[Dev Build] Weapons 2.0 further testing impressions

[Nebulon-B_Frigate_FTW]

A lot has changed since my thread a few weeks back with the rapid pace of development. This is an update on the testing I'm doing. As usual, it's a 4x 3x5x10+1 testbed for everything but combinations, now with turreted cannons as well.

Before getting into how the weapons behave, we have to talk shields. Originally, they had no combat regen and a 1:1 scale Runabout replica with a dinky little beam setup could kill the test target (a scaled down Enterprise-alike).
It later switched to combat regen being a thing, which left the Runabout unable to scratch the target and made for a lot of issues trying to take down pirate stations with the test target or testbeds. Around this time, the shield stats changed drastically, and the test target went from 495k to 124k shields because of it.
Now shield rechargers are much weaker, putting the regen of the test target negative. I had to rebuild a lot of it to get it back to 124k shields at over 4k regen.

So, my impressions of the 3 weapons (and some combinations):

1. Beams are ridiculous. The test target can take out the shields of a copy of itself in one shot, and the reactor in another 2 (very similar to the testbed vs. the test target). They absolutely slaughter hull and shields alike. Range is 1600m, though, with default sector sizes, so it's pretty much the weapon where you hug the enemy and initiate surprise buttrape.
   1. Beam-beam is nuts. Test target melts in one shot. This will almost certainly be weapon of choice against poor defenseless stations.
   2. Beam-cannon is a bit of a joke with its much lower damage. Might be useful for anti-fighter/bomber turrets due to lower energy use and ability to be nearly continuously spammed (cannon turrets would be more generally useful, however).
   3. Beam-missile is pretty nuts, crazy high duration allows for shield suppression and one-shotting the test target, but layered armor would make it somewhat difficult to retarget properly onto the reactor as it really, really wants to strip away layers.
2. Cannons are almost okay. The recoil is really annoying when using them as main weapons, and they do less DPS than beams (against both hull and shields). Turreting seems to be the way to go. Strangely, when a system loses integrity from fire from them, it seems it outright explodes and takes out nearby blocks, leaving a massive crater, unlike the other weapons (meant to be all, but bugged?). The biggest advantage of them is range, as they seem to be able to go at least 4km.
   1. Cannon-beam is a bit pointless. The recoil is a lot, and it takes a few more shots to kill the test target than with beam setups, but the reload is much longer, so the shields partially come back by the next shot.
   2. Cannon-cannon is pretty weak against shields, but actually alright against hull. Just make sure to turn your volume down as constant cannon firing noises aren't nice on the ears.
   3. Cannon-missile is absolutely ridiculous and can one-shot the test target on full charge if hit just right.
3. Missiles are okay. Missile capacity blocks appear to scale much better for the testbed now, as the missile capacity blocks that used to give the testbed 20 missiles now give it 222.
   1. Missile-beam takes way too long to get a lock (because it hasn't been changed yet). They also take too long to travel with full beam secondary, and aren't terribly impressive when they hit.
   2. Missile-cannon appears to still be the way to go, fire and forget so you can spray beams or cannons.

 

[CockADoodleDoo]

Without specific numbers your impressions are kind of useless...

How much shields? What is the size of the target? How many layers of armor are you going through?

I have to disagree about beam/cannon. With cannon recoil in the state it is being able to consistently hit a target is far more important than raw damage. Especially with ranges being dropped to what they are now.

 

[Nebulon-B_Frigate_FTW]

Without specific numbers your impressions are kind of useless...

How much shields? What is the size of the target? How many layers of armor are you going through?

I have to disagree about beam/cannon. With cannon recoil in the state it is being able to consistently hit a target is far more important than raw damage. Especially with ranges being dropped to what they are now.

Most of the testing is against a 100m-long target with 124k shields and just one layer of basic hull over its reactor at close range. Since the target's saucer section is just layers of basic hull, I can do a bit of testing on penetration. Pretty much, layers are effective vs. missiles and cannons, but beams will strip you nearly instantly and a little click to retarget means they'll then be able to strip apart the next layer. Beam-beam seems to just annihilate anything in its path, meanwhile.

Some of the testing is against the same target in large pirate swarms to see how hard it is to hit moving targets.

Stationary or not, the target melts the best when hit by beam or beam-beam.
Beam-cannon may seem nice, but I've found that against very small, fast-moving targets (some X-wing replicas mixed in in the pirate swarms), you really don't need the rapid reload because you can just click again (or continuously) to retarget and ensure you one-shot them. I should do some more testing with turrets to see whether the AI needs beam-cannon to be effective, tho.

 

[Nebulon-B_Frigate_FTW]

Update: Added more slave combinations after more extensive testing.

Recoil is actually tolerable right now for cannon and cannon-cannon.

Beam-missile seems crazy, I expect it to be the way to go over just beam against targets of any significant size.

