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Author Topic: Dedicated anti-Cruiser/Capital weapons  (Read 5033 times)

intrinsic_parity

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Re: Dedicated anti-Cruiser/Capital weapons
« Reply #30 on: February 18, 2021, 09:55:26 PM »

@Thaago I have a very similar philosophy, I only play with ~3 faction mods, and I'm pretty picky about which ones. I try to avoid the more unbalanced mods. I don't like when theres 15 different guns that do basically the same thing, and I don't like when there are ships/weapons that completely outclass vanilla stuff.


@hydremajor
If a game is not fun without mods, then the game is bad. I consider a game+mods to be more or less a different game/experience that might also be good or bad. Mods just change the constraints given by the game, but I still want to make sure those new constraints are fun and interesting. That's why I said 'modding in whatever you want ruins [the challenge for me]'. The extreme case is cheating i.e. modding in infinite money and weapons that one-shot everything or whatever. I'm not against modding in weapons to fill out the missing niches, but I very much am against modding in weapons without consideration for balance or serious thought. I personally don't have the time or interest in making and then testing/tuning/balancing weapons, so instead, I come to the forums and make suggestions :D. At the end of the day, I want the base game to be good, I don't want there to be any required mods.
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Goumindong

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Re: Dedicated anti-Cruiser/Capital weapons
« Reply #31 on: February 22, 2021, 12:25:15 AM »

I don’t understand why the Mauler is an insufficient medium HE. It’s accurate, long range, and efficient.
It shoots slowly, which makes it not so great against a mob of small nimble enemies (like frigates).

Mauler is not accurate when fired continuously, especially without Gunnery Implants.  Mauler does not have the perfect accuracy of HVD, which would have been fine when it did 200 or 250 DPS in previous releases, but not today.

DPS is lacking, which is not good when I need raw DPS against an advancing wall of doom.  Sure, Mauler is fine against significant armor, but players also want HE for anti-hull ever since minimal armor was implemented.

Unless I really need 1000 range, Mortar is it (the HE Arbalest), which is okay (as much as Arbalest is okay), but the lack of range hurts when pairing with 800 kinetics.  An 800 range HE would be nice.  There are matching ranges for 450 (chaingun and HMG), 700 (Mortar and Arbalest), and 1000 (Mauler and HVD).  None for 800, and no upgrade for low-end Mortar.  (Chaingun and Mauler are not upgrades.)

Also, 1000 range can be too much range if it causes AI to hover near max Mauler range instead of 800 or 900 range weapons.

Mauler needs either more DPS (general-purpose weapon) or accuracy upgraded to perfect like HVD (double down on sniper role).

If Mauler remains the dedicated sniper, then a new 800 range HE that is easier to use than Mortar would be really nice.

Modern Mauler is a niche weapon, not a general-purpose weapon.  Similar deal with heavy kinetics.

But all of this is besides the point. You can fit one Mauler and the rest mortar if you want.

The Mauler does what you claim you want the medium HE for hitting high armor to do. It’s better armor DPS at very high armor and more efficient at most armor levels than a Mortar... and even when firing a lot ... far far far far far more accurate than the mortar

What is isnt is a gun that obviates the mortar and other HE medium weapons. But why is it supposed to be? Because you want one gun to rule them all?

Why are harpoons not sufficient? Why are hammers? Why are atropos? Why are reapers insufficient?

These all do the things you claim you want the medium HE to do, so you can still use your mortars for hull damage. But “I want a gun that can punch through the heavy armor of cruisers and capitals!” It’s right there it’s the heavy Mauler. “I want a gun that has enough range to be used with long range kinetics!” It’s right there its the heavy Mauler.

