The usefulness of many weapons

[rattle]

... is rather limited right now.

I see no purpose in using or researching right away unless prerequisite:

Flak Cannons (Yoral)
Normal and Heavy Turbolasers
All Ion Cannons
Disruptors
Neutron Beams
Plasma Cannons
Normal Primary Beams
All Torpedos (Bomber bonus is useful)
Multi-Role Fighters (they don't use torpedoes right now!)

I usually go for Railguns right away and go to Antimatter and Antimatter Warheads.

AM Anti-Missiles are fairly useful from my experience. About as good as Defense Turbolasers as PD plus they overwhelm enemy PD on the offense at range 21(!)

Railguns are just outright better than all the beams. No range dissipation, pierces Deflectors fully and Battle Shields partially, has LR and AC mod.

I hope you make the other weapons useful. Lethal is super useless as it stands.

[rattle]

Flak Cannons are Yoral specific, Coil Guns are useful until Force Fields.

[rattle]

Nevermind, they used to have a special low tech weapon called the Flak Cannon which basically was a space shotgun. Must've been patched away

[Nate]

Agree, Railguns are so much better than most other weapons. The devs should either lower their damage or slow their rate of fire to every other turn. Justified as they have to recharge and are slow to reload.

[rattle]

Nerfing Railguns might not be the answer, I think they're fine. Making them less useful against armor would be kind of weird physically
Increasing the research cost to double or quadruple might help.
For 800 base cost they are better than all other options.

The other weapons need to be adjusted.

Ion Cannons effectively are charged particle accelerators. Why not buff up the damage closer to Rialguns and give them an EMP mechanic that has a chance to stun one or multiple systems for a round.

Disruptor Ion Cannons also could have a chance to stun while killing crew, also bringing damage closer to railguns. I'd make both techs more expensive too.
Neutron Beams could work like Death Rays in a sense where crew killing pierces shields. Aegis Shield and Neutronium Armor couls halve or nullify that.

Killing the crew should give more benefits, like reducing the combat performance and a turn by turn stun mechanic which would be related to the shock moment where your buddies melted away.

Plasma Cannons right now are a mere stepping stone to Hellbores. They don't replace Railguns nor are they a viable alternative. In MoO2 it's things like the Rangemaster, Achilles Targeting Unit and Structural Analyzer that made the oddballs good. Since these are not present, the raw firepower should at least be higher than Railguns with double range dissipation penalty to make them an attractive choice.
The fluff text needs to be fixed too since the range is similar to all other heavy weapons.

Hellbores seem to be fine, except I don't like their sprites or large beams or loud sound.
Force Lances are way too loud when fired en masse too!

Primary Beams... Well why would you want to use these as main guns. Lack of mods make them a terrible choice. Possible mods: Rapid Fire as well? Damage above Disruptors but below Force Beams.

Ion Artillery, Primary Artillery:
It's better getting five missiles or three heavy weapons, like three Railguns or Hellbores than either... Plus the research cost for the Primary Artillery is ridiculous, same price as Stellar Surge Beam. While there is a cool factor to use them practically other choices were better for me.

Generally there need to be additional mods you could introduce across the board, like continuous beams or pulse fired weapons in addition to rapid fire come to mind.

A Continuous Ion Beam might increase a chance to apply an EMP effect for a large cost (energy, metal).
Continuous to buff special effect?

Pulse Fire could halve damage but triple the fire rate, making it slightly worse than Rapid Fire. Could be allowed for a variety of the weapons beyond Turbolasers. I'd give a large energy consumption penalty to enforce better reactors.


As it stands now there's a lack of choice. In Master of Orion 2 none of the weapons felt redundant and had a purpose. Naturally some were better choices than others (Autofire Gauss Autocannons, miniaturized Plasma Cannons) but there was a feeling of progression. Sometimes the next tier of weapon made the previous tier a much better choice due to miniaturization levels which reduced mass and unlocked modifications.

[rattle]

In addition some the heavy weapons need a little extra to make them worthehile.

For example if Ion Cannons did status afflictions the chance could be increased for the Heavy variant etc.

