Weapon discussion thread

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    This also means that they don't work well with small ships then? Since power storage is an absolute joke at smaller scales. I can't wait for calbiri to implement the power storage change that was discussed yesterday.

    Ps: If I actually do manage to power them you're all krakened :p
    Well small ships have the benefit of a TON of storage from the core, but the draw will eventually overcome this and you will need additional storage, so there is a point where smaller = better until you are large enough to start taking advantage of the power tanks storage growth.
     

    MrFURB

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    As far as my testing has gone, the storage tanks have had a severely reduced difference between larger groups and smaller groups; while still scaling up it's not nearly as fast, but the 1,000 base storage the power tanks now have helps smaller ships power disproportionately larger weapon systems.
     
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    As far as my testing has gone, the storage tanks have had a severely reduced difference between larger groups and smaller groups; while still scaling up it's not nearly as fast, but the 1,000 base storage the power tanks now have helps smaller ships power disproportionately larger weapon systems.
    That sounds great, I haven't had time to check it out ingame yet, I'll be updating to .151 as soon as I hit reply...
     
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    So, I've been doing some tests on a new weapons platform. Are support values capped at a 100% buff?
     

    Keptick

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    So, I've been doing some tests on a new weapons platform. Are support values capped at a 100% buff?
    They are, sadly. That's the only problem I have with this update to be honest.

    As for missiles doing more damage: not true. All weapons have the same dps for the same volume (apart from the siege combos of course).
     
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    They are, sadly. That's the only problem I have with this update to be honest.

    As for missiles doing more damage: not true. All weapons have the same dps for the same volume (apart from the siege combos of course).
    Siege should be the same DPS just the amount of time between the massive shots increases to compensate. Slow rate of fire equals higher damage per shot, higher damage per shot equals larger power requirements.
     

    Keptick

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    Siege should be the same DPS just the amount of time between the massive shots increases to compensate. Slow rate of fire equals higher damage per shot, higher damage per shot equals larger power requirements.
    The only thing that does less damage is the longer range weapons... In other words, every weapon now does the same thing. Just in a different way.
     
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    The only thing that does less damage is the longer range weapons... In other words, every weapon now does the same thing. Just in a different way.
    I don't think that's quite a bad thing short term, but long term we could probably use some variation. Only thing is, they need to take care to not make certain weapon combos completely obsolete, and form an unbalanced metagame where we see super competitive players virtually forced to adhere to the single best combo, which in turn puts pressure on the rest of the community to adapt and homogenize. (like doomcubes, but worse)

    It might be nice if there was some way to actually make it for distance traveled for weapons becomes a damage factor. For instance, sniper shots doing less damage up front, but at longer distances the damage goes up instead of the overall damage being lower. Just a general idea.
     
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    If it helps, here is a video on how to set up weapons/effect blocks:
     
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    Since taking out the shields is the most difficult/longest job, the way I see it having a slave is system is strictly a disadvantage because your ship becomes heavier for little to no benefit (I think that missiles plus a single damage pulse actually increases dps, so aside from that). In contrast effect systems offer a strict dps increase, so every system should use one (I believe that the explosive effect offers the greatest advantage).

    I haven't done thorough testing, but it seems that small ships are useless once again to massive shielding. Also, it is pretty annoying that all of the ship effect buffs have massive energy costs to be remotely useful and the number of different computers is pretty redundant.
     

    Keptick

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    There is no best combo, considering that every weapon does the same dps. The best combos will be the one that adheres best to a player's fighting style. And that's just different for everyone.

    Having two systems coupled together will give the same DPS as having both systems seperated. So no, it's not a disadvantage at all. Alpha_Squad

    As for me, I'm loving my missiles at the moment.
     
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    The weapons system definitely needs some tweaks but so far I really, really like it. I especially like that ships are likely to have different roles rather than having the ship with the biggest guns being the winner against everything, which was the case in the past.

    I've been experimenting with turrets, and have had a blast. I'll have a few anti-cap/frigate cannons that'll be useless against fighters alongside a few minigun-type weapons that shred fighters but are pretty worthless against larger ships.

    It does feel as though there's a really sharp step from, say, 95% support to 100%, though. I have to assume that this is a bug.

    I've also had trouble getting beam and missile weapons working on turrets (even after the update that fixes them) so I'm not sure what's up with that.
     
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    huzzah the main bug regarding master:slave ratios was patched for .151 now we just need to find a proper balance between shields and damage. Of course I played out my Isanth VS Destroyer scenario again in .151 and the results were the same. Isanth circles me like vulture while the defence turrets take futile potshots and my missile turrets still do nothing.

    As for new weapons themselves. I'm still a cannon man myself, I'll use lasers for specific purposes and maybe a new line of ships will use them but for my current I'll be sticking to cannons and missiles.
     
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    Ya balancing shields and weapons is a problem. Right now My old ship has over 8,000,000 points worth of shields. This is a ship that I had to cram every spar corner I could fined with shields just to get it to 800,000. Now I cant cram enough weapons on it to brake the shields of my original design let alone my new one witch is sitting at 2,000,000 shields.
    I do like the new weapon set up, although I think smaller AMC setups should fire faster than big ones, but I can work with what we were given. I am finding however that it might be better to have specialty ships. This of curse works better for a team of players rather than the loan wolf, but it dose seam like the best way to bring down the impenetrable shields we now face.
     
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    I am a bit sad to hear that only using beams as a slave you can extend the range of a weapon.

    I was hoping that having a large array would give minor boosts to all stats like how it was before with the sliders but without a way to change the stats, while the slaves give a major boost. Would have been neat to see shotty arrays of AMCs and longer range arrays if AMCs do different things.
     
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    I am a bit sad to hear that only using beams as a slave you can extend the range of a weapon.

    I was hoping that having a large array would give minor boosts to all stats like how it was before with the sliders but without a way to change the stats, while the slaves give a major boost. Would have been neat to see shotty arrays of AMCs and longer range arrays if AMCs do different things.
    Maybe in the future we can have multiple slaves, I would love to have sniper artillery myself. I imagine balance would be easy if it the DPS stays tied to the number of blocks but it may be a code nightmare.
     
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    Maybe in the future we can have multiple slaves, I would love to have sniper artillery myself. I imagine balance would be easy if it the DPS stays tied to the number of blocks but it may be a code nightmare.
    The tricky thing probably isn't programming, I think the tricky thing would be trying to balance it.
     
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    The weapons get stronger in a linear fashion now, right? Like, 100 AMCs are 100 times as good as a single one, correct?