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[FooF]

Preface:

I recently acquired a Doom in my latest playthrough and as I am wont to do, I put two Light Needlers on one side of the Doom and two LAGs on the other (in the Small Omni mounts). I prefer it this way since it means both the Kinetic and HE portions of the attacks tend to hit the same spot on the target and I like my Dooms to have some efficient, sustained firepower for targets that don't need a Mine in their tailpipe.

At any rate, the Light Needlers are great for a Phase Ship because they are "burst-y" and once you drop out of p-space you can unload a ton of kinetic damage into a target before following up with a Torpedo, Phase Lance, etc. However, my LAGs are just kind of...there...because I have no other good HE option.

Problem:

The current HE line-up for small ballistics is the Light Mortar and Light Assault Gun (LAG). The LAG is a very good weapon that has good flux efficiency, a modest rate of fire, good accuracy and is all-in-all a great weapon, with the exception of low damage per shot. The Light Mortar isn't all that bad, honestly, it just suffers from low accuracy and low rate of fire. Its damage per shot is actually almost twice that of the LAG but since the weapon will rarely hit the same spot on a ship twice (at normal ranges), it lacks real penetrating power.

That's it. Two. Kinetics boast six in the Light Machine Gun, Heavy Machine Gun, Light Autocannon, Dual Autocannon, Railgun, and Light Needler. While it could be argued that there are "duds" in that line-up, there's basically a Small Kinetic weapon for every season: from the poorest/cheapest to the elite in the Railguns and Light Needlers.

Potential Solutions:

It's my opinion that the Small HE line-up needs a heavier-hitting option, though at the cost of something else.

Option 1: The Heavy Assault Gun

Whereas the LAG is a general-purpose weapon, the HAG (I know, I know...) would be more specialized. Offering roughly the same DPS as the LAG, it would fire a much stronger single-shot, at the cost of rate of fire and range. Damage:flux efficiency would mirror the LAG. This weapon would lend itself to more of a close range/assault role and would be much less effective vs. frigates and fighters.

OP: 5
Range: 500
Damage/shot: 125
Shots/min: 72
DPS: 150
Flux/shot: 83.3
Flux/sec: 150
Accuracy: Medium
Turn Rate: Fast

Option B: Burst-Fire Assault Cannon

If I recall correctly, all limited ammo weapons fall into the Energy and Missile categories. Clip-type weapons don't exist in Ballistics so I was thinking of a clip-based HE weapon for a Small mount. This is primarily for hit-and-run engagements and as such, will have drawbacks in a traditional fight but be extremely effective in specific circumstances.

OP: 5
Range: 500
Damage/shot: 100x3
Shots/min: 180 (60)
DPS: 300 (100)
Flux/shot: 100x3
Flux/sec: 300 (100)
Accuracy: Poor
Turn Rate: Fast
Clip Size: 9
Clip Reload size: 3
Reload Speed: 3 seconds

To clarify: this would fire 1, 3-round burst, every second. Assuming you have full ammo to start, that's 4 bursts consecutively before you run out and in which case, the weapon's damage is cut in third. Recoil would be high on this weapon, necessitating close range to ensure shot placement. Flux would also be "burst-y" meaning that smaller ships trying to use this weapon would have to be careful not to overexert themselves. However, on larger ships that can afford it or ships that tend to be more opportunistic, it would give high burst damage at the expense of sustained damage and range.

This directly compares to the Heavy Mortar, I understand. However, the range is lower, sustained fire is less than half, and this would be rarer to find (in general). Overall, this weapon would be inferior except in the specific circumstance of close-range assault, and even then, only in bursts.

Let me know what you think of either idea.

[Grievous69]

Honestly a lot of non-PD small weapons feel pretty meh to me. At the end of the day you're almost always better off spending OP on flux stats and bigger weapons than to fill out smalls (unless you have no choice ofc). Only small weapons that are worth it imo are Railgun, Light Needler, single Reaper, AM Blaster (very niche) and maybe something else I'm forgetting now. I get that small weapons should be weak by design (lower DPS, less dmg per shot) but the range kills it for me. So in the end I don't have a use for these unless I have an SO build or something similar but then I have better weapons to use. You can't even make an argument for smaller craft since the best anti-fighter weapons are medium/large.

