Posted by: Shadow
« on: March 03, 2010, 08:18:50 PM »So, do mesons get stopped by internal armour or not?
Don't mesons get stopped by internal armor?
Also, i find shields to be useful even at the low tech. There comes a point that low tech shields are lighter and cheaper then another layer of armor.
Their max speed is 10,000 km/s. It is possible your tac intel is incorrect. Try resetting it for the ship class in question.Quote from: "Steve Walmsley"Quote from: "darkevilme"Seriously this the opinion i've come to regarding them from recent experience in the game. Skipping shields AND armour AND they're the only non missile weapon to fire through atmospheres? Missiles you can shoot down and the damned things are expensive as hell, beams you can stop with shields and armour. But Mesons? no counter, unbalanced as all hell in comparison to other beams.The problem for mesons is that they are very short-ranged and low damage. If you are fighting a meson-armed opponent, design ships that have no armour and shields but are fast or well-armed. If you are faster, meson-armed ships are pretty much toast against any other weapon system. Even if you are slower, they have to close through a missile envelope or the envelope of heavier beam weapons.
Steve
Okay i've run into these things in two different games and they're insane. Same format, 800 ton gunboats with mesons in squadrons of eight to eighty. Also despite multiple research projects upping laser wavelength to ultraviolet/soft ex ray i did not witness any significant lower range in my enemies. Missiles could hit them from outside their beams range true but the damned things took 3 missile to the face and didnt even slow down. Speaking of their speed like hell can i outrun these things, intelligence reported speeds of FIFTY thousand kilometers a second. What hellish nightmare have you put in this game Steve?
Quote from: "Steve Walmsley"Quote from: "darkevilme"Seriously this the opinion i've come to regarding them from recent experience in the game. Skipping shields AND armour AND they're the only non missile weapon to fire through atmospheres? Missiles you can shoot down and the damned things are expensive as hell, beams you can stop with shields and armour. But Mesons? no counter, unbalanced as all hell in comparison to other beams.The problem for mesons is that they are very short-ranged and low damage. If you are fighting a meson-armed opponent, design ships that have no armour and shields but are fast or well-armed. If you are faster, meson-armed ships are pretty much toast against any other weapon system. Even if you are slower, they have to close through a missile envelope or the envelope of heavier beam weapons.
Steve
Okay i've run into these things in two different games and they're insane. Same format, 800 ton gunboats with mesons in squadrons of eight to eighty. Also despite multiple research projects upping laser wavelength to ultraviolet/soft ex ray i did not witness any significant lower range in my enemies. Missiles could hit them from outside their beams range true but the damned things took 3 missile to the face and didnt even slow down. Speaking of their speed like hell can i outrun these things, intelligence reported speeds of FIFTY thousand kilometers a second. What hellish nightmare have you put in this game Steve?
Quote from: "darkevilme"Seriously this the opinion i've come to regarding them from recent experience in the game. Skipping shields AND armour AND they're the only non missile weapon to fire through atmospheres? Missiles you can shoot down and the damned things are expensive as hell, beams you can stop with shields and armour. But Mesons? no counter, unbalanced as all hell in comparison to other beams.The problem for mesons is that they are very short-ranged and low damage. If you are fighting a meson-armed opponent, design ships that have no armour and shields but are fast or well-armed. If you are faster, meson-armed ships are pretty much toast against any other weapon system. Even if you are slower, they have to close through a missile envelope or the envelope of heavier beam weapons.
Steve
Quote from: "Steve Walmsley"Quote from: "Brian"In response to the coment above about shields being under powered compared to armour, I actually have to disagree. LOW tech shields are pathetic. By about the point that shields give 3 points per hull space they become fairly usefull. At higher techs they are very effective at preventing damage from attacks that are not concentrated. If the engagement is at long range, the percentage of hits for beam weapons is fairly low, and even small ships are able to regenerate a couple of points of shields between each salvo. This adds up to a lot of damage that never gets through to the armour. With incomming missile attacks, if the defenses can thin out the strike so only a few missiles get through each time, then the shields do the same thing. Against someone able to get massive attacks through shields are much less usefull, but against fairly equal oponents they can be crucial. I have play tested this a couple of times fighting myself with equal tech and size fleets and this was the result.This is actually my experience as well. I usually start using shields around the third or fourth tech level. I don't bother with the low tech shields. Perhaps one option is to simply skip the low level shields and start them at the current third level. I would replace the first couple of levels with a generic Shield Technology tech that costs about the same as the first two levels in total.
