Heavy Weapons - whats the difference?

[Bunkerkind Annihilator]

After playing a bit around, i wonder whats actually the difference between the three heavy weapon types.
when i fire a "shockwave" it launches a homing glowing ball that explodes
when i fire a "missile" it lauches up to three homing glowing balls that explode
when i fire a "fusion torpedo" it launches a homing glowing ball that explodes

the only real difference i could find was that missiles seem to have long ranges, shockwave types do large AoE and fusion torpedos are somewhat inbetween.

[MeepdragonVII]

This is a very good question, and I'm curious myself.

I believe it might have something to do with the damage types as well: Seeing that EMP and radiation dmg exist, some of the heavies might do some of those types.
Also I'd assume that heavy weapons are not all equally effective against shields and hull. Could imagine, that i.e. Shockwaves help dropping shields quickly.

[Bunkerkind Annihilator]

well, they do with the right officers and enhancements.
still wondering about radiation and EMP damage.

the gunners plasma skill adds "lingering radiation damage" -> is that a hint that radiation should actually be a DoT ?

[Tal Maru]

At the moment the main difference between heavy weapons is the type of damage they deal

Shockwaves = better vs shields
Missiles = weak vs shields , high hull damage
Fusion torpedos = about equally effective vs shields and hull


I agree that the heavy weapons could use a lot more individuality and I beleive that this is on the wishlist of things to implament.

Also radiation damage is a DoT and as far as I know it is already in game.

[MeepdragonVII]

I believe that at least. You can try it out in some nebula regions. For example in the Nexus area there's this nebula that causes radiation damage to your ship and it will stay for a short while even after leaving it.

[Bunkerkind Annihilator]

Originally posted by Tal Maru:

Also radiation damage is a DoT and as far as I know it is already in game.

the question is: how do you know that? or how should a player know?
Often i get the feeling to understand anything in SPG2 you have to play SPG 1 and DEVs totally forgot to re-explain everything.

[MeepdragonVII]

Thanks for the clarifications, Tal!

I've only been using fusion torpedoes for ages (mostly since heavy weapons didn't really do dmg at all in Beta), so it's good to know those differences.

And yes, some suggestions concerning heavy weapons are certainly on the wishlist!

[MeepdragonVII]

Originally posted by Bunkerkind Annihilator:

Originally posted by Tal Maru:

Also radiation damage is a DoT and as far as I know it is already in game.

the question is: how do you know that? or how should a player know?
Often i get the feeling to understand anything in SPG2 you have to play SPG 1 and DEVs totally forgot to re-explain everything.

I think it also has to do with the fact that plenty features have been implemented based on player feedback; so many things couldn't make their way into the manual or the tutorials so far.
I think those had rather low priority, but I assume LGM will eventually go over manual and tutorials again and also add some more ingame tooltips.

[Bunkerkind Annihilator]

Originally posted by MeepdragonVII:

I think it also has to do with the fact that plenty features have been implemented based on player feedback; so many things couldn't make their way into the manual or the tutorials so far.
I think those had rather low priority, but I assume LGM will eventually go over manual and tutorials again and also add some more ingame tooltips.

tbh, explaining damage types in a tutorial or manual is the wrong place. My ship stats show me what resists i have - but my weapons do not show what damage they deal.
neither does my hud show what damage i recieve.

I only see how my Railguns cutting through other ships shields like through butter, and Beams with their high RoF good for applying low-chance based debuffs.

enough for offtopic - the initial question also includes the question why all three heavy weapons are shooting with "homing glowing balls".
when i read shockwave, i expected something like X's SWG, when i read "ion cannon" i expected a strong beam (too much homeworld ;)) . When i see missile launcher with 40 tubes, i expect more then three glowing balls...

[Tal Maru]

I agree with you 100%

Quoting from one of my own posts

At the momet there is no damage difference between the heavy launchers of a dreadnought and a corvette. The dreadnaught should be able to mount larger and much more damaging heavy weapons then a corvette.
Do away with ammo it's silly for railguns to have unlimited ammo and not heavy weapons.
Heavy weapons should function like lite weapons in that the rate of fire should be determined by avaliable power.

Types of heavy weapons.

Fusion torpedoes are essentially huge plasma cannons which have the potential to envlop the ship and damage all fronts. These are great for ship to ship combat at close, mid range.

Shockwave's should be a 180 degree by 20 degree expanding arc that disapate over 200-500 units of distance. These will be used for up close and personal encounters, they are also great for nuking those pesky fighters from enemy carriers. These can be EM Discharges, Flak/Shotgun type, or plasma flare.

Missiles will be good for hitting smaller more agile ships as well as hitting specific points on the enemy hull in order to disable subsystems. Missiles will have an omnidirectional firing arc being able to change course after they are fired.

Minelaunchers would make a usefull addition especially for freightliner captains. Running away and leaving a few surprises for your persuers is deffinatly a viable tactic. Mines can be proxcimity fused, cloaked, and capable of moving to intercept over short distances. The right mine can drop you out of PTE and prevent you from chasing your target.

Ray type heavy weapons will be either Lasers or very large projectile's They are good at doing large burst damage with fair precision over long range. The downside being a very low field of fire. Putting one of these up your enemies tailpipe generally breaks something.

Concusion warheads will be slow traveling torpedoes that detonate with a large shockwave damageing all ships in the area and pushing them around.

Gravimetric warheads will be the inverse of concusion warheads, they form a vortex that pulls all ships into the middle.

[cboath11]

Tal Maru very nice and would make a HUGE difference to combat in this game. +1

[Bunkerkind Annihilator]

nice ideas - though, i would like to see the ammo count of "secondary" weapons being based on the weapon, not the ship alone.

for example gunships should have the possibility to fit a missile launcher with 100 ammo, or have that one cap-killer torpedo.

the whole topic could be expanded to primary (light) weapons. there are so many with only a different FX and names, but basicly all the same. Do i actually care if the RoF is 0.5 or 0.6?

I would also like to see things like the borehole torpedo or mines beeing a heavy weapon.