ørret wrote:


Weapon Long Medium Melee Overall

Missle 90% 70% 40% 200

Beam 50% 90% 70% 210

Kinet 20% 40% 90% 150!



So Kinetics are very far behing when comparing the overall accuracy. This gets even worse when weighting the battle phases. Earlier battle phases must be weighted higher because the damage dealt there applys earlier and therefore enemy ships can get destroyed and wont do any damage in later phases. Usually all battles are decided in Long Range or Medium phase which means another severe drawback for Kinetics which will therefore never come to their full effectivity.

That's an interesting table! I think beams, especially in the long range phase need to be nerfed... hard. Another thing that would be interesting is: If beams didn't had an accuracy rating, but a damage rating (i.e. do 40% damage in the long range phase, 100% in the medium range phase, 60% in the melee phase) and a flat accuracy on top of that (90%) - then, beams were "capped" so to speak in terms of maximum damage, so they're useful, but just don't have the damage output to destroy ships (especially bigger ones) in the long-range phase.

I think its a bit of both meaning beams are way too powerful and kinetics are too weak.



With kinetics beeing extremely innacurate at long range phase even ships with extreme kinetic load can be countered easily with only a view kinetic defenses (those view rounds hitting are completely absorbed by kinetic defense).

Trying the same thing with beam weapons you will need nearly the complete space of your ship with beam defense because beam weapons are way more accurate and beam defense is much less effective than kinetic defense at long range phase.

I tried to stuff Dreadnougths with massive Kinetic loads and beam defenses but they are shot to pieces at the latest in Medium Range phase when the enemy beam weapons are most accurate.



In later games nearly every battle is decided with beam weapons (and sometimes Missles) in the long range phase. Kinetics are nearly useless.



This balancing issue becomes obvois when calculating the overall accuracy for the weapons categories:



Weapon Long Medium Melee Overall

Missle 90% 70% 40% 200

Beam 50% 90% 70% 210

Kinet 20% 40% 90% 150!



So Kinetics are very far behing when comparing the overall accuracy. This gets even worse when weighting the battle phases. Earlier battle phases must be weighted higher because the damage dealt there applys earlier and therefore enemy ships can get destroyed and wont do any damage in later phases. Usually all battles are decided in Long Range or Medium phase which means another severe drawback for Kinetics which will therefore never come to their full effectivity.



I like the "Style" of kinetics and i use them sometimes just for fun against weak opponents but when i seriously want to win a hard battle i never use kinetics.

Yeah i feel like beams should be less effective in long and short ranges.

Actually I think that the beams are overpowered instead of the kinnetics being underpowered. And this is very evident in the late game, when the beams are SO powerfull that they desintegrate enemy ships before the missiles can reach them.

Kinetics are balanced just fine as far as power goes. If you run a sniper build they can be devastating, and often times I can take people out before the Long Range is over with Kinetics.



The interesting situation I find is that for the cost per industry ratio is too high. It costs 2 times - 3 times as much industry (:industry to build Kinetics.



So why when I can get Siderite lasers at the industry costs of 38 would I pay for industry cost of 110 on Kinetics? -> Exactly, I wouldn't.

kinetics are really difficult, since by the third battle phase the battle has often been won or lost already... therefore beams, shields, missiles and flak are really the only way forward.



I would love it if kinetics were turned into full range weapons, like the weapons used in for example battlestar galactica, where you have big kinetic guns and just hammer volleys of rounds at the enemy! Kinetics are cool, they should play more of a role in ES

The accuracy of beams at long and medium range is very high, and the damage dealt is very hard to mitigate with shields so players usually just load up on beams and find it to be superior to kinetics. But with scarce resources (i.e. no hyperium) you cant make beams. On top of that, if there is a beams arms race, its very important to get anti-matter to continue to upgrade your shields so getting or denying that strategic resource is important.



The main problem I have with beams is how well they scale with +accuracy from the snipers trait. With +15% accuracy beams land 100% of the time at medium range which rips everything to shreds unless you have the superior rank shields and even then you must be teching ahead and anticipating a tech switch from kinetics/missles to beams.

Yeah, the main problem is that battles are over too quickly between evenly matched fleets, if even one side packs a serious amount of beam weaponry. Nerfing beams slightly would go a long way towards increasing the viability of kinetics. I think reducing the damage output of all weapons across the board would also be helpful - just to make battles reach the end phase a bit more often, so kinetics are able to unleash their full power.

i love my kinetics. most of my ships have about 50-60% kinetic weapons. once you get that bonus to tonage and get some larger ships you can actually kill things with kinetics at long and medium range. but then again my ships usually have like 240+ kinetics on large size ships towards the mid game.

Kinetics do deal a lot of damage, even at medium range. It isn't true they are worthless. The problem is rather, as you are nearly suggesting yourself, that beams fills the role that should be reserved for kinetics too well: It shouldn't be beams that punch right through their counter, but rather kinetics. The beams are a little too good at it as is.



Missiles get countered extremely hard by flak: One flak module defeats three missile modules, even if the missiles are technologically superior. Shields need to work a bit more like that so that a single shield module completely shuts down at least one beam module. It then falls to the deflectors to offer the least protection and be defeated (at least to a greater degree) by kinetics, rewarding kinetic for having to wait till the end phase to become useful.

That^ is hard to mod.



One method of balance would be to make energy weapons useless outside of their range.





But more towards the point, increasing their accuracy on long and medium, as well as making them fire more shots seems to work well.

I agree.

Perhaps instead of having its effectiveness be based on accuracy, we can have it based on distance to target.

Being inaccurate, Kinetic weapons are suppose to be most effective at melee range. But this also means that it's null and void at any longer distance. I also don't think its worthwhile at melee range either!!!

So perhaps if they were very accurate weapons but deal less damage over range they may be more worthwhile to use.