Opinions for Weapons Mod

[Lemmy]

i personally think phased polaron beams (PPB) are a bit to powerful.
maybe not too powerful but too easy to research early on in the game and the computer takes too long too research phased shields

i think it would balance the game if the low level PPB would do less damage and the research cost for the higher levels would increase faster, or maybe increase the cost even more, it already is the most expensive weapon (i think) if you look at the size and the cost of it.

about the nuul-space weapon or any of the other weapons which skips shield and armor:
do they also skip phased shield?

[Kemplarian]

Almost all of the shield skipping weapons go past Phased-shields too, except obviously for the PPB's. I forgot to mention those in my original post. I left everything about them the same, but I lowered their firing rate to 2. This left them in a very strong position against normal shields (still), but made it much harder to use them as an all purpose weapon. I agree, they were far too useful and easy to get in the default research tree.

[Lemmy]

quote:

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Originally posted by Kemplarian:
I left everything about them the same, but I lowered their firing rate to 2.

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that seems fair

[Suicide Junkie]

As for the WMGs, don't increase their power or firing rate: instead give them extended range.

In SEIII, they were that way: Big, slow, low efficiency, but they had the same range as CSMs I see them as a beam-artillery weapon, and they appear to be the only weapon that did not get its range increased from se3 to se4.

[Kemplarian]

I like the idea of increasing their range instead of the firing rate, which would certainly make them useful And different from the other weapons, but I would like to up the damage a little bit, just because of their tonnage. 70 Tons for their damage bracket seems like a lot to ask for something that is so high up in the research tree. I've found that it isn't feasible for me to research that line when there are more pressing matters (and in a good game, you don't get too much free time). When I need the high level of damage, I normally just put APBs on a larger mount--which can get you just as much damage as the normal WMG without the extra research.

SJ, do you think that the extra range would make up for these downsides by itself? Would you make a high speed ship that would strike at range, then flee (basically, a missile ship)? It makes for a heck of a picture--a battleship firing at a bunch of destroyers then running away.

[PsychoTechFreak]

A few days ago, I have searched the weapons report tables for the most powerful weapons, so I created an XLsheet to compare them. This sheet contains every weapon (normal mount, latest Version) except the unique weapons like PDF, tractor beam and so on, because nothing is compare-able with them. At the very right end of the table I put a relative range damage, which is Range damage divided by reload time divided by weapon size. I was a bit surprised about the results: Anti-Proton Beams and for small weapons: small electric discharge seem to be first choice. Maybe someone wants to make other comparisons than me (size/reload time), so I have attached the XLsheet, it's w/o macros. Hope this helps to balance your weapon mods.

[Daynarr]

Here is my components.txt file. I would post the changes here by there is just too many of them. Almost all weapons have been changed (except for DUCs and PPBs and some other misc weapons).

I believe you will find it most interesting.

Oh yeah, there are some new components here as well, like small phased shields, 10 levels of standard armor and new type of missiles.

[This message has been edited by Daynarr (edited 27 March 2001).]

[Lerchey]

Hi All,

I also was disappointed with the WMGs in SE IV. I am playing a game where I'm experimenting with them now. What I did was to increase the damage somewhat, increased the range by +2 per level (thus WMG II gets +2 range, and WMG III gets +4 range), and to ensure that there were some drawbacks to compensate for the damage bonuses I put in, I changed the rate of fire to 2 for the I, 3 for the II, and to 4 for the III. I also changed the amount of supply used per shot, doubleing it for the II and tripling it for the III.

I know it's a lot of changes, but in battle, they *act* like artillery in my game. The WMG III in a large weapon mount is just sick, but it has a very long reload time and eats a lot of supply (unless you have quantum reactors, of course).

It's possible that I overkilled them, but OTOH, they feel like a Star Blazers weapon instead of a big, dumb, slow, meson bLaster.

John

[Lerchey]

As long as we're discussing weapons... are ripper beams good for ANYTHING other than leading to WMGs? I've seen Eee dreadnaughts loaded with them, and they ALWAYS get creamed, even using Strategic Combat.

Have any of you found an effective way to use them?

John

[Kemplarian]

Nifty stuff, guys. I like some of the things that you are doing Daynarr, and some of it isn't that far from what I've been working on. I've been mixing around some armor and shield ideas too (which makes balancing everything even harder, but it's fun anyway). I've made it so that phasic shields are only one level behind regular shields as the research goes on, which keeps it from being an all or nothing decision on whether or not to go with Phasic shields in general. This also means that PPB could be useful or useless at any time--it just depends on what fleets your enemy is using. I don't like using intelligence to undermine my foes directly (it's too crass). I prefer to figure out what they're working on and then providing a good counter against it.

Has anyone out there already done some major work with ground force technology? At some point that would be really cool to get into, especially if Aaron has the time to make a more robust system for ground combat--I realize that there are many higher priorities, so I'm not in a rush.