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[Madbadger2]

Was comparing fighters and ran across this - the fighter version of the IR Pulse Laser isn't just slower - it cost more to fire (50 instead of 40). Looks like it did not get changed from flux/damage 1.0 to 0.8 when the regular IR Pulse laser did. Probably worth checking the fighter version of any other weapons that got made more flux efficient, if any.  This affects the Gladius, which does not have the dissipation to fire all its weapons continually, and it looks like the Fighter IR pulse laser is in a turret so is less likely to be facing limited rather than flux limited.

[Alex]

Thank you for the report! This is not a bug, it's intentional - some fighters are specifically flux-limited in the amount of damage they can put out, and the Gladius is one such case.

[Madbadger2]

Thank you for the report! This is not a bug, it's intentional - some fighters are specifically flux-limited in the amount of damage they can put out, and the Gladius is one such case.

Good to know, thanks 8-)

[Zsar]

Err... is this not a bug nevertheless? If the Gladius is supposed to be flux starved, the Gladius' flux stats are the correct place to facilitate this.
Making one third of its weapons more expensive, when this weapon is also the sole weapon of another fighter (the Lux'), obviously harms the Lux more than the Gladius.

(So we can "intentionally" make the Lux' flux stats higher than they need to be, but... why so convoluted? Who is supposed to keep track of that and why do they not have anything better to do with their limited time and attention span?)

I'd... yes, assert... that this cannot - must not - be the proper way to do it. If nothing else, this makes it extremely hard to spot a real mistake. Any typo, any skipped line, any accidentally saved tab turns into "meh, probably intentional, could bother the developer to find out, but that detracts time from the regular development cycle, better keep it quiet" that way.
(And of course, after some time, it's harder for everyone to tell, no matter whether player, developer, tester, designer, whatever. It's a lose-lose situation.)

[Alex]

(Just for future reference, the bug reports forum is not a place for a more extended discussion. Moving this to suggestions.)

I think you may have some things backwards! The fighter-specific IR Pulse laser had this flux cost which the fighters were balanced for. Then the regular IR Pulse got its cost adjusted - for use on normal ships - but the fighter-specific one was not changed to avoid messing with fighter balance. It's *not the same weapon*, its entire purpose of existence is to be different from the baseline IR Pulse so that it's suitable for use on fighters.

Also, while the Lux has the IR Pulse Laser (High Delay), it also has shields, and thus its weapons generate no flux, so the flux cost doesn't matter for it.

[SCC]

Err... is this not a bug nevertheless? If the Gladius is supposed to be flux starved, the Gladius' flux stats are the correct place to facilitate this.

Not really. If you want some weapons (e.g. IR Pulse Laser) to not fire all the time, you can leave its flux cost higher than the fighter's dissipation, so it only shoots on approach and rarely afterwards.

[Zsar]

As long as there is "the" fighter, but in this case, there is not: Two different wings use this weapon. There is no "the" fighter.

[Candesce]

I'll note that the Gladius uses both IR Pulse (High Delay) and paired Light Machine Guns, and so changing the flux dissapation of the Gladius is not equivalent to changing flux cost of the IR Pulse.

(If you brought the Gladius down to 40 rather than leaving the IR Pulse at 50, the Gladius will actually fire the Pulse MUCH less often - the machine guns use 38 flux dissipation between them.)