Weapon Diversity & Balance

[Demon]

Newby here. I've tried unmodded game, Devnull & Proportions. All are fun and great games. But it seems to me that weapon balance could be improved more. There are many weapons, but most are very similar to other weapons. There is no short range, hideous damage weapon to trade range for damage. There are no super LR direct fire weapons that do good damage but are very innacurate (think artillery). Instead, there are a variety of weapons that are generally pretty similar. Mounts tweak the weapon performance in the way I've indicated, but not all that much. Am I missing something?

[Demon]

I've also noticed that shields and armor seem to improve more significantly then weapons. The pay off to go beyond DUCs seems pretty small for the investment. Shouldn't there be weapons that are 10x more powerful, to make the techs feel more like your accomplishing something?

[Slick]

DUC's are good in the beginning, but there is much more to the game than DUC's.

Phased Poloron Beams skip normal shields. Use armor or Phased shields to block.

There are several long range weapons. Anti-proton beams are one of the best. There are others like Wave Motion Guns (huge damage, slower reload time)

You are correct in the unmodded game, ship based mounts don't increase range, but they do increase damage. But, there are mounts for Weapon Platforms and Satellites that do increase range. There is also Deathstalker's Mount Mod if you want mounts coming out the wazoo.

As for short range hideous damage weapons, Ripper Beams are unparalleled for Damage/(kt * turn); which is the traditional method of judging a weapon. This method does not take into account range, though.

Keep playing and you will see that there are uses for most weapons, either by damage, size, cost, time to research, etc.

Slick.

[Suicide Junkie]

Originally posted by Demon:
I've also noticed that shields and armor seem to improve more significantly then weapons. The pay off to go beyond DUCs seems pretty small for the investment. Shouldn't there be weapons that are 10x more powerful, to make the techs feel more like your accomplishing something?

Well, with the shields and armor, you're starting from zero, so the improvement covers a much wider range
The weapons start out fairly powerful already, and when you're researching a new one, you get to use the old weapon until the new one becomes practical in battle.

[Ed Kolis]

By the way, there *is* a weapon that trades range for raw power - it's called the Ripper Beam, and that's exactly what it does to your ships should your enemy have fast enough engines to close to range! 50 damage for a 20 kT weapon... now that's a killer! (OK, so it's not *that* much better than an antiproton beam... I guess you have a point )

[Raging Deadstar]

The ripper beam is trully undervalued now, it should have a larger payload than most weapons! I think along with shield depleters it makes a great weapon on boarding ships. I remember in SE II it was a much better weapon! Ahh the old days!!