Would lowering the range on heavy Autocannons fix your issue? Would using arbalests instead fix your issue? Then your kinetic and HE have the same range.
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Megas

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Re: Dedicated anti-Cruiser/Capital weapons
« Reply #32 on: February 22, 2021, 07:14:38 AM »

@ Goumindong:
The point is to match ranges with a complimentary kinetic.  HMG pairs with Chaingun.  Arbalest, Railgun, Light Needler, and Storm Needler pair with Mortar.  Hellbore, HAG, and Mjolnir pair with Mark IX.  Mauler pairs with HVD.  But nothing pairs with Heavy AC/Needler (or Gauss Cannon for that matter, but Gauss has too many downsides for general-purpose use).

Enough with the high armor.  Yes, Mauler is better than Mortar against that, but I do not always grab HE for maximum armor penetration.  Such weapons lack perfect accuracy and tend to fire slowly enough that they are ill-suited against small and nimble targets.  If I am limited to one HE on the ship, I tend toward a faster general-purpose weapon.  Yes, armor penetration is less, but it is still good against hull or light armor, and easier to hit small targets.

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What is isnt is a gun that obviates the mortar and other HE medium weapons. But why is it supposed to be? Because you want one gun to rule them all?
Simple, one with 800 range, and one that is one obvious upgrade over Heavy Mortar like Heavy AC/Needler is an upgrade over Arbalest.  (Probably better accuracy or shot speed.)  If it is better, that is not a problem.  Mortar is a low-end budget weapon of its class, after all.

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Why are harpoons not sufficient? Why are hammers? Why are atropos? Why are reapers insufficient?
Because they are missiles.  They do not have enough ammo (only Locusts plus missile racks may last long enough), and AI tends to waste them (or hoard them too conservatively in case of torpedoes).  As Grievous pointed out, missiles are no substitute for guns.

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Would lowering the range on heavy Autocannons fix your issue? Would using arbalests instead fix your issue? Then your kinetic and HE have the same range.
Lowering range of Heavy AC would fix that issue with Mortar (for the ships with symmetric mounts like Enforcer/Hammerhead/Falcon), but then wreck loadouts on the ships that rely on 800 range (Eagle and any other ship with Steady AI and 900 range heavy ballistics).  Also, I would abandon a 700 range heavy AC and use Railgun instead once I can mass-produce the latter for the 700 range band (costs less OP, better accuracy and efficiency).  I do use Arbalest and Railguns over heavy AC/Needler on some ships precisely because of range issues, but it does not feel good because I am stuck with low-end medium ballistics (or elite small weapons emulating them).
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Goumindong

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Re: Dedicated anti-Cruiser/Capital weapons
« Reply #33 on: February 22, 2021, 09:56:14 PM »

“I want a weapon that is good Vs capitals and cruisers”

“The heavy Mauler does that”

“But I also want it to be good against small ships and also have my preferred range band and also kill hull like the assault chaingun!”

Well too bad. You can’t have a weapon that does everything.
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Megas

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Re: Dedicated anti-Cruiser/Capital weapons
« Reply #34 on: February 23, 2021, 06:46:49 AM »

Not what I asked for.  And the few weapons that do everything (like Mjolnir) have downsides that make them less-than-ideal.  What I asked for is a 800 range medium HE that is also at least easier to use than Heavy Mortar (perhaps faster shots, better accuracy, and not slow turret speed).  Obviously, such a weapon would cost at least 10 OP (Mortar costs 7? OP), be less flux efficient, and unavailable in Open Market.

Mauler has insufficient DPS and fire-rate, which makes it good only for its modern role of long-range sniping, not for brawling.  Not to mention Mauler can have too much range for some AI ships without HVDs (by hovering within Mauler range, but not within kinetics with less range).  That leaves Mortar as the only general-purpose HE medium weapon, which is a low-end gun just like Arbalest is for kinetics.  Mortar has good DPS, which is mitigated by having slow shot speed, worse anti-armor, and only 700 range.  Light has Light Assault Gun (faster double light mortar), and Heavy has HAG, Mjolnir, and maybe Devastator.  (Killing small things with Hellbore is a pain.  I use the other anti-armor weapons if I need general-purpose anti-armor in the heavy slot, and those do not have great armor penetration against big ships, but it will suffice in a sustained battle.)  Medium has nothing that is a suitable upgrade over Mortar, and certainly nothing in the 800 range band.
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FooF

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Re: Dedicated anti-Cruiser/Capital weapons
« Reply #35 on: February 23, 2021, 10:01:45 AM »

I don't think a Heavy AC "but High Explosive!" is in the cards. This is from a while back but pertinent.

