Author Topic: Early game weapons  (Read 3587 times)

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Offline Theoatmeal2 (OP)

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Early game weapons
« on: October 13, 2020, 01:56:36 AM »
What weapons should I aim for at the very beginning.
I want a fighting change at low tech level. 

Any and all ideas are welcome. 



« Last Edit: October 13, 2020, 02:05:52 AM by Theoatmeal2 »
 

Offline Steve Walmsley

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Re: Early game weapons
« Reply #1 on: October 13, 2020, 02:20:18 AM »
What weapons should I aim for at the very beginning.
I want a fighting change at low tech level. 

Any and all ideas are welcome.

Railguns are good at low tech. They give you an offensive weapon and a point defence weapon, without needing turret technology and without requiring fast-tracking fire controls.
 
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Offline Garfunkel

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Re: Early game weapons
« Reply #2 on: October 13, 2020, 07:42:47 AM »
You can also get 10cm RGs to fire every 5 seconds fairly easily.

The fastest way to do a lot of damage to enemy ships is Plasma Carronades though. They are fast to research and at point blank range OR by used by masses of STO units, they will deal very respectable damage even at the first (15cm) level. But they are not good for point defence at all.
 

Offline Arwyn

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Re: Early game weapons
« Reply #3 on: October 13, 2020, 11:15:01 AM »
Missiles are useful for long distance at low tech, but are expensive and hit chances on fast targets are... poor. Missiles start getting much more useful after you get a few engine improvements.

Railguns are very good at low tech. They are cheap, cheap to research (compared to lasers) and are a good all around. Make sure to research power plants and capacitor upgrades as well as railgun tech. Because railguns are cheap, they are great early on. Railguns are also a good multi-role weapon early on, and can be used in offense or defense roles. Railguns are good later on, but they do suffer in comparison to other weapons later in the game. Big railguns later in game do hurt though, so railguns are never really a bad choice. Not as good in certain circumstances, but a good all around weapon with no real down side.

Lasers are good all around, but are not as good as railguns early. Lasers also take more research points, so they dont tend to really pay off till later. Late game lasers, and spinal lasers especially are pretty nasty. Another really good all around weapon, they can be used on anything, and can work in multiple roles (offense/defense/STO/PD) but dont really start to shine until you have sunk a fair amount of tech points into them.

Carronades are NASTY, but they are very situational. They are great STO weapons, and they are great for close engagements (like jump points) but they are brutally short ranged. Really something more of a situational secondary weapon. As a ship weapon they are good for stuff that has to get close (Fast attack craft, fast gunboats) or for stuff that they enemy has to get close to, like jump point stations or monitors.

Gauss weapons are really more intended for point defense, or fighter weapons. They are very short ranged, but do put out a fair amount of shots. They tend to be tech point intensive later on.

Particle beams are very long ranged (for beams) and do ok damage wise. They take a fair amount of points to get good, but do develop fairly fast and give a pretty good return on tech investment early on. 4 point particle beams are pretty cheap, hit hard, and dont cost much. I like them for early distance weapons. Just make sure to research power plants and capacitors tech alongside them. They are offensive only though, so they dont have any use as PD or defensive weapons, so they need something to back them up in those roles.

Mesons are another situational weapon. When they work, they can be pretty nasty. Basically they can cause explosions inside a ship, and skip armor. However, they are degraded by heavy armor, so they are not guaranteed to hit. They tend to be points intensive, and they are not as flexible as lasers or railguns, especially early on. Mesons are also a poor defensive weapon, so you really need to pair them with something else for PD.

Microwaves are another VERY situational weapon. They are great for blinding ships and ruining sensors and electronics, but thats about it. Much more of a secondary weapon, or something you can put on fast craft that can close quickly, or something that enemies have to get close to, like jump point stations. Probably the least popular weapon system.

Some good starting points; (presented in a primary/secondary format)
Railgun only (cheap starting multirole)
Railgun/missile
Railgun/particle beam
Railgun/missile/gauss (very common, but expensive)

Laser/gauss (tech expensive, slow to get good)
Laser/missile (tech expensive, really good later game)
Laser/missile/gauss (same as above, more expensive)
 
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Offline Tikigod

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Re: Early game weapons
« Reply #4 on: October 13, 2020, 12:11:32 PM »
Missiles pretty much 'work well' at any tech level especially when you consider them against the capability of other weapons at early tech level... and main downfall of missiles early game is they're not as effective as missiles late game.... there is the resource consumption part to consider producing missiles, but providing you're not over flooding production elsewhere in your empire then missiles really should never get to the point where they're taxing your empires economy. If they are and it's not due to very poor RNG luck with resource discovery beyond your homeworld then it's time to re-examine some personal habits.

