Fractal Softworks Forum

Starsector => Suggestions => Topic started by: naufrago on June 09, 2013, 06:20:01 PM

Title: Beam Weapons
Post by: naufrago on June 09, 2013, 06:20:01 PM
I know beam weapons have been discussed a lot before, but I can't remember everything that was discussed. Apologies if this has been suggested before.

Suggestion: Beam weapons ignore shield efficiency (exception- Fortress Shields)

Beam weapons are great against most fighters and frigates. They pretty much counter phase ships entirely. They deal decent dps to hull and armor, have the best range of all the energy weapons, and they're very efficient. Against ships with inefficient shields and low dissipation, beam weapons can make their victims risk overloads even though they deal soft flux to shields. This is mainly because the flux damage they deal is such a large percentage of the enemy ships' dissipation.  Even against larger ships with inefficient shields, beam weapons can be useful since they significantly reduce the amount of flux available for weapons.

However, they can be worse than useless against high-tech ships. This is due to high-tech's combination of efficient shields, high flux dissipation rate, and high flux capacity. With most beams, they'll be generating more flux in the ship firing than the ship on the receiving end. In addition, the amount of flux they generate is a much smaller percentage of a high-tech ship's dissipation rate, meaning it's even less effective. Against any high-tech ship bigger than a frigate, beams are fairly worthless when compared to the other energy weapons which deal hard flux.

Beams are unique in that they deal soft flux to shields while every other weapon deals hard flux. Soft flux is inherently weaker than hard flux since soft flux damage always has to compete with the enemy ship's dissipation rate. Even if a beam can't overwhelm the enemy's shields on its own, it can still be useful in a support role if it efficiently inhibits the enemy's ability to fire back. Energy weapons that deal hard flux can afford to be inefficient since they'll always force the enemy to drop shields eventually.

So how can you make beams useful against high-tech ships without making them overpowered against low-tech ships? If they ignore shield efficiency, it removes the most significant factor in why they're useless against high-tech ships. You can think of beams dealing soft flux as the tradeoff for ignoring shield efficiency. It makes beam weapons always worth firing since they'll always generate at least as much flux in the ship getting hit as the one firing. High-tech ships still have an advantage with their high flux dissipation, but that's fine. It's actually a slight nerf against low-tech ships, but I think that's also fine.

Some numbers may need to be changed in the interest of balance, but I think it's worthwhile to make beams more generally useful.

Maybe it's fine that beams are useful against low-tech and useless against high-tech, but I think it would be nice if beams were useful against high-tech, too.
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: Reshy on June 09, 2013, 08:45:40 PM
I suggested this before, I was blown off because "You're not supposed to use beams against high-tech ships!!!!!!!!!11" or similar responses.
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: Thaago on June 10, 2013, 09:30:23 AM
Well... I can see your point about beams being not as good against high tech ships shields, but I disagree with them being useless. High tech ships tend to have very low armor and high speed and can dodge other weapon types. Beams tend to have both longer range and perfect accuracy - 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. For example, I find that the easiest Sunder build to take on a Medusa is with the High Intensity Laser because the Medusa can't get out of range to vent easily. In a similar vein, I find the easiest way to take out Tempests is to back up a hard flux dealing weapon with beams. You've already pointed out other uses where beams are very superior to pulse/ballistic weapons.

My main problem with this suggestion is that it adds a further complication to beams and makes beams good against everything. Why should beams be good against everything? The ballistic weapons have clear roles which you use them in, so why not the same with beams? If beams were underpowered in general (and I think the HIL and the Phase Beam could use a little buff) then I would support this, but they aren't. As you said, there are things that beams are really good at.
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: Gothars on June 10, 2013, 01:21:22 PM
It's interesting, but I don't think it would work well.
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).

It would also be somewhat unfair against skill or hullmods that increase shield efficiency.
And beams would be overpowered against high tech frigates.


If a beam buff is needed I'm still in favor of the idea that they pass over allied ships, allowing better fire concentration.
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: Talkie Toaster on June 10, 2013, 02:51:43 PM
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.
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: naufrago on June 10, 2013, 06:23:15 PM
You've already pointed out other uses where beams are very superior to pulse/ballistic weapons.
...
As you said, there are things that beams are really good at.

Erm, when I was highlighting what beams are best at, it was mainly to point out that they're not entirely useless, not that they're better than other weapons. Compared to other energy weapons, they're at best a decent alternative in the roles they're best at. You could argue that they're better at taking out fighters and phase ships, but that's a pretty narrow niche. I'd much rather have a Pulse Laser than a Graviton Beam, or an Autopulse Laser than a HIL, because they're better in nearly all circumstances. Even against fighters and phase ships, pulse weapons take care of them easily too.

If you compare energy weapons to ballistics, energy weapons are flatout worse, but that's okay because that's part of the balance. What I'm trying to do with my suggestion is bring beams closer to the level of other energy weapons by making them more generally useful. They'll still be slightly weaker than other energy weapons due to their lower dps which is dealt as soft flux to shields, but that's the tradeoff for accuracy, range, and efficiency.

And beams would be overpowered against high tech frigates.

How would it make beams OP against high-tech frigates? With their flux stats and speed, darting in and out shouldn't be a huge issue, not to mention they themselves could equip beams. With your logic, how are beams not OP against low-tech frigates? If you argue that it's not OP by bringing up armor, I'd like to remind you that frigate armor is weak and finite. It will get burnt away pretty quickly regardless of what weapon is hitting them. The extra flux venting and capacity of a high-tech frigate still gives it a big edge.

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).

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.

..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.

This is true of low-tech ships, too, but it's not like their armor makes them last longer than a high-tech ship's higher flux venting and capacity would. Shield efficiency being equal, I'd even argue that high-tech ships would last longer under beam pressure.

The ballistic weapons have clear roles which you use them in, so why not the same with beams?

Ballistic weapons actually have roles. You normally fit both kinetic and explosive on a single ship and switch between them when the situation calls for it. With energy weapons, beams are just weaker than pulse weapons. There isn't a single circumstance in the base game I can think of where bringing non-PD beam weapons gives a better result than pulse weapons (or pulse weapons and needlers, when possible). Pulse weapons kill. Beam weapons tickle things to death, eventually, if you have enough of them.

I'd like to emphasize that it's specifically against high-tech ships that beam weapons need a boost in order to become worth equipping. Against low-tech ships, they're fine. They're not meant to kill quickly, and by God do they excel at not killing quickly. =p But it takes a disproportionate amount of beam weapons in your fleet to be useful against high-tech ships compared to low-tech ships.


I think I'm not illustrating the points I'm trying to make well enough. So, let's assume that all shields are equally efficient. Beam weapons would still be more effective against low-tech ships than high-tech ships. When a beam hits shields, it generates soft flux. The soft flux it generates would be a smaller proportion of a high-tech ship's flux dissipation compared to a low-tech ship's flux dissipation. High-tech ships also have more flux capacity, so they can be hit by beams longer than low-tech ships without taking hull or armor damage.

Some scenarios:

[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.

[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.

As you can see, ignoring shield efficiency cuts into the high-tech ship a bit harder, but its flux stats still offset the damage enough that its survivability is comparable to the low-tech ship (especially when you take into account the Medusa's ability to pick its fights). The high-tech ship can even keep firing with its shields up if it can find the opportunity to back off and vent occasionally.

If you're still not happy with that, another suggestion would be to use (shield efficiency + 1)/2 to calculate the damage multiplier. Basically, it would only half-ignore shield efficiency. For example, against a shield with .4 efficiency, it would treat it as though it were .7, and .6 would be treated as though it were .8 efficiency. If you're not happy with abstract calculations in this game, I'd like you to remember how armor works. You could have a throwaway line somewhere, maybe in the tutorial, that explains that shield efficiency is partially ignored by beams.

The Graviton Beam is actually ridiculously efficient against shields and would probably need a nerf with this change. In fact, all the non-PD beams might need a slight efficiency nerf with the change. I'm okay with that if it makes them useful, though.
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: Thaago on June 10, 2013, 08:38:43 PM
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.
Spoiler
Against 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]
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: Gothars on June 11, 2013, 02:05:39 AM
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.

Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: naufrago on June 11, 2013, 11:17:42 AM
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.
Spoiler
Against 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]

Please don't twist the idea into thinking that I'm trying to homogenize things. I'm trying to make beams useful, so that there's an actual decision to be made, not a bad choice and a right choice. You seriously have yet to prove that beams AREN'T terrible against high-tech ships.

The way I see beams, they're the more defensive option. They don't kill fast, but that's fine since they have longer range, higher efficiency, and are meant to fill a support role. Against low-tech ships, they fill their role just fine. Against high-tech ships, they suck miserably at it. They need something to make them at least somewhat worthwhile against high-tech ships without making them too good against low-tech ships.

If you think beams are fine, give me a reason to take beams over the alternatives. 'Fighters' isn't a good enough reason; it's better to get Burst PD for that, and other energy slots are better used on pulse weapons.

I don't count Burst PD as a beam since it works differently than other beams; it doesn't constantly apply pressure and it's less efficient. In my mind, it's categorized as PD, not a beam.

Spoiler
It might help if I mention how I tend to fit my ships, since this is what I've found the most effective strategy to be. Large energy slots get Autopulse lasers. Medium energy slots usually get pulse lasers, rarely heavy blasters. Small energy slots are either left empty, get Burst PD, or occasionally get IR Pulse lasers. Missile slots are left empty or get rockets. Universal slots get needlers, or railguns if I don't have enough OP. Vents get maxed, all ships get stable shields and/or frontal shields if it's an efficient use of OP, all ships get hardened shields, all ships get resistant flux conduits, most ships get integrated targeting unit, some ships get expanded magazines (for needlers and/or burst pd), leftover OP usually goes towards filling small slots with Burst PD or getting capacitors.

