Weapon balance

[Maxdax5]

Hey! Slowly but surely i am going up the stairs. Lvl 42, just got my sanctuary and while i was looking at all the weapons once and for all, i literally think that the weapon balancing is not existent. There is about 3-4 weapons (excluding missiles) that are worth it.
One first big error is that ship size give a static number of range instead of a percent. Making powerful low range gun better than long range gun on big ship. (80 vs 100 raw(25% more), then 140 vs 160 with dreadnought(15% more)). But that is just an addition to the rest.
"Charging heavy laser"/green laser is just not even worth it. It got everything less than "Fast piercing laser" but 20 more range AND IS 2 MORE SPACE!!!. I compare them cause i get them about equally. Charging heavy laser need a buff. Seriously.

Plasma cannons. They are even more useless than charging heavy laser! YUP! Super heating, very low projectile speed for a not that impressive damage. PLUS, it dont explode. For a reason i feel like it should.

Next is BEAMS. In crafting, at least it reduce space size by half but looting a beam... Automatically sell them. Capital pulse laser / Capital laser beam Are a good example. The beam one is just so much not worth it. It use 25% more space, use 500% more energy, 50% more heat, 5% less critic but has 11% more range and does 25% more damage.
I understand its instant projectile but.. I think its over-killing it a bit.

Point defense and missile. I never use PD but its because nothing threatens me to use PDs. Missiles only tickles and destroy the carrier for drones. To make proper use of PDs i would suggest missile to be more threatening. Drones are good as they are. (Very annoying sometime hahaha! Perfect!) I would suggest to add more small mounts on frigate and above and make one gunner operate for all of them.

Ion lasers.(not the beam one...) I dont use then a lot but i feel like they may be fine. I may use them on a support class ship to take out bosses.

Vulcan are great. Dont feel OP nor bad.

Healing seems ok although i think there should be rare special ones. Same for Mining.

Cannons are great too. They feel well balanced. Not OP nor bad.

Red lasers / Fast piercing laser are great.

[phoenix_54d]

Now your original point is correct; weapons aren't entirely balanced yet and Laious is waiting for the addition of several other mechanics before hitting balance there (including a major crafting update).

However although your instincts caught onto an issue correctly, your understanding of the weapons themselves is a bit lacking right now:

• Static range bonuses are a huge buff on larger ships. The intent is to ensure point defenses and other short weapons are not incapable of reaching across your own hull on their longer angles, but the actual effect is that at other angles they'll reach even further.
  This much is intended - a Capital II has no need to double itself, but even +50% would only be +15 to a non-purple point laser (like crafted ones). Additionally you can get % boosting crew and weapon range% may be a selectable ship rarity upgrade later on (like I said; there's mechanics not yet in)
  
• Charging lasers and Fast Piercing aren't all that great but are mostly used by NPCs; they're not much good on player ships as you've noticed, so it'll take a balance pass later, but they're prone to annoyingly pointy criticals especially if you or a fleet ship are in a lighter vessel, forcing you to make sure you know damn well WHAT sort of green or red is actually shooting at you.
  
• Plasma can be built to explode. Crafting may be incomplete but it does allow some recipes that can fit your ship's needs quite well. Plasma is slow but long range and thus gains ridiculous momentum from your own ship; something with good mobility can easily lob these things over a screen away with some jousting.
  
• Beams are powerful. Smaller ships have trouble with the heat, and capital beams (which are common on Ravagers and are equipped on many high level stations) are long range, high power affairs that do not mesh well with anything smaller than a cruiser on the player side... But if you've got high grade equipment and a good ship, you may very well be able to use them if you wish. Not as good as a large stack of smaller beams up close, but much longer ranged. Lighter beams like the Medium Laser Beam and Improved Laser Beam do good work though you can craft something more suited to your ship, and Mining Beams have good scaling for their efficiency if you have flat range bonuses.
  
• Point Defense are not merely defensive. They are energy and heat efficient and take up half the space for their lower range and damage. Some veteran players use point weapons as their primary offensive means.
  
• Missiles generate no heat and require no power, letting your equipment space go to other things. They have long range though slow, and can be crafted for decent results since you can stack those things up even on just one hardpoint.
  Peacemakers are particularly nasty; a better-than-current-crafting combination of damage and ammo use - sometimes enemy yachts like Dragons can spawn with a pair of those launchers for something that's in no way a tickle.
  
• Just to point out; most of us find Drones currently quite underwhelming, though they're about to get a bit of buff.
  
• Vulcans most of us consider a bit too weak in endgame, but are always a rough thing to deal with (especially very heavy ones such as on Cerberi) in smaller ships. If you use Energy Armor they can be a significant threat, but against most larger ships or those with good DR or hull regen, vulcans are pretty fail, and their range is short for that projectile speed.

[WeaverSong]

So a couple things I will say:
1. While store-bought plasmas aren't that great, you can craft some pretty amazing ones. I've used them a little, but I've also seen Zarinthal stream with some amazing plasma builds.

