Igncom1 wrote:
Your comment makes no sense.



Strike craft combat is really good, but their tonnage costs are a little too high.

Then I'll be glad to explain. See, a flak bomb is basically an explosive charge surrounded by shrapnel. It was, and still is in some situations, a very effective anti-aircraft weapon. It's only real limitation is atmospheric resistance, as in the pieces of debris slow to such a level that they won't pierce aircraft fuselages anymore. In space, this is obviously not a factor. A capital ship can throw a flak bomb out into space in the direction of an incoming wave of strike craft, and they'll just get SHREDDED. However, given that capital ships tend to have thicker armor, a flak bomb wouldn't do anything to them.



At least, that's how I hand-wave the lack of strike craft in vanilla ES.

Why are you hand waving at all? That's kind of an weird thing to do while calling them a gimmick when there a specific anti-fighter defences that aren't a flak bomb.

Igncom1 wrote:
Why are you hand waving at all? That's kind of an weird thing to do while calling them a gimmick when there a specific anti-fighter defences that aren't a flak bomb.

I'm just saying that's my own way of justifying the fact that fighter and bomber craft, while practically mainstays in science fiction space combat since the 80's, are not in Endless Space up until now. Seriously, why is this such a big deal to you?



Changing the subject back to capital ship weapons, I'm kind of hopeful that, one day, we'll get beam weapons like THIS



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMa3LXe6oVc



instead of the sad little pew-pew-pew colored lights we have now. They're just sad is what they are.

Pondera wrote:
I'm just saying that's my own way of justifying the fact that fighter and bomber craft, while practically mainstays in science fiction space combat since the 80's, are not in Endless Space up until now. Seriously, why is this such a big deal to you?

Me? It seemed like a big deal to you.



Besides if you ant a lore reason, it's probably kinda hard to develop an aircraft carrier that works in the void of space.

Changing the subject back to capital ship weapons, I'm kind of hopeful that, one day, we'll get beam weapons like THIS



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMa3LXe6oVc



instead of the sad little pew-pew-pew colored lights we have now. They're just sad is what they are.

Why not both? Like like pew pew lasers and beams!

Well it's from the list of previous weapons.



I don't mind personally if some different more high tech weapons are possibly introduced later.

Well balance could have determined that.



And I will say that weapons really were nothing but fluff before, as they really were all the same but Mark I or Mark IV in gameplay terms.

But sometimes fluff is what it is really about. Plus considering military tech, it slows down the research process, even if it is by a small amount, which gives players more time to catch up or attack. Plus they looked cool for each individual style of laser, kinetic, missile, compared to the last one.

Well....... in my mind, gameplay comes first.



So I don't think you can be really that far behind with a 3 tier weapon system.



However I would prefer a system that introduces new weapon types later on to widen the strategic choice.

Granted gameplay does come first, but forgive me to say that these top tier weapons don't feel very top tier. The best an interstellar empire with the aid of dust can do for beam weapons is electromagnetic fields that pinch plasma at a target? I call BS. Here, let me show you how a REAL cataclysmic beam weapon should be described.



Energy-Matter Equivocation Battery



The EMEB is not really a single beam, but several. To watch an EMEB in action, one would first see an initial beam strike the target with the purpose of bringing it into harmonic equality with the attacking vessel. Once equality has been achieved, the main battery opens fire, converting large portions of the enemy ship into energy in a massive chain-reaction.



Or a missile weapon...



Singularity Inducer



This missile never truly strikes the target, but merely flash spawns a miniature singularity near the target vessel. The singularity, for its brief lifespan, causes obscene damage before collapsing upon itself.



And who can forget kinetics?



Solar Mass Launcher



This unique weapon combines the miracle of self-propagating fusion reactions and extreme gravatic technology into a nasty little package. A large solar mass is created and compressed within the weapon, and fired at a target. On its way there, the mass grows in heat and size until smashing into the target, causing a miniature supernova upon impact. Obviously, this weapon was designed with a single-shot nature in mind. Our scientists shudder to imagine the vessel that would require a second shot.

I'm inclined to agree: balance and gameplay in definitely important, but half the fun (for me) with this game is reading all the little details that make this game different from others with things like Laser 1 and Laser 2.



EDIT: See? I feel strongly enough about it to spend my first post on it.

I don't doubt you guys at all. (Also welcome to the forums! )



But the number of kinetic, missile and beam weapons kinda blurred the line in the end of what does what.



How about alternatives for our lore/technology wise weaponry?



Like torpedoes, energy streams, meteor weapons, particle weapons and more.



Then we can dive into cthulhu waking end game technology.

Pondera wrote:
Granted gameplay does come first, but forgive me to say that these top tier weapons don't feel very top tier. The best an interstellar empire with the aid of dust can do for beam weapons is electromagnetic fields that pinch plasma at a target? I call BS. Here, let me show you how a REAL cataclysmic beam weapon should be described.



Energy-Matter Equivocation Battery



The EMEB is not really a single beam, but several. To watch an EMEB in action, one would first see an initial beam strike the target with the purpose of bringing it into harmonic equality with the attacking vessel. Once equality has been achieved, the main battery opens fire, converting large portions of the enemy ship into energy in a massive chain-reaction.



Or a missile weapon...



Singularity Inducer



This missile never truly strikes the target, but merely flash spawns a miniature singularity near the target vessel. The singularity, for its brief lifespan, causes obscene damage before collapsing upon itself.



And who can forget kinetics?



