Poll: Are Phased Polaron Beams too powerful?

[Fyron]

Shield Depleter and APB XII armed ships can slaughter PPB armed ships quite easily.

[cshank2]

PPB beams are almost useless against Phased Shields...

[Phoenix-D]

"PPB beams are almost useless against Phased Shields..."

I wouldn't say that. They only loose 5 points of damage at close range to APBs, and cost a lot less to research.

Phoenix-D

[Fyron]

But they cost like 4 or 5 times as much to build and maintain.

[spoon]

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:
But they cost like 4 or 5 times as much to build and maintain.

1.5 times as much, actually. Build time only slightly affected, since most of the cost is in rads. And APBs only cost seven times as much to research...

APB XII -- 400 min/ 120 rad - 1,630,000 research
PPB V -- 500 min/ 300 rad - 240,000 research

[ September 13, 2002, 00:32: Message edited by: spoon ]

[Suicide Junkie]

Heh, this again

IMO:
Phased weapons should be slightly weaker than the nearest comparable standard weapon.
Phased shields should be available early, with only a bit more research than normal shields.
Phased shields should also be slightly weaker than standard shields.

Then, phased weapons become a support weapon instead of a main gun:
By carrying a few phased weapons, you may force the enemy to use the weaker phased shield generators, and take advantage by bLasting away with your more powerful normal damage weapons.
You may not even need to have any phased weapons in your assault fleet, but if your opponent believes you do, he will have some decisions to make. Psychological warfare anybody?

[Arkcon]

Originally posted by Suicide Junkie:
By carrying a few phased weapons, you may force the enemy to use the weaker phased shield generators, and take advantage by bLasting away with your more powerful normal damage weapons.
You may not even need to have any phased weapons in your assault fleet, but if your opponent believes you do, he will have some decisions to make. Psychological warfare anybody?

Your method from P&N may be better balanced than the stock game. And MM maight want to implement it, or people could just play P&N. Like you said once, its fun even if you don't play as a pirate or nomad.

However, in the stock game, once you start achieveing 1 or 2 levels in phased shields, conditions are essentially the same as you suggest. You have to make some hard decisions on how to defend your ships. The difference is, you have to spend a lot of research time and research resources to achieve it.

[Fyron]

Originally posted by spoon:
1.5 times as much, actually. Build time only slightly affected, since most of the cost is in rads. And APBs only cost seven times as much to research...

APB XII -- 400 min/ 120 rad - 1,630,000 research
PPB V -- 500 min/ 300 rad - 240,000 research

So I exaggerated.

The biggest advantage APBs have over PPBs is the 8 range. APB ships can at times out-range PPB ships.