Projectile and Missle Weapons

[John McCreedy]

I'm somewhat confused over their point so was wondering if someone can explain it to me, please?

Laser = 50% Armour penetration.
Plasma = 100% Armour penetration.
Disruptor = 100% Shield penetration.
Torpedo = 100% Shield penetration.

Neither Missiles, Autocannons nor Mass Drivers get special bonuses. What's worse is whilst Autocannons and Missiles have similar damage stats, albeit the former enjoying greater range, Mass Drivers have less range and less damage than Missiles.

So I hope you see my confusion here. Is there a point to these weapons, especially Mass Drivers which on the face of things, appear utterly useless? Unless this game has significant balance issues, I assume I'm missing something?

[Zeirif]

Missiles can be intercepted by Point Defense weapons while Mass weapons wont.

[John McCreedy]

That's hardly an answer. I'm asking, in the absence of a special ability, given that their damage/range stats are not significantly better enough to compensate, what is their role in the game? It's not like they have superior accuracy either.

It seems to me Missiles should have 50% shield penetration, Autocannons should have superior tracking and Mass Drivers should just do enormous damage.

[adobo]

My understanding is it used to have higher rate of fire but was OP and shred everything. So it was nerfed to the ground before release and never recovered.

Probably get buffed once they do the first combat rebalance patch.

[Phoenix C64]

Missiles can be intercepted and while mass drivers might have similar damage output and shorter range than other weapons, didn't mass drivers also have the highest accuracy, shortest reload times, etc?

Haven't much looked into this myself yet, but what I do know is that once my mass driver fleets get into point blank range, they rip anything apart in seconds. The unbidden can confirm this, they're still butthurt from what I did to them yesterday ;)

[John McCreedy]

Originally posted by Phoenix C64:

Missiles can be intercepted and while mass drivers might have similar damage output and shorter range than other weapons, didn't mass drivers also have the highest accuracy, shortest reload times, etc?

Haven't much looked into this myself yet, but what I do know is that once my mass driver fleets get into point blank range, they rip anything apart in seconds. The unbidden can confirm this, they're still butthurt from what I did to them yesterday ;)

No, that's the point.

Blue Laser S = Average Damage 1.96 / Accuracy 82%
Fusion Missile = Average Damage 2.09 / Accuracy 100%
Coilgun = Average Damage 2.12 / Accuracy 76%

Whilst Fusion Missiles and the Coilgun has better damage than the laser, the Laser gets a 50% Armour penetration role so as I understand it, that effectively makes the damage 2.94 against Armour giving it the best damage. Even autocannons only have equivalent accuracy to lasers and whilst they do more damage, the have less range and if you factor in fighting armour, then they do less damage.

With torpedos it's even worse because they have more damage, more accurate, longer range and have a 100% Shield penetration. Same applies to Disruptors - same range, superior average damage, better accuracy and have the same bonus as Torps.

The only thing they have going for them is lower fitting requirements but that hardly seems worthy compensation when all other factors are considered.

As for the repeated argument of "Missiles can be intercepted", that's not something I'm factoring in because you can still compare Laser/Disruptor/Lance with Autocannon/Mass Drivers which can't and Kinetic always comes out useless as far as I can determine.

[Sathra]

Mass drivers have better range and greater damage variance compared to lasers.
Autocannons have much faster cooldowns (nearly half) compared to plasma and similar range. Also wider damage variance.
This is probably why kinetics do so well up close. Enough shots roll high to give them an advantage. Autocannons do it even better.

Missiles fire faster and are cheaper in power compared to torpedoes. This can be important for squeezing in extra shielding. Also overwhelming PD screens if that's something you're thinking about.

Also, armour pen is wasted if the target doesn't have armour in the first place. Until you get to battleships, the base armour of hulls is negligible.

[Elitewrecker PT]

First of all yes, energy weapons do usually come out on top in lategame because they ignore armor and lategame is all about battleships and cruisers.

Also disruptors don't penetrate shield, they have double damage against shields, missiles and torps ignore shields but are partially mitigated by armor. Plasma cannons and Lances ignore armor but have to first destroy the shields.

Autocannons have lower range but fire very quickly so are decent point-blank weapons even though they first have to destroy shields and get partially mitigated by armor. And by the time you get to autocannon range shields should be already lowered.
Mass drivers don't have as much range and damage as missiles/torps but have the bonus of not being countered by point defense (WHICH IS VERY IMPORTANT), missiles and torpedoes in late-game against big fleets with ships all armed with several point defense are basically non-existant.
But then you have energy torpedoes which bypass shield and can't be countered by point defense.

[Kou]

Originally posted by John McCreedy:

Same applies to Disruptors - same range, superior average damage, better accuracy and have the same bonus as Torps.

Correction, Disruptors gets 100% shield damage. Torps ignore shields completely. Not the same bonus at all. Disruptors are better IMO since they work with your other weapons to destroy the shields faster, allowing you to make use of that 100% armor pen (lances) asap.

