Depleted Uranium Cannons to powerful!

[Tomgs]

How about the Phased-energy weapons? You can get them fairly easily while opponents are still using regular shields. They have a range of 6 at Phased Poleron Beam I and get stronger as you get closer for those of you that like close fighting. Ignoring regular shields makes these usefull against the AI that likes to get a lot of shield power. They do take some research but I like to get a lot of points in research so it goes fast for me. It only goes up to level 5 so its definately not a end game weapon.

[Saben]

First off, let me say I found this exercise rewarding. Secondly, I did my best to make the numbers right, and double checked my results in a few random places when I was done. If you find a mathmatical error, post it so I can make corrections and see if it affects the conclusions.

(Edit: blah, I hate fonts. Table alignment is off. How I long for the good old days of fixed width. Men should be men, women should be women, and a character should be eight pixels wide. Universal truth, damnit.)

High-Energy Discharge Weapons
Requires:
Propulsion 7
Research Cost:
Required Feilds - 345,000
Level 01 - 20,000
Level 02 - 40,000
Level 03 - 90,000
Level 04 - 160,000 (505,000)
Level 05 - 250,000 - Incinerator appears
Level 06 - 360,000
Level 07 - 490,000 (835,000)
Level 08 - 640,000 - Wave Motion Gun appears
Level 09 - 810,000
Level 10 - 1,000,000
Total - 3,860,000 (4,205,000)
Weapon Data:
Ripper Beam IV:
20kt, 50 damage all ranges, range 3, rate 1.
damage/kt per round - 2.5
damage/kt per combat - 75
6,733.33 research cost per point for damage/kt per combat
Incinerator Beam III
50kt, 90 damage all ranges, range 6, rate 2.
damage/kt per round - 0.9
damage/kt per combat - 27
31,000 research cost per point for damage/kt per combat
Wave Motion Gun III
70 kt, 140 points all ranges, range 8, rate 3.
damage/kt per round - .667
damage/kt per combat - 20
210,250 research cost per point for damage/kt per combat


Energy Stream Weapons
Requires:
Physics 1
Research Cost:
Required Feilds - 50,000
Level 01 - 5,000
Level 02 - 10,000
Level 03 - 22,500
Level 04 - 40,000
Level 05 - 62,500
Level 06 - 90,000
Level 07 - 122,500
Level 08 - 160,000
Level 09 - 202,500
Level 10 - 250,000
Level 11 - 302,500
Level 12 - 360,000
Total - 1,627,500 (1,677,500)
Weapon Data:
Anti-Proton Beam XII:
30kt, 50 damage at 1 to 40 at range 5 to 35 at range 6 to 30 at 8, range 8, rate 1.
damage/kt per round at range 1 - 1.667
damage/kt per combat at range 1 - 50
33,550 research cost per point for damage/kt per combat at range 5
damage/kt per round at range 1 - 1.333
damage/kt per combat at range 1 - 40
41,937.5 research cost per point for damage/kt per combat at range 5
damage/kt per round at range 6 - 1.167
damage/kt per combat at range 6 - 35
47,928.571 research cost per point for damage/kt per combat at range 6
damage/kt per round at range 8 - 1.0
damage/kt per combat at range 8 - 30
55,916.667 research cost per point for damage/kt per combat at range 8

Energy Pulse Weapons
Requires:
Physics 1
Research Cost:
Required Feilds - 50,000
Level 1 - 10,000
Level 2 - 20,000
Level 3 - 45,000
Level 4 - 80,000
Level 5 - 125,000
Level 6 - 180,000
Total - 460,000 (510,000)
Weapon Data:
Meson BLaster VI:
20kt, 30 damage all ranges, range 6, rate 1.
damage/kt per round - 1.5
damage/kt per combat - 45
11,333.33 research cost per point for damage/kt per combat

Projectile Weapons
Requires:
None
Research Cost:
Required Feilds - None
Level 1 - Free
Level 2 - 5,000
Level 3 - 11,250
Level 4 - 20,000
Level 5 - 31,250
Total - 67,500
Weapon Data:
Depleted Uranium Cannon V:
30kt, 40 damage all ranges, range 5, rate 1.
damage/kt per round - 1.333
damage/kt per combat - 40
1,687.5 research cost per point for damage/kt per combat


