Damage Pulse, the forgotten weapon

[Dr. Whammy]

But beams have inherent PIERCE, this effect allows them to pass through multiple blocks anyway. Beam's latent penetration and Cannon latent penetration is roughly similar.

To be honest, I've seen beam's pierce frequently fail to work as advertised; even on unarmored targets. Whether or not this is a bug or insufficient damage output is anyone's guess. The only time I've seen cannons fail to punch through is when there's insufficient damage output.

Not really.
You can fire a beam when you have less than the capacity required to fire the whole beam burst. Yes, you still need to "pay the power toll" but what I was saying is that the Beam will actively utilise the power recharged during its 1 second burst. Power recharge ticks about 20 times a second. Therefore you can theoretically power an alpha beam off recharge alone (But at that rate you may as well just use the recharge with beam/cannon)

A rather painful caveat; using beams in this manner will stall your power system; which disrupts shield recharging and kills jamming and all defensive effects you may be running. This is not a matter of cannon/pulse vs beams, so much as a debate of power useage tactics. Saying you can fire part of a beam burst instead of one cannon shot is like saying you can run a 4-cylinder engine on only 1-3 cylinders because it's more practical than a rocket engine. Sure; you can do it but is that really a wise thing to do?

And yet beam does the same. It still has penetration effect when you add on 50% ion to it. This point is rather invalid.

Not in any of my tests. Something's amiss here, unless they've fixed what's wrong with piercing effects. Then again, the beam's piercing effect does have to spread its damage across all the blocks it touches. In this case, cannon/pulse will cut through the armor and several system blocks while the beam distributes damage evenly across them possibly, without destroying any.

And as above messge. Cannon/pulse isnt useless, its just not as EFFECTIVE as other weapons out there.
Take that cannon/pulse/punch you used and turn it into cannon/cannon/punch. Using superior speed and agility you should be able to drill out thrust and power as they only have 25HP per block.

Also I see decoratives on the external of that ship, emaning they have 10-50HP. focusing these spots will net large amounts of damage to a cannon cannon

Everything has a purpose, as well as pros and cons. For example.
- Missiles do a ton of block damage but lose half of their damage on impact and can be destroyed by cannon fire. They are less effective against heavy armor and shields.
- Beams hit instantly but are prone to buggy behavior and have limited range. They aren't the best against fast charging shields
- Cannons are the most balanced and allow for the most variety of tactics. Weakness; you must choose between power, range and firing rate.
As far as my C/P ship. No; It would not be able to cut into the ship's armor to hit the engines/power grid. Those decorations you mention are just that; decorations. They do not contribute greatly to system HP and they are not used to cover systems so C/C falls short there as well. The pierce of a beam might work if it doesn't glitch or lose all of it's damage by spreading across all the blocks it touches.

 

[Napther]

Not in any of my tests. Something's amiss here, unless they've fixed what's wrong with piercing effects. Then again, the beam's piercing effect does have to spread its damage across all the blocks it touches. In this case, cannon/pulse will cut through the armor and several system blocks while the beam distributes damage evenly across them possibly, without destroying any.

Nope... Beams "Piercing" effect is technically punch. Since the damage readoff shows damage per penetration... This throws into doubt whether you have played the game in the last few months or done tests.

Cannon projectile loses damage as it breaks blocks when it hits them

Beams create a "line" then deals damage to blocks in damage in descending order from it as per the damage penetrations in the weapon menu

 

[Dr. Whammy]

Nope... Beams "Piercing" effect is technically punch. Since the damage readoff shows damage per penetration... This throws into doubt whether you have played the game in the last few months or done tests.

Cannon projectile loses damage as it breaks blocks when it hits them

Beams create a "line" then deals damage to blocks in damage in descending order from it as per the damage penetrations in the weapon menu

My current tests show something similar to punch-through without the supposed explosive add-in.
It does not bypass armor; but instead expends damage output to destroy armor before hitting the systems underneath.

So we basically have two (almost) functionally identical weapons. That leaves a few questions...

1) When did it change?
2) Is this intended or just a failed implementation?
3) What rebalancing will be done to keep the weapons unique rather than reinvent the wheel?

In the mean time; C/P is still good for the uses I previously stated. At this point, unless you're playing devil's advocate, I'm really not sure what the point of your argument is. Everything in the game can be adapted to fill a role. C/P (as previously stated) is intended to be a siege cannon and B/B is basically a long ranged heavy laser. Both are alpha strike weapons; great for dropping the shields but terrible at ending a fight quickly afterwards. If you have a combo you like better, that's great but it's kind of silly to argue the point of "who's gun is better" when both have an advantage over each other in certain circumstances.

