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[intrinsic_parity]

How much does damage to Hull matter in the HAC/Mauler vs Pulse Laser match up?  Pulse Laser is 606 DPS to hull, at 0.9 efficiency.  Heavy Autocannon is 214 DPS to hull at 1.0 efficiency and Mauler is 133 DPS at 0.89 efficiency - for a combined 347 DPS at 0.95 efficiency....

You picked the heavy mauler which is an (intentionally) low DPS 1000 range sniper. It's not surprising that you find the DPS to be lacking... The range is the reason to use that gun, not the DPS, and I think that it's a bit weak at the moment. You should really compare to the heavy mortar which is the common unspecialized ballistic HE option.

Also, raw amror/hull dps isn't really relevant, performance against actual armor values you will likely encounter is. I demonstrated in my last post that pulse laser has worse armor performance against average destroyer tier armor (500) which is the probably the most common and thus most important scenario. Pulse laser does 484 dps to hull against 500 armor, 404 dps to hull against 1000 armor. It still definitely has an advantage, but it's quite a bit smaller. Only ~40% hull dps advantage compared to HAC+Mortar across the 500-1000 armor range, as far as I can tell, so not a particularly efficient use of that extra 70% flux generation.

Also if you're trying to kill an onslaught with two medium slots, something has gone horribly wrong. You should consider performance against destroyers and maybe light cruisers. 

Maybe I just prefer decent ships with good weapons rather than super powerful ships with crappy weapons. I find the latter very unsatisfying.

Too bad that's basically the entire concept of high-tech ships.

I would rather them be a bit worse and have a bit better guns. It doesn't have to completely negate the design philosophy. I just wish it was a bit less extreme so that it didn't sometimes feel like you were bashing your head against a wall shield with crappy weapons while flying circles around the enemy. Why not flying semi-circles and hitting the wall with a moderately sized hammer? I don't think it makes sense that some ships have the best shields and systems, but have weapons that can barely break shields. High tech ships should have some effective ways to break shields. Also as megas pointed out, not all high tech ships are equally powerful and the weaker ones (wolf) get really hung out to dry by the weak weapon options.

The pulse laser is probably fine as a common but slightly weak weapon, but it shouldn't be the best medium energy anti shield option that high tech ships have. High tech ships have tons of great anti hull and anti armor weapons already, they don't need a mediocre one like the pulse laser, they need a decent anti shield weapon, even if that means some ships have to be slightly nerfed to not be OP. The reason I got onto this whole tangent in the first place was that I think the empty mount spam on high tech ships is (to some degree) a product of the lack of good anti-shield options. In the absence of efficient damage, you have to max vents and remain under dissipation to win the flux war leading naturally to the empty mount loadouts which simply leverage that limited dissipation in the most efficient way. At least that's my hypothesis.

[FooF]

Right. Efficiency is king among High-Tech/Energy loadouts to the exclusion of almost all other factors.

I agree about the Pulse Laser, though Gravitons do exist. The next patch may add a few wrinkles. A 500-range Graviton that does 200 hard flux/sec would supersede the Pulse Laser for efficiency against shields. A lot of the Small Energy beams might become pseudo-useful in an assault role. Also, I think bonus damage for high-flux is making a return via skills. I still maintain that Small Energy is by far the worst slot to have in the game, though, and that contributes to the empty mounts problem for High-Tech.

(As an aside, I sometimes forget that Energy was originally built around doing extra damage as flux increased. Likewise, for Ballistics having ammo. Not that I opine for the good old days but some of the principles behind the weapons have been lost along the away and those were balancing factors. Energy being short-ranged, unlimited generalists and growing more powerful as you use them is a totally different beast than specialized, long-range Ballistics that had limited use. I'm not against moving away from the original design but knowing the history helps explain why Energy and Ballistics are the way they are.)

