Matrix Games Forums

Posted: **Tue Jun 03, 2014 8:57 pm**

Never been a fan of the shatterforce myself, preferring phasers.

However, I wonder how it compares to rail guns? I tend to use a mix of both lasers and rail guns since the rail guns can completely ignore the shields. It makes them a far better choice if you need to take something out quickly.

Posted: **Tue Jun 03, 2014 9:08 pm**

@Spidey:
You may want to take a look at my tech tree mod, linked in my signature.
It removes the diversity killing wrap up techs like titan beam as well as stretching/filling up the tech tree. It is work in progress, but the first problems have already been adressed. Compatible with DW:U Extended.

Without the titan beams, shatterforce is a valid choice, though some more balancing is needed.

Posted: **Tue Jun 03, 2014 9:12 pm**

ORIGINAL: Aeson
<Boss breakdown>

Great post!

Posted: **Tue Jun 03, 2014 9:32 pm**

ORIGINAL: Spidey

Unforeseen, would you please stop throwing out random fluff and actually start reading stuff? You're comparing guns straight up without accounting for size at all and that is a rubbish way to do it.

Make two ship designs of a given size. Equip one with those T2 torps. Equip another with shatterforce lasers. Use the same number of size units on weapons. Which ship does more damage? Yes? Can you say it?

Size is not everything, you may want to consider actually doing something yourself before suggesting someone else do it as part of an argument. While i did not test T2 Epsilon, i did test T3 Epsilon vs T6 Shatter. I put 5O Shatters on a frigate, then removed them all and began adding Torpedoes until the damage matched up. It took 3O. It takes just 3O torpedo launchers to do what 5O lasers can do, plus better range and considerably less research points. Sure if you plan on going titan beams, it may be justified as a temporary loss in efficiency. But this is a comparison that assumes you are not going to research Titan Beams any time soon. If your also struggling with power, the shatter can be useful there but who doesn't invest in good reactors?

I'm not saying Torpedos are not over powered. They are, but the Shatterforce laser is just underwhelming despite it's size. Especially for a T6 weapon. If i were banking on using long range weapons in the early game, with the intention of eventually going for the Titan Beam i would invest in at least T2 Torpedoes before heading across the tiers of beam weapons. That isn't to say i wouldn't equip a small number of lasers, their small size makes them excellent fillers for extra space.

Posted: **Tue Jun 03, 2014 10:05 pm**

ORIGINAL: Shark7

Never been a fan of the shatterforce myself, preferring phasers.

However, I wonder how it compares to rail guns? I tend to use a mix of both lasers and rail guns since the rail guns can completely ignore the shields. It makes them a far better choice if you need to take something out quickly.

really hmm every time i use rail guns my ships are not very good. are you using heavy rails? combining weapons is a great way to be sure that it can attack and match if not exceed the ships the designs are fighting.

it is next to impossible to say this is op this is to weak. there are to many variables ship size,tech lvl,what you are fighting. vs the sukari both of said weapons fall flat, so its not about 1 weapons but how well the whole ship is designed.

@Unforeseen you left out a lot of detail of the "test" such as total size,need power,speed,shields,armor. now if you are going to do a "test" please provide the full details not just the FP aspect you can skew results any way you want this way. if we want an accurate test we need a set ships size, engine #,thrusters #, shield #, armor # reactor #, and include top speed,fuel storage#, cruise speed, cost of ships, maintenance cost,(im sure i missed some) total tech cost for SF lasers t2, epsilon torps t2.

Posted: **Tue Jun 03, 2014 10:30 pm**

Size is not everything, you may want to consider actually doing something yourself before suggesting someone else do it as part of an argument. While i did not test T2 Epsilon, i did test T3 Epsilon vs T6 Shatter. I put 5O Shatters on a frigate, then removed them all and began adding Torpedoes until the damage matched up. It took 3O. It takes just 3O torpedo launchers to do what 5O lasers can do, plus better range and considerably less research points. Sure if you plan on going titan beams, it may be justified as a temporary loss in efficiency. But this is a comparison that assumes you are not going to research Titan Beams any time soon. If your also struggling with power, the shatter can be useful there but who doesn't invest in good reactors?

