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[Vayra]

the thumper is bad; everyone knows it's bad; it's especially bad since residual armor became a thing; it's arguably unusably bad and certainly less good than, say, putting an arbalest there and hoping for the best, which is itself still worse than downsizing to a railgun, and probably will continue to be so in 0.95 unless the arbalest's base damage increases to 200 and its RoF decreases commensurately, but that's okay because weapon rarity i think

it's okay for a gun to be bad but it'd be nice if it was at least cheap and bad, or if it's going to stay not-cheap it'd be nice if it was less bad at the things it is already sort of usable for - those being murdering frigates and slow-moving fighters

as such i propose the following buffs:

1) drop that OP cost, it'd be a mediocre choice at 7 right now and even with one of the buffs below it'd probably be okay at 7 or 8
and/or either
2a) bump base damage up (possibly combined with increasing chargedown between bursts), so it murders frigates more effectively
or
2b) give it a constant, fast RoF (possibly combined with lowering base damage) and raise projectile speed slightly, so it murders fighters more effectively

please sign my petition to save the humble thumper

[Knight Chase]

I like the thumper at 7 OP 

[ScytheSe7en]

Thumper buffs are 

[Phearlock]

Make Bambis friend relevant again.

(and the lack of enough good anti fighter weapons in vanilla right now do make option 2b pretty nice yes)

[braciszek]

The thumper needs something as i barely give it a passing glance and there are others that also feel underwhelmed by its performance. A Pd_also tag, just something

[ScytheSe7en]

How would changing the efficiency of using the Thumper affect Jangala's status vis-a-vis stellar submersion?

[Grievous69]

Yes please, I can't wrap my head around the stupidly high OP cost when the Heavy Mortar is 7 OP, hell even a Light Assault Gun has more uses. I somehow even saw people defend it saying it has a niche. And unfortunately I have to agree with them, its niche is being laughably pathetic.

Relevant topic that's still fresh http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=18818

[ScytheSe7en]

Yes please, I can't wrap my head around the stupidly high OP cost when the Heavy Mortar is 7 OP, hell even a Light Assault Gun has more uses. I somehow even saw people defend it saying it has a niche. And unfortunately I have to agree with them, its niche is being laughably pathetic.

Relevant topic that's still fresh http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=18818

Yes, absolutely yes. In addition, I feel this topic is even more highly relevant: https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=19798.0

[Thaago]

I agree 100% that the Thumper is too weak for its OP cost compared to all other guns. I'm not completely sure thats undesirable though, because imo there is some gameplay value in having a bad option or two. It gives new players something to identify as bad and then not use (system mastery progression) as well as lets them laugh maniacally when blowing up the poor pirate ships using them.

And then there is that special sense of embarrassment that happens when an enemy with thumpers manages to blow me up because I've been flying very badly...

[Megas]

Thumper is a passable early NPC weapon because it is fast and I have trouble seeing the shots, which make them hard to dodge for humans that cannot see them.  (Cannot dodge what I cannot see.)  AI does not have that problem.

It is also passable for early use when enemies dodge the relatively slow Arbalest and Mortars, but not Thumper.  Of course, the ships need to have lots of mounts to cover both kinetic and HE before indulging in Thumper.

However, 9 OP costs too much.  I usually want another Arbalest or Mortar over Thumper.  The only reason to use Thumper early is if I do not have enough weapons to properly outfit all of my ships.

[SCC]

I wouldn't mind Thumper becoming a ballistic anti-fighter gun. Frag damage stops it from doing much to other ships and it's very rare to be able to afford to spare a mount for a thumper, instead of getting (more) PD, kinetic or high explosives.

[Amoebka]

I agree that Thumper needs a buff, but I don't want it to become a dedicated pd/anti-figther weapon. We already have HMG and 2 flaks.

Ideally, I would want Thumper to be good at its intended purpose - murdering hull after the armor is gone. Even if it requires unelegant special treatment like "ignores minimum armor" or something.

[SCC]

HMG is kinda a PD weapon, like Assault Chaingun, but it's much better (and more often used) as SO weapon. Flaks are point defence to the bone, they make for poor anti-fighter weapons.

[Amoebka]

Anti-fighter medium ballistic is Heavy Needler. Much better vs shielded fighters, same damage to unshielded ones, and useful for ship-to-ship combat too.

[intrinsic_parity]

To be anti-fighter, a weapon needs the anti-fighter PD tag, otherwise it will ignore fighters to target ships. Also, the needler has poor accuracy, has long infrequent bursts, and costs 15 OP, so it's not really an anti-fighter weapon IMO, although it does ok at that. It's mostly pure shield break against large ships IMO.