[Dev Build] Weapons 2.0 impressions from testing the basic 3

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    During testing today I also felt like they may have made changes to missiles. I really like the way they are starting to feel; they put decent holes in AA, but they definitely treat systems a bit differently so that if you can land a successive missile shot through an existing hole in the armor, it guts the interior without majorly erasing all the adjacent armored hull.

    They could probably use more minor adjustment but I do think it's getting close to tuned up. Now if they can get beams and cannon tweaked to the level of goodness that missiles are getting to I might actually start getting excited about combat in Starmade again.
     
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    During testing today I also felt like they may have made changes to missiles. I really like the way they are starting to feel; they put decent holes in AA, but they definitely treat systems a bit differently so that if you can land a successive missile shot through an existing hole in the armor, it guts the interior without majorly erasing all the adjacent armored hull.

    They could probably use more minor adjustment but I do think it's getting close to tuned up. Now if they can get beams and cannon tweaked to the level of goodness that missiles are getting to I might actually start getting excited about combat in Starmade again.
    Personally, I think missiles need a longer reload time. Right now the DPS is a little nuts for something that disintegrates reactors. Beams also might be a bit too high DPS, cannons really should be the high DPS weapons in my opinion with how hard it is to hit things with them.
     
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    Personally, I think missiles need a longer reload time. Right now the DPS is a little nuts for something that disintegrates reactors. Beams also might be a bit too high DPS, cannons really should be the high DPS weapons in my opinion with how hard it is to hit things with them.
    They need a much longer reload. I am just liking where the damage is at. Before I felt like missiles were overwhelming armor too much, but now you can totally "feel" the armor when you're pounding a target but it doesn't totally stop you either.
     
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    Another update today. Looks like they're trying some of the stuff being tossed around on the forums in terms of the Doom Laser, Cannons, and even Missile Regen.

    Observations:

    Missile Regen is now on a 30-second flat timer... I definitely like the feel of taking longer to regen missiles since they are so powerful. It gives me reason to swap over to other weapons while I wait for more missiles to come online. But it seems like it would have been better to just keep the normal regen-over-time function and make it much slower. The new timer function seems to bypass regen speed entirely, and after 30 seconds (from last missile firing - it restarts if you fire halfway through countdown) all of your missiles regen at once.

    Doom Beam (B+b) has to be aimed by aiming your ship, the reticle doesn't aim it. It also has a 5-second active spool-up time (you have to hold down the mouse button and it fires automatically when you hit 5 seconds). I can't find a lot of problems with these changes so far - it balances the awesome power of the weapon by making it a little unwieldy in terms of both aim and timing. Still cuts and insane swath of destruction, but not with pinpoint accuracy so gutting a reactor with it is a little trickier.

    Cannons:
    It seems like they substantially eased the effect of the recoil, but I'm firing from a new test vehicle so I can't be 100% certain. I'm finding it pretty viable to hold machine gun (C-c) fire on a moving target across a single sector; the damage is minimal, but plentiful and makes a nice mess of outer hulls very quickly.

    Also, the heavy Disruptor cannon (C-m) seems to be using the same ship-aim method they installed on the Doom Beam so it just fires in the direction the weapon is currently pointing without regard to the reticle. No complaint - it seems a fair balance for an extremely powerful and relatively convenient weapon.

    The heavy cannon variants don't seem to send my ship flying wildly away from the target either, but again this may be an issue of using a much larger new test vessel to fire weapons.

    I am interested to hear what people think after testing the new dev build. A couple of these seem pulled directly from forum conversations (could be convergent engineering, but either way the new solutions are worth considering).
     
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    Another update today. Looks like they're trying some of the stuff being tossed around on the forums in terms of the Doom Laser, Cannons, and even Missile Regen.

    Observations:

    Missile Regen is now on a 30-second flat timer... I definitely like the feel of taking longer to regen missiles since they are so powerful. It gives me reason to swap over to other weapons while I wait for more missiles to come online. But it seems like it would have been better to just keep the normal regen-over-time function and make it much slower. The new timer function seems to bypass regen speed entirely, and after 30 seconds (from last missile firing - it restarts if you fire halfway through countdown) all of your missiles regen at once.