[Megas]

The pulse laser is probably fine as a common but slightly weak weapon, but it shouldn't be the best medium energy anti shield option that high tech ships have. High tech ships have tons of great anti hull and anti armor weapons already, they don't need a mediocre one like the pulse laser, they need a decent anti shield weapon, even if that means some ships have to be slightly nerfed to not be OP. The reason I got onto this whole tangent in the first place was that I think the empty mount spam on high tech ships is (to some degree) a product of the lack of good anti-shield options. In the absence of efficient damage, you have to max vents and remain under dissipation to win the flux war leading naturally to the empty mount loadouts which simply leverage that limited dissipation in the most efficient way. At least that's my hypothesis.

Which also feeds into Sabot spam.  For ships like Shrike and Aurora, if it cannot get the flux stats it needs to overwhelm an enemy, then the only other option is the spam Sabots.

Pulse lasers have windup, and they lack armor penetration.  High-tech cannot really hit-and-run with them.  If high-tech wants to kill enemies with them, they either need other weapons (kinetics for Medusa and Shrike-P, Sabots for anyone else) or sack as many mounts as possible to afford all of the caps, vents, and flux and shield hullmods to obtain a huge flux advantage, then shield tank as it trade blows with the enemy.

High-tech are not the only ones with energy weapons.  Midline has them too, although most can sack them for more OP.  Sunder is another possible sack all mounts to power plasma cannon.

Also, I am tempted to sack mounts on Dominator and Onslaught at times to get more OP.  Since they have dissipation problems, and they cannot use Locusts, they really want Expanded Missile Racks, and that does not come cheap.  No missiles Dominator and Onslaught seem like a bad idea because they seem to lack firepower without missiles.

(As an aside, I sometimes forget that Energy was originally built around doing extra damage as flux increased. Likewise, for Ballistics having ammo. Not that I opine for the good old days but some of the principles behind the weapons have been lost along the away and those were balancing factors. Energy being short-ranged, unlimited generalists and growing more powerful as you use them is a totally different beast than specialized, long-range Ballistics that had limited use. I'm not against moving away from the original design but knowing the history helps explain why Energy and Ballistics are the way they are.)

Pulse lasers were really bad back in those days.  Their DPS was hideously low.  (I often preferred mining blaster over pulse laser as the cheap medium option.)  They got the most DPS increase after the removal of flux supercharge.  However, mining blaster got shafted after the removal of flux supercharge.

[intrinsic_parity]

I agree about the Pulse Laser, though Gravitons do exist. The next patch may add a few wrinkles. A 500-range Graviton that does 200 hard flux/sec would supersede the Pulse Laser for efficiency against shields. A lot of the Small Energy beams might become pseudo-useful in an assault role. Also, I think bonus damage for high-flux is making a return via skills. I still maintain that Small Energy is by far the worst slot to have in the game, though, and that contributes to the empty mounts problem for High-Tech.

Very good point, lots of things will need to be reevaluated in the next release.

[pairedeciseaux]

Also, I am tempted to sack mounts on Dominator and Onslaught at times to get more OP.  Since they have dissipation problems, and they cannot use Locusts, they really want Expanded Missile Racks, and that does not come cheap.  No missiles Dominator and Onslaught seem like a bad idea because they seem to lack firepower without missiles.

I start from a similar thought about missiles and dissipation but end up with a different decision. On Dominator, depending on large weapons availability / my choice, and depending on D-mods:
- with lowish large weapons flux requirement (think Hellbore) and no D-mods, I would most likely put up to 3 medium missile launchers with a preference for reapers, sometimes pilums, but would not use Expanded Missile Racks, and would fill all non missiles mounts
- with high large weapons flux requirements (think Mjolnir) or with flux related D-mods, I would sacrifice missiles and fill all non missiles mounts

In any cases my standard hullmod set for Dominator is Dedicated Targeting Core (or Integrated Targeting Unit) + Auxiliary Thrusters and(/or?) Flux Distributor.

Summary: in my fleets Dominators have 0 to 3 empty medium missile mounts, no other empty mount.