 

[Napther]

My current tests show something similar to punch-through without the supposed explosive add-in.
It does not bypass armor; but instead expends damage output to destroy armor before hitting the systems underneath.

So we basically have two (almost) functionally identical weapons. That leaves a few questions...

1) When did it change?
2) Is this intended or just a failed implementation?
3) What rebalancing will be done to keep the weapons unique rather than reinvent the wheel?

In the mean time; C/P is still good for the uses I previously stated. At this point, unless you're playing devil's advocate, I'm really not sure what the point of your argument is. Everything in the game can be adapted to fill a role. C/P (as previously stated) is intended to be a siege cannon and B/B is basically a long ranged heavy laser. Both are alpha strike weapons; great for dropping the shields but terrible at ending a fight quickly afterwards. If you have a combo you like better, that's great but it's kind of silly to argue the point of "who's gun is better" when both have an advantage over each other in certain circumstances.

A little this and a little that.

But what we mean is that cannon/pulse systems, yes, it has the odd uses (Like compact super-penetration arrays by stacking outputs),
But overall the weapon when scaled up has horrible efficiency due to Schema's damage fall off VS blocks with alpha damage.

And on the small scale I tested 30/30/30 arrays of:
CPPu, CBPu, CCPu, BBPu,

Statistically the worst among them for block DPS is unsurprisingly the Cannon-Pulse-Punch,
CPPu deals 2.06 blocks/second damage at 30/30/30 size

then Beam/Beam/Punch with 4.67 blocks killed/second

Next up is Cannon/Beam/Punch with 5.5 blocks killed/second

then finally is Cannon/cannon/punch with 10 blocks killed/second at 30/30/30 size

Therefore using Pulse slaved cannons you are SEVERELY limiting your potential block DPS by a factor of 5 by ignoring the rapid fire of the cannon/cannon/punch, meaning it will take 5x slower to kill an enemy if they were a pure system brick...
Maths doesnt lie
But again cannon/pulse CAN have its occaisonal uses but as a main weapon it does not get my vote at anything larger than Miniature fighter

 

[Dr. Whammy]

A little this and a little that.

But what we mean is that cannon/pulse systems, yes, it has the odd uses (Like compact super-penetration arrays by stacking outputs),
But overall the weapon when scaled up has horrible efficiency due to Schema's damage fall off VS blocks with alpha damage.

And on the small scale I tested 30/30/30 arrays of:
CPPu, CBPu, CCPu, BBPu,

Statistically the worst among them for block DPS is unsurprisingly the Cannon-Pulse-Punch,
CPPu deals 2.06 blocks/second damage at 30/30/30 size

then Beam/Beam/Punch with 4.67 blocks killed/second

Next up is Cannon/Beam/Punch with 5.5 blocks killed/second

then finally is Cannon/cannon/punch with 10 blocks killed/second at 30/30/30 size

Therefore using Pulse slaved cannons you are SEVERELY limiting your potential block DPS by a factor of 5 by ignoring the rapid fire of the cannon/cannon/punch, meaning it will take 5x slower to kill an enemy if they were a pure system brick...
Maths doesnt lie
But again cannon/pulse CAN have its occaisonal uses but as a main weapon it does not get my vote at anything larger than Miniature fighter

C/P is not a DPS weapon. It's an alpha-strike weapon.
[doublepost=1499567241,1499565213][/doublepost]If you want a DPS weapon then by all means; go C/C/P.

However, I find that not every engagement comes down to just DPS. My Lancer frigate taught me that when I tried to fight it...

Personally, I don't see the point of a C/P/P weapon unless the weapon is very small. Adding additional punch-through on large guns can sometimes be a waste of firepower if the projectile cuts straight through. That would lower your overall block destruction rate. Use C/P as it was intended; as a siege weapon. Put ion or explosive on a large C/P and then you have something useful.

 

[Brokengauge]

Napther Lecic just want to clarify more for my smooth brain, do you think ALL the weapon systems need to be equally viable? in all situations? Or do you just think c/p should merely become more flexible as a weapon system? Or just pulse in general should become more flexible?

