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[Thaago]

...

Another thing you might want to look at is filling out the weapons roster a little bit.  The scarcity mechanics are in a good enough spot for right now and I enjoy the compromises they force you to make in terms of black market transactions and 'best available' fittings, but there are a few gaps where weapon substitutions basically don't exist.  The ballistic kinetic line is an example of availability done well; high-end weapons like Needlers and Railguns are in limited supply and often unavailable without faction standings or luck off the black market, but Autocannons provide serviceable replacements that are commonly available.  You might not always be able to fit out a ship exactly the way you want, but you will be able to get close enough, and making those compromises is part of the core survival aspect of the game.

The issue mostly emerges with the ballistic explosive line.  At the small gun level, the only serviceable option is the Light Assault Gun.  They aren't exactly rare, but they aren't readily available in the early game where they are most important and if you can't get any then too bad, Mortars are a joke, so your Lasher just sucks against armor.  Mediums are in a similar spot, where they only two options are the Assault Chaingun, which is now a 450 range chainsaw, and the Heavy Mauler, a premium grade weapon that is rightly limited in supply.  An analogue to the Heavy Autocannon (good-enough generalist filler gun that you can find almost anywhere) is badly needed to plug the gap, since as it stands by the time you get your first Destroyer you may once again find yourself with no reasonable options for explosive damage.

Again, being forced to compromise your loadouts (or reputations) by availability is a good thing an and integral part of the game's design.  Being unable to fit out your ships because basic weapon categories either don't exist or are only very scarcely available takes it a bit too far.

I wouldn't mind more weapons! However, I find mortars on Lashers to be very, very effective... at hunting small game. While its true they don't do a huge amount of damage, they don't need to - all they need to do is strip light armor. Which they do for very few OP and low flux cost. When OP are scarce I actually prefer them to LAGs. I might be alone in this . Toning the LAG either up (or down) on the awesome scale then adding a new weapon in the gap (or above it) would still be nice though.

Worse than ballistics are energy weapons.  Only mining laser is available in open market.  The rest require welcoming relations (or black market), which trigger the endgame even if you are not ready for it.

I actually have a really good time checking the black markets and going "oooh, they have a pair of heavy blasters! Time to take a rep gamble!". I was trying to get my hegemony stats up and saw some in an out of the way location and actually went away, snuck back in with transponder off, and then bought them to minimize the risks. To me this kind of rarity gives good gameplay.

Then again, it makes outfitting anything with mediums an absolute pain if you haven't been planning/scrounging for awhile. Perhaps bread-and-butter pulse lasers should be available in the open market. Or a new weapon - a non spike damage equivalent to the mining blaster that has somewhat poor performance but is readily available?

Also, assault chaingun costs too much flux.  Putting more than one on an Enforcer is not very smart even with Safety Override, and you should think twice before putting one on a Hammerhead.  If I do not plan to use Safety Override on a ship, Heavy Mauler is the only viable medium HE, and with the damage lowered, it is not as good as it used to be for all-purpose assault.  (Mauler is still good if you really need the range.)

I mildly agree - it does have a hefty flux cost, but not unmanageable. My SO Assault Enforcer has 2x HMG, 1xACG. But I'm of camp that believes you don't need more than 1 HE weapon on a ship anyways - armor for the most part goes down fast, while taking out shields is a royal pain. And I pack lots of missiles/reapers .

I've used a single ACG on enforcers as HE and it works well - the flux is a little costly, but as long as you put it in its own autofire grouping the AI (usually) doesn't blow it against shields.

[Raion]

I think that I found a bug in the bounty system. I was after a fleet with 65k bounty fleet in one of the new star systems, but unfortunately in the same planet, there was also a 140k bounty fleet when I started the battle the 2 fleets teamed up due to the extended battles and I was vastly outnumbered and had to retreat with my 3 little phase frigates and for some reason I still earned the 140k bounty without killing any ship.

[SafariJohn]

Light Mortars hit for nearly double what LAGs do, which is important for beating armor. LAGs have way better DPS, though.

I thought Light Mortars weren't worth my time until I started messing with them due to my Roider mod. They're actually pretty good. There's something to be said for flux efficiency.