To further elaborate on crew loss stunning, my trail of thought was that at specific rates like 50% and 100% crew loss (or thirds) a ship gets stunned for a single turn compared to an EMP like effect.


Would be nice to hear from Sven and Alioth about their ideas since a rebalance is planned.

[corisai]

Originally posted by rattle:

Nerfing Railguns might not be the answer, I think they're fine.

They're second stongest heavy weapon in game (past Hellbore, that cost 4 times more science), most production effective (dps per 1 production) and have best energy efficiency.

On top - they're also waystone to best light slot gun in the game (force beam).

They're are definitely need to be nerfed.

UPD.

OP a bit underestimate Turbolasers. With their mods they're strongest mid-game gun (except raligun). So if you're going to start "sudden" wars - research and use them may be very nice idea. Of course, technically better rush for railguns, but they're extremly OP now.

[rattle]

Mid game I actually prefer LA AC Coil Guns if I do not rush Rails and Antimatter. But these two are the most viable I found. Light ships with many PD Coil Guns can wreck Deflector and Battle Shielded ships quite effectively. Turbolasers become ineffective once you are up against Battle Shields+. Most energy weapons become rather ineffective. Even if Coil Guns do much less damage they wreck the hull directly and destroy components.

The Railguns are the second best heavy gun, that's true but the real problem is that the others just suck.
By saying they're fine I meant their combat stats are alright.

Heavy Laser: useless

Heavy Turbolaser: meh

Heavy Ion Cannon: like lasers

Neutron Beam: decent but can't do much against strong shields. I'm using Neutrons and Disruptors for piracy gimmicks only.

Plasma Cannon: enveloping is good but underperforming. Like a different variant of the Neutron Beam.

In my opinion it's the other weapons that are just underperforming while the Railgun is too cheap. It's so cheap and early in the tree it becomes my early game weapon. Even on brutal at epic pace it's fast to get. If you want to balance the weapon make it more expensive. Both research and metal.

[corisai]

Originally posted by rattle:

Mid game I actually prefer LA AC Coil Guns if I do not rush Rails and Antimatter. But these two are the most viable I found. Light ships with many PD Coil Guns can wreck Deflector and Battle Shielded ships quite effectively.

You aren't typed?

Point Defence Coilguns weaker then ordinary coilguns against ships. 1 med slot converted into 2 PD slots, so we're have 7.5 damage (1 coilgun) vs 2 x 3 = 6 damage (2 PD guns). Also PD guns have crap range.

And Heavy Coilguns almost useless too (except range), ordinary coilguns x2 have more DPS.

Originally posted by rattle:

Turbolasers become ineffective once you are up against Battle Shields+.

If we're speak "turbolaser" we're mean Rapid Fire Turbolaser (it's stupid to use common TL). RD Turbolaser have more DPS then any other medium-sized gun, except Primary Beam and Force Lance. So they have more then enough damage to tear through Battle Shields.

Even in heavy slots RF Turbolaser not that bad. Of course, completely OP Railgun have +/- same RP cost AND open OP Force lances, so ...

Only one more "good" side in TL (at least can be, but actually was killed by devs) - they may act as waystone to Stellar Surge Beam (oblibiously, you don't want disruptors)... but plasma cannons (by ion prerequisite) too and they lead to very good Hellbores.

Originally posted by rattle:

Even if Coil Guns do much less damage they wreck the hull directly and destroy components.

Against battle shield they doing 50% damage and still need to penetrate armor. With average DPS of 3.75 per coilgun (6.5 per heavy coilgun). Quite pathetic.

Originally posted by rattle:

By saying they're fine I meant their combat stats are alright.

Lol? All other guns are crap - except of Force Lances (opened by railguns). Even Hellbore is mostly crap : sure, it's stronger then railgun. But +80% damage after 434% research cost? It's hillarious.

Railguns defenitely OP and either should be nerfed, either all other guns (except stellar beams obliviously ) should be nerfed.

Originally posted by rattle:

Heavy Ion Cannon: like lasers

Weaker then RF Heavy Laser . Yes. "Balance".

Originally posted by rattle:

If you want to balance the weapon make it more expensive. Both research and metal.