So yeah I'm in favor of having an elite option, something with burst sounds nice. Now that I think about it, it'd be nice to also have a small energy weapon that's not completely useless against armor and is not AM blaster.

[intrinsic_parity]

I think small HE suffers from a fundamental flaw: HE is all about cracking armor which requires lots of single shot damage, but small HE, particularly with higher rate of fire, is going to have low damage/shot. I don't like putting HE on my ship that is not good at doing what HE is supposed to do. I think it's always going to be better to use bigger slots for HE and smaller slots for kinetics, so there's really not much room in the game for small HE in my mind. There really aren't very many ships with only small kinetic slots. Small kinetics still find use on cruisers and capitals but I can't see small HE weapons doing the same.

[Megas]

For small HE, I use Light Mortar more than Light Assault Gun because of efficiency.  Ships tend to have more mounts than flux they can support.  LAG is a bit flux hungry to use, and I do not use them often.

I like to see a good 800 range medium HE.  Heavy Mauler is a bit too slow and underpowered for brawling, which leaves Heavy Mortar... with 700 range.

For Doom, if I use ballistics at all, it is (alternating) Light Mortars to pile on more damage or suppression beyond Mine Strike and Heavy Blasters.  (More likely, I leave hardpoints empty except maybe for two Salamanders and put the OP into Hardened Subsystems.)

[FooF]

@intrinsic_parity

You're not wrong, however, I think Small HE is essential on Frigates who generally have no other option. The difference between a Lasher with a single LAG vs not having a single HE weapon is night/day when it comes to time-to-kill speed against other Frigates and even Destroyers.

When you have other options, sure, spending 5 OP and 160 flux on a LAG is an inefficient use when you have Medium HE available.

On the other hand, what if there was a Small HE that hit a little harder than an LAG but had longer range?

Option C: Light Mauler

OP: 7
Range: 800
Damage/Shot: 150
Shots/min: 30
DPS: 75
Flux/Shot: 200
Flux/sec: 100
Accuracy: Good
Turn Rate: Fast

Rationale here would be to have a small HE weapon that still has elite range and decent damage/shot but with very slow rate of fire. It could contribute on any ship class but could only bring marginal DPS compared to its heavier cousins. It would also be less than useless against fast-moving ships and against shields, even if massed. Its OP cost and rarity would make it prohibitive to mount on everything.

[Thaago]

I think both of these are good concepts, but may require tweaking to bring them into balance. As intrinsic_parity says, HE is all about shot size and that has a dramatic impact on performance. I made a calculator in excel a while back to track armor changes and it spat this out for the performance of the HAG vs the LAG vs 500 (destroyer) grade armor:

Spoiler

[close]

Yeesh that's huge, sorry bout that.

Anyhow, you can see that despite having slightly lower DPS, the 125 HE, 72 shot/min weapon (150 DPS) cracks the armor open dramatically better: about 2/3 the time and flux cost.

Against hull, it still has to contend with residual armor. For the above 500 destroyer, depleted to residual armor:
LAG: 40*(80/(80 + .05*500)) = 30.5 damage per shot, x4 = 122 dps
HAG: 125*(250/(250 + .05*500)) = 113.5 damage per shot, x1.2 = 136 dps

So the HAG is again giving better real DPS (at 150 flux/second instead of 160 as well). Against higher armor, these numbers will become even more skewed.

Against shields, the HAG is slightly worse DPS, but at the same efficiency. (Not to mention that both will be not very effective.)

To bring the HAG into line with vanilla, I think it needs a more defined role: bringing its range down to 450 (or less?) puts it firmly in the "This is an SO weapon" category. In that case, it is ok for it to have superior performance to the LAG. 500 is a bit of a weird middle ground range - thats not necessarily a bad thing. I would put the OP at 7 with a 450 range.


For the burst assault gun, balancing it against the HAG as an SO weapon that is far more powerful than the LAG at breaking armor:
This just has too much ammo. 4 seconds of 300 DPS is quite a lot: it will take 16 seconds for the 150 dps gun to finally deal equal damage (not counting shot size, which will have some impact bringing this a bit inline, but probably only by a second or 2). Ships don't usually fire at each other for 16 seconds straight, and any time when the ships aren't firing, the burst gun is pulling ahead again because it is "banking" dps for the next engagement.

