Death ray is terrible tech

[Mysta67]

Why is the plasma beam better than the death ray? I added all mods to the death ray then all the mods to the plasma beam, the plasma beam does more damage and less weight... why? Isn't the Death ray supposed to be the ultimate beam weapon? They need to reduce the size or increase the damage of the death ray otherwise it is worthless tech. I'll add even in 2 the plasma beam was better, and awesomely op

[Mysta67]

Also, the Guardian is lame in this game. Orion 2, it was a tough squabble. This one, meh a few battleships will take him down

[Chippoka]

Originally posted by Mysta67:

Also, the Guardian is lame in this game. Orion 2, it was a tough squabble. This one, meh a few battleships will take him down

There are mods which fix the Gaurdian; the Death Ray really is great if you get it early in the game from an early defeat of the Gaurdian.

[vaaish]

I've buffed the guardian and death ray in tactical mod, but it's tough to get the difficulty right for the guardian because his strength doesn't adjust to galaxy size. The goal would be he's able to be taken out if you focus on it by early mid game and easy to take out by late mid game.

[Bubs]

in the original MoO I fought the guardian with cheapo tech by having the tiniest ships ever with the biggest gun i could get. I went into combat with thousands of ships as 1 stack, hitting for minimum damage of however many ships i had. But each time the guardian shot me i'd lose hundreds of hp.

Classic cheesing it.

[vaaish]

CTS's guardian has a Black Hole Gen which makes that kind a cheese harder. Generally it's all frigates with proton that cheeses him early... unless I put that subspace teleporter back on so he can dodge.

[Chippoka]

Bubs, in CTS, the Guardian is still easy to take out much in the ways you describe; i.e., I bring in about 40 bombers loaded with antimatter torpedoes to get the job done; often before turn 200 (if Orion is not too far away). That's the cool unique thing about CTS Orion; targeting the trophy on the proverbial hill, "capture the flag" kinda thing, for an added nice benefit. I personally like it the way it is, but the AI does wait too long to go get him and capture Orion.

[vaaish]

Yeah, that's what makes balancing him tricky. I can make it really hard for a player to pull off the kind of attack you're talking about. At one point it took 150 frigates with torpeodes to take him down, but it also meant he didn't get taken out until you'd gotten to titans and the AI couldn't touch him till a good bit past that.

I suspect you'd have a close battle with the Tactical Mod version even without the teleporter on him. I beefed up the black hole gen so it can really knock out large groups of early game frigates.

For the latest version I'm testing, I've dialed it back a good bit trying to find the right balance between challenging and still accessible enough you legitimately have a chance if you go for it.

[Mysta67]

Originally posted by Chippoka:

Originally posted by Mysta67:

Also, the Guardian is lame in this game. Orion 2, it was a tough squabble. This one, meh a few battleships will take him down

There are mods which fix the Gaurdian; the Death Ray really is great if you get it early in the game from an early defeat of the Gaurdian.

By mods, i mean, Auto fire, continuous etc... Not player made mods.

[NE14PIE]

I was wondering @Vaaish - is there a way to make the Guardian work like the Space Amoeba and split into lots of mini Guardians! :D

[vaaish]

No, I believe that's all hardcoded to the ameba

[NE14PIE]

No worries vaaish thank you for considering it. Since we are chatting about Death Rays I was thinking they could be renamed Hope Rays for the player! My empires tend to act in more self-defence and this implies intentional malevolence on my part. Perhaps Justice Beam would be more precise! :-) I hope all is well