 

[Az14el]

c/p needs to have an actual advantage that's not just "it can save blocks per output", overpen becomes a major issue well before this becomes useful compared to just using cannon-beam for the exact same purpose (and it having more range & speed and all...)

The only primary that has any advantage from pulse slave is missiles, as they get a radius increase. Of course they still suck because they become too slow to hit anything reliably the moment that increase becomes more significant than beam support.

It's slow & low range vs fast & high range. Mechanical advantage is whats important, fire rate & lateral damage is a matter of design.

 

[AtraUnam]

I'd just like to point out to everyone that beyond the range of beam/beam human beings are effectively incapable of hitting anything without the use of a lock-on weapon or firing a metric shitton of projectiles, this somewhat nullifies the range 'disadvantage' of beams.

 

[Dr. Whammy]

I'd just like to point out to everyone that beyond the range of beam/beam human beings are effectively incapable of hitting anything without the use of a lock-on weapon or firing a metric shitton of projectiles, this somewhat nullifies the range 'disadvantage' of beams.

This is why I frequently take a page out of your book to make some of my best weapons logic/turret based. Unfortunately; just as you are the maiden of crashes, I have become a "Lord of Lag".

I think the issue we're currently having is that some members seem to think that every weapon should be able to be used for every situation. This is not the case, nor should it be. You wouldn't use a .50 cal. machine gun against a tank. You wouldn't use a howitzer to shoot down a plane. And you wouldn't use HEAT rounds against a reinforced concrete structure.

C/P is a heavy/siege weapon. It's meant for ONLY one thing; to make a huge dent in enemy shields and armor using a single shot. Instead of having this apples/oranges argument, I'd be interested in hearing more ideas about how to make pulse useful as a primary.

 

[Cluwne]

Pulse secondary is a glorified Overdrive effect that allows one to add actual Overdrive for maximum overcompensation.
Due to how weapons work right now, it actually punishes you for dealing excessive damage because of overpenetration that not even explosive effect can counter.
As long as this issue remains unaddressed, any combo with pulse will remain inferior.

I think the issue we're currently having is that some members seem to think that every weapon should be able to be used for every situation.

Some members seem to think that every weapon should excel at something. Anything, both as primary and secondary.
Besides, we're not exactly swimming in multitudes of weapon types. So each of them has to be balanced and effective. Yes, effective against everything, if only after a fashion.

I'd be interested in hearing more ideas about how to make pulse useful as a primary.

Pulse primary is about as useful in real combat as an eggplant in bookkeeping.
The range is tiny for Starmade scale, the base reload is too long...
Trying to use it in it's current form is a sophisticated form of masochism.

 

[Dr. Whammy]

Pulse secondary is a glorified Overdrive effect that allows one to add actual Overdrive for maximum overcompensation.
Due to how weapons work right now, it actually punishes you for dealing excessive damage because of overpenetration that not even explosive effect can counter.
As long as this issue remains unaddressed, any combo with pulse will remain inferior.

That's IF you follow the bigger is better motif instead of being creative or sticking with C/P's intended purpose.

Some members seem to think that every weapon should excel at something. Anything, both as primary and secondary.
Besides, we're not exactly swimming in multitudes of weapon types. So each of them has to be balanced and effective. Yes, effective against everything, if only after a fashion.

Could you rephrase that statement? What exactly are you trying to say?

Pulse primary is about as useful in real combat as an eggplant in bookkeeping.
The range is tiny for Starmade scale, the base reload is too long...
Trying to use it in it's current form is a sophisticated form of masochism.

We already know why it sucks as a primary. What is your idea for a "good" pulse primary?

 

[MrFURB]

One of the primary weaknesses of alpha cannons/beams is that their lower block damage and painfully low versatility isn't balanced by any upsides. Beam secondary works because the lower block destruction is a trade-off for long range that would otherwise be free. That range can make a big difference many situations.
The advantage of being able to immediately break a larger number of blocks on an enemy doesn't sufficiently scale with the overall greater block destruction of DPS weapons. Alpha cannons and beams simply can't handle block destruction duties at larger scales lest you dedicate the weapon system to nothing but rail dock and computer sniping.
While I don't want to see a balance enforced meta where the victors of battle are determined by who fires their alpha damage array first, I would love to see some sort of bonus for pulse secondary weapons to give them something in return for sub-par block destruction. Perhaps the upcoming power system's lack of capacitors could change my opinion on this. Time will tell.

