If a beam buff is needed I'm still in favor of the idea that they pass over allied ships, allowing better fire concentration.This sounds good, and also helps signpost to players that beams work better when concentrated.
You've already pointed out other uses where beams are very superior to pulse/ballistic weapons.
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As you said, there are things that beams are really good at.
And beams would be overpowered against high tech frigates.
Extra rules for certain ships or weapons are always a complication, but if they are applied entirely behind the scenes they can become really confusing. I don't see an obvious way to communicate that beams ignore shield efficiency, you'd probably never figure it out without reading about it (or sitting there with a calculator).
..high tech ships can't dodge them and its harder to get out of range, so if they ever lower shields they are in for a good deal of pain.
The ballistic weapons have clear roles which you use them in, so why not the same with beams?
You know what else is an extra rule with extra complications? Soft flux. It's something unique to beam weapons. They already act differently and need a bit of explanation, so I don't see 'requiring a bit of explanation' as a problem.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems you think that beams are just bad compared to other energy weapons (especially against high tech opponents) and need a buff. I think thats for sure true for the graviton and phase beam, maybe a bit for the HIL - a damage boost on both of those would be nice. What I object to is that this suggestion is about making beams "more generally useful" - to me that is the path of boring gameplay because it reduces the consequences of choice. (When I put on beams rather than pulse I want it to be for a definite purpose, not just because I want a little more range/accuracy.) Combine that with a rules complication and I just don't agree.
Slightly off topic so behind a spoiler are several scenarios where as is I use beams rather than pulse weapons. This isn't to say I use JUST beams - a mix with other hard flux dealing weapons is best imo.SpoilerAgainst fighters: this depends a bit on crew level, but pulse lasers (and IR lasers even more so) miss a lot of shots. You end up doing lots more damage at longer ranges for less flux with beams. For many purposes a a graviton beam is worse than a pulse laser, but against fighters they are murder! (They will also deflect Reapers, but thats just a nice bit of silliness.) The Eagle in particular can be an absolute beast of a fighter killer with tacs and gravs (or phase). I think that with the new fighter mechanics this will not at all be a narrow niche at all - quickly killing fighters might be a really good plan.
Point defense: beams are superior in small slots, especially for ships supporting each other. One of the reasons I hate the PD AI is that it makes any IR lasers I do put on a ship target missiles. And miss really really badly. Flak is king, but its also a medium ballistic mount so you're giving up a lot.
Flux efficiency: Probably the biggest reason for me. Several hulls cannot effectively support the pulse weapons. The Wolf for example doesn't really work with a pulse laser (even with +50% OP its a challenge to manage its flux and the AI is bad with it). The midline ships pretty much all fall into this boat: An Eagle with 3 pulses cannot also fire its ballistics for very long. Maybe its worth it to go for that initial damage spike, but I think 2x graviton/phase and 1 pulse (or no pulse at all without the +OP skills) makes for a much more effective ship. This cuts both ways though: a ship with high flux dissipation is most effective when actually using that dissipation. A 2 graviton medusa is a complete waste.... but a graviton + heavy blaster isn't bad.
Probably the epitome of this is the "Disco Paragon" that sometimes comes up. Its not effective against another Paragon, but it can sit under its shield and shred everything smaller all day long because of its efficiency.
HIL on Sunder: The ship is fragile so the range is critical against larger opponents, and the AI is really good with the HIL. I know thats kind of a stupid reason, but the AI can't use Plasma or autopulse for *** on these things.[close]
You know what else is an extra rule with extra complications? Soft flux. It's something unique to beam weapons. They already act differently and need a bit of explanation, so I don't see 'requiring a bit of explanation' as a problem.
You can see that no hard flux is generated by beams if you look at the flux bar. How would you see that shield efficiency is ignored?
Besides, "there is already a complication" is not a good argument to introduce another one.
It's kind of weird now that I think about it, but I'm basically asking for beams to be useful against me. All other weapons present a credible threat that need to be handled correctly, but beams just tickle.
I commend your persistence naufrago :)
A question: Have your made your experience with beams in the sandbox in connection with skills? Here you can indeed specialize so much on defense that you become virtually immune to beams. That's not a good base for balancing considerations though, not as long as the AI doesn't get to use (offensive) skills, too.
Without skills I find e.g. the three Gravs of an Eagle quite threatening, also the HIL of a Sunder or the Phase beams of a Xyphos wing.
What I've been saying repeatedly is that they're unable to fill their role effectively against ships with high shield efficiency because those ships also have high flux dissipation. High tech ships are already more resistant to the effects of beams because they're better at dissipating soft flux. Factor in shield efficiency and beams become impotent.
