Weapons

[General Hawkwing]

quote:

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Originally posted by Phoenix-D:
There can be advantages for doing massive amounts of damage all at once. For one, if you anniliate your opponent in the first or second salvo, he can't fire back. You are rather unlikely to be able to do that with PPBs. Paired normal mount WMGs will punch through 1 shield generator (max tech) in one massive blow. PPBs will take three turns to do the same. If your enemy has a lot of shield renerators, then that large blow could be the difference between damaging his internals and not.

Phoenix-D

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PPB's don't need to punch a hole through normal shields. So you take one shot over 3 turns to take down shields. I fire 3 shots over 3 turns and destroy 3 componets. WMG's play a bigger role if phased shields are being used.
I tend not to play "start at max tech" games, so my views will be based on having to research.

[This message has been edited by General Hawkwing (edited 21 November 2000).]

[Psitticine]

Keep the effect Emmisive Armour is supposed to have as well. One 40 point bLast would deal 30 points of damage aginst Emmisive Armour I but 4 10 point bLasts would be completely absorbed.

Without that, or with bugged Emmisive Armour , I'm not sure it matters except in that, if your target is hard to hit, 4 rounds would give you 4 changes to score with 1/4 of the damage and that might just make the difference.

Note that I'm talking about shots in the same round. Stretching out the damage over several turns is a different situation!

[Talenn]

Is there a bug in the Emissive Armors? We've found it to be generally useless, especially compared to its SE3 counterparts. Of course, its also FAR lower on the tech tree...

Also, does anyone know what is or is not cumulative in terms of combat bonuses? It appears that the defensive bonus for Stealth and Scattering Armor are not cumulative with the Ship Size mod. Does the same hold true for ECM? Is there anywhere that lists all this stuff?

Thanx,
Talenn

[Shepherd]

In one game I played Last weekend, I happened upon a strategy that worked very well. I went out and swiped as many ancient ruins as I could find until I discovered the Massive Shield Depleter. Then I just researched ship construction. I had battleships with a large mount MSDs and peashooters tearing apart my opponents. A little luck required, but almost no research cost.

This points to the importance of 'first shot power' -- if the first shot takes all your shields down, you're crippled. That's a hard factor to take into account, though...perhaps in your spreadsheet you should weight the damage of the weapon and reduce the importance of space and fire rate. With a formula of (Min D)-(Space*0.5)-(Rate*10), the WMG jumps to the top of the list, followed by the Cap. Ship missle. The PPB drops to #10...but its other abilities still make it one of my Favorites.

[James Sterrett]

Shepherd: by using subtraction, your formula essentially compares raw damage, instead of damage per unit of space. Not quite as useful IMO, though if you'd like to argue it's better I'm happy to listen. 8)

First shot power is indeed useful, but your strategy also depended on the peashooters to take advantage of it: it doesn't mean as much, assuming the enemy can keep you in range, if they do more net damage while you are recharging. (Shield replenishers make this more complex!)

I hadn't considered emissive armor.

Increasingly, it looks like the thing my formulae don't take into account is the problem of special defences such as emmisive armors and shield rechargers, which mitigate the effectiveness of damage not done in a single turn. That suggests running the formula without factoring in the rate of fire (as some of you have suggested; it's taken me time to see the light. 8)

If we leave in the range adjustment (multiply damage/space by Range/3), the Cap Ship Missile V wins out. 8) Ignoring seeking weapons, the WMG is the top normal direct-fire weapon, (the Enveloping Acid beats it), followed by Quantum Torps, Incinerator Beams, TK projectors, and the PBB.

Interestingly, when the range is removed, the WMG falls a bit; Enveloping Acid is tops, followed by Quantum Torps, Ripper Beams, Cap Ship Missiles, the WMG (6th). PBBs are 10th. IMO, however, range is too important a quality to ignore. Quoting Col. Viktor Babich: "The fighter with the longest weapons range dictates tactics to the enemy."