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What follows is my personal opinion of weapon balancing based on the stats the config tells me. I have not yet done any in game shooting though I have placed all the types of weapon combinations and checked their stats. Thank you for reading and please post any comments you may have but keep in mind that this is my opinion. I welcome any thoughts on the matter.
According to the config the dps for most weapon combinations (disregarding pulse as the master weapons as I do not know how their dps is calculated) are 5 damage/second per block. This includes the block count of any slave weapons. The only 2 that do not come out to 5 dps/block are Cannon-beam and Beam-beam. They each come out to 2.5 dps/block.
I believe this is to make up for the range increase and makes sense on that front. But it becomes a problem, at least on a large scale.
For instance on my current wip I have used 300k blocks for my shield-buster weapon. I made it cannon-cannon-ion because as of right now that seems to be the most effective for breaking shields at distance. The weapon comes out to 1mil dps w/o effect so including the ion effect it comes out to 2 mil dps to shields.
On the same ship I have dedicated the same block count to its shields (300k). That comes out to 148500000 shields, and a recharge of 500k. With those numbers it would take my cannon-cannon-ion of the same block count 99 seconds to break them. This time to kill would be the same for every weapon combo except Cannon-beam and beam-beam. That would make these "sniper" weapons useless for shield breaking and make thier only use block destruction or trying to one shot the core of a ship(assuming you attach the punch-through effect). The problem with that idea is that the enemies shields must be down and since in order to bring down their shields they would need to be in range of whatever weapon you could bring their shields down in 99 seconds (block for block) with then what is the point of the range buff?
Now I will go into why I think the rest of the weapons are unbalanced as well. I believe cannon-cannon to be the best weapon combo, this is because of all the weapons with 5 dps/block cannon-cannon loses the least dps to missing. Cannon-missile loses much of its dps over range as it cannot focus fire. Cannon-pulse has a 15 second reload which makes it so that it loses 15 seconds worth of damage. Beam-cannon suffers from 2 issues, one is its 500 range and the other is that it too cannot focus fire, though they shoot straight if the ship you are targeting is not as wide or tall as the array you are using then you will lose out on dps, but this can be counteracted by having a single array as oppose to several. Beam-missile loses far to much dps over range and already has a terrible range, this is because it cannot focus fire so most of your dps will be lost. Beam-pulse has a tick time of 20 seconds, in order for the beam to damage the target it has to be on target for that entire 20 seconds and that is unlikely to happen when both ships are moving so you will lose a lot of dps from missing. Missile-cannon loses dps from the speed and distance of the projectiles, this is similar to why missiles were underpowered before this build, if the ship is moving either faster or at the same pace as you the missiles will not connect. Missile-beam is actually fairly decent but suffer from the 15 second reload meaning that in the case that you miss (which you will eventually) you lose 15 seconds of damage. Missile-missile sounds good in theory but suffers the same problem that missile-cannon has, that most of the missiles will explode before making contact with the enemy ship. Missile-pulse suffers from the 90 second reload timer so if you miss that entire weapon system will be useless the rest of the battle because as stated before the time to break shields of the same block count is 99 seconds.
To put how much missing effects each weapon into better context: If you use a cannon-pulse and miss once. In order to lose the same dps from cannon-cannon you would have to miss for 15 seconds straight. As for the shotgun arrays of cannon-missile and beam-missile, the lack of focus fire means that past 200 meters you will lose most of your dps.
That was just concerning breaking shields, another problem with balancing is destroying an enemy ships once its shields are down each combo provides w/o effect.
200 blocks in 1 group of cannon-cannon will destroy 10 blocks per second
196 blocks in 14 groups of cannon-beam will destroy 14 blocks every 3 seconds
204 blocks in 6 groups of cannon-missile will destroy 60 blocks every 3 seconds
200 blocks in 100 groups of cannon-pulse will destroy 100 blocks every 15 seconds
200 blocks in 1 group of beam-cannon will destroy 5 blocks per second
200 blocks in 10 groups of beam-missile will destroy 100 blocks every 2 seconds
200 blocks in 10 groups of beam-beam will destroy 10 blocks every 2 seconds
200 blocks in 100 groups of beam-pulse will destroy 100 blocks every 20 seconds
Based on the fact that the current way to destroy a ship is hit the core that eliminates all missiles, cannon-missile, and beam-missile from being the best for killing when the shields are down. That leaves the most effective weapon for destroying a ship as cannon-cannon.
So in summary cannon-cannon is currently not balanced with the rest of the weapon types. Both cannon-beam and beam-beam have to little dps to make use of their range buff. Both cannon-missile and beam-missile lose large amounts of dps over range due to not being able to focus fire. Both cannon-pulse and beam-pulse become largely useless from their reload time. And all missiles suffer from both reload time and projectile speed (missile-beam is ok with the second issue but still suffers from the first).
My suggestions for balance would be to increase the dps of cannon-beam and beam-beam to give their range use. Decrease the dps of cannon-cannon as it currently outweighs all other weapon types for both shield depletion and destroying once shields are down. Allow the shotgun arrays to focus fire at the cost of range (perhaps half range). Greatly increase the damage or accuracy of cannon-pulse and beam-pulse to make up for the cost of missing. As for missiles, I cannot see a way to make them useful as long as the way to destroy a ship is to hit the core.
