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Author Topic: Killing me softly (Soft vs Hard flux weapon test)  (Read 20603 times)

Andy H.K.

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Killing me softly (Soft vs Hard flux weapon test)
« on: October 04, 2013, 11:37:58 AM »

As inspire by the heated discussion on beam weapon, particular this post, I've made a little mod to do some test....

I've made a modified lasher with only 2 forward facing universal slot, and pit two of these, one fitted with a pair of tactical laser (tactical variant), another fitted with one dual light autocannon plus one light assault gun (ballistic variant).

Theoretically this should be a easy win for the ballistic variant, as its DPS is superior and its weapon generate hard flux on enemy shield. Meanwhile the tactical variant, with its pair of low damage and soft flux generating beam, shouldn't even put a dent on enemy's shield.

And this is what happened when I helmed the tactical variant: http://youtu.be/pFR6FbIMwNE (pardon the poor quality)

Some observations I'd like to pinpoint:

  • Despite the difference in DPS, both ships actually have their flux rising at a pretty close rate, although as predicted the tactical variant have to drop shield sooner, even got overloaded once
  • Curiously at some point, the ballistic variant simply refuse to shoot at some point. I see that as pretty clever - although maybe if he dropped shield and pressed on things would go differently
  • In fact this is a pretty tough fight.... in the end it's micromanagement that save the day.

What I'd like to prove is that soft flux generating weapon is as effective as hard flux generating weapon. I think the reason why soft flux is usually considered inferior is that it is slow acting, and the effect isn't obvious. With a hard flux weapon, you see a chunk of flux immediately deposited into enemy flux capacity. On the other hand, the vent restricting power of a soft flux weapon can be quite inevident.

Of course, hard flux weapon have a much higher chance to overload enemy. In fact, with the role reversed, with me behind the ballistic variant, I killed the tactical variant much quicker.

Actually I'm afraid I failed to prove anything at all. What I did only show the obvious fact: that superior DPS is superior, that piloting is a major deciding factor, and that high flux, be it soft or hard, is crippling and whatever weapon that can mandate such state upon an enemy is a fine weapon.

EDIT: screenshots of the two variant:
Tactical:
Spoiler
[close]
Ballistic:
Spoiler
[close]
« Last Edit: October 04, 2013, 11:41:47 AM by Andy H.K. »
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Pentarctagon

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Re: Killing me softly (Soft vs Hard flux weapon test)
« Reply #1 on: October 04, 2013, 12:39:23 PM »

I'm not even sure why there's much argument about it.  Hard flux is just soft flux that you can't passively vent off.  So all else being equal, hard flux is better than soft flux by definition.
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Magician

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Re: Killing me softly (Soft vs Hard flux weapon test)
« Reply #2 on: October 04, 2013, 12:47:50 PM »

Actually you proved very good points here:
1) Ballistic weapons deliver their DPS only when they hit with bullets. While beam weapons are able to do it easier and even if their line of fire is blocked or off they recover their aim better and faster.(You showed it yourself - you can't micromanage shields against lasers.) Even AI tries to strafe in combat and it messes ballistic aim. Also if you are delivering punch in portions, there is a higher chance to loose some portion, while even if you loose part of your beam - you will loose a lot less dps.
2) Ballistic weapons are less unviersal. You compared 2 different types - assualt and close support types. Which is wrong already. But anyway lasers are equally effective against both shield and armor. While your ballistic weapons not. Ideally you have to turn off kinetic weapon when shields are down, if you are not stomping enemy easily.
3) Ballistic setup generates about 300 flux. Beam setup generates 150 flux. Equal? What? Oh god, they are hardly equal. While It is good to have higher dps, in Starsector it is usually better to emphasis better flux management. And from your video we see that even lower dps tactical lasers are good enough to do their work. But they also give you more room in terms of flux.

