Metagame ship too powerful?

[GATC]

I have seen the battle "BATTLE OF DENEB" and it confirm this theory.

An example, the "Dauntless" was over powerful versus everything!
10 anti-fighter beam, and a HBE!
Big ship=dead, small ship=dead!

The Valkyrie, with his Twin MBE was more powerful!
DPS:
HBE =225
2xMBE =2x144! 288!!!!!
And it have other weapons! :x

I have seen, the all alliance warship are equip with Anti-Fighter Beam Emitter! What is the interest to having fighter is it is to seen them be destroyed? In the Rebel Warship, the only ship who have no that is the Scylla class defence station!

The beam are OVERpowerful, just the MBE have two time DPS compared to other canon!

Arcalane have write:
1)"beams are meant to be the "kings" of firepower"
2)"SBEs are meant to be rare"
3)"weapons with major travel times such as the KC are already at a disadvantage"
4)"Take in mind that when they did hit they were dealing a significant amount of damage"
5)"They were simply too effective against large ships that couldn't evade"

1+2)Mdr ! Yes they are! But SBE are NOT rare, it is just in several lighter beam emitter: Sekhmet-Class Assault Cruiser=3 Twin MBEs= 3x2x144 dps = 864dps= 1.28xthe SBE dps!!!

3)"Disadvantage" yes

4)10,25 and 50? significant? Versus the 300 (in 30 frame) of the MBE?

5) . They can not evade the Beam equally!

With all this information, and my test, I can say:
Fighter are useless (NO fighter have survive from the "BATTLE OF DENEB")
Or you have beams weapons or you are dead.
And all other weapon ARE useless. (anti-fighter beam included because with the precision of other beam, other beam can do the same and better!)

If you compare how many beam weapon there are in the ally fleet and in the Rebel in this battle, you'll now why you have won so easily!

Sorry for English mistake and Arcalane, don't take it personally

[Exethalion]

I haven't been following the metagame closely but at first glance it seems the alliance are pretty much kicking the rebels' asses repeatedly.

However I'm sure Arcalane has some much larger challenges in store for the admirals, the rebellion is probably just warm-up target practice.

[Nutcase]

Judging by the inspiration, they'll probably loose a lot of the systems they'll gain during this rebellion once the aliens show up anyway.

[MelvinVm]

Isn't this supposed to be posted in the metagame, or send a PM to arc?

[Swamp Fox]

Fighter are useless (NO fighter have survive from the "BATTLE OF DENEB")

They're single-section low-HP ships flying around in a 2D simulation full of anti-capital weaponry. What do you expect? All it means is that you have to use them carefully. Don't forget that they're cheap as dirt.

Or you have beams weapons or you are dead.

Are you kidding me? I can't remember the name right now, but in it's current form Squishy's missile destroyer pretty much steamrolls through every similarly sized ship I've tried.

And all other weapon ARE useless. (anti-fighter beam included because with the precision of other beam, other beam can do the same and better!)

Long-range missiles that can, I don't know, track the target? Useless? And why are the AFBs so bad? They're good at dealing with small things. Why waste the firepower of a bigger one for that?

If you compare how many beam weapon there are in the ally fleet and in the Rebel in this battle, you'll now why you have won so easily!

So? From what I gather the Rebels are a cakewalk compared to the upcoming aliens.

[Squishy]

I found beams with unedited deviation and initial deviation will spend most of their time shooting at thin air, missing corvettes and smaller frigates but rakes across the length of larger ships.

For balancing purposes, I try to edit the deviation and I. deviation of my beam weapons so they spend half of their duration on each side of the direct line of fire. You will find that unedited beams with long durations will be accurate for a the first 70 frames, and then spend the remaining time shooting at an odd angle.


Despite that, beams ARE the king of damage due to instant travel time and bypassing of point defenses. Further balancing on most ships have less than 0.75 turn speed and small firing arcs for beam weapons.

For example, while the Valkyrie Assault Carrier DOES have 8 MBEs, six of them are located on the exposed sides with very limited firing arcs. Three of each on two sections.


We have had a discussions in IRC, and where Arc has slapped some ship designers for overabundance of beam weapons with high accuracy and large firing arcs.

[ArcaneDude]

The rebels are a warm up, AFAIK, yes. Most rebel ships were designed by Arc, or Blackhart, and designed to be old, outdated, and in general weaker than Alliance equivalents. As to why is largely explained in the backstory.

Future enemies will be different; several alien races with technology comparable to or possibly even more advanced than Alliance tech.

____________________________________

Your argument about the Dauntless is invalid. Dauntlesses are fire support ships, that cannot fire in more than one direction, except with their AFBE's that are virtually useless against larger craft. Dauntlesses have long range, but only one mentionable weapon and no other defenses. Two decent assault frigates or a destroyer that manages to evade the weapon in a fleet engagement can do the job, when circling the ship. And even so, the Dauntless' weapon is fairly vulnerable to attack.

The Valkyrie is supposed to be far moe powerful than a Destroyer. It's an Assault carrier, hellooooooo!


AFBE's exist to defend against fighters. Fighters are light craft designed to deliver distraction, support, or to defend against lighter craft and bombers, and of course other fighters. There is no good reason why AFBE's are overpowered, or why fighters are useless. Fighters are launched in swarms, remember? They're short lived, but they'll get the job done, and they're cheap and don't take long to build either.

