@jacozilla

Yes I know that with disharmony, the vanilla range optimum is nullified. But I play Harmony as if the range optimum still exists (that's what I meant by "theoretical optimum"), as a self-imposed handicap because LR kinetics are absurdly good.

KnightofPhoenix wrote:
Yea I'm almost inclined to say it's a mistype.



In any case, I personally refuse to use any weapon system outside of their theoretical optimum range for that reason.

Agree in sentiment but this is a good opportunity to highlight one of the less advertised / understood aspects of the Disharmony expansion "resetting" prior combat mechanics.



Prior to Disharmony, your statement would have been totally accurate - each weapon system had a theoretical optimum range - but with the expansion, that got totally erased and reset to the new canon or "correct" fundamentals of weapon evaluation.



All weapons come with no preset range penalties - the only penalty is if you use them at a range other than the installed range. So if you install LR kinetics, by canon law of the new exapansion, its theoertical optimum range IS long range.



Same for short range missiles.



But of course what makes actual eval of combat power favor LR kinetics is because of rate of fire. While all weapons got rebalanced to have whatever optimum range you wanted by choosing range type when installed on ship, the rate of fire stayed fixed - 4x per combat phase for kinetics, 2x for lasers, and 1x for missiles (fired on round 2, hits on round 4 of each combat phase)



Which left kinetics as highly accurate at long range, with instant hit ability vs missiles delay betwen launch round and hit 3 rounds later, and firing/hitting with highest rate of fire.



It solves retreat spam so i can't give up my LR kinetics, but would be nice if there were actual weapon choices. As it is, LR kinetics is a no brainer - max stack every ship with 100% LR kinetics, no other design needed ever, even on endless mode. You can win without them, but its a self imposed handicap if you do - which is fine since the AI is so dumb.



But would be nice if another balancing factor was tuned in, say slower rate of fire for all weapons based on range. Because as it is, the made LR kinetcis the highest damage (on an equalized per round basis), highest rate of fire, and just as accurate as any other weapon tuned to long range.

Yea I'm almost inclined to say it's a mistype.



In any case, I personally refuse to use any weapon system outside of their theoretical optimum range for that reason.

Thanks for the input. I did similar tests a few days ago and I wasn't seeing extreme variations but the LR Kinetics were outperforming what I would expect to see given the way the weapons stack up at different ranges. So I created a quick mod which just reduced that damage from 3 to 2 and it seems to work out really well. I still use LR Kinetics for some designs but they aren't the 'go to' all the time when I need an effective design.



I also made a few other minor tweaks while I was under the hood and the AI seems to be doing better as a result too. I really doesn't take much at this stage to have a favorable impact on the game.

I never had the analytical mind of patience (as well as intelligence huh) to go through data as you do but my gaming experience pretty much mirrors your statement. Tho I feel in single-salvo comparison missiles are still pretty much overkill compared to the other weapon systems the fact that kinetics fire 4 times and beams twice compared to the single salvo Missiles per segment turns the whole thing upside-down.



The Rate of Fire also messes up defense. Even tho true that kinetic attacks can be countered effectively, the fact that you have to do it 4 times in a single segment puts the favor back to kinetics. I sacrificed a whole evening once to test out different weapon layouts versus the same opponent (load an auto-save with a turn of conflict) and LR kinetics vs kinetic defense are even better then LR missiles vs zero missile defense.

WhiteWeasel wrote:
I skimmed though your post so maybe you covered this but kinetic deflectors will deflect a fixed number of projectiles, regardless of it's actual damage. So because of the smaller salvo size, aren't LR kinetics are stopped much more effectively than melee kinetics by deflectors?

That may very well be and in fact, it matches my observation that 'a little goes a long way' when it comes to Kinetic defense (unlike Missile defenses where it seems like more of an investment is needed to actually prevent being hit and taking serious damage.



But it was the damage curve that struck me as odd. And in any case, many people have stated repeatedly that they get the best performance out of LR Kinetic 'glass cannons'. Using Ail's AI ship mod shows that very well because the AI fleets (which use a lot higher percentage of LR Kinetics) are far more terrifying than the default ships are.



Thanks for the input and that is definitely something to consider. If we could ever get a good 'flowchart' of exactly how combat works we could then backtrack from there and see if any modifications should be tried.



Thanks again!

Uncle_Joe wrote:
-snip-

I skimmed though your post so maybe you covered this but kinetic deflectors will deflect a fixed number of projectiles, regardless of it's actual damage. So because of the smaller salvo size, aren't LR kinetics are stopped much more effectively than melee kinetics by deflectors?