I mean, it's great that you've found a design that has 'equivalent damage,' but ... saying that the two designs are equivalent despite one design requiring more than double the space for its weapons is rather ridiculous. Nor is this difference going to be made up in reactor requirements - 50 Shatterforce Lasers require a reactor output of about 500, which is maybe 5 Fusion Reactors or 75 size points, while the 30 Epsilon Torpedoes require a reactor output of ~300, which is about 3 Fusion Reactors or 45 size points. That only makes up for 30 size units out of the 250 size advantage you gave the torpedo boat. What else does the laser boat have that goes into that missing 220 size? You could fit in four fighter bays, 22 shield generators, 220 units of armor, another 30 or 40 Shatterforce Lasers, almost 40 fuel cells ... Do you really expect to be taken seriously when you post such a flawed comparison?

For that matter, in what other ways is your torpedo boat comparable to your laser boat? It's almost certainly not the same speed, unless you've given Sluken StarBurner IIIs to the torpedo boat and Ion Engines to the laser boat, or given the torpedo boat even more of a size advantage than is readily apparent from your insistence that 30 Epsilon Torpedoes are equivalent to 50 Shatterforce Lasers, or some other such nonsense. It might be a similar cost, though costs are variable depending on resource availability and the Shatterforce Laser uses more resources per size unit (13 resources per 4 size versus 16 resources per 15 size), but then that's not unreasonable as the Shatterforce Laser is significantly better than the Epsilon Torpedo under any rational comparison, nor would I consider it unreasonable for the laser boat to be more expensive than the torpedo boat; it's the price you pay for fitting equivalent firepower into less than half the space, and regardless also depends on what else is on your ship.

Posted: **Tue Jun 03, 2014 11:07 pm**

I used the same ship, with the same components except for the weapons. Sure, you can stack 4OO guns on a ship and it'll outdps everything else in the game. That's typically how things go in EVERY game. The point i'm making here, is that you have to do things like that in order for this weapon to even come close to a weapon that is several tiers behind it. This comes with the drawback of a dramatic cost increase, huge increase in power usage requiring more or bigger reactors, and MORE research points if you ignore it being a step for the titan beam.

In any case, i don't see any reason to continue this. You all have time to sit there and type out these argument's and accuse me of not providing enough information or of making flawed comparisons when none of you has bothered to actually come forth with your own evidence to support the claim. This whole thing felt like i was on the steam forums. Regardless, Locarnus's mod wins, solves/will solve this issue no matter who was right.

Posted: **Tue Jun 03, 2014 11:17 pm**

ORIGINAL: Unforeseen

I used the same ship, with the same components except for the weapons. Sure, you can stack 4OO guns on a ship and it'll outdps everything else in the game. That's typically how things go in EVERY game. The point i'm making here, is that you have to do things like that in order for this weapon to even come close to a weapon that is several tiers behind it. This comes with the drawback of a dramatic cost increase, huge increase in power usage requiring more or bigger reactors, and MORE research points if you ignore it being a step for the titan beam.

In any case, i don't see any reason to continue this. You all have time to sit there and type out these argument's and accuse me of not providing enough information or of making flawed comparisons when none of you has bothered to actually come forth with your own evidence to support the claim. This whole thing felt like i was on the steam forums. Regardless, Locarnus's mod wins, solves/will solve this issue no matter who was right.

you dodged the question, that means there were significant differences in most aspects of the designs i know i tested it myself.

that being said it is not about the weapon type but how well the ship is designed.

Posted: **Tue Jun 03, 2014 11:32 pm**

ORIGINAL: pycco

i know i tested it myself.

Really? You didn't post any of the results. So how can we know you actually tested it?

It is very clear what you are trying to do here, and as such I've put in a request for the thread to be locked.

Posted: **Tue Jun 03, 2014 11:35 pm**

Size is not everything, you may want to consider actually doing something yourself before suggesting someone else do it as part of an argument. While i did not test T2 Epsilon, i did test T3 Epsilon vs T6 Shatter. I put 5O Shatters on a frigate, then removed them all and began adding Torpedoes until the damage matched up. It took 3O. It takes just 3O torpedo launchers to do what 5O lasers can do, plus better range and considerably less research points. Sure if you plan on going titan beams, it may be justified as a temporary loss in efficiency. But this is a comparison that assumes you are not going to research Titan Beams any time soon. If your also struggling with power, the shatter can be useful there but who doesn't invest in good reactors?

I'm not saying Torpedos are not over powered. They are, but the Shatterforce laser is just underwhelming despite it's size. Especially for a T6 weapon. If i were banking on using long range weapons in the early game, with the intention of eventually going for the Titan Beam i would invest in at least T2 Torpedoes before heading across the tiers of beam weapons. That isn't to say i wouldn't equip a small number of lasers, their small size makes them excellent fillers for extra space

I'm sorry to say that this is probably the single most clueless post I've seen on this forum in my half year here. And I've seen some really questionable people make really questionable claims.

