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[Reshy]

So rather than fix the balance issue of beams you'd rather just give a compensating skill to the player's flagship?

[hydremajor]

I'm still saying the only way to balance thoses things is if you make em capable to drill through shields over time...speed depending on the target's shield efficiency

And making it time-based prevents the burst laser weapons to be just abusing the hell out of it, much like the tachyon lance

[Megas]

I would rather have beams improved without a player skill, but a skill is better than no improvement at all.

Beams cannot drill through shields unless the shields are weak and dissipation is slow, or if the attacking ship can focus fire a bunch at once, like the Paragon; and if a ship can focus fire a bunch of beams to crack through a shield, it can certainly focus fire a bunch of pulse lasers or blaster bolts to obliterate the ship immediately.  As for Tachyon Lance, the delay is so long between blasts that if nothing else can threaten the defending ship, it can just vent.

[Nanostrike]

An over-time thing would be tricky to put into practice with Burst Lasers, since they count as "Beams", but their bursts are usually less than a second.

[hydremajor]

My point is:
Burst lasers are not sustained enough to drill past shields with this hence they don't become retardedly over-efficient at killing anything bigger than a fighter

Sustained beams' critical flaw right now is that no matter how you look at them they are just straight up worse than anything because thoses are literally not weapons capable of inflicting damageto any shield but just gadgets to cripple both ships involved


the user gives up a energy weapon port wich could be used for a pulse laser or a blaster wich would deal actual HARD FLUX plus the flux spent on keeping the lasers up for no actual damage inflicted

and

the ennemy ship looses all of flux dissipation wich doesn't stop it to throw in your face a sabot or any other missile weapon wich completely ignore flux anyways and are available to ALL tech levels, or even just sit there and just wait with shields up until a teammate just picks the annoyance away


Its not like High tech ships don't have missile weapons, in fact the Aurora cruiser is litterally A WALL of missiles, so objectively speaking what is going to stop a Aurora to just sit on his shields all day long and just ignore whatever beam is trying to raise its flux when his main weapons clearly don't rely on flux dissipation to begin with ?

Plus the arguement of
"you're supposed to have many ships using them on a single ennemy"

...I hope thoses people realise that such a tactic is applicable to ANYTHING in the game...

I mean seriously I had a Carrier fleet with 20 or so Talon Fighter wings and it was just a TIDAL WAVE of vulcan rounds that could overload anything in the game and since there was so many of them, no amount of PD weaponry could possibly save you from that...

[FlashFrozen]

I'm pretty sure this has been mulled over plenty, but if the justification of beams as support weapons is to tie up enemy flux then why not make it so beams can actually tie up flux in the support fashion they were meant to.

Just make it so beam damage normalizes from the enemies shield effiency to 1.0 so it means kiting will be negligible but still effective across all tech levels.

I still personally believe beams need some bit of work as whole they just don't stack up past midline, not to mention lack of skills that benefit them in anyway (+autoaim accuracy? +50% RoF? Projectile velocity?)

[Wyvern]

I mean seriously I had a Carrier fleet with 20 or so Talon Fighter wings and it was just a TIDAL WAVE of vulcan rounds that could overload anything in the game and since there was so many of them, no amount of PD weaponry could possibly save you from that...

Heh.  Hehheh.  You haven't seen a dominator with three Proximity Charge Launchers, have you?  Fighters?  What fighters?  I see no fighters here...  (Of course, the AI doesn't know how to use Proximity Charge Launchers, so at the moment this is more of a player tactic than one the AI can field against you, but still.)

As for hard flux, and "critical flaws" - no, I really don't see that.  Are there situations where a pulse laser or heavy blaster is superior?  Of course there are.  Are there situations where even those weapons can't do relevant amounts of dps?  Well, yeah, that does happen too.  The advantage of the beams is in accuracy and range and efficiency; if they also dealt hard flux, you'd never want the projectile energy weapons.  Do I use beams as a ship's primary armament?  Not usually, because of that hard flux issue.  But they make for an awesome secondary armament, using phase or graviton beams to kill fighters and force enemy frigates to keep their distance.