Against fighters: Beams are good. The one thing they actually can beat other energy weapons at. The thing is, for small slots I prefer Burst PD over Tac lasers with IPDAI. They're just as good at taking out fighters, but much better at dealing with missiles and rocket swarms (mainly due to tracking). In medium slots, Graviton beams are basically redundant due to me having dedicated PD. HIL doesn't really have the tracking to kill off fighters at much less than max range.

Flux efficiency: Funny that you say a Pulse laser is bad on the Wolf when that's its primary weapon on mine. It seems like the weapon that's most useful in the most circumstances that the AI can handle effectively. Weird how we have completely opposite opinions of it, so I can only assume you're wrong. =p Part of the reason I feel the midline cruisers are so weak is their reliance on beam weapons in their energy slots. On a medusa, AI does better with 2x pulse lasers than grav beam and heavy blaster.
The thing about the disco Paragon is that it's actually better with all pulse weapons, a couple needlers, and a few burst pd. I've tested in a wide number of circumstances (including giant swarm of fighters, the thing the disco paragon should absolutely wreck) and pulse paragon wins.

HIL on Sunder: I've barely ever used the Sunder, so I can't really argue without some tests of my own.
[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.

Much like the difference between soft flux and hard flux, you don't usually notice there's a distinction before someone tells you. Beams need to be explained anyway.

Assume for a second that beams are not fine and need to be buffed against high-tech ships without making them too good against low tech ships. What would you do? Sometimes you have to introduce a new mechanic.



I might have just realized why there's such a disparity in our opinions. You use beams and see that they do a non-negligible amount of damage to the AI. I see the AI use beams against me and see that they're worthless.

I optimize the hell out of my fleet for survivability- AI is often bad at choosing when and where to vent, so minimizing venting time is a priority for me. This means max vents, hardened shields, and efficient weapons (among other things) to minimize the time spent with dropped shields. That has the side benefit of making beams worthless. Not only am I reducing their effectiveness with my shield efficiency, they take a disproportionately smaller amount of my overall flux dissipation because of my vents.

In the most extreme situations, if you manage to get your ally ships' shield efficiency to .33 and max their vents, it's still very possible for weapons that deal hard flux to kill them eventually, but beams will barely tickle. Against a regular Medusa, 3 graviton beams can completely shut it down. Against a player's Medusa, it's an annoyance at worst.

The tipping point is around .5 shield efficiency and 600 dissipation. Once you're beyond that, beams cease to be a threat. The thing is, all high-tech ships bigger than a frigate can achieve that. This would be fine if it came with drawbacks, but it doesn't. I can still kill things quickly, my ships almost never take hull damage unless I'm not paying attention, AND I completely nullify an entire group of weapons.

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.
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: FloW on June 11, 2013, 11:42:28 AM
So you are surprised that ships, that are optimized for defense, are immune to weapons, whose disadvantage is (among others) low damage output?
Who would've thought, that something like this is possible? We have to change it, so that all your efforts are in vain!

Advantages of Beams: Impossible to dodge, due to the fact that they hit the moment they're fired; High range; Good Flux/Damage efficiency; Some cause EMP damage;
Disadvantages: Aforementioned low damage; Only Soft Flux, no Hard Flux;

I honestly don't see the problem. They are weapons with advantages and disadvantages. And being capable of consistently sniping fighters at ~ 1000su with an HIL is something that I still haven't managed with any other weapon-type. Beams are just the way they are. Large Ones are excellent for sniping of targets without shields (or at spots where the target has no shields), whereas some of the Mediums are great for reducing the DPS a ship can dish out. And all of them are good for killing fighters.

Again, what's wrong with a highly energy-efficient gun that deals little damage? That's the trade-off. Simple as that.
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: naufrago on June 11, 2013, 11:46:23 AM
It's not just low dps, the fact that beams have low dps is fine. I'm not arguing that. Beams just do disproportionately low dps against ships with efficient shields compared to other weapons because they also have to contend with the other ship's flux dissipation rate.
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: Silver Silence on June 11, 2013, 11:55:16 AM
But that's the whole point of having efficient shielding. It gives a ship the ability to outlast an opponent's burst which means they can then unload on their opponent while their opponent stresses over either having to drop shields and take hits, or overload and take more hits.
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: Gothars on June 11, 2013, 12:24:43 PM
I commend your persistence naufrago :)

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.


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.
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: naufrago on June 11, 2013, 03:52:55 PM
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.

It's been like this since before skills. But yes, I've accounted for skills in all my arguments by assuming no skills. To factor out skills, I've either used codex entries, existing variants, or specifically designed ships with skills factored out. Well, I say that, but it's not possible to get Hardened Shields before you have 10 points in Technology and Applied Physics anyway. I've also made sure damage is set to Full, not Half. =p

Funny thing is, maximizing vents and efficiency isn't purely defensive, it provides a lot of offensive utility as well. Having extremely high dissipation means you can run your guns for much longer without having to back off or vent. It lets you stay on the offensive more and apply more constant pressure. If your dissipation is high enough, it's possible to run less efficient, high dps weapons constantly.


You mention the Eagle being threatening at low levels. Try a Medusa with 2x Light needlers, 2x Pulse lasers, 20x vents, and Stabilized shields. You can dump the rest of the OP into whatever you want, just bare in mind that additional non-PD weapons are a bad idea since they'll tax the flux vents too much. Stabilized shields only requires 1 skill point and should be easy to get for even a low level character. Needlers can be hard to find, so Railguns or autocannons are acceptable alternatives in a pinch. Don't expect miracles from the AI if you go with anything other than needlers, though.

Even in the hands of the AI with regular crew, that Medusa can kill the Eagle. How long and how much hull damage it takes depends on how many bad decisions the Medusa's AI makes, but it can kill it. It's pretty simple in the hands of the player. It is a destroyer against a cruiser, though, so it takes a while to kill without any assistance.

That same Medusa is actually good against the Sunder, too. They happen to have very similar loadouts, but the Medusa still wins easily enough, especially in the hands of the player. EDIT: I should mention, that's the most generally deadly, durable loadout for the Medusa I've come up with. Hullmods, skills, and crew bonuses just make it better. If you get two of them, you can fairly easily kill any pirate fleet without taking hull damage. Burst PD takes care of any pesky fighters you can't kill with your other weapons.
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: FlashFrozen on June 11, 2013, 08:38:34 PM
I personally am for ignoring shield efficiency, its next to impossible to effectively use it it against high tech ships with their flux dissipation and efficiency together.

But as an alternative, how about how the skill (gunnery implants) that increases energy/ballistic weapon rate of fire by 50% to give beams the ability to do 20-25% hard flux damage as the skill completely ignores beam weapons.
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: NITROtbomb on June 11, 2013, 09:21:41 PM
well there is an idea :D true on the skill side of it the beam weapons get a lot less buffs than compared to that of projectile style weapons do. that might be the reason why, in the end game people think that beams are weak in comparison.


+1 for this idea
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: FloW on June 11, 2013, 10:19:25 PM
Similarly to missiles, I only use beams against armor/hull. Well, and to reduce the vent rate of the target. The EMP damage some of the beams do is excellent against any kind of ship. It slows fighters down, giving you additional time to kill them, or it shuts off enemy weapons. Also, the flux efficiency is second to none.
I have to admit though, that maybe the Graviton Beam could use some love.

But let's be honest here, a ship that's entirely based around beams probably doesn't work. Just like a ship that's entirely based around missiles. So I don't see what exactly the problem is. Beams have their reason for existence, and they can prove it too.
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: Nanostrike on June 12, 2013, 10:35:05 AM
Beams aren't an outright attack weapon.  They're a support weapon.  They're for keeping an enemy from being able to dissipate Flux while another ship hits then with anti-shield weapons to quickly max out their Flux and possibly overload.

And once the shields are down, they do a nice burn.  They're also excellent against fighters.  But as a straight-on attack weapon, they're just not meant to do the same as, say, Railguns or Assault Guns.  That's just the way they are.
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: Silver Silence on June 12, 2013, 10:56:11 AM
But zat is not enough!
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: naufrago on June 12, 2013, 02:17:04 PM
Just like you guys have been saying, beams should be useful as support weapons. I agree with that.

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.
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: FloW on June 12, 2013, 02:37:18 PM
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.

First off, everything is somewhat less effective against high-tech ships with better vents and shield efficiency.

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?

Yes, definitely. Pushing their shields to the limit with normal weapons, then put the heat on with phase beams (the ones that do EMP, iirc). Makes enemy DPS drop significantly.

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.

Here's the thing: You think that beams do so little damage (against shields), that they are a niche weapon (against unshielded/overloaded ships). Which is bad, in your opinion.
I see beams as a niche weapon against unshielded/overloaded ships. As such they have drawbacks, one of which is that they are rather inefficient against shields. That's why I think that the Graviton Beam might need a little love, but that's it.
Beams are not the weapon to end everything. They have their advantages, they have their disadvantages. I cannot stress this enough. This is called "Balance". It seems that you think that "Balance" is when every weapon is pretty much the same, and it's entirely up to personal preference. Which is not balanced.

Beams, although looking pretty, are not the solution for every problem. Sure, you can put Heavy Blasters instead of Graviton/Phase beams in these Medium Energy slots, but you will have to get rid of a lot more flux. And you'll have less range. And the enemy might dodge. All these problems will be solved by using Beam weapons, however they don't deal hard flux and as such are weak against ships with shields.
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: Gothars on June 12, 2013, 03:23:15 PM
It seems that you think that "Balance" is when every weapon is pretty much the same, and it's entirely up to personal preference.

I'm not under the impression at all that naufrago think's that. I'd say he has a point, beam weapons become disproportional worse against improving shields in comparison with other weapons. In certain constellations they hardly qualify even as support anymore. Of course you can say that's OK, they are just against low- and midtech and fighters. But I doubt that their intended usefulness is that narrow.

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.
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: Silver Silence on June 12, 2013, 04:45:08 PM
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.
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: Legendsmith on June 12, 2013, 08:48:56 PM
I barely post here at all, due to my  dislike of forums in general (Though I check Starsector RRS many times daily for blog posts), but I wanted to express my support for naufrago here.
The point he is making is completely valid. You can't reasonably ignore it. Beams mechanically have rapidly diminishing effectiveness.

