PPB is the best weapon in the game. Discuss.

[Rich04]

Dragonlord I think most of the people posting here are talking about strategic combat. Basing their experiences on PBW.
I ran your designs vs the designs on the recent 'Close Combat Ships' topic. Your PPB ship lost every time to CW's 'Ripper Beam Ship' and Taqwus's 'Null Space Combo' designs. <To be fair it did beat many other posted design's >
So it isn't even the best at close combat.
PPB's are also very vulnerable to special racial techs.
I am still unconvinced PPB's are the ultimate weapon.
On using starategic combat 'fleet tactics' can make a huge difference. I know this first hand. In a recent PBW game, I lost my first few engagements vs enemy fleets. As other fleets engaged I tried different formations/strategies. Eventually I found the right mix for my fleets and soon they were winning. Nothing else had changed, if anything the enemy fleets had the advantage due to their recent victories (experience). Fleet mixes were the same. Went from only destroying 1-2 ships to only losing 1-2 ships. These were battles with fleets 30-40 ships in size.

[geoschmo]

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Originally posted by Dragonlord:
* Range - not as relevant as you would think. Sure some other weapons have better range, and they'll get in the first shot. Then they just sit there for a turn or two to reload while the PPB ship closes in and kills them. Plus your initial shot probably misses because of the accuracy penalty of long range weapons.

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Sorry man, but you are way off here. Assuming equal ship sizes, speed, etc, weapon range is not only just as "relevant as I think", it's the ONLY thing that matters.

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Fact remains that nothing beats the PPB as a direct fire weapons measured in damage/kiloton/turn. (see table that was reposted). Plus they are cheap to research.

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Now here I can't disagree with you one bit. In fact I am even more of a PBB fan for early/mid game since I found myself in a game recently with meson bLaster III's facing ships with PBB V's. Doh! But if you stop researching weapons after reaching PBB V, you won't Last long.

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Plus remember that I am talking about Strategic combat, so no dancing in and out of range manually. And if your opponent has such a tech advantage that his *combat* speed is so much bigger than yours that he can shoot, move away, and be far enough for you not to be able to move within your PPB weapons range.... then you're toast anyway.

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LOL. Dude, you must not have recognized my nick here. I am geoschmo, or as some people call me "Mr. PBW", at least my wife does. Not saying I am good or anything. I've been beat more than my share. But all I play is strategic combat. I'm not even sure I remember how to fight in tactical. laf.

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* Phased shields? By the time I think an opponent might have them I just add some shield depleters to the mix.

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But, why do that if PBB V's are the ONLY weapon worth researching? You're arguing my point here guy. Puke does a better job defending phased shields than I could. I would just be repeating what he said.

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*WMG: see above. Not as good as PPB. Longer range (so what?) long reload time, expensive to research, and less damage per kiloton per turn than a PPB.

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I agree. the long reload time on WMG makes them almost worthless.

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Geoschmo, I'd love to take you up on that challenge.

OK here is a sample ship design (by heart, don't know if I used all space available in the hull)...

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This isn't even hard. I don't even have to try this one. Your design is almost identical to one I tested prior to making my challange. As the other guy says, simply replace all the PBB with APB XII's, and your ship gets toasted almost every time. And if you throw in a religous tailsman, it gets beat 100% of the time.

My challange is unbeatable by PBB. There may be another weapon that can beat my challange, but it isn't PBB. Sorry.

Geoschmo

[Nitram Draw]

One thing to remember about range is you must have sensors/experiance for it to be an advantage. At range 10 any standard weapon has 0% to hit if no other modifiers come into play. Also as pointed out below, he who fires/hits first usually wins. I'd rather have a hip with a lot of PPB's than a few WMG once you start taking damage. All in all I think PPB's are the best direct fire weapon to base your fleet around but you definately need variety to win consistently.

[geoschmo]

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Originally posted by Nitram Draw:
One thing to remember about range is you must have sensors/experiance for it to be an advantage. At range 10 any standard weapon has 0% to hit if no other modifiers come into play. Also as pointed out below, he who fires/hits first usually wins. I'd rather have a hip with a lot of PPB's than a few WMG once you start taking damage. All in all I think PPB's are the best direct fire weapon to base your fleet around but you definately need variety to win consistently.

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Correct, but the same penalties apply to the PBB. All other things being equal, if one ship has greater range in weapons, they will win the majority of the time.

I don't like WMG either personally. And I agree with you about PBB's up through the mid game. But they get passed up later on. And you will too if you stop researching weapons and stay with PBB V's for the rest of the game. Unless you can beat your enemies before they can get the better weapons.

Geoschmo

[Nitram Draw]

The thing with the PPB's and range is that in order to fire you must get within their range, 6 I think, so all direct fire weapons will have a chance to hit. This is where the other modifiers come into play. It's rare by mid-game not to have sensors, ECM, experiance etc. Those are worth more than the weapon type, IMO. You need some direct fire weapon that fires every turn. I usually pick one early and develop it to the max then when I have all the other thing I deem necessary, ECM, shields, armor etc., I research another direct fire weapon. I think it is a waste to research two direct fire weapons at the same time. There's to many other areas that need to be researched.

[Phoenix-D]

Nitam, be aware that WMGs have a +30% to hit bonus. So at the same range as the PPBs, they have a significantly better chance to hit.

Phoenix-D

[geoschmo]

I agree completely. You are better off picking a particular weapon and researching that as far as you can in most cases. And due to my testing in regards to this thread, and also my recent ingame experience, PBB's will no doubt be a priority for me in future games, if for no other reason than their relative cheapness in research.

I was simply disagreeing with the belief stated earlier in this thread that once you had PBB, you didn't need anything else. That is simply not true based on the facts.

One problem though with researching the PBB up to level five though, is that if your opponent is researching APB while you are researching PBB, you will have the advantage early on, but if you can't capitalize on that advantage, before he gets to the upper levels of APB, and starts beating your PBB ships, you will be WAY behind the curve. You will have to start over on the APB branch and have a long way to go to catch up.

Geoschmo