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[Megas]

Ballistics
Now that Ballistics recharge, Expanded Magazines is not a must-have anymore to avoid running out of ballistic ammo for the remainder of the fight.  Despite rechargeable ammo, ballistics have lower capacity.  Running out of ammo during a fight is much more common, and sustained DPS is more or less half DPS.  Some weapons have high capacity and do not run out of ammo quickly.  Others may have acceptable DPS even when running on empty.

Light:  Railgun seems to stand out.  Decent DPS even when running on empty, perfect accuracy, and relatively long range.

Medium:  Assault chaingun and heavy autocannon have relatively high capacity and will probably be bread-and-butter for assault.  Heavy Mauler and HVD have low ammo capacity and will be mostly useful for ships that either need to stay away from the enemy or have a more powerful primary assault weapon to rely on.

Heavy:  All of them are good in their own way.  The only one I dislike is the Mark IX because of its mediocre stats and bad sustained DPS, but even that has relatively high ammo capacity, and it is the cheapest heavy kinetic.  HAG is finally better than Hellbore simply for having higher ammo capacity, but Hellbore remains as powerful option that is far from useless.  Mjolnir and Gauss cannon are more usable.

Energy
Beams:  Most of the beam changes make them better, especially the cheaper OP costs and greater range.

Light

• Mining Laser:  At 600 range, this is usable.  Still very weak, but not so bad that mounting them is worse than useless.
• PD Laser:  +75 range to 400 is a big help.  Advanced Optics is often not required anymore to make them useful.  The ships that still need Advanced Optics to give them enough range are unskilled frigates, namely Wolf.
• LR PD Laser:  This is one where extra range does not help much, but no flux damage bonus hurts.  These are underpowered enough that they are usually worse than anything other Mining Laser.  Still a relatively cheap option for the unskilled Wolf that cannot afford the OP for better.
• Tactical Laser:  Much better than before.  More speed, more range, and unblockable by missiles make these much better.  Very good PD with IPDAI and Advanced Turret Gyros hullmods, better than most other comparable PD options if the ship can spare the OP and flux.
• Burst PD Laser:  Unchanged aside from lower OP cost, but still the best anti-missile beam PD.  It can stop missiles other light PD options cannot.

Medium

• Graviton Beam:  The only medium beam option with more range than other medium weapons.
• Phase Lance:  Range 600 really cripples this.  If you need damage, use pulse laser or heavy blaster instead.  If you need efficiency, use graviton beam instead.
• Heavy Burst PD:  Unchanged aside from lower OP cost.  Still just as useful as before.

Heavy

• High Intensity Laser:  It not only lost 200 range (worse), but also 4 OP.  Still subpar, but at least it costs less to mount than Autopulse Laser.
• Guardian PD:  Has 20 charges now, and can deal some heavy burst damage in a pinch (and not run out of charges as quickly as autopulse laser).  Definitely not useless.
• Tachyon Lance:  Unchanged.  Only good for chain-EMP and sniping unarmored ships from afar.  Feel kind of ripped off that it does not have lower OP cost, with no flux damage boost.

Non-Beams:  Extra DPS for most of them, and with lower sustained DPS of ballistics, most of these have the role of high and reliable DPS weapons.

Light

• Ion Cannon:  Unchanged.  Only useful for chain-EMP.
• IR Pulse Laser:  Gained about +40% more DPS than before.  Did a little over 100 DPS before, but now it is 152 DPS.  Still has short range.
• Antimatter Blaster:  Does 1400 damage instead 1200.

Medium

• Pulse Laser:  Gained about +33% DPS.  One of the better improved energy weapons.  Not much weaker than blasters now.
• Mining Blaster:  Has 350 DPS instead of 300.  Only +16% more.  Not much stronger than pulse laser now.
• Heavy Blaster:  Does 500 DPS instead of 400.  +25% more damage.  Very powerful, very nice.

Heavy

• Autopulse laser:  Shots hit for 125 instead of 100.  +25% DPS.  Better but not as much as lighter pulse lasers.  Needs Expanded Magazines to make it worth using over medium weapons.
• Plasma Cannon:  Unchanged - same DPS and other stats.  Compared to other energy weapons, this is overpriced for what it does.  Only thing it has over Heavy Blaster is +100 range and +63 DPS.  I would only use plasma cannon now if I ran out of rare heavy blasters to mount or if I desperately need +100 range to pound shields for hard flux.

[Dri]

Not going to say much but nice write up. I'm certain starting ammo capacities will be tweaked with time.

