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[Grievous69]

My idea is this, pretty much anything you can do with energy weapons is just percentage boosts that affect everything. Beams have their 2 hullmods specifically for them, and everything else will just screw over your small mounts since they'll be outranged by everything. So what if we could get a flat range increase for projectile weapons, that would make AMBs, Ion Cannons and IR Pulse Laser more feasible for ships that aren't running SO. Currently I find myself just using Heavy Blaster and Ion Pulsers in mediums, while small mounts are just PD in 95% of the cases. This way you could actually introduce variety for high tech ships without large mounts.

Following that thought, it should work on ships that have medium energies together with small ones (prerequisite). So that we don't have Scarabs having AMB with more range, and imo that range buff should ONLY affect small energy mounts.

I know there's a Remnant cruiser coming with some built in hullmod that increases projectile weapon range, but that one seems too strong.

Thoughts?

EDIT: Made it clearer I was talking about projectile weapons.

[BigBrainEnergy]

It would probably not be allowed to work with taclasers (or beams in general) but then it sounds like we're talking about a player version of energy-bolt coherer. I like the idea of a hullmod that boosts small energies to compete with small ballistics, it would just be nice if there was a way to do that other than a range buff but that's what holds them back the most so I don't see any other way.

Maybe it could work if energy-bolt coherer was a hullmod you can rarely find from remnant wrecks or guaranteed from defeating a remnant nexus. If the player can use it as a general hullmod then I imagine it would give the same bonuses as BRF, +200 to small +100 to medium and nothing to large with the additional limitation that it doesn't affect beams.

[Serenitis]

A hullmod that trades off another stat against the range?

Something like:
Increases the range of small energy weapons by 200, and mediums by 100.
Reduces rate of fire by 20%.
Has no effect on beams.

Would push both small & medium energy into the 700 range band to give parity with large weapons.
More flexible than Rangefinder as it's not mount limited or size restricted. But you pay for it by losing DPS.

[Grievous69]

Oh sorry, thought it was clear I was talking about energy projectile weapons specifically. I wouldn't mind giving a bonus to mediums as well as you guys suggest, but my main point is to help out small energy mounts.

@Serenitis
That actually sounds cool, like the best possible thing for a Wolf lol. I assume you mean by reducing rate of fire it also costs less flux.

[SCC]

while small mounts are just PD in 95% of the cases.

What choices do you have, really? Small ballistics have like 7 "just deal damage" guns and small energies have 1. It's almost by design that they aren't much good at fighting.

That actually sounds cool, like the best possible thing for a Wolf lol. I assume you mean by reducing rate of fire it also costs less flux.

Projectile weapons generate flux when firing a shot or a salvo, and if they happen more rarely, so will flux generation.

[BigBrainEnergy]

Yeah that could work. Call it "high-density capacitors" or something. Extra range, lower rate of fire (same flux efficiency). This would make a lot of builds much more AI-friendly.

What choices do you have, really? Small ballistics have like 7 "just deal damage" guns and small energies have 1. It's almost by design that they aren't much good at fighting.

This wouldn't just be for ir pulses, extra range on ion cannons and ambs would be nice.

[Grievous69]

Yeah I very very rarely use AMBs since it's annoying how close you need to approach the enemy, and other mounts have much more reliable options. I love the design of the weapon tho.

Ion Cannons are overshadowed by Ion Pulsers, and usually they just become expensive fighter flameout weapons, except on fast frigates.

I love how Champion was teased on twitter having Ion Cannons, when in reality you'd be a clown putting assault weapons there. 400-500 range weapons on a ship with a large energy coupled with ballistics...

[Megas]

Ion Cannons are overshadowed by Ion Pulsers, and usually they just become expensive fighter flameout weapons, except on fast frigates.

Not when the ship has ePD+IPDAI.  I have used Ion Cannon instead of Ion Pulser on Fury and maybe one or two other ships when the ship had an ePD officer because of extra range from ePD+IPDAI.

Yeah I very very rarely use AMBs since it's annoying how close you need to approach the enemy, and other mounts have much more reliable options. I love the design of the weapon tho.

