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[TheLaughingDead]

Beam DPS would be flux efficient but OP inefficient, while energy bolt DPS would be flux inefficient but OP efficient.
This would have a valuable use case for ships that have a good amount of OP, but not enough venting. So high-tech frigates like the Wolf, Midline ships, and many Remnant ships.

I don't agree, beam weapons are already really cheap and efficient flux-wise and often the ships that can field them have a flux profile made to account for generally inefficient bolt weapons. Making them (and only them) slightly cheaper isn't really going to make the difference worth the extra OP or a different S-mod bonus.

I'm fine if they compete with regular bolt weapons because one is already paying that tax to enable them to do so (just like with S-Modded Expanded Mags), but if they were to have an alternative niche, I'd like it to really be interesting and not just a minor stat change.

-Folk have mentioned split beams, that would be a cool S-mod bonus.
-Or if it bounced off of enemy shields and could hit other enemies.
-Or if it doubled special beam effects, like Graviton shield damage buff is doubled and/or Ion Beam/Tach Lance do double EMP arcing through shields.
-Or the S-mod bonus gives the beams back their original range, but the hard-flux damage only applies within the HSA range ie your Graviton does soft flux at 1000 SU until the enemy gets within 600 SU upon which it does hard flux as per HSA usual.

All of those are pretty tough to put into action, tricky to balance, and are inconsistent with peer S-mod effects though, so ultimately tweaking the range debuff is frankly the easiest lever.

What if the S-mod bonus reduced the range malus? Like modifying the base range from 200 to 400? Or reducing the "past base range" modifier from 50% to 40%?

Hmm, makes me consider: how about changing nothing about HSA except simply making it compatible with Advanced Optics (applied later)? Then you can choose not to swallow the poison pill, but at a further OP cost.

Regarding S-modded Expanded Mags, I agree with FooF. I never considered the Thumper to be worth it past early game, but S-EM brought it into the light and they are one of my favourite weapons now. Likewise with the Paladin or Burst PD Lasers, both weapons I hardly ever used that can now be enabled by S-EM in a way that more OP can't do.
What I will say about S-EM however, is that it somewhat shares an issue with the old Safety Overrides S-mod in that it can really limit build diversity. By building it in you kind of always want a couple charge-based weapons in your fit from then on (less universally applicable than, say, ITU or Reinforced Bulkheads). Makes me wish for an S-mod removal service :|

[eert5rty7u8i9i7u6yrewqdef]

Beam DPS would be flux efficient but OP inefficient, while energy bolt DPS would be flux inefficient but OP efficient.
This would have a valuable use case for ships that have a good amount of OP, but not enough venting. So high-tech frigates like the Wolf, Midline ships, and many Remnant ships.

I don't agree, beam weapons are already really cheap and efficient flux-wise and often the ships that can field them have a flux profile made to account for generally inefficient bolt weapons. Making them (and only them) slightly cheaper isn't really going to make the difference worth the extra OP or a different S-mod bonus.

I'm fine if they compete with regular bolt weapons because one is already paying that tax to enable them to do so (just like with S-Modded Expanded Mags), but if they were to have an alternative niche, I'd like it to really be interesting and not just a minor stat change.

-Folk have mentioned split beams, that would be a cool S-mod bonus.
-Or if it bounced off of enemy shields and could hit other enemies.
-Or if it doubled special beam effects, like Graviton shield damage buff is doubled and/or Ion Beam/Tach Lance do double EMP arcing through shields.
-Or the S-mod bonus gives the beams back their original range, but the hard-flux damage only applies within the HSA range ie your Graviton does soft flux at 1000 SU until the enemy gets within 600 SU upon which it does hard flux as per HSA usual.

All of those are pretty tough to put into action, tricky to balance, and are inconsistent with peer S-mod effects though, so ultimately tweaking the range debuff is frankly the easiest lever.

What if the S-mod bonus reduced the range malus? Like modifying the base range from 200 to 400? Or reducing the "past base range" modifier from 50% to 40%?

Hmm, makes me consider: how about changing nothing about HSA except simply making it compatible with Advanced Optics (applied later)? Then you can choose not to swallow the poison pill, but at a further OP cost.

Regarding S-modded Expanded Mags, I agree with FooF. I never considered the Thumper to be worth it past early game, but S-EM brought it into the light and they are one of my favourite weapons now. Likewise with the Paladin or Burst PD Lasers, both weapons I hardly ever used that can now be enabled by S-EM in a way that more OP can't do.
What I will say about S-EM however, is that it somewhat shares an issue with the old Safety Overrides S-mod in that it can really limit build diversity. By building it in you kind of always want a couple charge-based weapons in your fit from then on (less universally applicable than, say, ITU or Reinforced Bulkheads). Makes me wish for an S-mod removal service :|

You can't increase the range without breaking the games balance. The moment proper High-Tech gets ballistic ranged energy weapons is the moment where all other types of ships get invalidated. I've always known this from playing mods, but I got a hard reminder when I installed Hazard Mining Incorporated and it introduced Remnant weapons that had longer than standard range for a borderline nonexistent OP increase and or flux efficiency decrease.
HMI also introduced me to weapons that frequently pierce shields at any flux level. Given HSA Tachyon Lance and Ion Beam can do that, but are uncommon at low flux, having HSA increase their effects would be hellish, just as it was with that mod.

