This is idea for new craftable multipurpose module.
Afterburner Energy Relay
Direct some energy from afterburners to weapons, increasing damage, but each shoot/laser “tick” eat small portion of energy.
Version #1
Cost 70 to activate for 15 seconds. Increase main weapon damage by 15%, each shoot/tick takes half of current afterburner energy usage (if afterburner energy usage is 100, then each shoot takes 50 energy). If afterburner usage is highier than base one (auxiliary generator, cruise engine), damage % boost is increased by 0.1 every 5 energy. CD 20 seconds. Can be turned off by user or forced by Ion Diffusion or Ion Beam Warhead missile.
Version #2
Cost 70 to activate, but works all the time whenever ship has energy. Increase main weapon damage by 10% while disabling afterburners, each shoot takes 1/3 of current afterburner energy usage. If afterburner usage is highier than base one, damage % boost is increased by 0.1 every 10 energy. CD 10 seconds. Can be turned off by user or enemy disable modules and missiles. Turns off by itself when ship is out of energy.
Pros:
Highier damage output on ships that have excessive amounts of energy.
Cons:
Reduced afterburning, not suitable for high ROF weapons (heavy blaster, pulse laser), balance problems on already powerfull damage oriented ships (LRF, Gunship)
Taking that much energy per shot would only make this module usable with very slow-firing weapons. Anything else would eat up your energy in a heartbeat. I’d suggest that it simply reduces your energy regeneration a bit (maybe around 20-25%) for the duration. This way you still get the effect, but you can actually use it. The damage boost in relevance to the energy eaten is also pointless. I’m not going to destroy my perfectly energy balanced ships for 10% extra damage.
Imagine a railgun eating 50 energy per shot. Like. No.
Pros: makes the first three or so shots sting a bit more if you have 999999 energy.
Cons: is completely useless if your RoF is over 5 shots per minute.
Taking that much energy per shot would only make this module usable with very slow-firing weapons. Anything else would eat up your energy in a heartbeat. I’d suggest that it simply reduces your energy regeneration a bit (maybe around 20-25%) for the duration. This way you still get the effect, but you can actually use it. The damage boost in relevance to the energy eaten is also pointless. I’m not going to destroy my perfectly energy balanced ships for 10% extra damage.
Imagine a railgun eating 50 energy per shot. Like. No.
Pros: makes the first three or so shots sting a bit more if you have 999999 energy.
Cons: is completely useless if your RoF is over 5 shots per minute.
Numbers can be adjusted. We have diffusion shield with similiar mechanic after all. Limits have to exists, for covops even 10% extra damage combined with Orion will obliterate any ship in seconds.
Diffusion shield noms energy with damage though, so it is controlled to an extent. This, however completely annihilates your energy until the effect is up or you cancel. I admit it would be nice to have a module like this that just straight-up boosted damage, but the way that it is presented makes it highly inferior to many other options like the Valkyrie System.
The concept is nice, but you would have to make a build evolve around the module to use it. It’s kinda like using the A1MA on an interceptor.
hum, seems pretty balanced for ships that require a lot of speed (interceptors and fighters) and would require extra thinking for adaptive builds. However there are some ships like LRF (as you mention) that have high dmg output or that simply dont care about energy stability when shooting, meaning into a great buff without cons.
BTW, the option 1 seems better to me (being able to activate and deactivate it)
It would be no cons for most ships using singularities/flux phaser etc due to low rof, fighters generally already have 100pt/s regen. Also not such a problem on frigates due to even higher regen. Use it on rf blaster inti though and you get like 8 shots and you’re out XD
Both of options allow it, but first one is duration based, second is active until turned off or run out of energy.
sry i made a mistake xD I prefer option 2 (no time limit)
It would be no cons for most ships using singularities/flux phaser etc due to low rof, fighters generally already have 100pt/s regen. Also not such a problem on frigates due to even higher regen. Use it on rf blaster inti though and you get like 8 shots and you’re out XD
You miss the factor of using AB, wich is the factor that most demands energy; using afterburners and this damage boost should mean that you would run out of energy real quick, therefore to use this efficiently you shouldnt use AB (or just very little).
About the RoF con, a formula based on dps/dmg per shot should make that different weapons like positrons and heavy blaster use the same amount of energy per minute over constant fire; lets say that you can shoot twice in 5 seconds with positrons (invented number) and consume 50% energy total (not considering regeneration), meaning, 25% energy per shot. Now lets consider heavy blasters shooting 5 shots per seconds, that means you would make 25 shots in 5 seconds: each shot would have to consume 2% energy to reach a 50% energy consumption at 5 seconds. In other words, each weapon should have a different base energy consumption to make this system equal on all weapons.