 

[Lecic]

C/P is a heavy/siege weapon. It's meant for ONLY one thing; to make a huge dent in enemy shields and armor using a single shot. Instead of having this apples/oranges argument, I'd be interested in hearing more ideas about how to make pulse useful as a primary.

The problem with this is that it is incredibly easy to make plain old c/c chew through large amounts of armor, and b/b is simply a more effective anti-shield weapon than c/p. c/p is only useful for block destruction at EXTREMELY small scales, and is otherwise useless compared to the other combos which are simply superior.

 

[Cluwne]

That's IF you follow the bigger is better motif instead of being creative or sticking with C/P's intended purpose.

The intended purpose of C/P seems to be a giant sniper cannon with an AP round. Since the days of core sniping are long gone now, there isn't much point in using such weapon, especially when there are better suited alternatives for other purposes. I doubt the system update will change that.

Could you rephrase that statement? What exactly are you trying to say?

We do not have a lot of weapon types to have the rock-paper-scissors balance.
Every existing type should be viable, though not necessarily best suited for the task.

What is your idea for a "good" pulse primary?

Honestly? Not freakin' idea. What I do know is that the current iteration simply will not do.

 

[Dr. Whammy]

The problem with this is that it is incredibly easy to make plain old c/c chew through large amounts of armor, and b/b is simply a more effective anti-shield weapon than c/p. c/p is only useful for block destruction at EXTREMELY small scales, and is otherwise useless compared to the other combos which are simply superior.

Your position makes it sound as if you "can't" make a good weapon out of C/P.

B/B has a range advantage only after you add enough beam secondary. C/P does not suffer any range penalties, is slightly stronger than B/B and fires all of its damage instantly.

If you're patient and you can think outside the box, C/P can be a good alternative when a C/C slug-fest isn't your best option. Seriously; waffle it, stagger the outputs lengthwise and mount it to a turret set to "selected target".
[doublepost=1499646696,1499645907][/doublepost]

The intended purpose of C/P seems to be a giant sniper cannon with an AP round. Since the days of core sniping are long gone now, there isn't much point in using such weapon, especially when there are better suited alternatives for other purposes. I doubt the system update will change that.

No. C/B is the sniper. C/P is a siege weapon. The current damage mechanic penalized high penetration types and the (currently bugged) explosive mechanic for cannons/beams limits your options. The new systems actually could change that if these reactor "chambers/stabilizers" are as important to the function of your ship as Schine says. That goes double if they make the reactor components volatile.

We do not have a lot of weapon types to have the rock-paper-scissors balance.
Every existing type should be viable, though not necessarily best suited for the task.

Agreed. Ever since the new HP system things have mainly favored C/C and M/B. There are ways around this but you have to be creative, otherwise you will end up with a clumsy weapon that only does one thing well.

Honestly? Not freakin' idea. What I do know is that the current iteration simply will not do.

It is my hope that we can all brain storm about this. It would be nice if the pulse dealt its full damage to everything inside it's radius. Right now the 50% waste explosion mechanic is really killing the usefulness of it. I can't even set off undocked warheads with it unless the pulse system is unreasonable large.

 

[Az14el]

Your position makes it sound as if you "can't" make a good weapon out of C/P.

It literally is just a worse form of cannon-beam though, hell its just a worse form of cannon since it has no dps advantage (like all slave systems, its just the only one that both does nothing different AND has significant drawbacks from pure cannon, like obviously though, these things are actually obvious.) and only mechanical disadvantages, and your idea that its most suitable for shield damage is ridiculous, cannons aren't hitscan so no they're objectively worse for shield damage than any equivalent beam weapon.

 

[StormWing0]

As a primary weapon I think the old days of pulse where it used the axis's of the ship (Or Pulse Group) to change the base shape and size of it would be a good way to go. That and maybe speed up the reload time a bit since it seems rather annoying to wait so long for something to fire that has hardly any range. Also you could use the facing direction's axis to determine how far forward the bubble goes and the other 2 tell it width and height. Seems like a healthier option and it opens more doors, just point the firing computer in the direction you want and it picks what it needs to.

 

[Lecic]

Your position makes it sound as if you "can't" make a good weapon out of C/P.

I don't think you "can't" make a good weapon out of C/P. I just think it's worse than pretty much every other option except the shotguns and damage pulse.

B/B has a range advantage only after you add enough beam secondary. C/P does not suffer any range penalties, is slightly stronger than B/B and fires all of its damage instantly.

