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Author Topic: One of the new weapons needs a buff [Spoilers - you have been warned]  (Read 4215 times)

Wyvern

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So most of the new weapons I've gotten have been... well, really pretty nice.

And then there's the Shock Repeater. Which, uh, basically doesn't work? It's a PD weapon that, due to low range, low DPS, and low per-hit damage, doesn't actually manage to kill incoming missiles. Or do much to fighters. Or, well, do much of anything except waste your flux, really. I mean, it's kindof okay-ish as an EMP source against unshielded targets? But so are ion cannons, and ion cannons are longer range, lower OP cost, vastly lower flux cost, and can apply EMP through shields. (Edit: No they can not. Not sure why I thought they could.)

So, yeah. Does anyone have a use for these things?

The only other underperforming-ish weapon is the Disintegrator, and that's an AI issue rather than anything wrong with the gun: the AI doesn't count in its special hit proc against armor, and thus in flux-limited firing situations (i.e. basically all the time), it'll turn off the disintegrators even if it really needs them to chew through heavy armor.
On paper, a combo of kinetic weapon + disintegrator + cryoblaster is amazingly potent. In actuality it's only potent for the player, because the AI will just turn the disintegrator(s) off and never fire them at high-flux or overloaded targets.
« Last Edit: April 12, 2021, 10:14:09 AM by Wyvern »
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MesoTroniK

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Re: One of the new weapons needs a buff [Spoilers - you have been warned]
« Reply #1 on: April 12, 2021, 01:49:01 AM »

I think the Shock Repeater is all right, it shines since it will often disarm the warheads of missiles.

Anyways it would be incredibly OP if the autofire AI used it intelligently, and did not continue to fire it at missiles which are already disarmed heh.

Alex

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Re: One of the new weapons needs a buff [Spoilers - you have been warned]
« Reply #2 on: April 12, 2021, 09:10:27 AM »

But so are ion cannons, and ion cannons are longer range, lower OP cost, vastly lower flux cost, and can apply EMP through shields.

Hmm - I'm fairly sure they can't do that. If they can, it's a bug.

For the Shock Repeater - huh, really? It's going to disarm missiles in one shot and can't miss. And it's good EMP damage vs ships. I'll have to have another look at it, but just remembering kitting out a Medusa with a bunch of these and it was pretty scary.
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Harmful Mechanic

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Re: One of the new weapons needs a buff [Spoilers - you have been warned]
« Reply #3 on: April 12, 2021, 09:52:31 AM »

It's not in need of a buff; high-end, endgame factions need design weaknesses and oddball or single-purpose PD is a good one (so is poor performance vs. shields and crappy flux efficiency). Also, Rift Beams exist, and fill in nicely for Shock Repeaters.

For the player, Shock Repeaters aren't viable as sole or primary PD, but they spice up an LRPD Laser net very nicely.
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Anvel

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Re: One of the new weapons needs a buff [Spoilers - you have been warned]
« Reply #4 on: April 12, 2021, 10:13:02 AM »

The only hyper weapon that sucks and needs to be buffed is disintegrator(compared to cryoblaster pure joke)
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Wyvern

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Re: One of the new weapons needs a buff [Spoilers - you have been warned]
« Reply #5 on: April 12, 2021, 10:13:42 AM »

...Huh. I'd've sworn that the Ion Cannon had the whole shield-penetrating arcs at high hard flux thing going, same as ion beam or tachyon lance. Apparently it does not.

The Shock Repeater does not disarm missiles, though - just went and tested that. Disable missile engines? Yes. Disarm? No. Means they're trash at countering torpedo strikes (or sabots but that's because of the range), but good against salamanders - exactly what I don't need on my 360-shielded Auroras.

A medusa is probably a pretty optimal platform for the things; agile enough to dodge missiles once they stop tracking, and fast enough to get in close for the range thing to not matter. So that'd be nice if, y'know, the medusa was actually relevant by the time you can get any of these guns? (Do I even have a medusa in my current save file? ...No, I do not.)
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Alex

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Re: One of the new weapons needs a buff [Spoilers - you have been warned]
« Reply #6 on: April 12, 2021, 10:17:09 AM »

The Shock Repeater does not disarm missiles, though - just went and tested that. Disable missile engines? Yes. Disarm? No.

Ah, good point.

So that'd be nice if, y'know, the medusa was actually relevant by the time you can get any of these guns?

You can get a smattering of smaller Omega weapons very early.
Spoiler
Hidden cache in Alpha Site.
[close]
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Wyvern

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Re: One of the new weapons needs a buff [Spoilers - you have been warned]
« Reply #7 on: April 12, 2021, 10:38:03 AM »

So that'd be nice if, y'know, the medusa was actually relevant by the time you can get any of these guns?

