[Jamorobo]

Originally posted by Geryon:
Welcome back Jamorobo, to help answer some of your questions:

As far as I know we are working on the Gold Version of the mod, I am uncertain if PF and Val (when he returns) will plan to import any new additions/changes from the Gold to the standard Version.

The pulse cannons are a bit heavy in tonnage I agree. As to the weapons efficiency, here's what I can tell you. Lasers are correct in having longer range and more damage, most EA ships carry lasers in one form or another.

Originally, the EA relied on plasma and matter weapons such as Rail Guns at the time of the Dilgar Invasion. The Dilgar were the first to develop particle pulse weapons which the EA and others retrofitted into their own technology while other major powers such as the Centauri and Narns already had them. Plasma weapons are stronger than particle weapons but only at closer ranges due to the coldness of space which diminish plasma's heat as it travels.

Laser weapons were developed by the Narns from reverse engineered Centauri weapons and later sold to the EA during the Minbari War.

There are several EA ships which still use plasma weapons such as the Olympus and the Hyperion's smaller turrets (the large batteries in the front are particle). Most ships have been rearmed with the particle pulse weapons such as the Warlock, Nova and Omega. Still Lasers are used in abundance as a standard weapon in the EA.

The Omega and Hyperion both contain the X-Ray Heavy Laser (the Omega combining it with the pulse cannons on the same turret). The Warlock however uses the same Heavy pulse cannons as the Nova, adds missiles and torpedoes, reincorporated the Rail Gun and has the 2 forward huge Particle Cannon beams.

Basically Plasma weapons have more strength but are short range, particle weapons have longer range but are a bit weaker while lasers have both the benefit of range and strength.

The strongest weapon the EA has fielded though was the Light Molecular Slicer derived from the standard Shadow Molecular Slicer. This weapon was given to the EA by the Shadows to originally be mounted on the Warlock which was the original ship intended to have the hybrid shadow armor, when Clark panicked as he was losing the Civil War, both the hybrid armor and the Light Molecular Slicers were adapted onto new Omega hulls and rushed into service. This was a blue beam as opposed to the X-Ray laser which is red. The LMS has further range, more damage than standard lasers and it didn't require practically any recharge time as the Omega-X's just let them rip and didn't need to stop, recharge and then fire again like other lasers. It was suspected that the tech for these weapons were destroyed by the Shadows after Clark lost the war but in the series Crusade it was planned to be revealed that EA special black ops had in fact successfully adapted EA shadow armor and the molecular weapons, which would appear in a ship often referred to as the EA/Shadow Hybrid. So it is also believable that the EA still has Light Molecular Slicers in its inventory and might even have been fitted into later models of the Warlock as originally intended.

Good, it's ok i checked the site i tried to remember the info from and you are correct, np. Also i looked at a B5 war sheet of a EA Destroyer and the Heavy laser does have more range than a Heavy Pulse cannon. ( it looses -1 acc every 3hexes to the pulse cannons -1 every 2 hexes) This loss of acc is apparently how Val decided the max range of weapons.

Anyway i'm glad to see someone agrees with the prob with the pulse weps size

Are we going to keep Val's formula for weapons as they are and just tinker to improve gameplay (this includes adding some weapons to give some races more choice in what to use)?

Or are we going to start from scratch.

Apparently Val took all his specs for weapons from the B5 War game and did somthing to make it so he had levels of weapons insted of just the one. it this somthing we could contunue as it does give a solid bases for weapon damage and range to a point, the only problem is you don't get lvl1-10 heavy laser, only one type of heavy laser (i hope you get what i mean). So you would need some type of formula for each weapon (how it increases in range and damage over the X amount of levels the weapon has).

On a different note, the Shaddow based EA weapons are catered for on the mod allready arn't they. IIRC vorlons and shaddows have "Shaddow/vorlon based weapons" as a research field and the idea is the player gives this tech to another race eg. EA and with the tech and another tech eg laser weapons 4 and biological weapons 3 the EA player is able to produce the kickass hybrid weapon.

Anyway i'm off to download the Gold Version of this mod and the latest Version of the Gold se4 patch