This change wouldn't suddenly make beams lethal. In fact, their dps against many low-tech ships will drop. What this WILL do is make them more useful against things like the Apogee and Paragon. Can you honestly say that beams are useful against those ships?
You may not notice the problem now, but what about once the enemy fleets can get skills? If they have lots of tech skills, they'll need somewhere to put all that extra OP. Once the AI learns to dump some OP into vents and/or hardened shields, you might realize that there really is a problem to be fixed.
Since I know one of you will say, "What's so amazing about ships getting stronger with skills?", I'd like to reiterate that beams become disproportionately weaker than other weapons against ships with efficient shields. The player can already make beams almost useless against them from the get go, without sacrificing dps or survivability against other weapons. AI fleets getting skills will just level the playing field.
It seems that you think that "Balance" is when every weapon is pretty much the same, and it's entirely up to personal preference.
Mh, now I thought of a beam that does nothing but actively reducing the targets shield efficiency against all weapons as long as it hits. That would really be a pure support weapon.
Mh, now I thought of a beam that does nothing but actively reducing the targets shield efficiency against all weapons as long as it hits. That would really be a pure support weapon.
(http://img.pandawhale.com/53503-Thor-Upvote-gif--Imgur-BjgE.gif)
I also hope that it only works once, or there are diminishing returns. Otherwise you could build a paragon beamship out of these things, and then just laugh as a single heavy blaster shot overloads an Onslaught.
And I agree that beams are less effective against high-tech ships, however I don't see that as a problem, as pretty much everything is less effective against high-tech ships (especially with the combat skill that allows hard flux dissipation).
And I agree that beams are less effective against high-tech ships, however I don't see that as a problem, as pretty much everything is less effective against high-tech ships (especially with the combat skill that allows hard flux dissipation).The point was that the effect of good shields is greater against beams than against other weapons. So they become much less effective gainst high tech ships than other weapons.
The biggest drawback I see with beams against high-tech ships is not their high shield efficiency (as it affects every damage the ship gets), but actually their better flux dissipation.
Mh, now I thought of a beam that does nothing but actively reducing the targets shield efficiency against all weapons as long as it hits. That would really be a pure support weapon.I like this a lot. I worry just a bit about abuse, but as long as it doesn't deal any damage then it would be pure support... Can we do this via script? I think it would be possible.
What I don't like is the idea of a general rule change for them. But thinking about it, it might actually work as a hullmod. There the game would have adequate room to explain what is happening differently. And you had the choice of equipping the mod against high tech fleets or disabling it against low tech.
Mh, now I thought of a beam that does nothing but actively reducing the targets shield efficiency against all weapons as long as it hits. That would really be a pure support weapon.
I've held off on posting for a few day to think about this one. Summary: I don't know if this is absolutely necessary, but I think this is a good suggestion that would improve the game.
I completely agree that beams are disproportionally ineffective against high shield efficiencies and decent flux dissipation. It makes it so that even though they are supposed to be support weapons that little ships can use against big ships, long range kinetics are vastly superior as support. If you simply increase beam damage then they get overpowered against low tech (which they are pretty good against) while still sucking against high tech. I see three options.
1) Live with it. Beams will just suck against high tech shields. I'm ok with this, but its unfortunate because beams are cool. Also other people apparently really disagree with me on their other uses *shrug*.
2) Implement this suggestion. My gut reaction was strongly negative, but in retrospect I think that was mostly because I've read so many suggestions that are for homogeneity. I'm sorry that in a previous post I thought that was what you were saying; I get it now that you are trying to maintain the beam support niche. I don't like more special case rules, but it does address a problem.
3) Make beams deal hard flux. Then they get worse against high shield efficiency ships, but not disproportionally worse. This is the simplest rules wise, but I believe Alex tested it (and it worked this way early) and didn't like it. It also strongly encourages kiting because beams are long range and accurate. Kiting Tempests already annoy the crap out of me.
Thoughts on some other suggestions:
Gothars:QuoteMh, now I thought of a beam that does nothing but actively reducing the targets shield efficiency against all weapons as long as it hits. That would really be a pure support weapon.I like this a lot. I worry just a bit about abuse, but as long as it doesn't deal any damage then it would be pure support... Can we do this via script? I think it would be possible.
Leak damage: This I don't like at all because its too much of a high tech killer, makes beam kiting ridiculously powerful, and is another special case rule. I also think that this would be an absolutely miserable thing to fight against as a player and would ruin a lot of the exciting finishes that happen. Who hasn't had that fight where they get dragged through the mud, but survives with like 12 hp? If the enemy has beams this will never ever happen.