______________________________________

1+2) SBE's firepower can be found in several ships, yes. But that firepower will be an accumulation of several weapons, some of which won't even be able to fire in the same direction. Your argument is questionable at least. Plus, the only ship using an SBE is the Madre Terra class Battleship, and it has several other weapons as well. SBE's are main weapons, but that doesn't mean a ship using them can't have any other. In the case of the Sekhmet, all those beams together can deliver SBE firepower, but it doesn't have a massive array of other powerful weapons in addition. The Madre Terra does, it's SBE being only one weapon.

3) KC's used in unison are very powerful weapons. How about you just try some out first? They have low recharge times, relatively fast fire rates, and when they hit, they deal all damage at once. They may not be useful as single main weapons, but as secondaries, on turrets or in arrays? They're deadly.

4) See above.

5) If a large ship is constantly hit by KC's, say 6 or so, it'll buckle quickly. If hit by a beam, damage is spread over it's hull. Beams have higher reloads, the heavier, the higher. KC's have low reloads, and 6 of them can do severe damage to a relatively idle target such as an assault carrier, as they'll spread their damage over a smaller surface, even with their deviation. 6 is not an unlikely number to find on even destroyers. When a beam is used against a lighter ship, it's deviation makes it difficult to train on the target. A significant amount of damage will go lost in the void, as the beam rakes. With KC's, a hit is all or nothing, and the damage is spread amongst a lot of shots. A few of those will hit, and when they hit they deal significant damage.

Conclusion:

Fighters are NOT useless when used properly.
Beam weapons are NOT required to survive, KC's and missiles can do significant damage as well.
All other weapons are FAR FROM useless. Other beams don't have HALF the prescision of an AFBE, far from even.

You're using invalid arguments based upon insufficient data and your calculations don't take all factors into account. My guess is you haven't tested these weapons enough in actual battles to draw valid conclusions.

Which brings me to the question: you're not even in the metagame. Why are you even doing this?

[Arcalane]

RE Dauntless;

It's a giant, flying cannon. Whilst it's HBE does pack a lot of firepower, it's AFBE grid is there to allow it to serve as an anti-strikecraft warship in a pinch. The HBE's firing arc is also extremely restricted, and the Dauntless is not that maneuverable. If it's outmaneuvered by faster ships (such as the Carver) it's a dead duck. The Dauntless lacks speed and maneuvering capabilities and is completely unsuited to a close-range brawl, despite it's above-average armour. It's simply not equipped for it.

~~

RE Valkyrie;

I will shamelessly admit that the Valkyrie was meant, from the get go, to be one of the most powerful stock Alliance warships. Assault Carriers should be comparable to pocket battleships. A battleship sized assault carrier would be even more terrifying than a standard battleship, and not simply because it has highly expendable strikecraft squadrons with it.

I stripped off the Valkyrie's AFBEs;


As you can see, barring two of them, a lot of it's beam firepower cannot be focused forwards, and is instead more suited to firing at broadsides.

~~

Yes, the rebels are a warmup. Yes, their ships are meant to be inferior. Yes, the alien races will have comparable or superior technology.

I also had a bunch of incorrect files at one point, which is why the Battle for Deneb was a bit fucked up.

My final note is;

Yes, beam weapons are meant to be the kings of the battlefield. I've said it before and I'll say it again. They are due for reload timing tweaks as I forgot that beams start reloading the instant they start firing, rather than as soon as the beam stops, but they are otherwise meant to be the most effective weapons. This is Freespace 2 inspired, after all.

[apache1990]

Since this is outside the metagame's forum (which I assume I can never ever post in unless I'm a part of it), I have a question.

What is the proper damage value for kinetic cannons? It is listed as 50 in the tech database, but most of the ships in the pack use 150 instead. From my testing, 50 damage KCs were very underpowered, but 150 KCs were fairly decent (when they hit, as you said, the long travel time is a bit of a disadvantage).

[Arcalane]

The Tech Database is the correct number. As I said, "I also had a bunch of incorrect files at one point, which is why the Battle for Deneb was a bit fucked up."

[apache1990]

Ok, thanks.

I guess the Corrupter could use more kinetics then, if it wants to have any chance against energy weapon ships.

[GATC]

Sorry for the problem I make.
But, yes, I have test the ship in combat, versus some of mine who respect the ally data base.
It because of that I have post:
I have test some possibility of fight, and so many time , "I" lose.
To have a chance, I have been to obligation to increase the number of weapons in my ship.


I repeat, sorry for trouble.
Please accept my excuse.

[Water_and_Wind]

I can completely empathize with your viewpoint, GATC, because it basically mirrors my initial observations. That said, the new threat cost system and the (to be) increased beam recharge time will probably alleviate any problems with overpowered beams.

As for the usefulness of fighters, IMO their single most important purpose is to serve as fodder to distract enemy bombers from attacking your capital ships (they don't even have to neccesarily take out those bombers, just distract their initial bombing run). After all, no matter how many AFBEs you have, a bomber will get at least one salvo as torpedoes outrange AFBEs.

I agree with GATC completely on the usefulness (or lack thereof) of kinetic cannons. However, there is no hard restriction on their quantity, so load up. Giving them submunitions could serve to distinguishing them from laser cannons though.

Now for missiles. HVR's rock. That is all.

[Arcalane]

The Metagame does not use stock balancing, or in fact is not meant to balance to any other scheme in particular.

Yes, beam weapons will get a recharge rate nerf at some point, though their threat cost may be tweaked down a bit. KCs may get submunitions as a researchable upgrade.

[Nutcase]

I'm guessing said nerf will have something to do with the story?