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[BigBrainEnergy]

The current HSA is extremely niche, but the way it's designed it NEEDS to be because the main feature of beams is that they do soft flux damage so if HSA became common it would de-uniquify them. So what if it was different. Instead of changing 100% of beam damage to hard flux (with a massive range penalty), it could convert 0% to 100% of the damage into hard flux based on how close you are to the target. It doesn't have to be perfectly linear scaling either, it can stay at 0% hard flux at the furthest 10% of the beam while the closest 20% of the beam is fully hard flux.

Example tactical laser:
0-200 range is 100% hard flux
600 range is ~42% hard flux
900-1000 range is 0% hard flux

[Megas]

If it does any amount of hard flux, it will be used to kite from long range, which people did years ago with mods that added this feature.  It takes longer to build up their hard flux with fractional hard flux, but it got there eventually, which meant attacker simply kited longer.

Beam having full range but only does hard flux up to current HSA range could work.

I like to see HSA add more damage if it will be an expensive option.

[BigBrainEnergy]

Yeah that's kind of what I'm going for here, you can adjust where the hard flux starts but it would be weird if it went from 0% to 100% all at once.

Example tactical laser:
0-400 range is 100% hard flux
500 range is 60% hard flux
600 range is 30% hard flux
700 range is 10% hard flux
800-1000 range is 0% hard flux

The exact numbers can be adjusted so it doesn't become a cheese strat. It'd have to be more expensive than the current version, but it would have a stronger niche to make up for it.

[FooF]

What about an inverse-time effect? Does 100% hard flux, even at full range, but rapidly loses full effectiveness down to about 0% over about 3 seconds. Makes long range beams only do minuscule damage over time but burst beams are only slightly affected. You could make the effect have a recharge of like 3 seconds so you can’t “game” it by moving in and out of range. Or at least make it time prohibitive.

[Amoebka]

Why is kiting with 1000 range beams such a taboo to begin with? Kinetic weapons are allowed to do that, and there are plenty of hulls that are fast and can use them. Brawler is speed 100 + jets, Hound is speed 180, Vigilance is speed 110, Falcon is 80 + jets + cruiser grade ITU.

[Oni]

Why is kiting with 1000 range beams such a taboo to begin with? Kinetic weapons are allowed to do that, and there are plenty of hulls that are fast and can use them. Brawler is speed 100 + jets, Hound is speed 180, Vigilance is speed 110, Falcon is 80 + jets + cruiser grade ITU.

I think it might be because beams have much better accuracy, kinetics are easier to dodge so kiting is more of a challenge.

[Thaago]

Right now, fast energy frigates must get inside the gun range of enemies to deal hard flux damage. With hard flux beams, that is no longer true!

The energy frigates are much faster than 100+jets (150+skimmer for wolves, 180 for tempest and omen), hounds don't have shields (and adding the shield slows them), and all these ships having medium mounts is an outlier for frigates. With hard flux beams at 1000 (or 1300 before skills with hullmods, though they are expensive) range, wolves (or remnants...) for example would be an unkillable counter to most frigates (100 kinetic + 75*3 energy damage) and even many destroyers. With both hullmods they would outrange cruisers using 900 range weapons, making it only capitals, HVD/Mauler, gauss cannons, and other beams that could fire back at all. Its an optimal strategy for the player to kite like that, only it takes forever and is very boring.

[Grievous69]

Yeah that would be an ultra hard counter to small ships. Which gave me an idea, what if the beam travel time was drastically increased instead of cutting into range? You'd pay in flux doing nothing until the beam extends at longer ranges, so the ship couldn't kite easily. No clue how that would work with burst beams, still I wanted to share my thoughts.

[Amoebka]

Frigates won't be able to kite forever, because they would eventually get boxed into a map corner (and given the absurdly long time to kill with beams, they won't achieve much before that either). They are also still hard countered by fighters.

A Brawler can infinitely kite and eventually kill destroyers with 1000 range ballistics, this is considered fine. How is Wolf being able to infinitely kite and eventually kill destroyers different? If a Wolf can always win a 1v1 against a frigate, but it takes 3 minutes to do so, is that really a problem?

[Thaago]

Frigates won't be able to kite forever, because they would eventually get boxed into a map corner (and given the absurdly long time to kill with beams, they won't achieve much before that either). They are also still hard countered by fighters.

