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[intrinsic_parity]

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.

You're right, I though reapers were 2k for some reason and I did forgot how many harpoons were in a pod. I would still argue that it's not enough damage to be used as a general damage weapon, especially when you account for armor/damage reductions missiles getting shot down etc. I

[Megas]

I do not like Aggressive AI unless the ship is something like hard-flux Aurora or Conquest with Storm Needlers.  Generally, aggressive as a default is a bit too aggressive for comfort, unless the bulk of the fleet is built for short-range combat.  (Also, in all of my 0.9 games, I had no officer management, so I need a one-size fits all AI for all of my officer-less ships if I use anything aside from five capitals.)

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.

No, it does not.  Pods with missile racks last only about two minutes or so, which makes Onslaught a quasi-SO ship against an endgame fleet.  If Onslaught does not crush the initial wave before it runs out of Annihilators, it is a dead duck (if enemy is Radiants and the like).  If it does, then it can mop up reinforcements with kinetics and TPCs.  Annihilators is sometimes anti-armor, sometimes chaff screen, but does not last long enough in an endgame fight.  (No missile that matters does aside from Locusts with racks.)

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

With the variety in other mount sizes, plus Heavy Mortar being a budget low-end weapon, I do not buy those so-called good reasons, whatever they are.  If a better than low-end HE is really is that bad (good enough to be borderline heavy), it could be worth 15 OP.

Agreed. The Hephaestus is a good example of 1 stage up in terms of what it does to destroyers.

HAG had better be good enough, especially with its flux cost.  Otherwise, why use it instead of the other weapons?

[Goumindong]

I was curious just how well my claims would hold up to testing so I put two Mark IX and two Heavy Mauler's (or two heavy mortar) and PD(and IPDAI and ITU and 30 vents but nothing else) on a Dominator and tested it vs a venture in more or less "dumb" scenario's (which is to say attempting to stay just out of the Ventures Mining blaster range) that the Maulers killed the Venture significantly faster and with less return damage. And this with specific instances which helped the venture survive longer vs the maulers (the venture got luckier on its sabot launches and did them twice compared to once, resulting in a much longer down time for the dominator in that test, additionally the venture wanted to get a lot closer to the mortar'd dominator which allowed a much better firing profile. And on top of this bouncing in and out of range [as compared to staying in range] caused the mortars to effectively reset accuracy).

In general testing (I.E. not the specific test with reported numbers below) Even with the venture well within its ITU mining blaster range (700 vs the 980 of the mortar) against more or less a stationary target the Mortars could not hit the venture reliably let alone hit the same spot so as to not bounce off of fresh armor without manually resetting the aim. They actually benefited from bouncing out of range in the test i ran for numbers both in terms of effective DPS but also in terms of actually winning the fight(the venture will kill you with its mining blaster if you let it)

Now sure the Motar's didn't benefit from the 10 extra OP they would have gotten vs the mauler, but i didn't want the Mortars to get a lot of value from a secondary module. I tried to get some equivalent value tests anyway to give an estimation.

2x Mauler: 425 seconds left
2x Mortar: 403 seconds left
Just the Mark IX: 289 seconds left
Single Pilium: 334 seconds (I.E. just to see what the pressure to keep shields up does to the equation, though this was a relatively good score, two piliums hit 315)
2 LAG: 380 seconds.(took a lot of damage here due to having to be closer in though)

I did another test of the Mauler to see whether or not it performed better under better circumstances, and even after eating a full volley of harpoons to the face(only time in my tests that it launched the Harpoons after the emergency Sabots!) i still recorded a 440 for reference as to what a good test looks like. (the 403 was really efficient for the mortars with very low downtime in firing due to sabot shutdowns). The Maulers just do significantly more armor and hull DPS at the relevant ranges. Maybe not 5 OP more for every use, but definitely more.

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.

In the sense that they will destroy armor such that your kinetic weapons can chew through hull. Its true you will still want a relatively hard hitting kinetic damage weapon if you're doing this. But you can absolutely use them to to chew through armor. And after the armor is gone your Kinetics and frag can still hurt hull plenty. Not as much as a proper HE weapon but still enough.