Really if you want to see it for yourself, download HMI, use only vanilla weapons, and go fight some Ordos. You will quickly realize it's for the best that they stay in the realm of modding.

Having multiple beams decreases hit strength, making anti-armor / anti-hull beam weapons worthless. Decreasing the useful builds for S-HSA.
Shield bouncing is best left to a dedicated weapon as it would be agony to balance, and have the AI recognize as a potential threat.
The AI would struggle with beams being half hardflux/softflux. Both on the firing and receiving end.

This is why I made such a simple suggestion for a s-mod. The more complicated it gets, the harder it is to balance and ensure the AI can handle it.

[TheLaughingDead]

You can't increase the range without breaking the games balance. The moment proper High-Tech gets ballistic ranged energy weapons is the moment where all other types of ships get invalidated. I've always known this from playing mods, but I got a hard reminder when I installed Hazard Mining Incorporated and it introduced Remnant weapons that had longer than standard range for a borderline nonexistent OP increase and or flux efficiency decrease.

Can't increase the range at all? The suggestion isn't to maintain a 1000 range beam here, it is to simply put them out of the 500-600 SU range band. Regarding the mod you referenced, you stated it yourself that the special Remnant weapons had a borderline nonexistent OP increase/efficiency decrease, which doesn't really inspire confidence in the balancing ability of that mod. The whole point of this thread is finding the right balance anyway, right?

HMI also introduced me to weapons that frequently pierce shields at any flux level. Given HSA Tachyon Lance and Ion Beam can do that, but are uncommon at low flux, having HSA increase their effects would be hellish, just as it was with that mod.

I didn't suggest EMP arcing at every flux level. I said double the effects. If EMP doesn't arc at low flux, then it still doesn't arc at low flux.

Having multiple beams decreases hit strength, making anti-armor / anti-hull beam weapons worthless. Decreasing the useful builds for S-HSA.

The implication there was that there was some benefit to make the split beams worth it, ie each of three beams does half damage or the beams maintain their effects (like the above 'doubled effects' idea). I remember these ideas coming up in past HSA balance discussions so I didn't feel like retreading all that ground, but the point is that it isn't just to split the beam.

Shield bouncing is best left to a dedicated weapon as it would be agony to balance, and have the AI recognize as a potential threat.
The AI would struggle with beams being half hardflux/softflux. Both on the firing and receiving end.

I agree the AI would be tricky with both of these, was spitballing at that point. Hence why I followed those ideas up with "those are pretty tough to put into action, tricky to balance, and are inconsistent with peer S-mod effects though, so ultimately tweaking the range debuff is frankly the easiest lever."

Which returns to the range balancing. I think halved range beyond 400 isn't that crazy a change.
Compare the Graviton to the Arbalest:
9 vs 8 OP (not counting HSA cost or S-mod opportunity cost)
Both 700 range
Equal damage/flux
Higher hit strength for Arbalest
Perfect accuracy and minor shield debuff effect for Graviton

Similar comparisons with the IR Autolance and the Thumper, where the Thumper recovers charges faster but the IR has higher hit strength. Phase Lance doesn't approach ballistic range or efficiency in any world. Ion Beam is still an expensive and inefficient weapon. All the large energy beams would have equal range to Autopulse or Plasma Cannon, so hardly competitive with large ballistics there. The largest imbalance I see would be the tac laser, which would have 700 range against similarly ranged ballistics, but perfect accuracy. Tactical Lasers are also inefficient compared to ballistics and have poor hit strength though...

All of this at the price of OP, which high-tech ships already have less of compared to low-tech ships, or at the cost of an S-mod slot, when there are some really competitive high-tech S-mod bonuses. All of this compared to 700 range ballistic weapons, which are on the lower end of ballistic ranges. The only thing a high-tech ship would have going with these 700 range beams is speed, which, yeah, it helps, but they still need to enter ballistic weapon range to deliver that damage. The only ships that don't have ballistics are energy-only ships, and in that case I agree that they would have an advantage,  but what are the chances that such a perfect matchup occurs? Never mind that high-tech shields are already an almost rock-paper-scissors like hard-counter to regular (non-HSA) beams as-is.