    Doom Beam (B+b) has to be aimed by aiming your ship, the reticle doesn't aim it. It also has a 5-second active spool-up time (you have to hold down the mouse button and it fires automatically when you hit 5 seconds). I can't find a lot of problems with these changes so far - it balances the awesome power of the weapon by making it a little unwieldy in terms of both aim and timing. Still cuts and insane swath of destruction, but not with pinpoint accuracy so gutting a reactor with it is a little trickier.

    Cannons:
    It seems like they substantially eased the effect of the recoil, but I'm firing from a new test vehicle so I can't be 100% certain. I'm finding it pretty viable to hold machine gun (C-c) fire on a moving target across a single sector; the damage is minimal, but plentiful and makes a nice mess of outer hulls very quickly.

    Also, the heavy Disruptor cannon (C-m) seems to be using the same ship-aim method they installed on the Doom Beam so it just fires in the direction the weapon is currently pointing without regard to the reticle. No complaint - it seems a fair balance for an extremely powerful and relatively convenient weapon.

    The heavy cannon variants don't seem to send my ship flying wildly away from the target either, but again this may be an issue of using a much larger new test vessel to fire weapons.

    I am interested to hear what people think after testing the new dev build. A couple of these seem pulled directly from forum conversations (could be convergent engineering, but either way the new solutions are worth considering).
    Don't know what to say man... Ur like a ad for the dev build to me..... Trying to push me towards the dev build........ It's soooo tempting
     
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    Don't know what to say man... Ur like a ad for the dev build to me..... Trying to push me towards the dev build........ It's soooo tempting
    No need! The whole reason it is sounding good is because they are getting close to a level of development that will allow them to push it to general release in the near future. It's coming soon to a server near you. :cool:

    (unless you like tinkering in dev. i do. then by all means, jump on in!)
     
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    That sounds even better. Would be a great pr stunt if they make some sort of trailer to hype ppl (those who didnt use the deve build) up more.....
     
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    Another update today. Looks like they're trying some of the stuff being tossed around on the forums in terms of the Doom Laser, Cannons, and even Missile Regen.

    Observations:

    Missile Regen is now on a 30-second flat timer... I definitely like the feel of taking longer to regen missiles since they are so powerful. It gives me reason to swap over to other weapons while I wait for more missiles to come online. But it seems like it would have been better to just keep the normal regen-over-time function and make it much slower. The new timer function seems to bypass regen speed entirely, and after 30 seconds (from last missile firing - it restarts if you fire halfway through countdown) all of your missiles regen at once.

    Doom Beam (B+b) has to be aimed by aiming your ship, the reticle doesn't aim it. It also has a 5-second active spool-up time (you have to hold down the mouse button and it fires automatically when you hit 5 seconds). I can't find a lot of problems with these changes so far - it balances the awesome power of the weapon by making it a little unwieldy in terms of both aim and timing. Still cuts and insane swath of destruction, but not with pinpoint accuracy so gutting a reactor with it is a little trickier.

    Cannons:
    It seems like they substantially eased the effect of the recoil, but I'm firing from a new test vehicle so I can't be 100% certain. I'm finding it pretty viable to hold machine gun (C-c) fire on a moving target across a single sector; the damage is minimal, but plentiful and makes a nice mess of outer hulls very quickly.

    Also, the heavy Disruptor cannon (C-m) seems to be using the same ship-aim method they installed on the Doom Beam so it just fires in the direction the weapon is currently pointing without regard to the reticle. No complaint - it seems a fair balance for an extremely powerful and relatively convenient weapon.

    The heavy cannon variants don't seem to send my ship flying wildly away from the target either, but again this may be an issue of using a much larger new test vessel to fire weapons.

    I am interested to hear what people think after testing the new dev build. A couple of these seem pulled directly from forum conversations (could be convergent engineering, but either way the new solutions are worth considering).
    Missiles might have been overnerfed; the DPS is pretty bad, unless capacity blocks became much more effective. Unfortunately on the cannon side, the recoil has gotten worse as has their ability to tear apart hull.
    Seems like beams reign supreme.
     
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    sorry, but Despite some tinkering, nothing really has changed for me;

    Missiles : still lacking in variety
    Beams : just ...sigh

    C-M: MAKE A PROPER FLAK CANNON ALREADY!!!