If I had to choose, "Will I use just projectiles, or just beams" - yeah, the projectiles would almost always win.  But I don't need to make that choice.  I can have an Apogee with a plasma cannon and phase beams and tactical lasers.  Or a Sunder with an HIL and pulse lasers.  Or a Tempest with a pulse laser and a graviton beam.  And all of these designs are stronger than a pure projectile build - because the beams support the projectile weapons, and you don't run out of flux as quickly, and can either keep up pressure at long ranges even as you drop shields to dissipate flux... or, for the Apogee, just use the beams to deal with anything too maneuverable to bring a plasma cannon to bear on.

Also, for an extreme example, consider Uomozu's Corvus and the Sandstorm capital ship - a monstrous thing with eight large energy slots.  But... it's low on ordnance points, and doesn't have all that great dissipation.  Want to install plasma cannons?  Forget it - you'll overload yourself in no time flat and won't even be able to fire them all.  Autopulse lasers?  Better, due to the autopulse's insane efficiency for a projectile weapon... but the range is still relatively short; sure, things will die, but you'll take a lot of hits just getting in range - and almost anything with better range can and will kite you.  Try 8x High Intensity Laser, though... and suddenly you start to see where beams shine.  Not only does it kill quite efficiently, at extreme ranges, it also shuts down the target's ability to fight back - the AI will shield itself, cap out on flux, and start flickering its shields in and out - keeping itself maxxed and preventing return fire.

[Megas]

Just make it so beam damage normalizes from the enemies shield effiency to 1.0 so it means kiting will be negligible but still effective across all tech levels.

This weakens beams against ships with worse than 1.0 efficiency, such as Enforcer (1.2) and Conquest (1.4).

The advantage of the beams is in accuracy and range and efficiency; if they also dealt hard flux, you'd never want the projectile energy weapons.

Not if it takes twice as much time or longer to overload shields than with a pulse laser.  Most beams have less DPS than non-beam energy weapons.  When compared to ballistics, non-beam energy weapons are terribly short-ranged, and small/medium beams need Advanced Optics to compete with ballistics.  The ships that are the best at kiting are not high-tech ships that cannot use ballistics, but ships of all epochs that can equip a bunch of long-range ballistics.

[Wyvern]

Most beams have less DPS than non-beam energy weapons

Per mount, yes.  But there are vanishingly few ships where number of mounts is the primary factor limiting sustained dps.  It's always flux dissipation.

Ignoring hard/soft flux for the moment, compare DPS on a ship with 2x heavy blaster vs. 2x phase beam.
Initially the heavy blasters will do more dps, sure, but in just a few shots you're at max flux, and suddenly your usable dps plummets to about 3/4 your dissipation (due to 50% high flux damage bonus) - but you're also riding at the edge of your flux capacity and very vulnerable to overloading.  Play it safer defensively and sustained dps will be more like 1/2 dissipation.
By contrast, the ship with the phase beams will do 100% to (as damage comes in and raises flux levels) 150% of your dissipation in DPS.  Once you're past the initial burst, it's the heavy blasters that fall far behind.  And the beams are far, far, safer to fire; you don't risk overloading, and an AI ship with beams will be vastly more likely to survive an engagement.

[Megas]

Per mount, yes.  But there are vanishingly few ships where number of mounts is the primary factor limiting sustained dps.  It's always flux dissipation.

Depends.  For the unskilled, lack of OP is the most limiting factor of DPS.  Too little OP means not enough good weapons, few vents, and few hullmods.  With high Combat and Technology skills, most ships have enough that mounts are the limit to DPS.  Some may need to give up too much to support blasters, and are better served with pulse lasers instead.

Ignoring hard/soft flux for the moment...

I cannot ignore hard/soft flux because most damage done to most non-fighter ships is to shields.  When beams cannot overcome dissipation, damage is effectively zero.

Initially the heavy blasters will do more dps, sure, but in just a few shots you're at max flux...

This is why I optimize OP and skills for maximum flux dissipation and venting.  Flux dissipation is one of the god stats of the game.  If you can vent flux from full to zero in a couple seconds, you can use any amount of flux and not care much.  Firing three or four plasma cannons simultaneously and venting all of the flux before the cannons are ready to fire again is gloriously overpowered, and I love it!

And the beams are far, far, safer to fire; you don't risk overloading, and an AI ship with beams will be vastly more likely to survive an engagement.

This is true only if it is your lone flagship vs. the enemy fleet.  Once your other ships get involved, you are part of an action economy.  If all your flagship can do is stall the enemy with beams (instead of vaporizing ships with other weapons), the rest of your fleet is either getting murdered by the enemy, or wiping them out without your help.  Either way, your beam flagship is dead weight unless it has another use like having a flight deck (or if the enemy is mostly fighter swarms).  As for AI, if it is too dumb to use blasters effectively, and cannot it use ballistics, give it pulse lasers.