Steve
I generally use shields even a lower levels because if the ship without shields takes any damage it must return to a shipyard for repairs to be 100% again. I think they are useful for that reason alone.
Kurt
Quote from: "Brian"In response to the coment above about shields being under powered compared to armour, I actually have to disagree. LOW tech shields are pathetic. By about the point that shields give 3 points per hull space they become fairly usefull. At higher techs they are very effective at preventing damage from attacks that are not concentrated. If the engagement is at long range, the percentage of hits for beam weapons is fairly low, and even small ships are able to regenerate a couple of points of shields between each salvo. This adds up to a lot of damage that never gets through to the armour. With incomming missile attacks, if the defenses can thin out the strike so only a few missiles get through each time, then the shields do the same thing. Against someone able to get massive attacks through shields are much less usefull, but against fairly equal oponents they can be crucial. I have play tested this a couple of times fighting myself with equal tech and size fleets and this was the result.This is actually my experience as well. I usually start using shields around the third or fourth tech level. I don't bother with the low tech shields. Perhaps one option is to simply skip the low level shields and start them at the current third level. I would replace the first couple of levels with a generic Shield Technology tech that costs about the same as the first two levels in total.
Steve
In response to the coment above about shields being under powered compared to armour, I actually have to disagree. LOW tech shields are pathetic. By about the point that shields give 3 points per hull space they become fairly usefull. At higher techs they are very effective at preventing damage from attacks that are not concentrated. If the engagement is at long range, the percentage of hits for beam weapons is fairly low, and even small ships are able to regenerate a couple of points of shields between each salvo. This adds up to a lot of damage that never gets through to the armour. With incomming missile attacks, if the defenses can thin out the strike so only a few missiles get through each time, then the shields do the same thing. Against someone able to get massive attacks through shields are much less usefull, but against fairly equal oponents they can be crucial. I have play tested this a couple of times fighting myself with equal tech and size fleets and this was the result.This is actually my experience as well. I usually start using shields around the third or fourth tech level. I don't bother with the low tech shields. Perhaps one option is to simply skip the low level shields and start them at the current third level. I would replace the first couple of levels with a generic Shield Technology tech that costs about the same as the first two levels in total.
If I recall correctly, electronic hardening functions to reduce the effects of meson cannons. And I think high power microwave as well. No, it's not armor, but it's better than nothing. I'll admit, until I incountered the Star Swarm, I usually skip that series of research tech.I would double check with Steve, but IIRC the hardening does nothing against mesons.
Hmmm...there could be some justification to arguing that shields should stop them, while armor would not. That would give a boost to shields, a system that I think is underpowered compared to armor since armor's last revision.I agree that shields are underpowered compared to armour, especially at lower tech levels. That is something I intend to address, as well as looking at different types of shields.
Seriously this the opinion i've come to regarding them from recent experience in the game. Skipping shields AND armour AND they're the only non missile weapon to fire through atmospheres? Missiles you can shoot down and the damned things are expensive as hell, beams you can stop with shields and armour. But Mesons? no counter, unbalanced as all hell in comparison to other beams.The problem for mesons is that they are very short-ranged and low damage. If you are fighting a meson-armed opponent, design ships that have no armour and shields but are fast or well-armed. If you are faster, meson-armed ships are pretty much toast against any other weapon system. Even if you are slower, they have to close through a missile envelope or the envelope of heavier beam weapons.
Seriously this the opinion i've come to regarding them from recent experience in the game. Skipping shields AND armour AND they're the only non missile weapon to fire through atmospheres? Missiles you can shoot down and the damned things are expensive as hell, beams you can stop with shields and armour. But Mesons? no counter, unbalanced as all hell in comparison to other beams.