- CR reduction due to combat, occurs after combat:
- Per-ship deployment cost (higher of base deployment cost, or CR used up after peak readiness has passed)
- Extra CR lost by retreating ships, but only if the engagement was lost
- Extra CR cost for using missile weapons in combat, based on ammo remaining
- Extra CR cost for suffering a flameout of [sic] weapons being disabled by damage
For people to see how beam weapons work with Hard Flux damage, here's a mini-mod. All it does is enable this, no other balance changes to Vanilla.
After testing with this a bit, I really like it overall; it makes the Sunder relevant, the Shuttle less completely useless, the Wolf is very dangerous, a few other things. But it also exposes some issues:
1. The one thing beams should not have is range advantages over everything else in their class. Equality's fine, but being able to kite with them indefinitely with Hard Flux damage is problematic, simply because they do not run out of ammo. Advanced Optics becomes a big issue, because 200 su absolute ++ energy-weapon range boosts from player buffs is a biggie. Or is it, in the context of player hero-ships and enemy fleets with FP to burn? I guess it really depends on your POV about how the game should feel.
2. It reminded me that there's literally nothing between Tac Lasers and HILs. Why? There's perfectly good, unused art for that spot, and it was needed even when they didn't do anything all that cool, simply in terms of OP efficiency.
3. Graviton Beams may need a smallish nerf with this; a Sunder with three of them is a very efficient shield-killer and has 800 range, putting it outside practically any weapons Destroyers and most Cruisers can mount, other than missiles. With HEF on, it's nasty. That said, it was a nice, pleasant surprise to see the Sunder blossom from being player-only very specific glass-cannon into something that would be useful in the hands of the AI :)
4. It reminded me that in Vanilla, there are practically no Fighters and only a smattering of Destroyers and Frigates that can even mount this stuff. I haven't tested this with the Tri-Tach fighters yet, but I suspect it made them more OP than ever :/ I really feel like fighters are the worst of the balance issues; if we could field 6 Talons instead of 4, 3 Gladiators instead of 2, etc., then it would probably work out better, even with this change. I feel like low-tech fighters are just fine being crappy; they just have to have enough numbers to be taken seriously.
they're literally the only weapon system that can't OverloadYes, they can (try it in the tutorial). The only thing is that the AI will drop shields before that happens, but then the target is taking the hits on the hull, which removes the soft flux problem and also does things like open them up to missiles and EMP/subsystem damage.
All this, because we're so worried about kiting? Why not fix the core issue, by changing the range bands?
Beams need at least a fraction of their damage dealt as hard flux, just like every other non-beam "close support" weapon such as needlers.
If beams are not supposed to be used against high-tech ships, why do high-tech fighters use them?
If you give high-tech ships a weapon that can kite low-tech ships indefinitely, it becomes the optimal strategy. It may take a while, but it's almost always advantageous to do so if it means you almost never risk taking hull damage.I kite often with smaller low tech ships, most midline ships, and (high-tech) phase ships... as long as the ammo lasts. Needlers and heavy maulers, along with all of the range and speed mods, enable this strategy very well.
I'm not even sure what you're trying to argue here.Unless ships from different epochs are meant to be exclusive to a single faction, I imagine battles with high-tech vs. high-tech would be likely (at least pre-collapse). Why would the Domain design new weapons that cannot bypass new defenses? If beams hit shields for soft flux only, high-tech fighters should be equipped with pulse lasers (or kinetics) for attack, and beams for defense, like the Tempest's terminator drone. Not beams for attack AND defense.
The more I think about it, the more I'm actually okay with them ignoring part of the efficiency, as long as it's still soft flux. I looked back at a lot of my designs and realized that the only reason I use Pulse and IR Pulse lasers on a lot of them is the simple fact of no hard-flux making them useless against bigger ships' shields.This is why I do not use beam weapons anymore, except to shoot down missiles and fighters. Let a fraction of their damage (say 20%, to match the level 10 Power Modulation perk) cause hard-flux (and reduce range of some beam weapons). If player wants extra range from Advanced Optics, then make beams cause soft flux only. Beams causing hard flux should be fine as long as it takes longer to kill shielded ships than other energy weapons.
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1) There are already skills that can buff beams quite well. With Combat (10% Damage), Ordinance Expertise (20% Damage),Target Analysis (+25% Damage to Shields at Rank 10), and Gunnery Implants (+50% Rate of Fire at Rank 10), Beams become a pretty serious threat. Any buffs given to them need to factor in these possible buffs on them as well.
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As far as the other options, making them deal hard flux and reducing their range is akin to just making a faster firing and more accurate pulse laser, and I feel would just homogenize the energy weapons for no real gain. Making beams deal a proportion of their damage in hard flux means that kiting would still be the optimal strategy, and would also be a slow, tedious affair.Why use beams against high-tech (or any other shielded) ships now? Blasters and pulse lasers are much more effective energy weapons at killing anything with shields, which is nearly everything.
