Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[AzianPowah]

I feel as if ballistic HE weapons have been left behind as of 0.95.

Comparing the mediums with kinetics of the same class: there are five kinetics (arbalest, heavy autocannon, hypervelocity driver, and heavy needler, and heavy machinegun) yet only three high explosives (heavy mortar, heavy mauler, and assault chaingun). The heavy mortar is most similar to the arbalest; it's cheap (in terms of ordinance points), flux efficient, inaccurate, and tops out at 700 range. Likewise, heavy maulers have a similar role to hypervelocity drivers; 1000 range, decent accuracy, and decent per-shot damage at the cost of being a bit more expensive to mount. From these two comparisons alone, it's clear that there's a missing/unfulfilled niche for medium HE. None of the current vanilla options can range match with the heavy autocannons at 800 range, and there's a gap between the 7 OP of the mortar and the 12 OP of the mauler.

In addition, non-large HE ballistics are inferior at cracking armor compared to energy weapons of similar size. The hardest hitting medium HE, the mauler, does 200 damage per shot which translates to 400 damage vs. armor. Discounting the mining blaster, the hardest hitting medium energy would be the heavy blaster, which punches for 500 energy damage per shot. As a more extreme example, the antimatter blaster is better at cracking armor than every single HE ballistic save for the hellbore cannon.

Proposal: The addition of one or two small/medium HE ballistic weapons that fill these above missing roles.

[FooF]

This has been discussed extensively before (can't remember where but within the last 6 months or so).

A few things to note:

1.) An HE weapon that is roughly the equivalent of the Heavy Autocannon would be absolute murder against Frigates. Relatively fast ROF, long-range, and accurate, Frigates wouldn't be able to deal with this kind of weapon at all. Once shields go down, they'd get peppered to death. Think Medium Assault Gun: just a constant stream of accurate shots at decent range. The HAG gets away with it because its a Large Mount and those aren't that common but Medium mounts are a dime-a-dozen and most Ballistics are efficient for what they do.

2.) A weapon like this would essentially make the others obsolete because it would be 80% of all the others, just combined into one package. It wouldn't be the best at any one thing but its downsides would be negligible relative to the others, beyond OP cost, perhaps. Armor penetrating power would probably be low-ish but if its accurate, it will land most of its shots, and at range.

3.) Missiles exist, and most of them do HE damage. Alex pointed out that if you make HE Ballistics too powerful, they start to encroach on the niche that missiles have as a strike weapon. A more "general-use" Medium HE weapon would simply be too competitive relative to Missiles.

I'm not a big fan the "hole" in Medium HE but I get why it exists.

The only suggestion I would make, I think, is re-purpose the the Heavy Mortar into more of a "Hellbore-Lite" than it is currently and add a new Medium HE weapon virtually identical to the current Heavy Mortar but with 800 range that costs 10 OP that's slightly more "general-use" but still has the slow shot speed. Maybe reduce the spread by a little and increase damage to 120x2 (flux cost would be 100/shot, up from 90). It would still be an inaccurate weapon but it would at least have 800 range to pair with the Heavy AC.

The new Heavy Mortar would be a dedicated anti-armor round, something like 350 damage, but slow shot speed/reload and 700 range. Still 7 OP, though and wildly efficient for what it does. You just won't be hitting Frigates with it.

[bobucles]

Foof knocked it out of the park. Weapons don't exist in a vacuum. Medium ballistics always have some friendly missiles to go with them, creating a common one-two punch of kinetic bullets followed by HE torpedoes.

[Lucky33]

This has been discussed extensively before (can't remember where but within the last 6 months or so).

1.) An HE weapon that is roughly the equivalent of the Heavy Autocannon would be absolute murder against Frigates. Relatively fast ROF, long-range, and accurate, Frigates wouldn't be able to deal with this kind of weapon at all. Once shields go down, they'd get peppered to death. Think Medium Assault Gun: just a constant stream of accurate shots at decent range. The HAG gets away with it because its a Large Mount and those aren't that common but Medium mounts are a dime-a-dozen and most Ballistics are efficient for what they do.

You should check Phase Lances and Heavy Blasters when you have time.

[Amoebka]

Phase lance doesn't have 800 range and can't deal hard flux. Heavy blaster is one of the least flux efficient weapons in the game. Your point?

[Lucky33]

Phase lance doesn't have 800 range and can't deal hard flux. Heavy blaster is one of the least flux efficient weapons in the game. Your point?

Actually it has much more range with Advanced Optics, ITU and Gunnery Implants. Triple Lances deal enough soft flux to overload and pop most of the frigates. From the Medusa and higher, ships can run a single HB while flux neutral. SO ships can run up to three.

My point is pretty simple - frigates will not even notice the addition of another medium dps HE weapon compared to whats going on now. Honestly it will be the other way around. More of the specialized low tech weapon and on these ships replacing flux efficient mortars with less efficient but costlier new one will endanger fragile flux balance.