    And,

    Recoil: Still a dubious idea and painfully implemented >
    But mainly, at a time when combat/calculation load needs optimizing, why, oh why, oh why add this extra work? Recoil on shooter and 'bounce' on target create Hideous, eye-wrenching, god-awful LAG !!! TAKE THIS CRAPPY MECHANIC AWAY (please)!!!
     
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    sorry, but Despite some tinkering, nothing really has changed for me;

    Missiles : still lacking in variety
    Beams : just ...sigh

    C-M: MAKE A PROPER FLAK CANNON ALREADY!!!

    And,

    Recoil: Still a dubious idea and painfully implemented >
    But mainly, at a time when combat/calculation load needs optimizing, why, oh why, oh why add this extra work? Recoil on shooter and 'bounce' on target create Hideous, eye-wrenching, god-awful LAG !!! TAKE THIS CRAPPY MECHANIC AWAY (please)!!!
    I cracked up at the last part
     
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    sorry, but Despite some tinkering, nothing really has changed for me;

    Missiles : still lacking in variety
    Beams : just ...sigh

    C-M: MAKE A PROPER FLAK CANNON ALREADY!!!

    And,

    Recoil: Still a dubious idea and painfully implemented >
    But mainly, at a time when combat/calculation load needs optimizing, why, oh why, oh why add this extra work? Recoil on shooter and 'bounce' on target create Hideous, eye-wrenching, god-awful LAG !!! TAKE THIS CRAPPY MECHANIC AWAY (please)!!!
    The best part about beams right now is that if you're a sector away, they pass thru shields. If two sectors away, they don't hit.</s>
    Also, cannon turrets are still sending out projectiles at .05m/s, except now they don't seem to do any decent damage.
     
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    And now beams have become crazy powerful, and shields are more regen focused. Test target actually has different shield stats now. At one point, I was able to whittle it down with a little Danube-class replica with a modest beam setup, but now it doesn't scratch the shields at all.

    The beam test platform now takes out the test target's shields in one shot, its reactor in 2 more.
    Cannons are about adequate now, but still have annoying recoil and pale in comparison to beams.
    Missiles seem pointless with beams being better in every way.

    Overall, seems like all that's changed weapons-wise is beams and missiles traded places. I really hope missiles and cannons get buffs and beams nerfs to where beams are only slightly ahead for the go-to weapon, with cannons/missiles situationally better.
     
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    Agreed that beam damage needs to be scaled back a bit looking for more balance as of my last tests yesterday.
     
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    Also, I tested out beam:cannon against Isanths and it was very lackluster. It seems like the fire rate increase doesn't matter because you're losing a ton of damage.
     
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    Also, I tested out beam:cannon against Isanths and it was very lackluster. It seems like the fire rate increase doesn't matter because you're losing a ton of damage.
    Same impression. Beam-cannon is currently so without appeal as to be not worth fielding. I think that both fire rate and damage need improvement. Any impression on Beam-missile? I like the weapon mode, but feel that it is also somewhat weak (not as bad as Bc though).

    It's possible that both simply pale in comparison to the still rather OP Beam-beam weapon. They nerfed it a bit by making it clumsy, but so far I'm still feeling like I'd rather risk the shot with a mega-beam because even if I miss twice, if I hit that third shot it will be worth substantially more than if I had poured Bc or Bm onto my target the entire time I was missing with a Bb - even a small Bb annihilates shields and shatters hulls.
    [doublepost=1528271351,1528268627][/doublepost]Just re-tested - there were several updates.

    I'm actually leaning towards a straight beam with no slave being the all-round best out of the beam family right now. And I think they might have upped the beam-missile damage a touch, or it's just looking better in context with the most recent changes to the others. Beam-cannon damage isn't terrible either, but I think it may still need a fire rate increase, while a small debuff to the Beam-beam fire rate could bring it pretty close to balance (in combination with its clumsiness).

    And I like what they've done to the missile reload timer(s). Going to test the damage on the other weapon families for the current build... this stuff is shifting substantially day to day. It's hard to keep up with.

    The new HUD icons are pretty sweet, BTW.
    [doublepost=1528272979][/doublepost]Missiles... are definitely weak compared to beams now. In general. Either they need a little damage bump, or beams need a little damage nerf. The pure missile without slave even seems a touch weak as a base at the moment.