2. Beams. Here I think you are under-appreciating the hitscan ability, especially when compared to small craft. Even with no damage boost they would still be used in some cases as an anti-fighter weapon. The most dramatic example is when facing a Lacewing, and with Beams vs. Plasma. While you can easily make a plasma that could one-shot the lacewing, over 90% of your plasma's will never hit - a half-decent lacewing pilot could easily dodge your entire bombardment, while tearing you apart. Equip beams, however, and it becomes impossible for the lacewing - anywhere within your far greater range and they will be torn apart with no hope of dodging. Even when it comes to AI they can be useful - against, for example, the gold-star shuttles in hunter swarms; at high levels these shuttles are always moving, very quickly - even with fast weapons it can be hard to hit them, whereas a beam will simply lock on and start ripping into them; no accuracy problems at all.

[Moon-Shadow]

Plasma only explodes if you build it yourself, and add Exploding, and "Time".

Then it becomes Flak Plasma, and it explodes wherever you point.

Since I don't know how aiming with a gamepad works, I don't know whether you can use Flak Plasma specifically.

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Supplement to Flak Plasma

And when you have found "Ziggy" through the quest, and you put him in a tower or a weapon with such a self-made Flak Plasma, and depending on the ship and self-made weapon, and his special skill, that causes a lot of damage.

It's a shame that only yachts and corvettes have space for a co-pilot, as these ships count for all weapons, larger ships only Weapon or Turret space.

---

And most of the finished weapons are not that good anyway, homemade ones are always better, with the exception of a few that cannot be built yet.

Because the finished ones that exist so far are made differently than those that you can build yourself.

[Qiox]

I know Ion Beams are not that popular but I find them extremely effective for the particular build I've been playing recently and that is an end game Ravager Boss killer.

I have 4 crafted Overload Ion Beams on my Sanctuary and they drain a total of 2444 Energy per second. With that, it turns off all the Boss's beam weapons making them harmless. Same with any stations I attack. They fire for a couple seconds then all their weapons turn off and they just sit there doing nothing.

They can still fire any burst weapons they have, but those can't come close to overcoming my 500+ hull regen per tick.

And as mentioned above, the accuracy of beams is their strong point. The displayed dps on the weapon is the actual dps because they don't miss anything that is in range. Oh, and I have a Gunner with +60% range, and don't normally use him on the main weapon. But I did check it out and he boosts the range on the Mark 2 Station Beam to over 350, which is all the way off screen. And the 1 space PD weapons on my setup are a little over 300 dps each which easily kills all the adds that like to buzz around while I focus on the Ravager.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2551370271

[Cyanmurder]

I just use two burst missile launchers thats it. Its very fast and 12 missiles total. Usually kill anything in 1 or 2 volley. Its fully upgraded.

[Moon-Shadow]

And in the long run costs more money than the money from the Kill brings.

And you were probably lucky that it was always enough, so there was always enough through the defense lasers.

Since I have already seen opponents the missiles, no matter how many there are, make it go faster than you can fire them yourself, so that you also need something other than missiles.

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And how are these 2 missile launchers built, that they should be so Super, and what is the size of this launchers. ?

[MrPurple33]

Originally posted by SUPERFLY:

I just use two burst missile launchers thats it. Its very fast and 12 missiles total. Usually kill anything in 1 or 2 volley. Its fully upgraded.

Very new player here, 1st playthrough, Level 16, and I concur about missiles
Easy and cheap to craft for great effect, on my (new) Valor mk III I have 5 weapon mounts
1 Mining Laser (to get cash)
2 Purple Rapid Fire Lasers (so-so damage, but constant fire and nice firing sound)
2 Simple Missle Launchers with 3 shot burst- yes, that's all- small warhead/explode/3 burst
I can do 2 at a time, or a NICE 6 missile barrage unload, dodge, and make another pass- my small pack of 3 Valors can take out a Frigate pretty fast, with my 2 Fleet Escorts only having single shot missiles- one at a time (ammo/cost control) and me having aimed salvos of 2-6

[Red Wizard]

Qiox, what does your equipment loadout look like? How did you get to 21k armor?

[phoenix_54d]

Big ships, plus perks, plus captain skills (there's one over in combat), and the multipliers from high quality armors can all stack the HPs.

You can also fit hull reinforcements, which a no-shield dread build will often do as higher hull directly buffs the regen rates as those are % based.

[Qiox]

Originally posted by talik:

Qiox, what does your equipment loadout look like? How did you get to 21k armor?

Like this:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2551370324

[Red Wizard]

Wow. That's intense. Is Sanctuary your favorite endgame ship?

[stretch]

I don't bother with armour. I go shields with damage absorb and almost nothing hurts you. Unless they are packing the vulcans you can kill 55 bosses without taking one iota of damage. Vulcans on bosses are pretty uncommon. Obviously you can go full armour since @Quix shows but don't dismiss shields.