Beyond missiles, as others have said the other go-to is going to be railguns. Heck sticking with a Railgun/Missile combo works well throughout if you're happy to just roll with what works perfectly fine and aren't one of those people that feels compelled to use what is absolutely the best at any point just for the sake of it.
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Offline Gabethebaldandbold

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Re: Early game weapons
« Reply #5 on: October 13, 2020, 05:08:27 PM »

Microwaves are another VERY situational weapon. They are great for blinding ships and ruining sensors and electronics, but thats about it. Much more of a secondary weapon, or something you can put on fast craft that can close quickly, or something that enemies have to get close to, like jump point stations. Probably the least popular weapon system.

It really shouldn't be, with not a lot of research, you get to completely inutilize an enemy ship, and it can literally turn the tables for you. if you have the speed to keep up, and the numbers to do it fast, you could literally just put a single laser and a lot of microwaves on your ships, blind every enemy ship, and just pick them appart. you end up taking way less casualties than you otherwise would, and its not even that expensive. the only way for your enemy to respond, is by making all his ships way more expensive, so even if you dont get to blind them, the microwave puts a big strain on your enemies. I really dont understand why people dont use it more often.
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Offline Garfunkel

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Re: Early game weapons
« Reply #6 on: October 13, 2020, 06:31:55 PM »
Because shields negate microwaves pretty effectively. Sure, they do 3 points of damage against shields instead of 1 but unless your enemy literally only has like 6 points of shielding, it'll take a while to chew through it.
 

Offline Jorgen_CAB

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Re: Early game weapons
« Reply #7 on: October 13, 2020, 07:40:43 PM »
Microwaves is a very effective secondary weapon to an beam defences. You can tear through enemy shields and blind them and then move to the next target... you don't need to directly destroy them. But you still want other weapons to take down the enemies shields as fast as possible.

Microwaves is also good for simply disable ships if you intend to board them or for many other role-play related reasons as a non lethal way to deal with a ship.
 

Offline Arwyn

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Re: Early game weapons
« Reply #8 on: October 13, 2020, 07:49:14 PM »
Missiles pretty much 'work well' at any tech level especially when you consider them against the capability of other weapons at early tech level... and main downfall of missiles early game is they're not as effective as missiles late game.... there is the resource consumption part to consider producing missiles, but providing you're not over flooding production elsewhere in your empire then missiles really should never get to the point where they're taxing your empires economy. If they are and it's not due to very poor RNG luck with resource discovery beyond your homeworld then it's time to re-examine some personal habits.

Beyond missiles, as others have said the other go-to is going to be railguns. Heck sticking with a Railgun/Missile combo works well throughout if you're happy to just roll with what works perfectly fine and aren't one of those people that feels compelled to use what is absolutely the best at any point just for the sake of it.

I would still argue that missiles are kind of "meh" early on, and an early start with low to no missile usage is often more efficient. Missiles do work at low tech, but their operational usefulness window is pretty limited when your engine tech advances, and they do eat up resources your arent getting back. Low tech AMMs in particular are nothing to write home about.

As soon as your engine tech advances and your ships are running new engines, those old missiles just got a lot less useful. Even at improved nuclear pulse, missiles are kind of iffy.

As an example, if your ships are 2,500 to 3k speeds at Imp Pulse, and your missiles hit % is around 35% to 40% on a 3k target, 43% (ballpark) at 2,500k, and your going to do about 4pts per missile. So, on average, your lobbing 3 missiles to do 4 pts.

Now, compared to comparable tech particle-3, 129k range, tracking 2500, your hit rate is; 92 84 77 69 61 53 45 38 30 22
or a rough tech equivalent  railgun (15cm), same TS 2500, 32k range, and your looking at 69 38 6 for hit rate (x4) for 3pts.

So, are missiles bad? No, not at all. Are they efficient? Kind of.

Missiles are expensive, especially early. An average ASM 4 at improved pulse is using 1750 fuel, per missile. That doesnt sound like much, but with a ship carrying 54 of those, for example, thats 94,500 fuel in that missile load. That starts to add up. Multiply that by numbers of ships, and spare missiles.... yeah, that starts to become noticeable. Four destroyers have enough fuel in just their missiles to run one of my survey ships for a year!

That is why I dont think the are the best weapon early on. They are absolutely useful since they have huge range, but they come at a cost. I dont think they are the best primary weapons early.

Now, once you have some more time and tech, and you have better warhead yield, more agility, more engine efficiency ect.; missiles start to shine. And its a must have before AMMs are really worth a damn.
 

Offline Tikigod

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Re: Early game weapons
« Reply #9 on: October 13, 2020, 10:35:46 PM »

Microwaves are another VERY situational weapon. They are great for blinding ships and ruining sensors and electronics, but thats about it. Much more of a secondary weapon, or something you can put on fast craft that can close quickly, or something that enemies have to get close to, like jump point stations. Probably the least popular weapon system.

