I have to disagree on the whole PPB thing, for me they are definitly NOT the best weapon in the game. Major weakness is range, IMO the best weapon is the Ionic weapons, destroy a targets engines and he is toast, combine this with either WMG or Grav or Acid Globs (Mental Singularity also works, albit a bit slowly) and the ship is toast. I am in a game right now where my neighbor has religious tech ships, Talisman with Engine destroyers and a few Acid Glob weapons, in sim battles his cruisers toast my BaseShips that have level 5 PPB (they also have 3000+ phased shields, Solar Sail and extra movement racial bonus.)...
Not too fond of the engine destroying missiles but the beams IMO are the best weapon....In fact I think they are too overpowered, ROF maybe needs to be 2 instead of 1, and the Weapon destroying weapons are quite good as well, the major bonus of these is that they skip all shields and armor and just destroy their target, unlike Null-space that has inferior range, too high cost and just takes out random components.
Just my usual ramblings......
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"And what the hell would you know about sanity?" demanded Beatrice. "There are depressed lemmings on the edge of cliffs who've got a better grasp on reality than you have. And more common sense."--Simon R. Green 'Deathstalker Rebellion'.
"We are all...the sum of our scars"....(paraphrased) Matt. R. Stover-'Blade of Tyshalle'.
"Memory," the old man said softly, "is tricky. I have learned two things from it. One: That without meaningful memories, there is no life. Two: that we are desperate for our lives to make sense, to have meaning,--and at a great enough remove , all memory is malleable." -Michelle West 'Sea of Sorrows', SunSword book IV.
[This message has been edited by Deathstalker (edited 02 September 2001).]