After looking case-by-case (ignoring Dorito weapons as they are special cases anyway) I'm not convinced that 700 range hard-flux beams would be competitive with ballistic weapons at all. They seem like they'd only be decent against slower, energy-only, non-capital enemy ships. That is a pretty specific niche. Frankly, HSA is useless as-is, so if the range change was an S-mod bonus then HSA wouldn't ever see action outside of being S-modded, that's for sure.

[eert5rty7u8i9i7u6yrewqdef]

Spoiler

You can't increase the range without breaking the games balance. The moment proper High-Tech gets ballistic ranged energy weapons is the moment where all other types of ships get invalidated. I've always known this from playing mods, but I got a hard reminder when I installed Hazard Mining Incorporated and it introduced Remnant weapons that had longer than standard range for a borderline nonexistent OP increase and or flux efficiency decrease.

Can't increase the range at all? The suggestion isn't to maintain a 1000 range beam here, it is to simply put them out of the 500-600 SU range band. Regarding the mod you referenced, you stated it yourself that the special Remnant weapons had a borderline nonexistent OP increase/efficiency decrease, which doesn't really inspire confidence in the balancing ability of that mod. The whole point of this thread is finding the right balance anyway, right?

HMI also introduced me to weapons that frequently pierce shields at any flux level. Given HSA Tachyon Lance and Ion Beam can do that, but are uncommon at low flux, having HSA increase their effects would be hellish, just as it was with that mod.

I didn't suggest EMP arcing at every flux level. I said double the effects. If EMP doesn't arc at low flux, then it still doesn't arc at low flux.

Having multiple beams decreases hit strength, making anti-armor / anti-hull beam weapons worthless. Decreasing the useful builds for S-HSA.

The implication there was that there was some benefit to make the split beams worth it, ie each of three beams does half damage or the beams maintain their effects (like the above 'doubled effects' idea). I remember these ideas coming up in past HSA balance discussions so I didn't feel like retreading all that ground, but the point is that it isn't just to split the beam.

Shield bouncing is best left to a dedicated weapon as it would be agony to balance, and have the AI recognize as a potential threat.
The AI would struggle with beams being half hardflux/softflux. Both on the firing and receiving end.

I agree the AI would be tricky with both of these, was spitballing at that point. Hence why I followed those ideas up with "those are pretty tough to put into action, tricky to balance, and are inconsistent with peer S-mod effects though, so ultimately tweaking the range debuff is frankly the easiest lever."

Which returns to the range balancing. I think halved range beyond 400 isn't that crazy a change.
Compare the Graviton to the Arbalest:
9 vs 8 OP (not counting HSA cost or S-mod opportunity cost)
Both 700 range
Equal damage/flux
Higher hit strength for Arbalest
Perfect accuracy and minor shield debuff effect for Graviton

Similar comparisons with the IR Autolance and the Thumper, where the Thumper recovers charges faster but the IR has higher hit strength. Phase Lance doesn't approach ballistic range or efficiency in any world. Ion Beam is still an expensive and inefficient weapon. All the large energy beams would have equal range to Autopulse or Plasma Cannon, so hardly competitive with large ballistics there. The largest imbalance I see would be the tac laser, which would have 700 range against similarly ranged ballistics, but perfect accuracy. Tactical Lasers are also inefficient compared to ballistics and have poor hit strength though...

All of this at the price of OP, which high-tech ships already have less of compared to low-tech ships, or at the cost of an S-mod slot, when there are some really competitive high-tech S-mod bonuses. All of this compared to 700 range ballistic weapons, which are on the lower end of ballistic ranges. The only thing a high-tech ship would have going with these 700 range beams is speed, which, yeah, it helps, but they still need to enter ballistic weapon range to deliver that damage. The only ships that don't have ballistics are energy-only ships, and in that case I agree that they would have an advantage,  but what are the chances that such a perfect matchup occurs? Never mind that high-tech shields are already an almost rock-paper-scissors like hard-counter to regular (non-HSA) beams as-is.

After looking case-by-case (ignoring Dorito weapons as they are special cases anyway) I'm not convinced that 700 range hard-flux beams would be competitive with ballistic weapons at all. They seem like they'd only be decent against slower, energy-only, non-capital enemy ships. That is a pretty specific niche. Frankly, HSA is useless as-is, so if the range change was an S-mod bonus then HSA wouldn't ever see action outside of being S-modded, that's for sure.

[close]

Unless you want to make them massively flux inefficient, no not at all. The bonus range from ballistic weapons is needed to give the slower Low-Tech ships breathing room. It allows them to fire on High-Tech ships first, and drop their shields first when both ships back off to vent. Granting them a good tradeoff for the extreme speed and dissipation difference.
To get the same 700 range on energy weapons, and thereby on HT ships, you would need decrease their efficiency by an extreme margin to cover for this. When I say extreme, I mean extreme, 0.8 efficiency beam weapons would become 1.1-1.2 efficient weapons.