[AzianPowah]

This has been discussed extensively before (can't remember where but within the last 6 months or so).

A few things to note:

1.) An HE weapon that is roughly the equivalent of the Heavy Autocannon would be absolute murder against Frigates. Relatively fast ROF, long-range, and accurate, Frigates wouldn't be able to deal with this kind of weapon at all. Once shields go down, they'd get peppered to death. Think Medium Assault Gun: just a constant stream of accurate shots at decent range. The HAG gets away with it because its a Large Mount and those aren't that common but Medium mounts are a dime-a-dozen and most Ballistics are efficient for what they do.

2.) A weapon like this would essentially make the others obsolete because it would be 80% of all the others, just combined into one package. It wouldn't be the best at any one thing but its downsides would be negligible relative to the others, beyond OP cost, perhaps. Armor penetrating power would probably be low-ish but if its accurate, it will land most of its shots, and at range.

3.) Missiles exist, and most of them do HE damage. Alex pointed out that if you make HE Ballistics too powerful, they start to encroach on the niche that missiles have as a strike weapon. A more "general-use" Medium HE weapon would simply be too competitive relative to Missiles.

I'm not a big fan the "hole" in Medium HE but I get why it exists.

The only suggestion I would make, I think, is re-purpose the the Heavy Mortar into more of a "Hellbore-Lite" than it is currently and add a new Medium HE weapon virtually identical to the current Heavy Mortar but with 800 range that costs 10 OP that's slightly more "general-use" but still has the slow shot speed. Maybe reduce the spread by a little and increase damage to 120x2 (flux cost would be 100/shot, up from 90). It would still be an inaccurate weapon but it would at least have 800 range to pair with the Heavy AC.

The new Heavy Mortar would be a dedicated anti-armor round, something like 350 damage, but slow shot speed/reload and 700 range. Still 7 OP, though and wildly efficient for what it does. You just won't be hitting Frigates with it.

I partially disagree with (1). A 1-1 HE equivalent of the Heavy Autocannon wouldn't be accurate; it's one of the most inaccurate weapons in the game, which balances out its relatively high 800 range against agile targets (i.e. frigates). I do agree that a "Medium Assault Gun" would be very overtuned on paper though. For example: 80 damage per shot, 0.25 refire delay, decent range and accuracy comparable to the other assault guns; a weapon like this would be way too good.

(2) is more of a corollary to (1). It should be possible to solve both by giving this new medium HE weapon tangible downsides. Maybe in the Medium Assault Gun scenario, tuning the damage per shot down to 60 or 70 might be enough to not instantly delete frigates and small ships. Or a new weapon with good armor penetrating power (maybe around 200 to 250 damage per shot) could be some combination of flux inefficient, inaccurate at long range, or long delay between shots.

(3) definitely makes a lot of sense though. I didn't really consider missiles in my initial thoughts.

Your proposed suggestions are interesting. I actually like the heavy mortar where it currently is as a cheap option. The issue in vanilla right now is that it's sometimes the only option if you don't need the 1000 range from the heavy mauler. It should be possible to balance a new "hellbore lite" weapon around, say, 10 to 11 ordinance points. 350 damage per shot, however, would be too much in my opinion, since it's approaching the territory where missiles should be used instead.

As an aside, what makes "generalist" HE weapons more problematic than generalist kinetic weapons? Railguns (especially when they were 7 OP) kind of fit this role: relatively high damage per shot, perfect accuracy, good range for its weapon size, and flux efficiency to boot. I'd also argue that hypervelocity drivers are a generalist weapon (although at long range), since they really have everything; it's a 1000 range kinetic that doesn't suffer too much against armor due to high damage per shot, has perfect accuracy, and also comes with an EMP effect for free.

[Grievous69]

In every one of these threads people always forget projectile speed is a thing. You don't want the new weapon to absolutely destroy frigates? Easy, just make it slow enough so frigates can dodge it, I don't see where the problem is. As was already mentioned, burst beams are the true frigate killer. Not to mention that every single frigate that is worth using relies heavily on shields, which means the proposed weapon wouldn't pose any threat.

[Ad Astra]

As was already mentioned, burst beams are the true frigate killer.

Tell me about it, I'm here trying to kill the quad tachyon lance radiant guarding the red planet with a frigate only no spec mods fleet.

[FooF]

In every one of these threads people always forget projectile speed is a thing. You don't want the new weapon to absolutely destroy frigates? Easy, just make it slow enough so frigates can dodge it, I don't see where the problem is. As was already mentioned, burst beams are the true frigate killer. Not to mention that every single frigate that is worth using relies heavily on shields, which means the proposed weapon wouldn't pose any threat.

That was my solution with the Heavy Mortar "split." The Heavy Mortar, as it is, really is the generalist weapon but its range is low. I think I'd prefer a "Heavy Mortar" with 800 range that costs more OP and something to replace the "cheap" option that still has a place in HE lineup. The point of my post is that anything resembling Medium Assault Gun is bad for balance.

