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Author Topic: Beam weapons need a buff  (Read 9789 times)

Maethendias

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Re: Beam weapons need a buff
« Reply #30 on: April 08, 2021, 12:46:57 PM »

They really do, Tachyon and phase lances, and pd lasers are the only beam weapons worth using.....

tachyon and phase lances arent beams, they are... lances

and pd lasers are by far the worst pd in the game, safe for mining lasers...

and not by much
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Maethendias

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Re: Beam weapons need a buff
« Reply #31 on: April 08, 2021, 12:49:10 PM »

Just to chuck in my 'too sense'. Beams are fine for the reasons already mentioned. They are pressure weapons.

pressure that hurts YOU more than it hurts the ai you pressure...

again, you dont want them venting or dropping their shields to passive vent OUTSIDE of your weapon ranges
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Thaago

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Re: Beam weapons need a buff
« Reply #32 on: April 08, 2021, 12:56:00 PM »

Beams apply "soft" flux. They don't move the hard flux subbar up at all, but increase total flux instead. For enemy ships that are not firing, it can seem like the beams do nothing if the incoming flux is less than their dissipation. However, if they are firing, their flux will rapidly increase.

To see for yourself - fight the sim eagle with 3 graviton beams with your shields up. For any ship without fantastic shields/dissipation, it really impacts how much you can fire.
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Maethendias

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Re: Beam weapons need a buff
« Reply #33 on: April 08, 2021, 01:29:54 PM »

Beams apply "soft" flux. They don't move the hard flux subbar up at all, but increase total flux instead. For enemy ships that are not firing, it can seem like the beams do nothing if the incoming flux is less than their dissipation. However, if they are firing, their flux will rapidly increase.

To see for yourself - fight the sim eagle with 3 graviton beams with your shields up. For any ship without fantastic shields/dissipation, it really impacts how much you can fire.

aka any ship you could already kill with weapons that would do the job much faster
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HUcast

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Re: Beam weapons need a buff
« Reply #34 on: April 08, 2021, 01:54:42 PM »

The problem with beam weapons that I see is that on paper they are good for pressuring an opponent. But in practice, with real shield efficiency values, that is almost never the case. In the actual game environment, especially now with officer spam, the actual threats to the player never have shields at 1.0 efficiency, that beingthe value most people cite who think they are good pressure tools. Most revenant ships have better than .5 with skills, even midline ships easily beat 1.0. At values like those, killing an enemy through soft Flux or even giving him pause with it is impossible. A pressure tool for the enemy now builds up substantially more Flux on you than then them. For beam weapons to be worth the far worse dps and lack of hard Flux they need to be able to give you some kind of an advantage... and I suppose that might bring up the thought; "hey, so what? All weapons have to deal with better shields too." The main difference is that they still inflict hard Flux. Being inefficient against enemy soft Flux is worse than doing nothing at all.

If I had to present a solution, I would change beams into complete pressure weapons, starting out very, very weak and inefficient at first, but over the course of 5 to 10 seconds of direct burn becoming more and more efficient and deadly. That or a quick fix of making them actually doing something against armor, which only the high intensity laser can do at the moment, and that has the disadvantage of being even WORSE against shields, if that's even possible.
« Last Edit: April 08, 2021, 02:19:01 PM by HUcast »
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Retry

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Re: Beam weapons need a buff
« Reply #35 on: April 08, 2021, 02:01:40 PM »

They really do, Tachyon and phase lances, and pd lasers are the only beam weapons worth using.....
tachyon and phase lances arent beams, they are... lances
Let's see how long we can go through each of those weapon's descriptions before we encounter the word "Beam".

Tachyon Lance
"A burst operated beam..."

Phase Lance
"A short-range, short-duration beam..."
the problem with beams is the way their dps works...


cause it doesnt actually do as much dps as is stated
Enlighten us with specifics.  If that's actually true, that is a bug.
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Darloth

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Re: Beam weapons need a buff
« Reply #36 on: April 08, 2021, 03:53:02 PM »

While I don't have enough data or experience to have a solid opinion on whether beams are ok or not vs ships, I can tell you one use-case where they are pretty excellent.

Beams kill fighters.  Any beam, doesn't matter  - but tactical lasers, phase lances, and even graviton beams will do the trick.  Fighters can't dodge them and don't usually have the armour to stop them for long, unlike ships.   They kill fighters from very far away and without costing a great deal.  Is this enough of a niche? I don't know yet - but it -*is* a niche that nothing else really excels at, at least at those ranges.
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Rauschkind

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Re: Beam weapons need a buff
« Reply #37 on: April 08, 2021, 04:33:34 PM »

could be me not understanding these weapons but yeah, there are only two beam weapons i ever use and one i only ever use on the paragon.

the one beam weapon i do use a lot is high intensity laser. it is really bad against shields of course, but once shield are down its just nuts damage. very good weapon i think, but of course it needs to be combined with weapons that cause hard flux.

i also use tac lasers on the paragon which i give point defense ai. hull bonus and lots of small energy slots make this worth while on the paragon but on few other ships. champion is another good option too, with 8 small energy mounts. however, a single paragon pretty much is enough pd for the whole fleet.

i read a lot that tach laser or whas it called is good but i dont like it. aside of the emp its a rather weak weapon i think, but the emp needs shield down or at least some hard flux on the target. at that point, high intensity laser is much more effective.
plus, i use a lot of ion pulsers. i dont really need more emp.
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cerberusti

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Re: Beam weapons need a buff
« Reply #38 on: April 08, 2021, 04:40:18 PM »

To each their own I suppose.

I default to graviton for slots which can hold it, and high intensity lasers are a real contender for large slots. 