If beams as a whole will not be improved for all ships, at least add a Beam Specialization skill that would let the flagship do things with beams other ships cannot.
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.)
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.
Most beams have less DPS than non-beam energy weaponsPer mount, yes. But there are vanishingly few ships where number of mounts is the primary factor limiting sustained dps. It's always flux dissipation.
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.
Firing three or four plasma cannons simultaneously and venting all of the flux before the cannons are ready to fire againDissipating 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.
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
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?)
First: let me state my position: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.
•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?
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.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.
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.
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.
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.
Ignoring shield efficiency would make beams weaker against ships with worse than 1.0 efficiency.
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.
You mean all 7 ships, 5 of which are civilian/carriers? Please.The point is ignoring shield efficiency hurts beams against the few combat ships that have bad shields. Enforcers and Condors are relatively common opponents, especially early in the game; not to mention the Enforcer is a nice early flagship and one of the best ships that can kite in the game for its FP cost. The Conquest is a rare opponent, but beams ignoring shield efficiency would be a defensive buff to the player who pilots a Conquest flagship.
Ok then, how about the part...A single Onslaught alone is no match for an optimized Paragon, beams or otherwise. The test is when two or three Onslaughts plus smaller ships, say a couple Lashers here, a couple Enforcers there, and a wing of Broadswords or Piranhas all gang up on our lone fleet wrecking Paragon. Again, the optimized Paragon will win. What varies is time and damage taken.
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.
(including taking on two Conquests and an Onslaught simultaneously).Did you divide the beams among the enemy capitals or did you focus fire all beams on one ship at a time? The Paragon is so powerful that it can take on three Onslaughts simultaneously without any modified hard flux beams, but needs to focus on one capital at a time. With that said, I downloaded your mod and will like to try it when I can.
It only helps in the secondary case of "my ship is too small and has too few mounts to burn through the soft flux dissipation rate of the enemy ship."Meanwhile, the frigate that can arm four or so needlers, such as Afflictor or Lasher, can kite and chew through shields, armor (which does not regenerate), and hull of any ship short of a capital with ease and repeat for three or four more ships.
I'd happily trade diminished effectiveness against Enforcers and Conquests for greatly increased effectiveness against almost every other ship in the game, many of which can presently do precisely the thing being complained about - completely shrug off beams:Quote from: ReshyYou mean all 7 ships, 5 of which are civilian/carriers? Please.The point is ignoring shield efficiency hurts beams against the few combat ships that have bad shields. Enforcers and Condors are relatively common opponents, especially early in the game; not to mention the Enforcer is a nice early flagship and one of the best ships that can kite in the game for its FP cost. The Conquest is a rare opponent, but beams ignoring shield efficiency would be a defensive buff to the player who pilots a Conquest flagship.
[Shield efficiency is respected] Against a Balanced Enforcer, two Graviton Beams will generate 480 flux/s. That generates 120% of its flux dissipation and causes it to build up 160f/s (including shield upkeep cost). After 37.5 seconds, the Enforcer will overload or have to drop shields. Against a Point Defense Medusa, two Graviton Beams will generate 240f/s. That generates 48% of its flux dissipation, slowing its dissipation to 140f/s. It won't overload and can continue firing a bit without risking hull damage or an overload.19 ships have <1 shield efficiency, of which the Valkyrie is the only true civilian. Six (Apogee, Astral, Hyperion, Medusa, Omen and Paragon) and all the shielded fighters have 0.6 efficiency.
[Shield efficiency is ignored] Against a Balanced Enforcer, two Graviton Beams will generate 400f/s. This generates 100% of its flux dissipation and causes it to build up 80f/s. After 75 seconds, the Enforcer will overload or have to drop shields. Against a Close Support Medusa, two Graviton Beams will generate 400f/s. That generates 80% of its flux dissipation, causing it to build up 20f/s. After 380 seconds, the Medusa will overload or have to drop shields.
a beam only setupAh, now we get to the key point.
TBH, I wish energy weapons in general were better.Energy weapons are balanced by being mounted on (otherwise) better ships. This method has its limitations (like the fact that you pretty much never want to put energy weapons in a universal mount), but it generally works.
The biggest problem with Beams is that unlike other weapons, due to their soft flux, they can't hit above their weight class much.
The Sunder is a good example. With just beams, you'll never even make a dent in decently-powerful Cruisers and up (Though you can use Railguns, Needlers, ect in your Ballistic slots to tip the scales), while you'll be able to absolutely murder Frigates and most other Destroyers.
The same is true of most bigger ships. If you try to use beams, you end up outgunned compared to just using some straight-up damage weapons like Autopulse Lasers, Pulse Lasters, Heavy Blasters, Plasma Cannons, ect.