Also, shields changed again. The test target now has 312k shields with 11,025 shields/s recharge out of combat. This doesn't seem to greatly effect the test results, though it should be noted that cannon-cannon barely keeps up with their recharge.

 

[Coyote27]

Beam-Missile is awesome for reliable damage, but the tiny range can be a significant hindrance, especially if you are at a speed disadvantage.

 

[Nebulon-B_Frigate_FTW]

Beam-Missile is awesome for reliable damage, but the tiny range can be a significant hindrance, especially if you are at a speed disadvantage.

This seems to be the case for non-cannons in general. You can hit harder, but arbitrary range cutoffs and slow missiles mean you probably won't hit, so you may as well instead spam enough cannons from 2 sectors away to hope some hit.

 

[Coyote27]

This seems to be the case for non-cannons in general. You can hit harder, but arbitrary range cutoffs and slow missiles mean you probably won't hit, so you may as well instead spam enough cannons from 2 sectors away to hope some hit.

Slow missiles are kinda meh, yes. So far I've really been liking them with low beam-secondary ratios - 0-25% is a comfy zone, I've got an under-construction combat drone with four 9%-beam vertical launch missiles as of right now, but the ratio could go up or down. High missile speed and volume of fire seem to make for missiles that get where they're going quickly and are hard to stop, and still have a pretty decent blast radius (12 blocks on this one).

 

[Nebulon-B_Frigate_FTW]

Slow missiles are kinda meh, yes. So far I've really been liking them with low beam-secondary ratios - 0-25% is a comfy zone, I've got an under-construction combat drone with four 9%-beam vertical launch missiles as of right now, but the ratio could go up or down. High missile speed and volume of fire seem to make for missiles that get where they're going quickly and are hard to stop, and still have a pretty decent blast radius (12 blocks on this one).

I'm just not sure they're worth it; cannons have basically the same damage patterns and can be spammed to your heart's content, with lower energy use and no way to shoot down the projectiles.

With the current system, I think anything that isn't a bomber, siege weapon, or brawler will want tons of cannon turrets spraying, with maybe a beam PD turret for protection from getting nuked.

 

[Ckeeze]

what about missile-missile? How hard viable is it?

 

[Nebulon-B_Frigate_FTW]

what about missile-missile? How hard viable is it?

EDIT: Derped for a moment, thought you mean missile-cannon.

Last I checked it's 5 seconds fuse which leads to failure a lot, harming aiming (not even easy to get it off against stations since you need to speed up, release not too late, then slow down or turn away).
The blast radius was pretty impressive, though.

 

[Ckeeze]

did i just wrote "hard viable"? omg I meant " how viable and how hard it is to aim it?" XD

 

[Nebulon-B_Frigate_FTW]

And now beams seem to be able to go up to 4km...but they once again bypass shields if you're more than a sector away. Not the greatest.

 

[Ckeeze]

And now beams seem to be able to go up to 4km...but they once again bypass shields if you're more than a sector away. Not the greatest.

Holly mother of Unballanced stuff!

 

[Nebulon-B_Frigate_FTW]

Holly mother of Unballanced stuff!

Yeah, dev builds can be quite buggy. I was hoping to see whether the new range includes damage dropoff, but a bug seems to be making ships more than a sector away from things unload their shields.

Also worth noting that with 7 cannon turrets (reaching 100% power utilization with just them and shields), the test target can't scratch the shields of the pirate station right now, but with the main beam weapon, it can.

 

[Nebulon-B_Frigate_FTW]

Further testing shows cannon-missile is still absolutely, completely bonkers, but unfortunately doesn't work on turrets. I'm thinking fighters could have it as a rear gun that instantly accelerates them to max speed while tearing apart anything of a similar size in one shot (RIP pursuers).

 

[Zoolimar]

I'm thinking fighters could have it as a rear gun that instantly accelerates them to max speed while tearing apart anything of a similar size in one shot (RIP pursuers).

I don't think you could aim it properly right now even if you have a camera on the ass of your ship.

 

[Nebulon-B_Frigate_FTW]

I don't think you could aim it properly right now even if you have a camera on the ass of your ship.

It generally does hit if your target is stationary relative to you, but good luck shooting it more than once with all the lag and recoil.

 

[PromisedPossum]

A stationary rearward facing turret with remote switch may work?

 

[MacThule]

Hey, I'm using a different system than I was before, so I'm not sure if it's a local problem - is anyone having trouble with their client crashing to main menu when attempting to mass select non-system blocks for an activation module?

I bugged it last week trying to set up a door; I am also getting it trying to mass-select (SHIFT+V) lights and force fields. Not systems though - not problem at all mass-selecting any ship systems for their computers, or factory components, rails, etc.

NEVERMIND - just looked through phabricator and saw it as confirmed with a pre-release QA priority. Guess it's just taking a while to get to or to debug.