EDIT:  Even though heavy blaster has higher flux per damage cost than pulse laser, if the extra damage can overload or kill the enemy faster, that means less hard flux taken from your shield absorbing hits from the enemy.  Point is that lower DPS and flux cost may not mean so much if the enemy lives longer and piles more hard flux on your ship.

[Histidine]

First: let me state my position:

• Beams are a bit on the underpowered side, in general, but still have uses.
• The difference in beam effectiveness against low-tech and high-tech ships does seem to be too great.
• Making them ignore shield efficiency would solve the above problem. This does have the issue of being "invisible," but shield efficiency is itself invisible so...
• Making beam weapons do hard flux and then shortening their range to prevent kiting would just make them hitscan pulse weapons with less DPS and less flux. Why would we want to do this, when ballistic and missile weapons show so much more variety than even the current energy weapons in comparison?

Firing three or four plasma cannons simultaneously and venting all of the flux before the cannons are ready to fire again

Dissipating all the flux generated by 3-4 Plasma Cannons in time for them to reload would require 2700-3600 flux dissipation. A Paragon with 50 vents manages 1750.

EDIT: I guess you could vent between every volley. Which works great if you don't mind every enemy ship having 4 seconds to shred your hull with complete impunity between volleys, I guess.

With high Combat and Technology skills, most ships have enough that mounts are the limit to DPS.  Some may need to give up too much to support blasters, and are better served with pulse lasers instead.

nope.jpg

Let's take the 1750 dissipation Paragon again. You know how many Pulse Lasers it can support at uninterrupted maximum rate of fire?
Answer: 5.26. That's not even enough for all of its medium mounts, and that's if you don't mind not using any of your other weapons (especially not the heavy ones) or shields.

Replacing those 5.26 Pulse Lasers with a 4 Pulse Laser + 2 Graviton Beam mix decreases the flux/s to 1482, while having more DPS against the much-maligned shields (1308 to 1194), being better against fighters, etc.

EDIT: Oh, and absent a significant pre-existing firepower advantage, simply pouring on more DPS to win the flux exchange does not work for energy ships. Virtually all pulse weapons have damage/flux of << 1, many shields have flux/damage of <1. In other words, if you don't do it right, using a pulse weapon takes you out of the fight faster than it does the other guy.

[Nanostrike]

I still personally believe beams need some bit of work as whole they just don't stack up past midline, not to mention lack of skills that benefit them in anyway (+autoaim accuracy? +50% RoF? Projectile velocity?)

Rate of Fire is supposed to help the charge speed of Burst Lasers, as does Autoaim Accuracy, to an extent.  Also, beams have Advanced Optics, which is a pretty substantial bonus of 200 range.  So they're not COMPLETELY without love.  They just need more.

My problem is that, like it's been said, shields can totally stop Beams.  And unfortunately that includes all Burst Lasers.  Even with a lot of them and Expanded Magazines (Which gives you 50% extra max charges), you'll be hard-pressed to max anything's flux.  And they're not all that flux-efficient themselves.

And as for anti-fighter, they'd be godly with their burst BUT since they're stuck with the Point Defense AI, which makes them spam away all of their charges on any missiles nearby, even completely non-threatening ones.  Ironically, this lack of Point Defense AI actually makes Tactical Lasers and Phase Beams with Advanced Turret Gyros a far better choice.  They'll focus the fighters, ignoring missiles, do constant DPS that isn't reliant on charges or bursts, are highly flux-efficient, and have superior accuracy.



I'm just disappointed that even though Burst Lasers are the most expensive of the beams in both OP and Credits, they have the same weaknesses as the other beams AND can be thwarted by simple missile spam.

[Megas]

First: let me state my position:
•Beams are a bit on the underpowered side, in general, but still have uses.
•The difference in beam effectiveness against low-tech and high-tech ships does seem to be too great.
•Making them ignore shield efficiency would solve the above problem. This does have the issue of being "invisible," but shield efficiency is itself invisible so...
•Making beam weapons do hard flux and then shortening their range to prevent kiting would just make them hitscan pulse weapons with less DPS and less flux. Why would we want to do this, when ballistic and missile weapons show so much more variety than even the current energy weapons in comparison?