A Brawler can infinitely kite and eventually kill destroyers with 1000 range ballistics, this is considered fine. How is Wolf being able to infinitely kite and eventually kill destroyers different? If a Wolf can always win a 1v1 against a frigate, but it takes 3 minutes to do so, is that really a problem?

Fighters would work, but they don't often get boxed into corners, especially with such a speed advantage.

Brawlers can do this yes, but the significantly (at least 50!) lower speed means that they will be caught by normal frigates or just fast destroyers like Shrikes/Medusas. Or normal frigates can get away from them and vent, so while they can kite destroyers, they can't do the same to frigates: HVD/Mauler Brawlers are pretty good ships and Brawlers in general are tough, but there is easily available counterplay even if they have a good niche as snipers. Plus if due to a complicated battle they do get in range of a destroyer (like by pointing at another target for a little while or getting buzzed by fighters) then they can't get away nearly as quickly. 50 speed makes a big difference.

If a Wolf can always win a 1v1 against a frigate, but it takes 3 minutes to do so, is that really a problem?

Yes, it is a massive, massive problem, for two main reasons:
1) If the player has a tool to win a fight more efficiently, they'll do it even if its incredibly boring. Back when beams were hard flux (and shorter ranged, but still outranged light ballistics IIRC) this was the go to play for starter wolves, and its just not interesting: you just point at the enemy and wait. Now with CR there is at least a time limit, but between hardened subsystems, wolfpack, etc it would be easy to just chain deploy like 3 wolves to very boringly kite many early game threats in perfect safety. Boring but optimal content is bad game design.
2) If it happens to the player by chance (right personality + right loadout) then not only would it be a loss, it would be a loss where there is no counterplay available at all unless specifically building to deal with it. Not 'this enemy is too strong, let me try again with different order/strategy etc', but 'it is impossible to touch this enemy without other tools'. IMO that would be a very frustrating experience.

[Grievous69]

Yes, it is a massive, massive problem, for two main reasons:
1) If the player has a tool to win a fight more efficiently, they'll do it even if its incredibly boring. Back when beams were hard flux (and shorter ranged, but still outranged light ballistics IIRC) this was the go to play for starter wolves, and its just not interesting: you just point at the enemy and wait. Now with CR there is at least a time limit, but between hardened subsystems, wolfpack, etc it would be easy to just chain deploy like 3 wolves to very boringly kite many early game threats in perfect safety. Boring but optimal content is bad game design.
2) If it happens to the player by chance (right personality + right loadout) then not only would it be a loss, it would be a loss where there is no counterplay available at all unless specifically building to deal with it. Not 'this enemy is too strong, let me try again with different order/strategy etc', but 'it is impossible to touch this enemy without other tools'. IMO that would be a very frustrating experience.

I could argue the same for SO. It's a lazy strat that works super easily in early game and even in some other scenarios.

2) Is even more true here. Getting ambushed by a Ludd Holy Armada is a death sentence if you're not prepared for such a fleet. It happened to me multiple times that I just couldn't win such a fight without losing more than half of my ships. The fleets aren't even that big or strong, you just got unlucky and now you have to run away. If I were to face a fleet double that size, but just a normal faction fleet, suddenly it's much more doable. Now tell me that SO is somehow less stupid than proposed HSA changes. Also what are the odds that the whole enemy fleet is running HSA... unlike SO.

The only difference here is HSA enables a more passive, slower playstyle, while SO is the complete opposite. Just because it's done quicker doesn't mean it's not ***.

[gG_pilot]

Right now, fast energy frigates must get inside the gun range of enemies to deal hard flux damage. With hard flux beams, that is no longer true!

The energy frigates are much faster than 100+jets (150+skimmer for wolves, 180 for tempest and omen), hounds don't have shields (and adding the shield slows them), and all these ships having medium mounts is an outlier for frigates. With hard flux beams at 1000 (or 1300 before skills with hullmods, though they are expensive) range, wolves (or remnants...) for example would be an unkillable counter to most frigates (100 kinetic + 75*3 energy damage) and even many destroyers. With both hullmods they would outrange cruisers using 900 range weapons, making it only capitals, HVD/Mauler, gauss cannons, and other beams that could fire back at all. Its an optimal strategy for the player to kite like that, only it takes forever and is very boring.

Kitting by Frigates is limited by time and  CR. Frigates low combat time do not offer to much space for "endless" kitting. I would not see very  much difference between frigate with HVD/Mauler and frigates with Beam+High scatter amplifier.