Let's do some basic math instead of talking crazy talk.

Code: Select all

 Weapon			Rank	Size	DMG	RNG	ENRG	SPD	Pen	Refire	E/S	DPS #0	DPS #0
 											per S		per S 
 Shatterforce Laser 2	4	4	9	390	20	370	1	2.2	2.3	4.1	1.02
 Epsilon Torpedo 3	3	15	21	550	30	86	3	2.9	0.7	7.2	0.48

I'm comparing Shatter 2 against Eps 3, which isn't fair since Shatter 2 is a tier above, but it's the weakest Shatter version at point blank range and Eps 3 is the best Eps version, so it's about as fair as it gets. There's no way to make Eps 3 look better than point blank vs Shatter 2, which isn't to say that Eps torps look good at point blank or are meaningfully used at point blank, but merely that this is when they look the least bad against Shatters.

Notice that the Eps torps are size 15. Fif. Teen. That's 3.75 more than the size of a Shatter laser. Now look at the damage. The damage is 21 vs the 9 of the Shatter. That's just 2.33 times more. Can you begin to see the problem? Size isn't everything but it is damned important when it's a hugely scarce resource and unless you're talking about extremely late game size 1000+ ships, size is a very scarce resource.

You throw 50 Shatters on a ship. Great. 50 Shatter 2s means a DPS of 50 * 4.1, adding up to 205. At point blank range, those 50 Shatters will do 205 damage per second at point blank range. Or put differently, if you spend 200 units of size on Shatter 2s, you'll get about 1 point of damage per second per unit size spent.

Now let's throw 200 units of size worth of Eps 3 torps onto a ship. 200/15 = 13.33. We can't add a third Eps torp, so let's round up, just to be nice. Eps 3 torps have a DPS of 7.2, so 14 of them will have a DPS of 14 * 7.2 = 100.8 at point blank range. That's less than half the DPS. Or put differently, if you spend 200 units of size on Eps torps, you will at very best case get just under 0.5 points of damage per second per unit size spent.

And why is it important to consider things in terms of per unit size? It's because you don't have infinite space. If you increase damage by throwing on another Eps torp, you're also adding another 15 units of size to the design. Two shatters do almost as much damage and take up merely half the space. Are you thinking that 10 Eps torps make for a good loadout? That's 210 alpha strike damage and 74 DPS at a cost of 150 units of size before reactors. Doing the same with shatters takes 24 Shatter 2s (alpha 216, DPS 98.4), adding up to just 96 units of space, leaving more than enough room to throw on an extra reactor to feed that many guns and still be lighter. You want to scale up? Fine. The further you scale up, the more decisive the Shatter size advantage is going to get. And that's why they're later in the tech tree.

You then, rather amusingly, said that it "takes just 3O torpedo launchers to do what 5O lasers can do". Yeah, 30 launchers at size 15. 30 launchers means spending four hundred and freaking fifty units of space. Just to build a legal ship with that much weaponry on it, you need tier 5 construction (size 650) and then we're still talking about a sitting duck of a ship. To get it armored and able to move, you need a lot more than 200 units of size worth armor plates, shields, engines, and reactors. Don't forget the life support that also adds up to quite a bit at this point. Saying "just" about 30 freaking Eps torps on one ship is hilarious.

Next you're talking about how torpedos are overpowered when in fact they're really not. Their DPS per unit size are consistently below that of most other weapons. What balances it out is that torps have an advantage in range and armor piercing capabilities, things you haven't even begun to consider the value of. AP qualities are of course nice but it only really matter against upgraded armor. Range isn't bad but it would mean a lot more if DW ship AI was better at skirmishing in and out of max range instead of drifting into range of the enemy regardless of settings. I like torps, don't get me wrong, but that's mostly because they're damn useful for base assaults whereas lasers mean that I have to get within range of everything the base has to throw at me.

And why would you research multiple weapon branches anyway instead of getting to the ultimates as fast as freaking possible? Why would you bother with Shatter 6 or Eps 3? What purpose is served by researching those instead of the weapons they unlock? I'd take Velo Shard 1 or Shockwave 1 over Eps 3 any day of the week without a second thought and I'd go through Impact Assault Blasters and get Titan Beam 1 before I'd even think about Shatter 6. There's just no point in going into a deadend tech instead of unlocking what is clearly a better weapon that even can be improved later on.

I'm sorry for bluntly piling on the criticism, by the way, but you can't say I didn't warn you, and you can't say you're not asking for it either.