( though I respect the Expanded Missile Racks choice on such a ship )

Very good point, lots of things will need to be reevaluated in the next release.

The AI flux management improvement by itself might change the way we outfit several ships.

[Hiruma Kai]

How much does damage to Hull matter in the HAC/Mauler vs Pulse Laser match up?  Pulse Laser is 606 DPS to hull, at 0.9 efficiency.  Heavy Autocannon is 214 DPS to hull at 1.0 efficiency and Mauler is 133 DPS at 0.89 efficiency - for a combined 347 DPS at 0.95 efficiency....

You picked the heavy mauler which is an (intentionally) low DPS 1000 range sniper. It's not surprising that you find the DPS to be lacking... The range is the reason to use that gun, not the DPS, and I think that it's a bit weak at the moment. You should really compare to the heavy mortar which is the common unspecialized ballistic HE option.

I picked the Heavy Mauler because it lands it shots on target and in the same place without too much loss of true DPS.  I've tried firing a heavy mortar non-stop (i.e. 220 DPS) and its cone of uncertainty gets huge fast.  I used a capital since its slow and allows you to hit the same spot with a medium class ship.  Although, for a better comparison, I probably should have used a hypervelocity driver instead of a HAC.  I guess I was thinking the shields didn't matter as much in terms of spread shots and so the spread was acceptable against a capital, but that is not true for the hull damage/armor portions I guess.

I'm quite willing to run the numbers against other ships - if you're willing to give me a hit % for each weapon against said target.

From my quick testing using a Heron (medium omni-slot) under AI control against an AI Omen I get the following approximate hit %.
Heavy Mortar: 42 projectiles fired, 2 impacted missiles from the omen, 22 hit. If we assume the missile hits would have hit the omen, that is a 57% hit rate.
Heavy Mauler: 41 projectiles fires, 2 impacted missiles, 35 hit.  37/41 = 90% hit rate
Heavy Autocannon: 45 projectiles, 20 hits  = 44% hit rate.  Although, the omen backed off a lot more and dodged more because those hits hurt its shield much more.
Pulse Laser: 40 projectiles, 2 missiles, 36 hits  = 95% hit rate.

Now against a Medusa:
Heavy Mortar: 40 projectiles fired, 31 hits = 77.5%
Heavy Mauler: 40 projectiles, 37 hits =92.5%
Heavy Autocannon: 42 projectiles, 33 hits = 78.5%
Pulse Laser: 40 projectiles, 38 hits = 95% (only missed on medusa jumps)

Accuracy matters given a miss is a bunch of flux for no benefit.

I'm open to other reasonable hit chances against a given target.

Also, raw amror/hull dps isn't really relevant, performance against actual armor values you will likely encounter is. I demonstrated in my last post that pulse laser has worse armor performance against average destroyer tier armor (500) which is the probably the most common and thus most important scenario. Pulse laser does 484 dps to hull against 500 armor, 404 dps to hull against 1000 armor. It still definitely has an advantage, but it's quite a bit smaller. Only ~40% hull dps advantage compared to HAC+Mortar across the 500-1000 armor range, as far as I can tell, so not a particularly efficient use of that extra 70% flux generation.

Also if you're trying to kill an onslaught with two medium slots, something has gone horribly wrong. You should consider performance against destroyers and maybe light cruisers.

Or something has gone horribly right. A lightly escorted Onslaught when I'm still relying on destroyers (say a Medusa)?  Depending on escorts on both sides, that is doable and might be how it goes down.

Well, given the superiority of HAC over pulse in terms of shields, lets take that Medusa example.

Unmodded Medusa is 10,000 effective shield points, 300 armor and 3000 hull, so pretty much worst case for the pulse laser (high shields, low hull).

HAC+Heavy Mortar is 214*0.785*2 + 220*0.5*0.775 = 421 effective shield DPS.  23.7 seconds and 9337 flux.
2x Pulse laser is 606*0.95 = 575 effective shield DPS. 17.4 seconds and 11,568 flux.

