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Posted by: waresky
« on: March 08, 2019, 11:30:40 AM »

@Steve.
In Traveller and Megatraveller (@ Mark W.Miller) Mesons are a crucial weapon. Same a "Particle Cannon" but..in Spinal Mount design and in big Ships.

Meson in little ship can't be mounted.

For me..u can scrap entirely from the Game. Your choice
Posted by: Bremen
« on: March 03, 2019, 07:28:02 PM »

I don't think we need to rehash the thread. Steve said he'd already coded it and was going to wait on balance testing before any further changes.
Posted by: xenoscepter
« on: March 03, 2019, 06:34:41 PM »

What about making so ships mounting Mesons can only mount one type of Meson weapon? So if you mount a turreted Meson Gun, you must use only THAT type of Meson Gun on your ship. Would that help? I mean we already can add only one type of engine and only one type of shield. And while were at it, can we change that please? I really want mixed engines and shield types...
Posted by: Father Tim
« on: March 03, 2019, 04:06:09 PM »

Someone mentioned (in another thread) modding the VB6 Aurora database to reverse the Meson Size tech line.  The idea being that Mesons now start out as 60cm monsters that still only do one (unstoppable) internal damage, but slowly get smaller as you progress.  It makes meson-armed fighter swarms an end-game weapon system.

I love this idea, and I really wish it would become the C# Aurora Meson model.  Having to choose between dozens (hundreds?) of points of laser damage and one point of unstoppable penetrating damage seems much more like an 'apples to oranges' choice than 10cm Meson vs 10 cm Laser (where the laser wins 96.5% of the time).

. . .

(Though this might require removing the 'bigger Mesons have longer range' feature, leaving range entirely in the 'increased meson range' tech line.)
Posted by: Bremen
« on: March 03, 2019, 02:24:56 PM »

A 10cm laser would be superior in all respects against a lightly armored target. Mesons have half the range, so you're going to be close to or in the laser's full damage range. For example, against a target with 2 layers of armor a 10cm laser will penetrate with every shot causing at least 1 point of internal damage, while base tech mesons only have a 25% chance of causing internal damage. Even if you dump a million points into armor retardation tech, Mesons are inferior across all ranges and armor thicknesses to base tech 10cm lasers until possibly the very end of the tech tree.

They may bypass shields but would make poor anti-shield weapons because they don't complement other weapons; a mixed laser/meson battery is not as helpful against strong shields as either an all-laser or all-meson battery, with the latter only being situationally useful against strong shielded opponents. Microwaves are a better choice because they cause direct damage to shields.

Mixing lasers and mesons gets much more attractive when you consider you'll seldom be engaged against a single hostile target. If you have five ships with a mix of mesons and lasers, and the enemy has five ships with both armor and shields, you can fire all of the mesons against one ship and all of the lasers against another. It's still not quite as effective as all lasers would be against an armored ship or all mesons would be against a heavily shielded, lightly armored ship, but on average it works out better than either.

I do agree that the meson penetration chances are probably overly low, but I think we can wait and hope it gets changed after gameplay testing.
Posted by: Desdinova
« on: March 02, 2019, 10:28:21 PM »

They'll be niche, should be useful for fighters or as a counter to smaller vessels, they'll shred destroyers or anything without a ton of armour.

A 10cm laser would be superior in all respects against a lightly armored target. Mesons have half the range, so you're going to be close to or in the laser's full damage range. For example, against a target with 2 layers of armor a 10cm laser will penetrate with every shot causing at least 1 point of internal damage, while base tech mesons only have a 25% chance of causing internal damage. Even if you dump a million points into armor retardation tech, Mesons are inferior across all ranges and armor thicknesses to base tech 10cm lasers until possibly the very end of the tech tree.

They may bypass shields but would make poor anti-shield weapons because they don't complement other weapons; a mixed laser/meson battery is not as helpful against strong shields as either an all-laser or all-meson battery, with the latter only being situationally useful against strong shielded opponents. Microwaves are a better choice because they cause direct damage to shields.
Posted by: MarcAFK
« on: March 02, 2019, 05:07:57 PM »

They'll be niche, should be useful for fighters or as a counter to smaller vessels, they'll shred destroyers or anything without a ton of armour.
Posted by: Iranon
« on: March 02, 2019, 09:57:08 AM »

The particle lance will definitely be interesting. Note that you don't have to go with all options -  I'll probably field small regular beams for long-range work, and look at large but otherwise low-tech lances as can openers after which other weapons can find the gaps. Paying for capability you don't need becomes less attractive when a weapon has a chance to break down each shot. OTOH, microwaves probably remain the top choice against heavy armour - doesn't matter if destruction takes a while after the enemy has been render deaf, dumb, blind and impotent.

