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Torpedoes still seperate from energy weapons
antiquesroadshow
Member Posts: 227 Arc User
At first when I read the announcement, it sounded like they were going to combine torpedoes and energy weapons. Which would make it fun to have the option to max both and it would make sense. Now I see they are still separate like they used to be. I thought they were trying to streamline the skill trees and make torps fun to use again in the process? And before anybody posts any comments about torps are still viable, yes they are. But builds still have to "choose" whats optimal. So that means we are still gonna have all beam builds or all torp builds to get max potential out of our weapons. All Star Trek ships used torps and beams in all the shows. Why does Criptic want to make that weapon combination sub-optimal in our universe? They just can't balance it to save their life.
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That is my stance on the whole skill system, the one we have now and the one we are getting. I wonder if there is any trade off and I think, I will end up with a build I already have, a generalist. You want to shoot well, you want to fly well, you want to be able to deal with damage, repairs, you want efficiency with your energy systems etc.
Of course you can specialize your tac captain for energy weapons to get full advantage of doing damage, but what if you want to fly a science ship with that captain? Or you want to fly an escort with your science captain?
The great thing about the system we have now is the fact that you can min/max and you can be a Jack-of-All and still perform on a sensable level.
I could get behind that as it would make some sense as a captain/tactical officer would coordinate their use of weapons to enhance the strengths of those weapons. Another idea would be to place a diminishing return on the bonus gained from stacking tactical consoles that improve the same damage type, making it that slotting an even using torpedo weapons/consoles would be a better option once you reach or get close to the cap when diminishing returns kicks in. The cap at which the diminishing return would kick in at could be determined by how many tactical consoles a ship has, making it that tactical ships would have a higher cap.
That is a nice idea too - one i would turn around a bit since i really dislike things like "diminishing returns" or other mechanics that just seem to "punish".
Instead of diminishing returns, tac consoles that are singles get a flat 20% (for example) boost. Using 3 consoles of the same kind won't get you anything extra but if you use 3 different consoles - one for tetryon, one for torps and one for mines, all three get a 20% boost or if you use 3 polaron consoles and one proton console, the proton one gets 20% extra. It would make mixing stuff up way more interesting and while technically very similar to what you suggested, it doesn't have that punishing feel to it.
Well as much as you can see it as a punishment for stacking one type of weapon, you can also see it as a incentive like your suggestion to sub out a console an even weapon for a different type. But yeah basically both would be about the same just with a different way of going about it. Though one thing that gets me too is that unlike beams which are directly affected by weapon power torpedos have no such interaction, well also how torpedo spread works that is another story though that I have made suggestions to change. I always thought that even though torpedos would not make sense to get a boost to damage directly it would be nice if they got some bonus from you having high weapon power, maybe such a thing like firing an additional torpedo or increasing their rate of fire.
I could see that synergy type idea that each energy and torpedo type interacts with each other differently, like transphasic torpedos gain a boost to their shield penetration when they are used with tetryon weapons, but these buffs could be quite varied leading to even more interesting build concepts. An I could see such a idea as that synergy system either as you had it, or this more indepth one being more of a talent you could spec into. Yet I will say one other thing the innate 30% base-line critical severity buff that anti-proton has needs to be adjusted as it is way to powerful to be base-line an always active, compare that to the other energy types that have a 2.5% chance for their buff/effect an even then it is not as powerful as antiproton. I would not mind seeing that critical severity buff translated into being either a 2.5% chance buff like the other energy types have, or a a 5% chance to get a stacking 2-5% critical severity buff capping out at 35% (not sure on duration just yet.). This would still be really strong yet not so overly dominating as a static constant buff like it is now.
Just as an explanation of a change I would think would help torpedo heavy builds that use torpedo spread, maybe making it cause the other torpedo launchers, which are of the same kind as the one used to fire the torpedo spread, launch an additional torpedo/s based on the rank of the torpedo spread at targets within their firing arcs making it function much more like bfaw an even cannon scatter volley. This could even be translated over into torp high yield that it fires an additional torpedo from the main fore or aft launchers based on if you are using a forward or aft slotted torpedo launcher.
We have more useful choices either benefitting all damage or survivability. Thus making it harder to put points into both energy and torp skills.
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There are some mechanics that really should get looked at however. The shared torpedo cooldown, for example, really needs to go. If beam arrays or cannons had that lockout, nobody would use them either - imagine firing 1 beam array on your 8 beam cruiser and it stops all weapons from firing until a few seconds after it is finished. Who in their right mind would use those beams? The same is true, in an even more horrible way, for mines btw.
Given how dominant and omnipresent antiproton is, npcs should have antiproton resistance a lot more often. Maybe adding an energy specific crit resistance and a more common ap resistance could balance it out without straight up nerfing the DEEEPZS-crowds favorite toy.
