Main Weapon Balance

Suggestions Balance
1

This is not about the weapon guidance, another thread about that can be found here:

[http://forum.star-conflict.com/index.php?/topic/21357-bring-back-the-guidance-system/](< base_url >/index.php?/topic/21357-bring-back-the-guidance-system/)

Though I fully agree that it needs to be reverted.

 

This thread is to talk about balance between main weapons types in their classes.

 

Feel free to call me crazy for saying some things, but please be specific and bring an argument. Ship boosts are not an argument, role boosts are however.(So Kris AE spread reduce doesn’t matter in this discussion, but ECM heating increase does matter in this discussion).

I know everyone likes different types of weapons, but this is how i feel them.

I have used each weapon before commenting on them.

Interceptors:

Plasma Gun:

Mostly fine,

A slight increase in DPS would help.

 

Pulse Laser:

Mostly fine,

A slight decrease in spread would help.

 

Plasma Blaster:

mostly fine,

A slight decrease in spread would help.

 

Schrapnel Cannon:

Mostly fine,

A slight decrease in spread would help.

 

Fighters:

Ion Emitter:

Fine as is.

 

Singularity Cannon:

Fine as is.

 

Assault Railgun:

Mostly fine,

Slight increase in Full Overheating time would help(So you can fire longer)

 

Gauss Cannon:

Fine as is.

 

Frigates:

Beam Cannon:

Mostly fine,

A slight increase in DPS would help.

 

Heavy Blaster:

Removing barrels would make it good.

 

Positron Cannon:

Fine as is.

 

Coil Mortar:

Mostly fine,

Though a slight decrease in Cooldown time would help.

 

 

 

2

Plasma Gun: Increase dps & spread.

 

Pulse Laser: Slight decrease in damage, spread is fine.

 

Rapid Fire Blaster: Yes, slight decrease in spread.

 

Shrapnel Cannon: Fine as is.

 

Ion Emitter: Slight damage reduction might be needed.

 

Singularity Cannon: AoE isn’t something the devs are experts on, EVERY AoE weapon needs to be revisited and remade.

 

Assault Railgun: Fine as is.

 

Gauss Cannon: Needs spread increase over time.

 

Beam Cannon: Fine as is, it’s a sniper laser, no extras required.

 

Heavy Blaster: Fine as is, maybe a slight increase in dps.

 

Positron Cannon: Fine as is.

 

Coil Mortar: Needs to be fixed to avoid that “locking up” bug. Friendly fire needs to be revisited for this weapon, as Guards are abusing it all over the place.

3

Oryngton, might I hear why you think those things?

Specificly the pulse laser, schrapnel cannon, gauss cannon, heavy blaster and coil mortar.

 

Pulse Laser: Although not bad, it misses a lot due to the high spread is what I have noticed, with a relatively short overheat.

Schrapnel Cannon: It isn’t bad as is, but right now you can miss a lot even with the first shot, and need to get really In-Yo-Face with it.

Gauss Cannon: Don’t forget it already has low DPS, spread would make it kinda useless.

Heavy Blaser: It’s DPS is fine once it is at max RoF, but the barrels make it really bad vs anything not stationary.

Coil Mortar: I rarely see it, possibly the “locking up” might be the cause of it though. And friendly fire was a horrible thing and I am glad it is gone.

4

Pulse Laser: Although not bad, it misses a lot due to the high spread is what I have noticed, with a relatively short overheat.

Schrapnel Cannon: It isn’t bad as is, but right now you can miss a lot even with the first shot, and need to get really In-Yo-Face with it.

Gauss Cannon: Don’t forget it already has low DPS, spread would make it kinda useless.

Heavy Blaser: It’s DPS is fine once it is at max RoF, but the barrels make it really bad vs anything not stationary.

Coil Mortar: I rarely see it, possibly the “locking up” might be the cause of it though. And friendly fire was a horrible thing and I am glad it is gone.

Pulse laser: It is the most accurate close-range inty weapon out there. If everyone wasn’t tanked to the hilt vs thermal it would need a big nerf. Fine as is though but high-frequency oscillator ammo in conjunction with ECM bonus might be a bit much (usually DPS is held in check by quick overheat but on those ships with Mk.III ammo you can hold the left mouse button down until whatever you’re shooting at is dead - that ammo might need some nerfing).

Shrapnel: Might have too low dps for the spread it has compared to other interceptor weapons, but becomes OP on ships that can mitigate the spread.