Flux generated by gravitons makes their offense much less.  Most ships are not balanced with more flux dissipation than their weapons generate, and so they do much less shooting when under fire.  It also helps keep anything entering somewhat long range under fire, with its shields up, for very little flux cost.

The HIL is murderous in player hands, I can win against a mighty fleet with a sunder and a HIL.  It opens up armor very easily, has long range, and is easy to aim perfectly.  Soft flux does not matter so much as I generally do not fire it at targets with shields up.  In a turret it clears fighters and small ships very quickly, assuming you can power it.

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RemnantAI

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Re: Beam weapons need a buff
« Reply #39 on: April 08, 2021, 05:22:26 PM »

A major benefit of beams is the accuracy, except the Particle/Tach lance, due to delay.
Beams can hit pesky frigates, missiles, fighters, and don't waste shots... Except the damn lances, which is a shame. Long range point defense can actually be a detriment, because inaccurate projectiles will waste flux, and get distracted from imminent threats. Firing into inaccurate range could mean less damage on a missile before it lands due to weapon delay.
I think the main problem is that there are not enough beams in various roles, and complimentary ranges to be effective. Burst beams have too few charges, don't get the full bonus of expanded magazines, and regenerate too slowly.

The Paladin is actually pretty potent with High Scatter. It isn't as crazy as Tach lances, but suffers from being PD and only getting the 60% range bonus instead of 100% on a Paragon.
30 Paladin beams with hard flux can be unloaded fairly quickly for a great deal of precise damage. Unfortunately there is not a medium slot counter part.

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Maethendias

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Re: Beam weapons need a buff
« Reply #40 on: April 08, 2021, 05:25:48 PM »

A major benefit of beams is the accuracy, except the Particle/Tach lance, due to delay.
Beams can hit pesky frigates, missiles, fighters, and don't waste shots... Except the damn lances, which is a shame. Long range point defense can actually be a detriment, because inaccurate projectiles will waste flux, and get distracted from imminent threats. Firing into inaccurate range could mean less damage on a missile before it lands due to weapon delay.
I think the main problem is that there are not enough beams in various roles, and complimentary ranges to be effective. Burst beams have too few charges, don't get the full bonus of expanded magazines, and regenerate too slowly.

The Paladin is actually pretty potent with High Scatter. It isn't as crazy as Tach lances, but suffers from being PD and only getting the 60% range bonus instead of 100% on a Paragon.
30 Paladin beams with hard flux can be unloaded fairly quickly for a great deal of precise damage. Unfortunately there is not a medium slot counter part.

pro tip: use phaselances for shrikes in the medium instead of mining lasers or blasters

i can only recommend it
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Thaago

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Re: Beam weapons need a buff
« Reply #41 on: April 08, 2021, 06:30:35 PM »

Seconded for shrikes for phase lances, especially backed up by a couple IR pulses or a railgun on the pirate one. A boring old pulse laser + an antimatter blaster is also a good combo.
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Warnoise

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Re: Beam weapons need a buff
« Reply #42 on: April 08, 2021, 06:41:38 PM »

Again, beams are supposed to be support weapons, not main damage weapons. Other some fee exceptions like the tachyon Lance, beams are mainly used to support main damage weapons at low flux cost. I have an eagle with 2 gravitons and 1 ion beam and they do their job pretty well as a long range pressure weapon
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sotanaht

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Re: Beam weapons need a buff
« Reply #43 on: April 08, 2021, 07:00:02 PM »

Again, beams are supposed to be support weapons, not main damage weapons. Other some fee exceptions like the tachyon Lance, beams are mainly used to support main damage weapons at low flux cost. I have an eagle with 2 gravitons and 1 ion beam and they do their job pretty well as a long range pressure weapon
If they cost more than they do AFTER you consider the effect of spending that same OP on vents, they are worse than useless: they hurt you more than they hurt the enemy.  Remember that.  The OP matters as part of their flux cost, because it's vents you won't have.  If you're filling slots with beams theres absolutely no way you are going to max out vents/caps, even without including the flux hullmods.
« Last Edit: April 08, 2021, 07:01:55 PM by sotanaht »
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Retry

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Re: Beam weapons need a buff
« Reply #44 on: April 08, 2021, 08:07:38 PM »

Again, beams are supposed to be support weapons, not main damage weapons. Other some fee exceptions like the tachyon Lance, beams are mainly used to support main damage weapons at low flux cost. I have an eagle with 2 gravitons and 1 ion beam and they do their job pretty well as a long range pressure weapon
If they cost more than they do AFTER you consider the effect of spending that same OP on vents
This is at odds with how ship outfitting actually works; Vents are finite resouces with a defined maximum value, and dissipation is of such great importance that sound design practices for the vast majority of warships (Pure carriers, Phase ships, and Civillian vessels are the only exceptions) has one maximizing vents on said warship by default, and only digging into them if one must do so to make a build work.  There's no consideration of what you can do after spending the same OP on vents because your vents are already maximized.

Eagle is a good example of this, with 850 flux dissipation with vents maxed (and a bit more if Flux Distributor is also installed), the most important slots of this ship are the front-mounted Medium Ballistics.  When using most ballistic options (ex: HVDs, Heavy Maulers, Heavy Mortars, HACs), you're already utilizing 1/2 to 3/4 of your flux dissipation already, before considering your own shield upkeep.  The second-most important slots of this ship are the turreted Medium Energies.  All of those, however, are far more flux-intensive than the Ballistics that are already taking up most of your flux budget.

All of those except the Graviton Beam, that is.  At 75 flux/s it's not heavy to run at all and can operate freely alongside your more-important ballistics without impeding operations, producing 200 soft flux damage per second on hitting shields.

And yes, you can fill out the 3 energies with things like Gravitons while maintaining full vents + Distributor and all the other components necessary for a competent warship.
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