Also, as I said, there is no reason to compare weapons with other weapons. Because in actual game we have weapons attached to particular ships, you don't have lasher with energy mounts - so this little experiment in the end will not tell us about actual game balance. You have to compare weapons bearing in mind to what ships they may be mounted, and how they will interact, in which situations in actual game. For example even some strongest weapons will not be unbalanced if there are no ships to utilize their full potential, or some weaker weapons will be considered good just because they are used by some strong ship and because these weapons are suitable for certain ingame situation, which occurs often.

So weapon stats and CR/shipsystem bonuses are not the only factors deciding how balanced game is. Comparing just stats is wrong, you have to compare gameplay. Of course balance is subject of change, but for now I don't see any strong point to change weapons balance alot.
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xenoargh

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Re: Killing me softly (Soft vs Hard flux weapon test)
« Reply #3 on: October 04, 2013, 01:20:09 PM »

Do the same tests with Paragons with Hardened Shields and max Vents- any beams you can mount on them vs. any ballistics.

You'll see why Soft Flux is largely broken as a mechanic.
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Wyvern

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Re: Killing me softly (Soft vs Hard flux weapon test)
« Reply #4 on: October 04, 2013, 01:45:08 PM »

Do the same tests with Paragons with Hardened Shields and max Vents- any beams you can mount on them vs. any ballistics.

You'll see why Soft Flux is largely broken as a mechanic.
I disagree.  Yes, beams won't do anything to the aforementioned Paragon.  That doesn't make them "largely broken as a mechanic", it just means they're the wrong tool for that job.  Similarly, a Paragon versus an armada of hounds with assault guns, the hounds will accomplish nothing beyond making the paragon lose the CR from deployment.  Does that mean that assault guns are "largely broken"?  Or maybe it's high explosive damage that's "broken"?  No, none of that; it just means that's a poor choice of ship / weapon to field against that particular opponent.

Try the same test with an Onslaught, and both beams - and the hypothetical assault gun hounds - will do much better; in both cases, you're using weapons that don't work well against shields - so why is it so "broken" that they don't work well against the most heavily shielded ship in the game?
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TheHengeProphet

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Re: Killing me softly (Soft vs Hard flux weapon test)
« Reply #5 on: October 04, 2013, 03:49:56 PM »

You're comparing different damage types there as well, making this an apples and oranges situation.

Tactical Lasers do 75 DPS, soft flux, and ion cannons do 50 DPS hard flux (against shields).  Both do "energy" type damage, so they will have differing effectiveness against shields.  Though ion cannons have a distinct advantage when not against shields, this is a comparison of effectiveness against shields, so that should be irrelevant for this test.  Why not take an afflictor, load it up entirely with Tactical Lasers for one loadout, and Ion Cannons for another, and put it up against, say... a wolf with no weapons.
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Kommodore Krieg

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Re: Killing me softly (Soft vs Hard flux weapon test)
« Reply #6 on: October 04, 2013, 06:04:03 PM »

In my experience, beam weapons are best deployed en mass on a ship that has been set up specifically to make use of beam weapons.  In that context I find them quite devastating.  Slower acting than a ballistic kinetic/HE mix yes, but no less effective.  They are to me an all or nothing weapon; either use a ship with all beams or a ship with none at all (graviton and PD being an exception, as they both have uses in their own right).
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Wyvern

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Re: Killing me softly (Soft vs Hard flux weapon test)
« Reply #7 on: October 04, 2013, 06:12:27 PM »

They are to me an all or nothing weapon; either use a ship with all beams or a ship with none at all (graviton and PD being an exception, as they both have uses in their own right).