    Missile-cannon seems a mess - poor damage, and it forces you to waste multiple, very precious missile charges for a relatively weak shotgun spread that is as non-random as the old missile slave used to make cannon and beams. The spread is too wide, so you only hit with a couple of them and they are so damage reduced that it feels very weak for something that eats up so much of your missile capacity. They seem to have a degree of lock-on, but it doesn't seem enough to compensate. Anyone getting any love from these?

    Missile-missile has a 5-second arming timer, which really reduces its chances of delivery - particularly facing point defense, but even just against any moving target it's very, very difficult to hit. I guess that makes it a decent weapon against very large ships (if slow) and stations only, so maybe it's shaping into a very niche specialty weapon.

    Missile-beam seems solid, but might benefit from a small buff to missile base damage.

    Oh, and I'm getting permanent hang-missiles from the Missile-cannon spread sometimes. Glowing comets just sit there forever...
    [doublepost=1528274317][/doublepost]Cannon - basic cannon is ok, but useless because Cannon-missile is so OP. The reload time for Cm is so short, that you can fire it exactly as frequently as you can fire the plain cannon because you have to pause between cannon shots either way to compensate for recoil. Since you can only effectively fire both at the same rate, and Cannon-missile actually seems to draw very little power it would be stupid to use the weaker of the two as far as I can tell.

    Cannon-beam damage is fine, but the reload is super slow making it a distant second to Cannon-missile.

    Cannon-cannon seems ok, actually. Minimal or no recoil, so the weak damage plus high fire rate work out as I would expect, but still completey overshadowed by Cannon-missile. I think that Cm needs a longer reload time and maybe even then a slight damage nerf.
     
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    Same impression. Beam-cannon is currently so without appeal as to be not worth fielding. I think that both fire rate and damage need improvement. Any impression on Beam-missile? I like the weapon mode, but feel that it is also somewhat weak (not as bad as Bc though).

    It's possible that both simply pale in comparison to the still rather OP Beam-beam weapon. They nerfed it a bit by making it clumsy, but so far I'm still feeling like I'd rather risk the shot with a mega-beam because even if I miss twice, if I hit that third shot it will be worth substantially more than if I had poured Bc or Bm onto my target the entire time I was missing with a Bb - even a small Bb annihilates shields and shatters hulls.
    [doublepost=1528271351,1528268627][/doublepost]Just re-tested - there were several updates.

    I'm actually leaning towards a straight beam with no slave being the all-round best out of the beam family right now. And I think they might have upped the beam-missile damage a touch, or it's just looking better in context with the most recent changes to the others. Beam-cannon damage isn't terrible either, but I think it may still need a fire rate increase, while a small debuff to the Beam-beam fire rate could bring it pretty close to balance (in combination with its clumsiness).

    And I like what they've done to the missile reload timer(s). Going to test the damage on the other weapon families for the current build... this stuff is shifting substantially day to day. It's hard to keep up with.

    The new HUD icons are pretty sweet, BTW.
    [doublepost=1528272979][/doublepost]Missiles... are definitely weak compared to beams now. In general. Either they need a little damage bump, or beams need a little damage nerf. The pure missile without slave even seems a touch weak as a base at the moment.

    Missile-cannon seems a mess - poor damage, and it forces you to waste multiple, very precious missile charges for a relatively weak shotgun spread that is as non-random as the old missile slave used to make cannon and beams. The spread is too wide, so you only hit with a couple of them and they are so damage reduced that it feels very weak for something that eats up so much of your missile capacity. They seem to have a degree of lock-on, but it doesn't seem enough to compensate. Anyone getting any love from these?

    Missile-missile has a 5-second arming timer, which really reduces its chances of delivery - particularly facing point defense, but even just against any moving target it's very, very difficult to hit. I guess that makes it a decent weapon against very large ships (if slow) and stations only, so maybe it's shaping into a very niche specialty weapon.

    Missile-beam seems solid, but might benefit from a small buff to missile base damage.

    Oh, and I'm getting permanent hang-missiles from the Missile-cannon spread sometimes. Glowing comets just sit there forever...
    [doublepost=1528274317][/doublepost]Cannon - basic cannon is ok, but useless because Cannon-missile is so OP. The reload time for Cm is so short, that you can fire it exactly as frequently as you can fire the plain cannon because you have to pause between cannon shots either way to compensate for recoil. Since you can only effectively fire both at the same rate, and Cannon-missile actually seems to draw very little power it would be stupid to use the weaker of the two as far as I can tell.

