Icrushthee

Join Date 03/2013

Why research lasers?

Interceptor weapons

The pro's and con's of each weapon was probably discussed in the dev steams, and so I'm hoping someone can help me with this. For now it seems that beams are inferior to kinetic and missile weapons for 2 big reasons; interceptors/guardians won't use them, and they don't have the upgraded prototype version. Additionally, missiles have greater range, and kinetic weapons fire faster (from what I remember), but do lasers have a dynamic to be used/taken advantage of?

I have no idea why I can't design, or at least influence what gear my interceptors have either. I can't tell them to ditch the shields if they're only fighting missiles, and I can't get them to use beams even if that's my best weapon tech. I understand if part of this was to limit micromanagement, but to specifically limit their weaponry is very frustrating.

If anyone can fill me in as to these design choices I would be grateful. Or just agree with my whining.

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Illauna

Join Date 09/2006

+84

Edit might be too early to release that. But I'm working on a spreadsheet to compare the weapons. But beams benefit from being small and highly accurate.

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Larsenex

Join Date 04/2009

+212

Illuana is correct.

Personally I research two weapons as the Ai does adapt and will counter you. By having two main weapon types you will slow down his ability to counter you. Lasers while weak on paper fire fairly well, have excellent accuracy and are mid range weapons.

Also interceptors do use them. In fact I think all carrier based drones/fighter use beams unless Paul changed the default load outs.

I primarily focus on Missiles and also keep beams up to the at least the same tier as the missiles I have Disrupters with Sparrow? ( the one after stingers). I usually also grab the techs that improve both accuracy and rate of fire for missiles.

My biggest question for developers reading this thread is this:

Do the accuracy modules for specific weapons techs (increased missile accuracy) stack with the targeting modules you get in the sensor lines? Also....Do the two targeting sensor techs one is earlier stack with each other, meaning is it 'best' to have both modules on the same ship to 'double up' on weapon accuracy? Same question applies to jamming.

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I never thought about it. Every game I just research each weapon equally. Same for armor. The AI rarely sends fleets large enough to worry about. The AI almost invariably focuses on missiles so while I do not focus on missile defense I add more of it than other defenses when make a ship design. From my experience the AI can't 'cope' with fleets using weapons tech of equal level and evenly distributed amongst ship designs in the fleet.Same for armor.

I agree with the above people that beam weapons have their uses just like missiles and projectiles, but the discussion, to me, is moot because the AI is so poor right now. It sends single ships or at the most 5 ships, all focused with one type of weapon and the type of defense for that weapon. Which is usually missiles.

In short, who cares? The AI's too damn easy for it to matter.

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For the most part it doesn't really matter because I can steamroll the ai on the hardest difficulty, but eventually this will change and I will need to maximize my firepower

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I haven't used carriers too much since I get frustrated with invasion hangs by the time I get to them, I start a new game. From my little experience, though, once you have carriers any of the game's difficulty is gone. One carrier with 9 of those fighters decimates opposing fleets before they get close to fire a shot. Is that true for you?

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I use huge hulls... So i got a lot more than 9 fighters. I had to use guardians (3 ships per component - they use kinetic) instead of the fancy interceptor tech (which becomes 5 per component - they use missiles). It was a lot of fun to see like my fleet of 4 carriers unleash something close to 100 lil guys with kinetic weapons. I don't recall the damage per guardian, but it was impressive (max kinetic weapon tech).

I actually lost several capital ships, since the guardians were a little behind or right next to them. Nothing got close to the carriers themselves though. I suspect if i had interceptors, they would have been in front, and armed with missiles, that I would not have lost anything.

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Quoting Icrushthee,

reply 4

Thanks for the replies.

Regarding interceptors, I don't think they use the weapon techs very efficiently for the most part then. When my kinetic weapons were nearly maxed out they would still have abysmal kinetic attack ratings, but guardians interceptors were doing great. Anyway, I hope we can somewhat control the interceptor/guardian designs at launch.

For the most part it doesn't really matter because I can steamroll the ai on the hardest difficulty, but eventually this will change and I will need to maximize my firepower

Keep in mind, while Kinetics appear to be weaker than the other two for quite a heavy mass cost, their rate of fire can be doubled with a relatively cheap upgrade, making them fire a whopping three times as fast as Lasers. You may want to research or trade for Targeting Specialization, though, since Rapid Reload reduces their already low accuracy, but they fire so many bullets it looks like Touhou.

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