Have you tried an Apogee with a plasma cannon and phase beams?  (Will also need: unstable injector, max vents, dedicated targeting core, possibly some capacitors or burst pd.)  This build uses the phase beams as, specifically, anti-fighter weaponry - their high accuracy & turn rate combine well with a bit of EMP damage for shutting fighters down quickly.  They also do a fair number on hounds.  And anything else you should be able to get the plasma cannon lined up for.
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Voyager I

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Re: Killing me softly (Soft vs Hard flux weapon test)
« Reply #8 on: October 04, 2013, 07:55:45 PM »

Graviton Beams are also easy to underrate.  They don't hit hard enough to be your primary armament (especially since they are terrible against armor), but they make great supplementary weapons on ships that have spare medium energy hadpoints but are already pushing the limits of their flux/op capacity.  For a fairly low 10 op cost, you get a beam with better range than its alternatives that puts very efficient pressure on shields, making it harder for the enemy to fight back and resist your main battery.  I've personally found them to be great filler weapons on an Eagle with a 2 Mauler/1 HVD split in the main guns.

They will also kill fighters purely by the virtue of being beam weapons.
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Borgoid

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Re: Killing me softly (Soft vs Hard flux weapon test)
« Reply #9 on: October 04, 2013, 08:29:25 PM »

2) Ballistic weapons are less unviersal. You compared 2 different types - assualt and close support types. Which is wrong already. But anyway lasers are equally effective against both shield and armor. While your ballistic weapons not. Ideally you have to turn off kinetic weapon when shields are down, if you are not stomping enemy easily.

That's downright nonsense. Go look at my post that the OP has linked, a combined kinetic/high explosive combination using Dual Auto cannon and Light Assault Gun respectively nets 3x the effective dps on both armor and shields. If anything ballistic weapons are MORE versatile on a ship-wide scale because they allow for more efficient, denser, hard flux causing, and higher effective dps.
That's not even mentioning that beams get penalized a flat amount vs armor whereas projectile based weapons are based on the damage per shot.

Quote
3) Ballistic setup generates about 300 flux. Beam setup generates 150 flux. Equal? What? Oh god, they are hardly equal. While It is good to have higher dps, in Starsector it is usually better to emphasis better flux management. And from your video we see that even lower dps tactical lasers are good enough to do their work. But they also give you more room in terms of flux.
As I've already explained half a dozen times the EFFICIENCY, the Flux -> damage ratio is better for ballistic weapons unless the beam mounted ship has above approximately 70% flux.
And again you're getting more dps per slot, per OP, which means on a practical level there's more OP for utility or vents, not only that but you can choose to stop firing the less efficient weapon on a situation by situation basis while still retaining higher effective dps.

Quote
Also, as I said, there is no reason to compare weapons with other weapons. Because in actual game we have weapons attached to particular ships, you don't have lasher with energy mounts - so this little experiment in the end will not tell us about actual game balance. You have to compare weapons bearing in mind to what ships they may be mounted, and how they will interact, in which situations in actual game. For example even some strongest weapons will not be unbalanced if there are no ships to utilize their full potential, or some weaker weapons will be considered good just because they are used by some strong ship and because these weapons are suitable for certain ingame situation, which occurs often.

Your blatant denial of mathematical problems is starting to bother me. This test is perfectly valid for looking solely at weapon balance.

Quote
So weapon stats and CR/shipsystem bonuses are not the only factors deciding how balanced game is. Comparing just stats is wrong, you have to compare gameplay. Of course balance is subject of change, but for now I don't see any strong point to change weapons balance alot.

You somehow have an opinion in complete contrast TO a fact. It's blowing my mind :(



Graviton Beams are also easy to underrate.  They don't hit hard enough to be your primary armament (especially since they are terrible against armor), but they make great supplementary weapons on ships that have spare medium energy hadpoints but are already pushing the limits of their flux/op capacity.  For a fairly low 10 op cost, you get a beam with better range than its alternatives that puts very efficient pressure on shields, making it harder for the enemy to fight back and resist your main battery.  I've personally found them to be great filler weapons on an Eagle with a 2 Mauler/1 HVD split in the main guns.

They will also kill fighters purely by the virtue of being beam weapons.

Gravitons are actually probably the best beam out there in terms of efficiency but still suffer from the same CR/Skill scaling problems.
The question is if you had the option of replacing those Gravitons on your Eagle with Autocannons... would you?
I know I would!

