On the contrary, his point was that existing drain mechanics, specifically the power inefficient nature of non-DHC weapons, are not fully counterable by existing anti-drain capabilities.
Power boosting and weapon drain countering abilities work, they're just not strong enough to deal with 7 beams firing concurrently
Well not quite, because Nadion Inversion, which was also included in the test, would count as an existing method. Why have a single ability that lets you do it once in a blue moon, when you still have to try to make those weapons work the rest of the time through inadequate means.
You make it sound like we aren't supposed to be able to run 7 beams at once; but then why do we have the means, and why do we have that one ability that lets it work on occasion? There is a case to be made that it is not working as intended.
Well not quite, because Nadion Inversion, which was also included in the test, would count as an existing method. Why have a single ability that lets you do it once in a blue moon, when you still have to try to make those weapons work the rest of the time through inadequate means.
Please elaborate on how an existing anti drain ability not being powerful enough to counter existing weapon drain mechanics on a macro scale clashes with the statement that existing anti drain mechanics are not currently strong enough to counter existing weapon drains.
You make it sound like we aren't supposed to be able to run 7 beams at once; but then why do we have the means, and why do we have that one ability that lets it work on occasion? There is a case to be made that it is not working as intended.
You'll notice I made zero quality judgements about whether you should or should not be forced into a specific loadout.
A possible tweak would be to make beam array power scale down as more beams are added, up to a fixed amount (like 6). Then a cruiser could load up on them and wont suffer such a severe power draw.
Please elaborate on how an existing anti drain ability not being powerful enough to counter existing weapon drain mechanics on a macro scale clashes with the statement that existing anti drain mechanics are not currently strong enough to counter existing weapon drains.
You'll notice I made zero quality judgements about whether you should or should not be forced into a specific loadout.
...
What?
I just pointed out that one of the existing anti-drain mechanics that was tested did in fact produce a decent amount of damage gain; and therefore your statement about the purpose of the OP was not entirely accurate.
I also said nothing about being forced into builds. I just pointed out that the argument could be made, that if something can be done, but can't be done well, then perhaps it isn't working right. It would certainly be grounds to re-examine it.
I just pointed out that one of the existing anti-drain mechanics that was tested did in fact produce a decent amount of damage gain; and therefore your statement about the purpose of the OP was not entirely accurate.
On the contrary, his point was that existing drain mechanics, specifically the power inefficient nature of non-DHC weapons, are not fully counterable by existing anti-drain capabilities.
Emphasis mine, since you clearly didn't see it the first time. I chose my words carefully.
I also said nothing about being forced into builds. I just pointed out that the argument could be made, that if something can be done, but can't be done well, then perhaps it isn't working right. It would certainly be grounds to re-examine it.
You make it sound like we aren't supposed to be able to run 7 beams at once; but then why do we have the means, and why do we have that one ability that lets it work on occasion? There is a case to be made that it is not working as intended.
Again, emphasis mine.
If you're going to contest a point, please be consistent.
In addition, simply because something can be done, doesn't mean it should inherently be able to be done well. You can make a balloon out of lead, or a plane out of concrete, but it doesn't mean they're going to work better than a plane or balloon of different design or implementation.
Ok, the reason why the OP saw such a huge improvement with NI, as opposed to such a small improvement with EPTW/manifolds/leech, is because even at 160ish weapon power he was still dipping below 125 while firing. With NI, he had almost no dip.
Look folks, I'm going to be bluntly honest, beams work fine. I have 2 engineers, one fed one klingon, Fleet Ambassador/ Fleet Vor'Cha respectfully. I average 6-7k dps parsed Infected elite runs. Ive run literally hundreds of Infecteds since starting to play STO, so my pool of test run are more than sufficent.
Beams lack only one thing that DHC's have, big burst. Knowing beams as well as I do, I took my tac officer in a Fleet Defiant and built a pve broadside beamscort. Bfaw3 + Omega 3 and APA is nothing to sneeze at, toss in a couple torp spreads, and I am pulling 11-13k dps parsed dps infected elite.
