test content
Logo
What is the Arc Client?
Install Arc
Options
Just in case there was any doubt about what was wrong with beam arrays.
momaw
Member Posts: 0 Arc User
Setup:
6 disruptor beam arrays
1 romulan experimental beam array
1 borg cutting beam
Target: 9.5km distant
With no attempts to mitigate power drain, average damage with the disruptors was 327.
With plasmonic leech (+2.2 power per hit, max +11) and chained Emergency Power To Weapons 1 (+22 power), average damage with the disruptors was 348.
With plasmonic leech, chained EPTW1, and 4 plasma manifolds (+14 power), average damage with the disruptors was 387.
That should be a total of +47 to weapon power.
However,
With nadion inversion, average damage with the disruptors was 487.
Just to recap, using leech and EPTW chain gained me 6% actual damage, while using every slot available for power consoles got me 18%. Turning off power drain got me 48% more damage.
Problem with beam arrays: power drain is insane and making every sensible effort to mitigate it barely helps.
6 disruptor beam arrays
1 romulan experimental beam array
1 borg cutting beam
Target: 9.5km distant
With no attempts to mitigate power drain, average damage with the disruptors was 327.
With plasmonic leech (+2.2 power per hit, max +11) and chained Emergency Power To Weapons 1 (+22 power), average damage with the disruptors was 348.
With plasmonic leech, chained EPTW1, and 4 plasma manifolds (+14 power), average damage with the disruptors was 387.
That should be a total of +47 to weapon power.
However,
With nadion inversion, average damage with the disruptors was 487.
Just to recap, using leech and EPTW chain gained me 6% actual damage, while using every slot available for power consoles got me 18%. Turning off power drain got me 48% more damage.
Problem with beam arrays: power drain is insane and making every sensible effort to mitigate it barely helps.
Post edited by momaw on
0
Comments
Sometimes, if you want to bury the hatchet with a Klingon, it has to be in his skull. - Captain K'Tar of the USS Danu about J'mpok.
No surprise here. Since dev team is full of tac/escort loving DS9 fanboys :P
The most I would pack on one ship is 5, 2 up front with 2 torps and 3 on back with a torp or the cutting beam.
Joined - 9/2011
"You Best Make Peace With Your Dear & Fluffy Lord" - Malcolm Reynolds
Right-Click the weapon icons to link them together in Auto-Fire. Linked weapons will get a green highlight on the icon.
Push the icon for the one Beam that you wish to fire? I am guessing here as I haven't tried it myself.
What I meant, is to if you have 4 beam arrays front. You could link them to one big array, doing same dps, but with higher dmg value and less hits per volley. Something you see in movies.
it's all about the build.
1) Differentiate ships more with new weapon types (e.g. Beam lance, beam turret)
2) Add new firing arcs (at least port and starboard)
3) Differentiate weapons more by optimal and maximum firing range
4) Make some weapon slots on ships require a set type. So all Federation ships would generally have at least one beam array for example.
It would be nice if ships were only firing one or two individual beams at a time, to reduce the visual clutter. If we had a weapon model more similar to the Star Fleet Command games' we'd have a lot more space for new ship types to expand into.
lots of aux to battery boff powers and doffs to buff it, emergency weapon power, dem III, that on top of being an engi so I can further buff power/energy drain.
How are you getting such low damage numbers o.0 are you powering them by treadmill?
This work in progress build is getting 550-650 avg damage per shot without powers active, and 1100-1250 per shot during NI+faw+omega
chol grett:
6 green xi disruptors [acc]
2 placeholder torpedoes front/back
eng: armour resists
sci: assimilated, fleet xi +tht shield emitter; zero point module
tac: 4x green xi disruptors
boff powers: tt1x2 faw2x2, apo1, apo3 ; EptS1x2, RSP1 ; HE1 HE2 TSS3;
this isnt even on a tac or with any serious effort into dps
Video of you killing the starbase in the Tau system. I can do it in all of my cannon ships but have yet to see a beam boat do it.
Beams are fine. If you're trying to match cannon DPS, you're doing it wrong. Beams =/= cannons. Larger firing arc = lesser damage output. It's really that simple.
Beams will never achieve the same damage output of cannons. If you want that much damage, start flying a ship that can load cannons.
Beams are fine, said the escort. Main problem is perhaps in the fact, that escorts tank/evade on par on cruisers, but do much more dmg. So obviously people in cruisers want also give a punch with their beams...
If you think escorts can "tank/evade on par with cruisers", you're sadly mistaking. First off, cruisers don't evade, they're slow lumbering boats. They get more hull points, more engineering stations, and when flown by an engineer, get innate heals and even greater healing bonuses. Cruisers can, and always will, out-heal an escort. They will ALWAYS be capable of absorbing more damage than an escort.
The only thing an escort can do is kill its target before its target kills the escort. We escort pilots have become quite good at that, which is why many players seem to be under the incredibly wrong assumption that escorts can tank.
I did it with a Vesta, but I didn't make a video. I started shooting at it, went to McDonalds for a Big Mac, dropped off the water bill at the local municiple, then came home, ate my Big Mac, watched the Regeneration episode of Enterprise, and...
POP!
It was gone.
Obviously, you have never tried to do tanky escort build.
Doing a straight math comparison, in simple language for you (using Mk XII):
DHC: 45 degree arc, 384 base damage, 256 base DPS
Beam array: 250 degree arc, 220 base damage, 176 base DPS
Beam arrays get almost 600% the firing arc of DHCs, but only take a 43% decrease in base damage. Or, flipped another way, DHCs do approximately 170% as much damage as beam arrays, but take a 82% decrease in their firing arc.
The DPS calculations have very similar numbers: DHCs do only 50% more base DPS.
According to the math above, beams should do much less damage than they currently do, or cannons should do a whole lot more. It balances out, though, because a cruiser can consistently keep broadsiding targets with their beams, while an escort has to face their target and keep one single shield facing subject to almost all the incoming fire. Cruisers can rotate from one side to the other, turn to fire torpedos, etc.
Now you try telling me, again, what's wrong with beams?
I fly a Steamrunner with 2x EPtS, 2x Aux2Strut, 1x HE, 2x Tactical Team. MACO shield, skill points in starship armor, shields, blah, blah, over 70 shield power, red matter capacitor, etc. That's about as "tanky" as you can make an escort. It still doesn't match the tanking capabilities of even a "half-decent" cruiser.
My Eng can tank (in PVE) better in his Steamrunner as in his Assault Cruiser while doing more damage. Thanks to HE1, AuxSiF2 RSP, AtPO and the fact that dead enemies don't do any damage ;-)
As a Beamboat you MUST use 2xEngie boffslots to mitigate the drain or use an AuxtB build or use some Doffs to reduce the cooldown on Emergency powers. Thats a lot of ressources and still you are doing less damage than with cannons and turrets. Even 8 Beams (thanks to the drain) are doing less damage than 4 cannons.