Gauss: Spread increase over time might actually be a buff to it since you’ll have an easier time hitting an interceptor starting to evade after you hit it with the first charged shot so I’m unsure about this one. DPS is fine though.

Heavy Blaster: Weapon is perfectly fine IMO, using it on most frigates. Any buff would make it OP. Interesting change would be to link turret speed to firing speed though instead of the current instant full slow as soon as you start firing.

Coil mortar locks up every time after you shoot anywhere where not all turrets can hit so it’s difficult to use solo when you cannot guarantee your back is covered. This needs fixing bad. Don’t see the friendly fire issue since it behaves like all other (aoe) weapons in game, you’d have to change an entire mechanic just for one specific usage of it.

5

Oryngton, might I hear why you think those things?

Specificly the pulse laser, schrapnel cannon, gauss cannon, heavy blaster and coil mortar.

 

Pulse Laser: Although not bad, it misses a lot due to the high spread is what I have noticed, with a relatively short overheat.

Schrapnel Cannon: It isn’t bad as is, but right now you can miss a lot even with the first shot, and need to get really In-Yo-Face with it.

Gauss Cannon: Don’t forget it already has low DPS, spread would make it kinda useless.

Heavy Blaser: It’s DPS is fine once it is at max RoF, but the barrels make it really bad vs anything not stationary.

Coil Mortar: I rarely see it, possibly the “locking up” might be the cause of it though. And friendly fire was a horrible thing and I am glad it is gone.

Pulse Laser: At its optimal range (not max), the PL is extremely effective and a heavy hitting weapon.

 

Shrapnel Cannon: Then get on its optimal range. I still get 6k crits on my Ricasso.

 

Gauss Cannon: Low DPS? You realize it can still 1-shot Ceptors, right?

 

Heavy Blaster: You still need to overheat twice to kill anything, so yeah, I guess I can be lenient of that one… Slow barrels need to go or have an increased barrel rotation from their current form.

 

Coil Mortar: I’ve seen it happen often enough to me for me to actually start complaining about it, so… I was shooting forward, for god’s sake, I wasn’t even spinning my guns.

6

Coil Mortar: I’ve seen it happen often enough to me for me to actually start complaining about it, so… I was shooting forward, for god’s sake, I wasn’t even spinning my guns.

I was a bit vague there, I meant I rarely see coil mortars used. The locking up is a big problem indeed, and very annoying.

7

I was a bit vague there, I meant I rarely see coil mortars used. The locking up is a big problem indeed, and very annoying.

Really? Guards abuse the hell out of it to get the damage buff.

8

Really? Guards abuse the hell out of it to get the damage buff.

I have seen the weapon used once in about 30 battles…

And damaging yourself just to get a small damage bonus…

9

I have seen the weapon used once in about 30 battles…

And damaging yourself just to get a small damage bonus…

Considering the damage is already high, that “small bonus” is large. Coupled with the Command bonus, you now have A LOT more damage than the baseline.

10

The locking up issue is really annoying, especially combined with a seven second cool down.  Trying to get a shot off for at least a damage assist gets you nothing for ten seconds maybe.  It still exists.  Fly from frigates in T3 and fine the attempted frigball.  There will be lasers, but they just don’t want something with better range than coil.  You’ll see coil mortars sooner or later.

11

I hate how lag effects the weapons. 

12

I feel the weapon balance right now is not so much poor, as it is poorly achieved. Some weapons are largely irrelevant, others invade niches they shouldn’t, and we should have at least one weapon of each damage type that can be equipped on all ship sizes(solving the problem of weapon choice in T1, and the imbalance of damage types available in each ship size).

 

 

-Plasma Gun could use some loving in the form of improved accuracy, since by the time it’s convergence allows you to take advantage of its range, you should already stop firing to let it cool off.

-RF Blaster is my candidate for the “all ship sizes” em weapon, and it should replace the Plasma Gun as the T1 interceptor/em weapon, but it’s otherwise in an excellent spot.

-Shrapnel Cannon could have its indicated accuracy better match its actual cone of fire, but that’s only a UI tweak.

-Pulse Laser should be more like other lasers and become pinpoint accurate, shaving off some damage if need be(though it’s largely irrelevant in its optimal range).

 

-Assault Railgun is my candidate for the “all ship sizes” kinetic weapon, and is otherwise fine.

