I must disagree that the PPB is a huge problem for game balance. It would be hardly any problem at all if Emissive Armor worked properly, but even without good emissive armor it's not an over-whelming game breaker. It's real damage/size ratio is less than the APB, for a much larger initial research cost -- though by the time you get to APB lvl 12 you may have spent as much or more than PPB V.
Also, the window during which the total damage protection lost due to normal shields being skipped is greater than an equivalent amount of armor is not very large. Unless tech costs are very high or you are having trouble with generating research (in which case you are probably losing anyway) you will have Phased Shields not long after your enemy has PPB. Unless you get caught flat-footed with no shields researched and your enemy already has PPB V...
But as I said, that means you're probably losing anyway.
If Emissive Armor worked properly by reducing each hit even when the damage was more than the emissive rating of the armor the PPB would just be an inconvenience requiring you to use slightly different ship designs against different opponents.
If you insist on 'balancing' then I suggest making the component 40kt so fewer of them fit on a ship. This will reduce the damage/size ratio further but still preserve the basic damage rating so it won't lose too badly against Emissive Armor should it ever be fixed. I think that reducing the ROF without
increasing the damage would make it unsuitable as a primary weapon. You would have changed it to a torpedo then. If you do that then any race that uses the PPB should be changed to use it only as a secondary weapon and stick with a ROF 1 weapon for main armament.
[ May 28, 2002, 01:05: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]
Re: PPB Rebalance Poll
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