It's actually very expensive in metal. 0.46 metal per 1 point of damage (for LR+AC mod). Only coilguns and pulson launchers (lol) have worse ratio (for upgraded versions).

[corisai]

I can say even more : if we will completely remove Railguns from game, weapon balance became much more smooth.

You will have very powerfull TL (but also a bit deadlock too), weak ion (but leading to plasma) and weak disruptor (but leading to neutron beams... still crap, because we don't have T2 neutrons, like plasma have hellbores).

[rattle]

Dunno I don't find RF Turbolasers all that powerful. Against early armor and shields perhaps but beyond that... I find (normal) Coil Guns to compete for quite a while longer until you face Adamantium Armor+ or Force Shields+

[rattle]

It might be interesting to see if AP RF Turbolasers in combination with a weapon that is good at knocking shields out is effective in the late game.

[rattle]

Pulsons with Anti Missiles work well. The Anti Missiles deplete PD and Pulsons hit for 2x35 for a single heavy slot, though the range is a bit low. They're good additions to put in missile slots when you have light slots available for Anti Missiles

[rattle]

Early to mid game Fusion and AM Anti Missiles are a viable main gun strategy ;)

Gremak Destroyer brings 4x4x8 => 144 dmg at 21 range to the table

[corisai]

Originally posted by rattle:

Dunno I don't find RF Turbolasers all that powerful.

They are quite powerfull (but nowhere near railgun OP league)

average DPS per medium gun

Coilgun : 7.5
RF laser : 11
Ion : 12 (lol number one)
Disruptor : 13
RF Turbolaser : 17
Primary beam : 18 (lol number two)
Force lance : 30 (!)

average DPS per heavy gun

useless past their range bonus (x2 ordinary guns will give more dps):
RF Heavy Laser : 20 (91% of medium gun dps)
Heavy Coilgun : 13 (87% of medium)
RF Heavy Turbolaser : 28 (82% of medium)
Heavy Ion Cannon : 17 (71% of medium!, devs - WTF?)

Originally posted by DiM:

Yeah, Pulson launchers are trully horrid. Interceptable projectiles are such a huge weakness compared to the benefit of unlimited ammo.

Theoretically they're extremly strong weapon for rush : 70 DPS per 6420 RP. But :

1) They're in dead end part of science (and railguns are not).
2) They're intercepatable.
3) They're short ranged (compared heavy weapons).
4) They're very metal-expensive (but energy&production cheap)
5) They're still inferior weapon to rush for. 91.71 RP for 1 point of damage for Pulsons, compared wih only 79.8 RP for 1 point of damage for Railguns.

Originally posted by rattle:

As it stands now there's a lack of choice. In Master of Orion 2 none of the weapons felt redundant and had a purpose. Naturally some were better choices than others (Autofire Gauss Autocannons, miniaturized Plasma Cannons) but there was a feeling of progression. Sometimes the next tier of weapon made the previous tier a much better choice due to miniaturization levels which reduced mass and unlocked modifications.

It's simply - MoO2 don't have such strict locks for powerfull weapons mods (like RF) and later weapons ofthen have nasty side effects, not just pure DPS upgrade.

More nasty side effects, it's cool! ^_^

Originally posted by rattle:

Pulsons with Anti Missiles work well. The Anti Missiles deplete PD

Definitely it's missed by devs. Anti missiless shouldn't being shoot by PD if used offensively, because no way PD guns have any chances to hit something as fast and agile as PD missiles.

You can study real world navy close range PD missiles (they're extremly deadly in point blank) or something like Aurora 4X ;)

[corisai]

Originally posted by rattle:

Early to mid game Fusion and AM Anti Missiles are a viable main gun strategy ;)

Gremak Destroyer brings 4x4x8 => 144 dmg at 21 range to the table

No.

Nuclear antimissile : 4 DPS per medium gun slot, range 21 (that's only good in them).
Fusion antimissile : 8 DPS per medium gun slot, range 21.

Only viable if you're using kite strategy, or have massive number advantage. In equal fights they're completely inferior to all, but Coilguns in terms of raw DPS. And coilguns have nasty side effect