Another point to consider here is that 1) most ships have the option to mount some kind of missile weapon, and 2) many missile weapons fill the anti-armor role, moreso than e.g. the anti-shield role. So there's ... not really something I'd call a "gap" here, since there are some good options - but coverage is somewhat lighter because there's overlap elsewhere. The more of a wide range of HE options you provide for a ballistic slot, the more that devalues some of the missile options.

(And HE pairing with a Gauss... I mean, the Gauss doesn't need anti-armor help to begin with, and it's also kind of meant to be in its own class range-wise, so...)


A lot of 'true high end HE weapons' are recipes for making frigates utterly nonviable. That makes them kind of a questionable balance proposition; some of the more creative midrange HE weapons in mods (the Blackrock Sunfire PDE is one of my favorites) are designed the way they are to keep them from becoming vicious frigate-murderers.

And, yeah, that! The old Heavy Mauler was a bit too good at that, too, but something like the Heavy AC but HE would also be brutal.

A generalist HE weapon encroaches on the niche designed for missile systems, including the new Breach.
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Goumindong

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Re: Dedicated anti-Cruiser/Capital weapons
« Reply #36 on: February 23, 2021, 10:55:05 AM »

What I asked for is a 800 range medium HE that is also at least easier to use than Heavy Mortar (perhaps faster shots, better accuracy, and not slow turret speed).  Obviously, such a weapon would cost at least 10 OP (Mortar costs 7? OP), be less flux efficient, and unavailable in Open Market.

So it could have medium rather than very poor accuracy, travel 100% or so faster than a heavy mortar projectile, have the same turn rate as the mortar, do about 118 compared to 179 DPS Vs 50 armor hull(88 Vs 115 for +150 armor skill hull) and cost 12 OP?

If only such a weapon existed!

edit: The Mauler has roughly twice the projectile speed of the mortar, not 30% more. Corrected
« Last Edit: February 23, 2021, 12:17:35 PM by Goumindong »
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Grievous69

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Re: Dedicated anti-Cruiser/Capital weapons
« Reply #37 on: February 23, 2021, 11:05:38 AM »

You say it like that but forgot the very first thing Megas wrote, 800 range.

Anyways this conversation has been going in circles for a while. Obviously some think there are gaps in the weapon line up while some don't, and that's fine, I just don't think anyone's opinion will change here. But can we please stop mentioning missiles as dedicated HE weapons? Ok, the new Breach might have really really good ammo as it was marketed that way, in that case I'll agree with the rest of you. So until we see it in action just don't say a Reaper or Hammer of all things is a generalist HE weapon. It just isn't, we can disagree on the design choices in combat but something you fire twice in battle is not a dedicated weapon (the title of the topic itself).
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Thaago

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Re: Dedicated anti-Cruiser/Capital weapons
« Reply #38 on: February 23, 2021, 11:12:56 AM »

I think Megas' points to me are more pointing towards the need for a tweak to the Steady AI than the need for an HE weapon at 800 range. It really needs to try and close into the range of all 'main' guns. What about "the shortest range of non-PD weapons of the ship's largest mount size" as the qualifier?

From the perspective of someone who uses aggressive officers, I don't care if AI weapons are range mismatched. Having a single 1000 range weapon is purely a good thing as it lets the ship fire a bit on its way in to firing its 800 range weapons, but if the ship is hovering at 950 and never firing the rest of its weapons, thats a huge problem!

