PPB is the best weapon in the game. Discuss.

[Rich04]

Sure Dragonlord. Actually in that game PPBs never made any differance except in battles vs NPC,s. Phased Shield V's showed up very quick. The race I didn't give more details on was using Organic Tech which was maxed out so its weapons and armor helped a lot. Another race was using tons of Null Space weapons.
The biggest drawback to PPB's is their range. This will hamper them even in huge 50+ ship fleets. If a game gets to the point when efficient long range weapons show up APB's, WMG's, etc. PPB's ,though still powerfull, can be taken out with the better weapons.
Even Null Space (Which are fairly easy to get) will come out ahead once Phased Shields show up.(Though that fight would be messy).
I got out of the habit of using PPB's because they were so easy to abuse the NPC's with. This had a secondary effect. I got good at beating PPB's.
There are a number of good AI's people have designed using PPB's. Try playing a game without using PPB's and add a number of good AI races (TDM Modpack has several) that do uses them (and some others for spice). It makes things really interesting (especially if you also don't use mines). After a while you start to see ways of beating PPB ships.

I was curious. In SE3 the PPB's had an Achilles heel. Emmisive Armor could totally negate PPB's and APB's (except at point blank range). This would be hard to duplicate is SE4 because of weapon mounts.


[This message has been edited by Rich04 (edited 02 September 2001).]