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Please explain the reason behind the omni-directional beam weapon limitation
angrytarg
Member Posts: 11,007 Arc User
As it states in the title.
Omni-Directional Beam Weapons have an arbitrary limitation imposed upon them that allows to only slot one "crafted" and one "non-crafted/set" at the same time. Most of us players are aware but others aren't. Which is partly due to the fact that - correct me if I'm wrong though - to this day there is no in-game text of any kind informing us or explaining how this works, which weapon counts as what or which is incompatible under which circustance.
But most importantly I wonder why this limitation exists. What is so gamebreakingly powerful that it cannot be allowed to slot a Pahvan Proton set with a Morphogenic Polaron set for instance.
Omni-Directional Beam Weapons have an arbitrary limitation imposed upon them that allows to only slot one "crafted" and one "non-crafted/set" at the same time. Most of us players are aware but others aren't. Which is partly due to the fact that - correct me if I'm wrong though - to this day there is no in-game text of any kind informing us or explaining how this works, which weapon counts as what or which is incompatible under which circustance.
But most importantly I wonder why this limitation exists. What is so gamebreakingly powerful that it cannot be allowed to slot a Pahvan Proton set with a Morphogenic Polaron set for instance.
^ Memory Alpha.org is not canon. It's a open wiki with arbitrary rules. Only what can be cited from an episode is. ^
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Which kinda seemed obvious from the very beginning, as neither the weapons themselves nor the set bonus' are so powerful that they make a huge difference.
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At that point why bother with beam arrays at all when you can just slot omnis?
> I think the problem isn't how OP they can be, but the fact that they are a full 360 firing arc. Imagine having a cruiser with 8 of them. No need to even maneuver at that point. Just fly around aimlessly and ALL your weapons are still able to fire. Doesn't matter which way you're facing, ALL weapons are firing no matter what.
>
> At that point why bother with beam arrays at all when you can just slot omnis?
Turrets exist, though. They don't break the game.
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These days since so many builds go CSV and cannons, and many sets have a turret to build the set bonus with, it just seems a pointless limitation that cuts back on build diversity.
True, if they allowed all-omni builds it would cause problems on several levels (and the time-on-target factor probably would make them OP) so an only two omnis restriction makes sense. It is the arbitrarily limiting them to one crafted and one non-crafted that has no logical basis and only serves to needlessly confuse and irritate players.
Turrets do a fraction of the damage of a Single cannon... which do a fraction of the damage of Heavy Cannons.
Omni beams do = dmg to a 270 degree beam. They are > for free. So they are restricted to 2 per ship.
The base damage of a single cannon at MK XV is 739. The Base damage of a MK XV Turret is 462.
I would be fine with unlocked Omni usage... as long as they get the same damage reduction.
MK XV Beam arrays and omnis have a base damage of 616. So if Cryptic wants to reduce Omni damge by 35% as applies to turrets ok. So base Omni dmg should be reduced from 616 to 400. (at that point sure let people run full 8 omni setups if they want lol)
I don't agree with this... this also seems to me a sane limit. One set. One non set.
The only confusion and annoyance has been Cryptic bug state releases of beams mis labeled internally as non set.
But turrets are weaker than omnis you say? Well, DHCs are 886 base DPS vs 800 DPS for DBBs so it evens out.
I know this sounds crazy... Beams are not supposed to be equal to cannons.
The original design Heavy cannons were restricted to escort class ships. The defiant and ships of that nature were supposed to run cannons and get a potential dmg buff... IF the pilot could keep their 45 degree arcs on target.
That is the actual determination of dmg... ARC. Heavy cannons do more dmg cause they are 45 degree weapons. DBB are 90 degree and do less dmg.
The only weapon that doesn't respect the logic is Omni beams. Omni beams don't respect the more arc less damage paradigm. Which is balanced by the fact that you can only slot 2 of them. Which IF you are flying an escort is no big deal, as most newer escorts are now 5/2.