It gets more tolerable with ePD+IPDAI.  (I tried that with Ziggurat before I settled on IR PLs for anti-missile.)  AMB is unique that it does not shoot at missiles despite IPDAI, but it still qualifies as PD for the purpose of extra range from ePD.

Now I like to see a range booster for medium pulse laser.  If the ship has ePD officer, I do not use pulse laser because IR PLs with ePD have more range and better efficiency, and high-tech ships generally have spare mounts to use two IR PLs instead of one pulse laser.  I only use Pulse Laser on unofficered ships.

If Wolf does not get more dissipation, it needs more range with hard flux weapons (possibly get Energy Bolt Coherer built-in like that one new Remnant ship).  It gets outgunned by other human frigates worth at least 4 DP, even by Vigilance.  Wolf being effective only as a Graviton-and-Tac beam ship is not fun.  Current Wolf is not worth 5 DP.  Not when Glimmer is 5 DP and every other Remnant ship without a core is balanced with similarly unofficered human ships.

[Grievous69]

I feel like you come in to every other thread to say something about the elite PD + IPDAI combo heh. Which is fine but that's a very specific strat which shouldn't count as base.

[Megas]

I feel like you come in to every other thread to say something about the elite PD + IPDAI combo heh. Which is fine but that's a very specific strat which shouldn't count as base.

I agree.  But ePD is such a game changer that unless I need something specific like elite Missile Spec. for a missile ship, ePD would be my default or go-to pick for the one elite skill on an officer because elite on PD skill is a game changer, while elite on most other skills are a minor or trivial boost.

[Amoebka]

Ion cannon with IPDAI is very wasteful if enemy actually uses missiles, like Locusts or Annihilators, that distract it from ships. It has atrocious stats for a PD weapon.

[Megas]

Ion cannon with IPDAI is very wasteful if enemy actually uses missiles, like Locusts or Annihilators, that distract it from ships. It has atrocious stats for a PD weapon.

ePD+IPDAI on Ion Cannon is used for the extra range, and I find the extra range usually worth it despite the occasional distraction from missiles.  It helps if there is other PD to take out the missiles.

With that said, I mainly use ePD+IPDAI Ion on Fury because it badly needs the extra range if I do not mount an Ion Pulser on the nose and/or I want missiles in both synergies.  Have used it rarely on others.  (I think I have tried it on Aurora, Falcon, and Eagle.)

My biggest problem with ePD+IPDAI is what becomes of ship AI if all weapons are PD (like Devastators and IPDAI Railguns on ballistic ships).  It badly messes up AI Conquest (it does not try to use broadside against enemies) and some other ships seem to act more timid than usual.

[Schwartz]

Generally there are no two alike things like this in the game. I don't think it's Alex's style to add a mirror hullmod, but for energy weapons. In line with energy boons through skills, it would make more sense to have the hullmod increase damage or RoF for energy weapons, but that could result in a slight buff for a Medusa but a whopping imbalance in a Paragon.

Paragon is the ship you want to balance this against. Do you really want to give that ship a Rangefinder buff? What *would* be a manageable buff that'd be worth 20 or 25 OP on it? That's the question we should ask here.

Unrelated to Ballistic Rangefinder - but how about "Energy weapons regenerate charges quicker" hullmod? It's interesting & it's not too OP.

[BigBrainEnergy]

Ultimately it's more of an AI issue than anything. You can make these weapons work as a player but it's incredibly challenging to make an AI that will accurately asses the risk of any given situation and make the right call, so you're either stuck with one that plays it safe and massively under-performs or you get one that dives into the enemy fleet for no reason. Longer range is more AI friendly.

[Grievous69]

Generally there are no two alike things like this in the game. I don't think it's Alex's style to add a mirror hullmod, but for energy weapons.

I can think of multiple example like mine that are slightly different from one another, but that's beside the point.

How do you think small weapons being slightly longer ranged would break Paragon lol? It uses the small mounts either for PD or Tac Lasers, and both are beams. Read my suggestion again.

"Faster charge regen" hullmod on the other hand sounds crazy since both regenerating energy weapons are strong: Ion Pulser and Autopulse. Unless I'm missing one.