Area Weapons Question

[AminMaalouf]

I put Area Weapons in gas mining stations, explorers and construction ships only. They have unforunately the effect that Pirates start to use missiles to take them out on long range. Nevertheless, for taming the zoo, they are wonderful. That they damage your own stuff, is ok from my point of view.

[Gray Death]

My mining bases had with starting tech 800 shields, 3 maxon blaster and 2 extractors each. It annoys me to rebuild them every 3 weeks.

[Shark7]

ORIGINAL: WoodMan

And who actually carries about some old-fashioned private crap which turned out to be in wrong place in wrong time?

You could inadvertently start a war by killing freighters of another Empire.

Here is a before and after shot, this super area weapon is a game breaker for sure. You can not use it unless your ship or base is alone, it is so powerful. Its game over or switch to manual ship/base design, something I'm not interesting in doing.

Friendly fire needs to be turned off on these and perhaps a slower rate of fire to prevent exploitation, or something else needs to be done to prevent these suicide weapons, the AI would obviously kill itself given this weapon for a start.

On the other hand, that is the danger of using an area weapon. The friendly fire casualties are the price you pay for using such a powerful area weapon. My personal feelings are that it is balanced...it is a very powerful offensive weapon for a single ship, but you always run the risk of destroying friendlies or neutrals if you choose to use it. It's a lot like the world destroyer...lots of power, but a heavy price to pay if you use it indiscriminately.

[Grisha]

It might be an idea to have a box in options that negates AI use of area weapons in your ship designs.
 

[Keston]

A pirate hunter or kaltor-pack hunter could also well use this tech, as could isolated low traffic stations. There should be ways to handle its obvious negatives.

A technology that phase shifts (or polarity reverses, or somesuch) friendly ships equipped with it so they don't take damage from the specific area weapon? Add component = protects ships?

A "friendly fire?" setting for a ship or class - use or don't use with friendlies in range, or close range, etc.? A default setting, but toggleable. The AI could probably assess pro/con and flip the toggle as needed. Human players would have to go in and change it manually, thus evening things up.

[WoodMan]

On the other hand, that is the danger of using an area weapon. The friendly fire casualties are the price you pay for using such a powerful area weapon. My personal feelings are that it is balanced...it is a very powerful offensive weapon for a single ship, but you always run the risk of destroying friendlies or neutrals if you choose to use it. It's a lot like the world destroyer...lots of power, but a heavy price to pay if you use it indiscriminately.

But you can't choose when to use it, it fires automatically.  You also can't choose what ships its on if you play with Ship Design automated.  The AI can't choose when to use it either, it will unwittingly fix it to its spaceport and defense bases and have them blow each other up.

My personal preference would be for it to be a projectile that explodes on contact with an enemy ship, the Area Effect taking place when the projectile hits the enemy ship. If the projectile could have a minimum range of the AE itself that would ensure that the ship that fired it and other friendly ships are less likely to get hit by it.

[balto]

That would be called Space Artillery.

Gray, thank you for the Stats on the Devatator pulse. Man, the things I could do with that!! Super Laser.., I have never come across that. Does anyone have the stats on that? That sounds like that would be the mack-daddy of the Super Weapons.

[Manzikert]

Yeah area weapons are unusable and a detriment to the game as currently implemented.

[tiagocc0]

If area weapons cause friendly fire, then a ship shooting a laser weapon should hit the ship that is between it and the target.
It's ridiculous to have a area weapon that hit friendly ships because:

1. You can't control when to shoot
2. You can't control the radius of the weapon
3. If ship design automation is on it will put area weapons on it
4. AI will use area weapons and blow itself up

Being the last reason the most important, I don't want to play a game where the AI kills itself
It's broken and should be removed from the game, or should remove friendly fire and make it less powerful
There's no other alternative

[PDiFolco]

Mmmm, in my books I never saw the AI put a superweapon on a design.... To the contrary it removes them when you auto-refit ships after a tech breakthrough.  