[Voyager I]

Also, assault chaingun costs too much flux.  Putting more than one on an Enforcer is not very smart even with Safety Override, and you should think twice before putting one on a Hammerhead.  If I do not plan to use Safety Override on a ship, Heavy Mauler is the only viable medium HE, and with the damage lowered, it is not as good as it used to be for all-purpose assault.  (Mauler is still good if you really need the range.)

I disagree a bit on the Chaingun.  It's got an even flux/damage ratio, which is pretty much on par, and its short range is a fair price to pay for being able to do 400 DPS on an inexpensive low-OP medium mount.  It's definitely a situational choice, but it serves its purpose well.  In addition, as Cycerin mentioned, its short range lets you pair it with extremely flux-efficient weapons like the Machine Gun line that mitigate its own high raw flux cost while still letting you put out staggering amounts of raw damage.

I do agree on the lack of a generalist weapon in the Explosive line being more felt now that the Mauler has been toned down.  It's still a good gun, but with the edge taken off its damage it's now more of a balanced long-range option rather than simply being the best at everything and we desperately need options to flesh out the range between the buzzsaw and the standoff weapon that you will be lucky to have three of.


EDIT:  maybe I'll give Mortars a try, but comparing single-shot damage against LAGs is a bit disingenuous.

[Alex]

@Voyager: it's a fair point, especially as it pertains to not getting any guns for certain slots (i.e. small HE ballistic, energy mediums) when they exist and aren't the sort of top-tier that needs to be harder to get.

Regarding the medium slots, I think it gets a little more interesting. Should there be a go-to, average HE medium ballistic? There are workable alternatives - using missiles for HE, using an Arbalest for its high per-shot damage, etc. I think there's an argument to be made that *as long as you can still create viable loadouts*, gaps in weapon roles promote more interesting ship designs. Sure, you could just slap on generic HE 1 and generic kinetic 2 and you're good to go, but... well.

It's not entirely an accident, for example, that there are lots of HE missiles. On the flipside, there aren't many kinetic missiles, but there are more ballistic options there.


@Raion: thank you - will check it out.

[Voyager I]

@Voyager: it's a fair point, especially as it pertains to not getting any guns for certain slots (i.e. small HE ballistic, energy mediums) when they exist and aren't the sort of top-tier that needs to be harder to get.

Regarding the medium slots, I think it gets a little more interesting. Should there be a go-to, average HE medium ballistic? There are workable alternatives - using missiles for HE, using an Arbalest for its high per-shot damage, etc. I think there's an argument to be made that *as long as you can still create viable loadouts*, gaps in weapon roles promote more interesting ship designs. Sure, you could just slap on generic HE 1 and generic kinetic 2 and you're good to go, but... well.

It's not entirely an accident, for example, that there are lots of HE missiles. On the flipside, there aren't many kinetic missiles, but there are more ballistic options there.

I understand what you're saying and there's definitely merit to pushing people into being a little more *creative* with their loadouts, but I don't like trusting missiles as my only explosive option (Annihilators and Pilums are generally more for pressure than damage application, strike weapons like Torpedoes and Harpoons have too little ammunition and too much difficulty connecting reliably to be the only explosive source) and most of the 'good enough' kinetic solutions won't be satisfactory against military-grade armor fleets, especially if it's something like the Arbalest that's already marginal as a kinetic source.

There probably is a balance though, in that armor ships are generally the easiest to hit with explosive missiles while shield ships have thin enough armor that you don't need dedicated explosive weapons to kill after their shields are down.

[Gothars]

One potential issue is this means that a lone frigate will see two/three/etc frigates before they see it. The current sensor formula has a symmetry to it where both sides will see each other at exactly the same range, unless they have bonuses/penalties. Maybe it's less "issue" and more "feature", though.

That's the point of the idea, actually To see dangerous pirates (i.e. more ships than you) before they see you. That you're on the other side, hunting single ships with your numerically superior fleet, doesn't really happen in my experience.

[Megas]

Missiles as my only source of HE damage is dumb, much like the old Hammerhead relying on Sabots as its only Kinetic damage.  Missiles are relied on to give spike damage to take out a ship when you need it, not provide basic attack function, unless you are either a Gryphon or maybe an Aurora with Expanded Missile Racks and max Missile Specialization.

