.  Also reliable and mostly PD-proof.  It does so much damage that even battleships will hurt if all of the missiles hit hull.

As for Thumper buffs, we already have two flak weapons for PD.  Also, current Thumper would be unreliable PD like Devastator due to its burst nature.  I suppose it could be handy as a ballistic LR PD to stop Sabots and MIRVs before they split.  I kind of like to see Thumper double down about being weak against shields and armor but absolutely murderous against hull.  It would probably remain sub-par since it takes ages to break down shields and armor with Thumpers alone, especially if it costs more than Mortar and Arbalest, the weapons that compliment Thumper the best.  If Thumper will remain as useless for the player as modern Pilums, lower its OP cost to 7 and let it rot.

[Yunru]

What is frags did a more standard damage layout instead?
2x to hull, 1x to armour, 0.5x to shields?

This was not rhetorical

[shoi]

seems like an unnecessary change when you can get the same effect by raising DPS of the "underperforming" frag weapons in question

[Goumindong]

Well no. Because then they would slaughter ships that did not have high hull armor or unskilled ships that did not have the bonus flat armor dr

[Serenitis]

I don't think creating exceptions and special rules is something you want to get into, unless you have literally no other alternative.

I can't remember where it was mentioned, but someone a while ago suggested that the Thumper might benefit from being continuous fire, and I think they could be right.
It would probably have to have its fire rate reduced, and maybe more recoil added.
And if it stays at 9OP its flux efficiency could be raised a little, but it might be worth looking at making it cheaper instead.

[Megas]

If Thumper became continuous fire while DPS stayed the same and no other changes, it would be almost back to square one before 0.8a when Thumper was worse than useless.  Thumper would be easy to shrug off and unable to exploit openings on weakened ships.

When I face current Thumper in the early game, when it is still a relevant threat (if I use non-Apogee start), by the time I notice getting hit by Thumper (their shots are very hard to see), I take too much damage or my ship explodes.  That never happened with pre-0.8a Thumper.  I take a hit (with my severely damaged frigate or destroyer flagship), I take minor damage, raise shields, then proceed to crush whoever shot me.  I cannot do that with current Thumper, because my ship will be dead!

7 OP seems to be the place for useless weapons (Pilums) and slow weapons (Mortar and single Flak).  I would have no problem putting current Thumper there.

[SCC]

Continuous fire Thumper would probably have to have its DPS increased 2-3 times to still make it passable. It would be better to increase current damage per shot and overall damage, but not to that degree.

[Daynen]

Odd question perhaps but...

Do we actually...NEED frag damage in the game?

[Yunru]

seems like an unnecessary change when you can get the same effect by raising DPS of the "underperforming" frag weapons in question

I can't tell if that's at me or not.

Odd question perhaps but...

Do we actually...NEED frag damage in the game?

It would help complete the triangle more, if it were normally structured (there's 6 theoretical combinations of strengths and weaknesses, and so far only 2 are fulfilled).