Posted: **Tue Jun 03, 2014 11:38 pm**

In the space of 14 in-game seconds:

Titan Beam
Space = 6
Shots = 10
Energyus = 280
TotalDmg = 290
MaxRange = 560
DmgFallof= 4 per 100

Plasma Thunderbolt
Space = 12
Shots = 7
EnergyUs = 640
TotalDmg = 350
Maxrange = 990
DmgFallof= 4 per 100

At 500 range: Dmg falloff = dmg*range*numberofshots
Titan Beam dmg = 290 - (4*5*10) = 90 damage * 2 = 180, since we can fit two titan beams for every thunderbolt, which also evens out the energy usage.
Plasma Thunderbolt dmg = 350 - (4*5*7) = 210.

Obviously, the closer you get the better the titan beam does since having two of them gives you a max dmg potential of 580 vs 350 for the plasma thunderbolt. At close distances they'll be significantly more damaging than the thunderbolt.

However, the range of the thunderbolt is awesome. That gives it the ability to keep titan beam enemies at a distance, where the titan beam can't even reach it let alone match its damage.

Posted: **Tue Jun 03, 2014 11:38 pm**

ORIGINAL: Unforeseen

ORIGINAL: pycco

i know i tested it myself.

Really? You didn't post any of the results. So how can we know you actually tested it?

LOL, so dont believe me no skin off my back just trying to have a conversion about the aspect of designing a ship. and how "tests" can be skewed by the tester a number of way such as giving half of the information about a design when reporting the result.

example "I put 5O Shatters on a frigate, then removed them all and began adding Torpedoes until the damage matched up. It took 3O. It takes just 3O torpedo launchers to do what 5O lasers can do, plus better range and considerably less research points"

thanks spidey [&o][&o]

Posted: **Tue Jun 03, 2014 11:44 pm**

You didn't read my more recent post did you...? I never said that the shatter doesn't "ultimately" outdps the torpedo. The point is you have to put so many guns on the ship that the cost becomes absurd and not worth it. So when the number of guns is kept in a reasonable realm in terms of cost efficiency it does not stack up against the torpedo. I built two ships, both with the same components. I did not go to cap, because i knew already that i could put more shatters on the ship and eventually out dps the torpedoes. This is NOT AT ALL the point of this thread. I don't know how many times this has to be pointed out to you people.

Perhaps it would help if i rewrote the OP and put in big bold letters THIS IS NOT ABOUT MAXIMUM DPS POTENTIAL VS TORPEDOES, IT IS ABOUT EFFICIENCY AND UTILITY It is costly to use so many guns, and massively inefficient, over tiered, and can be kited for that matter.

Posted: **Tue Jun 03, 2014 11:47 pm**

ORIGINAL: Unforeseen

You didn't read my more recent post did you...? I never said that the shatter doesn't "ultimately" outdps the torpedo. The point is you have to put so many guns on the ship that the cost becomes absurd and not worth it. So when the number of guns is kept in a reasonable realm in terms of cost efficiency it does not stack up against the torpedo. I built two ships, both with the same components. I did not go to cap, because i knew already that i could put more shatters on the ship and eventually out dps the torpedoes. This is NOT AT ALL the point of this thread. I don't know how many times this has to be pointed out to you people.

ok so the point of the thread is not about how effective the shatter force lasers is then what is the thread about?

Posted: **Tue Jun 03, 2014 11:52 pm**

I give up, your like those people i encounter at work that think the cones leading up to the building are indicating "parking spots" rather than indicators for the line throughway despite the arrows painted on the pavement.

Posted: **Tue Jun 03, 2014 11:53 pm**

Unforeseen, if you would mind providing a reason why your torpedo boat design happens to be comparable to your laser boat design, I wouldn't be so hard on you. However, given that the only difference between the two ships is the armament, the torpedo boat is:

1. About 250 size units larger than the laser boat
2. Slower and less agile than the laser boat due to being ~250 size units larger
3. About as expensive as the laser boat, mostly due to the non-weapon components
4. Probably slightly more fuel-efficient, though only in combat and the laser boat has plenty of space for fuel cells to make up for it
5. Maybe some other things I'm not thinking of right now