[Goumindong]

I did a similar test with an eagle and it was much more in favor of the Mortar. It was either close to a tie or the mortar wins in most situations. I felt that this was largely because its hard for the eagle to generate enough shield pressure (i was using heavy autocannons and gravitons) without utilizing things while also like pulse lasers and its lack of strong PD means that it either dies to harpoons or suffers flux build up that it cannot sustain. The Mortar performs better because its significantly higher flux pressure allows the ship to overwhelm the ventures shields in a reasonable amount of time regardless of what kind of other weapons are there with it(the soft flux from the gravitons is nice but not enough to keep the shield up and so have it be overwhelmed). With one mortar and 2 HA vs 1 Mauler and 2 HA the tests were virtually identical in time and with 3 mortars vs 3 Mauler the mortars significant out-performed the maulers.

I think that the Dominator test is more relevant for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that as fleets get larger the inability to puncture shields with kinetic becomes far less of an issue. But in some instances the mortar will outperform the mauler (as it should in those ranges)

[intrinsic_parity]

In the sense that they will destroy armor such that your kinetic weapons can chew through hull. Its true you will still want a relatively hard hitting kinetic damage weapon if you're doing this. But you can absolutely use them to to chew through armor. And after the armor is gone your Kinetics and frag can still hurt hull plenty. Not as much as a proper HE weapon but still enough.

They delete armor on a few ships and then do nothing, which is not the same thing that HE weapons do. Missiles are useful as a tool to win a couple key duels much more easily and quickly. They are not a solution to destroying armor and hull for an entire battle. If you have no HE or hard hitting energy weapons, missiles will not be able to compensate because they don't do the same thing. Once your ship runs out of missiles, it will be toothless. That is the point I'm trying to make. HE weapons similarly don't replace missiles for big 0 flux alpha damage that can swing a losing engagement or let a ship punch above its weight. HE weapons would have to be really strong to seriously cut into the role of missiles IMO.

[Thaago]

For Eagle vs Dominator Mortars, one factor is that the Eagle's have hardpoints. The reduced recoil really improves mortar (and HAC, MK IX, etc) performance. Turreted mortars start to lose DPS even against stationary cruisers after a few seconds of fire.

[Grievous69]

@Goumindong
Bruh, you're testing the damaging capability of Heavy Maulers and you paired them with 2 Mk IXs, the kinetic weapon with the highest damage per shot of all non snipers. Why even use a ship with large mounts when the conversation is about medium ones... The Eagle test is a bit more fitting because at least you're using Heavy Autocannons so they're not helping that much with the DPS (as you could see in testing). And in the end you realised times were identical, mind you when comparing 7 OP weapon vs a 12 OP one, and you just brushed it off by saying it's not as relevant as the Dominator test.

I think it's pretty clear that the Mauler is just an overrated sniper weapon, yes it gets the job done, but at 12 OP and pitiful DPS.

[Goumindong]

The Mark IX's, with 700 DPS between them, probably did 2x the Hull DPS of the 266 DPS maulers. I used Mark IX because i needed a way to ensure constant shield pressure to get a reasonable test when looking at only one ship. I could have used a storm needler i guess? But i don't think it would have made much of a difference. The increased accuracy probably would have killed the ship faster. And the end result was about 40 seconds faster kill. You can do the tests yourself the Maulers really make the ship a LOT better even when piloted so as to get the mortars an ideal advantage. Even when you put them in the mortars ideal range.

The Eagles don't really work as a test because the shield pressure from the weapons becomes more important. It was legitimately hard, without a mortar, to get the AI to keep its shields up to eat the KE on shields rather than eating the KE on hull and blocking the mortar shot. In a fleet setting(especially if you've got threatening missiles fit anywhere in your fleet) you're generally going to have enough shield pressure so that this doesn't matter. But one on one it matters. And i am OK with that being the case. The Mauler shouldn't be "just better than the mortar". And fortunately its not. The mortar is good when you also need increased shield pressure. Its good when you've got hardpoints and so can reduce the huge recoil penalty it has.

I think its actually better with 800 range weapons because it will bounce in and out of range and automatically recover from its recoil to a degree and so be much more deadly even at "lower" dps.  If the Mortar had 800 range it would probably pair worse with HAC than it does now, because you would never hit anything it would just spray into the void on auto-fire.