Conclusions
-Depleted uranium cannons
--89% as effective damage-wise, and shoot 83% as far as meson bLasters, for 13.2% of the research.
-anti-proton beams
--In exchange for 33% more range, and 329% more research, you can do 67% of the damage per KT against a meson target
--If you are forced match range with the meson target, you can do 78% of the damage per KT for 329% more research.
--If you get to chose engagment range, you can do 11% more damage per kt to the meson ship, for 329% more research.
-Ripper Beams
--If you can close with the enemy, you can do 67% more damage for 99% of the research cost.
-Incinerator beans
--60% of the damage for 164% more research. Packs two turns worth of damage into first shot. Useless unless you can cripple or maim the enemy on the first round. And even then, frankly, you could have done nearly the same damage with the meson bLasters right up front. You do 20% more right away, but is it worth doing nothing at all the next round??
-Wave Motion Guns
--44% of the damage for 825% more research. Packs three turns worth of damage into the first shot. That means, instead of doing only 20% more right away like the incinerators, it does 32% more at two extra squares. And then you can't shoot for one turn. Hardly worth it.
--Compareing them to APB12 instead, which is also range 8. 66.7% of the damage for 251% more research. Getting better now, You'll deal three turns worth up front, doing twice the damage the APBs can do at the same range. This is looking like a more likely and worthwhile scenario. The ability to pack in two rounds of damage into the first shot could be decisive. Is it worth the trade off of being helpless for two turns?
-Final notes
--Welp, I learned from this. First off, I will always go down the DUC tree right off. The slight range problem is overwhelmingly offset by the tiny fraction of the cost. Looking at the ranges of some engine destroyers, I see that the best beam varient reaches as far as my loved meson bLasters. Getting to ripper beams will be slightly cheaper than meson, and I gain some nice engine tech along the route. Coupleing Ionic Dispersers to ripper beams is probably hands down the most efficient route I can take. Gives me the same "Range" of peging targets, and coupled with the natural engine superiority acheived for going that route, allows me practical dominion over the tactical battlefeild. I will be trying this next time I play against a human.


[This message has been edited by Saben (edited 30 October 2000).]

[Tomgs]

Ok I did the calculations for the Phased energy weapons. They came out better than I had thought. They are the second best research to damage ratio to the DUC's and with its better range and special of ignoring normal shields they are a bit better for me. And as a bonus they are at range 6 at level 01 for a fast range advantage.

Phased Energy
Requires:
Physics level 02
Research costs:
Required fields - 150,000
Level 01 - 5000
Level 02 - 10000
Level 03 - 22500
Level 04 - 40000
Level 05 - 62500
Total 140,000 (290,000)

Phased Poloron Beam V - 30 KT Range 6 Rate 1
Damage at range 1 60, range 2-4 55, range 5-6 50
Damage/Kt at range 1 - 2.0
Damage/combat/Kt - 60
Research cost/damage/combat at range 1 - 4,833.3

Damage/kt at range 2-4 - 1.833
Damage/combat/Kt - 55
Research cost/damage/combat at range 2-4 - 5,272.8

Damage/Kt at Range 5-6 - 1.667
Damage/combat/kt - 50
Research cost/damage/combat at range5-6 - 5,800.1


[This message has been edited by Tomgs (edited 30 October 2000).]

[This message has been edited by Tomgs (edited 30 October 2000).]

[This message has been edited by Tomgs (edited 30 October 2000).]

[General Hawkwing]

First let me say that I appreciate all of you for looking into these weapons so throughly. This forum is one of the best I have been a part of and I look forward to engaging any/all of you in a multi-player game. My questions/comments are:
What about CSM's and torps?
Have you looked into the smaller Versions for the weapons you listed?
When all is said and done, balanced weapon research will win over specialized weapon research, (at least human vs human).
I believe at least 1 other person noted this, you can always steal/capture tech higher than yours. So please specialize your research and 'share' with the rest of us.

[Baron Munchausen]

General Hawkwing:

A much more interesting question about missiles in general (all types) is how they are affected by point-defense weapons. A flat calculation of "damage per kt" or "point of research per damage per kt" is just not going to be useful with missiles due to their vulnerability to interception. Against an opponent with no PDC they could be devastating, but against an opponent with maxed-out PDC (and lots of them mounted in their ships) they could be totally useless. I'm not even sure what sort of 'formula' you can use to calculate their usefulness thanks to this complicating factor. I've just got a general 'rule of thumb' that 1 PDC seems to counter 2 missile components and try to have that ratio when attacking someone who has missiles. I'm very interested to hear what our "researchers" might come up with, though.

[Taqwus]

Hrm. I think the fact that we're having this discussion is a DARN good sign.

I wonder if it's possible to have a ship-design tournament (excluding race-specific techs). Might be interesting to see what ships people would design given a tech/resource budget.

