[PvK]

Ok, I did some tests, and the result is that one smart bomb, no matter what the damage rating, will destroy one facility of the indicated type in a single shot. This means it can knock out one cultural center per shot. It's reload time is three turns.

It does NOT skip shields, in SE4 Gold 1.78.

Other weapons damage facilities based on population damage, in an arcane system that I couldn't really figure out by testing. Neutron bombs are interesting because they do damage to shields, and then damage population but not the facilities, but since facility damage is linked to population, they can greatly reduce the amount of damage a planet's population and facilities can take. They also do so much damage that they can lower a homeworld's intrinsic shields pretty quickly (a few shots, depending on size and tech level). Of course, Planetary Napalm is rather effective, too.

However, I was using the simulator, which inexplicably set the population to 300M instead of the typical 4000M or so, so I guess that means it's a factor of thirteen harder than I was seeing for the non-smartbomb weapons.

So hmm. I am thinking maybe it's not utterly imbalanced, in the sense that there are other weapons that can also wipe out a homeworld relatively easily, if they can get into range.

I guess it bears further testing, thought, and discussion. I'm wondering if there is a way to tone them down via making them very large (150kT - 300 kT), range 1, reload time 30, max one per ship, and/or applying a negative to-hit modifier.

Any further opinions?