Lets talk guns

[DWA86]

Searched didn't really find what I was looking for.

Weapons...at this point it seems to me you want titan beams and torpedoes and their may not be much point in doing much else. Is this an accurate observation or am I missing so points on this?

What weapons do you find effective?

[Darkspire]

ORIGINAL: DWA86

Searched didn't really find what I was looking for.

Weapons...at this point it seems to me you want titan beams and torpedoes and their may not be much point in doing much else. Is this an accurate observation or am I missing so points on this?

What weapons do you find effective?

Make that Phasers and Torpedoes and you are pretty much a force to be reckoned with, Titan beams are no where near as effective as Phasers.

Darkspire

[DWA86]

I imagine missles are really rather ineffective and the graviton weapons have too slow of a rate of fire and range?

[Darkspire]

ORIGINAL: DWA86

I imagine missles are really rather ineffective and the graviton weapons have too slow of a rate of fire and range?

Playing as a prewarp empire the missiles are great at the start, get them up to Concussion ASAP and there great until you get up to Shockwave on torpedo.
Gave up with Graviton when the AOE weapons were nerfed a few revisions ago because of naysayers on here due to there game inexperience and the damage it caused there friendly forces, they completely ruined the new AOE additions in Shadows and quite a large part of the game for me by constantly moaning about the damage, had they known how to use them they are a very effective, fun to watch and design with weapon. Sad to say they are all now next to useless, they used to be great fun both in use and design. Best place for them used to be mines, they could hold off small fleets on there own, now any mine with them fitted just sits there getting shot at, they do fire but not very often and with nowhere near the damage radius they had, more often than not the mine is destroyed, what's easier to replace a mine on a much needed resource sitting in a system on its own or a few ships? As long as your ships are fairly well shielded and, even better, fitted with robotic repairs the casualties were minimum.

Darkspire

[DWA86]

since you mentioned mines sever times minefields would be awesome. Area denial in your enemies systems and such

[Canute0]

Missiles are the 1. choise when you combine them with Boarding pod to capture ships/station. They got the best range at the beginning that mean you can shoot down strong pirate base shields from the distance and run in to capture the base.

Graviton Beams are a great defence weapon for Mining station and construction ship. They bypass shield complete and damage the attacker. And damaged attacker abbort their attack and head back for repairs.
As regular combat weapon they are very underpowered, you rarely can kill any ship except you got a lucky hit and damage the hyperengine or use hyperdeny to prevent them from warp.

Railgun are another good defence weapon for station, and a very deadly attacking weapon special at the beginning when the armor is weak. But they got the shortest range of all you allways need to combine them with tractor beams or add some extra engines.

[CyclopsSlayer]

Lately I use JUST Torpedoes and Fighters, and have little issue with any battles. Has the advantage of only 2 tech trees to be developed.

Missiles, while they achieve the long range category, their damage efficiency is pathetic comparatively late game.
Mass drivers, Gravitic, Bombs, I find myself doing without and not missing the lack.
Phasers are the only way to go off the Beam track, and are pathetic as standoff weapons.

[Darkspire]

A theoretical discussion seems to be in order then [:)]

Missiles

It seems would be better if they were improved, speed and damage? Range seems to be okay though?

Beam Weapons

Phasers seem to be the best in that catergory? How could the category be improved?

Torpedoes

Nuff said?


Thoughts on other weapon categories and what would make them better?
Obviously within the constraints that are there at present, so it would be ideas on how to best improve what we already have.

Darkspire

[Canute0]

Missiles

It seems would be better if they were improved, speed and damage? Range seems to be okay though?

Don't forget they don't got a damage reduction at range, they are allways doing the full damage. That made them extremly useful at max. range when you attack stong bases at example.
But at the endgame their range could be improved compared to torpedos.

Racial weapons:
They are very powerful at the beginning, but at the endgame they arn't worth it anymore.

[CyclopsSlayer]

Okay, did a Goggle Docs sheet comparing Damage / Time / Size of the various weapons. So far I haven't added Area Weapons, Fighters and Racial Weapons.

Check out - Distant Worlds Weapon Comparisons
The sheet is unlocked so feel free to correct or add your own comparisons

Rough Conclusions;
- The Titan beam is superior to the Phaser Lance in every way. Cheaper to R&D, smaller, Faster firing, even the Phaser bonuses can't bring it even.
- The Torpedo even before considering the Missile penalties is superior, add in the 50% reduction versus armored targets and the Missile sucks.
- Mass Driver... your race must be subject to Mass Insanity to use it.
- by the above it looks like Titan Beams in close, and Torpedoes at range are the only systems worthy of consideration.

[DWA86]

I would suggest there is a hole in capital ship grade weaponry. A large weapon system you could only fit a small amount on a large ship that does massive damage. A true ship buster.

Also if you desire smaller ships to be desirable you need a dogdeable high damage weapon smaller ships can avoid yet use to effect on larger ships.

Missiles really should have some options for more effectiveness. Fission/quantum/fusion/hyper fusion warheads, maybe a magnetically acceleratition missile, hybrid of rail gun and missile. I would say more range, missiles seem to simply be a less effective version of torpedoes

[Darkspire]

The Titan beam is superior to the Phaser Lance in every way. Cheaper to R&D, smaller, Faster firing, even the Phaser bonuses can't bring it even.

It may be on paper but in use is more akin to firing a water pistol against late game spaceport shields, I tend to use a fleet of 10 capitals with the best tech available in my attack fleets and when I worked through the weapons I found the Titan Beam pretty much useless in that situation, which is one of the main uses for the fleets, Phasers on the other hand cut through the spaceport like a hot knife through butter. Add Plasma Thunderbolts to the mix and it's a killer combo.