Similarly, kinetics having 800 range and mortar's having 700 range just means that the kinetics fire first before the ship closes the range, and I'd never consider trading down to 700/700 for range matching because that is just purely negative... if I'm assuming the ship is not going to try and kite at the longest ranges.
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Grievous69

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Re: Dedicated anti-Cruiser/Capital weapons
« Reply #39 on: February 23, 2021, 11:17:18 AM »

I think Megas' points to me are more pointing towards the need for a tweak to the Steady AI than the need for an HE weapon at 800 range. It really needs to try and close into the range of all 'main' guns. What about "the shortest range of non-PD weapons of the ship's largest mount size" as the qualifier?
That sounds alright actually, although I'm sure it will break a lot of things I'm currently just not thinking about.
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Igncom1

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Re: Dedicated anti-Cruiser/Capital weapons
« Reply #40 on: February 23, 2021, 11:30:17 AM »

I'll still disagree on that point personally, as armour is also finite.  ;D

---

Otherwise I see anti-cap weapons being the large weapons domain.

Devastator's are flak that can sub in as close range anti-armour, not a fan personally as they often outflux my ships.

Gauss are great heavy artillery for shields and lesser beings, they need a steady platform and I find my ai conquest like to jiggle, so I don't use them on those.

Hellbore's are fantastic and are best in class HE, but are very.... bore when compared to more exotic weapons systems.

Hephaestus sound good in concept but armour is better killed by burst damage rather then DPS as I hear it. Still good for just lobbing mass ordinance at the enemy.

Mark IX Autocannon is a dead simple good bang for buck anti-shield weapon. Nothing wrong with it at all even if it might not be up to the task of paragons and starbases all on it's own.

Mjolnir is weird, it's hard to find a good user for it that doesn't kill it's self and it's energy damage type is underwhelming..... but it doesn't need support frankly, just keep firing and you'll kill basically anything that can't run.

Storm Needler's are nice honestly, they lack range which is the big killer but if your AI is like mine then range is never an issue. Stacks with Hephaestus really nicely.

Autopulse is my contender for best large energy. Nothing is worse then this gun as 70% of any battle is shield killing and other energy weapons either simply can't do it, or are very hard to flux for like the plasma. A paragon or radiant with 4-5 of these WILL kill anything else in the game.

High Intensity Laser is a real nice death beam that I love on my Sunders. Shields up or die.

Paladin PD System is getting changed and thank the gods for that. That said it can be nice to use over other large energies that are hard to support, like plasma. Better then downgrading?

Plasma Cannon's would be the best in the game, if not for their horrendous flux stats. Still amazing if you can budger for your own use, or the AI's miss use as point defence weapons. Apogees can use them to snipe onslaught battleships however!

Tachyon Lance's are really good but are overrated in my opinion from people who spend too long fighting pirates or the Hegemony. They do tend to have a faster time to kill then the HIL, but for a greater cost which seems like a fair upgrade/side-grade.

Thermal Pulse Cannon's built into the Onslaught are really decent. If anything you can build the rest of the battleship to mere support elements to these fixed forward guns. Set them to aggressively execute order remnant battleships and two onslaughts can reasonably take it down without a casualty by hounding that teleporting [REDACTED] across the map with their burn drives.

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Goumindong

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Re: Dedicated anti-Cruiser/Capital weapons
« Reply #41 on: February 23, 2021, 12:00:02 PM »

You say it like that but forgot the very first thing Megas wrote, 800 range.

Anyways this conversation has been going in circles for a while. Obviously some think there are gaps in the weapon line up while some don't, and that's fine, I just don't think anyone's opinion will change here. But can we please stop mentioning missiles as dedicated HE weapons? Ok, the new Breach might have really really good ammo as it was marketed that way, in that case I'll agree with the rest of you. So until we see it in action just don't say a Reaper or Hammer of all things is a generalist HE weapon. It just isn't, we can disagree on the design choices in combat but something you fire twice in battle is not a dedicated weapon (the title of the topic itself).