That does bring up an interesting thought though. An entire subset of weapons being intentionally weaker gives greater control over ship-wide balance in a sort of backwards kind of way.


You're comparing different damage types there as well, making this an apples and oranges situation.

Tactical Lasers do 75 DPS, soft flux, and ion cannons do 50 DPS hard flux (against shields).  Both do "energy" type damage, so they will have differing effectiveness against shields.  Though ion cannons have a distinct advantage when not against shields, this is a comparison of effectiveness against shields, so that should be irrelevant for this test.  Why not take an afflictor, load it up entirely with Tactical Lasers for one loadout, and Ion Cannons for another, and put it up against, say... a wolf with no weapons.

It's not a question of damage types, it's a question of weapon types. If you go have a look at my post you'll discover that the damage types are broadly irrelevant because the effective dps is what is actually calculated, the buck doesn't stop with the damage type.

Your test is a bit... dodgey.. However there is a more sensible option involving tweaking the values on both weapons however I can already tell you how that ends.
If you give an energy weapon a 1-1 base ratio and have it generate hard flux, it walks all over nearly every other weapon type in the entire game, beams worst of all.


In my experience, beam weapons are best deployed en mass on a ship that has been set up specifically to make use of beam weapons.  In that context I find them quite devastating.  Slower acting than a ballistic kinetic/HE mix yes, but no less effective.  They are to me an all or nothing weapon; either use a ship with all beams or a ship with none at all (graviton and PD being an exception, as they both have uses in their own right).

I've set up many ships with exactly that intention, they work but I wouldn't call them devastating.
Slower is synonymous with worse due to a number of factors but the one that springs immediately to mind is "Dead ships do significantly less damage"
The focus fire requirement is a significant downside as well, anyone who has ever flown a Conquest can attest to the value of being able to damage, disable, or kill, multiple targets at once.


Sheesh that post got long (hue hue), think we got a little closer to a consensus though.



Edit: Oops I almost forgot something: There's a slight issue with your test because of accelerated ammo feeder... It's not a big deal in the long run but it's worth removing unless you've got something associated with it to test.

What kind of interests me is that the dps of two tactical lasers at absolute maximum flux is 225, but that isn't actually possible because the dissipation of the Lasher is greater than the flux buildup of the tactical lasers.
Also note that the flux dissipation is 220 with a 1.0 shield ratio meaning that in theory it's impossible for a Lasher to die to two tactical lasers unless the hard flux of the Beam Lasher is at 100% with his shields RAISED. The ballistic lasher has to CHOOSE to raise his flux and can dissipate it at any time by simply not firing meaning that the death of the Beam Lasher is almost guaranteed. If he raises his shields hard flux is forced upon him and eventually damage leaking will occur. If the Beam Lasher wants to be able to out dps the dissipation of the Ballistic Lasher he has to sit at what is essentially "overload" levels.

Edit#2: This is actually shown at 2:10 on the video. At any time the Ballistic Lasher could overload the Beam Lasher by firing, or force damage upon him if the Beam Lasher lowered his shields to avoid the overload, this would as mentioned lower the flux of the Beam Lasher, lowering his dps below the required threshold.
« Last Edit: October 04, 2013, 08:41:54 PM by Borgoid »
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TheHengeProphet

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Re: Killing me softly (Soft vs Hard flux weapon test)
« Reply #10 on: October 04, 2013, 10:35:33 PM »

It's not a question of damage types, it's a question of weapon types. If you go have a look at my post you'll discover that the damage types are broadly irrelevant because the effective dps is what is actually calculated, the buck doesn't stop with the damage type.

Your test is a bit... dodgey.. However there is a more sensible option involving tweaking the values on both weapons however I can already tell you how that ends.
If you give an energy weapon a 1-1 base ratio and have it generate hard flux, it walks all over nearly every other weapon type in the entire game, beams worst of all.