Basically what I understood is that right now, due to nerfs in previous patches, Energy are by far the best. Makes end games boring whne everyone is using distrupters and lances. I hope next patch addresses this. Railguns honestly should be a lot stronger than lasers. From the way I understand the technology, Railguns should be the ones with 100% armor pen rather than lasers anyway. ♥♥♥♥ makes steel act like wet paper. Also no reason for it to be low accuracy... High energy like lasers? Sure, but pretty much everything I've read about the science of Raigluns vs laser weaponry says that Railguns should be better in almost every way (losing on projectile speed)

[John McCreedy]

Originally posted by Sathra:

Mass drivers have better range and greater damage variance compared to lasers.
Autocannons have much faster cooldowns (nearly half) compared to plasma and similar range. Also wider damage variance.
This is probably why kinetics do so well up close. Enough shots roll high to give them an advantage. Autocannons do it even better.

Missiles fire faster and are cheaper in power compared to torpedoes. This can be important for squeezing in extra shielding. Also overwhelming PD screens if that's something you're thinking about.

Also, armour pen is wasted if the target doesn't have armour in the first place. Until you get to battleships, the base armour of hulls is negligible.

The problem is, from what I've seen, the larger the ship the further back it tends to hang, which reduces that bonus. So with that in mind, is it best putting Kinetic on smaller ships with high evasion stats?

Originally posted by Kougeru:

Originally posted by John McCreedy:

Same applies to Disruptors - same range, superior average damage, better accuracy and have the same bonus as Torps.

Correction, Disruptors gets 100% shield damage. Torps ignore shields completely. Not the same bonus at all. Disruptors are better IMO since they work with your other weapons to destroy the shields faster, allowing you to make use of that 100% armor pen (lances) asap.

Basically what I understood is that right now, due to nerfs in previous patches, Energy are by far the best. Makes end games boring whne everyone is using distrupters and lances. I hope next patch addresses this. Railguns honestly should be a lot stronger than lasers. From the way I understand the technology, Railguns should be the ones with 100% armor pen rather than lasers anyway. ♥♥♥♥ makes steel act like wet paper. Also no reason for it to be low accuracy... High energy like lasers? Sure, but pretty much everything I've read about the science of Raigluns vs laser weaponry says that Railguns should be better in almost every way (losing on projectile speed)

Thanks for that correction. I also realised it's not a 50% damage bonus but a 50% reduction to damage mitigation - again, not the same thing :)

Still, I feel the further up the tech tree you go, the further out Kinetic gets in terms of usefulness compared to Laser.

[BudaKhan]

Projectiles are brutal at short range and point defense helps not, they are the brawlers weapons of choice. You're forgetting effective ranges and dps probably reflects damage being done at effective range. although that's a guess. Projectiles, in most of these games, are unaffected by shields. Not sure about this one.

[John McCreedy]

Originally posted by BudaKhan:

Projectiles are brutal at short range and point defense helps not, they are the brawlers weapons of choice. You're forgetting effective ranges and dps probably reflects damage being done at effective range. although that's a guess. Projectiles, in most of these games, are unaffected by shields. Not sure about this one.

PD helps not but they are mitigated by both Shields and Armour so their effectiveness levels out a lot faster than Lasers. It seems early game Kinetic are the best but once the curve for Lasers overtakes - around the time you get Capital ships with their innate armour bonus, Laser/Plasma become more effective.

[Name Lips]

I still wish there was a way to tell your long-range ships to maintain distance. Especially if you have a faster engine, it should be possible to keep pelting enemy gunboats with missiles and never let them get close enough to hurt you.

It usually looks like all the ships are trying to move into the center of the other fleet to have a dogfight.

[Sathra]

@John: As long as it isn't a Battleship, kinetics will get into range. After all, they have the same range as plasma.
Beyond that, unless you're fighting serious armour (Scourge, Neutronium) its mostly personal choice for SP. Large slots will invariably end up with energy torps or lances (kinetic artillery is not great. Shoots slower but has higher base and max damage).
That and what you end up with. Having Teldar can make kinetics pretty good if you bring some disruptors as well.

[Mistfox]

Actually, Kinetics are jack of all trades weapons. Sure, they are not as good against shields as disruptors or plasma against shields but in reverse they are better than plasma against shields and better than disruptors against hull. Against a Dis/Plas combo, a twin autocannon does only about 6% less damage overall (someone did a practical run and got a 1% difference result), so it is a viable fit if you have a bad run of cards.

The other advantage to kinetics is their low power requirements, making them the go-to weapon for energy heavy defences like shields and capacitors. You get more shields for a ~6% drop in damage.

You remember a corvette hull with only one gun slot and a big utility section? That would be the ship you would use kinetics on (one gun, so general purpose, big utility section for shields so low power weapons). This also helps if you get unlucky with power plant tech.

If you want to play keep away with kinetics, there's always artillery. I kind of see artillery going on the destroyer hull with a single Large slot.

[Minoris]

Autocannons and Mass Drivers are nice when you don't know what you'll be facing or, in reverse, are eventually going against multiple ennemies with very different weapon combos. So instead of retrofitting every few years, I just go all kinetics and crystal platings, since it just works well against everything.

Against one particular enemy, though, of course retrofitting to the type of lasers/torpedoes he's weak against will always be the optimal choice.