[Cosmitz]

Didn't get to play too much so thanks for the writeup. That said:

>Antimatter Blaster:  Does 1400 damage instead 1200.

My god. I was wrecking face for half the game with AM blasters before and it looks like that will only get better now. Really think they're OP.

[Thaago]

Didn't get to play too much so thanks for the writeup. That said:

>Antimatter Blaster:  Does 1400 damage instead 1200.

My god. I was wrecking face for half the game with AM blasters before and it looks like that will only get better now. Really think they're OP.

Well, it depends when you used to fire them . At near max flux (which is hard to do with them because of how much they cost), they used to do 1800.

[Histidine]

I'm wondering why the energy weapons didn't get a uniform damage buff, like 25% or something in that ballpark (other than weapons that needed specific balance tuning anyway). Some weapons could in practice be used at certain flux levels more than others (resulting in a different average flux damage bonus), but was that actually measured somehow?

[Thaago]

My take on it is that the new values are part of a general tweak to energy weapons.

[Edit] I wonder if the no change on the Plasma Cannon is an oversight or intentional. It was powerful before, but not overpowered. Now its about 25% too weak . Although 1000 damage per plasma ball is such a round number...

[Megas]

Plasma cannon is still powerful, but now that Heavy Blaster nearly matches its DPS for 18 OP less and is much more flux efficient (which says a lot given how inefficient the heavy blaster is), I cannot bring myself to mount plasma cannon anymore if I have heavy blasters to spare, especially non-capitals that might need the OP for Hardened Subsystems.  I have replaced plasma cannons on all of my ships with Heavy Blasters, and put the OP saved to good use.

Plasma cannon may not necessarily need a damage boost.  If it costs less OP, had more range, and/or better flux efficiency than heavy blaster, I might use it again.

[xenoargh]

I looked at the Plasma Cannon this last pass on the rebal mod. 

It's basically falling prey to the idea that if A is balanced, 2 * A is also balanced, without considering the real cost of forced burst lengths (that isn't a positive).

It's actually a pretty lousy weapon when we factor in that it's going to use up 3600 Flux whether or not the last 2400 is wasted damage.  Misses, overkill, etc. etc., and all at a range that isn't a huge step up- 100 range is just not that important of a difference in a lot of situations where you have a ship that can actually mount Plasma Cannons in the first place and you're not really able to kite much.  So yeah, it's great for alpha... if you hit, and if none of the shots are overkill.  Otherwise, no.

The weapon could have the burst length reduced to 1, which would largely fix it, stat-wise, but that's pretty boring.  If low range and bursts is the theme, then buffing the base DPS is the best way to get it right.  I am trying about 1:1 in the current build of the rebal mod, which puts it on par with the pew-pews; the cycle time between bursts, and the huge burst cost, probably compensate.

[Megas]

+100 range on Plasma Cannon would be significant, except that the ships that can kite with it, i.e., Sunder and Apogee, have peak performance timers and cannot waste time sniping all day.  Sunder is better served with three Heavy Blasters or even three Pulse Lasers than one Plasma Cannon.

[Thaago]

My biggest issue with the Plasma Cannon is actually... Annihilator rockets. Particularly, the stream coming from an Onslaught makes a near impenetrable defense against Plasma rounds.

[TaLaR]

My biggest issue with the Plasma Cannon is actually... Annihilator rockets. Particularly, the stream coming from an Onslaught makes a near impenetrable defense against Plasma rounds.

Yeah, that's big one. Would have been nice if some big projectiles (like plasma) could destroy small missiles, probably losing some damage in progress.

[Silver Silence]

My biggest issue with the Plasma Cannon is actually... Annihilator rockets. Particularly, the stream coming from an Onslaught makes a near impenetrable defense against Plasma rounds.

My favourite use of missile launchers is improvised flare guns.

[Schwartz]

I don't see any indication of 'magazines', ammo counters or any recharging going on in RC2. Is it just me? I seem to be able to just keep up the fire rate for ballistic weapons indefinitely. The only missile with recharge is the Pilum LRM.

[TJJ]

I don't see any indication of 'magazines', ammo counters or any recharging going on in RC2. Is it just me? I seem to be able to just keep up the fire rate for ballistic weapons indefinitely. The only missile with recharge is the Pilum LRM.

Hot fix notes say it was removed; don't ask me why, I kind of liked it. (Though it did seem incomplete, and introduced a few bugs)

[TJJ]

I wonder if smuggling food onto a starving planet (as that's the only kind of trade possible at 'inhospitable' rep leve!) Will give a positive rep boost.