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Author Topic: Arbalest Autocannon too weak?  (Read 3621 times)

Princess_of_Evil

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Re: Arbalest Autocannon too weak?
« Reply #15 on: May 27, 2023, 11:24:47 AM »

HVD has just enough stats that it can reliably swat out frigates on auto, while you're at it. It's one of those guns where stats really don't tell the whole picture. Just like HA, except HA is worse than stats suggest and HVD is better.
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KDR_11k

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Re: Arbalest Autocannon too weak?
« Reply #16 on: May 27, 2023, 11:37:40 AM »

I feel like needlers are different enough in goal they aren't too comparable.  For sustained fire stats they should be worse than the autocannons, but the heavy needler does 3k burst damage to shields per shot so you can force a ship to drop shields and take HE missile hits.

Also sustained fire means that the enemy will notice the hard flux building up and move away, the needlers have them from 0 to 70+% before they have a chance to alter their momentum.
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Doctorhealsgood

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Re: Arbalest Autocannon too weak?
« Reply #17 on: May 27, 2023, 01:03:50 PM »

I'd like to see the heavy autocannon get its recoil halved just like the hephy. Right now it's not competitive with other medium options and part of that is the high recoil combined with relatively poor flux efficiency (only hvd has worse efficiency but it has fantastic accuracy so less of it goes to waste). I would only ever consider the HA in a hardpoint, but as grievous pointed out 800 range puts it in a weird spot where I'd rather go cheap and get an arbalest or go expensive and get a heavy needler.
Yeah that would be great. I can put heavy autocannons on hardpoints and have armored turret mounts and it STILL has crazy recoil.
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BigBrainEnergy

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Re: Arbalest Autocannon too weak?
« Reply #18 on: May 27, 2023, 01:10:29 PM »

I think people worry too much about range, I've never had my ships fail to close to HAC range when equipped with beams for instance. Even things like the chaingun get used when mounted on my eagles with a heavy needler and gravitons. I think as long as kinetic has longer reach than your HE OR they are comparable you'll be fine, having short range kinetic with long range HE will cause problems though.

It's not so much that extra range is bad for the AI but that range is an expensive stat that you pay for elsewhere - usually efficiency. It's not a coincidence that hvd has the worst efficiency + longest range and HA the second worst efficiency + second longest range. The issue is that you're paying for extra range but 800 vs 700 doesn't actually matter much.

For me after studying the kinetics (see link above, I am also working on 10 more Ordos and the results are looking similar) it is the Heavy Needler that is the odd one out. It does not have 50% more damage than a HAC yet costs 50% more and does no armor damage at a shorter range. Wasn't better in combat testing either. Note that for most ships you can get AWM to reduce recoil for free if you pick HAC rather than Heavy Needler. Or +5 vents to far offset the flux cost. For close ranged ships it does not look like a great deal and for longer ranged ships you want the HVD.

Rather than % I think it makes more sense to say you are paying 5 op for 36 more dps and 14 less flux/second which is no doubt a good trade off when vents are maxed out, not to mention burst damage being more effective than a stat card will let on.
« Last Edit: May 27, 2023, 01:16:27 PM by BigBrainEnergy »
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Grievous69

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Re: Arbalest Autocannon too weak?
« Reply #19 on: May 27, 2023, 01:13:19 PM »

Its main strength isn't even having 100 more range than the small mounts, but the sustained DPS stat. Which would be nice if it hit anything in turret mounts lol.
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Megas

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Re: Arbalest Autocannon too weak?
« Reply #20 on: May 28, 2023, 05:20:00 AM »

Only major weakness of Arbalest is 700 range (which Ballistic Rangefinder does not boost as much as for 700 range light weapons).  Otherwise, it is good, with efficiency and high hit strength.  Accuracy is acceptable despite not being perfect.  Low DPS matters less than efficiency when keeping flux usage on loadouts low enough for NPC use.
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Quillithe

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Re: Arbalest Autocannon too weak?
« Reply #21 on: May 28, 2023, 11:01:46 AM »

As another point of comparison, a couple other weapons with small mount versions get roughly two of them shoved together in a medium mount.

IR Pulse Laser -> Pulse Laser costs twice the OP, gets twice the damage per shot at twice the flux and +100 range
Light Needler -> Heavy Needler costs one less than twice the OP, has twice the burst damage at the same flux/shot.  Not quite twice the DPS because it takes longer between bursts, but given that it costs less than two light needlers, seems fair.

A lot of missiles follow this rough pattern too, though usually with an extra OP or two or a slower fire rate traded off for 3-4x the ammo instead of just double.  Still roughly a trend of one mid slot is worth about two small slots. 

Arbalest costs twice the OP for 67% more damage and a very marginal flux/damage bonus that's outweighted by the lower OP/DPS.  Given no slot restrictions I'd always just take two light AC.  And that's not even getting into the light dual AC.

Although the Arbalest has more damage per shot, all that does is make it a somewhat (but not even incredibly, because it starts worse) better weapon against armor - unless the target has over 566 armor, then it gets no advantage.  And honestly, they're both pretty terrible against armor so the difference is marginal and only really worth much against smaller ships you can't hit with the arbalest.