Beams are viable for killing unarmored targets, which are usually limited to missiles, fighters, Hounds, and Buffalo Mk.2s.  They can pile a little more damage to other ships if the attacker relies on ballistics to crush shields (or if attacker is a Paragon).  Being effective at point defense only and weak at any other role is a disservice to beams.

Thanks to no hard flux, beams take too much time to kill even low-tech ships.

Ignoring shield efficiency would make beams weaker against ships with worse than 1.0 efficiency.

Because beams look different and cooler (or hotter) than energy bullets, and we already have a wide variety of ballistic weapons for bullets!  For killing things bigger than fighters, the only choices for energy weapons are pulse lasers and blasters (and their variants), both energy bullet (or cannonball) spitters.  With some adjustments, there can be room for all energy weapons, not just non-beam weapons only.  Non-PD beams are "support" weapons (or "assault" in case of Phase Beam), but are weak in those roles.  Most kinetics and the heavy mauler are considered "support" weapons, yet many kinetics are good at a variety of roles.

Dissipating all the flux generated by 3-4 Plasma Cannons in time for them to reload would require 2700-3600 flux dissipation. A Paragon with 50 vents manages 1750.

EDIT: I guess you could vent between every volley. Which works great if you don't mind every enemy ship having 4 seconds to shred your hull with complete impunity between volleys, I guess.

With the Safety Override perk and vents from normal maximum to double, the latter thanks to Miniaturized Vents perk, it takes four seconds only if the flux bar is full.  If the Odyssey or Paragon has no or low flux, fires three or four plasma cannons, then vents it is two seconds at most.  Since the only ships that can wield multiple plasma cannons are the Odyssey and Paragon, which are capital ships, they are tough enough to take a few hits, if necessary.  Meanwhile, the target eats about ten thousand damage if all shots hit.  Destroyers or less will go BOOM!  Cruisers and capitals will be hurt badly.

I do not install plasma cannons in all large slots without various perks and stats to back them up.  I realize it takes considerable investment to support optimal use of non-beam energy weapons.  However, once the player commits the resources, it is a very effective and powerful build (though not as much as the build that can win all auto-resolved battles).  And, at that point, you can use all weapon slots on a wide variety of ships for maximum DPS, then vent any flux buildup very quickly.


If it is possible to maintain pulse fire or blaster fire indefinitely, beams would be even more useless than they are now.  If you can kill or at least put a dent in the enemy before you need to vent, your weapons did their job.  Even hard flux alone is enough damage if the AI fails to vent while your ship retreats then vents.

Pulse lasers and blasters have short range.  You will trade shots with the enemy, unless you have range perks and are fighting a non-beam high-tech ship or an ill-equipped low-tech ship.  You need to deal as much damage that will stick after your ship needs to vent.  Without Advanced Optics, beams may or may not outrange the enemy.  If your shields ever takes enemy fire, or has dissipation so low that flux builds up while firing beams, you will need to back off to vent.  While you do so, any soft flux done to enemy shields by your beams is dissipating.  It is all about action economy.

[Jazwana]

I don't know if this suggestion has been made yet- only read through the last few pages, but here is a possible idea that could balance out the problems with using beams to kite while still giving them killing power.  What if beams did full DPS throughout their range, but scaled from 100% hard flux at zero range to 100% soft flux at max range?  (or maybe something like 50% soft at 20% max range and lower to 100% soft at 80% max range and higher).  You could even put in a slight color or gamma gradient over the beam's range so there is visual feedback on whether you are in the soft or hard flux range bands. 

Thus - if you try to kite with your superior range you're only doing soft flux, but if you want to abuse your manly tri-tac shields you can fly in close for some hard flux damage, but risk the return fire.

[Nanostrike]

I don't know if this suggestion has been made yet- only read through the last few pages, but here is a possible idea that could balance out the problems with using beams to kite while still giving them killing power.  What if beams did full DPS throughout their range, but scaled from 100% hard flux at zero range to 100% soft flux at max range?  (or maybe something like 50% soft at 20% max range and lower to 100% soft at 80% max range and higher).  You could even put in a slight color or gamma gradient over the beam's range so there is visual feedback on whether you are in the soft or hard flux range bands. 

Thus - if you try to kite with your superior range you're only doing soft flux, but if you want to abuse your manly tri-tac shields you can fly in close for some hard flux damage, but risk the return fire.

Not a bad idea.