Flow, I reckon you should keep this (https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/strawman) in mind.
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: Nanostrike on June 12, 2013, 10:00:53 PM
Beams are better in numbers.  In just the Frigate stage of the game, several Wolf frigates focusing on a single enemy can easily overwhelm it's shields and KEEP overwhelming them because beams cost very little flux to fire.  Focusing on a single enemy like that, you can burn down an enemy fleet one ship at a time disturbingly quick.

I'd support the "Beams pass through allied ships" thing, as that would make this synergy between beam ships and other ships amplified.  A skill to make them pass through allies would be a good way to do this.  I'd also support a skill allowing beams to generate some of their damage as "Hard Flux", but no more than 50% or they'd quickly get ridiculous.

The problem with buffing beams is that they'd be easily overpowered if the buffs weren't VERY carefully considered.  They put out constant, low-flux-cost DPS, they have perfect accuracy, and good turret rotation speed.  You can already basically turn Autofire on your beams and fly circles around a target and never miss (With NO points in Gunnery Implants).  That alone would put them far above other weapons if they were on equal DPS-footing.

Which leads to another thing that Beams have going for them: Point Defense.  They're amazing at burning fighters because they hit instantly, almost never miss, and track insanely well.  With an integrated point-defense AI, they can do the same with missiles/torpedos.



However, I WILL specifically say that the Graviton Beam sucks and needs a significant buff for it's credit-cost and OP-cost.  Even being kinetic, it barely scratches shields.  I'd actually be fine having the Graviton Beam's damage be 100% hard-flux because it's a beam specifically designed to take out shields.  As it stands, it's hardly better than a Phase Beam for that purpose, and the Phase Beam is far, FAR better at everything else, especially Point Defense, where it can disable fighters that the Graviton barely scratches.
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: phyrex on June 12, 2013, 10:31:31 PM
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.

omg...that gif is epic
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: xenoargh on June 13, 2013, 12:51:30 AM
Hey all.  Haven't been back to see what's up in a while.

Anyhow, it's now possible to make beams do hard-flux damage via script, so I tried it out.

It isn't exactly game-breaking.  It almost makes beam builds useful.  Almost. 

They still have a pretty crappy DPS vs. shields, etc., but now they're ammo-less weapons that are at least vaguely useful.  In particular, this gets rid of one of my personal gripes with Vanilla; that Graviton Beam can actually behave like we're expecting it to, instead of being nerfed by the weird non-standard behavior of beams.

Anyhow, that's my $0.02 now that I've tested it out. 

The only beam weapon I didn't turn this on for was the Tachyon Lance; it still doesn't do anything if it can't get through shields and I still don't think it's worth using in Vanilla.  I thought about making the EMP effect random instead of being stopped by shields all the time- maybe 100% if no shield, but only 10% per check otherwise?  It's a special case, since it can be used to kite or build insta-kill fleets with...
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: FloW on June 13, 2013, 02:22:31 AM
Alright, after sleeping my head is a bit clearer.

The point I'm trying to make is that HE is also weak against shields, and it also gets worse as shield efficiency gets better. Admittedly HE does cause hard flux and as such will overload the target at some point (tactic of 1000 cuts). It is also effective against armor, but it is not able to instantly hit a target and it is not quite as easy to hit specific weapons of a target.
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.
I'll just throw in an example (for free!) that might not fit 100%, but should get my point across: Ghost-type Pokemon are immune to Normal attacks (compare, high-tech ships are immune to Beam attacks). The solution is to simply change the attacks.

What I wanted to say with the whole "Balance" stuff, I think of it as intended imbalance. Beams are exceptionally good support and PD weapons. However, as long as shields are up, they can't really do much. Which is why I think that the Graviton Beam needs some kind of buff.

If you want to know why I'm opposed to this, just try flying the Neutrino Jackhammer. It features a Beam with exceptional range, accuracy and damage. Even though it does have long reload times, it is capable of completely destroying 2 frigates in a single burst. These frigates have no chance of survival whatsoever. None, zero, nil, NULL, 0,  . It's even capable of breaking through most cruiser shields and some capital ships. Did I mention that the range is also ridiculous?

As I'm all over the place with this post, here's the TL;DR:
Beams (except for the Graviton Beam) are great support weapons. 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 Graviton Beam could use a buff, apart from that beams are quite alright, with their own advantages and disadvantages, one of which is that they have trouble actually killing something.
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: Gothars on June 13, 2013, 03:53:01 AM
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.

I made a beautiful graph to explain:

e/ and about like in the second image it would look with naufrago's suggestion

[attachment deleted by admin]
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: FloW on June 13, 2013, 03:58:40 AM
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.

To clarify: When I talk about better shields, I mean a higher efficiency. Not better flux dissipation.
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.

And don't just slap a graph in there to explain something this simple. Makes much more sense to slap two in there.
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: hydremajor on June 13, 2013, 05:25:38 AM
Another possibility would be

Beams could slowly drill past shields to impact the armor directly after a certain time...

What's the effect of that ?

Beam weapons become exceedingly usefull against high-tech ships simply because they have jack for armor and beams would be less efficient on low tech ships simply because they have genuinely more armor

Plus Beams as they are now barely do any damage to armor to begin with

in the end we'd end up with

Low Tech VS Low Tech = optimal engagement due to ballistic weapons dealing more damage to armor in general

High Tech VS High Tech = optimal engagement due to shields being pierced by beam weapons, provoking what little armor they have to melt away rather fast

Medium Tech = best of both worlds situation
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: Reshy on June 13, 2013, 07:21:48 AM
Most beams deal damage based on a one flux per second to a one point of damage a second ratio.  However most ships aside from Hedgemony have efficiencies above 1.0, this means it takes that much more flux to deal a point of damage.



A ratio of .8 requires you to spend 1.25 flux for each point of beam damage.

A ratio of .6 requires you to spend 1.66~ flux for each point of beam damage.

A ratio of .5 requires you to spend 2.00 flux for each point of beam damage.

A ratio of .4 requires you to spend 2.50 flux for each point of beam damage.


Any ratio below 1.0 makes beam weapons massively weaker as you have to 'out flux' them by that much more.  This is not helped by the fact that ships with the best shields also have the best flux dissipation.  Low-Tech ships generally have low venting and shielding, because of this beams are effective on them.  But the second you go against a ship variant that has Stabilized Shields/Hardened Shields/Maxed Vents you'll notice that beams become nearly useless against such ships.


Furthermore unlike other weapons which deal hard flux it deals soft-flux, that means that while shield efficiency does affect other projectiles it doesn't do anything to help the eventually buildup of hard flux and the inevitable need to drop your shields.  With beams however if you aren't dealing more damage than they're capable of venting they can literally keep the shield up 'all day.' 


Here's the maximum damage that some ships can possible do with beams.

Medusa:  Maximum Output 700 DPS to shielding, costing 450 Flux.
Wolf:  Maximum Output 500 DPS to shielding, costing 375 Flux.
Tempest:  Maximum Output 400 DPS to shielding, costing 150 Flux.

Now let's add Efficiencies.

0.8 Efficiency
Medusa:  Maximum Output 560 DPS to shielding, costing 450 Flux.
Wolf:  Maximum Output 400 DPS to shielding, costing 375 Flux.
Tempest:  Maximum Output 320 DPS to shielding, costing 150 Flux.

0.6 Efficiency
Medusa:  Maximum Output 420 DPS to shielding, costing 450 Flux.
Wolf:  Maximum Output 300 DPS to shielding, costing 375 Flux.
Tempest:  Maximum Output 240 DPS to shielding, costing 150 Flux.

0.5 Efficiency
Medusa:  Maximum Output 350 DPS to shielding, costing 450 Flux.
Wolf:  Maximum Output 250 DPS to shielding, costing 375 Flux.
Tempest:  Maximum Output 200 DPS to shielding, costing 150 Flux.

0.4 Efficiency
Medusa:  Maximum Output 280 DPS to shielding, costing 450 Flux.
Wolf:  Maximum Output 200 DPS to shielding, costing 375 Flux.
Tempest:  Maximum Output 160 DPS to shielding, costing 150 Flux.


Now let's say we're fighting a stock ship without weapons or hullmods or extra vents and see how much damage it takes to down their shield.

Mule:  90 Effective Dissipation with 3000 effective capacity.

Enforcer:  120 Effective Dissipation with 3333 effective capacity.

Hammerhead:  150 Effective Dissipation with 5250 effective capacity.

Sunder:  240 Effective Dissipation with 8125 effective capacity.

Medusa:  280 Effective Dissipation with 10000 effective capacity.


With standard weapons you simply have to deal damage equal to or greater than their maximum effective capacity.  However if you have beam weapons you have to factor in it's dissipation.  Let's see how long it takes 500 Beam DPS to overload shielding.


Mule:  7.317073170731707 Seconds

Enforcer:  8.771052631578947 Seconds

Hammerhead:  15 Seconds

Sunder:  31.25 Seconds

Medusa:  45.45454545454545


Notice how much it jumps as it goes up the tech ladder?  And this is without any modifications of any sort!
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: PCCL on June 13, 2013, 10:18:36 AM
I like the idea of beam leak damage, but maybe instead of time based we can just have beams ignore a certain percentage of shielding at all times. That'll make beams a great finisher weapon when a ship is almost down and stubbornly holding her shield against your attacks. Also increase its effectiveness against high-tech's by a ton
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: Thaago on June 13, 2013, 10:35:23 AM
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:
Quote
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.

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.
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: naufrago on June 13, 2013, 11:35:21 AM
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'm fine with that as well. A hullmod that changes the nature of beams is actually a nifty little way of handling it.

More specifically @FloW, I think we have a different idea of "support" when it comes to beams. Most of them are decent at punishing ships that drop shields, but I feel their primary use is against shielded targets (EDIT: in addition to unshielded/overloaded targets, as you mentioned). They're meant to efficiently reduce the amount of flux the enemy has for firing their weapons.

