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Starsector 0.97a is out! (02/02/24); New blog post: Simulator Enhancements (03/13/24)

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Author Topic: Buff the Medium Energy Slot  (Read 5687 times)

BCS

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Re: Buff the Medium Energy Slot
« Reply #45 on: January 12, 2023, 09:00:40 AM »

I see that LG Hammerhead with two medium energies... ... which if you think about it is a bit weird, since it's almost a worse Sunder

Kinetic Blaster is going to be medium no? I feel like that alone will dramatically change the value of a medium energy slot.
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Embolism

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Re: Buff the Medium Energy Slot
« Reply #46 on: January 12, 2023, 09:11:48 AM »

Doesn't change the fact that the Sunder has the same slots + a large energy, not to mention vastly superior flux stats?
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Candesce

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Re: Buff the Medium Energy Slot
« Reply #47 on: January 12, 2023, 09:28:45 AM »

Doesn't change the fact that the Sunder has the same slots + a large energy, not to mention vastly superior flux stats?
Sunder also has 1.2 shield efficiency. Hammerhead has 0.8.
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Embolism

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Re: Buff the Medium Energy Slot
« Reply #48 on: January 12, 2023, 09:44:53 AM »

That's to balance its flux stats so it doesn't have super shields AND super weapons. The Sunder has double the flux dissipation of the Hammerhead and nearly double the flux capacity.
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Amazigh

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Re: Buff the Medium Energy Slot
« Reply #49 on: January 12, 2023, 01:07:07 PM »

Kinetic Blaster is going to be medium no? I feel like that alone will dramatically change the value of a medium energy slot.
Kinetic blasters will be rare, and while good for anti-shield as far as energy weapons go, they'll still fall short compared to ballistic options.
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BaBosa

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Re: Buff the Medium Energy Slot
« Reply #50 on: January 12, 2023, 04:32:10 PM »

Kinetic Blaster is going to be medium no? I feel like that alone will dramatically change the value of a medium energy slot.
Kinetic blasters will be rare, and while good for anti-shield as far as energy weapons go, they'll still fall short compared to ballistic options.
They’re not being compared to ballistic. Most of the time you don’t get to choose. If you did then most ships would go with ballistics most of the time.
Most medium energies are on high tech ships and high tech ships are generally faster and have more flux so they they don’t mind the kinetic blaster being flux hungry or short ranged as much as low tech would.
Kinetic blaster will have the damage and not terrible efficiency and that’s all it needs to make medium energies much stronger. Sure a ballistic would be better but that’s not the point.

... which if you think about it is a bit weird, since it's almost a worse Sunder that way which has the same mounts plus a large energy and HEF. Which means LG Hammerhead must have a non-HEF system otherwise it'd be almost certainly just a worse Sunder.
What’s wrong with that? An enforcer is just a worse dominator and yet it’s a good ship anyway. Edit: Nevermind, I thought they were talking about the LB brawler.

TT brawler with coherer would be good. It’s easily the worst of the variants.
« Last Edit: January 12, 2023, 10:22:14 PM by BaBosa »
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ForestFighters

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Re: Buff the Medium Energy Slot
« Reply #51 on: January 12, 2023, 04:35:11 PM »

TT brawler with coherer would be good. It’s easily the worst of the variants.

Hopefully the TT version gets coherer just as the LG one does.
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Thaago

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Re: Buff the Medium Energy Slot
« Reply #52 on: January 12, 2023, 07:26:39 PM »

I could see a Hammerhead with medium energies being ok as long as it got a decent system to back them up. Medium energy has always had decent anti-hull/armor options, and it looks like the ship is keeping its small ballistics so it can mount kinetics. Or if the system really makes energies worth it it could mount small energy's in its slots (but I'm kind of doubtful - small kinetics are great and pair with energy really well).

I do see that it would be similar to a Sunder, but the Hammerhead is a significantly tougher, cheaper ship that has more small mounts. It all hinges on that system!
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Embolism

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Re: Buff the Medium Energy Slot
« Reply #53 on: January 12, 2023, 08:04:24 PM »

What’s wrong with that? An enforcer is just a worse dominator and yet it’s a good ship anyway.

Enforcer is a Destroyer and Dominator is a Cruiser. Enforcer costs a lot less DP than a Dominator to deploy - you can almost deploy three Enforcers for the cost of one Dominator.

Sunder and Hammerhead meanwhile have similar DP costs (and are both Destroyers) so are obviously meant to be on par power-wise, which is the case when the Hammerhead uses superior kinetics but definitely isn't when it's using energy weapons its flux grid can't support properly.

