Damage Beams still using too much power???

[Yuh]

Hi everyone,

I noticed several months ago that there was an issue with Damage Beams using too much power. Is this still true? No matter how much I add to my power capacity, firing my Damage Beams (salved to Pulse) always consumes all of my power. Does this issue still remain? Or maybe I am using too many modules…

 

[Dire Venom]

They have tremendous power usage if you have multiple beams (outputs) per computer, try using just 1

 

[Jake_Lancia]

Pulse beams are meant to use a fuckton of power, they're meant as siege alpha weapons after all. There's no problem with the beam, you just seem to have waaaaaaaaaaaaaay too little power capacity and/or regen.

 

[Jaaskinal]

Just a slight bit of math to help you, but if it's a 1:1 beam/pulse system, every block (and I mean every block, no just the ones in the main weapon, but the ones in the secondary weapon as well (and this extends to effects as long as it's not overdrive, that'd make it takes 6x more power)) takes 550 power. For every two blocks of weapon, you need a power storage.

 

[Keptick]

If I remember correctly, beam/pulse does the equivalent of 45 seconds of damage in a single cycle. So that also means that it consumes power for that amount of damage, so 450*[amount of weapon modules in the system]= power consumption for a single burst.

In addition, each additional output will raise the power consumption of the weapon by 10%. So if you have 10 outputs that means the weapon is using twice the amount of power.

So yea, the power cost piles up pretty fast.

 

[Jaaskinal]

If I remember correctly, beam/pulse does the equivalent of 45 seconds of damage in a single cycle. So that also means that it consumes power for that amount of damage, so 450*[amount of weapon modules in the system]= power consumption for a single burst.

In addition, each additional output will raise the power consumption of the weapon by 10%. So if you have 10 outputs that means the weapon is using twice the amount of power.

So yea, the power cost piles up pretty fast.

IIRC it's 55 seconds, better alpha than missile/beam. I'll check and get back and edit this if I'm wrong.

 

[Keptick]

IIRC it's 55 seconds, better alpha than missile/beam. I'll check and get back and edit this if I'm wrong.

Yea, I wasn't too sure either. I think that it fire for around 5 seconds? I didn't factor that in. You're right, it's higher than missile/beam.

 

[Lecic]

If I remember correctly, beam/pulse does the equivalent of 45 seconds of damage in a single cycle. So that also means that it consumes power for that amount of damage, so 450*[amount of weapon modules in the system]= power consumption for a single burst.

In addition, each additional output will raise the power consumption of the weapon by 10%. So if you have 10 outputs that means the weapon is using twice the amount of power.

So yea, the power cost piles up pretty fast.

It's got a 55 second reload.

 

[Yuh]

Thank everyone.

The thing I’m working on is indeed an alpha siege with one computer, when I do the math through my own calculations and the ones mentioned here it still doesn’t seem to make sense to me. My weapon is roughly 70k Beams, 70k Pulse slaved, (no effects yet) and it instantly drains 1.5 billion power.

 

[Lecic]

770,000,000 is the amount of power it SHOULD be draining. 140k modules x 10 DPS per block x 10 power per damage x 55s reload = 770mil power.

Do you have multiple outputs? Each additional output increases power consumption by 10% (2.5% for missile primaries).

 

[Yuh]

770,000,000 is the amount of power it SHOULD be draining. 140k modules x 10 DPS per block x 10 power per damage x 55s reload = 770mil power.

Do you have multiple outputs? Each additional output increases power consumption by 10% (2.5% for missile primaries).

Ohhhh I see. Yes, there are multiple outputs. I don't know the number off the top of my head, probably over a 1,000.

 

[Lecic]

Ohhhh I see. Yes, there are multiple outputs. I don't know the number off the top of my head, probably over a 1,000.

Just a word of advice- you're probably trying to build a giant death ray? Well, for starters, that's not going to be very battle practical. Secondly, split the whole thing up into individual computers for each output, and fire the whole thing with logic. You'll actually be able to support it.

 

[Yuh]

Just a word of advice- you're probably trying to build a giant death ray? Well, for starters, that's not going to be very battle practical. Secondly, split the whole thing up into individual computers for each output, and fire the whole thing with logic. You'll actually be able to support it.

I tried to research what we be effective at doing a large amount of damage, but I couldn't find much on the subject in detail, or I am bad at research (most likely). This wasn't going to be for pvp, just having fun against space stations. Any recommendations for what to build a death/super weapon out of?

 

[Lecic]

I tried to research what we be effective at doing a large amount of damage, but I couldn't find much on the subject in detail, or I am bad at research (most likely). This wasn't going to be for pvp, just having fun against space stations. Any recommendations for what to build a death/super weapon out of?

It's not widely posted about for two reasons. First, the meta changes frequently in an alpha game like this. Secondly, people who've found out how to make powerful weapons generally don't share.

