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No! Leave my pretty blue beam alone!

It needs a little more damage: 110 Dps, 85 Fps

It needs a bunch more damage: 125 Dps, 100 Fps

Keep it the same, reduce OP to 9.

Keep it the same, recuce OP to 8.

Other!

[neonesis]

I'm definitivly against hard flux, it would be a drastic change

Doesn't have to be all hard flux, just enough that a ship with good shields or vents can't just bathe in laser beams.

But isn't it supposed to work this way? Beams are support weapons, good shield is what it's called - a good shield, capable of taking that kind of damage. It like saying "let's just drop entire kinetic vs. armor mechanics because Onslaught can bathe in Needlers". The point is, it's supposed to.

[Reshy]

I don't see why you are so worried about beams dealing hard flux despite being considered too weak by many of the people here.

[mendonca]

I don't see why you are so worried about beams dealing hard flux despite being considered too weak by many of the people here.

This argument is flawed though, you are suggesting his opinion is wrong because of other opinions. For what it's worth, I'm also happy with the current beam mechanics.

[hydremajor]

you guys keep saying Graviton Eagles can take on ship of their own sizes but I CAN ASSURE YOU absolutely NO Eagles used by the A.I. ATM can beat a Apogee...

Why ?

Because eagle can just keep on spamming his gravitons all he wants he's never going to even dent the Apogee's flux at all and even less if the Apogee has even just stabilised shields

If anything, all he'll accomplish is get a plasma cannon to the face

[hadesian]

you guys keep saying Graviton Eagles can take on ship of their own sizes but I CAN ASSURE YOU absolutely NO Eagles used by the A.I. ATM can beat a Apogee...

Why ?

Because eagle can just keep on spamming his gravitons all he wants he's never going to even dent the Apogee's flux at all and even less if the Apogee has even just stabilised shields

If anything, all he'll accomplish is get a plasma cannon to the face

But the Apogee is by far one of the best cruisers in the game, probably even the best...

[IIE16 Yoshi]

You make it sound as if you are trying to attack a ship with just 3 gravbeams. In which case, yeah, that's probably not gonna work.

[Catra]

you guys keep saying Graviton Eagles can take on ship of their own sizes but I CAN ASSURE YOU absolutely NO Eagles used by the A.I. ATM can beat a Apogee...

Why ?

Because eagle can just keep on spamming his gravitons all he wants he's never going to even dent the Apogee's flux at all and even less if the Apogee has even just stabilised shields

If anything, all he'll accomplish is get a plasma cannon to the face

and we already went over this a page or two back:

when faced against ships that can mitigate / vent (or mitigate + vent) their damage to where they don't move the flux bar, they are relegated to support weapons that drastically reduce the venting capability of the ship being focused, thus they cause them to either drop shields to continue the offensive or back off and vent.

[Dreyven]

If anything, all he'll accomplish is get a plasma cannon to the face

Which will cause massive flux spikes that aren't evened out by venting because a lot of venting power is going into graviton beams.

i mean, take the stock apogee

with vents and minus shield upkeep it has only 460 flux dissipation per second

normal crew, 0.6 flux/damage
3*200 is 600 *0,6 = 360
so if the eagle has 0% flux boost to it's weapons, the apogee is left with only 100 flux dissipation per second
as the flux rises, it will get even smaller

and let me tell you... 100 flux dissipation isn't a lot for firing weapons
this means that depending on how flux efficient the apogee's weapons are (most energy weapons are really inneficient)
that the eagle might just tank the apogee

and that is eagle vs apogee, where the eagle is clearly not as good as the apogee

[neonesis]

If anything, all he'll accomplish is get a plasma cannon to the face

Which will cause massive flux spikes that aren't evened out by venting because a lot of venting power is going into graviton beams.

i mean, take the stock apogee

with vents and minus shield upkeep it has only 460 flux dissipation per second

normal crew, 0.6 flux/damage
3*200 is 600 *0,6 = 360
so if the eagle has 0% flux boost to it's weapons, the apogee is left with only 100 flux dissipation per second
as the flux rises, it will get even smaller

and let me tell you... 100 flux dissipation isn't a lot for firing weapons
this means that depending on how flux efficient the apogee's weapons are (most energy weapons are really inneficient)
that the eagle might just tank the apogee

and that is eagle vs apogee, where the eagle is clearly not as good as the apogee

That's why people think beams are so weak - they don't always make flux bar move, their work is hidden. It all can be seen when the enemy ship starts firing and has no venting capable of keeping these weapons going.

By the way - don't forget that Apogee (and high-tech ships in general) should not be attacked by beams only. Ballistic Kinetics, gentlemen, remember their use.

[Mattk50]

I'd suggest a raw damage boost to make up for the lack of hard flux, but that then runs into problems vs armor heavy ships. Maybe if the flux cost was further reduced on all beam weapons to reflect their lack of utility in all but circumstances where other weapons would dominate the enemy anyway. Remember grav beams are kinetic, meaning they are nearly useless against armor while still being only decent vs shields. Then you have all the other beams.

The main advantage is the instant hit but i dont think its as much as an advantage as its made out to be considering that anything besides a talon can easily be hit by a pulse anyway, and even then i reguarly down talon wings with pulse lasers. Hell, its sort of a disadvantage in some respects when you consider that you need to have the weapon on the enemy constantly instead of just firing a few pulses at intervals. This is compounded by the soft flux they deal, meaning they need to have it constantly firing (meaning in range, on target, and with flux to spare and continue firing or you waste your damage to the enemies dissipation). Then you consider the balance of their overall lower damage than normal weapons. When i first played starfarer i thought this was a balancing mechanic where the low damage for their slot type was made up for by their effecient flux, but it turns out to not be the case and its actually a balancing mechanic for beams as a whole, so where does that leave us with the low damage?

[Reshy]

Making them more flux efficient might help, I don't see why you'd want to use a laser that has a 1:1 efficiency.  There's also the issue that beams aren't in fact perfect aim, with exception of burst.  That is because when a turret is actively firing they rotate much slower, they also have about a half-second travel time so it is possible to miss with them.  Non-beam lasers seems so much better nowadays, I hardly even use the standard laser PD because the burst is not only a better defense but a better weapon.  Only thing that the laser has is lower OP cost, which doesn't really help.

[hydremajor]

Funny fact

pulse lasers are better for the sheer fact they dish out hard flux, takes half an hour to kill anything but still better

To peoples who say the grav beam is just to add more flux strain: the thing works two ways, you put more flux strain on him but you take just about as much a strain on your own flux but on top of that you loose a perfectly potent medium energy weapon mount on wich I could put a pulse laser who'd at LEAST deal hard flux....

[Dreyven]

Funny fact

pulse lasers are better for the sheer fact they dish out hard flux, takes half an hour to kill anything but still better

To peoples who say the grav beam is just to add more flux strain: the thing works two ways, you put more flux strain on him but you take just about as much a strain on your own flux but on top of that you loose a perfectly potent medium energy weapon mount on wich I could put a pulse laser who'd at LEAST deal hard flux....

Yeah, but it adds somewhere between 1.25 and 5 times more flux strain on the enemy ship

[BillyRueben]

And pulse lasers would put way more flux strain on your own ship.

[Temjin]

And pulse lasers would put way more flux strain on your own ship.

Agreed. With higher tech ships I love tanking pulse laser damage to the shields... they drive up their own flux almost faster than I can do it myself!