Quote from: Thaago
I do see that it would be similar to a Sunder, but the Hammerhead is a significantly tougher, cheaper ship that has more small mounts. It all hinges on that system!

Well, it has one extra small mount that points backwards. But yeah I expect the LG Hammerhead to have a mobility system (probably plasma jets) to make it different and competitive with the LG Sunder.
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BaBosa

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Re: Buff the Medium Energy Slot
« Reply #54 on: January 12, 2023, 10:26:01 PM »

My mistake, I thought it was the LG brawler that was being called a worse sunder.
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Üstad

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Re: Buff the Medium Energy Slot
« Reply #55 on: January 13, 2023, 05:29:01 AM »

Yeah I'm really happy Alex listened to feedback and made LG ships unique and fun in their own way, instead of them being a pure downgrade while looking different.

But now with Mining Blaster getting a nice rework, and Gravitons having an additional effect on hit, medium energies are pretty much in a good place. Only other thing I'd touch is the Heavy Burst Laser.
What changed? Also %5-10 additional damage seem too weak for Graviton Beam buff.
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Grievous69

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Re: Buff the Medium Energy Slot
« Reply #56 on: January 13, 2023, 05:31:58 AM »

Yeah I'm really happy Alex listened to feedback and made LG ships unique and fun in their own way, instead of them being a pure downgrade while looking different.

But now with Mining Blaster getting a nice rework, and Gravitons having an additional effect on hit, medium energies are pretty much in a good place. Only other thing I'd touch is the Heavy Burst Laser.
What changed? Also %5-10 additional damage seem too weak for Graviton Beam buff.
Mining Blaster becoming a charge based burst HE weapon. Same range but much better efficiency. Alex showed the stats on twitter but it appears he'll change them as it's too strong currently.

Gravitons apply a 5-10% kinetic vulnerability on a ship that's getting beamed. That means from ALL sources. Sounds like a strong thing to me tbh.
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Üstad

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Re: Buff the Medium Energy Slot
« Reply #57 on: January 13, 2023, 10:34:34 AM »

Yeah I'm really happy Alex listened to feedback and made LG ships unique and fun in their own way, instead of them being a pure downgrade while looking different.

But now with Mining Blaster getting a nice rework, and Gravitons having an additional effect on hit, medium energies are pretty much in a good place. Only other thing I'd touch is the Heavy Burst Laser.
What changed? Also %5-10 additional damage seem too weak for Graviton Beam buff.
Mining Blaster becoming a charge based burst HE weapon. Same range but much better efficiency. Alex showed the stats on twitter but it appears he'll change them as it's too strong currently.

Gravitons apply a 5-10% kinetic vulnerability on a ship that's getting beamed. That means from ALL sources. Sounds like a strong thing to me tbh.
Sorry I meant to ask how LG ships got better rather than being generic ships with a nerf hullmod?
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Grievous69

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Re: Buff the Medium Energy Slot
« Reply #58 on: January 13, 2023, 10:41:49 AM »

Well we don't know the exact changes Alex made after the blog post. But from the screnshots we can tell that some ships have different weapon mounts from the originals. We also see built in hullmods so it's not a stretch if some ships will have different systems. But they will all come will less OP and that Special Modifications d-mod.

So I dare not say they're going to be better nor worse, just sidegrades.
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FooF

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Re: Buff the Medium Energy Slot
« Reply #59 on: January 14, 2023, 12:58:22 PM »

So, if the Mining Blaster changes happen (to whatever degree), what does that do to the Phase Lance? The (shown) Mining Blaster gives up about 20% sustained damage and 100 range but gains hard flux against shields and waaaaay better anti-hull damage (at way better efficiency). The Phase Lance will kill fighters better but I don't think that's enough of an advantage to make it competitive. Technically, this has always been the case, but the Mining Blaster was so horribly flux inefficient that it kind of ruled itself out. Now, at 1.0 efficiency, it squarely beats the Phase Lance in an anti-armor role.

As an off-the-wall suggestion, why not increase the RoF of the Phase Lance while leaving the actual armor penetration alone? Beams half as long in duration but firing (roughly) twice as fast? It would overkill less on fighters, while shooting more down, making it a bit more of a generalist. As an aside, why is it flux inefficient? I hate that a lot of Energy weapons are homogenizing to 1.0 efficiency but I don't understand why the Phase Lance pays a premium to fire when it does soft flux. I've also argued it could use 700 range but that's an entire suggestion entirely.

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