Solar Mass Launcher



This unique weapon combines the miracle of self-propagating fusion reactions and extreme gravatic technology into a nasty little package. A large solar mass is created and compressed within the weapon, and fired at a target. On its way there, the mass grows in heat and size until smashing into the target, causing a miniature supernova upon impact. Obviously, this weapon was designed with a single-shot nature in mind. Our scientists shudder to imagine the vessel that would require a second shot.

Then it seems like your problem is more with the weapons themselves and their apparent "epicness" rather than the sheer number of them. I'd love to see the next addon/DLC/expansion add new "doomsday" weapons or something, but at the moment there really isn't a need to have 10 of the exact same weapon with just minor differences in state bonus's for capital ships. However, I do indeed miss being able to read the variety of different weapons as you advanced the tech tree.



I hope they can find a way to work a few new weapons into the tech tree because I do miss Entropy Missiles, Dark Energy Beams, and Dark Matter Kinetics.

When I first was confronted with the drastical reduction of weapon-levels in the VIP-Beta I was like: WTF? Why did they take out all those weapon-levels?



If you expect me to now say something along the lines of: "But after getting used to it..." I have to disappoint you.



I still think it was a horrible design-choice to reduce the amount of weapons-levels to such a small number.



For most of the game you simply are on Tier 2 and putting more attention to the military-tech-tree feels almost pointless. And if you manage to get to Tier 3 some time before your enemies, you have such a massive edge since they are so much better than the previous. I don't see how this could be considered a good thing from the balancing-point of view.



My opinion:



There should be many tiers of weapons. 10 like before was a good number.

The difference in damage-output/defensive capability between 2 Tiers should be relatively small. Like Tier2=Tier1x1.2, Tier3=Tier2x1.2 and so on.

Weapons and Defenses should not share the same tech!

If you commit to improving one weapon-type it shouldn't be so easy to get the other types.

Allow the player to decide on his own how to best adapt to his opponents.

I think GalCiv2 is a good example how it should be. You could have Level 10 Kinetics, Level 9 Shields and Level 0 for anything else if this was okay to counter your enemies fleets.

I dunno, I kinda like the lower set of weapon tiers as it keeps low tech races competitive for a long time as it kinda dampens the effects of having much more advanced technology and wiping the board.



I haven't gotten to T3 yet but that does seem like a problem.



I would prefer if sub weapon types appeared later on, with their own advantages and disadvantages to the Kinetic-beam-missile line up.



But this is defiantly coming from a non sophon player

Igncom1 wrote:
I dunno, I kinda like the lower set of weapon tiers as it keeps low tech races competitive for a long time as it kinda dampens the effects of having much more advanced technology and wiping the board.



I haven't gotten to T3 yet but that does seem like a problem.



I would prefer if sub weapon types appeared later on, with their own advantages and disadvantages to the Kinetic-beam-missile line up.



But this is defiantly coming from a non sophon player

The least thing they could due is change the 3 tiers of weapons. Why are Fusion Torpedoes, Pinch Guns, Ultradense Slugs the top tier of weapons? Kind of lame.

Well it's from the list of previous weapons.



I don't mind personally if some different more high tech weapons are possibly introduced later.

I just took a look at weapons for the big classic ships of ES, and while I haven't gotten an abundance of time to play the game, it seems like there are less options for them now. A LOT less options. I mean, it seems like there's only 3 choices for kinetics, for example. The ones you get at the start of a game, one research option for early game, and a 3rd for late game. One of my favorite parts of ES was reading all the techy lore they put into the weaponry choices and knowing that some weapons were going to inflict CATACLYSMIC damage (Torpedos that increase local levels of entropy? YES PLZ, I'll take 500!). Am I missing some part of the game where weapon choices are going to branch out later in the game and this isn't shown on the research screen, or did ES axe a ton of weapon choices for this expansion?

I think the reduction was a step in the right direction, but it was a bit too extreme. I'd be fine with an additonal tier or two. So, around 4-5 in total.



The main problem is that "T3" will not be obtained in at least 75% of the games anyway, which essentially leaves you with just two levels of weapons, which is probably not enough. Sadly, I think the underlying problem is that you can only unlock two items per technology, so in order to actually create the additonal tiers, Amplitude would be forced to reintroduce the weapon tech clutter from the vanilla game. I have no idea how to solve this without regressing to the old system.

Agreed.



I think 5 tiers of weapons would be okay (adding one between current tier I & II + one between II + III) and really increase the importance of the military tech tree.

As it is, I finish most of my games with tier I weapons, rarely getting anything better. I have yet to touch tier III and can't really think of any reason for getting it.

Honestly, I kind of don't like the way weapons have gone in the expansion. Obviously, the fighters sound awesome (haven't survived long enough against the Craver onslaught to use them), but giving you the ability to install various ranges of weapons to ships makes the "you can, but why would you want to?" mistake.



You CAN stuff your unarmored frigate with short-range missiles, but why would you want to?

You CAN add 50 long-range kinetic weapons to your battleship, but why would you want to?



The fact of the matter remains that missile weapons are still most effective at long-range, lasers are most effective at mid-range, and kinetics are most effective in short range. And honestly, given how few weapon choices there are, it's easy to grab the research necessary to use every weapon in their original capacity. Nothing has changed except the developers are giving players choices no person in their right mind would do.



When it comes to Cravers, don't ♥♥♥♥ around with long-range kinetics. Seriously, they'll just ♥♥♥♥ing eat you for it.