Weapon Balance?

[terrycloth]

I did some testing with the simulator in a full tech game (using baseships with approximately 670kt of armor, shields, electronics and point-defense), and came up with

Antiproton beams -> Phased Photon or Null Space (a tie) -> Pretty much all specialty tech (although I didn't get around to testing psychic or shard cannon) -> Antimatter Torps -> Meson Beams -> WMG -> DUC -> Graviton Hellbores -> Any missiles

The Antimatter Torps were basically tied with Meson Beams despite having a *much* longer development cycle (10 turns). I was thinking of increasing their range or their hit rate or both to give them a reason to exist.

Graviton Hellbores were just pathetic. Decreasing their reload time to 1 made them approximately as efficient as Meson BLasters, when by all rights they should be about as powerful as PPB or Null Space (I think you get them at the same time you get null-space weapons).

WMGs are also really wimpy for their cost (10 levels). But it sounds like people actually use them? Why?

Total research costs also make using *any* of the intermediate weaponry (except maybe meson bLasters) a waste of time (compared to picking up PPBs).

Ah, well. That's what mods are for, right?