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:
Quote
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.

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.

I agree with a lot of what you said here, particularly the stuff at the bottom about kiting and leak damage.



Anyway, it's funny to me that some people defending beams keep saying that Graviton Beams need a buff. When I'm trying to craft arguments that beams need a buff against efficient shields, I have to craft them around the existence of the Graviton Beam because it's the best at what it does. No other beam comes close to its ludicrous efficiency. If I wanted, I could only focus on the Tac Laser or HIL because they're horrible against efficient shields in most circumstances, but the Graviton Beam almost always generates more flux in the enemy than the ship firing.

Imo, the Graviton Beam might even be too good at what it does, and would almost definitely need a nerf (probably increase flux cost to ~100f/s) with my suggestion (or with Gothars' suggestion). EDIT: Also, Tac Laser and maybe Phase Beam should also take a slight hit to their efficiency with the suggestions here. I think 7:8 damage to flux ratio would be best (EDIT: although with Gothars' hullmod suggestion, the retuning of the Tac Laser and Phase Beam probably wouldn't be necessary). HIL might actually need a slight buff to its efficiency even with this change, tbh (reduce flux generation to 200f/s, imo).

If we ignore the Graviton Beam, the other beams fare much, much worse against high-tech ships. 2-3 Tactical Lasers can shut down a stock Enforcer hull, but 5-6 are required against a Medusa. Not only that, but the Tactical Lasers will generate about 60% more flux in the ship firing than in the Medusa. 3 Tactical Lasers (!) can shut down a Dominator, but 6-7 are required against an Aurora and 7-8 are required against an Apogee. The gap only increases with more vents and/or stabilized shields.

Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: PCCL on June 13, 2013, 11:44:25 AM
what if we give beams leak damage, but the leak will be converted to a fraction of its value and in EMP? Maybe only damage mitigated by shield efficiency will be applied as EMP (again, a fraction) to the hull. This way lower tech ships take less EMP damage but builds more flux, and high tech ships can have their firing pattern disrupted by a beam trained on them

(sorry, I'm playing through nexus tji again, really like the way they did beams, that's all)

Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: naufrago on June 13, 2013, 12:51:31 PM
That could potentially be a problem with the new CR changes. Disabling weapons decreases that ship's CR, which could lead to kite and run tactics for beam ships.

From the patch notes:
  • 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

EDIT: The more I think about the hullmod suggestion, the more I like it. It solves my issues of wanting beams to be useful against high-tech targets and it gives a convenient way of explaining the mechanic. The description for the hullmod could be as simple as "Makes beams ignore shield efficiency." Potential drawbacks could be reduced efficiency or damage output, if necessary, but I think it would be fine just as a straight change.

I'm thinking the hullmod could be the 7 point reward for Applied Physics (bump down Advanced Optics to 5 points), or maybe a 10 point reward for Flux Dynamics. It should definitely be obtained from investing in a skill, though.
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: xenoargh on June 13, 2013, 05:51:31 PM
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.

[attachment deleted by admin]
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: naufrago on June 13, 2013, 08:13:30 PM
Non-beam energy weapons are shorter range than their ballistic counterparts to force high-tech ships into range of the enemy's weapons, else the high-tech ships would just kite them to death. The range of beams is similar to or longer than ballistic weapons. If you give hard flux to beams, it'll make kiting the optimal strategy, which is something to be avoided. Pretty sure that's the primary reason they do soft flux damage, to keep that sort of thing from happening while allowing high-tech ships to have long-range weapons of their own.
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: xenoargh on June 13, 2013, 08:36:56 PM
So just shorten their range a bit, or make the range of Ballistics longer?  I personally think that non-beam weapons should practically always have the edge on range; it's in keeping with the setting (a kinetic weapon's just as deadly a light-second away as it was when you launched it) and in terms of balance, it makes more sense.  Ballistics miss a lot; beams don't, and they have ammo problems.
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: Reshy on June 13, 2013, 09:18:29 PM
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.

Well IRL lasers are actually really short ranged, so it's possible to 'retcon' them into being shorter range.
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: naufrago on June 13, 2013, 09:47:38 PM
If you make beams deal hard flux and then make them have the same range as non-beam weapons, that really would be the definition of homogenization. At that point, the difference between beams and other energy weapons is almost purely cosmetic. The only real difference would be accuracy and tracking speed. They'd also cease to be support weapons.

Frankly, your suggestions more drastically change beams than mine.
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: xenoargh on June 13, 2013, 10:36:12 PM
Accuracy matters a lot.  So does not running out of ammo.  I guess it doesn't matter that much in Vanilla past the low end, since the bigger ships are just DPS-trading objects, but it can and should matter.  

The way they work right now doesn't make any sense; they're literally the only weapon system that can't Overload, which isn't documented or explained and it also puts them into a weird special-case with all sorts of real balance problems.  Hence why there aren't any serious beam builds for super-ships, other than as PD; even there, with that much Flux/Second, the fact that you can't push people into Overload with them is a biggie. 

Add in the fact that the higher the Soft Flux dispersion rate is, the more useless any given level of damage for a beam is.  It takes a lot of Mining Lasers to even register vs. any capship.  So lots of ships and a few fighters basically become worthless.  All this, because we're so worried about kiting?  Why not fix the core issue, by changing the range bands?

I'd rather have ballistics with longer ranges than beams for each major range band.  That would fix a lot of issues.

Beams would continue to be inefficient killers for Flux, like they are now, but they don't miss and don't run out of ammunition.  

Ballistics would be able to kite them, but most of them are inaccurate at their kiting ranges.  So you're trading ammo and statistical noise for certainty at that point, which is an interesting tradeoff.  If beams needed any further nerfing, just dropping their DPS/Flux ratio a bit would solve it.  It shouldn't be impossible to kite people to death with beams; it should just be a case of who you're fighting and whether they're armed to match the threat or not.

Anyhow, I'd try that code out before rushing to judgement; I think that this is mainly just some minor rebal to get the issues fixed, tbh.
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: Histidine on June 13, 2013, 10:48:30 PM
For reference, here are the ranges of selected ballistic and energy weapons:

Small
800: Light Needler
700: Railgun
600: Light Assault Gun, Light (Dual) Autocannon, Ion Cannon, Tactical Laser
500: IR Pulse Laser
400: Antimatter Blaster

Medium
1000: Heavy Mauler, Hypervelocity Driver
800: Heavy Autocannon, Heavy Needler, Graviton Beam
700: Arbalest Autocannon, Assault Chaingun, Phase Beam
600: Thumper, Heavy Blaster, Pulse Laser
500: Mining Blaster

Large
2500: Tachyon Lance
1250: High Intensity Laser
1200: Gauss Cannon
900: Hellbore Cannon, Hephateus Assault Gun, Mark IX Autocannon, Mjolnir Cannon
800: Storm Needler
700: Autopulse Laser, Plasma Cannon

TL;DR: While beams have longer range than pulse weapons, the only ones that actually outrange comparable ballistics are the Tachyon Lance and HIL.

they're literally the only weapon system that can't Overload
Yes, 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.

EDIT: Also, in any case, limited frigate endurance in the next version should eliminate the kiting problem.
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: xenoargh on June 13, 2013, 11:05:24 PM
I'll test that (whether they can Overload without any Hard Flux pushing damage up).  I don't think they can, but I'll try it out.

Well, at least in the Basic Combat tutorial... uh...

(http://www.wolfegames.com/TA_Section/beams_damage_test.jpg)
So, er... you think he's going to Overload at all?  Ever?

I'll test the other tutorials; I didn't think Soft Flux ever allowed for Overload, though. Wrongo, when tested.

The lack of any beams in the mid category means there's a huge swath of stuff we can't really talk about for balance purposes; the HIL's 1250 range puts it into a really special category.

However, bear in mind that due to their Soft Flux damage, you run into issues when a small ship with Beams attacks a big one that are unique; a ship with 3 Tac Lasers will not ever overload anything that can shed 225 Flux.  Whereas if they're using anything else, including pulsed lasers, that doesn't happen.



OK, tested with the lrpdlaser super-buffed... it took a bit of testing because the AI drops the shields instantly when the incoming beam strike dps - flux dissipation > flux capacity or something, but apparently if beams DPS > flux, you can indeed overload with Soft Flux.  Was pretty hard to catch it happening, and in that case, the ship had some Hard Flux built up, but nowhere near Overload.

Must say that this is something you practically never actually see happen, though; the real loss is to the other ship's rate of overload from weapons use, which is a special case.  In most practical cases, you can just sit there, taking beam fire, and still be losing Soft Flux, then fire another alpha strike.  Anyhow, I've said my piece and I've fixed my mod so that it finally works like I thought it should from the start, so I'm happy whether it's changed in Vanilla or not :)
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: naufrago on June 14, 2013, 05:12:01 PM
All this, because we're so worried about kiting?  Why not fix the core issue, by changing the range bands?

The core issue is that beams become ineffective against high-tech ships with efficient shields. Aside from that, they're mostly fine. Xenoargh, what you're suggesting is completely changing their role. Beams are designed to be support weapons, to allow ships (smaller ones in particular) to provide some utility from a safer range without being the optimal weapon choice for killing things. Changing them to be barely different from pulse weapons is boring.

Of course it's very possible for soft flux to cause overloads, just point 1-3 Graviton Beams at almost anything short of an Apogee. It seems like you don't really understand how beam weapons work, or are supposed to work. The whole "beam dps > flux dissipation can cause overloads" thing is something you should have known from the start before firing out suggestions that completely change how beams fundamentally work.