You may not have suggested it, but that's the end effect. HSA Tachyon Lances deal the hardflux they need to arc, which means firing on ships at 0 flux still has a chance to generate an arc. Doubling the odds this happens turns it into a weapon that will reliably shut down destroyers and some lower capacity cruisers.

Pretty much any way you balance split beams is going to have negative consequences. The way I mentioned decreases hit strength making weapons like the HIL, TL, and PL significantly weaker.
Decreasing DPS so that each beam has the same hit strength makes it easier for ships to shield tank shots.

For most of these, see the opening reason. For Phase Lances, you're getting a flux efficient, higher dps, perfect accuracy, and never ending Anti-Matter Blaster for 1 op + HSA, it should be 400 range. Tachyon Lances have a higher sustained DPS than AutoPulse lasers, have higher hit strength, better accuracy, and will arc through shields, for being less flux efficient, lower range, 5 op +HSA, and not having the opening burst. Boosting its range would probably make it an auto pick over AutoPulse Lasers.

[TheLaughingDead]

Spoiler

Spoiler

You can't increase the range without breaking the games balance. The moment proper High-Tech gets ballistic ranged energy weapons is the moment where all other types of ships get invalidated. I've always known this from playing mods, but I got a hard reminder when I installed Hazard Mining Incorporated and it introduced Remnant weapons that had longer than standard range for a borderline nonexistent OP increase and or flux efficiency decrease.

Can't increase the range at all? The suggestion isn't to maintain a 1000 range beam here, it is to simply put them out of the 500-600 SU range band. Regarding the mod you referenced, you stated it yourself that the special Remnant weapons had a borderline nonexistent OP increase/efficiency decrease, which doesn't really inspire confidence in the balancing ability of that mod. The whole point of this thread is finding the right balance anyway, right?

HMI also introduced me to weapons that frequently pierce shields at any flux level. Given HSA Tachyon Lance and Ion Beam can do that, but are uncommon at low flux, having HSA increase their effects would be hellish, just as it was with that mod.

I didn't suggest EMP arcing at every flux level. I said double the effects. If EMP doesn't arc at low flux, then it still doesn't arc at low flux.

Having multiple beams decreases hit strength, making anti-armor / anti-hull beam weapons worthless. Decreasing the useful builds for S-HSA.

The implication there was that there was some benefit to make the split beams worth it, ie each of three beams does half damage or the beams maintain their effects (like the above 'doubled effects' idea). I remember these ideas coming up in past HSA balance discussions so I didn't feel like retreading all that ground, but the point is that it isn't just to split the beam.

Shield bouncing is best left to a dedicated weapon as it would be agony to balance, and have the AI recognize as a potential threat.
The AI would struggle with beams being half hardflux/softflux. Both on the firing and receiving end.

I agree the AI would be tricky with both of these, was spitballing at that point. Hence why I followed those ideas up with "those are pretty tough to put into action, tricky to balance, and are inconsistent with peer S-mod effects though, so ultimately tweaking the range debuff is frankly the easiest lever."

Which returns to the range balancing. I think halved range beyond 400 isn't that crazy a change.
Compare the Graviton to the Arbalest:
9 vs 8 OP (not counting HSA cost or S-mod opportunity cost)
Both 700 range
Equal damage/flux
Higher hit strength for Arbalest
Perfect accuracy and minor shield debuff effect for Graviton

Similar comparisons with the IR Autolance and the Thumper, where the Thumper recovers charges faster but the IR has higher hit strength. Phase Lance doesn't approach ballistic range or efficiency in any world. Ion Beam is still an expensive and inefficient weapon. All the large energy beams would have equal range to Autopulse or Plasma Cannon, so hardly competitive with large ballistics there. The largest imbalance I see would be the tac laser, which would have 700 range against similarly ranged ballistics, but perfect accuracy. Tactical Lasers are also inefficient compared to ballistics and have poor hit strength though...

All of this at the price of OP, which high-tech ships already have less of compared to low-tech ships, or at the cost of an S-mod slot, when there are some really competitive high-tech S-mod bonuses. All of this compared to 700 range ballistic weapons, which are on the lower end of ballistic ranges. The only thing a high-tech ship would have going with these 700 range beams is speed, which, yeah, it helps, but they still need to enter ballistic weapon range to deliver that damage. The only ships that don't have ballistics are energy-only ships, and in that case I agree that they would have an advantage,  but what are the chances that such a perfect matchup occurs? Never mind that high-tech shields are already an almost rock-paper-scissors like hard-counter to regular (non-HSA) beams as-is.

After looking case-by-case (ignoring Dorito weapons as they are special cases anyway) I'm not convinced that 700 range hard-flux beams would be competitive with ballistic weapons at all. They seem like they'd only be decent against slower, energy-only, non-capital enemy ships. That is a pretty specific niche. Frankly, HSA is useless as-is, so if the range change was an S-mod bonus then HSA wouldn't ever see action outside of being S-modded, that's for sure.