Is it fair to have to overstack power for beams compared to DHC's, no. But if you do, you're not going to have a problem pulling you're own weight and then some in PvE
This is sort of like a scientist demanding gravity take it easy because it pulls too hard. That gravity might actually listen in this case doesn't make it a less shoddy approach to problem solving. So you've hooked up eighty beams and created some hideous Frankenstein monster and it doesn't work and now you're upset.
Well? Who said it would work in the first place? Part of experimenting with those sorts of exotic weapons loadouts is going to be trial and error. So okay, that wacky idea didn't work. Now you try something else. If everything worked and every unique snowflake loadout doled out an equal amount of DPS then the game would be even less involved than it already is, and experimenting with weapons setups wouldn't be fun because everybody gets a cookie and every paper gets an A.
3.) Torpedo launchers have pathetic DPS output. Even less than drain-crippled beam fire. This wouldn't be an issue if torpedoes did enough spike damage to justify taking your beams off target for a kill shot, but only way to even come close to having a torpedo strike be a kill shot is to massively buff it with tactical captain and boff abilities. Guess which ships are not typically used by tactical captains and have few tactical boff options?
I have to interject on this point...I have seen and experienced the "business end" of a Chel Grett armed with nothing but transphasic, rapid-reload transphasic, and Breen transphasic cluster torpedos, and ship gear that enhances torpedos, mines and shield penetration. The build in question put ZERO POINTS in any energy weapon captain skill, allowing those points to be spent elsewhere for survivability. They fly at the minimum energy weapon power of 25 in every power mode.
And the captain in question is an Engineer.
Their damage output is through the roof. To say that torpedo launchers have pathetic DPS output is wrong...the man is getting it DONE.
Emphasis mine, since you clearly didn't see it the first time. I chose my words carefully.
Again, emphasis mine.
If you're going to contest a point, please be consistent.
In addition, simply because something can be done, doesn't mean it should inherently be able to be done well. You can make a balloon out of lead, or a plane out of concrete, but it doesn't mean they're going to work better than a plane or balloon of different design or implementation.
You are twisting my words. Again, I never said anything about being forced into builds. You are making an assumption that running 7 beams is meant to result in these problems; I am not making that assumption. I don't know whether it is or not; I think there is a case to be made for re-examining the issue to make sure the results are the ones the devs intended. That is all.
To think, I only can in here to point out that range has nothing to do with the matter at hand...
I'd honestly think you are doing something wrong. I've got 6 Phaser beam array's, the Omega Plasma Torpedo, and the Borg Cutting Beam on my Galaxy-X, and from that distance (Assuming the target has no shields) I can do easy 700 to 900 damage per beam. If i'm within 5K of the target it's easy 1100 or better. With full shields the Phasers don't seem to have much trouble stripping them off, so I can't really say there's anything wrong with them. They seem to function as I would expect them to, but i'm usually broadsiding things like crazy, so dps, and shield stripping is fairly easy to do with 6 beams.
Of course i'm flying the X with my Engineer, so power really isn't a problem for me. I did fly an Excelsior with Disruptor beams for a good while, and damage was just though the roof on that thing, but it's been a while since I did anything with that captain. I'd say look at your spec points and what type of beams you are using. I've got XI purple Acc CritD and CritH phaser beams arrays on my X, so i'd imagine the Disruptor beams would be as good if not better damage considering the procs.
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.
problem with that logic: escorts turn on a dime so firing arc is irrelevant. A cruiser or sci ship bringing to bear 8 or 6 beams should be competitive vs a 4 fore cannon escort (before buffs of course).
I think the real problem is that beams do not have enough benefit over cannons to be competitive.
Its not a power drain issue though. I think its a niche/utility issue.
Beams can be made more useful by:
1- Increasing effective max damage range. For example, have beams do max damage out to 6km and have up to 20% loss of damage by 10km. Cannons oth, should have noticeable damage loss by 6km (40% dmg loss) and be near useless at 10km. Full dmg 2km and under.