For this weapon, I'd identify what timescale you want the HAG and the burst gun to deal equal damage at, and then work out the recharge rate of the burst gun and its sustained DPS.

[Edit just saw new light mauler, I'll crank through some numbers]

[FooF]

@Thaago

My initial thought was only 6 ammo for the Burst gun but thought to myself "firing two bursts and then waiting just doesn't sound fun," so I upped it to 9. Bringing back down to 6 would fit the bill and people want to spend more OP for Expanded Mags, they can but don't balance the weapon around that.

Also, like the Assault Chaingun, this kind of weapon looks great on paper but the flux profile is such that sustained fire really isn't possible for all that long. Smaller (low-tech, no less) ships trying to equip this weapon will punch themselves out, especially if they used Kinetics to get through the shields in the first place. Your reasons are valid, I'm just saying that sustaining the fire on this thing isn't going to be feasible for long.

Re: the HAG

450 range and making it 7 OP sounds right, with the caveat that it won't get used on anything above a Frigate. The range issue, as intrinsic_parity points out, is very real. I was well aware of the penetration power of the weapon (I did write the armor guide ) but whereas the LAG can be counted on in an anti-fighter role, the HAG definitely could not. I counted this among the liabilities of the weapon.

[Thaago]

New graph with the proposed weapon added:

Spoiler

[close]

Against 500 armor its shot size gives it near identical cracking time compared to a LAG, with 100 Flux/second instead of 160, and 800 range instead of 600. Its going to do 75*(300/(300 + .05*500)) = 69.2 DPS against the exposed hull: quite poor! However, this is 70/100 = .7 damage/flux, while the LAG is doing 122/160 = .76 damage/flux: comparable anti-hull efficiencies. Against shield, it is low dps and less efficient. Against higher armor, the light mauler pulls ahead significantly as its shot size matters even more. EDIT: Ran some numbers, it pulls ahead briefly and then starts slipping back again: once both are at the 15% limit the low DPS hurts.

So in exchange for weaker hull DPS (but same efficiency) and ~same/superior anti armor performance (but better efficiency) the gun goes from 600 range to 800. I think that is reasonable: it becomes the go-to small ballistic for large ship combat, but might not be the choice for small ship combat.

The range is a bit far, but might be ok. I'd want to playtest and see how much AI frigates with this thing annoy me. Maybe 7 OP as well? I'd lean towards 6 at 750 range.

[Edit] I completely forgot you wrote the armor guide and have your own armor calculator :p. I made the graphs remembering your post. Apologies if I came across as condescending!

[FooF]

Thanks for the Light Mauler write-up! With 2 seconds in between shots, it's my belief that avoiding fire shouldn't be that hard and even if I take a hit on shields, I can drop and vent off the hard flux. This is 1v1 of course.

The only problem with such a weapon is that it doesn't do what I originally set out to do: have an assault weapon for my Doom...! Perhaps we did the right thing for the wrong reason?

I'll mod in these weapons on my own and do a trip report sometime soon. I'm really curious about the Burst weapon (the other two I can reasonably forecast but the burst weapon is quite different). 

[Thaago]

I would be very interested in your experience with the burst weapon: I feel like burst is very valuable, but it depends so much on piloting that its hard to quantify. Sounds like a good option for phase ships at the very least!

[Goumindong]

I suppose its weird in that i feel like the small HE offerings are... pretty good. There are a couple of really "strong" small kinetics in the railgun and the needler with no equivalent small HE but i don't think you can reasonably make that weapon and have it work.

