Well, there have been
three downloads, so at least one of you is venturing an opinion
without actually playing it, and I'm guessing it's more like two of you, lol
Honestly, if you think Vanilla's balance is great, that's fine, don't try it out
Beams:My opinion is that Beams vs. Low Tech was broken thoroughly when Tac Lasers got 1000 range. Seriously; it killed the Hound, amongst other things. I'm already walking it back.
Lowering the range of Beams in general, so that they're slightly lower than Ballistics in their size category, so that they
cannot be used as ultra-kiting weapons (which, btw, is
exactly the path Vacuum ended up walking) is on the table.
I will probably go ahead and do that, and then we can talk about efficiency. The problem there is going to be the same one I had with Vacuum, though; it makes it very hard to differentiate LRPD, PD, Tac and Mining Laser. But we can go there and see. Worst comes to worst, Small Ballistics (where the main problem is) get bumped 100 range to compensate, and then we can sort out the Mediums if there's too much practical overlap.
Missiles:I guess I didn't nerf the Reaper enough? I will drastically lower the Finger Of Death regen and I'll further lower the availability of same through Fast Missile Racks, which is the prime abusive squirrel case.
I'll look at lowering the burst sizes on Annihilators as well. I never played with the Annihilator Pods, so that was just a stab in the dark.
I actually like that they're no longer relegated to basically one-shot alpha, though, and their DPS is purely theoretical; most Annihilators don't ever hit the intended target.
In short, nothing's sacred. I want better total balance than Vanilla currently has, where I literally am not using a lot of weapons now, and I don't mind being told that X sucks or Y is OP and I don't mind if I have to iterate for a few weeks on this to get there. I'll get another alpha out tonight when I am done with the rest of my day, if possible.