    Cannon-beam damage is fine, but the reload is super slow making it a distant second to Cannon-missile.

    Cannon-cannon seems ok, actually. Minimal or no recoil, so the weak damage plus high fire rate work out as I would expect, but still completey overshadowed by Cannon-missile. I think that Cm needs a longer reload time and maybe even then a slight damage nerf.
    Yeah, beam alone is pretty good. My beam test ships can just barely kill a Beta pirate station with it. Relatedly, it seems like shields regen more the less shielding there is, so if your weapons are insufficient, you'll only find out at a certain percentage of the enemy's shield; I don't really like this behavior, as it will initially fool you like when I tried out the target ship (has a modest beam:cannon setup) against the pirate station.
    Missile:missile seems a bit too awkward to use; the biggest problem is that if it hits an enemy before the 5 seconds, it doesn't go off, which punishes dropping it at a very high velocity. IMO it should just blow up on impact regardless, but come out a little bit in front of what fires it so that it won't register an impact immediately on firing.
    Missile:beam doesn't seem to be locking on. Maybe I'm missing something? It also meanders a bit, which I assume is to evade PD.

    The weapons ranges are bizarre. Pirates that get my Danube are using it at 3200m, but its beams clearly don't reach that far. It seems that beams stop at about 1700m, which makes taking out Isanths a real chore. Cannons meanwhile come from multiple sectors away and actually hit.

    Also, one really frustrating thing that has been going on with every dev build is that all the existing NPC ships aren't under power 2.0, but the game only has reactor HP, so I have to delete them with admin commands instead of being able to overheat them. Similarly, if I restart the game, overheating ships are back to normal, and if they have no reactor left, they can't be overheated. I really hope this problem doesn't make it to release.
     
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    Is the impact behavior based on the weapon-output area already implemented? If so, did somebody figure out how this is supposed to work? It seems that i can't combine outputs or at least won't get any kind of indication or feedback that it worked.
     
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    Missile:beam doesn't seem to be locking on. Maybe I'm missing something? It also meanders a bit, which I assume is to evade PD.
    Lockon is currently bugged as of yesterday's build, but should be fixed in a day or two.
    Also, one really frustrating thing that has been going on with every dev build is that all the existing NPC ships aren't under power 2.0, but the game only has reactor HP, so I have to delete them with admin commands instead of being able to overheat them. Similarly, if I restart the game, overheating ships are back to normal, and if they have no reactor left, they can't be overheated. I really hope this problem doesn't make it to release.
    Yeah this is annoying.
    Is the impact behavior based on the weapon-output area already implemented? If so, did somebody figure out how this is supposed to work? It seems that i can't combine outputs or at least won't get any kind of indication or feedback that it worked.
    As far as I'm aware it's not - projectile size is based only on its damage right now, so neither beams nor cannons can be shaped by shaping their blocks right. I'm not sure if this is going to be implemented later on or if it's been scrapped.
     
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    The weapons ranges are bizarre. Pirates that get my Danube are using it at 3200m, but its beams clearly don't reach that far. It seems that beams stop at about 1700m, which makes taking out Isanths a real chore. Cannons meanwhile come from multiple sectors away and actually hit.
    So do you feel like the cannons need a slight accuracy or damage nerf, since they are acting like the only effective mid-range weapon?

    It's hard to know what's happening at this point... I feel like the weapons are kind of sifting into very interesting specialized roles, but then a couple updates come through and what I thought they were going for seems to change. Which is fine, but it's challenging to even provide feedback on something when you don't know it's intended functionality. Are beams too short range and need a range fix, or is that intended?

    I feel like a tiered range system is coming into play where one weapon family tends to dominate a certain range (missiles long, cannon mid, beams short), and that might be great - a lot of space battle games have a similar system to manipulate - but honestly it's impossible to tell if this is a deliberate direction or just a current phase of adjustment.
     
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    Lockon is currently bugged as of yesterday's build, but should be fixed in a day or two.

    Yeah this is annoying.

    As far as I'm aware it's not - projectile size is based only on its damage right now, so neither beams nor cannons can be shaped by shaping their blocks right. I'm not sure if this is going to be implemented later on or if it's been scrapped.
    So I guess low damage just makes cannon shots look like needles at the moment? The pirate station cannons and my X-wing cannon shots are all needle-like. I should test what wider configurations look like.