Again If they want to allow Omnis to slot over the current limit... then they need a damage reduction. OR some sort of diminishing return formula. Perhaps they should allow you to slot all the omnis you like... but reduce all of their Damage say 10% for every one past 2 you slot. This would reduce 3 rear omnis 30% which would be close to the same reduction turrets get over single cannons. Slot 4... 40% reduction. Again not insane. Then if someone wants to slot 8 omnis... they would do around the same damage as a 8 turret setup would do.
Yes, if you want a theme (also known as Space Barbie
Sadly, the devs have said we will never be able to change beam/cannon visuals to fix mismatched visuals.
This way you would have some sort of restriction and at the same time the possibility to run multiple omnis on ships, which would actualy benefit hugely from this (like all the cruisers without the option to mount DHC, but at the same time have the "worse" 4/4 weapon layout).
It would promote build diversity and also make those aft weapon slots more useful.
I certainly would appreciate it if I could use the new proton beam together with the cold beam from Winter Wonderland. Or with the two other event weapons (that one Tetryon weapon and the protostar one) when I'm levelling characters.
Also agreed with this.
I like using the Nausicaan weapon set from one of the episodes when I'm using disruptors. But they don't match well with the Coalition Disruptors that I'm using on one toon.
If we can't get options to change our weapon colours, at least let us use a full set of one weapon type... Instead of forcing us to either fly rainbow boats or ignore like half the stuff that's in the game.
If this is still an issue it shouldn't be that difficult of a fix as you're just changing the hardpoint it fires from. If we can have abilities that can proc multiple times a second, you will not convince me they can't fix a hardpoint issue like that.
For today's game I will say I absolutely agree that omni-beam restriction needs to go the way of the dodo as it's an outdated and absolutely unnecessary restriction. The only times I would ever support a restriction is only allowing one copy of a set item, such as you can only have one copy of the morphogenic omni, one trilithium omni or similar. Some folks have said "if they let us use 8 omnis then people would never have to maneuver their ships". Which first is simply untrue as you still need to move and survive. Also we've been able to use 8 turrets for well over a decade now so the idea of having 8 omnidirectional weapons isn't a new concept.
Some people bring up the argument of "why would people use beam arrays when they could use omnis and do more damage since their damage is the same". First, omni beams do NOT do the same damage as beam arrays, this is factually untrue. Omni beams do around 15.7% less damage per shot than a beam array does. For comparison I went into space and looked at the damage per shot of my Altamid Plasma omni compared to one of my assimilated plasma beams. The Altamid omni was sitting at 1221 per shot vs the assimilated beam array at 1429 per shot. If both of them are able to fire that omni beam will never outdo that beam array in damage just based on pure math. This also assumes the weapons are rolled to get as much damage as possible from them. The other issue with omni beams is they have a locked mod that cannot be changed which is the [arc] mod that handles their ability to fire in a 360 degree circle where as turrets don't have this same restriction. So not only is the base damage of omni beams already lower than beam arrays, but they also have to give up a mod that arrays don't have to.
In other words if someone wanted to use 8 omnis on their ship, this means they're sacrificing a total of 15.7% damage per weapon straight off the top, and a total of 8 weapon mods that could be 8 extra dmg, crtd, or crth mods depending on what you're after. If the goal is to do as much DPS as possible, you wouldn't use all 8 omnis even though you could. You're going to leave so much damage on the table that it's not even funny. Simply because people can do something doesn't mean they should.
If the concern is power creep that ship has long sailed and there are much bigger things to worry about than simply omni beams. Personally I don't care how a person does the damage so long as everyone is pulling their weight and we clear the content.
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Ironically, the ship in the show that started the whole Trek phenomenon was a "rainbow" boat because the TOS Enterprise used red and blue beams about equally often and even used a green beam (though only seen from the ground) once to stun several city blocks at once.
It even used cannon-like phaser bolts occasionally because of a mistake in Balance of Terror where they were trying to introduce the photon torpedo to the viewers, but a script-checker noticed it and thought it was an error and changed "photon torpedo" to "phaser" in the final shooting script, which was not caught in time to fix without going seriously over the budget for the episode.