HAC+Heavy Mortar takes 2 shots of each to get through armor, roughly 1 second of fire and 380 flux.
2x Pulse laser takes 8 total shots to get through armor, 1.32 seconds and 879 flux.

HAC+Heavy Mortar with 15 residual armor has 214*0.785*0.769 + 220*0.775*0.88 = 279 DPS against hull. 10.7 second and 4233 flux.
2x Pulse laser is 526 DPS against hull.   5.7 seconds and 3791 flux.

HAC+Heavy Mortar vs Medusa: 35.4 seconds and 13,950 flux
2x Pulse Laser vs Medusa: 24.4 seconds and 16,238 flux

16% more flux while only taking 2/3 the time.  Of course, this is making the big assumption that all hits land in the same armor cell, and that you only need to overload the target once.  The pulse laser is more likely to cause an overload (more damage in a shorter period of time against shields), and more likely to finish it within an overload period (7 seconds to kill against armor/hull versus 12).

I expect against a cruiser or capital, the accuracy of the HAC+Heavy Mortar would improve significantly, probably close to that of a Pulse laser, improving damage by ~25% and reducing final flux costs by a similar proportion.

[RustyCabbage]

Well, given the superiority of HAC over pulse in terms of shields, lets take that Medusa example.

Unmodded Medusa is 10,000 effective shield points, 300 armor and 3000 hull, so pretty much worst case for the pulse laser (high shields, low hull).

Minor interjection here, but high shields, low armor/hull is one of the better cases for pulse lasers. As mentioned somewhere previously in the thread, the pulse laser is probably the best anti-shield Energy weapon when it comes to medium mounts. Pulse Lasers start having problems when they have difficulty cracking armor. I'd like to see the results against an Enforcer or Venture/Dominator, which with their significantly lower speed further skew the results back towards the ballistics.


Regarding empty weapon mounts, I agree with making small/medium (energy--because this is rarely an issue with ballistic mounts) weapons more efficient would mitigate this problem. Ballistics don't have this problem because their smaller mounts are generally more efficient than the larges, while for energy Plasma Cannons reign supreme, so why bother with the smaller options?

[Hiruma Kai]

Well, given the superiority of HAC over pulse in terms of shields, lets take that Medusa example.

Unmodded Medusa is 10,000 effective shield points, 300 armor and 3000 hull, so pretty much worst case for the pulse laser (high shields, low hull).

Minor interjection here, but high shields, low armor/hull is one of the better cases for pulse lasers. As mentioned somewhere previously in the thread, the pulse laser is probably the best anti-shield Energy weapon when it comes to medium mounts. Pulse Lasers start having problems when they have difficulty cracking armor. I'd like to see the results against an Enforcer or Venture/Dominator, which with their significantly lower speed further skew the results back towards the ballistics.

Well, I was thinking about the relative ratio of the DPS of the HAC/Heavy Mortar combo to Pulse lasers.  The ratio of Pulse DPS/(HAC+Heavy Mortar DPS) is best against hull and worst against shields (for most reasonable armor).  High Hull usually goes with high armor, and so once you've removed the armor, the hull begins to dominate.  Assuming you can hit the same armor cell.  Probably not true for AI, possibly true for a player depending on circumstances.

But you're right, if you're only interested in removing armor and not destroying the ship, the armor stripping power of the pulse laser is worse than that of the HAC/Heavy mortar combo - again assuming all shots hit the same spot.

But sure, I can do a Venture. We'll assume all shots are hitting the same armor cell (which is a buff to heavy mortar/hac, but not too much).

7000 shields, 1250 Armor, 10,000 Hull.