It really shouldn't be, with not a lot of research, you get to completely inutilize an enemy ship, and it can literally turn the tables for you. if you have the speed to keep up, and the numbers to do it fast, you could literally just put a single laser and a lot of microwaves on your ships, blind every enemy ship, and just pick them appart. you end up taking way less casualties than you otherwise would, and its not even that expensive. the only way for your enemy to respond, is by making all his ships way more expensive, so even if you dont get to blind them, the microwave puts a big strain on your enemies. I really dont understand why people dont use it more often.

For me Microwave only become a secondary consideration late into empire tech progression because of the range factor throw on top the fact their usefulness is very situational and they're just not something I'd ever consider as a primary use. Especially early-mid empire tech when many of your intended targets are likely going to be flooding you with AMMs at range then spamming you with hundreds of AMM per volley as you close in but still don't have any kind of energy weapon range, the time taken to close in just to disable something just isn't viable when you could just be killing them from further out without taking a lot more hits.

And those rare times when you are engaged with a enemy that isn't flooding you with thousands of missiles each engagement, they're typically going to be hitting you with longer range lasers and particles, and not something you really want to be letting get 2 or 3 free shots off whilst you close in even further to use Microwave weapons.


When I would start to consider Microwave weaponry is once I am considering deploying very large 40,000+ ton missile or laser military ships that I know will have the tech to dictate the situation of a fight, a couple of times I have made a variant of the main combat ships that can house a handful of very fast disposable Microwave only destroyers. The main fleet transits to the battle, then the 3-4k ton microwave destroyers launch and quickly charge toward the engaged enemy and focus on any secondary targets that my large combat ships are unable to concentrate fire on at the moment due to lack of additional fire control/weapons.

So far I've really only bothered to do it a handful of times when focusing on Missiles and gauss-PD where the main fleet is going to be engaging at some distance away and I know 1 or 2 twin gauss PD on the destroyers will help them cover each other from missiles using final fire whilst deployed. But due to the extremely restrictive fire control hard limit on laser distance by the time the main fleet got into range there would be little point having a deployable microwave ship over just closing the main fleet a little closer and deploying one additional 40,000+ ton ship in the fleet focused to the task.
« Last Edit: October 13, 2020, 10:45:34 PM by Tikigod »
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Offline Gabethebaldandbold

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Re: Early game weapons
« Reply #10 on: November 12, 2021, 06:34:38 PM »

For me Microwave only become a secondary consideration late into empire tech progression because of the range factor throw on top the fact their usefulness is very situational and they're just not something I'd ever consider as a primary use. Especially early-mid empire tech when many of your intended targets are likely going to be flooding you with AMMs at range then spamming you with hundreds of AMM per volley as you close in but still don't have any kind of energy weapon range, the time taken to close in just to disable something just isn't viable when you could just be killing them from further out without taking a lot more hits.

And those rare times when you are engaged with a enemy that isn't flooding you with thousands of missiles each engagement, they're typically going to be hitting you with longer range lasers and particles, and not something you really want to be letting get 2 or 3 free shots off whilst you close in even further to use Microwave weapons.


When I would start to consider Microwave weaponry is once I am considering deploying very large 40,000+ ton missile or laser military ships that I know will have the tech to dictate the situation of a fight, a couple of times I have made a variant of the main combat ships that can house a handful of very fast disposable Microwave only destroyers. The main fleet transits to the battle, then the 3-4k ton microwave destroyers launch and quickly charge toward the engaged enemy and focus on any secondary targets that my large combat ships are unable to concentrate fire on at the moment due to lack of additional fire control/weapons.

So far I've really only bothered to do it a handful of times when focusing on Missiles and gauss-PD where the main fleet is going to be engaging at some distance away and I know 1 or 2 twin gauss PD on the destroyers will help them cover each other from missiles using final fire whilst deployed. But due to the extremely restrictive fire control hard limit on laser distance by the time the main fleet got into range there would be little point having a deployable microwave ship over just closing the main fleet a little closer and deploying one additional 40,000+ ton ship in the fleet focused to the task.

Well I agree maybe not as a primary. I was being hyperbolic, but still, you dont need that much more tech than your enemies, if you have your ships be fast enough to dictate the range of your engagements, you can win consistently against enemies with much greater ranged weaponry. I usually go for it in the early-mid game, when I have my big ion engines with good speed modifiers, I can often get 8000 km/s on some ships, after that is just a matter of cramming enough shields and gauss cannons to endure the AMM storms (not nescessarily all in one go, just come in and hop out of range and you should be fine most of the time), and enough AMM to deal with their missiles, and then charging in. It does wonders for jump point warfare too, but you need to build around very agressive beam combat doctrines, which you may not find fun, and I suppose that is fine. but for close range beam fighting, its a must, and it makes you punch way above your weight class
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the answer is you beam. and you better beam hard.