OK, I think I finally have this sucker nailed down! Took a new approach, and this looks pretty good
Feel free to try out the latest CSV result here.Went back through the concepts, and this time, what we've got is a formula for the final efficiency ratio that looks like this:
((
damage_over_flux/1)*(
hit_ratio)*(60/
time_to_kill)*(((
range-400)/50)+1))/
ordinance_pointsThis gives us pretty Vanilla-like numbers, in the sense that we don't have runaway problems with efficiency, but also fixes the problems we see in Vanilla's balance, I think. Essentially, the formula punishes Damage / Flux going outside 1:1 pretty heavily and punishes range in an elegant way that arrives at pretty good, balanced-feeling numbers, while being neutral about TTK.
Examples of weapons that got buffed as a result:Light AC, Dual Light AC: these have always been pretty much junk weapons that you'd replace as soon as possible with Light Needlers, because of their inaccuracy and poor performance. Now they're efficient enough that they're competitive, if you get into range. I think this change is my favorite, personally; it makes alternative Lasher builds work out much better.
Chaingun: range 550, but it's an efficient HE death-machine if you can ever get shields down. Still terrible for killing shields and not a weapon you want accidentally used to kill fighters, etc.
Heavy Autocannon and
Arbalest: they're both much more efficient under this formula, due to high TTK and relatively low accuracy. They're now comparable to the
Light Needlers as a result, not clearly a much-poorer choice.
Light Mortars and
Heavy Mortars: They aren't joke guns any more. They still won't kill shields, but they don't feel irrelevant to serious play.
PD Lasers: these aren't doing more damage, and didn't get more range, but they're far more efficient. Having a bunch of them doesn't seem like a waste of Flux vs. Burst PD now. I'm pretty tempted to go to Thaago's thought and try them out as FRAGMENTATION or my idea of making them HIGH_EXPLOSIVE; both would give them much greater efficiency and we could push DPS up a bit, making them nice anti-fighter weapons.
Examples of weapons that got nerfed as a result:Railguns: their perfect accuracy ratio and high range for their OPs meant they needed to become less efficient, and they are. I'm considering raising their OP cost to 9 to bring their Damage / Flux closer to Vanilla, but right now they're at Vanilla values. I know this is an arguable change (essentially it's no longer trading Flux very well) but it is representative of how the formulas handle kiting guns.
Heavy Mauler: everybody's favorite Ballistic kiting gun got a huge (and well-deserved!) nerf. To stay at Vanilla OPs and keep it's huge range, it went down to 500 damage for 440 Flux. This feels completely fair to me.
Gauss Cannon: the Gauss was already pretty inefficient, and it got worse, unfortunately.
Mjolnir: I think we can all agree that it was a bit OP, and the numbers bore that out. It lost a bit of its efficiency.
Examples of weapons that are essentially unchanged:Tac Lasers: They got ever-so-slightly more efficient.
Light Needlers: About the same as always (but now they don't stand out as amazing).
LMGs and
Vulcans: Essentially unchanged.
Weapons where I've played with Vanilla values a lot, to experiment:Heavy Blaster: this is now range 800, but it's a very poor Flux-trader. I think it solves one of the problems with Energy weapons now, but I'm perfectly willing to put it back to range 600 if we'd prefer that it's more efficient.
Mining Laser: it's a medium-duration, efficient pulse weapon. It kills individual targets with low HP better than PD Lasers, but doesn't handle swarms well.
Anyhow, this actually feels way, way better to me. It fixes my main gripes and nothing feels really overpowered when I'm testing it now. I'd really like some feedback on this from playtesting at this point.