[tiagocc0]

ORIGINAL: PDiFolco

Mmmm, in my books I never saw the AI put a superweapon on a design.... To the contrary it removes them when you auto-refit ships after a tech breakthrough.  

According to the posts above the AI uses the 'devastator pulse'.

[WoodMan]

I should clarify I haven't seen the AI put the super area weapon on its stations.  But my ship design was automated which I believe designs ships exactly as it does for the AI factions, so if it put them on mine I think it would put them on the AI too.  Also, your construction size matters, it might not put them on if you haven't got a large construction size researched.  (For me it put only on stations, not on the Cap ship because I couldn't even build a Cap ship yet with my construction level).  The one in the above example image was a cheat using the editor [;)]

[tiagocc0]

ORIGINAL: WoodMan

I should clarify I haven't seen the AI put the super area weapon on its stations.  But my ship design was automated which I believe designs ships exactly as it does for the AI factions, so if it put them on mine I think it would put them on the AI too.  Also, your construction size matters, it might not put them on if you haven't got a large construction size researched.  (For me it put only on stations, not on the Cap ship because I couldn't even build a Cap ship yet with my construction level).  The one in the above example image was a cheat using the editor [;)]

Sorry, this was what I meant, the AI being the AI that designs your own ships.

But about the opponent AI, I've seen them using all kinds of area weapons.

[VarekRaith]

I design all my ships.
However!
I completely agree with WoodMan and the checkbox idea to disallow area weapons from auto design. Also, the AI should be re-tuned to not use area weapons to the extent it currently does. So many times I watch their stations nuke entire freighter convoys.
[:-]

[tiagocc0]

ORIGINAL: VarekRaith

I design all my ships.
However!
I completely agree with WoodMan and the checkbox idea to disallow area weapons from auto design. Also, the AI should be re-tuned to not use area weapons to the extent it currently does. So many times I watch their stations nuke entire freighter convoys.
[:-]

Exactly. The checkbox is a good idea, I wouldn't mind a checkbox where you could choose if it would do or not friendly fire.

[MartialDoctor]

Well, as I design my own ships and micro my battles, I find the area weapons to be great.  They are very effective to have on a handful of ships that move in close to the enemy to wipe out a clustering of enemies.

However, previous points are well made.  The AI does not micro it's fleets and it may be good to tweak the area weapons, tweak the way they are used, or something of the sort.

[tiagocc0]

ORIGINAL: MartialDoctor

Well, as I design my own ships and micro my battles, I find the area weapons to be great.  They are very effective to have on a handful of ships that move in close to the enemy to wipe out a clustering of enemies.

However, previous points are well made.  The AI does not micro it's fleets and it may be good to tweak the area weapons, tweak the way they are used, or something of the sort.

The easiest fix would be to remove friendly fire, so the AI wouldn't need to be fixed.

The second easiest fix would be to remove area weapons. But since you like to use it, other people are likely to have the same opinion.

The best solution would be to fix the opponent AI so it would use it wisely and fix the ship design AI so it would use area weapons only if the player wants it.

The perfect solution would be like above plus a checkbox to remove friendly fire (and maybe make area weapons less powerful) so people who don't like to micromanage ship combat could enjoy this kind of weapon.

[Jerkface]

I dont use any AoE weapons on any of my ships...too easy to blow my own stuff up or hit friendly aliens.  What I do like to do however, is load up a single one-off ship design for raiding purposes with AoE weapons, and fly it to enemy space ports.  BLAM BLAM, smash up all their ships at once like a suicide bomber.  

[tiagocc0]

ORIGINAL: Jerkface

I dont use any AoE weapons on any of my ships...too easy to blow my own stuff up or hit friendly aliens.  What I do like to do however, is load up a single one-off ship design for raiding purposes with AoE weapons, and fly it to enemy space ports.  BLAM BLAM, smash up all their ships at once like a suicide bomber.  

That's a valid strategy, but the point is that the AI doesn't know how to handle AoE weapons, so something has to be done.