In my opinion really what is needed for cannons and beams are the following abilities:
Rapid fire single target attack (Cannon Rapid Fire & ?)
High powered focused single target attack (? & Beam Overload?)
Low powered AOE point defense or multi target attack (Cannon Scatter Volley & BFAW)
Clearly there's some missing if you want something like that, and things like BFAW need to have damage reduced so they cannot outperform single target attacks.
I'd add in a cannon version of BO, some sort of charged attack a bit like Isokinetic cannon and a rapid fire ability for beams against one target.
In principle, Surgical Strikes are single target rapid fire for both cannons and beams. It's just that only a few ships can use it since it's intelligence gated.
But one had to define what are the advantages of rapid fire versus focussed single attack. From the tip of my snout I'd say rapid fire = reduced crit chance and acuracy, higher rate of fire -> above average damage over a prolonged period. Overload, as it is = increased (guaranteed) crit chance, high accuracy -> spike damage. AoE attacks: decreased (none at all) crit chance, increased accuracy against small targets -> point defense and maybe aggro magnet.
I think what would be needed would be a complete overhaul of BOFF abilities. Recreate the whole system to make more sense.
That's my way of thinking too. Surgical strikes, maybe have an equivalent tac power but loose the crit boost like you mentioned.
For the AOE attack i'd even go as far as to give it a built in aggro multiplayer so that tanks can still benefit from drawing fire with it. So the more targets you hit the more of an obvious target you become to the enemy. Using it against a single target would gain you little as rapid fire or overload would do more damage, but spam it all over the shop and you gotta be ready for the enemy's attention to point your way.
In my opinion really what is needed for cannons and beams are the following abilities:
Rapid fire single target attack (Cannon Rapid Fire & ?)
High powered focused single target attack (? & Beam Overload?)
Low powered AOE point defense or multi target attack (Cannon Scatter Volley & BFAW)
Clearly there's some missing if you want something like that, and things like BFAW need to have damage reduced so they cannot outperform single target attacks.
I'd add in a cannon version of BO, some sort of charged attack a bit like Isokinetic cannon and a rapid fire ability for beams against one target.
This is precisely why I made the suggestion the way I did. Sure, Cannons and Beams each have 2 dedicated powers, but they don't really line up in apparent intended use, it's always felt like there was a missing power for each. My initial post has suggestions on additional powers to fill the gaps although that might not be enough and a full redesign of powers might be necessary as angrytarg suggested.
The universe has a wonderful sense of humor. The trick is learning how to take a joke.
to me BFAW should have been a "point defense" mode, rapid fire, half power to target fighters and torpedos
I agree. "Fire at will" on screen did not result in AoE spam either, it's taking opportunity shots against enemies without explicit order. The current fire at will should become an ability called "point defense" with accuracy and damage bonus against shuttles, torpedoes and mines and reduced efficiency against bigger targets but increased threat generation. A "fire at will" should pick one random target with maybe increased crit chance and accuracy but it's your officer deciding which. Your benefit would be to have time to concentrate on your defenses. And then we had to make defenses actually be worth something - we have so many traits and stuff these days our ships bascially auto-heal all the time.
If there is a bonus against mines and fighters then there should be a (severe) penalty against larger vessels.
The main problem i see with a redesign of BFAW is that while currently the tactical characters benefit the most from BFAW it will be the engineers and science characters which are hurt the most by a downgrade.
This is part why my suggestion had been aimed at taking away the tactical boost to this AOE power.
For whoever just tuned in, i proposed to not let attack pattern alpha and go down fighting interact with BFAW.
This program, though reasonably normal at times, seems to have a strong affinity to classes belonging to the Cat 2.0 program. Questerius 2.7 will break down on occasion, resulting in garbage and nonsense messages whenever it occurs. Usually a hard reboot or pulling the plug solves the problem when that happens.
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That's my way of thinking too. Surgical strikes, maybe have an equivalent tac power but loose the crit boost like you mentioned.
For the AOE attack i'd even go as far as to give it a built in aggro multiplayer so that tanks can still benefit from drawing fire with it. So the more targets you hit the more of an obvious target you become to the enemy. Using it against a single target would gain you little as rapid fire or overload would do more damage, but spam it all over the shop and you gotta be ready for the enemy's attention to point your way.
This is precisely why I made the suggestion the way I did. Sure, Cannons and Beams each have 2 dedicated powers, but they don't really line up in apparent intended use, it's always felt like there was a missing power for each. My initial post has suggestions on additional powers to fill the gaps although that might not be enough and a full redesign of powers might be necessary as angrytarg suggested.
The universe has a wonderful sense of humor. The trick is learning how to take a joke.
If there is a bonus against mines and fighters then there should be a (severe) penalty against larger vessels.
The main problem i see with a redesign of BFAW is that while currently the tactical characters benefit the most from BFAW it will be the engineers and science characters which are hurt the most by a downgrade.
This is part why my suggestion had been aimed at taking away the tactical boost to this AOE power.
For whoever just tuned in, i proposed to not let attack pattern alpha and go down fighting interact with BFAW.