The problem is that unless you have a large fleet focusing on a single target, Beams will almost never get the shields of an enemy down because, generally, their Soft Flux buildup on an enemy's shields is equal or less to the enemy venting. And even in a fleet with enough lasers to focus down enemy shields...the beams can't go through allies so it turns into a cluster**** with everyone blocking their allies' shots.
Or even if it's not, it's so little of a flux buildup that unless the enemy fires, they'll take forever to be overloaded. It results in two ships just floating around starting at each other while one beams the other harmlessly.
It limits the viability of the energy weapon pool to basically Pulse Lasers and Blasters at low levels.
try a beam weapons only fleetBeen there, done that.
You're welcome to show us an all-beam fleet defeating anything serious in a fleet engagement, not just sim or endless kiting with a single frigate (entertaining as that is to watch, it's not really representative of the game and it really shouldn't be quite possible in the final balance, imo). I don't think you can do the Hegemony Defense Fleet with all-beam Paragons, and I don't even think that, FP being even, you can beat the Tri-Tach Security Detachment with that arrangement. I don't really have time to prove the case beyond that simple argument atm, or I'd build another mini-mod giving one of the Factions all-beam Variants so that we can actually watch the dynamic from both sides.
I'd like to see video of that rig taking on the Hegemony Defense Fleet; my initial reaction is that's fricking impossible, at least on full damage.
After all, a single Paragon barely makes it through Forlorn Hope, and that with careful, careful set up.
Then again, I haven't played through Vanilla to any serious extent since hero buffs were put in; maybe that tipped the scales enough, if you're like, level 100 or something and have maxed all the skills. That's not much of a test, though; you're hardly doing apples-to-apples testing if your fleet has twice as much OP, dissipation, etc. as your opponents.
TL:DR Beams are almost useless because they gave up damage and didn't compensate enough, either give back damage or compensate for it more
So why is it so bad that they do not directly kill a decent ship?
So why is it so bad that they do not directly kill a decent ship?Because:
Can just give any medium or large mounted missile unlimited ammo and have at it. :PSo why is it so bad that they do not directly kill a decent ship?
Some people just really, really like beams I guess, so much so that they want them to compete in roles they weren't initially envisioned to compete in. I don't know, if beams to become offensive because of threads like this, I'm going to make one about missiles and argue that they too should be primary weapons as well.
... I made Ballistics do zero, to make up for limited ammo, shot-speed / accuracy issues and their other flaws when ranges go higher than the really short defaults in Vanilla- ...
Yeah, that's one of the points we've made. Beams work, but only when their Soft Flux > Dissipation Rate. A lone Frigate with Beams vs. a Cruiser with Hard Shields and maxed Flux dissipation, for example, does zero real damage; they're merely lowering the amount of time that the Cruiser can use its full DPS.
In the case of a souped-up Paragon, which is a bit of a ridiculous example, since ideal Paragon builds are usually constructed around using Fortress Shield (especially with hero buffs) you can, in fact, make Beams work.
But they only work because the Paragon can mount Beam broadsides that have Soft Flux damage higher than their opponents' Dissipation rates (at least, against Pirates / Hegemony, and note that Forlorn Hope features a lot of Frigates and Fighters that have no shield protection at all). The Odyssey can (very barely) make this work, too, sometimes, against smaller opponents.
An Odyssey is meat against an Onslaught that's equipped with Hard Shields, Stabilized Shields and reasonable Flux dissipation, though; it's Ballistic weapons do Hard Flux damage, the Odyssey does not, and the Odyssey cannot kite vs. Burn Drive. It only really works out with the Paragon, barely, and only because the Paragon is, well, the Paragon- the best tank in the entire game.
Saying that this means Beams "work" is not a very good argument- there are dozens of Paragon configurations that work, and several that (imo) work better, because they have better Flux / DPS tradeoffs, do Hard Flux damage in alpha strikes and are harder to kill.
So we're left with the arguments about the relative strengths of Beams:
1. If you have range buffs for them, their perfect accuracy means you can kite at ranges where Ballistics can't hit you. That, and none of the stock configs in Vanilla have Targeting Core yet, so you can literally out-range everything in your weight class with beams, Core and Advanced Optics.
But kiting literally doesn't matter if you cannot raise the enemy's Soft Flux if they decline to use weaponry. It matters to some extent in fleet engagements, but only if you have multiple ships with multiple weapons taking on a lesser number of enemies. Even then it's surprisingly marginal, because few of any given ship's Beams can bear on the target.
In most cases, they're a waste of your own Soft Flux; if you're also taking any Hard Flux damage along the way (say, the occasional rocket hitting your shields), it's getting more and more expensive to keep kiting, and the second you stop, the enemy regains any damage done- without venting... whereas you've taken some Hard Flux damage, have a lower threshold for Soft Flux, higher constant Soft Flux costs for firing your Beams, and must Vent to recover. I don't know how that's balanced, but it looks broken to me.