I believe (and I could be wrong) that Alex stated somewhere that beams dealing soft flux was not likely to change. What I'm doing is operating under the assumption that beams will always deal soft flux, and trying not to force beams outside of their intended role.
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: xenoargh on June 14, 2013, 06:14:02 PM
Look, I'm just pointing out that, from the beginning, it's been one of the least-intuitive parts of the game.  There are plenty of ways to make it balanced that aren't so counter-intuitive.  Anyhow, like I said, now that I can mod around the problem, I don't really care if it's addressed in Vanilla :)
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: Megas on June 15, 2013, 01:02:45 PM
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?
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: Silver Silence on June 15, 2013, 02:26:31 PM
Because the TriTach is basically at war with the Hegemony and so those high-tech fighters are usually used on low-tech ships instead of more high-tech ships.
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: naufrago on June 15, 2013, 02:42:07 PM
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.

Needlers have limited ammo and can't be fit on most high-tech ships (and as much as I hate to admit it, they could probably do with having less ammo). 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.

You can't just focus on weapon stats, you have to think about the weapons in conjunction with the ships that can equip them.

If beams are not supposed to be used against high-tech ships, why do high-tech fighters use them?

I'm not even sure what you're trying to argue here. There's no obvious logical link between the two statements, or how its supposed to support your argument that they should deal hard flux.
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: Nanostrike on June 15, 2013, 04:12:25 PM
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.

HOWEVER, this needs to be carefully looked at.  There are a few factors that have to be considered:

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.

2) Beams have their own inherent advantages.  They're very energy-efficient, turn/track fast, have perfect accuracy, and have decent damage.  If buffed too much, they turn into an obvious go-to weapon in almost all cases.

3) The Phase Beam and High Intensity Laser are both effective weapons already.  Any buffs could overbuff them.  And the Graviton Beam, even though it's currently lacking, could be overbuffed as well.


So while I back this idea (And an idea for a Leadership skill that lets Beams pass through friendly ships!), it needs to be tested and very carefully adjusted.

Ideally for implimentation, I'd say to make it a skill-related ability, perhaps in Technology somewhere, with 2 tiers (Ignores X% Shield Effieciency at 5 Ranks and X% at 10 Ranks) for all beam weapons.
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: Megas on June 15, 2013, 04:57:37 PM
Beam weapons are very flashy.  Before I bought the game, I was impressed by the beam spam of various ships.  When I first played the game, I wanted a ship that can kill things with beams.  I noticed killing things with beams took a long time.  I did not know (at the time) beams dealt soft flux only.  Then I thought all energy damage type weapons dealt soft flux.  When I learned graviton beam dealt soft flux, despite kinetic type damage, and blasters and pulse lasers dealt hard flux, I switched to said blasters and pulse lasers, and saw combat proceed much faster.  Thus, I do not use beams anymore except for missile defense and anti-fighter.   Blasters and pulse lasers are much more effective than beams.  This is a shame.  I like to see beams good at killing things, which they cannot do as of now.

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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.

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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.

Quote
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.

Beams that ignore efficiency (and hit for soft flux only) would make them very weak against the Conquest, which has very inefficient shields.
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: Nanostrike on June 15, 2013, 06:13:18 PM
The thing that really changed my mind was when I realized that Burst Lasers were technically "Beam" weapons, and thus dealt soft-flux and had all the beam-weapon issues.  If they dealt hard-flux or even ignored some of the high-efficiency shields, they'd be completely viable weapons for non-point-defense use, with the player needing to time their use to "Burst" for maximum DPS.

As it is, though, they're only good for PD and shooting down fighters.  And it's a shame, too, because they're incredibly cool weapons.

*EDIT*
Also, as PD Weapons, they're hardwired to take shots at missiles and waste their charges, whether you want them to or not.  Which drives me crazy and also makes them unsuited as a stand-alone weapon, unfortunately.
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: Thaago on June 15, 2013, 10:22:18 PM
...

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.

...

As far as I know the Gunnery Implants (+50% fire rate) do not effect beams :(.
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: Silver Silence on June 15, 2013, 10:34:52 PM
Could possibly tune that to add more damage to beams as RoF is useless on a weapon that deals constant damage.
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: naufrago on June 15, 2013, 10:54:29 PM
Hah, I just found the old thread made by Reshy (http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=5108.0) where he suggested the exact same thing. I even posted in it. A lot of the arguments here have been made before. We're reliving the past. @.@ But seriously, I suggest reading it, and Alex's responses in particular.

I think I've made a strong enough case that beams deserve a slight change, but I have no idea whether I'm even close to convincing the person that can actually make the change. >.<


And just a fun fact, in order to completely negate the flux dissipation on my Paragon with .3 shield efficiency, 2500 flux dissipation, Stabilized Shields, and Front Shield Emitter, the enemy would need to focus 39 Graviton Beams at it (26 grav beams with +50% damage bonus from flux). To negate the flux dissipation of a Standard Onslaught, you only need 5 Graviton Beams. (If you ignore shield efficiency, it would only take 12 Grav Beams to negate my Paragon's dissipation)
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: Nooblies on June 16, 2013, 04:00:52 AM
Ignoring shield efficiency is an elegant way of making beams better at combating high tech ships without buffing them against low tech, where they are already quite strong. As far as this introducing new rules for weapons, beams are already a special case wherein they only deal soft flux, and so adding a note that beams behave in such a manner to the game would be fairly trivial. I can't actually remember ever seeing anything that explains that beams only deal soft flux anyway, so perhaps something could be done about that.

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.
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: Megas on June 16, 2013, 06:03:55 AM
Quote
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.

I already kite with heavy blasters or plasma cannons (thanks to ITU mod and Entoptic Rangefinder perk).  Even pulse lasers are slow for me, let alone beams.  This assumes ships with energy weapon slots only.  For kiting, I much prefer a needler/hypervelocity and heavy mauler combo - much better range and effective.  Ships like the Falcon and Eagle can kite very well with ballistics, and use (heavy) burst lasers as an effective flak cannon substitute.

I do not think letting beam weapons that deal hard flux will lead to homogenization if they are not as strong (vs. shields) as their blaster or pulse laser counterparts in eliminating shields.  Killing speed can be a factor.  It will let beam weapons have more use aside from inferior energy flak cannons.  Without Advanced Optics, beams aside from HIL and Tachyon Lance do not exceed range of ballistic weapons.
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: Megas on June 20, 2013, 06:37:33 AM
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.
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: Nanostrike on June 20, 2013, 08:56:45 AM
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'd be fine with this, if nothing else.  The Flagship should be awesome, even if it's a beam-ship.
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: Reshy on June 20, 2013, 11:25:16 PM
So rather than fix the balance issue of beams you'd rather just give a compensating skill to the player's flagship?
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: hydremajor on June 21, 2013, 12:09:33 AM
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
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: Megas on June 21, 2013, 07:05:58 AM
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.
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: Nanostrike on June 21, 2013, 08:43:09 AM
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.
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: hydremajor on June 21, 2013, 10:34:30 AM
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...
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: FlashFrozen on June 21, 2013, 11:10:57 AM
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?)
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: Wyvern on June 21, 2013, 11:43:08 AM
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.
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: Megas on June 21, 2013, 12:11:54 PM
Quote
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).

Quote
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.
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: Wyvern on June 21, 2013, 12:58:19 PM
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.
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: Megas on June 21, 2013, 04:40:15 PM
Quote
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.

Quote
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.

Quote
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!

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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.
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: Histidine on June 21, 2013, 08:31:28 PM
First: let me state my position:

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.

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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.
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: Nanostrike on June 21, 2013, 09:30:37 PM
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.
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: Megas on June 23, 2013, 04:59:06 PM
Quote
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.

Quote
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.
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: Jazwana on June 23, 2013, 05:36:57 PM
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.
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: Nanostrike on June 23, 2013, 06:38:26 PM
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.
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: Megas on June 23, 2013, 07:33:05 PM
Jazwana's idea seems promising.

Another idea:  A hullmod (say Focused Beams) that is expensive (at least as much as Augmented Engines/Unstable Injector) but lets beams deal a portion of their damage (somewhere between 20% and 50%) as hard flux.  The hullmod also has a drawback (less range, higher flux cost, or something) and cannot be used in conjunction with Advanced Optics (so player cannot kite everything short of an Onslaught).
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: ciago92 on June 24, 2013, 04:50:32 PM
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.

+1
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: NITROtbomb on June 24, 2013, 10:37:50 PM
1+ ^
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: Reshy on June 24, 2013, 10:50:21 PM
Ignoring shield efficiency would make beams weaker against ships with worse than 1.0 efficiency.

You mean all 7 ships, 5 of which are civilian/carriers?  Please.
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: Silver Silence on June 24, 2013, 11:12:56 PM
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.

(http://i.imgur.com/W99fM6G.gif)
Here, have my +1.
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: Gothars on June 25, 2013, 01:04:45 AM
I like the idea too, but please don't "+1" or "upvote" if you've got nothing to add to the discussion. This is neither reddit nor facebook.

If you like an idea, how about pointing out what exactly is good about it, how it would interact with other mechanics and how it might change your play-stile? Or even better, find flaws in it and try to think of a solution?
That way you might even actually give the idea a better chance of being implemented.
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: Silver Silence on June 25, 2013, 01:21:51 AM
Ok then, how about the part where 100 vents on a Paragon with the skill to dissipate shield flux becomes incredibly efficient with beams and can stay cool as a cucumber even while facehugging an Onslaught, meanwhile the Paragon beamship with it's shiny new hardflux-building HILs can drive the Onslaught up to the max, keep it there and either face overloads or face hull damage while also unable to return fire due to the hardflux built up by said HILs? Meanwhile, the beamship Paragon with 100 vents is cooling off it's flux that's been built up by the Onslaught's autocannon barrage. Add Hardened Shielding, a Frontal Emitter and stabilize dem shields and you have yourself a nigh-on indestructable Paragon that can face many a Onslaught. Going to potentially have an issue with so many ships in your face? Activate your Iron Curtain and power up the Fortress Shield and continue to enjoy shield dissipation while now taking a tenth of the damage and let the Onslaughts do your job for you and max themselves out.

TTS Adamantium, reporting for duty.
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: Megas on June 25, 2013, 08:24:44 AM
Quote from: Reshy
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.

