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[Alex]

My thinking here is that it's an *extremely* situational weapon, that stripping armor as a DoT is very not great (because this often means you need to break the shields on the thing twice instead of once, or at the very least your anti-hull damage takes a while to benefit from it), and it's a hard sell to spend a medium slot on it, so it'd better be really, really good at its niche. Either that, or it could become more general-purpose, and I didn't want to go that route.

Still entirely possible that it's over-buffed, but those are my thoughts - basically that it has some intangibles going hard against it, so the raw numbers don't tell the story.

I do kind of wonder at the 900 range on top of the damage buff.

The specific idea with this is to give you a better chance to land a shot or two early, to mitigate the "HE that's not actually immediately useful as part of a combined volley" issue.

[Doctorhealsgood]

Well things tend to look different on paper it will probably won't hurt to let people test the buffed gimmicky DoT armor eater as it isn't exactly the easiest weapon to gauge its power.
And honestly a weapon that works through attrition should probably have long range.

[Hiruma Kai]

I do kind of wonder at the 900 range on top of the damage buff.

The specific idea with this is to give you a better chance to land a shot or two early, to mitigate the "HE that's not actually immediately useful as part of a combined volley" issue.

I guess my concern is high tech kiting setups.  900 range is 50% (or 300 units) more range than any hard flux damage medium energy mount currently, and certainly more than 50% more range than any small energy mount.  But as noted, the actual DPS for killing things is quite low.  I suppose it becomes an interesting anti-armor option for Eagles at that range, beating out Phase Lance range, and kinetics can do reasonable hull damage.  Triple HVD, Disintegrator and 2 IR Autolance sounds not crazy for a survivable, slow killing ship.

Mounted on high tech ships though, as the first thing to hit, its most likely hitting pristine shield at range 900.  If I were designing a slow armor eating weapon, and I wanted it to get a head start, instead of longer range, I'd give it the Ion Beam and Tachyon Lance treatment.  Perhaps if the target's hard flux is over 50%, give it some chance for a portion of the scripted armor damage to leak through the shield like an ion arc.  So by the time shields do go down, some armor has already been stripped.

It avoid high tech kiting issues while still letting the weapon do something over time before the target is dead.  You also don't feel quite so bad shooting a 4.0 flux efficiency weapon into shields.

[eert5rty7u8i9i7u6yrewqdef]

I think the easier way to calculate the armor DPS is note a disintegrator shoots 1.25 shots per second on average (3 shots with refire 2.4), with each shot dealing 100 HE and 1000 scripted armor damage in total, assuming the ship's armor lasts for 10 more seconds.  So 125 HE DPS and 1250 scripted armor DPS.

To make this example more concrete, lets say I land all 25 shots over 20 seconds and then the target's armor is all gone at the 30 second mark after I stop firing.  I'll have dealt 25,000 scripted armor damage in 20 seconds of fire, which is only 25,000/20 = 1,250 scripted armor DPS.  I admit you've striped an Onslaught's frontal armor several times over at that point, but I think the point still stands.  If I stop counting my damage exactly at the 20 second mark, then I've done significantly less than 1,250 DPS, as the last 10 seconds of fire doesn't do the full scripted damage, but more like 19-20,000, so more like 1000 scripted armor DPS.

At no point have a I done 12,500 DPS.  I've got delayed damage, but I don't get to ignore the elapsed time prior to that point.

So I think such a change needs to be compared to other, highly regarded medium hybrid weapons.  Consider the Cryoblaster which is 1400 hull DPS (modulo some residual armor, which on an Onslaught still lets 80% through, so 1,120 hull damage per second without a delay).  Which also does armor (as if a 350 DPS energy weapon) and shield damage (as if a 350 DPS energy weapon), while the Disintegrator is limited to 62.5 shield DPS and 140 hull DPS against that same Onslaught.  Disintegrator is better only into some very specific, overly armored targets.

Mostly, I see this as a nerf to using Invictus, Onslaughts, and Legions to take down Tesseracts, since Tesseracts get to use these weapons, and bringing the disintegrator up to the Cryoblaster's DPS standards for its specific defense.  I do kind of wonder at the 900 range on top of the damage buff.  Admittedly, disintegrator isn't actually very efficient at killing things, so a fast Medusa with one and 900 range isn't that much of an issue I'd guess.  You still aren't going to want to be fielding a lot of these things on a single ship.  And Reapers still exist, which do something like 8000 armor damage in a single shot.  Quadruple Reapers on a personally piloted Onslaught or Radiant also tend to make armor a moot point, while also potentially doing 16,000 hull in a burst.

You are correct, I screwed up my math because I was tired.