[close]

Unless you want to make them massively flux inefficient, no not at all. The bonus range from ballistic weapons is needed to give the slower Low-Tech ships breathing room. It allows them to fire on High-Tech ships first, and drop their shields first when both ships back off to vent. Granting them a good tradeoff for the extreme speed and dissipation difference.
To get the same 700 range on energy weapons, and thereby on HT ships, you would need decrease their efficiency by an extreme margin to cover for this. When I say extreme, I mean extreme, 0.8 efficiency beam weapons would become 1.1-1.2 efficient weapons.

You may not have suggested it, but that's the end effect. HSA Tachyon Lances deal the hardflux they need to arc, which means firing on ships at 0 flux still has a chance to generate an arc. Doubling the odds this happens turns it into a weapon that will reliably shut down destroyers and some lower capacity cruisers.

Pretty much any way you balance split beams is going to have negative consequences. The way I mentioned decreases hit strength making weapons like the HIL, TL, and PL significantly weaker.
Decreasing DPS so that each beam has the same hit strength makes it easier for ships to shield tank shots.

For most of these, see the opening reason. For Phase Lances, you're getting a flux efficient, higher dps, perfect accuracy, and never ending Anti-Matter Blaster for 1 op + HSA, it should be 400 range. Tachyon Lances have a higher sustained DPS than AutoPulse lasers, have higher hit strength, better accuracy, and will arc through shields, for being less flux efficient, lower range, 5 op +HSA, and not having the opening burst. Boosting its range would probably make it an auto pick over AutoPulse Lasers.

[close]

1. I understand the theory, but again, I disagree. As I mentioned, 700 range is the low end for a ballistic weapon as-is. They are also significantly more efficient by virtue of specialized damage types, and frankly speaking, I don't find any of the base-1000-range beams to be good enough with hard flux to compete with their ballistic counterparts. I can hardly see a Tactical Laser or Graviton Beam whittling down an enemy ship before PPT kicks in, in a fleet setting at least. I'd really have to see it to believe it!

2. Good! Shutting down a destroyer with an S-mod boosted Large Energy (already more rare than Large Ballistic and shorter range to boot) should be an achievement. Especially considering how a non-HSA-boosted Tachyon Lance or Autopulse can already perform very well against a destroyer or light cruiser, it doesn't seem like much of an accomplishment. I'll chock this one up to another "see it to believe it".

3. Negative consequences aren't always an issue. Some hullmods have negative consequences, but still fulfill niches, like how S-modded Armoured Weapon Mounts can push an already over-fluxed ship into downright comatose territory, or how S-modded Integrated Point Defense AI can be a bad pick with certain small weapons because they are really bad and inefficient anti-fighter/missile weapons. The point is that sometimes the split beams would be good enough to justify the cost. My example of maintain beam effects but you get it with three separate beams means one Graviton would provide the full 10% shield damage bonus, or that dreaded shield arcing you were just trembling at would come into effect three (!) times over. Also can't say that I wouldn't ever make that trade for a High-Intensity Laser; 50% higher DPS for half hit strength would still be fine for cracking most cruiser-grade armour, it just wouldn't be as effective against the toughest armour around (kind of like how the HAG is higher hull DPS but lower hit strength compared to Hellbore).

4. Phase Lances also take up a medium slot? I can't put a Phase Lance on a Scarab or Omen, for example. Should an Arbalest be weighed against a Railgun now? I personally have a simple conversion ratio where 1L = 2M = 4S. It doesn't hold up perfectly, some slot sizes are more efficient than others, but that is my general feeling. So I'd say that a Phase Lance should probably be twice as good as an Antimatter Blaster right out of the gate anyway. Maybe even better, because I consider small Energy slots to be weaker than the 2-to-1 ratio listed above suggests.

5. Regarding Autopulse versus S-modded HSA'd Tachyon, wouldn't a more apt comparison be to an S-modded ExMag'd Autopulse? All the things you listed are comparing a (presumably S-modded, though it doesn't really matter) HSA'd Tachyon Lance to a raw Autopulse; they shouldn't be so evenly matched that HSA still needs a buff to come out ahead!

[Mattk50]

This, and make it actually visually scatter the laser.

EDF (Earth defense force) has some hilarious laser shotguns that randomly scatter beams in a cone when firing them. Honestly i would love if the high scatter amplifier had a similar visual effect on use

[eert5rty7u8i9i7u6yrewqdef]

Spoiler

Spoiler

Spoiler

You can't increase the range without breaking the games balance. The moment proper High-Tech gets ballistic ranged energy weapons is the moment where all other types of ships get invalidated. I've always known this from playing mods, but I got a hard reminder when I installed Hazard Mining Incorporated and it introduced Remnant weapons that had longer than standard range for a borderline nonexistent OP increase and or flux efficiency decrease.