You can get a smattering of smaller Omega weapons very early.
Spoiler
Hidden cache in Alpha Site.
[close]
Well, dang. I'd missed that the first time around, and then - not having found anything before - never thought to spool up the Neutrino Detector. (Might not have even had volatiles on me at the time? Unsure. Don't really make a habit of carrying those around; it's just a nuisance.)
Edit: Or, poking around again, maybe I did spool it up but just didn't move around enough? The real signal there is very subtle at first, and gets rather easily lost in the noise and false-positives.

...Didn't net me any shock repeaters, but I did get another pair of antimatter SRM launchers, so that's good.

Speaking of, is there a good way to locate the Alpha Site again after you've visited it? I happened to remember where it was, but there doesn't seem to be any sort of lasting story intel or map marker that'd point to it after your first visit.
« Last Edit: April 12, 2021, 10:43:53 AM by Wyvern »
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Amoebka

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Re: One of the new weapons needs a buff [Spoilers - you have been warned]
« Reply #8 on: April 12, 2021, 10:49:39 AM »

Well, its location isn't random at all. It spawns in the same place for all seeds. So you can simply look up where it is if you forgot.
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SCC

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Re: One of the new weapons needs a buff [Spoilers - you have been warned]
« Reply #9 on: April 12, 2021, 10:55:31 AM »

Speaking of, is there a good way to locate the Alpha Site again after you've visited it? I happened to remember where it was, but there doesn't seem to be any sort of lasting story intel or map marker that'd point to it after your first visit.
How do you find it in the first place? I went straight for it, once I realised Hamatsu had transverse jump, so I had to go where you can't go normally, and I managed to spot a lone gravity well approximately thirty minutes into the game...

Amoebka

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Re: One of the new weapons needs a buff [Spoilers - you have been warned]
« Reply #10 on: April 12, 2021, 10:59:27 AM »

You go to Hybrasil to ask about Kelise, your buddy Arroyo sends you on a wild chase after some beacon in a remote system where you get hunted by a full phase fleet with triple s-mods, you find the beacon and it points you to the alpha site.
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SCC

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Re: One of the new weapons needs a buff [Spoilers - you have been warned]
« Reply #11 on: April 12, 2021, 11:00:37 AM »

I was in the system, I saw the fleet, but I apparently missed the beacon. Oh well.

Wyvern

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Re: One of the new weapons needs a buff [Spoilers - you have been warned]
« Reply #12 on: April 14, 2021, 09:50:15 PM »

Well, did some more tinkering, now with a Medusa. And - excluding SO-based builds where the Shock Repeater's high flux cost is basically ignorable - I've managed to find all of one build where using one of the things works.

The problem, of course, is that 'works' isn't the best measure of things; the same build with the Shock Repeater replaced with burstpd or lrpd also works, after all.

(Also, it's a terribly asymmetric build that offends my sensibilities just on general principles; one pulse laser, one cryoflamer, a minipulser in a hardpoint, a minipulser in a forward small turret, the shock repeater in the other forward small turret, an lrpd in the rear turret opposite the shock repeater to provide 360 PD coverage, the other two rear turrets empty, and last but certainly not least an antimatter SRM launcher in the other hardpoint. This terrifying amalgamation is effective yes, there's no doubt of that... but... I don't actually want to fly it.)
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Flying Birdy

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Re: One of the new weapons needs a buff [Spoilers - you have been warned]
« Reply #13 on: April 16, 2021, 12:31:18 AM »

I was in the system, I saw the fleet, but I apparently missed the beacon. Oh well.

You can find the location of the cache (without looking it up) if you use neutrino detector. You can go back and find it at any point.

Edit: just realized you were talking about the alpha site system. The beacons are in the same system as the fleet; you do need to spool up neutrino detectors if the map generation created a rather large system as finding the beacons can be challenging in a larger system.

« Last Edit: April 16, 2021, 12:41:14 AM by Flying Birdy »
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MesoTroniK

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Re: One of the new weapons needs a buff [Spoilers - you have been warned]
« Reply #14 on: April 17, 2021, 04:06:05 PM »

The Shock Repeater does not disarm missiles, though - just went and tested that. Disable missile engines? Yes. Disarm? No. Means they're trash at countering torpedo strikes (or sabots but that's because of the range), but good against salamanders - exactly what I don't need on my 360-shielded Auroras.
Oops, you are indeed correct... Not sure why I thought they did, sorry :(