Weapons feel too weak

[hakkarin]

By "weak" I mean they don't feel very good to use. I just created a massive cannon in creative mode to test out various levels of firepower against dummy targets, and I kept being shocked by how little actual damage my huge guns cause. I'm sorry, but building a huge ship with massive guns only to see said ship shoot small little holes into the other side's ship is just totally anti-climatic.

I assume this is largely for balance reasons since making weapons too powerful but would mean battles would end too quickly, but I actually feel battles tend to last too long if anything. I think weapons in general should be more powerful.

 

[Panpiper]

The developers have to walk a very fine line with how powerful weapons are with regard to defense. They have to ensure that one shot, one kill ships are simply not viable, otherwise the game simply becomes a griefer paradise.

The problem with weapon strength right now, in my opinion, is not that weapons do too little damage, but simply that there is no graphics and sound that complement the weapons to give them the impression of power. When the main spinal mount cannon of a titan fires (that occupies 20% of it's mass) the shot that comes out of it's barrel is the same as what comes out of the pop gun used in it's point defense turrets. When it hits the enemy ship, regardless of the fact that the shields and/or armor HP of the struck ship may well have vanished with a single hit, there is no sound or visual indication of the power of the hit.

Having projectile/beam sprites scale with the size of the weapon would be of great help. Having an explosion special effect at the weapon impact point that also scales with the weapon power, along with a sound effect would top it off nicely. Right now all we have are a small number of disintegrating blocks, which creates the illusion of weapon weakness.

 

[max stripe]

The developers have to walk a very fine line with how powerful weapons are with regard to defense. They have to ensure that one shot, one kill ships are simply not viable, otherwise the game simply becomes a griefer paradise.

The problem with weapon strength right now, in my opinion, is not that weapons do too little damage, but simply that there is no graphics and sound that compliment the weapons to give them the impression of power. When the main spinal mount cannon of a titan fires (that occupies 20% of it mass) the shot that comes out of it's barrel is the same as what comes out of the pop gun used in it's point defense turrets. When it hits the enemy ship, regardless of the fact that the shields and/or armor HP of the struck ship may well have vanished with a single hit, there is no sound or visual indication of the power of the hit.

Having projectile/beam sprites scale with the size of the weapon would be of great help. Having an explosion special effect at the weapon impact point that also scales with the weapon power, along with a sound effect would top it off nicely. Right now all we have are a small number of disintegrating blocks, which creates the illusion of weapon weakness.

i can still make a one shot one kill ship... its just gunna look like a dam spider

 

[aceface]

In ships of 0-500 mass I think they are too weak. After that I find it fine.

 

[JimmyJamba]

i can still make a one shot one kill ship... its just gunna look like a dam spider

wut?

 

[Panpiper]

In ships of 0-500 mass I think they are too weak. After that I find it fine.

Take any small ship you want up against one of my marauders, and then come back and tell me that weapons are too weak for tiny ships.

 

[Comr4de]

The one-shot ships still exist but they're a fair bit harder to build and use effectively.

 

[Panpiper]

The one-shot ships still exist but they're a fair bit harder to build and use effectively.

All that does is to reinforce my point that weapons are not too weak.

It also lends argument to my contention that power capacitors need to be nerfed to 500 power points rather than 1000.

 

[Reilly Reese]

All that does is to reinforce my point that weapons are not too weak.

It also lends argument to my contention that power capacitors need to be nerfed to 500 power points rather than 1000.

We don't need more nerfs...

 

[hzzzln]

It also lends argument to my contention that power capacitors need to be nerfed to 500 power points rather than 1000.

I like power caps giving that much power, and power generation being relatively weak. It means people have to care about their energy consumption and might not sustain the full range of their systems for the fight, and rather have to manage their energy reserves.

I totally agree with you though on the visual/sound aspect of the weapons. Holy crap they are underwhelming.

 

[Ithirahad]

No nerfing of power; if there are three things in this game you should NEVER nerf beyond their current state it's thrusters, power, and missiles. There is no problem if one-shot ships technically exist as long as they are not commonplace.

 

[Edymnion]

I think it sounds like the problem you are having is that you are making a single solid cannon block and then getting upset that it only does one block's worth of damage.

Instead, make a checkerboard array like you do for salvage arrays. Spread that cannon out over a much larger area and you'll get a much more satisfying "I just blasted a crater in that guy's hull!" effect instead of pinpricking them.

 

[kiraen]

The explosion tertiary might help a bit.

 

[Andir]

IMHO, explosion is just not worth it. The amount of falloff of damage is too great to make it useful at all. I've experimented with various weapons using explosive tertiary and none of them do enough explosive damage to even count unless it's absurdly big, and even then the spread is pathetic.

 

[Edymnion]

Please note that we currently have a bug where explosive on cannons and beams is capped at 10% efficiency.

 

[Gandrac]

Concerning cannons, not everybody wants to use rapid fire cannons. Unfortunately this is the only viable option since slow firing weapons tend to waste potential punch through damage, which gets even worse if combined with "left clicking", randomly firing AI turrets.