If I have no Maulers for HE, and I do not want to use a Safety Override build, then it is either the predictable medium kinetic and LAGs or don't bother with the ship.

For Enforcer, I tried Safety Override with three HMGs and two Chainguns.  Dissipation could not keep up.  Instead, it gets predictable two HMGs, one chaingun, and two flak.

For Hammerhead, the only reason to use HMG and Chaingun is if I want Ion Cannons or more PD in the front light mounts.  Otherwise, two medium kinetics (HMGs or autocannons) and two LAGs are better.


P.S.  Hybrid mounts on Hammerhead helped it, but only because ballistics are generally better than energy, and the Ammo Feeder synergizes with more ballistics.  In particular, Vulcan is much cheaper, and often more effective, then beam PD, when limited to one or two mounts.

P.P.S.  Sabots are brutal, back to their unblockable glory.  If I want a 0 OP one-shot, Sabots will be my go-to. 

[Voyager I]

My flagship for a while was an Override Hammerhead loaded with two Chainguns and two Dual LMGs in the front PD mounts.  Approach armor ship, push F, annihilated in literal seconds and with overrides weapon Flux isn't an issue.

Against Tri-Tachs I'd probably run it with HMGs and LAGs instead but the Chainguns certainly aren't bad by any measure.


Good job on the Hammerhead buffs, by the way.  Fixing ammo feeds and letting it run small ballistics was a huge shot in the arm.

[Serenitis]

I don't mind not having a full selection of weapons available at all times, it makes you "make do" with what you can find.
Although a wider selection of explosives for the medium ballistics would be welcome. An explosive variant of the Arbalest for instance, to fill that huge gap between short range dakka and long range sniping. A Heavy Mortar if you will.

[Troll]

My SO Enforcer used 2x Vulcans on each side, 2 Chainguns on left and right side and a Thumper in the middle by the time I stopped using it, with Hammers in all slots.
It worked perfectly since the vulcans are quite enough as defense for a highly maneuverable ship and the Thumper good for fighters. It left enough Flux to power the Assault Chainguns without being too quickly in high flux.


@ Alex : another bug to report, I think.
Had a bounty In Aztlan, went to the given location and staked out...for a whole month. Nothing happened even though I scoured the whole are.
By the end of the 2 months of the bounty I received intel saying my bounty in Hybrasil was over (same name, look and faction posting bounty).
Still have the screen since I was sure I'd forget about it.
Unless the bounty can move from time to time.


Edit : I'm all for a Heavy Mortar !

[CrashToDesktop]

Had a bounty In Aztlan, went to the given location and staked out...for a whole month. Nothing happened even though I scoured the whole are.
By the end of the 2 months of the bounty I received intel saying my bounty in Hybrasil was over (same name, look and faction posting bounty).
Still have the screen since I was sure I'd forget about it.

Unless the bounty can move from time to time.

For some reason, bounties can and will chase down other enemy fleets that get near.  Hell, even patrols will chase them down if they spot them with their transponder off.  So, yea.  They'll leave their spot now (which I actually like - forces you to look around).

[Megas]

Speaking of Arbalest, I actually like Arbalest best if I have LAGs in the front small mounts because the ranges do not mismatch as much, and the ammo feeder helps its DPS.  Hammerhead is still starved for OP, but it can use relatively cheap options effectively.  Arbalest is cheap, reasonably effective, and easy to use, despite not being quite as powerful as Heavy Autocannon.

[Alex]

For some reason, bounties can and will chase down other enemy fleets that get near.  Hell, even patrols will chase them down if they spot them with their transponder off.  So, yea.  They'll leave their spot now (which I actually like - forces you to look around).

Yeah... that's so that they will attack the player when they come near. Might just need to script it so they *only* attack the player and not anybody else.

(Side note: "downgrade to a smaller slot to get a weapon with different utility" is a design thing from way back. It hasn't been adhered to strictly, but something like "ACG, Mauler, downgrade to LAG if you want a generic" is part of that. Again, the idea is to encourage more varied loadouts. Lack of available LAGs notwithstanding...)

[Cycerin]

I think a medium Light Mortar equivalent would be sort of nice, but the role of "bad-tier assault weapon" is already sort of filled by the ol' Thumper...