Although shot per second is incorrect due to the first shots firing within .4 seconds with no cooldown. Meaning over the course of 20 seconds you get 30 total shots (15 per the fist two sets of ten seconds) after that it drops down to 12 shots every 10 seconds for a total of 50 seconds, at which point it wraps back around again.
The average shots within 10 seconds are (15*2+12*5)/7 = 12 and 6/7 shots within 10 seconds on average (assuming you fire for 70 seconds or any whole number multiple of 70 seconds).

This means the average max DPS against armor for infinite time is 1,200 + 600/7. For just the first 20 seconds, it's 1,500.

Although this means a Brawler loaded with a single Disintegrator can deal 15,000 armor damage to an Invictus if it fires at it for 10 seconds. With the damage fully applied 10 seconds after the Brawler stopped firing. Not as bad as I thought it was, it is still pretty extreme. While Reapers exist, they are reduced by armor, and they can be shot down.
Given its equivalent the Mining Blaster with s-modded EX Mags can only deal 2,300 scripted armor damage over 20 seconds, this does still feel like it's a bit over tuned. (8+20*.75) * 100 = 23*100= 2,300.

Dropping the damage down back to 500 would put the total damage over 20 seconds from 10 seconds of firing time to 7,500. Over three times the MB, which I feel is a fair trade for being flux inefficient, shooting at shields, being 14 OP, and only being able to field a couple of them.

[Wyvern]

Honestly, those changes do not materially improve the disintegrator for any of the builds I've tried to use it with.

The Disintegrator's issue isn't its raw damage output (though, okay, that wasn't great either), it's the high flux cost.

A build that uses a disintegrator is in one of the following three situations:
1: The disintegrator is linked in with something that the AI won't turn off, like PD, and wastes an egregious amount of the ship's flux firing into shields where it does almost nothing.
2: The disintegrator is in a fire group that the AI can turn off - and then the AI does, because it's so expensive with such a low listed DPS, and it just never turns it back on again.
3: The build is intended solely for player use, and an aggressive player is going to, indeed, get better results off a mining blaster (for any sane level of disintegrator damage output.)

The solution here is to dramatically lower the weapon's flux cost (and maybe also its OP cost though perhaps not by that much), making it a good choice for stripping armor when your flux budget is strained.

[Alex]

Mounted on high tech ships though, as the first thing to hit, its most likely hitting pristine shield at range 900.  If I were designing a slow armor eating weapon, and I wanted it to get a head start, instead of longer range, I'd give it the Ion Beam and Tachyon Lance treatment.  Perhaps if the target's hard flux is over 50%, give it some chance for a portion of the scripted armor damage to leak through the shield like an ion arc.  So by the time shields do go down, some armor has already been stripped.

That's an interesting idea! Though that also gets into "there's not actually any real counter-play" issues, possibly. Hmm.

The solution here is to dramatically lower the weapon's flux cost (and maybe also its OP cost though perhaps not by that much), making it a good choice for stripping armor when your flux budget is strained.

I specifically wanted to stay away from lowering the flux cost; I think having too many options with a low flux cost adds up to a reduced desirability of PD weapons, because ships become able to fill more slots with primary weapons instead. (Edit: that is to say, I agree with what you're saying otherwise.)

[Hiruma Kai]

Mounted on high tech ships though, as the first thing to hit, its most likely hitting pristine shield at range 900.  If I were designing a slow armor eating weapon, and I wanted it to get a head start, instead of longer range, I'd give it the Ion Beam and Tachyon Lance treatment.  Perhaps if the target's hard flux is over 50%, give it some chance for a portion of the scripted armor damage to leak through the shield like an ion arc.  So by the time shields do go down, some armor has already been stripped.

That's an interesting idea! Though that also gets into "there's not actually any real counter-play" issues, possibly. Hmm.

I'm not positive its good, but it'd be the first approach I'd test.  If we scale back to a range of 600 or so, then counter play is probably range.

As long as the bleed through is only scripted armor damage, and no hull damage, the counter-play is also just keeping your shields up.  The enemy shooting you has sacrificed an actual shield damaging weapon slot with a slow acting armor eater.  Most ships would probably be better off swapping out for more shield damage, and slap on a few high explosive missiles, like Reapers, Hammers, and Harpoons.  That means you should be winning the flux war, unless you were already in a losing position to begin with.  You can also mitigate it somewhat if the disintegrator "arcs" are similarly random like the ion arcs.  At which point you're doing a little bit of armor only damage to the entire ship instead of in one area.  So maybe a bit like Hydras in that respect.

I guess my counter question is, what do you see as the counterplay to an Ion Beam or Tachyon Lance?  Here, the Disintegrator is doing far less shield DPS (62.5) than most medium slot weapons, and at a terrible damage to flux ratio, so it is not that different to hitting with just soft flux weapons.

