Depleted Uranium Cannons to powerful!

[Jubala]

Am I the only one to notice with the 0.99 demo that DUC's are now so powerful as to render Meson BLasters and Anti Proton Beams practically useless? A DUC at max techlevel can dish out 40 points of damage while a Meson BLaster at max tech level can only deliver 30 points of damage but has one square longer range. Anti-Proton Beams at max tech level dish out 50 points of damage at point blank range and the same as the DUC at it's maximum range. The DUC is very cheap and fast to get to max tech level while Meson BLasters and Anti-Proton Beams are very expensive to get to max tech level. So why bother with them? Why not rush to DUC V and stick with that until you get Incinerator Beams or something? I think they need to be toned down. I also think the research cost for the Meson BLasters need to be lowered a little, but maybe that's just because I like them so much.

[Repo Man]

That was my initial thought too. However, if DUC level out at higher levels, but beamers continue to improve, then I would leave it as is. Players would then be forced to chose between a faster rising tech verses a slower, but ultimately more powerful technology

[Instar]

Used to be that DUCs were useless, I never use them

[Taqwus]

The main advantage of APBs vs DUCs in the 0.99 demo appears to be range at higher tech; by the time APB tech reaches 12 (Energy Stream Weapons), their range is 8, versus 5 for DUCs. But you have to take ESW up to 8 before you get a range of 6, even... 'level cost' for ESW is listed as 5000 (and you start with 0 normally, plus it requires Physics 1, 50000 cost), versus 2500 for Projectile (and you start at 1). DUCs even cost less supply per shot (2 vs 5 for DUC-V vs APB XII), but are more expensive components in terms of minerals at the same range (DUC V vs APB VI) it seems (300 vs 175).

Hrm. All this complexity is a balancer's nightmare, heh.

FWIW, I believe that the AIs seem to prefer APBs, so if you're looking for gaining research through espionage, scrapping stolen ships, or other hostile means, you might want to focus on Projectiles for a while and let the AIs bother with ESW.

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-- The thing that goes bump in the night

[Jubala]

Yes, APB's are better then Duc's, but only after a huge research investment. Meson BLasters can hardly be argued to be better then DUC's as they have lower firepower and only outrange the DUC's by one.

[Saben]

DU cannons do 40 damage at the top end, for 30 kt space. That is 1.333 damage per kiloton.

Meson bLasters do 30 damage at the top end, for 20 kt space. That is 1.5 damage per kiloton.

Conclusion: DUC weapons are less_ efficent than meson bLasters, with less range and less damage per kiloton.


[This message has been edited by Saben (edited 29 October 2000).]

[Klauss]

IMO Antimattertorps are weaker than those in SE3. In my personal Version of SE4 they will be a little bit stronger.

klaus

[Comar]

Right now , in a multi player game, we have an AI race using anti-matter torpodoes against two human houses and completely trashing us. If these aren't powerful enough, I don't want to see the strong ones.

[Jubala]

Saben, Yes it's true that the MB is more efficient per kT basis than the DUC but keep in mind that the research investment for DUC V is very small compared to the research investment for MB VI. Instead of going for MB VI you could go for DUC V and use all that research not used to get MB VI to get High Energy Discharge Weapons or some other nasty wepon. So I still maintian my opinion that the DUC is too powerful considering it's low research cost.

[This message has been edited by Jubala (edited 29 October 2000).]

[Saben]

Give me 24 hours to do a comprehensive analysis, and I will reply here with the results, either way. I will look at high energy, meson, anti-proton, and DUC weapons.