Well they definitely are dedicated HE weapons. Especially those with strike designation. They're especially relevant for this thread because this thread wants weapons that are good at taking out capitals and cruisers relatively high armor values.

And they absolutely do that. Two Harpoons will completely strip the armor off a Venture.(indeed they will entirely strip the armor off of any ship with up to 1600 or 1650 or so base armor! which is every non-skilled ship below the onslaught!) A single small missile slot for 4 OP comes with 4 missiles. After that, almost any HE DPS weapon will quickly chew through the Hull. And there are plenty of HE DPS weapons already in the game.

Now those HE DPS weapons don't outrange cruiser/capital weaponry in general but this is also for a reason (If faster ships also outrange slower ships then slower ships are pointless)

I think Megas' points to me are more pointing towards the need for a tweak to the Steady AI than the need for an HE weapon at 800 range. It really needs to try and close into the range of all 'main' guns. What about "the shortest range of non-PD weapons of the ship's largest mount size" as the qualifier?

Steady could attempt to hold "50 below the maximum range of the non PD weapons of the largest size"

The problem this can create create with assault chain guns and other shorter range dedicated anti-small ship weapons that aren't PD and shouldn't get the designation. So a lot of times i will use significant range band distance in order to generate effective anti-fighter/frigate orders for specific weapons. E.G. on the Eagle i will load up with HVD/Mauler in the front. And then put three Phase Lances in the three energy slots.  I do not want the phase lances firing the majority of the time. They're there to dunk on a frigate or fighters that try to push in where its worthwhile to flux dump rather than maintain the range advantage. This would prevent a steady setup from being effective in this situation because they would attempt to enter the range band of enemy ships in order to fire the phase lances into their shields. And I want this ship to hold. There are also plenty of times i do the same thing with assault chainguns, using them as anti-fighter defense on ships that i do not want to close in close enough to attempt to use them even on ships that don't have large mounts.

It also potentially creates issues around ships that rely more on a mix of weapon sizes... There are plenty of times i will mix weapon sizes with the intention to have different weapons do different jobs. The broadside onslaught that i had in a thread a bit ago used this method exclusively with 900 range large HE ballistic and 800 range medium Kinetic Ballistic. I think i was using aggressive officers here but if i had steady this setup could potentially fail due to a lack of range band overlap (Though i am not actually sure it happens here due to the large weapon mount distance offset). The dominator is another ship that could significantly lose its ability to hold the line with longer range kinetic in the medium slots and the brawler almost certainly is as well.

On the other hand some ships would benefit greatly from this change. As is stands "attempting to hold the average of the range" tends to mean that you're above the range of the shorter weapons, so you might as well be cautious "hold the maximum range of the longest weapon". The Medusa would be easier to get it to close to medium energy range when it had 700 or 600 range kinetics in its front mounted ballistic. The Aurora would much more easily close to the range of its two medium energy mounts rather than sitting at the offset range from its front small energy and medium energy that is forward mounted.

It would almost be easier to designate certain mounts that are "primary steady mounts" on a per ship basis and so the eagle would use its front ballistic only for steady but the Hammerhead would use its front medium ballistic and front Small Ballistic(unless the small had PD in them).

Maybe Megas just needs to set his ships to aggressive so they close to within the range of all the non-PD guns?

edit: This entire reply was added

You say it like that but forgot the very first thing Megas wrote, 800 range.