In any case, if the shields never go down, then it doesn't matter if there is no armor underneath.

Or take that line of thought further, what is the counter play to a Cryoblaster (1400 Hull DPS) or Volatile Particle Driver (capable of 3000 burst shield DPS and 900 sustained)?  In the case of the Cryoblaster, it is having shields and armor, and staying at range.  In the case of the Volatile Particle Driver, it is having a lot of armor and hull.  In the Disintegrator's case, it is having shields and hull, and if we leave the range lower, staying at range.

I feel like in the vanilla game, dealing with armor is a solved problem with common weapons, due to presence of missiles.  Reapers, Hammers, Harpoons, and even Breaches will burst down or eat away at armor extremely quickly, and without needing to wait.  And they can also serve to force and overload once shields are high.  I think the thing to ask is, is eating some armor through high flux shields slowly at short range going to be better than firing a Typhoon Reaper (1 of 6, or maybe 1 of 12) at that same high flux ship?  That it is what an anti-armor medium slot needs to compete against.

[Wyvern]

The solution here is to dramatically lower the weapon's flux cost (and maybe also its OP cost though perhaps not by that much), making it a good choice for stripping armor when your flux budget is strained.

I specifically wanted to stay away from lowering the flux cost; I think having too many options with a low flux cost adds up to a reduced desirability of PD weapons, because ships become able to fill more slots with primary weapons instead. (Edit: that is to say, I agree with what you're saying otherwise.)

Then it needs AI fixes instead; something to make the AI understand "This gun is really good against armor" and know to turn it back on in that situation instead of just going "Well the list DPS for this is very low, and the flux cost is high, so I'm going to keep it off."

[Alex]

I'm not positive its good, but it'd be the first approach I'd test.  If we scale back to a range of 600 or so, then counter play is probably range.

What I'm imagining happening here is that lines of ships exchange fire and higher-flux ships cycle out and back in - this is fairly normal, right? With a shield-piercing Disintegrator mixed in, this kind of cycling in/out means those ships will end up losing their armor in what would normally be a draw-ish scenario.

I mean, this'll happen to some extent with the higher-range non-shield piercing version, too, and it's not necessarily bad - to some extent that's kind of what the weapon needs to do. It just feels like requiring the enemy to actually lower their shields is appropriate for something like this to work.

(And 600 range is, what... either it's in the Heavy Autocannon range with ballistic range finder (unless I'm getting my numbers mixed up?), in which case range isn't really a counter. Or it's mounted on a high-tech ship, in which case it's probably fast enough that range also isn't a counter.)

I guess my counter question is, what do you see as the counterplay to an Ion Beam or Tachyon Lance?

I'd say it's just that their effect through shields is muted enough that it doesn't require "hard" counter-play, and there are plenty of soft options - hardened shields, emp resistance from various sources. "All your armor is now gone" seems a bit more, ah, drastic. Not doing actual hull damage is a mitigating factor, though; I'm not saying this is necessarily a bad idea. I think the main thing is I see this as a more long-range gun!

Then it needs AI fixes instead; something to make the AI understand "This gun is really good against armor" and know to turn it back on in that situation instead of just going "Well the list DPS for this is very low, and the flux cost is high, so I'm going to keep it off."

(Just a minor quibble: I don't think it has anything to do with its stated damage. I mean, if it had enough DPS to be efficient vs shields, then yes, that would matter, but it's not going to turn it off vs *armor* because it thinks its damage is too low or some such. IIRC. But I'm sure it's turning it off for general flux-conservation reasons, which probably looks about the same in practice, hence: minor quibble.)

[prav]

At 1k/10 raw isn't your armor just screwed if you take a tap or two? Seems pretty binary.

[Hiruma Kai]

I think the main thing is I see this as a more long-range gun!

Fair.  If you were to hand me the proposed stat weapon (i.e. 900 range, 1000 armor damage over 10 seconds, 125 HE DPS) right now, without any testing, I'd probably only throw it on long range Eagle and Falcon builds.  I feel like most other ships have better finishing options once enemy shield drops, where as the Eagles and Falcons tend to lack finishing power and would expect an enemy to stick around long enough for the Disintegrator to do serious work.

In any case, I look forward to the buffs to it.

[Wyvern]

Then it needs AI fixes instead; something to make the AI understand "This gun is really good against armor" and know to turn it back on in that situation instead of just going "Well the list DPS for this is very low, and the flux cost is high, so I'm going to keep it off."

(Just a minor quibble: I don't think it has anything to do with its stated damage. I mean, if it had enough DPS to be efficient vs shields, then yes, that would matter, but it's not going to turn it off vs *armor* because it thinks its damage is too low or some such. IIRC. But I'm sure it's turning it off for general flux-conservation reasons, which probably looks about the same in practice, hence: minor quibble.)