The "strong" small kinetics are generally good because you can fit them on larger ships. Most frigates don't have a good way to fit railguns and needlers at 7 and 9 OP. In general you're going to be using LAC's and LDAC's simply because of OP cost and availability. Once you have to start cutting into vents the needlers and railguns look a lot worse(if you can fit a LDAC +2 vents or a railgun +0 then the LDAC is .86 flux/dmg while the railgun is .9). Most frigates similarly aren't going to be able to fit a 7 to 9 OP HE weapon either. So then we move on to destroyers and we have to ask ourselves. If a 7 to 9 OP HE small ballistic worthwhile? And the answer is probably no unless its so good that its going to obviate the other small HE options. You're going to want your armor cracking in your medium ballistic slots because kinetic scales linearly against its intended target and ballistic scales exponentially. You're going to fit the more OP efficient weapons on a ship that is OP limited unless the high OP option is dominating.

I suppose the confusion might be coming in that the LMG and DLMG exist. They're kinetic but they're not really for the same use as LAC/LDAC. They're there to kill shielded fighters and little else. They can be used effectively as a brawling weapon sure. But this is not really their intended use case. A similar HE point defense would... be obscene against armored fighters... but would also be obscene against frigates due to how HE is pretty efficient vs structure. So that is almost right out.

This last part also kind of highlights some issues with HE damage in that there is a limited space for which you can have HE damage work both as a weapon system that people will want to use and one that wont be OP. I.E. you have the shorter range brawler with higher DPS but less accuracy and you have the longer range heavy punch. Kinetics, because they do not scale so hard on per-hit damage for their use case* tend to be able to be more varied. There are also 4 non-PD kinetic options at the medium level(compared to 3 HE[one of which needs to be nerfed and was barely counted before its hilarious buff]) and three at the large level (compared to 2.5 HE weapons) but this does not prompt similar issues there.

I also disagree that medium HE needs an upgrade(especially at 800 range).

A second issue that may come in is the supreme inaccuracy of the smaller HE options. These could be buffed though i don't think that is strictly necessary and can also lead to other issues. Buffing HE accuracy/recoil means you need to reduce DPS in order to keep the weapon stable, which reduces the punch of these weapons against bigger ships where they already have an issue with DPS. What might solve it though would be an accuracy clutch on auto-fire. That is; whenever recoil moves the accuracy of a weapon to a position where its significantly outside of the current radius of the target the auto-fire shuts off. This would have a bunch of good knock on effects for anti-fighter weapons and PD as well as you would be far less likely to dump your auto-pulse at a fighter as recoil quickly made the weapon pointlessly inaccurate.

In fact i am going to go make a suggestion post right now.


*They kinda do because high per-hit can get a ship to keep its shield up

[pairedeciseaux]

Maybe you guys already know it: the Ships and Weapons pack mod has the Contender Cannon. In my experience it is a good tool on frigates and light destroyers for hit and run tactics. I can't speak how it would perform on a Doom.

	Light Mortar	Contender Cannon
OP	2	3
Range	600	500
Damage	75	150
Damage / second	75	60
Flux / second	50	50
Flux / shot	50	125
Flux / damage	0.67	0.83
Accuracy	Poor	Good
Turn rate	Fast	Fast
Refire delay	1	2.5

[Schwartz]

Railguns are just so damn hard to beat. The current meta for me is that Railguns occupy a lot of the offensive small turret slots, while dedicated brawlers get 1:1 Dual AC and LAG which have roughly similar characteristics.

Don't forget that small energy mounts don't even have the luxury of differing damage types or non-beam over 500 range. I have not felt that small HE is lacking in options, except maybe for something like a Railgun equivalent.

[Harmful Mechanic]

I have not felt that small HE is lacking in options, except maybe for something like a Railgun equivalent.

I actually tried making one for an as-yet unreleased project:

[close]

it's inaccurate, the rounds are slow, and DPS is painful... and I'm still not sure it isn't too good.

It's a hard balance space to fill.

[FooF]

Preliminary trip report with the Burst Cannon:

It's...underwhelming. It does horribly on auto-fire where it spends its burst on shields for maximum ineffectiveness. I tried an SO Lasher to see how it did and in Frigate fights, sure, it crushes light armor...but the low range makes it ineffective against just about anything else. I also tended to miss a lot, even with the turrets.

I also tried it on a Doom (per the OP). Again, auto-fire is a surefire way to waste shots against shields and I don't want to have to babysit small mounts.

It does what its supposed to do but when its AI controlled (which it will be the majority of the time), it doesn't work well. The niche is just too small.