If a Wolf can always win a 1v1 against a frigate, but it takes 3 minutes to do so, is that really a problem?

Yes, it is a massive, massive problem, for two main reasons:
1) If the player has a tool to win a fight more efficiently, they'll do it even if its incredibly boring.

Although preventing annoying harassing, boring combat and too much ships fleeing out of combat because of CR is a good point, then make High scatter amplifier with hard flux at 1000 be mutually exclusive  with  ITU/DTC/Advanced Optics. It drags kitting ships into danger zone. It also creates new need for Frigate hunter ship. Probably fast cruiser.
In this system I see stone/scissor/paper mechanic. Where Frigates are Dangerous to Capitals, Capitals are  dangerous to cruisers, cruisers are dangerous to Frigates.
Another bold solution is, ask for better AI which is able to evaluate danger more analog way. So a bigger ship AI should bee able lower down shields, even under tickling by hard flux Frigate.

[Drazan]

SO is not boring and you can counterplay it.
Frigate ppt can be pretty damn high with officer+wolfpack+ hardened subsistem. Definitely long enough to be boring.

[Thaago]

Right, the situation with SO is completely different: nothing about SO stops you from just shooting back. Quoting myself:

...it would be a loss where there is no counterplay available at all unless specifically building to deal with it. Not 'this enemy is too strong, let me try again with different order/strategy etc', but 'it is impossible to touch this enemy without other tools'....

There are no special tools needed to deal with luddic path/SO fleets that they are untouchable without: they are just stronger than might first be expected, especially when compared to pirates. But all the normal ways to build a ship work just fine, as do making tactical changes to orders and how the player pilots. They are hard not just because of SO, but that many of their ships get SO for free (with downsides that they as suicide ships mostly ignore), have more aggressive ship systems, have built in hammer barrages on top, and have unified reckless tactics.

...
Although preventing annoying harassing, boring combat and too much ships fleeing out of combat because of CR is a good point, then make High scatter amplifier with hard flux at 1000 be mutually exclusive  with  ITU/DTC/Advanced Optics. It drags kitting ships into danger zone. It also creates new need for Frigate hunter ship. Probably fast cruiser.
In this system I see stone/scissor/paper mechanic. Where Frigates are Dangerous to Capitals, Capitals are  dangerous to cruisers, cruisers are dangerous to Frigates.
Another bold solution is, ask for better AI which is able to evaluate danger more analog way. So a bigger ship AI should bee able lower down shields, even under tickling by hard flux Frigate.

Having some mutual exclusivity could work, but I would prefer the graduated approach some others have suggested where the % of hard flux decreases with range. Or just get rid of HSA.

There are some elements of rock/paper/scissors in the game at present, but they are all pretty "soft", by which I mean that almost everything can hurt something else even if they are bad at it. This kind of change makes a category of ship that could reliably just not be touched under many circumstances.

AI lowering shields is really difficult, because I agree with you that there are lots of circumstances where the best thing for a capital to do would be to just ignore the beam frigate and focus on killing other things with its shield down. But there are also situations where that just means that the AI lets the frigate get hull damage for free, potentially for a long time, which would look really dumb to any player watching. Determining how the AI goes between these two extreme scenarios is quite difficult because its context dependent.

[gG_pilot]

AI lowering shields is really difficult, because I agree with you that there are lots of circumstances where the best thing for a capital to do would be to just ignore the beam frigate and focus on killing other things with its shield down. But there are also situations where that just means that the AI lets the frigate get hull damage for free, potentially for a long time, which would look really dumb to any player watching. Determining how the AI goes between these two extreme scenarios is quite difficult because its context dependent.

AI in this game is  reasonable, even comparing AAA like Total war series. However, here  is still huge space for  improvement. AI certainly is based on context. :-) and I am pretty sure these mechanics are used already. As you can see, ships  behave differently not  only based on current target, but also by number of enemy ships and their position. So this system could be improved for shield handling.

- mutual exclusivity could work, but I would prefer the graduated approach
- Or just get rid of HSA.

Gradual change of intensity sounds great on paper, however it is difficult to predict outcome and is difficult to understand the system for average customers. Even on this  hard core fan forum, people struggle to understand Polarized armor behavior. And of course, it is difficult learn AI how to usee gradual range hard  flux weapon efficiently. It involves far more situational awarnees than "improved shield handling" I ask above. 
Regarding mutual exclusivity  = > Easy understandable rule is  much better than "perfect rule" .
Removing is also good variant.