I mean, I would assume that a ship that had weapon group A that costs 500 flux/s and claims to deal 100 DPS vs armor (but actually does 1000), and weapon group B that also costs 500 flux/s but deals 250 DPS vs armor (because it's actually a bunch of kinetic guns) would turn off group A when it's at high flux and shooting at armor?
(Numbers not accurate to game stats, of course, just for example.)

...But whatever the actual behind-the-scenes mechanical reason, what I see in gameplay is the disintegrator being on at initial approach, plinking some shots into shields, and then getting turned off by the time the ship's shooting at armor while other, less flux-efficient vs armor, guns remain online.

Well, with two exceptions:
1: When it's installed on the original triangles of doom, who have enough flux to just keep firing the things regardless (and will do just that).
2: As specifically an anti-phase-ship weapon, the disintegrator is just straight-up really good, since there's no initial shooting-into-shields stage of things for it to waste flux on before it gets turned off.

[Beep Boop]

2: As specifically an anti-phase-ship weapon, the disintegrator is just straight-up really good, since there's no initial shooting-into-shields stage of things for it to waste flux on before it gets turned off.

Problem is, it's a slow projectile weapon. That phase ship ain't gonna still be there by the time the projectile arrives to hit it, having long since submerged to avoid it.

[Doctorhealsgood]

I'm not positive its good, but it'd be the first approach I'd test.  If we scale back to a range of 600 or so, then counter play is probably range.

What I'm imagining happening here is that lines of ships exchange fire and higher-flux ships cycle out and back in - this is fairly normal, right? With a shield-piercing Disintegrator mixed in, this kind of cycling in/out means those ships will end up losing their armor in what would normally be a draw-ish scenario.

I mean, this'll happen to some extent with the higher-range non-shield piercing version, too, and it's not necessarily bad - to some extent that's kind of what the weapon needs to do. It just feels like requiring the enemy to actually lower their shields is appropriate for something like this to work.

(And 600 range is, what... either it's in the Heavy Autocannon range with ballistic range finder (unless I'm getting my numbers mixed up?), in which case range isn't really a counter. Or it's mounted on a high-tech ship, in which case it's probably fast enough that range also isn't a counter.)

I guess my counter question is, what do you see as the counterplay to an Ion Beam or Tachyon Lance?

I'd say it's just that their effect through shields is muted enough that it doesn't require "hard" counter-play, and there are plenty of soft options - hardened shields, emp resistance from various sources. "All your armor is now gone" seems a bit more, ah, drastic. Not doing actual hull damage is a mitigating factor, though; I'm not saying this is necessarily a bad idea. I think the main thing is I see this as a more long-range gun!

Then it needs AI fixes instead; something to make the AI understand "This gun is really good against armor" and know to turn it back on in that situation instead of just going "Well the list DPS for this is very low, and the flux cost is high, so I'm going to keep it off."

(Just a minor quibble: I don't think it has anything to do with its stated damage. I mean, if it had enough DPS to be efficient vs shields, then yes, that would matter, but it's not going to turn it off vs *armor* because it thinks its damage is too low or some such. IIRC. But I'm sure it's turning it off for general flux-conservation reasons, which probably looks about the same in practice, hence: minor quibble.)

What about if the disintegrator DoT shield pierce scales according to how much the hard flux is past the pierce threshold? As in if it is just within whatever the value is to start piercing the DoT isn't really that much but if you are pretty much near an overload you are eating most of the disintegration effect. That way if the flux is just there you get something out of it even if it isn't much but when the enemy target is almost overwhelmed it becomes a powerful setup tool to make sure the ensuring finisher hits even harder.

[Killer of Fate]

My thinking here is that it's an *extremely* situational weapon, that stripping armor as a DoT is very not great (because this often means you need to break the shields on the thing twice instead of once, or at the very least your anti-hull damage takes a while to benefit from it), and it's a hard sell to spend a medium slot on it, so it'd better be really, really good at its niche. Either that, or it could become more general-purpose, and I didn't want to go that route.

Still entirely possible that it's over-buffed, but those are my thoughts - basically that it has some intangibles going hard against it, so the raw numbers don't tell the story.

I do kind of wonder at the 900 range on top of the damage buff.

The specific idea with this is to give you a better chance to land a shot or two early, to mitigate the "HE that's not actually immediately useful as part of a combined volley" issue.

Maybe make the damage not eat the armour but hull instead.

Give it non-stackable 500 damage that ignores armour over the duration of 10 seconds. Or maybe give it something like 250 damage over 20 seconds. But let it stack. Depending on how the damage programming works.

This would make it a competent anti-armoured ship weapon by the virtue of simply ignoring it. Making it stand out among other anti-armour weapons. As the one which simply dodges the problem entirely