geoschmo et al:
Well, perhaps my wording was somewhat imprecise. You are correct that the weapons are somewhat varied in terms of research/kt/damage payoff, but from the games I've seen and played in, the players seem more or less pigeonholed into many decisions if they want to be competitive with other humans who are following the 'prefered' (for lack of a better term) strategies.
What I drew from Askan's post and from my own experience is that its mostly about Combat To-hit and Defensive bonus and Direct Fire weapons. Missiles dont even rate on the scale for the reason list below by Phoenix-D. The other weapons more or less depend on the stage of the game you are at and the amount of time you have to research rather than any real 'feel' of the weapons. By that, I would like to have seen more 'flavor' differences. For example, Torps that are monsterously damaging, but inaccurate. Some beams that could be extremely accurate, but low damage. Missiles could vary dramatically as well. Point defenses could have trade offs between range and accuracy.
I'm aware that some of these interactions are already present in the game, but generally not simultaneously. You have to focus down one path to optimize and that path will be the best one you can choose at that time. What I would have prefered is a selection of weapons down one path that would have strengths and weaknesses in relation to each other without the 'artificial' need to base it solely on tech level and damage/kt/turn.
Its hard to explain, I suppose, but I'd like to see more weapon be necessary for a variety of opponents. The little 'scraper' weapons might be useless vs a heavily armored/shielded rock, but could actually hit the fast little ships while the huge capital ship weapons could penetrate the toughest defense, but cant engage the small fries. In effect, you would need a combined arms approach.
In the current SE4, I dont see that. Usually you just stuff your hulls with most of the best weapon you know and be done with it. There is no trade-off in the weapons at that point. There is only a 'best' which is generally equally good vs all comers.
To me at least, a large portion of the tech tree seems unnecessary to be successful (at least on Medium sized maps...on large maps a lot changes, but its a VERY long process to play MP games on the larger maps). Most of our games center on developing beam weapons out the wazoo and going with the support of those weapons. No one goes down any of the interesting side paths as they simply dont provide enough return compared to players who 'go for the kill'.
Some other examples would be the 'Engine' techs. Every three levels you get something and the other changes are bare window dressing. My tech set added 'efficiency' at each level that wasnt giving a new movement bonus...ie, flavor.
Another example would be weapon mounts. In the base set, there is no good reason not to use the largest mount possible. That leads to less decision making and more 'pigeon holing'. I'd like to see a geometric increase in the cost (not size, as that changes the equation) or else 'to hit' penalties to make the ships have definate role rather than simply being better.
I guess that is my main 'complaint'...there is very little opportunity cost to most techs. They are simply better than the lower cost ones. IMO, increased tech should provide greatly increased options. But I dont see that here as often as I'd like. Generally, I keep the same 'decision cycle' and just the numbers change...eq, instead of a gun that does 30 out to range 5, it now does 35 and next level it will do 40 out to 6 and so on.
Hopefully that has explained my opinion a bit better than the previous attempt.
capnq:
Well, when I play singleplayer and just want to relax and 'role play' my race a bit, I tend to research the more esoteric techs too, but this post seemed to concern art or science in a competitive game. Everything changes when you are playing against people who dont fall for the same tricks time and again.