I'm not sure how much of an outlier AP is though. It would be interesting to see some numbers comparing some All out Tetryon/Phaser/Polaron DPS build against an AP Build and compare the numbers.
There is a big difference between slightly better and overpowered: BFAW, Plasmonic Leech and weapon power overcapping being the latter.
For me is disappointed that the devs repeat this setting. I enjoyed that maybe I'll play torpedoes , but it looks like not.
That could work, but quite frankly, in the end it's not needed.
It used to be, in the old days when we were still writing on stone tablets and didn't have iPhones, there was a good reason to still use torpedoes.
Due to the energy drain, adding a 7th or 8th beam did very little to your DPS. The extra energy consumption meant you were getting less out of the last beams.
In addition, beam (and cannon) skills locked the respective type of skills out, so you could only run one weapon specific buff if you didn't mix. And it happened to be that there were 3 buffs that affected only a single weapon: Beam Overload, High Yield Torpedo, and Torpedo Spread. So you got little out of your 7th or 8th beam, and you could easily afford to slot a buff that would buff your single torpedo launcher.
This was particular useful for spike damage builds (very important in PvP, less so in PvE), but it also benefited your overall DPS.
Maybe one really has come to the conclusion that Plasmonic Leech and the like need to be nerfed hard. BFAW would probably be fine if you couldn't overcap that easily, and people would run mixed builds because it would be the best use of their abilities. With all the cooldown reductions we have now, it would be even easier. In the past, it was useful to run 2 buffs for one weapon type, so you have the best uptime, but now, you can do with just one. Back then, of course, many Cruisers had 2 or 3 low level tactical buffs only, so it was even harder to cover your needs, but now, practically no cruiser comes without the ability to slot at least 3 tactical powers, and one of them probably at Lt.Cmdr.
Well it's more than the leech...so many ways to get extra power in this game...and not just extra power, ways of reducing the power cost of firing weapons. I mean all it takes is emergency weapon cycle, EPtW, and weapon system efficiency cruiser command and bam...you have a 50% reduction to weapon power cost. Don't forget people stack EPS to get their power regenerated quickly.
Though i would not mind seeing a new type of torpedo launcher not like the damage type, but like a dual launcher or heavy warhead launcher that would give some more options to torpedo users. Though even just making it that cluster-torpedos had some limited interaction with both the torpedo an mine based buffing abilities, like that it gains half the bonus of the two buffs an yet can actually have both applied to it. Think of seeing a cluster-torpedo spread that launches three of them that is using also dispersal pattern alpha when it reaches it's destination, even if these only gave the cluster-torp half their normal bonus that would be really nice an give using them alot of really good synergy for using them in torpedo/mine build.
I can truly agree that all the bonus and power leeching we have now that makes managing your power-levels pretty much a left behind concept once you have those could use a looking over, or even just the overcapping of powers-systems. Yet this is really a slippery slope as it is a combination of things from the prevalence of +power an power-leeching mechanics in the game, alongside things like reductions in power-costs that makes it that you can pretty well negate the need to worry about your power levels to a degree. I think there should be more of a overall look at the whole of the power-system concept an items that interact with it, and then building a system around it that makes gaining enough bonus power either from console or leeching either more difficult or slowly lose efficiency as you put more into it.
I agree with many that feel either cannon abilities (cannon rapid fire, scatter volley) should be obtainable in the ensign rank, or pushing beam abilities (bfw, beam overload) up one rank to start in Lt ranks. Yet if they did move the beam abilities up one rank, than I would move attack patterns down one rank so that you could get access to them abit ealier an not have redundant choices for some of the patterns in the same ranking, like with how in commander rank you have omega 2 and 3 even if one is harder to get giving you more options of what attack patterns you can slot overall without making one choice void when you get the top rank of the ability as they are in the same seat rank.
What I don't understand is how you don't see this being an OP idea. Part of the reason so many splits exist in skill systems is to make people choose specific build and play styles.
Admittedly, torp builds are somewhat niche. Either you're a Sci looking to push Aux and hold onto some shield/engine power so you drop Weaps like a hot potato, or you're an enhanced cloak pain in the neck most likely running transphasics for added shield pen.
Not that this is really a choice anymore, sci's getting an all new nerf and so we'll see less torp-heavy builds, and torps will always do enough spike damage to hull to be worthwhile anyway.
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With all that in mind, I think its time they just drop "overcapping" as a mechanic altogether.
LOL when a Neu can do nearly 20k like my Tac KDF toons and crafted plasma torps have a nice lingering DOT and AOE plus have zero power drain I question why use Beams at all outside of bringing shields down.
Obviously a PEP, or gravtorp, will benefit from aux power. But since when is the general flight speed of torps affected by aux?! This is entirely new to me.