Can't increase the range at all? The suggestion isn't to maintain a 1000 range beam here, it is to simply put them out of the 500-600 SU range band. Regarding the mod you referenced, you stated it yourself that the special Remnant weapons had a borderline nonexistent OP increase/efficiency decrease, which doesn't really inspire confidence in the balancing ability of that mod. The whole point of this thread is finding the right balance anyway, right?

HMI also introduced me to weapons that frequently pierce shields at any flux level. Given HSA Tachyon Lance and Ion Beam can do that, but are uncommon at low flux, having HSA increase their effects would be hellish, just as it was with that mod.

I didn't suggest EMP arcing at every flux level. I said double the effects. If EMP doesn't arc at low flux, then it still doesn't arc at low flux.

Having multiple beams decreases hit strength, making anti-armor / anti-hull beam weapons worthless. Decreasing the useful builds for S-HSA.

The implication there was that there was some benefit to make the split beams worth it, ie each of three beams does half damage or the beams maintain their effects (like the above 'doubled effects' idea). I remember these ideas coming up in past HSA balance discussions so I didn't feel like retreading all that ground, but the point is that it isn't just to split the beam.

Shield bouncing is best left to a dedicated weapon as it would be agony to balance, and have the AI recognize as a potential threat.
The AI would struggle with beams being half hardflux/softflux. Both on the firing and receiving end.

I agree the AI would be tricky with both of these, was spitballing at that point. Hence why I followed those ideas up with "those are pretty tough to put into action, tricky to balance, and are inconsistent with peer S-mod effects though, so ultimately tweaking the range debuff is frankly the easiest lever."

Which returns to the range balancing. I think halved range beyond 400 isn't that crazy a change.
Compare the Graviton to the Arbalest:
9 vs 8 OP (not counting HSA cost or S-mod opportunity cost)
Both 700 range
Equal damage/flux
Higher hit strength for Arbalest
Perfect accuracy and minor shield debuff effect for Graviton

Similar comparisons with the IR Autolance and the Thumper, where the Thumper recovers charges faster but the IR has higher hit strength. Phase Lance doesn't approach ballistic range or efficiency in any world. Ion Beam is still an expensive and inefficient weapon. All the large energy beams would have equal range to Autopulse or Plasma Cannon, so hardly competitive with large ballistics there. The largest imbalance I see would be the tac laser, which would have 700 range against similarly ranged ballistics, but perfect accuracy. Tactical Lasers are also inefficient compared to ballistics and have poor hit strength though...

All of this at the price of OP, which high-tech ships already have less of compared to low-tech ships, or at the cost of an S-mod slot, when there are some really competitive high-tech S-mod bonuses. All of this compared to 700 range ballistic weapons, which are on the lower end of ballistic ranges. The only thing a high-tech ship would have going with these 700 range beams is speed, which, yeah, it helps, but they still need to enter ballistic weapon range to deliver that damage. The only ships that don't have ballistics are energy-only ships, and in that case I agree that they would have an advantage,  but what are the chances that such a perfect matchup occurs? Never mind that high-tech shields are already an almost rock-paper-scissors like hard-counter to regular (non-HSA) beams as-is.

After looking case-by-case (ignoring Dorito weapons as they are special cases anyway) I'm not convinced that 700 range hard-flux beams would be competitive with ballistic weapons at all. They seem like they'd only be decent against slower, energy-only, non-capital enemy ships. That is a pretty specific niche. Frankly, HSA is useless as-is, so if the range change was an S-mod bonus then HSA wouldn't ever see action outside of being S-modded, that's for sure.

[close]

Unless you want to make them massively flux inefficient, no not at all. The bonus range from ballistic weapons is needed to give the slower Low-Tech ships breathing room. It allows them to fire on High-Tech ships first, and drop their shields first when both ships back off to vent. Granting them a good tradeoff for the extreme speed and dissipation difference.
To get the same 700 range on energy weapons, and thereby on HT ships, you would need decrease their efficiency by an extreme margin to cover for this. When I say extreme, I mean extreme, 0.8 efficiency beam weapons would become 1.1-1.2 efficient weapons.

You may not have suggested it, but that's the end effect. HSA Tachyon Lances deal the hardflux they need to arc, which means firing on ships at 0 flux still has a chance to generate an arc. Doubling the odds this happens turns it into a weapon that will reliably shut down destroyers and some lower capacity cruisers.

Pretty much any way you balance split beams is going to have negative consequences. The way I mentioned decreases hit strength making weapons like the HIL, TL, and PL significantly weaker.
Decreasing DPS so that each beam has the same hit strength makes it easier for ships to shield tank shots.

For most of these, see the opening reason. For Phase Lances, you're getting a flux efficient, higher dps, perfect accuracy, and never ending Anti-Matter Blaster for 1 op + HSA, it should be 400 range. Tachyon Lances have a higher sustained DPS than AutoPulse lasers, have higher hit strength, better accuracy, and will arc through shields, for being less flux efficient, lower range, 5 op +HSA, and not having the opening burst. Boosting its range would probably make it an auto pick over AutoPulse Lasers.

