Warp weapons weak?

[CthuluIsSpy]

I managed to research warp weapons and they seem really underwhelming for what they supposed to do.
The glossary says they are meant to be penetrate armour and you do get them when Starghost Defenders show up, but they seem to deal little damage? To make matters worse, they consume a battery each.

Am I doing something wrong with them? Do I need some upgrade or something to make them decent? Because right now they still pretty lacklustre for an end game weapon that's supposed to counter heavily armored targets. I have more luck with AP rounds.

[frobisher]

I have never been able to finish the game but I think you are right. Warp weapons seem to be crap. Things are very difficult at this point in the game and you really need something that works and so warp gun is very disappointing. I lose interest when the developers don't keep the difficulty balanced. It is probably my fault I don't enjoy losing. Does anybody?

[CthuluIsSpy]

Eh, AP weapons work pretty well so its not as if you don't have any options. Its just that for a late game research option that's unlocked when you face Starghosts, warp weapons seem really inefficient. They were much better in Aftermath and Afterlight.

[frobisher]

Originally posted by CthuluIsSpy:

Eh, AP weapons work pretty well so its not as if you don't have any options. Its just that for a late game research option that's unlocked when you face Starghosts, warp weapons seem really inefficient. They were much better in Aftermath and Afterlight.

You say that AP weapons work on Starghosts? I have never seen it in the many times I have tried.

[CthuluIsSpy]

Originally posted by frobisher:

Originally posted by CthuluIsSpy:

Eh, AP weapons work pretty well so its not as if you don't have any options. Its just that for a late game research option that's unlocked when you face Starghosts, warp weapons seem really inefficient. They were much better in Aftermath and Afterlight.

You say that AP weapons work on Starghosts? I have never seen it in the many times I have tried.

Everything except the Clouds can be damaged with AP weapons. Clouds have 100% physical resistance so you need energy. Everything else can be gunned down with machine guns.
Plasma actually works better on Clouds than warp, but going by the first game that makes sense; in Aftermath warp weapons were more powerful the more heavily armoured the target is.

The Clouds also have 0% psi resistance, so you can use psionics to paralyze them or debuff them.

[Jonathan Hunt]

Ultrasonic weapons also work well against Clouds

[frobisher]

Looks like I'm going to have to try again sometime. Thanks.

[CthuluIsSpy]

Originally posted by jonathanhunt:

Ultrasonic weapons also work well against Clouds

Do they? Weird, I figured they wouldn't because of the stun damage, and clouds don't look organic.
Do they work on Defenders too? Because those things are a real pain. I didn't think I would encounter an enemy more annoying than Afterlight's Rollers.
So do I really just not bother with warp weapons and stick to AP / Plasma / Sonic?

[CthuluIsSpy]

So after playing around and reading the glossary I made a few discoveries

1) Resistances are a lie. Whilst it does give you a good idea of what weapons are effective against enemies, there appears to be a bunch of hidden modifiers that are hinted at in the glossary. Spiders, for example, take a lot more damage against Warp weapons than most targets. The Drone Warp Cannon deal about 450 damage against Starghost hover drones (which is pitiful, a 20mm grenade dealt more damage) even though the drone has something like 25% energy resistance, but it reliably dealt 1250 damage against Starghost Spiders.
Edit : Turns out that the "resistances" are actually an average of different types. Oddly enough, Sonic is not energy but mechanical, according to files I extracted from the game.

2) The Intelligence / Enemy stat matters. Neither the game nor the manual tells you this, but the damage modifiers you see on the stat page is affected by the enemy skill. If your soldier has below average Enemy, you take a penalty to your damage output.

3) You can confuse / paralyze Starghost Clouds and basically stunlock them indefinitely. I'll try using poison against them, but I doubt it'll work.

4) Laser and warp weapons suck against Star Ghost clouds, even though the glossary vaguely says that energy weapons disrupt them. Plasma is the way to go.

5) Defenders appear to have no real weaknesses, much like the glossary said. Mass AP and plasma is the way to go.

6) Always use energon. If you don't, warp weapons have about one shot before you have to reload them. A drone warp cannon stocked with 3 energon has an absurd number of shots.
Energon isn't even that expensive to make, and it doesn't take long to produce either.