With smaller ships, this is a worthless build (which is one of the reasons why I got grumpy about this in the first place- it's a sci-fi game where my little ships can't use lasers).
If, on the other hand, they did Hard Flux, the ability to kite via Advanced Optics is a big problem for balance. I addressed that issue in my mod by making all Ballistics out-range all Beams in their size class, with a few out-classed via Advanced Optics but not all of them. That (and balance changes elsewhere) restored balance; ballistics have range, but tend to waste ammo at range due to shot speeds and general inaccuracy, Beams have accuracy but have to get closer and take hits. Ballistics tend to do Kinetic, so their hits are doing more real damage to Shields and therefore impact both enemy potential firepower and time-to-vent / time-to-overload; Beams with Hard Flux get parity, but they eat more Flux (that's a separate argument- I made Ballistics do zero, to make up for limited ammo, shot-speed / accuracy issues and their other flaws when ranges go higher than the really short defaults in Vanilla- if range bands stay how they are now, Ballistics probably don't need any buffs other than making sure they out-range Beams in their size class).
2. They're really great vs. fast-movers, because the turret AI for Beam weapons is almost perfect and a lot of the small ones have higher turret speeds than anything else. So you waste very little Flux on misses. And they don't have ammo issues.
That's great, it's a core strength, but it's a strength that can be addressed via balance; if they're just OP given that they deal Hard Flux, fine, cut their DPS a bit or raise their Flux costs or both. Then they're good vs. fast-movers, but are more marginal vs. bigger targets. They're already nerfed that way to some extent because they're ENERGY-type damage, but further nerfs aren't a big deal, if they're actually necessary.
But there's a wrinkle to that that a lot of players don't appreciate. Beams do waste little Flux, yes, but their theoretical DPS is rarely their true DPS- just like Ballistics. Ballistics get more and more efficient as we close on a target, Beams have a flat profile. So a Beam that looks great at 600 SU is looking a lot less cool at 300 SU (which is one of the reasons why the Vulcan is surprisingly useful, even with its wimpy Frag damage).
I think that one of the tradeoffs there is that Beams probably need to be less Flux-efficient than Blaster-type weapons. That would make Blasters an intermediate type between Ballistics and Beams- some of the strengths and weaknesses of both. That's basically how I have things in my mod atm (although generally, I also give them greater range, and made them snipers, instead of being very situational point-blank strike weapons, but that's another argument).
Why not? There is a lot to say about those weapons- some of them are wonderful, multi-purpose and just all-around fun, some are marginal, over-specialized and maybe are appropriate on some special builds.
I think that, in this case, we're mainly talking about this (again) because it's a core gripe that many of us share. I'm mainly just arguing for the fun of it, though; since I wrote that mod that fixed the issue (earlier page) everybody can test ideas to their hearts' content.QuoteSo why is it so bad that they do not directly kill a decent ship?Because:
A. If you're in a Frigate or Destroyer, and have Ballistics, you can, with skill, kill a "decent" ship, even above your weight class. With Beams, you literally cannot, barring an obscene amount of luck or AI stupidity.
B. As I've pointed out, they're not even all that hot as "support" because of their flat damage profiles, ENERGY-type damage and other factors.
C. The only thing that makes them un-marginal even at the very high end right now is the very thing Alex said earlier he didn't want to see- Beam kites using Targeting Core / Advanced Optics are pretty much the best way to use them, simply because you can then kite vs. a lot of other things to one degree or another and maximize your real DPS as your targets wallow into a range band that works. But this kind of special-case argument only comes up with two ships in the game (and one, marginally, imo).
I disagree with your tactical assessment of case 1. The case given - ship A is firing beams at ship B. Ship B does not fire, so does not overload, so takes no real damage, therefore ship A's actions are worthless. But this cannot be farther from the truth! If ship B has to stop firing, or if it even stops firing half of its weapons, then ship A is being an excellent support ship!This only remains true if you significantly out-gun the enemy, however.
... I made Ballistics do zero, to make up for limited ammo, shot-speed / accuracy issues and their other flaws when ranges go higher than the really short defaults in Vanilla- ...It works quite nicely (imo) but it took pretty fundamental changes to balance. We'll see what other folks think if I ever get around to releasing another build :)
I really don't agree with you saying beams are useless on small ships - I run an all beam Wolf as one of my starter ships and it does extremely well. Imo the best build for taking on swarms of pirates (It does still have the Harpoons).That works on Pirates largely because they're mainly shield-less.