Ignoring shield efficiency also does not help against ships with 1.0 efficiency shields yet still take too much time to overcome their shields, and cannot without Advanced Optics to outrange the enemy.

Quote from: Silver Silence
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 just played four battles with the Hegemony defense fleet, with the best perks from Combat and Technology skills.
(All beams - HIL, Graviton, Burst PD.  Has Accelerated, Hardened, Frontal, and Stabilized shields.  Has about 5 capacitors)
Beam fight #1:  Never faced more than one Onslaught at a time.  Flawless victory.  Fighting lasted about seven minutes.
Beam fight #2:  Faced all three Onslaughts at once.  Had to vent at least three times, and focus all beams at one Onslaught at a time.  Won with 60% hull left.  Fighting lasted about ten minutes.

(Plasma, Blaster, Needler, Burst PD combo.  No shield hull mods.  Has about 45 capacitors)
PBN fight #1:  Faced all three Onslaughts at once.  Used fortress shield and wait until Onslaughts stopped firing Annihilators.  Had to vent at inopportune times, and took heavy damage.  Later, I got an opening and disabled an Onslaught from full to zero in less than five seconds.  Won with 40% hull.  Fighting lasted six minutes.
PBN fight #2:  Faced first Onslaught alone, then after first volley, Onslaught #2 appeared with all guns blazing along with Lashers and Enforcers, and my fortress shield went up.  Got half engines knocked out, but wiped out each ship one or two at a time.  Faced third Onslaught solo, and was no match for me - two quick volleys at point blank and it was gone.  Won with 60% hull.  Fighting lasted five minutes.

The thing is, when beams work, say Paragon vs. any ship, or starter Wolf vs. enemy Lasher or Enforcer; they are almost always slower than non-beam energy weapons or non-fragmentation ballistics.  That is fine, given their range and flux efficiency compared to other non-beam energy weapons.  What is not fine is beams can be shut down completely.  As long the AI remains too cautious to vent, other energy weapons will always do something despite their weaknesses.

I do not want the Paragon to be the only ship that can use all beams effectively against any ship.  I like beams to be able to crush shields eventually and kill anything like every other weapon, so that any ship can do some damage with beams with a beam only setup.  They do not need to do it nearly as quickly as other weapons, but they need to.  The easiest way to assure this is to let beams deal hard flux under certain conditions.  Beams can be the slow but steady weapon while the rest are quicker.
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: LazyWizard on June 25, 2013, 09:44:14 AM
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 liked this idea so much I decided to try it out. Here's (http://www.mediafire.com/download/rt9b5lirjogrs3h/Alternate_Beam_Mechanics.zip) a small test mod that gives all vanilla beams 0-100% hard flux based on distance to the target (requires LazyLib (http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=5444.0)).

I've only tested it briefly, but the most noticeable effect is that the famed Disco Paragon has gone from "able to kill anything smaller than it" to "able to kill anything, period" (including taking on two Conquests and an Onslaught simultaneously). I'll try making a version using the other variant you mentioned, as I think that might be more balanced. :)
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: Megas on June 25, 2013, 10:08:24 AM
Quote from: LazyWizard
(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.
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: Megas on June 25, 2013, 10:58:29 AM
Got a chance to try hard flux beams, in a Wolf vs. Lasher contest, and noticed a few things.

Suggestion:  Use exponential instead of linear drop-off, and have it deal soft flux only starting at 50% or even less range.  If player wants to deal hard flux with beams, make him get deep into enemy weapon range.

It would be nice if player needs to pay OP on a hullmod for this ability, and the hullmod enforces other penalties like higher flux costs and no Advanced Optics.
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: Silver Silence on June 25, 2013, 11:33:17 AM
TBH, I wish energy weapons in general were better. Most are fairly inefficient, something to trade for "unlimited" ammo as you're only limited by your ability to keep venting flux. However, as well as being inefficient, most do not have any sort of capable range. Most energy weapons range between 5-800 SU across all sizes of mount. While on the ballistic side, we start at 600 range or so with the LAG and go all the way up to 1200 with the Gauss Cannon which smacks a raised shield for 1.4k every few seconds. Something like the Onslaught could become a kiting monster with Gauss Cannons in it's large slots and Heavy Maulers in it's forward medium slots. The GCs give it the shield cracking firepower while the Maulers rip into the armour and expose the hull for the GCs to tear apart afterwards. Not to mention that in a stroke of boredom and a blink of an eye, the Onslaught can charge forth and unload with it's TPCs. This firepower becomes even more drastic when you're skilled enough to throw a metric fuckton of vents in there alongside ITUs, damage perks, RoF perks and fast venting perks. Such an Onslaught can chew ships like those of the Neutrino Corp with their well noted 0.2 efficiency shields.
 A Paragon Beamship on the other hand, can't even tickle such Neutrino ships. Their typical passive venting speeds often equal that of the Beamship's total DPS, if not more. And that's before you throw in the efficiency. If you go the pewpew path, you need to get in their face while they bring their own custom energy weapon to bear, facing things like the Neutron Pulse Cannon which is basically the Neutrino's answer to a Heavy Mauler with similar range and damage. The Autopulse, while probably your most efficient laser cannon of the lot, is also fairly fickle. Once you're in range, your flux already halfway to the max after eating fire to get close enough, if you can't overload them, or cause enough damage as to scare them into lowering the shield and letting you disable weapons with free hits to the hull, you're pretty much done. Once the Autopulse has burned through those initial charges, it's maintained DPS is 100 or so, though still in a bursty form. Now after those Autopulses are done, you can either continue to eat fire while they do a worse job than the tiny IR laser. Or you can back off and clear your flux which also gives them a massive window to clear their own flux because while you've only just crept out of their range, they were long out of yours. The latter assumes you even have the speed to disengage in such a speedy fashion.

If such a hard-flux building mechanic were implemented, I'd say to only have it on certain beam weapons and not just a standard of all of them. The Graviton Beam, for example, the natural choice for shield suppression with it's kinetic damage could further define it's suppressive role with hard flux damage. Lore it away with some vague outlining along the lines of concentrated graviton exposure causing momentary flickers in the shield which turn causes a flux-build up as the shield fights to keep itself stable. As for the mechanic itself, I think while starting at 0% (all soft flux) is fine, but the hard flux cap should only be about 25%. Then a HIL only does, what, ~62 hard flux DPS? For one HIL against smaller ships, it's should be noticeable, and in a beamship Paragon, it shouldn't be the be-all end-all as you're dealing ~250 hard flux/s against ships. Assuming HILs had the ability, too.
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: Jazwana on June 25, 2013, 12:10:02 PM
I'm glad to see all the enthusiastic replies :)  I absolutely agree the numbers I threw up were example only, not balanced.  I like the suggestions of pushing the hard flux range much lower and with less % of total damage, and the exponential decay rather than linear.  Not sure about ONLY graviton beam having this mechanic because then it limits ships which don't have a medium mount such as the phase frigates and Odyssey.  No sure if it should apply to burst lasers or not, probably should, discuss?

To poke holes at my own overall idea:  Giving beams any hard flux while not penalizing them is a straight-up buff, no question about it.  But it seems like most of the early posts in this thread agreed that specifically beams vs high shield efficiency is where the main problem lies.  My suggestion goes at the imbalance in a roundabout way which increases beam effectiveness across the board, not just vs high tech shields.  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."

Partially hard flux beams also starts the slippery slope of having all weapons 'balanced' to be exactly the same as each other without any unique mechanics to trade off against.  This is something Alex has specifically stated he doesn't want and I think we as players can all agree, if every weapon had the same range, dps, and damage type it would be a boring game.



Still not sure what the right solution is but I think we've got a bunch of good ideas between passing under (through) allied ships and applying a separate beam shield efficiency rate.    Maybe every ship should have two shield efficiency statistics; beam and projectile?  That way ships could be balanced separately and perhaps hull mods or perks could modify those statistics separately?  Tune your shield emitter to be more efficient for one at the (greater) expense of another?

Edit:  The lore, of course, being that Tri-Tach engineers have improved their shield emitters to deflect projectiles but are still having trouble making any significant improvements against continuous beams.
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: Megas on June 25, 2013, 01:07:10 PM
I prefer all beams use the same mechanics just to keep things simple and consistent, and reduce confusion among new players.

Quote
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.
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: Histidine on June 25, 2013, 09:48:40 PM
Ranged-based hard flux for beams sounds interesting.

Quote from: Reshy
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.
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:
[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.

[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.
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.

Quote
a beam only setup
Ah, now we get to the key point.
In my opinion, a beam-only design should be no more generally useful than a kinetics-only design*, a HE ballistics-only design, a missile-only design, or for that matter a pulse-only design that uses only AM and Heavy Blasters. While you can get a design that's effective against everything by going pure Pulse Laser, it pays for being a jack of all trades by being less efficient than a mixed loadout (ballistic or energy) would be.
*currently stronger than it should be, as most ships' armor can be brute-forced even with kinetics (especially with the help of missiles)

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.
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: Megas on June 26, 2013, 09:51:08 AM
Needlers in universal slots for the Medusa and Paragon are almost no-brainers.  If the Shuttle had more OP, I would use it as a cheap needler platform.
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: Thaago on June 26, 2013, 10:30:19 AM
Funny thing is that I actually prefer railguns, light machine guns, or just reapers over needlers on the Medusa :P.

Range varying amounts of hard flux would be interesting - I can honestly say that without a mod I have no idea how it would play out.... I'm more in favor of ignoring shield efficiency, but I'd have to try it.
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: Silver Silence on June 26, 2013, 10:46:38 AM
I, for one, prefer the idea of building hard flux, preferably with efficiency taken into account. While no vanilla ship possesses uber shields, factions like Neutrino with their slim 0.2 shields could be made practically irrelevant against a beamship.
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: Megas on June 26, 2013, 11:20:01 AM
One thing that might need to be accounted for is most enemies that use ballistic weapons neither have the best weapons nor the ITU hullmod.  One reason beam ships can kite is because the enemy is often armed with mostly mediocre autocannons, assault guns, thumpers, and various PD weapons.  Few enemies are equipped with the deadly long-range stuff like railguns, needlers, HVDs, and heavy maulers.  If most enemies were equipped with the good stuff, beam ships would have no chance to kite without Advanced Optics, and that hullmod requires a heavy investment into Applied Physics.  (I do not put points in that skill.)