@AzianPowah

Generalist Kinetic weapons are "ok" because of the reverse logic. There aren't very many Kinetic missiles and Kinetics are aimed at defeating a defense with effectively infinite hitpoints (shields). If shields go down against HE, you get roasted. If shields go down against Kinetics, you still have armor. There's simply more room for Kinetics to operate in a balanced way. The HVD is a bit of an outlier because it's long-range, accurate, and has a decent punch but its overall DPS against armor is anemic relative to a true HE weapon (especially for the flux cost) . It's also an expensive weapon to mount. It has enough downsides that it doesn't out-compete everything, even its other Kinetic cousins.

The true generalist, the Pulse Laser, doesn't seem to come up all that often because it's so middle-of-the-road that no one notices. However if it had 800 range, it'd be terrifying against smaller ships. An HE weapon of a similar caliber would be doubly-so. It's not that generalist weapons are bad but HE, in particular, has the most opportunity to do "real" damage, hence why it has to be approached with more caution.

[Retry]

@AzianPowah

Generalist Kinetic weapons are "ok" because of the reverse logic. There aren't very many Kinetic missiles and Kinetics are aimed at defeating a defense with effectively infinite hitpoints (shields). If shields go down against HE, you get roasted. If shields go down against Kinetics, you still have armor. There's simply more room for Kinetics to operate in a balanced way. The HVD is a bit of an outlier because it's long-range, accurate, and has a decent punch but its overall DPS against armor is anemic relative to a true HE weapon (especially for the flux cost) . It's also an expensive weapon to mount. It has enough downsides that it doesn't out-compete everything, even its other Kinetic cousins.

Sabots pretty much dominate the entire design space of Kinetic missiles, there's not really much room for any similarly effective kinetic missiles to exist without breaking current game balance.  And does the number of available missile designs of a given type actually mean anything on the player-facing side?  Presumably you're not fitting the an equal number of Thumpers and Arbalests as you're fitting HACs and HVDs.

Maybe AI fleets care about it due to however their fleet's autofit reserves are done under the hood, but the player is not bound by such restrictions.  Sabots dominate my small and medium missile slots with about half of them using them due to their sheer effectiveness and utility.  The other half is filled with the other 90% or so of missile types, of those the vast majority of slots consist of Hammer (cheap + reliable) or Reaper (sheer power).  Many of the HE missiles that are theoretically a part of the base arsenal are so inconsequential for one reason or another that their only purpose seems to be making the OPFOR slightly easier to face (When's the last time you've used a Proximity Charge Launcher and thought you were getting a great value with it?)

Medium and large kinetic ballistics (and even smalls, when considering Railguns) already have sufficient raw DPS and hitting power to quickly get through frigate-grade armor.  This is especially true in RC15, where IM1's nerf to its residual armor and loss in anti-kinetic has severely compromised the ability of small hulls to tank heavy (or in the case of frigates, any) levels of incoming kinetic firepower.  Low base armor values mean both your damage reduction value and a low total armor HP value, which simply means that frigate-level armor gets shaved very quickly regardless.  Much of the time I'm shaving off the armor of a hostile frigate by accident, hitting with a HAC barrage, a few HVD bolts sneaking past the shields, or through the overly zealous application of a Sabot Pod barrage (this one can straight-up instagib lighter frigates under the right conditions).

An 800 range Pulse Laser wouldn't be a generalist in the current paradigm, it'd be a busted high-tech weapon of attrition.  That has absolutely nothing to do with frigates; perfectly accurate, good DPS with reasonable efficiency on a medium energy mount, projecting hard flux at ranges in excess of cheap ballistic guns and only matched by HACs and specialty weapons, is the type of thing that negates all the other medium energy weapons outside of specialty roles.

[Stormlock]

I think there's definitely a lot of design space we're not considering here. Adding a medium HE mount that fires in a volley or even something like a shotgun burst, or has some other sort of special effect would be very interesting without the problems of taking an existing kinetic gun and switching the damage type. For that matter, it always struck me as very odd that expanded magazines applied to energy weapons as opposed to ballistics. Lots of room there.

[c plus one]

For that matter, it always struck me as very odd that expanded magazines applied to energy weapons as opposed to ballistics. Lots of room there.

It did formerly apply to both, back when ballistic guns had a finite ammo limit. That was numerous game-versions ago, and isn't coming back.

[Pratapon51]

Way back when Low-Tech ships weren't regularly overfluxed by their armaments and instead ran dry. 

[Stormlock]

For that matter, it always struck me as very odd that expanded magazines applied to energy weapons as opposed to ballistics. Lots of room there.

It did formerly apply to both, back when ballistic guns had a finite ammo limit. That was numerous game-versions ago, and isn't coming back.

There's a bit of room between 'all balistic guns have finite ammo' and 'ballistic guns never have ammo of any kind'.

Is there any good reason we can't have a HE equivalent of the antimatter gun or ion pulser? With it's own style obviously, no need to copy them closely.