Sorry for the wall of text and thank for reading my opinions on the balancing of the current weapons system.
According to the config the dps for most weapon combinations (disregarding pulse as the master weapons as I do not know how their dps is calculated) are 5 damage/second per block. This includes the block count of any slave weapons. The only 2 that do not come out to 5 dps/block are Cannon-beam and Beam-beam. They each come out to 2.5 dps/block.
I believe this is to make up for the range increase and makes sense on that front. But it becomes a problem, at least on a large scale.
For instance on my current wip I have used 300k blocks for my shield-buster weapon. I made it cannon-cannon-ion because as of right now that seems to be the most effective for breaking shields at distance. The weapon comes out to 1mil dps w/o effect so including the ion effect it comes out to 2 mil dps to shields.
On the same ship I have dedicated the same block count to its shields (300k). That comes out to 148500000 shields, and a recharge of 500k. With those numbers it would take my cannon-cannon-ion of the same block count 99 seconds to break them. This time to kill would be the same for every weapon combo except Cannon-beam and beam-beam. That would make these "sniper" weapons useless for shield breaking and make thier only use block destruction or trying to one shot the core of a ship(assuming you attach the punch-through effect). The problem with that idea is that the enemies shields must be down and since in order to bring down their shields they would need to be in range of whatever weapon you could bring their shields down in 99 seconds (block for block) with then what is the point of the range buff?
Now I will go into why I think the rest of the weapons are unbalanced as well. I believe cannon-cannon to be the best weapon combo, this is because of all the weapons with 5 dps/block cannon-cannon loses the least dps to missing. Cannon-missile loses much of its dps over range as it cannot focus fire. Cannon-pulse has a 15 second reload which makes it so that it loses 15 seconds worth of damage. Beam-cannon suffers from 2 issues, one is its 500 range and the other is that it too cannot focus fire, though they shoot straight if the ship you are targeting is not as wide or tall as the array you are using then you will lose out on dps, but this can be counteracted by having a single array as oppose to several. Beam-missile loses far to much dps over range and already has a terrible range, this is because it cannot focus fire so most of your dps will be lost. Beam-pulse has a tick time of 20 seconds, in order for the beam to damage the target it has to be on target for that entire 20 seconds and that is unlikely to happen when both ships are moving so you will lose a lot of dps from missing. Missile-cannon loses dps from the speed and distance of the projectiles, this is similar to why missiles were underpowered before this build, if the ship is moving either faster or at the same pace as you the missiles will not connect. Missile-beam is actually fairly decent but suffer from the 15 second reload meaning that in the case that you miss (which you will eventually) you lose 15 seconds of damage. Missile-missile sounds good in theory but suffers the same problem that missile-cannon has, that most of the missiles will explode before making contact with the enemy ship. Missile-pulse suffers from the 90 second reload timer so if you miss that entire weapon system will be useless the rest of the battle because as stated before the time to break shields of the same block count is 99 seconds.
To put how much missing effects each weapon into better context: If you use a cannon-pulse and miss once. In order to lose the same dps from cannon-cannon you would have to miss for 15 seconds straight. As for the shotgun arrays of cannon-missile and beam-missile, the lack of focus fire means that past 200 meters you will lose most of your dps.
That was just concerning breaking shields, another problem with balancing is destroying an enemy ships once its shields are down each combo provides w/o effect.
200 blocks in 1 group of cannon-cannon will destroy 10 blocks per second
196 blocks in 14 groups of cannon-beam will destroy 14 blocks every 3 seconds
204 blocks in 6 groups of cannon-missile will destroy 60 blocks every 3 seconds
200 blocks in 100 groups of cannon-pulse will destroy 100 blocks every 15 seconds
200 blocks in 1 group of beam-cannon will destroy 5 blocks per second
200 blocks in 10 groups of beam-missile will destroy 100 blocks every 2 seconds
200 blocks in 10 groups of beam-beam will destroy 10 blocks every 2 seconds
200 blocks in 100 groups of beam-pulse will destroy 100 blocks every 20 seconds
Based on the fact that the current way to destroy a ship is hit the core that eliminates all missiles, cannon-missile, and beam-missile from being the best for killing when the shields are down. That leaves the most effective weapon for destroying a ship as cannon-cannon.
So in summary cannon-cannon is currently not balanced with the rest of the weapon types. Both cannon-beam and beam-beam have to little dps to make use of their range buff. Both cannon-missile and beam-missile lose large amounts of dps over range due to not being able to focus fire. Both cannon-pulse and beam-pulse become largely useless from their reload time. And all missiles suffer from both reload time and projectile speed (missile-beam is ok with the second issue but still suffers from the first).
My suggestions for balance would be to increase the dps of cannon-beam and beam-beam to give their range use. Decrease the dps of cannon-cannon as it currently outweighs all other weapon types for both shield depletion and destroying once shields are down. Allow the shotgun arrays to focus fire at the cost of range (perhaps half range). Greatly increase the damage or accuracy of cannon-pulse and beam-pulse to make up for the cost of missing. As for missiles, I cannot see a way to make them useful as long as the way to destroy a ship is to hit the core.
Sorry for the wall of text and thank for reading my opinions on the balancing of the current weapons system.