Edit:  Just so no one misunderstands, assault guns are not bad; they are good for their role.  They do not have enough range against a beam ship built to kite.
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: Nanostrike on June 29, 2013, 06:36:59 PM
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.
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: SatchelCharge on July 08, 2013, 05:06:00 PM
Another suggestion to consider alongside the "increasing hard flux dependent upon range" idea, which I do like, is to instead have beam weapons begin dealing more hard flux as the firing ships' flux level increases; a simple extension of the current "energy weapon damage increases with flux" mechanism. The beams would still go through a color gradient and cool stuff like that.

Perhaps this would help to keep balance in check because there's higher risk of overload if you want hard flux out of your beams.
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: Reshy on July 08, 2013, 10:36:20 PM
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.


Furthermore Beam weapons have half the damage of other weapons, and it's not even hard flux.
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: xenoargh on July 08, 2013, 11:32:31 PM
Yeah, that ENERGY-type damage is a nerf in and of itself.  Then there's the overall Flux efficiency and the ranges.  That it doesn't do Hard Flux nerfs the nerf ;)

Anyhow, Alex has spoken, that mini-mod I put out allows people to test what happens when Beams can do Hard Flux (the world doesn't end, balance-wise) so there isn't a lot more to say, other than that we should all be very grateful that the game's already so moddable that I could even do something that whacky with fundamental game-balance stuff :D
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: nohintofsarcasm on July 09, 2013, 08:22:52 AM
I wonder why this topic keeps coming up, is beam weapons really perceived to be that weak?

Because to me they seem if anything too powerful.
I have a challenge to those who think beam weapons are underpowered: try a beam weapons only fleet.

The point is that when you get more ships to play with you can focus down one enemy at a time. Beam weapons have good flux/damage ratio, good effective range, perfect accuracy and are not prone to friendly fire - making them great for cooperated strikes. Having four ships or so on a target means its flux raises so fast it doesn't matter much that its all soft flux. Also - good luck to rely on non-360° shields when being hit from multiple sides. Try it! I'm not saying its the optimal way to play but its very much a valid strategy, the only thing I struggle with are Paragons.
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: Nanostrike on July 09, 2013, 08:38:46 AM
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.
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: nohintofsarcasm on July 09, 2013, 09:19:09 AM
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.

That is not my experience, have you actually tried it or are you just theory-crafting?
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: xenoargh on July 09, 2013, 09:58:23 AM
Quote
try a beam weapons only fleet
Been there, done that. 

Works great vs. Pirates, as they have few shielded ships, but the Pirates are, well, the Pirates- they're artificially weak and are heavily reliant on missiles, which is the one area where an all-beam fleet truly shines. 

It works considerably less well vs. Hegemony (an all-beam Odyssey is meat on the table vs. a stock Onslaught flown well, let alone one that is properly set up) and all-beam is pretty utterly useless vs. Tri-Tachyon (the very opponents these weapons were supposedly developed to defeat the defenses of).

So no, I'm not just quibbling about things that can work but are really edge cases.  When you add all the nerfs on beams together, you end up with weapons that are sub-par and whose advantages, great as they are, don't quite make up for their weaknesses.  They're just fine as PD, so long as the ship isn't heavily engaged (Vulcans and Mortars set as PD are better then, let alone manually using flak) and they're good fighter-killers, but they really have issues pulling their weight when up against anything serious.

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.
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: nohintofsarcasm on July 09, 2013, 11:53:03 AM

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.

Tri-Tach Security Detachment: http://postimg.org/image/r7wisz1n5/

Hegemony Defense Fleet: http://postimg.org/image/7bk54jngb/ Not sure why you wanted me to do this one because
1. I'm trying to point out how beams become better with larger fleets and this does not apply here.
2. This is probably the easiest way to beat the Hegemony Defense Fleet - you don't even have to take armor damage.

I'm primarily using tactical lasers, graviton beams and high intensity lasers if you want to try to reproduce my results.

In any case my point is that beam weapons are strong when you use them correctly, which judging by the posts so far most of you do not do...
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: SteelSoldier on July 09, 2013, 12:14:20 PM
I think the strength of the beam weapons is accuracy and range, you cannot undervalue those strengths.
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: xenoargh on July 09, 2013, 12:33:57 PM
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.
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: Foxtrot on July 09, 2013, 12:58:53 PM
The thing about "strengths" like accuracy, range, damage, fire rate, AOE, etc. is you can't sacrifice too much of one thing or else the weapon becomes useless. For example, a machine gun, massive fire rate and damage, wonderful things, but if you sacrificed accuracy and/or range you now have a gun that can kill a ton of stuff...if it's 3 feet in front of the gun, everything outside that range you just miss or you hit once or twice but that's not enough. Or you could have a machine gun that does have range, accuracy, damage, and fire rate, but it has 3 bullets in the mag. Again it's wonderful, except now you can't kill anything in any amount of time because you have to reload every three bullets which means your fire rate is gone, useless again. Now that's just machine guns, other weapons are different, like a sniper rifle, you can sacrifice ROF on that, even mag size, but the second you get rid of anything else (except AOE, you know Borderlands and stuff) you have a useless sniper rifle. Now Beams do have the Accuracy, range, ROF, and unlimited mag, but they don't have the damage to back it up, they basically tickle ships from far away and really accurately, compared to good ballistics which punch ships from far away.

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
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: nohintofsarcasm on July 09, 2013, 01:17:13 PM
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.

I have no experience making videos but its pretty straightforward. First of all you are right about me using skills even though they are far from maxed here. Also I'm not sure it makes any difference but that was actually from Starfarer - I haven't acquired any Paragons since then. (Yes I keep a copy of Starfarer for nostalgia reasons.)
Ok, anyway, I strife alot and use the full range of the HILs, I keep to the borders to avoid being surrounded and everything dies very quickly to quadruple HILs. Shields don't help them much because they don't have great shields. Obviously I play on full damage.
To me Forlorn Hope is entirely about luck. Either I face the Onslaught early and I die because I cant kite it while fighting the other things or I face it much later and it loses because it has no backup.

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

That is only true on paper. If you compare the damage between tac lasers and ir pulse lasers then tac lasers aren't far behind and will hit more often because it has practically no delay between firing and hitting. HILs outperform autopulse lasers sustained damage by a significant margin.
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: phyrex on July 09, 2013, 01:42:42 PM
the whole problem is only, and only the soft-flux versus hardflux issue.
its the only major difference between beams and other weapons
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: xenoargh on July 09, 2013, 04:52:02 PM
OK, so that we can have a fair argument, I did a test with that build (insofar as I could, since hull mods / level of character / hero buffs) weren't on the table.  

Took on Forlorn Hope with the usual Paragon hull mods (Stabilized Shields, Extended Shields, Hardened Shields) on full damage.

It doesn't remotely cut it without Dedicated Targeting Core.  That 40% range bonus is huge, when it comes to beams.  But it didn't completely suck.

However, if you're going that route, this works even better imo, it's basically a giant kiting device at that point:

Spoiler
(http://www.wolfegames.com/TA_Section/paragon_beam_build.jpg)
[close]

This was able to win Forlorn Hope, with minor hull damage (91% score, only one run).  Could probably get 100% with some more runs.

But that kind of illustrates what I said at the beginning; that's a ship with beams that can kite (or in the case of the Paragon, use its full DPS most of the time).  Anyhow, I guess that counts as Beams "working" but I suspect I could have gotten just a much mileage or more out of many other setups.

Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: Thaago on July 10, 2013, 07:52:30 AM
Quick question: why extended shields? Doesn't the Paragon already have 360 shielding? Try putting advanced optics (the 200 also gets multiplied by the ITU) and turret gyros to compensate - the range gets really insane.

I find the beam Paragon to work well, but they don't synergise with Fortress Shield. Its a nice build, but hardly optimal.

[Edit] Yeah just played through Forlorn Hope with an all beam setup. It pretty much sums up everything people have said about beams:
Against smaller ships (all the fighters, frigates, and destroyers) the beams dominate at incredible range. The accuracy lets them hit all the time at extreme ranges, maxing out the flux of all of these ships before they are in firing range. Against larger ships things start to take a lot longer - to be expected when shields/armor is the defense rather than dodging.
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: xenoargh on July 10, 2013, 08:48:02 AM
I put Extended Shields on because in my mod, I gave it only 300 arc to force people to use the upgrade points.  I forgot that in Vanilla it had 360.

Oops, that and removing those useless Heavy Blasters would give me Advanced Optics and Gyros. ::)
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: Thaago on July 10, 2013, 10:24:20 AM
Well for Forlorn Hope and a beam build those heavy blasters are pretty much useless :P. The 4x HIL is ok against the cruiser and the Onslaught, but in my experience 2x HIL and 2x Heavy Blaster isn't. They also drive up flux at an outrageous pace - and with the Paragon being constantly surrounded that hurts a lot.
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: Nanostrike on July 10, 2013, 08:36:35 PM
I'll admit flat-out that I usually fly Frigates and Destroyers and my beam experience is limited to what I can do with beams on one of them.

So I'm not sure what you can do with massive capital ships packing multiple High Intensity Lasers.



But on Frigates and Destroyers, an all-beam setup usually ends up with fairly anemic damage potential.
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: xenoargh on July 10, 2013, 09:15:42 PM
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).
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: Silver Silence on July 10, 2013, 09:42:01 PM
I find it rather funny that while a beamship of a class can typically handle ships as big as or smaller than it and struggle against things bigger, these beamships are also often high-tech ships. Is it really such a surprise that high-tech beamships do not kill similar high-tech ships? A Paragon beamship wrecks an Onslaught, but will never hurt another Paragon and everyone seems to have an issue with that.