HAC+Heavy Mortar vs Shields: 538 DPS, 13 seconds, 5126 flux
2x Pulse laser vs Shields: 606 DPS, 11.5 seconds, 7693 flux

HAC+Heavy Mortar vs Armor: 19 projectiles of heavy mortar and 19 projectiles of HAC, about 9.5 seconds, 3743 flux
2x Pulse laser vs Armor: 68 projectiles, 11.2 seconds, 7473 flux

HAC+Heavy Mortar vs Hull (62.5 minimum armor): 214*0.444 + 220*0.778 = 266.1 DPS, 37.56 seconds, 14802 flux
2x Pulse Laser vs Hull: 606*0.615 = 372.9 DPS, 26.8 seconds, 17858 flux

HAC+Heavy Mortar vs Venture: 60 seconds and ~23,500 flux
2x Pulse Laser vs Venture: 50 seconds and ~33,000 flux

In this case, the Pulse lasers are about 17% faster in killing, but at a 40% increased flux cost compared to the HAC+Heavy Mortar combo.  At this level of armor, the heavy mortar has pulled ahead in time to remove it.

Although, having just tested it, when fired continuously, some of the HAC/heavy mortar shots will still miss the Venture.  Dropped the HAC+Heavy Mortar combo on a Paragon and set it up against a Venture and laughed while it spent more time shooting the mining pods instead of the Venture and straight up missing both half the time.  Tried the same thing against a Dominator and there are still missed shots.  The Dominator, with its longer range weapons, spends more time at max range, where the large fire cone matters more.  Depending on how the Dominator moves, the guns may stop firing and reset their fire cones, improving accuracy for a little while.

Pulse lasers are dead center of mass every time against the Dominator, and quickly removed the mining pods and then proceeded to accurately hit the Venture (until it launched another mining pod).

So the above numbers probably need a round of accuracy correction.  At what range band do you want the accuracy computed?  Point blank is 100%. Max range ITU on a cruiser, probably 75-90%?  Max range on a Paragon?

[intrinsic_parity]

@ Hiruma Kai
RE: accuracy, Looking at some follow up comments, you already know this but there's a ton of things that affect accuracy that are situation specific and I don't think an 'accuracy damage multiplier' really makes sense. Even just looking at accuracy experiments, if the AI behaves a bit differently and factors like range and speed change, the % hits are also going to change and I don't see how you can simplify that to a simple damage multiplier for all situations. Whatever number you pick for accuracy, it will be wrong a lot of the time and the player could easily manage range to mitigate it as well. Also, I believe that turrets have worse accuracy (could be wrong but I definitely remember hearing about it), so considering hard points vs turrets matters (I think).

Also skills (gunnery implants) can improve accuracy and shot speed for ballistics that will significantly improve hit % but have very little affect on energy weapons which already do fine in that category (it's actually very surprising how much better needlers get with skills).

Also range matters a lot qualitatively in ways that aren't represented at all in DPS calculations:
If the ship with a pulse laser is firing from 600 range, but the ship with HAC is firing from 800 range, the 800 range ship will have a lower hit percentage default, but it also could avoid enemy fire which might be a worthwhile trade off depending on the enemy weapons. Range also allows for 'extra damage', i.e. a ship with 200 extra range gets to take a bunch of shots that it wouldn't even get to fire otherwise. If we're talking about player controlled ships, then that range could translate to proper kiting, meaning you never have to go into weapons range and take damage which could be worth reduced DPS and increased TTK/flux cost. This would be more relevant for HVD/Mauler Setups.

Also, the dissipation of the ships in question matters a lot. Firing weapons under dissipation does not cost capacity, but firing over does. You should really take the flux costs and subtract the portion that is covered by dissipation to get a better sense of how firing weapons affects your actual flux levels because that it what is relevant to overloading and venting. HAC + Mortar is much easier to fit under dissipation in my experience.

All of that being said, I think the really important point is that if you lose the flux battle, then you don't get to shoot the enemies armor and hull. Pulse lasers are the best hard flux energy weapon for shield breaking available, so it really matters how they perform in this category a lot more than in other categories (they basically dictate how good a smaller high tech ship can be at breaking shields without missiles) which is why I emphasize this performance and compare to kinetics. That is the role that pulse laser has to fill on high tech ships because there are no other better options.

