Actually, that makes me wonder, instead of High Scatter Amplifier halving range and giving beams hard flux as a hullmod, what if Alex doubled down on the long range beam spam and made a hullmod such that all beams gained allied ship passthrough (like what the Paladin has).
I thought viable sustained long-range beams are a no-no because there is no counterplay to them. Wouldn't it end up in a situation like the Pilum spam?
It is a good question. The fact that beams are included in the game means there should be some sensible playstyle that utilizes beams. Right now, most builds I've seen proposed for Furies do not include things like Graviton beams or Tactical lasers. I think I've seen disco support Aurora builds posted on the forums, but they tend to be rare and mostly a really safe AI build. A player can't really leverage such a build to make important plays.
I mean, I can't think of a time when I've put a Graviton beam as a primary weapon on a ship, as opposed to an after thought on an Eagle or Falcon.
On the other hand, I've seen effective builds relying on Xyphos, because of flux free Ion damage. Although it's acting in a support capacity instead of directly killing something with DPS.
So people are saying it feels like there is only one way to properly build a Fury or Aurora. My question is, how would we make a different style viable? Currently, we have beams which people are reluctant to use, because they don't kill anything solo. You can mass them right now and if you micromanage the positioning, you can get them concentrate properly, but it's a lot of work and any losses will quickly eat away at your killing power.
What I'm suggesting isn't actually increasing their peak power, simply making them more AI friendly and opening up a new usage possibility. The DPS is exactly the same. Since they're long range, normally you can surround or line up such that the beams can concentrate anyways. However, it does open up the possibility of more efficient escort ships, since those tend to hang behind the escorted ship. It helps the case where you've only put in 1 or 2 beam ships, or only partially use beams, like on an Eagle. Certainly would help solidify Eagles as anti-fighters (and maybe even anti-missile with Heavy Burst Lasers (1190 range with Gunnery Implants, Advanced optics, ITU) .
Essentially, if you have a hullmod that adds passover to beams, and you throw in Advanced Optics, ITU, and Advanced Turret Gyros, and IPDAI, you've now invested a fair bit of OP into making for a giant PD Xyphos that does more than just keep ships off a capital's backside, but can also contribute to what's going on in front.
It gives them a different role in a fleet, instead of punch down frigate killer, now it becomes a reasonable escort to a capital or heavy cruiser.