Depleted Uranium Cannons to powerful!

[Tomgs]

Ok I did the calculations for the Phased energy weapons. They came out better than I had thought. They are the second best research to damage ratio to the DUC's and with its better range and special of ignoring normal shields they are a bit better for me. And as a bonus they are at range 6 at level 01 for a fast range advantage.

Phased Energy
Requires:
Physics level 02
Research costs:
Required fields - 150,000
Level 01 - 5000
Level 02 - 10000
Level 03 - 22500
Level 04 - 40000
Level 05 - 62500
Total 140,000 (290,000)

Phased Poloron Beam V - 30 KT Range 6 Rate 1
Damage at range 1 60, range 2-4 55, range 5-6 50
Damage/Kt at range 1 - 2.0
Damage/combat/Kt - 60
Research cost/damage/combat at range 1 - 4,833.3

Damage/kt at range 2-4 - 1.833
Damage/combat/Kt - 55
Research cost/damage/combat at range 2-4 - 5,272.8

Damage/Kt at Range 5-6 - 1.667
Damage/combat/kt - 50
Research cost/damage/combat at range5-6 - 5,800.1


[This message has been edited by Tomgs (edited 30 October 2000).]

[This message has been edited by Tomgs (edited 30 October 2000).]

[This message has been edited by Tomgs (edited 30 October 2000).]

[Saben]

I love the numbers on those Polaron beams. As efficent at max range as the Anti-Proton is a point blank, with a close range efficency outpaceing everything else short of the ripper beam. And it ignores sheilds, forceing your enemy to persue the expensive level 6 plus sheild research. Not to mention how incredibly cheap it is to research, compared against the other offerings for post DUC weaponry.

I think I have a new favorite.

[General Hawkwing]

First let me say that I appreciate all of you for looking into these weapons so throughly. This forum is one of the best I have been a part of and I look forward to engaging any/all of you in a multi-player game. My questions/comments are:
What about CSM's and torps?
Have you looked into the smaller Versions for the weapons you listed?
When all is said and done, balanced weapon research will win over specialized weapon research, (at least human vs human).
I believe at least 1 other person noted this, you can always steal/capture tech higher than yours. So please specialize your research and 'share' with the rest of us.

[Baron Munchausen]

General Hawkwing:

A much more interesting question about missiles in general (all types) is how they are affected by point-defense weapons. A flat calculation of "damage per kt" or "point of research per damage per kt" is just not going to be useful with missiles due to their vulnerability to interception. Against an opponent with no PDC they could be devastating, but against an opponent with maxed-out PDC (and lots of them mounted in their ships) they could be totally useless. I'm not even sure what sort of 'formula' you can use to calculate their usefulness thanks to this complicating factor. I've just got a general 'rule of thumb' that 1 PDC seems to counter 2 missile components and try to have that ratio when attacking someone who has missiles. I'm very interested to hear what our "researchers" might come up with, though.

[Taqwus]

Hrm. I think the fact that we're having this discussion is a DARN good sign.

I wonder if it's possible to have a ship-design tournament (excluding race-specific techs). Might be interesting to see what ships people would design given a tech/resource budget.

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-- The thing that goes bump in the night

[Commander G]

With regard to missles, it seems they are useful to force your opponent to research and deploy Point Defenses. However, they will probably do so anyway to take out Fighters. Large Mount Weapons are overkill for Fighters and Missles ignore fighters. I recently ran a simulation with one carrier with something like 3 point defense destroyers and a three organic beam destroyers (cannot remember which beam they had). They went up against a fleet of 8 Missle Light Cruisers (a design that the AI seemed to like in that game). My fleet ate the Missleships up for lunch, destroying missles quickly. The beam destroyers killed one or two cruisers until the fighter swarms closed in and took out the rest. Only one of my ships sustained damage. Of course the AI fleet was total one sided, with only Missles for weapons. My ships also had a movement value of 7, which I think is four squares in tactical combat. I was letting the AI fight the battle for both sides in Tactical (keept hitting end turn). If the AI had built beam light cruisers with point defenses, I would have been annihalated. I think the key to fighting missle ships is to have beams that can fire more than 3 squares (and fighters) so that your point defense have enough time to react to the incoming missles. I tend to think that 8 beam ships is better than 4 beam and 4 missle ships, providing the defender has Point Defense capability. Missles also make sense for Satelites, forcing the enemy to come in with enough Point Defenses to attack a planet.

[This message has been edited by Commander G (edited 30 October 2000).]

[LintMan]

This is all great stuff. Saben, that was a great idea to look at the damage/kt/round as a way to make direct comparisons between the weapons.

Some thoughts I'd like to add:

- This is all analysis based on the tech levels available in the demo. I'm assuming that some/all of these techs will have higher levels or more powerful replacements above them (like Wave Motion Gun replaces Incinerator Beams). Perhaps as you put more research in, past what's available in the demo, some of the less-useful weapon trees will blossom into some more desirable choices.

- What about emissive armor? I haven't seen much discussion about it, but I think the top-end absorbs any shots with 30 or less damage. I assume that means 30 or less from any single weapon. If so, the meson bLaster, which does 30 damage, may be completely ineffective against it. Perhaps at higher tech beyond the demo, the armor's absorption could go to 50, which would similarly negate DUCs and APBs and make the slow high damage weapons like the WMG, etc more appealing.

- Might the larger weapon-mount sizes change things a bit? I don't know the exact numbers, but for instance, I think the large mount doubles the damage, for 50% extra weight? And I think the heaviest mount quadruples damage for less than a quadruple weight (I think). Something like that could make the slower heavy-duty weapons more appealing. Anyone car to run the numbers?

- The big slow guns like the WMG and Hellfire also might be good when placed on stationary bases and satellites where you lack mobility to chase your target so you want to maximize your punch when you can get one in. For example, the AI attacked a lone starbase of mine, and danced its ships in and out of my range, so the slower fire rate wasn't as much of a problem, and the extra damage was a big benefit.



[This message has been edited by LintMan (edited 30 October 2000).]