2- Beam weapons should have higher chance to proc effects than cannons. Why? They're lasing the target not peppering it all over with cannon rounds. More focused energy=better chance of triggering effect. Rather than 2.5% make it 10%. There is precedence to this with the mission-acquirable 10% proc chance beam array. Not only does this make a ton of sense, it also works with cruiser and sci ship reliance on non-dps to achieve their weapon roles.
Cosmetic change but vital: Rather than a beam firing 4 or 5 pulses per cycle, have it fire just one or two beams long duration beams for the duration of the attack and have those beams 'pulse' like a lance weapon does. Not only would it make it look more canon and helps reduce FPS loss.
Considering a correctly setup ship can have somewhere between 3.3 to 10k dps with dual launchers alone (without any tactical abilities being used), I reject this premise.
Dual launchers = projectile weapons officers. A torpedo launcher has poor DPS, but a "correctly set up ship" will boost torpedo DPS 300% over nominal since the reload times all but vanish. But if you're going to equip 2 torpedo launchers and 3 projectile officers, now you are heavily invested into your frontal arc and it makes no sense to use beam arrays on your broadside.
First off the OP test is at max range, please tell me you understand range effects damage.
The test was a relative test to analyze the effects of power drain, not an absolute test to get the typical damage output number. The test was performed at maximum range to increase the target's survivability without resorting to a lot of heals that would harden the shields by varying amounts mid-test and skew the results.
if you havent figured out set weapons to 100, then stack EPtW, 2-piece borg, Maco Shield (or equivalent), plasmonic leech, Aux2Bat (specific builds)
As I said I was already using 100 weapon power, with EPTW, Leech, and even plasma manifold consoles. Borg set has no impact on power drains; I think you mean Omega set, which does help some. Why does it help? Because it directly fights power drain.
And I watched an interesting video where somebody was using Aux2batt heavily on a high damage assault cruiser. Given how effective it seemed to be and how ineffective EPTW seems to be, I think it's worth considering that Aux2batt overcaps power in a different way than EPTW, and that EPTW needs to behave more like it.
I have to interject on this point...I have seen and experienced the "business end" of a Chel Grett armed with nothing but transphasic, rapid-reload transphasic, and Breen transphasic cluster torpedos, and ship gear that enhances torpedos, mines and shield penetration.
....And? Again, you're dealing with a nice agile ship that has a lot of tactical abilities and is fully invested into its frontal arc. How does this contradict my basic point that torpedoes and beam arrays do not play well together.
Keep using your isolated test, meanwhile players are parsing full ESTF runs and putting up comparable numbers between cannon and beam ships. Doesnt really get anymore "real world" than that.
They must be crazy because your test, obviously, is more conclusive.
Dual launchers = projectile weapons officers. A torpedo launcher has poor DPS, but a "correctly set up ship" will boost torpedo DPS 300% over nominal since the reload times all but vanish. But if you're going to equip 2 torpedo launchers and 3 projectile officers, now you are heavily invested into your frontal arc and it makes no sense to use beam arrays on your broadside.
So let me get this right...you're trying to argue that a weapon handled in the correct way so as to become devastating somehow doesn't become devastating because it requires proper handling?
Why then bother with beams, since they require significant handling to get any meaningful effect?
Keep using your isolated test, meanwhile players are parsing full ESTF runs and putting up comparable numbers between cannon and beam ships. Doesnt really get anymore "real world" than that.
They must be crazy because your test, obviously, is more conclusive.
That kind of parsing isn't the be-all, end-all of determining weapon effectiveness. Unless the parser can determine how much DPS went to the intended target and wasn't wasted on non-primary targets, all you're seeing is numbers. Beams can do a great deal of DPS provided they're going nuts with BFaW and hitting multiple targets. That doesn't mean that they're effectively producing consistent, high-number DPS to single targets over a sustained period of time. It doesn't even mean that extra DPS had any effect on the engagement time of the encounter.
If you want to "fix" beams, then keep their DPS numbers identical, but give them the same firing efficiency as DHCs. That means the same firing cycle time and weapons drain behavior, but keep their energy drain at 10. That'll keep six beams at 2/3 the damage of four DHCs before consoles numbers and types are taken into account.