    Also, I was able to test the doom beam a bit (same testbed setup, but half the beams as a slave) and it seems balanced other than range. Beams right now are way too low range (1600m), you pretty much need to be nuzzling your target to do damage with default sector size. And good luck hitting a moving target from more than 1600m away with missiles or cannons with how laggy things get and how erratic movement can be as a result.

    So do you feel like the cannons need a slight accuracy or damage nerf, since they are acting like the only effective mid-range weapon?

    It's hard to know what's happening at this point... I feel like the weapons are kind of sifting into very interesting specialized roles, but then a couple updates come through and what I thought they were going for seems to change. Which is fine, but it's challenging to even provide feedback on something when you don't know it's intended functionality. Are beams too short range and need a range fix, or is that intended?

    I feel like a tiered range system is coming into play where one weapon family tends to dominate a certain range (missiles long, cannon mid, beams short), and that might be great - a lot of space battle games have a similar system to manipulate - but honestly it's impossible to tell if this is a deliberate direction or just a current phase of adjustment.
    This gets into what the roles for each weapon should be. Overall, I feel the role setup should be very Star Trek-like because Star Trek battles look absolutely beautiful without being overly complicated (tons of beams, missiles to finish things off, some small ships using cannons instead), but of course Trek isn't very deep and doesn't quite have the weapon variety (mostly PD is missing and cannons are too niche), so I think a little inspiration should come from Sword of the Stars, which has incredible weapon variety and good balance, and a few other places of course.
    So, here's my thoughts on weapon roles in B, C, M order:
    • Beam: Your go-to weapon for small-medium ships at medium ranges due to very high accuracy and doing more damage to shields, but losing damage at longer ranges. Most ships should have this.
      • Beam-beam: The Enterprise's doom phaser from All Good Things, charges up and just plain punches a hole in a Vor'cha with one shot, but it only fires forward. And weakens your shields I guess (Stargate had this a little with the Ori ship beams, but all of these weaknesses together I don't think any one thing had, and it's possible that the current setup is too weak in actual PvP).
      • Beam-cannon: The faster-firing phaser setup of some ships like the TOS enterprise, good mainly for assuring hits on smaller ships or taking out little turrets one by one. Also good for Zahn Consortium-style PD (from Star Wars: Empire at War's expansion, little blue lasers of awesomeness to stop incoming missiles).
      • Beam-missile: This is the hardest one to find a role for. Perhaps this can be a disruptor and they're better for taking out systems than hull.
    • Cannon: Higher rate of fire but lower accuracy than beam, good for small ships to take on larger ships at close ranges (like the Klingon Bird of Prey or Defiant vs. a big battleship).
      • Cannon-beam: Sniper cannon, mostly an inverse cannon (high accuracy, lower rate of fire, faster projectile); still good for small ships though as they can dodge at range to pelt something big. Pretty much only SotS has these, and they work rather well; I don't think these should need charging, just a longer reload.
      • Cannon-cannon: Rapid fire cannon, veering more into Star Wars territory really, but with the current default cannon fire rate, you need this to an extent to get proper Defiant/BoP setups.
      • Cannon-missile: Either cannon version of the disruptor beam (but you won't get the fire rate needed for a BoP...) or, to go a bit out-there, BSG-style flak guns, so as to be cool PD and not redundant.
    • Missile: Very high hull damage, low rate of fire
      • Missile-beam: Proper photon/quantum/plasma torpedos (lock-on, high damage but a bit slow), better hope your cloak is working or your unshielded BoP is history.
      • Missile-cannon: SotS dumbfire racks (maybe it can only use .25 or some other fraction of a missile per shot?), intended to overwhelm/distract PD at close range with a flurry of fast missiles.
      • Missile-missile: Star Wars style bombs, so fighters aren't just those lousy Peregrines that didn't matter in the Dominion war.
    So, as to how ranges should work with all of this, I think everything should just stop after so many sectors, but things should have different effective ranges due to accuracy and travel time. You wouldn't want to use cannons from 2km away unless your target was gigantic, and you would want to use lock-on missiles and sniper cannons for targets that are a bit too far and tiny to get your beams onto reliably.
     
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