[close]

1. I understand the theory, but again, I disagree. As I mentioned, 700 range is the low end for a ballistic weapon as-is. They are also significantly more efficient by virtue of specialized damage types, and frankly speaking, I don't find any of the base-1000-range beams to be good enough with hard flux to compete with their ballistic counterparts. I can hardly see a Tactical Laser or Graviton Beam whittling down an enemy ship before PPT kicks in, in a fleet setting at least. I'd really have to see it to believe it!

2. Good! Shutting down a destroyer with an S-mod boosted Large Energy (already more rare than Large Ballistic and shorter range to boot) should be an achievement. Especially considering how a non-HSA-boosted Tachyon Lance or Autopulse can already perform very well against a destroyer or light cruiser, it doesn't seem like much of an accomplishment. I'll chock this one up to another "see it to believe it".

3. Negative consequences aren't always an issue. Some hullmods have negative consequences, but still fulfill niches, like how S-modded Armoured Weapon Mounts can push an already over-fluxed ship into downright comatose territory, or how S-modded Integrated Point Defense AI can be a bad pick with certain small weapons because they are really bad and inefficient anti-fighter/missile weapons. The point is that sometimes the split beams would be good enough to justify the cost. My example of maintain beam effects but you get it with three separate beams means one Graviton would provide the full 10% shield damage bonus, or that dreaded shield arcing you were just trembling at would come into effect three (!) times over. Also can't say that I wouldn't ever make that trade for a High-Intensity Laser; 50% higher DPS for half hit strength would still be fine for cracking most cruiser-grade armour, it just wouldn't be as effective against the toughest armour around (kind of like how the HAG is higher hull DPS but lower hit strength compared to Hellbore).

4. Phase Lances also take up a medium slot? I can't put a Phase Lance on a Scarab or Omen, for example. Should an Arbalest be weighed against a Railgun now? I personally have a simple conversion ratio where 1L = 2M = 4S. It doesn't hold up perfectly, some slot sizes are more efficient than others, but that is my general feeling. So I'd say that a Phase Lance should probably be twice as good as an Antimatter Blaster right out of the gate anyway. Maybe even better, because I consider small Energy slots to be weaker than the 2-to-1 ratio listed above suggests.

5. Regarding Autopulse versus S-modded HSA'd Tachyon, wouldn't a more apt comparison be to an S-modded ExMag'd Autopulse? All the things you listed are comparing a (presumably S-modded, though it doesn't really matter) HSA'd Tachyon Lance to a raw Autopulse; they shouldn't be so evenly matched that HSA still needs a buff to come out ahead!

[close]

It's also the most efficient end of ballistics in terms of flux/dps/range vs OP. The longer-range options already tend to lose the flux war against faster ships, owing to both their OP cost, flux inefficiency, and low DPS. The exception is the Heavy Autocannon, which pretty much nobody uses because it's boring.
As for whittling down enemy ships before PPT becomes an issue, I already do it with Phase Lance TT Brawlers. They're operating at 800 range, but they only deal soft flux. Between them and the Salamanders, one alone can defeat most destroyers in the game, three can beat any Cruiser. A 700 range hardflux Graviton Beam operates at 210-220 DPS along with buffing shield damage for other weapons. I would say just mod it so you can see for yourself, however HSA is not present in the Data folder for easy modification.

You can already see it, just download the mod I mentioned. Everything you've said seems like a good idea until you have to fight it, at which point you will be glad it's not in vanilla.

There's literally no benefit to making every beam weapon multibeam with a s-mod besides the fact that it sounds cool and increasing secondary effects. Which would be broken mind you. Doubling arcing for every ship with emp beams is on par with the enemy bringing a couple ships with Reality Disrupters. It's agonizing to fight and is without counter beyond spamming weapon/engine repair stats.
Gravitons are also an issue because you're forgetting their secondary effect which everyone forgets about, they push things. Two to three Graviton beams make frigates difficult to control, double that makes them spin uncontrollably, tripling or quadrupling with split beams would send them flying and make destroyers impossible to control and cruisers very difficult to control.
If you need to see it to believe it, grab a frigate or destroyer, and go fight the Persean League. Their Gazer spam will give you a good idea of what doubling the effects of gravitons is like.

It literally is two times the overall power of an Antimatter Blaster. It's 238.7 DPS vs 274 DPS, in return for not needing ammunition, perfect accuracy, and better flux efficiency.

Yep, I forgot about s-ExMags. Still, it shouldn't be competing with AutoPulse lasers, they need separate niches.

I'm not going to move from this position. No bonus range, no doubling the effects, and no cheesing my disagreement by doubling the effects through split beams.

