Weapon Balance in Shakturi

[Tacit_Exit]

So I've been trying to break out of my 'fast energy torpedo ship' design mentality from vanilla a little; I added a decent layout of PD to my general workhorse patrol ships.

Watching the PD work against a fairly large swarm of fighters, I noticed it didn't clear them out very quickly, but the damage caused by the swarm was hardly perceptable also. I realised I'd be better off just dropping the PD and using the energy for more main weapons to end the source of the fighters faster, rather than playing a zero sum sub-combat of PD vs Fighters/Bombers.

So what is the the intended role of Fighters/Bombers? I'd imagined they might somehow draw fire from their source but since 'normal' weapons don't target them, and they don't pack much of a punch (seemingly; I didn't check the tech level so maybe the AI was sending Space Biplanes at me) they seem to be just cool special effects atm.

I haven't tried non-energy torpedo main weapon ships yet with the expansion, but I'm planning to try one short range laser with the energy torpedos next game to hopefully get my ships to engage at mid- torp range rather than max; seems like a interesting reason for mixing weapons (if it works).

How are all laser/missile ships working out for people? I read that missiles have a good damage to energy use ratio early but fall behind at high tech levels. Is DPS from lasers better than Energy Torps to balance for the shorter range?

As stated I haven't tried lasers/missiles yet so maybe I'm missing something about how they interact with the ship AI/other components that gives them a strong role, so please peeps post your experience with different weapon loadouts and how they worked for you.

[sbach2o]

I am in my first expansion game and are just halfway up the research tree in the fighters and bombers branch (most other branches are farther along, up to almost finished). By keeping derilict ships and trying out a carrier capital ship design, and because I micromanage a lot (thence the slow playing pace) I have some experience with the performance of fighers and point defense, I think.
 
Normal beam weapons do target fighters. My impression is they have a much harder time landing hits due to the very high evasion ratings of fighters. But I have no hard data at all. The main difference may be that point defense weapons just fire faster. They also do very low damage and given they do not fire in ship to ship combat, I do not advocate using them although I've put a few on almost all of my ship designs so far.
 
The damage ratings of fighters and bomers rises with higher techology levels, but so do the available defensive options for normal ships. I am particularly worried that teh delta of bomber damage over reactive armor rating may not cut it. But they already have a hard enough time tearing doen shields.
 
I have missiles only on my smallest warship design, the Escort. I like the combination of fast speed and the range advantage of missiles in the early game. Unfortunately, missiles lose that edge completely, later in the game. And there is again the problem of doing very little damage over the top-end reactive armor rating.
 
My Escorts are still good in dealings with pirates. That may be due to me being far ahead of anything I encounter, technologically. Missiles do not seem worthwhile in combat when the opposing side is on about equal footing.

[Tacit_Exit]

ORIGINAL: sbach2o
Normal beam weapons do target fighters.

Hmm, so Fighter Bays are a soft counter to Beams, makes their role stronger I guess, but Beams were bit weak already. I wonder if equiping a few PD alongside a Beam loadout would allow more Beams to target opposing ships rather than Fighter/Bombers?

I like your idea with adding Missiles to Escorts; I always struggled to make tiny ships effective, I'll try this next game.

[Data]

ORIGINAL: Tacit_Exit

I wonder if equiping a few PD alongside a Beam loadout would allow more Beams to target opposing ships rather than Fighter/Bombers?

good ideea, this will allow some indirect control over the weapons. I've said this before, if we could control the weapons it would be a great addition to the gameplay. For the ones familiar with MOO2, something similar to green/yellow/red status for each weapon that you can set at any time:

green - will fire this turn
yellow - will fire next turn
red - never fires

Here we don't have turns but we could implement it for a timeframe of a few seconds or something similar

[Sabin Stargem]

One thing of note is that you could put multiple fighter bays on civilian vessels, which is an alternative to Ion Cannons if you got the space and resources to spare. As for missile weaponry, they seem to be for Hit & Away shenanigans, considering that they have a great deal of range and speed, at expense of damage. I am hoping that missiles will get some damage/piercing upgrades, with a bit of splash damage someday.

[J HG T]

Vasari in Sins of a solar empire have phase missiles. Basically missiles that do partial damage through shields. Maybe something like that as late game missile tech.

[Tacit_Exit]

Yeah, penetrating shields would be a good role for missiles; currently once you stack enough shield units the regen rate alone makes the ship near invincible. Especially lategame when the space restriction becomes minimal.

[Data]

I remember again MOO2 and speciffic ion cannons or missile mods that could target specifically internals like the drive...that was btw to method to take down the guardian with a couple of cruisers and some missile frigates
here we can have fun with weaponry that could affect only vectoring engines, main engines or hyper drive..or reactors, etc
tractor beams also, transporters and boarding parties for either capture or just raiding the enemy ship (with the purpose to disable internal systems) etc etc
even now you get astonished about the great potential that MOO2 brought...if possible, I think in time we can have all of these in DW also

[Data]

i found it, i found it
sry guys for derailing a bit here but i cannot help myself
 
http://www.ugcs.caltech.edu/~iraqispy/moo2/guardian.html
 
also, some more stuff that could bring depth to the battles in DW
 
http://www.gamefaqs.com/pc/197873-master-of-orion-ii-battle-at-antares/faqs/16743