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TL;DR: Missiles are overpowered, so give cannons and beams a slight AOE at high damage because physics. This brings them more on par with missiles.
Ok, so first off, almost everyone thinks missiles are the most powerful weapon. Right now they're the most effective for actually trashing ships because they have a greater chance (ok, pretty much the only chance past 1000m) of hitting the core. Yeah, cores are going to be gone after the HP update, but that just makes it worse. Missiles destroy a BOOT TON of blocks compared to even the most devastating anti-hull beams or cannons, which will make them even more overpowered unless missiles were heavily nerfed against shields. That might need to happen anyway, but I don't think anyone wants that so I have another idea based on flipping realism. So good for realism junkies AND for gameplay and balance.
To bring cannon rounds and beams up to par with missiles, they need some AOE against blocks. Not too much though, or missiles will be dwarfed due to the ability to shoot them down.
Physics and Realism
When a solid cannon round hits something, the shock of the impact is what causes the damage. The harder it hits, the farther the shock of the impact travels through the target. Add an energy warhead with the explosive effect and it'll go farther. Explosive would turn cannon rounds into tiny, small radius, unguided missiles that fly a lot faster and can't really be shot down. Honestly, cleanly destroying a single block with millions of damage to spare was always kind of dumb.
Think about it. While the beams lack a visual flickering effect, they're pulsing beams, not continuous. That means each instantaneous pulse is causing that damage (thanks, Captain Obvious). If all that energy is hitting in an instant, the rapid heating, vaporization, etc. will cause a lot of shock and stress to the surrounding structure as well. Thus, each pulse of a beam attack should use a similar algorithm to a cannon impact.
Algorithm Stuff and Balance
Too big a radius would be overpowered, and just adding an inherent explosive effect seems funky because this rebalance would change the way explosive works on these weapons. Instead, if a cannon round destroys the block it hits, apply half of the remaining damage to the block in the cannon's line of fire, and spread the other half of remaining damage to surrounding blocks. As suggested by jayman38, for every factor of 1000 damage, the round gains one more block of punch and one more block of radius.
For beams, do a similar thing, but just apply 1/6 of the remaining damage all around since there's no forward momentum in an energy blast.
Missiles should always be more damaging than cannons or beams because they have one critical weakness: They can be shot down. After the AI update, PD should be more effective, bringing them into proper balance.
Effects and Stuff
Ion, overdrive, push, pull, stop, etc: no change as they don't affect blocks.
Overdrive: Just like now, increase base damage at a huge energy cost. Y'all might want to reduce the energy cost a little though, as overdrive has basically been nerfed into oblivion as is.
Explosive effect: To keep either cannons or beams from getting too effective and overshadowing missiles, their radius with should be soft-capped to a very small radius, around 3 blocks at most (we're talking a cannon round or beam tick that does millions of damage).
Punchthrough: Damage block, half remaining damage, apply half to the 6 surrounding blocks if the first is destroyed and pass the other half forward to the next intact block. Repeat. (Physics: The cannon round kind of squishes, spreading devastation like a hollow point bullet. The beam is focused somewhat more than normal, so it goes deeper.)
Piercing: Works about like it does now. Both cannons and beams lose AOE in return for puncture. (Physics: A pointy, narrow cannon round punches straight in without causing much sideways shock. The beam is so tightly focused that the shock from each tick can only destroy one block.)
End Note: Overall Balance
Core-drilling has always been stupid, and will always remain so. Thus, the game's playability will suffer until the HP update no matter what Schine does. Fortunately, these changes would still have some effect anyway, meaning missiles will no longer be the only thing that can cause serious block damage and reach a ship's core. It might be reasonable to implement this stuff before the HP update to try it out, but then again the HP update is pretty much the most important thing after rails IMO. Once that's in, shield balancing can be re-visited.
Ok, so first off, almost everyone thinks missiles are the most powerful weapon. Right now they're the most effective for actually trashing ships because they have a greater chance (ok, pretty much the only chance past 1000m) of hitting the core. Yeah, cores are going to be gone after the HP update, but that just makes it worse. Missiles destroy a BOOT TON of blocks compared to even the most devastating anti-hull beams or cannons, which will make them even more overpowered unless missiles were heavily nerfed against shields. That might need to happen anyway, but I don't think anyone wants that so I have another idea based on flipping realism. So good for realism junkies AND for gameplay and balance.
To bring cannon rounds and beams up to par with missiles, they need some AOE against blocks. Not too much though, or missiles will be dwarfed due to the ability to shoot them down.
Physics and Realism
When a solid cannon round hits something, the shock of the impact is what causes the damage. The harder it hits, the farther the shock of the impact travels through the target. Add an energy warhead with the explosive effect and it'll go farther. Explosive would turn cannon rounds into tiny, small radius, unguided missiles that fly a lot faster and can't really be shot down. Honestly, cleanly destroying a single block with millions of damage to spare was always kind of dumb.
Think about it. While the beams lack a visual flickering effect, they're pulsing beams, not continuous. That means each instantaneous pulse is causing that damage (thanks, Captain Obvious). If all that energy is hitting in an instant, the rapid heating, vaporization, etc. will cause a lot of shock and stress to the surrounding structure as well. Thus, each pulse of a beam attack should use a similar algorithm to a cannon impact.
Algorithm Stuff and Balance
Too big a radius would be overpowered, and just adding an inherent explosive effect seems funky because this rebalance would change the way explosive works on these weapons. Instead, if a cannon round destroys the block it hits, apply half of the remaining damage to the block in the cannon's line of fire, and spread the other half of remaining damage to surrounding blocks. As suggested by jayman38, for every factor of 1000 damage, the round gains one more block of punch and one more block of radius.
For beams, do a similar thing, but just apply 1/6 of the remaining damage all around since there's no forward momentum in an energy blast.
Missiles should always be more damaging than cannons or beams because they have one critical weakness: They can be shot down. After the AI update, PD should be more effective, bringing them into proper balance.
Effects and Stuff
Ion, overdrive, push, pull, stop, etc: no change as they don't affect blocks.
Overdrive: Just like now, increase base damage at a huge energy cost. Y'all might want to reduce the energy cost a little though, as overdrive has basically been nerfed into oblivion as is.
Explosive effect: To keep either cannons or beams from getting too effective and overshadowing missiles, their radius with should be soft-capped to a very small radius, around 3 blocks at most (we're talking a cannon round or beam tick that does millions of damage).
Punchthrough: Damage block, half remaining damage, apply half to the 6 surrounding blocks if the first is destroyed and pass the other half forward to the next intact block. Repeat. (Physics: The cannon round kind of squishes, spreading devastation like a hollow point bullet. The beam is focused somewhat more than normal, so it goes deeper.)
Piercing: Works about like it does now. Both cannons and beams lose AOE in return for puncture. (Physics: A pointy, narrow cannon round punches straight in without causing much sideways shock. The beam is so tightly focused that the shock from each tick can only destroy one block.)
End Note: Overall Balance
Core-drilling has always been stupid, and will always remain so. Thus, the game's playability will suffer until the HP update no matter what Schine does. Fortunately, these changes would still have some effect anyway, meaning missiles will no longer be the only thing that can cause serious block damage and reach a ship's core. It might be reasonable to implement this stuff before the HP update to try it out, but then again the HP update is pretty much the most important thing after rails IMO. Once that's in, shield balancing can be re-visited.
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