I then use beams in all 4 slots of a Hammerhead if I go to that ship, and then beams as anti-fighter on a Medusa (a few small slots) and as support on an Eagle (depends on skill levels, I put a pulse in and 2 gravs if I have oodles of OP to spare). Actually... almost every ship with small energy slots gets at least some beams - exceptions are Omen and phase ships. My midlines also carry graviton/phase, my Sunder's get the HIL unless I have oodles of tech. I've tested these builds in numerous real battles (not just simulator) with and without the beams... I keep putting the beams back on.I'd argue that this has more to do with the relative weaknesses of the ENERGY-type projectile weapons than with the strengths of Beams, personally, and the fact that certain ships are limited to just mounting those types, so you're picking what works best. There's nothing wrong with that, but it's a bit of a non sequitur to say that that makes them balanced; it mainly points out that, given those choices, the Beams make more sense than their alternatives. Just for fun, try changing all their Slots to Universal, and see if that still holds true. I found that it didn't, not even remotely.
I see the flat damage profile as a very good thing - it means the beam is always performing as advertised - while I see the spread of ballistics lessening effective DPS at range as a trap that only experience can correct for.It's both a trap and a boon, if the ship in question can close. Given the Kinetic damage of most of the weapons you want to use for those purposes, plus the Hard Flux that's eating away at the target's overhead, it's a very different profile, but not inferior, imo.
C: In addition to kiting they also provide a wide range area denial. For example: Hammerhead with 2 tacs, 2 burst pds, being escorted by a Talon wing. If Broadswords or Piranhas come in then the Talons won't be getting hit by swarmers, even at decent range away from the Hammerhead. Those Talons are all of a sudden much more effective. Or take an Eagle with Graviton beams - ships out to ~1100 range cannot approach without being under fire.I'm not arguing that Beams don't have some niche roles where they're working. I am arguing that in a Sci-Fi game, I've always found it annoying that one of the coolest visuals and biggest brand identifiers- the Laser Beam of Trek, Robotech, Homeworld and countless other titles- is the one weapon in the entire game singled out this way. I'd much rather see it nerfed in other ways than just be plain useless in certain scenarios.
It's just not good gameplay to have a weapon that's obviously meant to be primary (I mean, seriously, what else would one give a Wolf) but cannot serve in that role.I strongly disagree with this on three points:
One, beams are - to me - obviously meant to not be primary weapons. Using them as such works great against some things, and poorly against others. And that's fine.See, that's precisely why we're differing here, though. For me, it breaks immersion (even more than the ships that are artificially crippled).
The wolf just isn't built for taking on things above its weight class; it doesn't have the dissipation to mount heavy weaponry - and is a classic example of my argument that firepower is usually limited more by dissipation than by weapon mounts. It's awesome at hunting down fighters, and has decent survivability (even under AI control), and is decent at taking out low tech frigates and destroyers, but it's no hyperion or tempest or the like.Frigates need to be able to fight against things outside their weight class, or they're largely useless past early-game (given what's about to happen to Fighters, that's even more so). Moreover, it limits what ships people can expect to do some serious solo gaming with pretty severely. There's nothing wrong with a Frigate that's utterly specialized to do a job like AAA, but it should be at least vaguely capable of doing other jobs, just so poorly that it's not the primary choice, or once again, it breaks immersion. In a game where machine guns can magically carve through armor plate, it literally makes zero sense to have big fat beam weapons that can't take down shields. It'd be fine if they were merely lousy for the job, though; then we're back into efficiency and utility, not impossibility.
So, wolf versus Tri-tach cruiser (or, heck, any cruiser except maybe a dominator or the like) is a suicidal fight no matter what it's armed with - you might be able to take an Apogee with a lot of fancy maneuvering, but the heavy blasters on an Aurora will just eat you alive if you even think about getting in range. A lasher with needlers or railguns might have a chance, but even then it'd be dicey at best.My experience with the frigates is that generally speaking, most of them can take on any Destroyer, but a Cruiser's very dicey with anything that can't simply get behind the target, induce Flameout and win via kiting. We don't get many opportunities for these matchups in Vanilla, but when the campaign exists, I'd be surprised if we don't see a lot more variation in fleet compositions and sizes. At that point, the argument about what can / can't be done with a Frigate becomes even more important, as this is one of the big points of excitement in early game.