I would suggest there is a hole in capital ship grade weaponry. A large weapon system you could only fit a small amount on a large ship that does massive damage. A true ship buster.

Also if you desire smaller ships to be desirable you need a dogdeable high damage weapon smaller ships can avoid yet use to effect on larger ships.

Missiles really should have some options for more effectiveness. Fission/quantum/fusion/hyper fusion warheads, maybe a magnetically acceleratition missile, hybrid of rail gun and missile. I would say more range, missiles seem to simply be a less effective version of torpedoes

Obviously within the constraints that are there at present, so it would be ideas on how to best improve what we already have.

Missile range starting value is 520(Lv1) and the Plasma Thunderbolt is at 690 (Lv5), as that gets scaled as the tech level increases that may need looking at from the point of view of damage reduction over distance from the torpedo compared to the no damage loss of the missile, if the missile does not have damage reduction and the torpedo does over distance do the two level out somewhere? Could increasing the distance of the missile throw the two out of balance?

Darkspire

[CyclopsSlayer]

ORIGINAL: Darkspire


Missile range starting value is 520(Lv1) and the Plasma Thunderbolt is at 690 (Lv5), as that gets scaled as the tech level increases that may need looking at from the point of view of damage reduction over distance from the torpedo compared to the no damage loss of the missile, if the missile does not have damage reduction and the torpedo does over distance do the two level out somewhere? Could increasing the distance of the missile throw the two out of balance?

Darkspire

By the comparison I was doing, even at both weapons maximum ranges, 990, the Torpedo is superior against unarmored targets, but not by much. At 1000+ range the Missile would be better, but nothing has that range. If the Target is armored, as most Base/Ports likely are, the Missile become inconsequential versus the Torpedo.

Maybe they need to increase the Range penalty that Torpedo's have, improve Missile to have some base bombardment capability, or something. As it stands the Missiles offer nothing over the Torpedo.

Regarding Titan vs. Phasers, maybe versus the bases Armor, but versus the Shields?? Lets see, albeit on paper, you can mount 6 Titans Beams in the same space used by 4 Phasers. The Titan beams have 3x the Rate of Fire.
So in the same 4.2 seconds the Phasers need for a single cycle of 4 shots, the Titan Beams will fire 18 shots. So at range 0 that would be 522 damage for the Titans versus 128 for the Phasers.
Now if we move that range out to the max 500 category, the Phasers hit for the same 128, the Titans 18 shots would deal 162 raw damage. Still more, even considering the bonus to hit for the Phasers.

At max range the top Reactive armor will essentially stop the Titans totally, and the Phasers are easily superior there. But in closer, say 300 range the two beams are essentially identical. Any closer than that and the Titan wins hands down.

[Tcby]

If it's not too much trouble, could somebody please explain to me the difference between current and previous AOE weapons? I'm new to the game, and I wonder whether there is a slight change I can make (thank you devs for modding tools) that will allow them to be a viable weapon choice. I prefer it when every option is good for *something* [:)]

[Darkspire]

ORIGINAL: Tcby

If it's not too much trouble, could somebody please explain to me the difference between current and previous AOE weapons? I'm new to the game, and I wonder whether there is a slight change I can make (thank you devs for modding tools) that will allow them to be a viable weapon choice. I prefer it when every option is good for *something* [:)]

There is no way to fix the AOE weapons, it is hardcoded [:(]

Image 1 is the current AOE damage on a mine attacking a fleet of pirates, note the position of the ships.

Image 2 is the old AOE damage (pre .09) on a mine attacking a fleet of pirates, note the position of the ships.

The new 'nerfed' AOE weapons do fire but not very often, usually the mine just sits there now and gets blown to bits most of the time. The old AOE could hold off small fleets of pirates, was great fun to watch and create designs for.

Its what the community wanted with all the posts to tone them down due to the damage, funny how all the folks that were complaining about them do not post any more ... totally ruined it for us that have put the time in to learn the game and enjoy the challenge [8|]

Darkspire

[Tcby]

....Damn


Thanks for the explanation Darkspire[&o]

[Plant]

Someone mentioned that titan beams are nowhere as effective as phasors. That is definately not true. Even at maximum phasor range, the titan beams do more damage per size than phasors do, ignoring accuracy and armour. And then you can always tell your ships to move to Point Blank range. End tech missiles is a bit funny compared to torpedoes, but I guess that is deliberate.

[Deathball]

Has anyone done some calculations on dps/size in regards to energy consumption? After all, torpedoes/phasers have considerably higher energy requirements so it would be interesting to see how their dps/size holds up if you factor in reactor size.

[ASHBERY76]

Errr Area weapons were never used by the A.I before because of friendly fire so they just became another human exploit more than a fair weapon system.The A.I can now use them too.

I still post too.

[CyclopsSlayer]

ORIGINAL: Deathball

Has anyone done some calculations on dps/size in regards to energy consumption? After all, torpedoes/phasers have considerably higher energy requirements so it would be interesting to see how their dps/size holds up if you factor in reactor size.

I didn't factor in energy as endgame reactors make it trivial.

The equivalent endgame reactor;

Advanced Hyper Fusion Reactor
Size - 16
Energy Output - 260
Fuel per 1000 energy - 2.52 (Hydrogen)

So using Torpedoes, a single reactor will power 4 Torps, that raises the effective size of the Torp launcher from 12 -> 16. A single Fuel Cell will when full provide sufficient fuel to fire 744 Torpedoes, or sufficient fuel for 90 seconds of continuous fire for 4 launchers.

Effective Weapon Size factoring in Energy needed for continuous fire; (rounded up to full spaces)
Titan Beams - Sz 8
Phaser - Sz 11
Torpedo - Sz 16
Missile - Sz 15
Mass Driver - Sz 19