Heavy autocannon also looks pretty bad when compared to two light autocannons too, unless you really want that 100 range it really just costs more OP to be quite a bit worse.  Still think they could both use some tiny buff.  Still think -1 OP for arbalest so it at least costs the same as the railgun and it's just a tradeoff of efficiency and damage/shot vs accuracy, instead of also costing more too.
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Foraven

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Re: Arbalest Autocannon too weak?
« Reply #22 on: May 28, 2023, 04:36:18 PM »

I am not adverse to a buff to the Arbalest, or against having an higher tier version of it added. Personally I like that weapon. Sure, it doesn't have the DPS, but on ships where you can stack them, they have a great alpha volley that can knock down shields in one salvo. It is also to note that gun has a relatively good turn rate that can be buffed with Advanced Turret Gyro. I have a few ships using the Arbalest and they are not bad for a pretty common weapon.
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coldiceEVO

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Re: Arbalest Autocannon too weak?
« Reply #23 on: May 28, 2023, 11:01:11 PM »

Its usable weapon. KE after all.
However it is meh on range and low dps for higher efficiency isnt filling any niche.
Range is AI efficient while DPS is key to commit enemy into take more hard flux which is harder to get rid of.
On a midline or hightech with hybrid mount, the ballistic choice is even more critical and more efficiency isnt needed as they have slightly better stats and energy mount isnt as efficient in flux, thus more ke dps improves more on weighted average of efficiency.
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strcat

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Re: Arbalest Autocannon too weak?
« Reply #24 on: May 29, 2023, 12:16:30 AM »

Onslaught is flux starved and benefits a lot from saving OP for hull mods so it might seem like a good platform for the Arbalest Autocannon. However, you can use Railguns in medium slots instead for 200 extra range (Ballistic Rangefinder) to match large ballistics, perfect accuracy, faster turn rate and 1 less OP. Railgun is much better at tracking small targets and consistently hitting them. Missing small targets isn't very flux efficient. Spreading 2x damage per hit shots across more armor also isn't necessarily better. 7x front-facing Railgun, Hellbore Cannon and 4x Jackhammer with built-in Expanded Missile Racks for killing large targets works well and despite the goal really being flux efficient damage saves a lot of OP. 2x HVD for the slots that are further back makes sense, but isn't a clear cut win. Even for the rear side slots, Railguns work better than Arbalests for shooing away frigates/destroyers. I do love HVD/Mauler for ships with more flux dissipation per weapon slot. I don't currently use HAC or Arbalest, but I used to use HAC sometimes in earlier versions.
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Foraven

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Re: Arbalest Autocannon too weak?
« Reply #25 on: May 29, 2023, 03:41:53 AM »

Onslaught is flux starved and benefits a lot from saving OP for hull mods so it might seem like a good platform for the Arbalest Autocannon. However, you can use Railguns in medium slots instead for 200 extra range (Ballistic Rangefinder) to match large ballistics, perfect accuracy, faster turn rate and 1 less OP. Railgun is much better at tracking small targets and consistently hitting them. Missing small targets isn't very flux efficient. Spreading 2x damage per hit shots across more armor also isn't necessarily better. 7x front-facing Railgun, Hellbore Cannon and 4x Jackhammer with built-in Expanded Missile Racks for killing large targets works well and despite the goal really being flux efficient damage saves a lot of OP. 2x HVD for the slots that are further back makes sense, but isn't a clear cut win. Even for the rear side slots, Railguns work better than Arbalests for shooing away frigates/destroyers. I do love HVD/Mauler for ships with more flux dissipation per weapon slot. I don't currently use HAC or Arbalest, but I used to use HAC sometimes in earlier versions.

But the idea is, the Arbalest is a lower tech, very common weapon while the railgun is an hier tier, better all around weapon... If you can get your hands on them.
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Princess_of_Evil

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Re: Arbalest Autocannon too weak?
« Reply #26 on: May 29, 2023, 03:54:38 AM »

It would be, but current market mechanics don't allow this: non-black market has only exclusively small "civilian" weapons (not even mining blasters), and black markets, in my experience, have almost every small and medium weapon available to the faction regardless of tier. Some extreme tier weapons are still hard to find sometimes, like heavy blasters and HVDs, but i haven't had to actively search for a small weapon in 0.96, and they're usually sold in packs of 5-10.
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Amoebka

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Re: Arbalest Autocannon too weak?
« Reply #27 on: May 29, 2023, 04:11:37 AM »

Rarity on the market wouldn't work as a balancing factor regardless. The player is under no time pressure in Starsector, so it would simply encourage tedious flying between markets until you find the rare weapons you want. We had that already.
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TaLaR

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Re: Arbalest Autocannon too weak?
« Reply #28 on: May 29, 2023, 04:48:06 AM »

Yeah, when something becomes too ridiculously rare (like true Afflictors), I'm more inclined to just install console mod to use 'findship' command.
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Megas

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Re: Arbalest Autocannon too weak?
« Reply #29 on: May 29, 2023, 06:27:25 AM »

In case of Onslaught, the main advantage Railgun has over Arbalest is either +200 range instead of +100 from Ballistic Rangefinder or PD/assault combo from PD+sIPDAI (and more range if PD is elite).

Rarity on the market wouldn't work as a balancing factor regardless. The player is under no time pressure in Starsector, so it would simply encourage tedious flying between markets until you find the rare weapons you want. We had that already.
Rarity may not work late in the game when player has enough money and either the blueprints to make them on demand or stockpiled enough from other sources, but it does early when player has limited funds and resources.  Also, even if I find some of the rarer weapons early on, I may not have enough to go around for all ships that want them.

Aside from this, I noticed Light Needlers are a lot more common than they used to be.  I have used them instead of Railguns sometimes in my current game because I had more of them than Railguns (and I did not have enough for all ships).
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