I see little use for the new mesons unless shields turn out to be oppressive. Apart from PDCs, I found them dubious despite all the advantages they will no longer enjoy. I believe the upcoming version will be interesting and a little weird - to my understanding, a great many mechanics changes encourage something rather counterintuitive.
Posted by: Bremen
« on: March 01, 2019, 04:09:09 PM »

There is also the new particle lance which I think Steve specifically designed as an anti-armour superweapon. So the correct answer for fighting heavily armoured battleships in C# may be as simple as "bring a big gun". Obviously you can't mount a particle lance on a fighter but I think that's probably intended!

While the Lance does have impressive armor penetrating abilities, I suspect that the downsides (large size, very low fire rate, high cost) mean it wont be worthwhile enough just as an anti-armor weapon. For lances to be worthwhile you'd probably want a fleet specially designed to play to its strengths (which would mean fast ships capable of kiting, and a focus on particle beams and lances as long range weapons).

Lances are a reason you'll almost certainly want at least some shields on your warships, though.
Posted by: TCD
« on: March 01, 2019, 11:12:54 AM »

There is also the new particle lance which I think Steve specifically designed as an anti-armour superweapon. So the correct answer for fighting heavily armoured battleships in C# may be as simple as "bring a big gun". Obviously you can't mount a particle lance on a fighter but I think that's probably intended!

 
Posted by: Bremen
« on: February 28, 2019, 06:30:23 PM »

The only use case I can see is if the enemy is using medium/light armor but heavy shields. But microwaves would be a better choice in that case because they can easily mission-kill an enemy ship.

Microwaves are a horrible choice against heavy shields, and good against heavy armor. I'd say with these changes mesons become the (new) anti-shield weapon, and microwaves will be the new anti-armor weapon (as I believe they still penetrate armor but not shields). I do kind of agree that the armor penetration chance will seriously handicap mesons against anything with heavy armor, but I think that was deliberate.

Having a weapon that penetrates shields and a different weapon that penetrates armor isn't necessarily a bad thing, either, since it will highly incentivize having some of both defenses on your ships.
Posted by: Desdinova
« on: February 27, 2019, 12:56:34 AM »

What role are mesons supposed to play in the game? I always thought that mesons were supposed to counter beefy, 30-armor-thickness battleships, but these changes make that impossible.

The reason is, each and every layer has a chance of stopping the meson, which the chance of penetration decreases exponentially with each layer added. If you have base layer tech, a shot has a 50% chance of penetrating layer 1 armor, 13% chance of penetrating 3 layers of armor, and only 1.6% chance of penetrating 6 layers of armor. A dedicated beam combatant with 20 layers would have a 0.00009537% chance of penetration. This is with base tech, of course, but it doesn't get much better: at absolute maximum level tech you have a 93% chance at layer 1, 80% chance at layer 3, only a 65% chance at layer 6, and a 23% chance of penetrating 20 levels of armor. And if you penetrate, you only do 1 damage.

The only use case I can see is if the enemy is using medium/light armor but heavy shields. But microwaves would be a better choice in that case because they can easily mission-kill an enemy ship.

My suggestion to make mesons useful would be to start the meson armour retardation tech at a higher percentage, like 80%. Or, make it a chance of evading the armor independent of how thick it is. Or, invert their relationship with shields: mesons penetrate armor as before, but shields are more effective against them. I also like the idea of keeping them as-is but making them rare, precursor tech.
Posted by: Lucifer, the Morning Star
« on: January 02, 2019, 12:05:40 PM »

The Holy Meson be praised!
Posted by: Steve Walmsley
« on: January 02, 2019, 11:58:41 AM »

Ya, I saw your post about it right after I posted this lol. That's completely understandable, for all the people w/ good intentions you can't stop the few with bad. Now maybe if you can include a way to return mesons to their former glory in the DB for us... ;)

Well, as you asked nicely :)

There is a field called IgnoreArmour in FCT_ShipDesignComponents (in the C# DB). As things stand, setting that flag to true for a meson weapon will override the new meson mechanics so they still ignore armour. I will try to ensure that remains the case. It's a manual fix, but there if you really need it.
Posted by: Steve Walmsley
« on: January 02, 2019, 11:50:28 AM »

Also, what's this? You joined the Discord?

I've been on the Discord for months, although judging by some of the content, it seems that everyone on there assumes I am not :)