Comments
Well not quite, because Nadion Inversion, which was also included in the test, would count as an existing method. Why have a single ability that lets you do it once in a blue moon, when you still have to try to make those weapons work the rest of the time through inadequate means.
You make it sound like we aren't supposed to be able to run 7 beams at once; but then why do we have the means, and why do we have that one ability that lets it work on occasion? There is a case to be made that it is not working as intended.
Please elaborate on how an existing anti drain ability not being powerful enough to counter existing weapon drain mechanics on a macro scale clashes with the statement that existing anti drain mechanics are not currently strong enough to counter existing weapon drains.
You'll notice I made zero quality judgements about whether you should or should not be forced into a specific loadout.
http://www.zeta-aquilae.net/Test/Beams.png
There you go. Just keep adding weapon power and see your DPS on a full beam broadside boat increase up to 25% and more!!!
Beam Arrays / Power level have always been broken for a stupid reason, bad programming, etc.
...
What?
I just pointed out that one of the existing anti-drain mechanics that was tested did in fact produce a decent amount of damage gain; and therefore your statement about the purpose of the OP was not entirely accurate.
I also said nothing about being forced into builds. I just pointed out that the argument could be made, that if something can be done, but can't be done well, then perhaps it isn't working right. It would certainly be grounds to re-examine it.
Emphasis mine, since you clearly didn't see it the first time. I chose my words carefully.
Again, emphasis mine.
If you're going to contest a point, please be consistent.
In addition, simply because something can be done, doesn't mean it should inherently be able to be done well. You can make a balloon out of lead, or a plane out of concrete, but it doesn't mean they're going to work better than a plane or balloon of different design or implementation.
Look folks, I'm going to be bluntly honest, beams work fine. I have 2 engineers, one fed one klingon, Fleet Ambassador/ Fleet Vor'Cha respectfully. I average 6-7k dps parsed Infected elite runs. Ive run literally hundreds of Infecteds since starting to play STO, so my pool of test run are more than sufficent.
Beams lack only one thing that DHC's have, big burst. Knowing beams as well as I do, I took my tac officer in a Fleet Defiant and built a pve broadside beamscort. Bfaw3 + Omega 3 and APA is nothing to sneeze at, toss in a couple torp spreads, and I am pulling 11-13k dps parsed dps infected elite.
Is it fair to have to overstack power for beams compared to DHC's, no. But if you do, you're not going to have a problem pulling you're own weight and then some in PvE
Brody/Salander/Tsamsiyu ToSVets.
Well? Who said it would work in the first place? Part of experimenting with those sorts of exotic weapons loadouts is going to be trial and error. So okay, that wacky idea didn't work. Now you try something else. If everything worked and every unique snowflake loadout doled out an equal amount of DPS then the game would be even less involved than it already is, and experimenting with weapons setups wouldn't be fun because everybody gets a cookie and every paper gets an A.
I have to interject on this point...I have seen and experienced the "business end" of a Chel Grett armed with nothing but transphasic, rapid-reload transphasic, and Breen transphasic cluster torpedos, and ship gear that enhances torpedos, mines and shield penetration. The build in question put ZERO POINTS in any energy weapon captain skill, allowing those points to be spent elsewhere for survivability. They fly at the minimum energy weapon power of 25 in every power mode.
And the captain in question is an Engineer.
Their damage output is through the roof. To say that torpedo launchers have pathetic DPS output is wrong...the man is getting it DONE.
The weakest of the forces does take it easy once you achieve escape velocity.
You are twisting my words. Again, I never said anything about being forced into builds. You are making an assumption that running 7 beams is meant to result in these problems; I am not making that assumption. I don't know whether it is or not; I think there is a case to be made for re-examining the issue to make sure the results are the ones the devs intended. That is all.
To think, I only can in here to point out that range has nothing to do with the matter at hand...