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-- The thing that goes bump in the night

[Commander G]

With regard to missles, it seems they are useful to force your opponent to research and deploy Point Defenses. However, they will probably do so anyway to take out Fighters. Large Mount Weapons are overkill for Fighters and Missles ignore fighters. I recently ran a simulation with one carrier with something like 3 point defense destroyers and a three organic beam destroyers (cannot remember which beam they had). They went up against a fleet of 8 Missle Light Cruisers (a design that the AI seemed to like in that game). My fleet ate the Missleships up for lunch, destroying missles quickly. The beam destroyers killed one or two cruisers until the fighter swarms closed in and took out the rest. Only one of my ships sustained damage. Of course the AI fleet was total one sided, with only Missles for weapons. My ships also had a movement value of 7, which I think is four squares in tactical combat. I was letting the AI fight the battle for both sides in Tactical (keept hitting end turn). If the AI had built beam light cruisers with point defenses, I would have been annihalated. I think the key to fighting missle ships is to have beams that can fire more than 3 squares (and fighters) so that your point defense have enough time to react to the incoming missles. I tend to think that 8 beam ships is better than 4 beam and 4 missle ships, providing the defender has Point Defense capability. Missles also make sense for Satelites, forcing the enemy to come in with enough Point Defenses to attack a planet.

[This message has been edited by Commander G (edited 30 October 2000).]

[LintMan]

This is all great stuff. Saben, that was a great idea to look at the damage/kt/round as a way to make direct comparisons between the weapons.

Some thoughts I'd like to add:

- This is all analysis based on the tech levels available in the demo. I'm assuming that some/all of these techs will have higher levels or more powerful replacements above them (like Wave Motion Gun replaces Incinerator Beams). Perhaps as you put more research in, past what's available in the demo, some of the less-useful weapon trees will blossom into some more desirable choices.

- What about emissive armor? I haven't seen much discussion about it, but I think the top-end absorbs any shots with 30 or less damage. I assume that means 30 or less from any single weapon. If so, the meson bLaster, which does 30 damage, may be completely ineffective against it. Perhaps at higher tech beyond the demo, the armor's absorption could go to 50, which would similarly negate DUCs and APBs and make the slow high damage weapons like the WMG, etc more appealing.

- Might the larger weapon-mount sizes change things a bit? I don't know the exact numbers, but for instance, I think the large mount doubles the damage, for 50% extra weight? And I think the heaviest mount quadruples damage for less than a quadruple weight (I think). Something like that could make the slower heavy-duty weapons more appealing. Anyone car to run the numbers?

- The big slow guns like the WMG and Hellfire also might be good when placed on stationary bases and satellites where you lack mobility to chase your target so you want to maximize your punch when you can get one in. For example, the AI attacked a lone starbase of mine, and danced its ships in and out of my range, so the slower fire rate wasn't as much of a problem, and the extra damage was a big benefit.



[This message has been edited by LintMan (edited 30 October 2000).]

[Taqwus]

Emissive and crystalline armors are one reason to favor the slower but heavier guns, methinks. A WMG will cut right through Emissive, and hopefully your target lacks the Crystalline Armor to regen more than 280 pts of shield/hit (Large WMG III)...

If your targets use shield regenerators or organic armor, with per-turn regeneration, you may want to do a *large* hit in one turn rather than battle the regen over two or three. ISTR that the best shield regenerators in the demo give 25 pts/turn each -- that isn't much for their size when put in a ship, IIRC, but it COULD matter on a station with capacity to spare, and I suppose there may be better Versions in the full release.

Also, if you can do enough damage to knock down the shields AND armor quickly, you may be lucky enough to hit a critical component next -- take out a Master Computer or Bridge, for instance. In that max-tech aggressive/bloodthirsty game of mine, I'd sometimes paired up CAs, each with a pair of large WMG III's and a Talisman; not too many, if any at all, of the AI ship designs had more than 280 x 4 = 1120 in shields+armor, which meant that the pair firing on one ship would be able to damage components immediately. If the victim lost engines, that could be enough to ensure that it *never* got within range to counterattack...

------------------
-- The thing that goes bump in the night

[Instar]

In my games, I usually go for Meson BLasters and AP Beams. Incin beams are good too. (However I also usually have crystal tech, those weapons rock!)
For me, researching MBs isnt too hard, I play a research heavy game.
In my opinion no ship can be considered the best.
Hey Ive got an idea
We can all design ships, post the designs and then have them compete, in a set of matches, under varying conditions (1v1, 1v1v1, 2v2, etc etc etc)
Im a beta tester so I could run the matches if you want