[Hiruma Kai]

@ Hiruma Kai
RE: accuracy, Looking at some follow up comments, you already know this but there's a ton of things that affect accuracy that are situation specific and I don't think an 'accuracy damage multiplier' really makes sense. Even just looking at accuracy experiments, if the AI behaves a bit differently and factors like range and speed change, the % hits are also going to change and I don't see how you can simplify that to a simple damage multiplier for all situations. Whatever number you pick for accuracy, it will be wrong a lot of the time and the player could easily manage range to mitigate it as well. Also, I believe that turrets have worse accuracy (could be wrong but I definitely remember hearing about it), so considering hard points vs turrets matters (I think).

Fair enough.  Although continuing that line of reasoning means it is impossible to compare weapons on paper, since you need to pick something to be the hit rate.  Ignoring it is simply making an assumption - you've assumed 100% accuracy which is no different than an assumption of 75% accuracy.   That is still a choice that, as you put it, going to be wrong a lot of the time.

@ Hiruma Kai
Also skills (gunnery implants) can improve accuracy and shot speed for ballistics that will significantly improve hit % but have very little affect on energy weapons which already do fine in that category (it's actually very surprising how much better needlers get with skills).

True.  There are also skills which reduce kinetic damage to armor, explosive damage to shields, and skills which increase flux capacity and dissipation.  There are hull mods which decrease energy damage.  Although, are there skills/hull mods which reduce the size of the fire cone after you've been firing for awhile?

You also raise a lot of good points in terms of other variables such as range and speed, some of which are dependent on hulls and situation.  And that is not even getting into things like game changing hull mods like safety overrides.

And I agree, a Pulse laser effectively is 43.3 OP when you factor flux cost, 86.6 for two, while a HAC + Heavy Mortar is more like 56.4.  You're spending 53% more OP.  If we were to try to get about the same OP equivalent cost, it'd be like 3x Pulse lasers are kinda worth 2x HAC + 2x Heavy Mortar (~15% off), but what is the value of needing an extra medium mount?

So I guess the question comes down to rather than looking at raw numbers:  How does it actually play out in missions and the campaign.  Against a variety of targets from fighters to capitals.

[SCC]

Ballistic mounts have less guns to fire at most times (since you don't want to fire kinetics at armour and high explosives at shield (or, at least, they would have, if autofire AI understood damage types!)), so you can have twice as many guns as you need at any time (though in actual game, you actually will bring more kinetics). Energy guns use the same guns for everything (most of the time), except for specialist weapons, so they effectively need (or can use) only half the guns.

I wonder if adding small and medium low dps, low OP cost, high efficiency energy guns would change the loadouts. Or rather, if it could be a competitive alternative to "get heavy blasters and max out flux stats" loadouts, ones relying on energy guns to get through shields. Sort of similar to the initial idea of making 0 OP/0 flux/otherwise cheap weapons, except not as extreme and only for energy smalls and mediums.

[ubuntufreakdragon]

Another option to fill empty mounts would be adding nav beacons command relays and sensor scramblers as a 0OP choice to mount.
Energy: s: 1ECM m:2ECM l:4ecm
Missile: s: 1%speed m: 2% l: 4%
Balistics: s: 1%more deployment&comand point recover m: 2% l: 4%
Just as an idea.

[SonnaBanana]

Allow weapons to be mounted at half their OP cost, but with maluses?
Ballistics at half ROF, Energy at double flux generation and Missiles at half missile hitpoints, for an example.

[Grievous69]

The whole point of small energies being bad is that they suck up dissipation for virtually no gain, and you want to make it even worse? No thank you. OP is not the issue, it's having enough flux to fire your actual guns. Ballistics don't really need much help, and the missile thing just seems like a straight buff to me. Missile saturation > one really strong missile. Besides, these would have to work as different weapons, otherwise it'd be too confusing.

I still think there's no need for a fundamental change that will confuse most players. I'd rather see current ''problematic'' small weapons fixed, or maybe add some new cheap ones.