For example, if you have a mixed mid-game fleet with Beams and Ballistics, and you take on a tough fight (OK, by Vanilla standards, a suicidal fight, due to shortages of ships to buy, but let's skip that). You and your smaller-but-buffed fleet take out all but one Cruiser, which is a Tri-Tach ship. It's taken damage but it's functional; Hard Flux is 70%.I think that's just a bad case of rage, then. A Wolf should be having difficulty with a destroyer and shouldn't be going near a cruiser or battleship without support of some sort. Your fleet's given it's all and their fleet has given it's all as well and by tooth and nail, they've come out on top. I would call that a GG and leave if that was an RTS. In the case of Starfarer, that equates to retreating and hoping that the Wolf makes it out without taking enough post-battle damage to kill it. Now I personally don't fly with a fleet with my biggest fleets probably consisting of a carrier and a ton of throwaway fighters when I'm in the mood to turn someone into a plasma orb with wasps. Otherwise it's just me and my one ship. So if I lose, that's bad play on my part instead of me losing because my AI compadres have failed me and ships that I thought were occupied are instead on me.
All you have left is single Wolf... and it cannot finish the job, whereas a Lasher could, with some luck and skill.
I've actually had that experience. It's a throw-the-mouse-across-the-room kind of thing to happen. It's just not good gameplay to have a weapon that's obviously meant to be primary (I mean, seriously, what else would one give a Wolf) but cannot serve in that role.
I think your problem is that Starfarer does not tie to the megalasers-of-death status quo of Sci Fi.Me and just about everybody else coming to the game afresh, probably. As I said, it breaks immersion, it breaks the lore, it just doesn't feel right.
...Breaks immersion? We've got magical bubble shields that can stop matter and energy, strange physics with ships and missiles having top speeds, and it breaks immersion that some weapons interact with shields differently than others? What? I mean, that's like saying it breaks immersion that pulse "lasers" don't have the highest projectile speeds, or playing a D&D game and saying it breaks immersion that a red dragon isn't damaged by your fireball spell.QuoteOne, beams are - to me - obviously meant to not be primary weapons. Using them as such works great against some things, and poorly against others. And that's fine.See, that's precisely why we're differing here, though. For me, it breaks immersion (even more than the ships that are artificially crippled).
Frigates need to be able to fight against things outside their weight class, or they're largely useless past early-game (given what's about to happen to Fighters, that's even more so). Moreover, it limits what ships people can expect to do some serious solo gaming with pretty severely. There's nothing wrong with a Frigate that's utterly specialized to do a job like AAA, but it should be at least vaguely capable of doing other jobs, just so poorly that it's not the primary choice, or once again, it breaks immersion.Again, what? If a frigate can't fight outside its weight class, that doesn't make it useless late game. It just means you have to actually use it for its purpose - wolves are good at capping nodes, killing fighters, keeping higher-end frigates busy (and out of your Onslaught's tailpipes), and escort duties in general; I just wouldn't assign them to go up against a cruiser (even in numbers) - that's not what they're for. It doesn't break immersion for me to have a wolf that literally can't kill an aurora solo - in fact, it'd be immersion-breaking for me if the wolf could (outside of fluke circumstances, anyway). Why do you find it immersion-breaking for an utterly-specialized ship loadout to be, well, utterly specialized? I don't get it.
At any rate, like I've said before, we can all try out the mod and test it for ourselves. When Advanced Optics / ITU / Targeting Core aren't in play, Beams aren't suddenly super-weapons if they can do Hard Flux. The problem here is that these big buffs, which give much more advantage to Beams than to other types, are trying to compensate for the central weaknesses. Shouldn't it be the other way round, where they don't get as many buffs but are fundamentally functional?They are fundamentally functional - just not as primary weapons. Why do they need to be primary weapons? You wouldn't rant about a brawler with 2x flak cannon being unable to take down a cruiser; why does a wolf with a graviton beam need to be able to?
QuoteI think your problem is that Starfarer does not tie to the megalasers-of-death status quo of Sci Fi.Me and just about everybody else coming to the game afresh, probably. As I said, it breaks immersion, it breaks the lore, it just doesn't feel right.
One more: the Graviton Beam uses 75 Flux/s, but manages to deal 200 Flux/s damage to shields. It gets an additional 166% energy from somewhere....Breaks immersion? We've got magical bubble shields that can stop matter and energy, strange physics with ships and missiles having top speeds, and it breaks immersion that some weapons interact with shields differently than others? What? I mean, that's like saying it breaks immersion that pulse "lasers" don't have the highest projectile speeds, or playing a D&D game and saying it breaks immersion that a red dragon isn't damaged by your fireball spell.QuoteOne, beams are - to me - obviously meant to not be primary weapons. Using them as such works great against some things, and poorly against others. And that's fine.See, that's precisely why we're differing here, though. For me, it breaks immersion (even more than the ships that are artificially crippled).
I didn't know it worked this way for months (like a lot of players, I just jumped into play without bothering with the tutorial, which IIRC didn't explain the Soft Flux issue back then anyhow), and when I found out it did, it explained a lot of frustration but it didn't make it less of a peeve.It's one of the "tips of the day". Just click through them; they are short (Usually one or two sentences) and there are only about 10 of them.