[Baron Munchausen]

Originally posted by raynor:
In my opinion, the problem with the current tech tree is that there isn't a significant advantage to researching weapons higher up the tech tree. Certainly, the Null Space Projector is an exception because it is great against Starbases that may have tons and tons of both armor and shields. But it seems like most of the other weapons that you get further down the way are seriously underpowered due to their low rate of fire.

Would anyone disagree with giving the Wave Motion Gun a ROF of 2 instead of 3, increasing its range by 4 and upping its damage by 50%?

What about the Graviton Hellbore? What happens if we double its range altogether?

The PPB seems to be the poster child for problems with the tech tree. But I wouldn't modify just this weapon. Still... I guess if you reduced the power of this weapon, then it would make the WMG and Grav Hellbore seem less inadequate.

Actually, I'd give the WMG a bit more range than any other 'beam' weapon and a higher damage ratio than any other beam weapon since it's supposed to be the 'ultimate' but then I'd give it an even slower rate of fire. Look at the cartoons it's extracted from. They spend entire episodes waiting for the WMG to charge up & fire. So, range 10, max damage of 280 (4-1 ratio) then increase ROF to 4 or maybe even 5. This would produce a weapon of awesome power in capital ship mounts but you'd have to wait 4 or 5 turns to fire it and you'd be pummeled in the meantime.

I'd give the Graviton helbore a new damage type, like Skips All Shields. It doesn't get a bonus to hit and it has a VERY steep range attenuation. It's worthless as a standard damage weapon. I don't know why the default races were setup to use it since it's a step down from torpedos. Since it's supposed to be a 'gravity' tech weapon I thought that skipping all shields would make it worthwhile for races like the EEE and Fazrah to actually use it.

The PPB could be balanced by increasing its size slightly and/or increasing its research cost somewhat.

[ May 28, 2002, 06:37: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]