Perhaps if you showed us that your torpedo boat was a reasonable amount cheaper to purchase, maintain, and operate than the laser boat is, you'd have the foundations of an argument for your case. Perhaps if in your situation you have no access to Emeros Crystal but have plenty of access to Nekros Stone you'd have an argument (a situational one, but nevertheless an argument). Perhaps if you did anything other than BLINDLY COMPARING DAMAGE NUMBERS I'd listen. Until then, though, do you know what I have to say? "When an equal-size ship armed exclusively with Epsilon Torpedoes of any kind meets an equal-size ship armed exclusively with Shatterforce Lasers, it'll be slaughtered." Why? Because unless you can give me a good reason why I should build a size-700 torpedo boat but only a size-500 laser boat, I'm not going to pay heed to your argument as you've provided no evidence that it's a remotely fair comparison. There needs to be a reason to compare the weapons on this basis, such as the difference in maintenance/purchase costs or the amount of fuel required for combat. Also be aware, if you do decide to actually justify your argument, that cost isn't necessarily the best argument out there, because saving 2 grand on the upkeep might be reasonable now when you've got only 20 grand in total cashflow but it becomes rather trivial when your empire grows to the point that your cashflow has grown to the point where you can support as many ships as you need (or want) regardless of the cost of an individual vessel. I would also argue that, barring extreme cost disparity, a ship that can go toe-to-toe with two or more equal-size vessels or toe-to-toe with a much larger vessel is a better investment than the two equal-size vessels or one much larger vessel in most situations.

Posted: **Tue Jun 03, 2014 11:54 pm**

I used the same ship, with the same components except for the weapons.

Yeah, you used the same ship except one used 200 units of size for weapons and one used 450 units of size for weapons. Same ship indeed. Now add on the life support and hab modules needed for that extra size and then look at the right side of the screen in the movement box. How fast is it?

You know what, I just had a go at one such ship, using my regular early game torp destroyer, and with 30 eps torps, 10 life support and hab modules, 16 proton thrusters, 5 thrust vectors, 4 shields, 9 armor, and 3 novacore reactors to power the whole thing, it had a total size of 745, an acceleration of 4.5, a cruise speed of 12, and a turn rate of 10. Tell me, at what stage in the game is that a viable ship?

Yes, my early game torp destroyer, by the way. I use them early game, not because they're great, but because I want to get to thunderbolts ASAP, since they're pretty damn immense. I used go straight for shockwaves until that point, but lately I'm more inclined to velo shards. Don't really know why. They don't pack much of a punch but I'm having the feeling that their better range and greater speed gives a relative edge. But either way it's a temp thing until the thunderbolts. And then I'll be all thunderbolts and all bases will crumble before me while my boats are hovering well outside of range of all the heavy duty close range guns on the station.

Then and only then do I start caring about beam weaps or, which is a lot more likely, getting assault pods and fighters to max, as well as getting logistics all done.

This whole thing felt like i was on the steam forums. Regardless, Locarnus's mod wins, solves/will solve this issue no matter who was right.

Yeah, it felt like the Steam forums because people were asking you to make a case instead of just shout angrily and expect to be taken seriously. It totally did, didn't it? I don't know what Locarnus has done in his mod, but feel free to share those details and we can discuss his changes too.

Posted: **Wed Jun 04, 2014 12:00 am**

God dammit, you people keep sneaking in comments while I'm snailing away. I HATE YOU ALL!! (I don't, actually)

@ Aeson
You're far too reasonable and diplomatic.

Posted: **Wed Jun 04, 2014 12:08 am**

Ugh for the last time, seriously. I have more important things to do? I'm basing this off a ship with the exact same components that has not yet reached max cap. The ship with the missiles costs less in production and maintenance than the ship with the laser by a tremendous percentage...

Here is an "empty" build, 3O torpedo launchers with nothing else. Price: 4OO1, Maint: 1376, Max Energy use: 31O, firepower: 63O. Higher range, can kite laser boats. Size: 45O

Here is an empty laser boat with 5O lasers: Price: 5418, Maint: 1412, Max Energy: 445, Firepower: 6OO, Lower range, can be kited. Size: 2OO.

As shown, it is clear that in the long run you WILL get more firepower if you keep adding lasers than you will from torpedo launchers as you will have to stop somewhere in order to start adding the other components. You however, end up paying more for you ship and use up more energy which means you need more reactors, and not to mention more hab/life support. Going head to head against a short range weapon using ship, sure the shatterforce will surely obliterate it but at great cost when the same thing could have been achieved with your basic torpedoes at a lower cost in research points.

Posted: **Wed Jun 04, 2014 12:08 am**

All pretty sound advice you and Aeson give.
I've been re-evaluating velo shards and the shatterforce myself lately, but as you said only before thunderbolts and titans. While I wouldn't rip out all my shockwaves (and phasers) and impacts for them, they are situationally useful.

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