Dodgey, how?  Also, it isn't about damage type (though maintaining an equivalent damage type is better for maintaining a balance test), it's about soft versus hard flux damage, as you said you were testing.
Let's consider this for a minute:
-All beams do soft flux damage.
-All beams have bonus damage at higher flux levels, at the risk of opening oneself to overload.
-All pulse lasers do hard flux damage (this includes ion cannons).
-All energy weapons, save for the wonderous Graviton Beam, do energy damage.

Now, Tactical Lasers can provide a constant stream of damage at a very efficient flux value, and very little risk of overflowing your own flux.  Ion Cannons, which do 25 less DPS than Tactical Lasers, are (according to my tests) roughly equivalent, despite their lower damage.  This IS because they do hard flux damage, and if their flux cost was not so high, they would outperform by a long shot.  However, both are often unable to damage the target ship, when used on their own, because it is difficult for them to overload the enemy shields, as the enemy will lower their shields long enough for their flux to drop to a safe level, and bring them back up, causing a terrible loop of doing pathetic amounts of damage.  The ion cannons have an advantage here, in that they have a good chance of shutting down enemy systems, allowing you to get closer.

Speaking of long shots, beams, on average have much better range at high tech skill, with the Advanced Optics hull augment, which allows for outranging your opponent.

I lost track of where I was going, but anyways, if you have a problem with beams, for your medium energy slot, there are always Pulse Lasers, but you are correct, ballistic weapons do tend to outshine energy in almost every way.  Energy weapons do have the advantage (ish) of doing Energy damage, which has no penalty against armour OR shields, meaning you don't need as varied a weapons loadout.
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Borgoid

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Re: Killing me softly (Soft vs Hard flux weapon test)
« Reply #11 on: October 04, 2013, 11:19:24 PM »

It's dodgey in the sense that you're comparing an almost entirely support and utility based weapon with that of a strict damage weapon.
The two are trying to achieve completely different things.
One is trying to kill your opponent, while the other is attempting to give it the best acid trip of its life.

With regards to range yes a 10-30% range increase is quite significant and frankly is the only saving grace of the entire weapon type.
I rarely if ever actually (intentionally) mount beams without optics because in all other ways they're... rubbish :P


Needing a varied weapon loadout would be more of an issue if as a general rule weapon slots were hard to come by, but they're not.
Most if not all ballistic ships can mount a half/half loadout and be doing 250% of listed dps to everything compared to the same amount of energy slots doing 100% of the listed dps to everything modified by flux up to a maximum of 150%...
 You can kind of start to see the issue at this point since Beams have the lowest dps across the board alongside the ever present issue of soft instead of hard flux.
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Histidine

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Re: Killing me softly (Soft vs Hard flux weapon test)
« Reply #12 on: October 05, 2013, 12:31:04 AM »

The difference between hard flux and soft flux against shields simply boils down to one thing: If the target stops firing and turtles behind his shield, if you have a hard flux weapon you can always force him to drop shields or overload, no matter what (unless you run out of ammo). With soft flux it's much slower thanks to his dissipating the flux as you inflict it; if you can't outstrip his dissipation you won't be able to do it at all.

In practice this isn't as important as you might think, since the enemy will be shooting most of the time, generating soft flux of his own. He has to vent this as well as any shield damage you might be doing, so the distinction between hard flux and soft flux weapons can be greatly reduced or eliminated. In the short term, at least - if the target decides to go turtle, you may wish you were dealing more hard flux after all.