Sure but he also would not be OK with a nerf of the Mauler to 800 range in order to fit his specifications. And there are plenty of ways in which to ameliorate the range issues on a large number of ships

edit2: Reading up on AI the current understanding is that the "steady" personality attempts to get in range of all non-PD non-missile weapons and that aggressive attempts to get in range of all weapons (regardless of whether or not they're PD). So maybe the problem is just that steady has too much of a bias towards not taking damage for Megas(or the wiki's understanding is incorrect) because it should be attempting to get in range of its main guns.
« Last Edit: February 23, 2021, 12:29:18 PM by Goumindong »
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MesoTroniK

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Re: Dedicated anti-Cruiser/Capital weapons
« Reply #42 on: February 23, 2021, 02:19:41 PM »

Simple, one with 800 range, and one that is one obvious upgrade over Heavy Mortar like Heavy AC/Needler is an upgrade over Arbalest.  (Probably better accuracy or shot speed.)  If it is better, that is not a problem.  Mortar is a low-end budget weapon of its class, after all.
A weapon like that is very volatile conceptually, invalidates frigates which is the last thing SS needs.

There is a reason in vanilla all of the med HE weapons are:
- Heavy Mauler, long range alpha poke.
- Heavy Mortar, mid range, slow muzzle velocity, med alpha dakka.
- Assault Chaingun, short range heavy dakka.

Something that splits the difference between the Mauler and Mortar doesn't exist for good reasons.

intrinsic_parity

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Re: Dedicated anti-Cruiser/Capital weapons
« Reply #43 on: February 23, 2021, 03:06:47 PM »

I don't really buy the argument that missiles occupy the same balance space as HE weapons. They serve a fundamentally different role and don't do the same things that HE weapons do. Missiles don't have enough ammo to be a solution to chewing through hull (even ignoring minimum armor damage reduction, it would take 7 full medium pods of harpoons or 10 reapers to get through one onslaughts hull), more than 2 full medium pods of harpoons or a full medium pod of reapers, and they aren't reliable enough to be a general anti-armor solution since they can be shot down by PD. The only missile weapon that might intrude on HE weapons is the annihilator pod, but that's more shield pressure than an actual anti hull/armor solution.

IMO, the vast majority of missiles are a high-risk high-reward 0 flux alpha damage option for quickly finishing key kills or instantly swinging the balance of a particular flux battle. They aren't general damage dealers. I don't think the weapons being discussed are really at risk of intruding on that balance space.
« Last Edit: February 23, 2021, 03:27:39 PM by intrinsic_parity »
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Thaago

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Re: Dedicated anti-Cruiser/Capital weapons
« Reply #44 on: February 23, 2021, 03:15:17 PM »

I think the exception to that is swarmers in small scale frigate fights. They are pretty great at stripping light armor and have plenty of ammo, though its a pretty niche situation.

Wait, I thought Onslaughts had 20k hull, so 5 reapers or 27 harpoons would do it without taking into account damage reduction? Harpoons would suffer damage reduction a lot more and it takes several to get through armor in the first place, but a pod has 12 or 24 with racks.

Its not enough for facing endless fleets, but for example a dominator with extended racks carries 54k damage worth of harpoons, and if rigged for endurance with reapers its 120k damage. A bunch are going to be shot down, but thats good for a decent chunk of damage in most fights... I really need to do some logging with combat analytics haha.

Simple, one with 800 range, and one that is one obvious upgrade over Heavy Mortar like Heavy AC/Needler is an upgrade over Arbalest.  (Probably better accuracy or shot speed.)  If it is better, that is not a problem.  Mortar is a low-end budget weapon of its class, after all.
A weapon like that is very volatile conceptually, invalidates frigates which is the last thing SS needs.

There is a reason in vanilla all of the med HE weapons are:
- Heavy Mauler, long range alpha poke.
- Heavy Mortar, mid range, slow muzzle velocity, med alpha dakka.
- Assault Chaingun, short range heavy dakka.

Something that splits the difference between the Mauler and Mortar doesn't exist for good reasons.

Agreed. The Hephaestus is a good example of 1 stage up in terms of what it does to destroyers.
« Last Edit: February 23, 2021, 03:19:55 PM by Thaago »
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