Uh, yeah, B/B only has range after you give it it's secondary. Great deduction, genius. Your point being? That's like saying C/P only has its alpha damage advantage if you add enough pulse secondary.

C/P does not suffer any range penalties, but it sure doesn't have any range advantages like B/B, and its total damage advantage is only 1 second worth of reload time.

If you're patient and you can think outside the box, C/P can be a good alternative when a C/C slug-fest isn't your best option. Seriously; waffle it, stagger the outputs lengthwise and mount it to a turret set to "selected target".

And what advantages does this have over using C/B, which will have a dramatic range, velocity, and fire rate advantage over C/P, which will allow me to stay out of the range of the C/C slugfest?

 

[AtraUnam]

Due to how damage scaleing in this game works alpha weapons are inherantly and automatically worse for block destruction, even assuming a 100% hit-rate a 1000 block C/C will do more damage over 16 seconds (or whatever the reload of c/p is) than a 1000 block C/P. This is because larger projectiles have increasing steep efficiency drop offs in terms of how many blocks they destroy for the damage they do; causing faster firing weapons to be inherantly more efficient by virtue of seperating the damage out into multiple smaller hits as opposed to one massive hit with a huge damage-efficiency penalty.

Edit: Ok did a quick test:
A thousand block cannon/cannon array over 16 seconds destroyed 280 blocks of standard armor
A thousand block cannon/pulse array over 16 seconds (1 shot) destroyed 41 blocks of standard armor

both weapons require the same power over time and have the same DPS yet one destroys far more blocks for the amount of power invested.

 

[Dr. Whammy]

It literally is just a worse form of cannon-beam though, hell its just a worse form of cannon since it has no dps advantage (like all slave systems, its just the only one that both does nothing different AND has significant drawbacks from pure cannon, like obviously though, these things are actually obvious.) and only mechanical disadvantages, and your idea that its most suitable for shield damage is ridiculous, cannons aren't hitscan so no they're objectively worse for shield damage than any equivalent beam weapon.

Don't put words in my mouth. I didn't say that C/P is the best option for anti-shield. I'm saying it can do the trick when played to its strengths. Also, if I specifically wanted to play the range game, I'd be using C/B with logic weapons and hit-scan would never be a problem.

Due to how damage scaleing in this game works alpha weapons are inherantly and automatically worse for block destruction, even assuming a 100% hit-rate a 1000 block C/C will do more damage over 16 seconds (or whatever the reload of c/p is) than a 1000 block C/P. This is because larger projectiles have increasing steep efficiency drop offs in terms of how many blocks they destroy for the damage they do; causing faster firing weapons to be inherantly more efficient by virtue of seperating the damage out into multiple smaller hits as opposed to one massive hit with a huge damage-efficiency penalty.

Edit: Ok did a quick test:
A thousand block cannon/cannon array over 16 seconds destroyed 280 blocks of standard armor
A thousand block cannon/pulse array over 16 seconds (1 shot) destroyed 41 blocks of standard armor

both weapons require the same power over time and have the same DPS yet one destroys far more blocks for the amount of power invested.

C/P is a poor choice for DPS. It simply isn't meant for that.
Did the C/P weapon in your test over-penetrate at any point?

I don't think you "can't" make a good weapon out of C/P. I just think it's worse than pretty much every other option except the shotguns and damage pulse.
Uh, yeah, B/B only has range after you give it it's secondary. Great deduction, genius. Your point being? That's like saying C/P only has its alpha damage advantage if you add enough pulse secondary.

C/P does not suffer any range penalties, but it sure doesn't have any range advantages like B/B, and its total damage advantage is only 1 second worth of reload time.

And what advantages does this have over using C/B, which will have a dramatic range, velocity, and fire rate advantage over C/P, which will allow me to stay out of the range of the C/C slugfest?

Every other option? When is the last time you hit a moving target (not packing AMS) with a "nuke?" When was the last time you got close enough to cut someone with a B/C weapon?

Yeah; the weapon system is imbalanced in terms of DPS and range. Thank you for pointing that out, genius.

A C/P build is not going to win the DPS fight or the range fight. It's not meant for anything other than a basic alpha strike; preferably on heavy turrets. If someone really wanted to avoid the cannon slug-fest altogether, they'd be using C/B from outside your B/B's range and your C/C's DPS. In any case, playing the "rock, paper, shotgun game" is counter productive to this thread.

Do you have any idea how to make pulses better?