Of course i'm flying the X with my Engineer, so power really isn't a problem for me. I did fly an Excelsior with Disruptor beams for a good while, and damage was just though the roof on that thing, but it's been a while since I did anything with that captain. I'd say look at your spec points and what type of beams you are using. I've got XI purple Acc CritD and CritH phaser beams arrays on my X, so i'd imagine the Disruptor beams would be as good if not better damage considering the procs.
problem with that logic: escorts turn on a dime so firing arc is irrelevant. A cruiser or sci ship bringing to bear 8 or 6 beams should be competitive vs a 4 fore cannon escort (before buffs of course).
I think the real problem is that beams do not have enough benefit over cannons to be competitive.
Its not a power drain issue though. I think its a niche/utility issue.
Beams can be made more useful by:
1- Increasing effective max damage range. For example, have beams do max damage out to 6km and have up to 20% loss of damage by 10km. Cannons oth, should have noticeable damage loss by 6km (40% dmg loss) and be near useless at 10km. Full dmg 2km and under.
2- Beam weapons should have higher chance to proc effects than cannons. Why? They're lasing the target not peppering it all over with cannon rounds. More focused energy=better chance of triggering effect. Rather than 2.5% make it 10%. There is precedence to this with the mission-acquirable 10% proc chance beam array. Not only does this make a ton of sense, it also works with cruiser and sci ship reliance on non-dps to achieve their weapon roles.
Cosmetic change but vital: Rather than a beam firing 4 or 5 pulses per cycle, have it fire just one or two beams long duration beams for the duration of the attack and have those beams 'pulse' like a lance weapon does. Not only would it make it look more canon and helps reduce FPS loss.
I've also seen the Enterprise D's shields drop to 10% after being hit with a Pakled phaser.
Maybe it's power distribution is different than the Galaxys in STO focusing more on weapons power.
I miss that from TOS, the Original Enterprise could do things that would make all the newer ones implode.
Dual launchers = projectile weapons officers. A torpedo launcher has poor DPS, but a "correctly set up ship" will boost torpedo DPS 300% over nominal since the reload times all but vanish. But if you're going to equip 2 torpedo launchers and 3 projectile officers, now you are heavily invested into your frontal arc and it makes no sense to use beam arrays on your broadside.
The test was a relative test to analyze the effects of power drain, not an absolute test to get the typical damage output number. The test was performed at maximum range to increase the target's survivability without resorting to a lot of heals that would harden the shields by varying amounts mid-test and skew the results.
As I said I was already using 100 weapon power, with EPTW, Leech, and even plasma manifold consoles. Borg set has no impact on power drains; I think you mean Omega set, which does help some. Why does it help? Because it directly fights power drain.
And I watched an interesting video where somebody was using Aux2batt heavily on a high damage assault cruiser. Given how effective it seemed to be and how ineffective EPTW seems to be, I think it's worth considering that Aux2batt overcaps power in a different way than EPTW, and that EPTW needs to behave more like it.
What are we looking at here?
....And? Again, you're dealing with a nice agile ship that has a lot of tactical abilities and is fully invested into its frontal arc. How does this contradict my basic point that torpedoes and beam arrays do not play well together.
Your words, not mine. I just offered the argument that the statement was bogus. But to each their own.
They must be crazy because your test, obviously, is more conclusive.
So let me get this right...you're trying to argue that a weapon handled in the correct way so as to become devastating somehow doesn't become devastating because it requires proper handling?
Why then bother with beams, since they require significant handling to get any meaningful effect?
That kind of parsing isn't the be-all, end-all of determining weapon effectiveness. Unless the parser can determine how much DPS went to the intended target and wasn't wasted on non-primary targets, all you're seeing is numbers. Beams can do a great deal of DPS provided they're going nuts with BFaW and hitting multiple targets. That doesn't mean that they're effectively producing consistent, high-number DPS to single targets over a sustained period of time. It doesn't even mean that extra DPS had any effect on the engagement time of the encounter.
If you want to "fix" beams, then keep their DPS numbers identical, but give them the same firing efficiency as DHCs. That means the same firing cycle time and weapons drain behavior, but keep their energy drain at 10. That'll keep six beams at 2/3 the damage of four DHCs before consoles numbers and types are taken into account.