-Gauss Cannon could have a better formula for its charged critical damage, possibly alongside removal of the 3rd charge stage(since 3 charge crits are the reason for damage ratio shenanigans in the first place).

-Ion Emitter is fine as is.

-Singularity Cannon should be removed and replaced with something that fulfills its role better, for example a “weaponized” version of the Plasma Arc, or something else that dosen’t kill interceptors in one hit as a side effect of being meant to kill frigates in a single heat cycle.

 

-Beam Cannon is my candidate for the “all ship sizes” thermal weapon, and is otherwise fine.

-Heavy Blaster could possibly benefit from a faster spooling time, and more DPS once it charges up.

-Positron Cannon is in every way absolutely perfect.

-Coil Mortar should be replaced with a more traditional flak cannon, that is, it should achieve its DPS via a large volume of smaller shots made at shorter time intervals.

 

Additionally:

-The “fully overheated” penalty of additional cooling time(currently 2 seconds), should be removed. It’s not really skill, nor is it fun to never use the full potential of your weapon.

 

-The inbuilt critical chance of all weapon classes should be either removed in favor of stronger module bonuses, or made significant enough to actually matter(for example, lasers 0%, plasma 10%, railgun 20%).

As an alternative, each weapon could have an individual critical chance/damage bonus, rather than being sorted by group, for example:

Gauss Cannon could have a base chance of 10% on account of charging up, but have a base damage bonus of +100% on account of it being diminished by the same charging mechanic, while the Assault Railgun would have a “standard” 20% chance for +50% damage.

13

The only changes I see worth mentioned to the devs would be the 2 second plus weapon type cooldown, and shrapnel cannon.

 

Singularity should lose it’s ability to go through beacons and static barriers, as well as it’s AoE damage to multiple targets.

 

Heavy blaster’s rate should be based in part on it’s overheating rate.  I’ll admit, I partially feel this due to a mouse that’s misbehaving so sometimes it restarts at slow which ignores overheat period.

 

For the rest, your views feel biased and I half trust the devs for balance.

 

P.S. I really like the coil mortar per shot damage for kill shots.

14

your views feel biased

 

That’s basically internet speak for “I disagree for the sake of disagreeing” as in, being an ***.

Of course my opinion is biased, it’s my opinion.

 

 

We both want to make the game better, so how about we start with a proper discussion, instead of a petty “no”.

It’s not a very constructive thing to say, especially that even as the person who made those points, I can still come up with at least one or two counterpoints to them.

 

What makes it even more annoying is that it basically repeats what you said in a proper fashion(botched grammar aside, it’s still just the internet after all) in the first line of your post.

 

And speaking of bias:

P.S. I really like the coil mortar per shot damage for kill shots.

This is based entirely on it.

 

Meanwhile I can support my suggestion of changing the mortar into a traditional flak cannon with the fact that: no other weapon is restricted to firing one barrel at a time, the unusual way it scales for LR frigates(gains usability on top of DPS thanks to more frequent shots), and the fact that, as it is, it’s high spread and low firing rate neither allow it to take full advantage of the explosion AoE, not saturate it’s firing cone with any kind of persistent damage.

 

Ya know, things like design consistency, improved usability, more cleanly defined purpose… Things a little more important to a healthy and enjoyable gaming experience than a guy liking big numbers.

 

Same for the Singularity Cannon.

15

Heavy blaster’s rate should be based in part on it’s overheating rate.  I’ll admit, I partially feel this due to a mouse that’s misbehaving so sometimes it restarts at slow which ignores overheat period.

 

+1 to that. 

16

I disagree, as someone who has never had any problems with sudden stops in HB fire, I always made it go back to low overheat for a reason. With your way going back to low overheat would actually BE A BAD CHOICE. And that I simply can’t agree with.

17

If you’re near maximum overheat, and your target is almost dead, you continue firing with or barely with LOS!  With heavy blaster, when do you choose to go for minimum rate?

18

i really do not have good feelings about gauss cannon… its damage is too low according to its fire rate and heating. 

19

eltazar…You have no idea…

It’s a very effective weapon in T3+, but in T2 it lacks due to crappy ammunition & slots

20

eltazar…You have no idea…

It’s a very effective weapon in T3+, but in T2 it lacks due to crappy ammunition & slots

well, its a matter of opinion, im a T3 vet and i put that sh*t away from my Katana… with AR I do much more dmg.