Switch Cannon and Beam Effectiveness

[Edymnion]

Maybe its just a personal preference thing, but I would rather see beams being best against armor, and cannons best against systems (instead of the other way around like it is now).

In-Universe, I feel like physical armor should be especially good at stopping physical threats. Hardened armor that cannon rounds have trouble damaging, while concentrated energy weapons (beams) should have an easier time melting right through them.

For systems, I imagine actual physical rounds shattering through them and bouncing shrapnel around would do more damage, whereas narrow beams would cut through like scalpels, doing less overall damage.

So yes, I'd like to see beams do extra damage to armor and less to systems, while cannons do less to armor and more to systems.

Which would also have a side effect of making beams the ideal long range weapon, and making cannons more close range (as long range is when armor should still be up, and close range is more likely to be when armor has been damaged and cannons can start chewing into the ship through the armor gaps).

 

[Katorone]

Not sure I'm following the logic. Without secondaries they have the same DPS. The biggest difference is in the way of dealing damage, continuous or instant. Because beams deal continuous damage, they're not a reliable weapon for long range combat.

 

[DoomCarrot]

Beams are more effective against systems?

If this is true, it probably shouldn't be switched. It could be argued that since bea,s are energy, they should do more damage to energy related things like systems (If you tazered a circuit board, it would probably break it because of circuit overload, but if you hit it with a hammer, you might just dent the wires and stuff). Also, Anti-matter cannons are not physical I do not think. They are anti-physical (ANTI-matter). Makes sense that they should do damge to phsycial things...

 

[Brokengauge]

If a beam is able to melt away 1m thick steel (or whatever the armor is made of) its definitely gonna do the same to any systems in its path.

Projectiles are effective against armor because once they pass through it, that area of armor is now structurally compromised and useless for protection. You only need to bypass the armor once for this to happen. Luckily for us, the integrity for each section of armor is 1m so it's easy to figure out lol.

 

[Madman198237]

Actually, Doom, there isn't any lore in game yet. So, no, they are not necessarily antimatter. But if they WERE antimatter, they would be vastly more effective than they are now, and ESPECIALLY deadly to systems. Matter-antimatter annihilation is horrendously powerful, but it would do more damage to systems (Unarmored) than armor (While also losing energy into space on every side of the blast not hitting the PRESUMABLY EXTERNAL armor).

Being strictly antimatter would make the cannons nothing more than fast-travelling missiles. So, no, definitely not antimatter. But they likely should be more powerful against systems...IF that is possible. Perhaps some finagling with the piercing/punch-through passive effects or whatever (I mean inherent to the weapon system, not the passive effects you build into your ships). They should not get some freaky damage buff against only systems or whatever.

In short: Yes, beams make more sense against armor (Extreme heating does damage to any armor, regardless of toughness, while armor tough enough will just shrug off and not take any damage at all from even repeated impacts of inferior weapon systems), while the slightly-less-discriminating cannon/projectile should have some form of inherent explosion effect (Last X% of damage dealt in an explosion, anyone?) to make it seem like they're actually a cannon shell instead of just a lump of metal. Or whatever it is your latest Completely-Mislabeled-Something-Propelling-Device-Of-Arcane-Origins shoots these days.

 

[Raisinbat]

I like the idea of having ships with different defensive profiles. Some focus on armor some on shield. This would make that impossible because a ship that can't defend against both will lose ultra hard to the wrong kind of opponent.