In the sense that they will destroy armor such that your kinetic weapons can chew through hull. Its true you will still want a relatively hard hitting kinetic damage weapon if you're doing this. But you can absolutely use them to to chew through armor. And after the armor is gone your Kinetics and frag can still hurt hull plenty. Not as much as a proper HE weapon but still enough.

They delete armor on a few ships and then do nothing, which is not the same thing that HE weapons do. Missiles are useful as a tool to win a couple key duels much more easily and quickly. They are not a solution to destroying armor and hull for an entire battle. If you have no HE or hard hitting energy weapons, missiles will not be able to compensate because they don't do the same thing. Once your ship runs out of missiles, it will be toothless. That is the point I'm trying to make. HE weapons similarly don't replace missiles for big 0 flux alpha damage that can swing a losing engagement or let a ship punch above its weight. HE weapons would have to be really strong to seriously cut into the role of missiles IMO.

But if the enemy has no armor (or is dead) it does not matter if you're "toothless". As a result they do have the same function as HE, for the purposes of this thread, ensure shield less ships die faster. Once you've secured a numbers advantage you can just beat up on things, and then even a small amount of HE will do the job sufficiently.

Maybe an example: In the linked fighti took something like 57,000 raw damage onto my armor without it breaking. A reaper would have instantly stripped that and made them go into hull, where they would have done a LOT more DPS.

[intrinsic_parity]

No one is debating whether missiles strip armor effectively against one ship... the whole point is that once that one ship (or few ships) are dead, you no longer have the ability to strip armor. If those few ships you kill are enough to swing the battle in your favor, then fine, but that's definitely not a given. If you're fighting big endgame fleets, killing a few ships is often just a drop in the bucket. I'm also not arguing that missiles are bad or useless, just that the fundamental differences between them and HE weapons are very significant so that they don't fill the same role/occupy the same balance space.

[Goumindong]

No one is debating whether missiles strip armor effectively against one ship... the whole point is that once that one ship (or few ships) are dead, you no longer have the ability to strip armor. If those few ships you kill are enough to swing the battle in your favor, then fine, but that's definitely not a given. If you're fighting big endgame fleets, killing a few ships is often just a drop in the bucket. I'm also not arguing that missiles are bad or useless, just that the fundamental differences between them and HE weapons are very significant so that they don't fill the same role/occupy the same balance space.

If you're fighting a big end game fleet you presumably have more than just medium ballistic at your disposal. But if that is the largest you have at your disposal then Maulers do a good job of chewing through difficult armor and the rest of the HE lineup can kill the chaff.

[sector_terror]

Man hearing about Hellbores brings me back(I use to play a -lot- of starfleet battle, I adored hellbores.) Never did well but I enjoyed it for some reason.

     I do agree that having specialist weapons like that would be interesting. I'm not really sure how you'd implement them anytime soon though without punishing early game players. Early on all you have are frigates, so larger ships, such as a Mora, hosting anti-frigates would be punishing beyond need. BUT, it would help curb the capital ship spam that Alex has lamented in previous dev blogs. Overall, sure, I think it's a nice idea and would add a huge variety to fleet battles as Alex has stated wanting before.

     Forgive me if I ignore the shop talk for this. I'd much rather just edit the weapons myself and enjoy things that way. Minor edits like that don't bother me as much as major gameplay issues. I can fix an unbalanced game. I did it with Galactic Civiliations 2, but I can't fix design. Ideal I'd like not to have to but you see what I mean.

[Maethendias]

A part of me wants this because you could mount anti-capital stuff on Frigates and give them dedicated roles in late game (which would also extend their usefulness). On the other hand, this game does not have a RPS system and this would begin to encroach on that territory. For example, fast Frigates with anti-capital would basically hard counter capitals (at least for cost). I think it would also demand the big ships have anti-Frigate-type weaponry.

Personally, I still don't think Capitals are so tough that they need dedicated weapons to handle them. Outside of the Paragon, every Capital has a pretty significant weakness or blindspot in its defenses that opportunistic ships can exploit. I'm not against a few more slower, heavier-hitting weapons but as Alex has pointed out, defeating armor is kind of the whole point of missiles.

even paragons falter against swarm tactics, especially fighters....