Beam/Pulse/ION is actually a very good "death weapon" for taking down huge amounts of shields at once, though it is very power hungry. For block destruction, I'd primarily recommend cannon/cannon with explosive, pierce, or punch. Pierce does zero damage against shields at 100%, so keep that in mind.

Missiles (Mainly Missile/Beam) are also effective with those same effects. Keep in mind that you'll need a lot of them, since most ships have at least a few PD turrets.

Never use swarm missiles (Missile/Missile). They're very slow, target anything nearby (including shops, stations, asteroids, and even friendly ships), and are generally considered by everyone else to be the lazy noob's weapon of choice.

 

[Keptick]

It's not widely posted about for two reasons. First, the meta changes frequently in an alpha game like this. Secondly, people who've found out how to make powerful weapons generally don't share.

Beam/Pulse/ION is actually a very good "death weapon" for taking down huge amounts of shields at once, though it is very power hungry. For block destruction, I'd primarily recommend cannon/cannon with explosive, pierce, or punch. Pierce does zero damage against shields at 100%, so keep that in mind.

Missiles (Mainly Missile/Beam) are also effective with those same effects. Keep in mind that you'll need a lot of them, since most ships have at least a few PD turrets.

Never use swarm missiles (Missile/Missile). They're very slow, target anything nearby (including shops, stations, asteroids, and even friendly ships), and are generally considered by everyone else to be the lazy noob's weapon of choice.

Swarms are one of the only viable choices at very large sizes though, mainly due to the fact that having multiple missiles will ensure less (or no) wasted damage (because with normal missiles the damage would just be too much for the amount of blocks caught in the blast). I'm talking about pure block destruction btw, I agree that for shields beams are the best (or cannons for more range).

I just wish that cannons and beam damage against blocks didn't scale like ass, that way manually fired large cannons/beams would be viable. Right now you have 3 choices: Go with one output and waste 98% of the damage, go with multiple outputs and waste 98% of your power, or go with multiple computers fired with logic and have a 98% harder time hitting. Or just use missiles...

 

[Lecic]

Swarms are one of the only viable choices at very large sizes though, mainly due to the fact that having multiple missiles will ensure less (or no) wasted damage (because with normal missiles the damage would just be too much for the amount of blocks caught in the blast). I'm talking about pure block destruction btw, I agree that for shields beams are the best (or cannons for more range).

I just wish that cannons and beam damage against blocks didn't scale like ass, that way manually fired large cannons/beams would be viable. Right now you have 3 choices: Go with one output and waste 98% of the damage, go with multiple outputs and waste 98% of your power, or go with multiple computers fired with logic and have a 98% harder time hitting. Or just use missiles...

Swarmers are actually hilariously ineffective against a larger target, due to the thicker armor on larger ships.

 

[Keptick]

Swarmers are actually hilariously ineffective against a larger target, due to the thicker armor on larger ships.

Because of the explosion damage VS armor bug...

But that just proves my point even more, because of that bug even missiles suck to a certain degree. So capital ship fights either last for ever because the weapons used are only like 3% efficient (in case of cannons/beams), or lag the shit out of everything because they have tens or hundreds of outputs to make up for the shitty scaling.

 

[Lecic]

Because of the explosion damage VS armor bug...

To an extent. Swarmers have a very small radius. They're going to be stronger after that's fixed, yes, but not enough for my statement to not be true.

Swarmers also spread out too much. The damage isn't focused, leading to a lot of little holes all over a ship with little actual system damage.

 

[Keptick]

To an extent. Swarmers have a very small radius. They're going to be stronger after that's fixed, yes, but not enough for my statement to not be true.

Swarmers also spread out too much. The damage isn't focused, leading to a lot of little holes all over a ship with little actual system damage.

Yea, I guess that's true if you just fire them normally. The way I build mine (automated with logic) makes it so that they all smash into targets one after an other, so I don't really get that problem.

 

[Yuh]

It's not widely posted about for two reasons. First, the meta changes frequently in an alpha game like this. Secondly, people who've found out how to make powerful weapons generally don't share.

Beam/Pulse/ION is actually a very good "death weapon" for taking down huge amounts of shields at once, though it is very power hungry. For block destruction, I'd primarily recommend cannon/cannon with explosive, pierce, or punch. Pierce does zero damage against shields at 100%, so keep that in mind.

Missiles (Mainly Missile/Beam) are also effective with those same effects. Keep in mind that you'll need a lot of them, since most ships have at least a few PD turrets.

Never use swarm missiles (Missile/Missile). They're very slow, target anything nearby (including shops, stations, asteroids, and even friendly ships), and are generally considered by everyone else to be the lazy noob's weapon of choice.

Thank you, this is very helpful.