On midline ships I almost always put beam weapons in the energy slots; since I can delegate shield-cracking to kinetics, the chief advantage of pulse weapons is rendered redundant, while those of beam weapons (range, accuracy and especially efficiency - midlines don't have huge flux pools to spare) - really shine.
« Last Edit: October 05, 2013, 12:32:46 AM by Histidine »
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Borgoid

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Re: Killing me softly (Soft vs Hard flux weapon test)
« Reply #13 on: October 05, 2013, 01:25:38 AM »



In practice this isn't as important as you might think, since the enemy will be shooting most of the time, generating soft flux of his own. He has to vent this as well as any shield damage you might be doing, so the distinction between hard flux and soft flux weapons can be greatly reduced or eliminated. In the short term, at least - if the target decides to go turtle, you may wish you were dealing more hard flux after all.
This is a tough one. While I agree that most of the time your opponent is firing and therefore pushing the total flux generated combined with your weapons well above their flux dissipation I feel like that's more of an AI flaw.
The obvious rebuttal to that is that your average Energy based ship has sufficient dps to overwhelm the flux dissipation of a ship of the same class so turtling isn't as much of an option as you'd think.
The turtling issue is one problem among many to be sure.

Quote
On midline ships I almost always put beam weapons in the energy slots; since I can delegate shield-cracking to kinetics, the chief advantage of pulse weapons is rendered redundant, while those of beam weapons (range, accuracy and especially efficiency - midlines don't have huge flux pools to spare) - really shine.

Beams are actually pretty inefficient with the exception of the Graviton because of their stupid damage type, considered on a ship wide scale of course.
A Phase Beam for example is 160 flux/sec for 150 dps unmodified which is a 1.06 flux->damage ratio, at best you're going to get 225 dps out of a Phase Beam at 100% flux which is a 0.71 flux->damage ratio which is pretty good but consider for a moment that's it's energy damage.
By comparison a Heavy Autocannon is 214 dps, 214 flux/sec, 1-1 ratio, or a 0.5 flux->damage ratio vs shields (428 dps), and a 2.0 flux->damage ratio vs armor (107 dps).
Hard to calculate the EMP damage from the phase beam into this equation, feel free to just add it raw to the dps should you feel the urge. It's more than in-game effect but less than required to bring it up to par.
Also the Autocannon has 100 more range, costs 2 less OP, as a downside it has some spread and obviously the travel time.
On its own that doesn't seem like an issue but again I'll point out that when compared on a ship wide scale the difference becomes bigger and bigger, the combination of HE and Kinetic Ballistic weapons heavily outperforms beams due to the constant 250/100 problem.

The only thing that might throw a spanner in the works is the way armor mitigates projectiles based on the damage done per projectile... I don't have a firm grasp of that mechanic unfortunately.


Edit: For the record the Graviton is actually awesome. At 75 flux, 100 kinetic dps, at a maximum of 150 dps with 100% flux, giving it a whopping  0.25 flux->damage ratio(Vs shields). 4 damage for every 1 flux, it's pretty awesome despite being soft flux.
If you're after a weapon to fill those energy slots on the Eagle and Falcon it's hard to go past the Graviton, I wouldn't touch the Phase with a 10 foot pole though.


Edit#2: Come to think of it Beams would be a hell of a lot better with Kinetic or High Explosive damage types.
« Last Edit: October 05, 2013, 01:32:22 AM by Borgoid »
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Histidine

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Re: Killing me softly (Soft vs Hard flux weapon test)
« Reply #14 on: October 05, 2013, 01:51:48 AM »

Beams are actually pretty inefficient with the exception of the Graviton because of their stupid damage type, considered on a ship wide scale of course.
Yea, but the relevant comparison for the specific purpose here isn't to ballistic weapons (you can't put those in the energy mounts), but to pulse energy weapons.
Phase Beam has a damage/flux of 0.9375; Pulse Laser has 0.68, and the blasters are even worse.

Quote
The only thing that might throw a spanner in the works is the way armor mitigates projectiles based on the damage done per projectile... I don't have a firm grasp of that mechanic unfortunately.
Beam weapons have a damage for armor reduction calculation equal to half their DPS.
Could actually be worse (this gives Phase Beam the same armor damage multiplier as Pulse Laser), but it's pretty meh compared even to kinetics. Another thing to consider for a beam buff proposal.
« Last Edit: October 05, 2013, 01:55:08 AM by Histidine »
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