If you want bonus range with HSA, allowing Energy Bolt Coherer to work with it would be fine as all the ships with that hullmod have midline speed and dissipation.

Here are a few s-mod bonuses that would be fine and would fix some current issues and fit the hullmod's theme. A combination of them would be fine as well.
Increased flux efficiency, as mentioned.
Increased turn speed of beam weapons while firing.
Instant travel of beam weapons. So, beams like the Tactical Laser would start hitting the moment they fire.
Increased beam damage to enemy hull, HSA IRAL is fairly worthless so may as well.

[Thaago]

Side note: the AMB does have better armor penetration than the phase lance at 1250 vs 550 (including the 10% of HSA, which probably stacks in a different way but good enough). Otoh, when the phase lance forces an overload it doesn't lose the whole shot.

[Goumindong]

What if, instead of reducing range. HSA scaled the hard flux a beam did between 0 at max range and 100 at ranges below 200+50% of range over 200.

IE turn it into something similar to the high flux damage bonus skill for energy weapons.

Edit: no advanced optics still. But no more super harsh downside (because the downside is hella big As I have explained in other threads the fact that beams do soft flux damage isn’t a big deal unless the target isn’t shooting back. So the lack of hard flux on beams is only a significant downside outside of the range of other enemies…)

[BigBrainEnergy]

What if, instead of reducing range. HSA scaled the hard flux a beam did between 0 at max range and 100 at ranges below 200+50% of range over 200.

IE turn it into something similar to the high flux damage bonus skill for energy weapons.

I suggested this over a year ago, but no dice.

Maybe you could have high scatter amplifier basically give you 2 beams: it does soft flux out to the weapon's full range and hard flux once the enemy comes within 50% of the beam's range. So you don't lose the ability to apply soft flux pressure at range, you only gain hard flux at close range, and you can have the change marked by a visual difference in the beam. The problem (besides the extra effort to implement it) is it could just turn out ugly, and that's no good.

This is the type of thing that sounds good on paper but comes with a lot of extra baggage that probably isn't worth sorting through.

[FooF]

Oddly enough, I'm using HSA on 3x Phase Lance Aurora with 3x AMB and some IR Pulses and it is...ok-to-good? Like, I get point blank with most things anyway because of the AMB and it also guarantees EWM is working fully. It's not an SO ship but it kind of feels like one.

[Princess of Evil]

That's a bit like saying that SO range malus doesn't exist because ACG doesn't get hit with it. PL is already a melee weapon, HSA doesn't really affect it, and honestly HSA kind of feels balanced around the two lances. It's just that the two lances aren't exactly great anti-shield weapons by themselves, even with HSA. Unless you're a frigate and your flux pool is smaller than Tach damage.

The entirety of HSA is kind of backwards, honestly. Most beam weapons are long range low damage. The ones that aren't are long range anti-armor/hull. They're hitscan, so easy to use at that range, but don't do much. HSA removes the one useful part, long range, and replaces it with hard flux. Which is, like. Sure? It does something on lances, if you have enough slots, but most of the beam weapons just lose their one benefit and gain nothing. ~75 energy DPS doesn't exactly leave the impression. Beam weapons are decent efficiency, so i guess you could put a lot of HSA beams on something that had a lot of slots, if it existed, but even then, you're just better off using pulse or AMB spam.

[Killer of Fate]

I've read it's good on a Nova. It allows to have hard-flux dmg of good significance without paying that much in flux. I think we should play into the aspect of flux efficient weapons. From what I remember... The dev always felt like hard-flux beam damage was a mistake. So, if I were to go for a cheap easy to program solution, I'd make HSA make beam weapons deal more dmg and cost less flux instead. Don't want to quote proper numbers though, cause that would take some testing.

[eert5rty7u8i9i7u6yrewqdef]

I've read it's good on a Nova. It allows to have hard-flux dmg of good significance without paying that much in flux. I think we should play into the aspect of flux efficient weapons. From what I remember... The dev always felt like hard-flux beam damage was a mistake. So, if I were to go for a cheap easy to program solution, I'd make HSA make beam weapons deal more dmg and cost less flux instead. Don't want to quote proper numbers though, cause that would take some testing.

Not as good as quad Pulse Laser, Autopulse Laser, HIL, alongside 4 Pilums. In large part due to the extreme cost of HSA and the consistency of that build. However, quad Phase Lance and dual Tachyon Lance with HSA, alongside quad Pilums can cause omni shield ships like the Paragon to randomly drop their shields in-between bursts and try to shield against missiles coming from the side or behind it. This can result in spectacular hull damage. Dropping a Paragon by a third of its health in the span of 2 seconds is no joke, it unfortunately is not consistent.

[Grievous69]

Not as good as quad Pulse Laser, Autopulse Laser, HIL, alongside 4 Pilums.

What a terrible day to have eyes.