EDIT:
Many, if not all offensive beam weapons are made to help kill things, not directly kill things. So why is it so bad that they do not directly kill a decent ship?
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: Flare on July 10, 2013, 09:52:05 PM
So 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.
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: xenoargh on July 10, 2013, 10:14:32 PM
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.

Quote
So 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).
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: Silver Silence on July 10, 2013, 10:20:26 PM
So 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.
Can just give any medium or large mounted missile unlimited ammo and have at it.  :P
Wouldn't advise doing it to small missile mounts because things like the 3-rack missiles shoot every second and it becomes laughably stupid as everyone spits the fury of a thousand harpoons at each other. Medium and large mounted missiles often have a cap to their RoF, aside from the Annihilator medium rack. Alternatively, give medium and large missiles a regeneration rate at say 1/2 or 1/3 of their RoF. That way, missiles aren't rendered inert after the first few minutes of battle.
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: Nanostrike on July 11, 2013, 07:28:55 AM
Missiles ARE primary weapons in some mods (Hiigarian Descendants have several large ships that use missile barrages as their main attack.  Very cool), and I'd like to see some of those "Spammable main weapon" missiles make an appearance in the vanilla game at some point.



I'd really like to see a specialized type of "Beam" that deals hard flux and is damaging, but is only on for a second or less (Think Burst Lasers that are actually damaging to stuff besides missiles/fighters).  Give them poor turn rates, decent range, and a cooldown of some sort and have them as a viable alternative between the Close-Range Spam that is Pulse Lasers and the mid-range constant damage that are the Beams.
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: Thaago on July 11, 2013, 07:56:47 AM
Quote
... 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- ...

Does this actually work out? I can think of a ton of builds that would make all the low tech ships ridiculously overpowered in this case. Also, this is a major nerf against beams - a graviton beam hitting a shield is 100-300 worth of flux (depending on efficiency, power level of firing ship etc) that is unavailable to fire weapons without building the reservoir. Ballistics taking no flux to fire completely eliminates that support aspect. (Not that this matters against high tech, efficient shielded energy ships.) I'm a bit sceptical about this to be honest - its such a fundamental change to the game that it probably effects tons of stuff I can't even think of.

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).

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.

They are honestly quite good weapons - the exception being against extremely shield efficient ships. They just aren't primary weapons.

Spoiler
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).
[close]

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! If it can do this from out of range of ship B then ship B is completely screwed when Ship C comes to kill it. Ship A is also denying ship B its no flux speed bonus because ship B must always have its shields up. There is also the complete opposite case - let ship B be a Tempest. Ship B is going to be dancing in and out of range, dodging your ballistics, and in general murdering things. Believe it or not beams are very good at countering Tempests when acting with other weapons. The beams don't do all that much when its shields are up, but when it needs to swing its shields to catch a stray shot/missile, or if it needs to vent, the beam is there. There is no gap for the Tempest to exploit - the beams constant damage is wonderful.

In case 2 about the DPS profiles you aren't wrong but I disagree with your interpretation. 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.

Spoiler
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.

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So 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).
[close]

A: So what? There are plenty of weapons that you can do this with.

B: I've talked enough about this in the rest of the post.

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.




Well this turned into a much longer post than I expected :P In summary: yes beams are not effective against highly efficient shields. They are excellent in a wide range of circumstances. Trying to use them as primary killing weapons is usually doing it wrong, with several exceptions. I still support making them ignore shield efficiency.
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: xenoargh on July 11, 2013, 10:28:56 AM
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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. 

For example, three Frigates, two with Beams, attack a Cruiser.  The Cruiser can crush the first Ballistic Frigate while the one with Beams provides support, drop back to whatever Hard Flux is taken, then do it again and again.  This is versus the same scenario with three Ballistic Frigates, where all three are doing Hard Flux damage, leaving the Cruiser with permanent overhead loads on Soft Flux- the first Frigate may die, the second one may die... the third one will achieve Overload or force the Cruiser to Vent and fling in a pair of Reapers to finish the job.  The lack of Hard Flux damage is pretty insidious this way if Beams aren't considerably more efficient at raising Flux than anything else.  But they generally aren't.

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... 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 :)

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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. 

One of the things I changed was to give most Pirates Shields (and balance the Shields rationally, by whether they're Omni / Frontal and their arc).  The Wolf was one of many ships that just quit working well at that point.

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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.

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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.

But if the Beam ship can kite endlessly, this all goes out the window; they can provide Soft Flux endlessly.

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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.

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%. 

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.
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: Wyvern on July 11, 2013, 11:43:16 AM
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.
Second, what else do you give a wolf?  An antimatter blaster (and beams for the rest of its guns, since it doesn't have the flux dissipation for anything heavier).  Or even sabot SRMs.
Third, it's perfectly fine gameplay to have a niche ship that can't perform outside that niche.  You wouldn't ask a Condor to serve as a front-line combatant.  You wouldn't ask a Paragon to chase down, well, anything really.  You wouldn't ask a Brawler to serve as a point defense escort.  Why is it bad gameplay to have the Wolf that can't punch above its weight class?

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.
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.
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: xenoargh on July 11, 2013, 12:14:38 PM
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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).

E=mc^2 applies whether it's a beam, plasma bolt, a giant shell fired from a cannon.  This is a weird, quixotic game mechanic that breaks the fundamental rule of damage causing Hard Flux.  It's exeptionalism without any clear justification; there's no way to explain it away via lore that would make any sense.

Furthermore, it breaks away from the mechanics of all the classic source material.  You don't see this behavior in Trek, Star Wars, Escape Velocity or any other classic sci-fi game; it's weird.

So, from your standpoint, it's a neat game-design hack.  It's fine and balanced just the way it is.

From my standpoint, it's a weird exception that isn't justified and breaks my feeling that I'm watching spacecraft fight.  It's more immersion-breaking than friendly-fire, collisions between ships, and the rest of the things that don't make much sense, if we're pretending it's a real fight in space.  I can buy ships having to get within touching distances (in space combat terms) to do any damage; I can't buy a "weapon" that can't do the fundamental things any other weapon can do, however poorly.  I suspect that a lot of newbies to the game feel exactly the same way- this topic has come up multiple times now.

Moreover, because of most people's conceptions about how beams work... it's a bit of a newbie trap.  The game already has a lot of them, which is a bit problematic, but that's a really big one.  People wouldn't feel strongly about it if they were merely UP; then arguments about their merits make sense.  But when they simply don't work at all for a lot of situations, that's another thing entirely.

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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.

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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.  

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?
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: Silver Silence on July 11, 2013, 12:24:58 PM
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%. 

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 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.


If you want to give the Wolf more bite, fit a HB instead of GravBeams or Phase Beams



EDIT@
Ninja'd.
I think your problem is that Starfarer does not tie to the megalasers-of-death status quo of Sci Fi.
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: xenoargh on July 11, 2013, 12:46:25 PM
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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.  

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.

Anyhow, I am OK if I'm in a distinct minority on this, but I suspect I'm not; this is the kind of thing that could be fixed without breaking the game balance (just remove the ITU / Core buff from Beams, that would pretty much keep things under control, imo, maybe minor nerfs on the existing Beams, small buffs on certain non-Beam ENERGY types to make them more attractive) and it'd get rid of something that's hard to justify and adds little that's good to the game other than a "whoops, that was buried in the manual somewhere" moment.  For a game that's so intuitive otherwise, it's a big deal.
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: Silver Silence on July 11, 2013, 12:53:31 PM
I'm not so sure it breaks generic sci-fi lore. A beam weapon does have to deliver it's damage over a duration as compared to the solid slug of a railgun or the cohesive bolt of plasma which delivers all of it's oomph immediately upon impact. In Starfarer, that's simply reflected as beams dealing soft flux. The damage is steady enough that it doesn't stress and de-harmonize the shields like a regular impact would.

I quite enjoy something different. But that seems to just be me. Many gamers do not like change.
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: Wyvern on July 11, 2013, 12:54:20 PM
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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).
...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.

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?
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: Flare on July 11, 2013, 01:41:37 PM
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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.  

I find it rather refreshing that flashy weapons don't actually outperform the tried and true raw power ones. To me, the expectation of energy weapons dominating sci-fi is merely a view that's perpetuated by fiction itself. I don't see why we should force works that try to subvert this standard to take up the status quo.
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: FloW on July 11, 2013, 01:47:58 PM
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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).
...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.
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.

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.

And Beams are different, which gives them a niche and in turn a reason for existence.
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: BillyRueben on July 11, 2013, 02:25:17 PM
Popping in to say that I like beams as they are. They are nice filler weapons when you haven't used all of your mounts and OP, but have used too much of your dissipation to mount anything heavier.

I do wish that they would be friendly fire immune though, and pass through friendly ships like they do fighters now.
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: Flare on July 11, 2013, 02:44:03 PM
Yes passing through friendlies would solidify their role as support weapons, and maybe a little range as well.
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: Mattk50 on July 12, 2013, 12:42:24 PM
As i've said before, simply make half of their damage hard flux. Its just as intuitive and makes them far less dependent on the enemy's failures.
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: Flare on July 12, 2013, 12:50:11 PM
That would make beams too good especially the HIL and the graviton beam. They would no longer be support weapons.
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: CrashToDesktop on July 12, 2013, 02:23:56 PM
I find beam weapons pretty good right now - especially the tac lasers.  Long-range weapons that give a constant stream of damage and really just melts through armor (not so much shields, though, which I find perfectly fine).
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: Nanostrike on July 13, 2013, 03:44:45 PM
IMO, we just need a sort of middle-ground between low-damage constant Beams and high-damage Pulse Lasers.

A beam that does hard flux and decent damage but only stays on for a few seconds (And has a meaningful cooldown time) would probably go a long way towards filling out the energy arsenal.

Think Burst Lasers, but powerful enough to be main weapons.
Title: Re: Beam Weapons
Post by: CrashToDesktop on July 13, 2013, 03:47:58 PM
Tachyon Lance?

:)