You are only partially correct on omni dmg.
Some specific set piece omnis have lower dmg. Martok stands out as being low.
A crafted Omni beam has the same damage as a beam array. As do most of the set omnis.
For this second comparison I took my Jem'hadar Strike ship that's loaded down with polarons into space and compared a mk xv polaron beam array (crafted) to a crafted polaron omni. The beam array was using the standard dmgx4 and crtd/dm mods with the omni having dmgx3 and crtd/dm mods. The beam array was at 1618 per shot with the omni beam 1571 per shot. This is a roughly 3% difference in favor of the beam array. Now interestingly enough when I compared that same beam array to the Inhibiting Polaron Omni using dmgx3 and crtd/dm mods, that omni was slated at 1408 per shot which puts us at a 13% difference. That 3% may not be alot but it's going to add up over the course of a run. Regardless you are leaving damage on the table.
So this brings us right back around to square one. Why would people not just use 8 crafted omnis instead of beam arrays by that logic since they're virtually the same? Simple, damage left on the table and missing mods, not to mention inability to use certain set bonuses if you stick to 8 omnis. You could say it balances out and thus would still be bad for the game, thus how could it be addressed. Simple, nerf crafted omni base damage to put them in line with other omnis. However if Cryptic did that certain groups and people would throw a conniption fit like the always do saying how Cryptic only ever nerfs things. Or they could restrict omnis to the rear of a ship. Yet I don't see the need for this either.
Lastly I don't buy arguments of having 8 omnis being overpowered when the ship of power creep has long since sailed. Especially since precedent was already set for that with the ability to slot 8 turrets. I also do not accept the "but turrets are weaker so it's okay" argument some have as that's just spin in my book. You can already do monstrous DPS with all turrets yet we don't see people running turret builds save as a gag build most of the time. Personally I do not care what people have on their ship so long as they can pull their own weight and we're clearing content. Point being I see no valid reasons to keep omnis restricted in today's game.
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The realworld reason the beams (and bolts/torpedoes) were not all the same color or texture or whatever was that Star Trek used so much SFX compared to other shows that one Opticals house could not handle the load and so they sent the work out to several at once. In fact, at one point they actually had to use every single SFX company in Hollywood at the same time to make the deadline, a record that I believe still stands today. The different companies had different equipment and techniques (and other customers so sometimes they didn't have the right machine available and had to improvise) and it resulted in different looks.
In fact, there was such a time crunch that often they just sent the script with parts circled and a note or two about what they needed there, usually without such details as what color the beams were supposed to be, so the SFX company just used what they thought best.
And there were other factors on top of that, mainly caused by having to be able to show the episodes in either color or black and white. For instance, the blue beams tended to blend into the sky too much in orbital bombardment scenes which is why red was favored in those scenes (like when they killed Vaal). Hand phasers were the same way, sometimes the color was random but sometimes they were chosen because of the color of the background. And TVs back then were not very clear and even the color ones did not always show color right, so they had to make sure there was plenty of contrast between the beams and the backgrounds.
The idea that the producers didn't really care about the show and had no interest in continuity is one of the many myths surrounding Trek. That is not to say they didn't make mistakes at times, the show was very ambitious, for instance it used more SFX per hour of show than most movies, let alone TV shows, and things would sometimes get overlooked in the scramble to get it all done on time (the "proximity burst phaser" was a prime example of that).
Also, the show focused so tightly on the crew of the Enterprise that a number of the background details, such as exactly how the Federation and Starfleet were actually structured and whatnot never made it out from behind the scenes and to air, so people just guessed and those guesses (especially a cherrypicked subset of fanon) became baked in by the Movie era.
It is those assumptions that make a lot of the early terminology of the show seem more inconsistent than it really is, along with projecting later decades' notions onto the show rather than what it was in the proper context (like the old saw about the mini skirted uniforms being "sexist" when it was the exact opposite and they (and the go-go boots that were also part of the uniform) were a symbol of empowerment and freedom).
For example, according to Gene Coon, who was the one who actually invented the Federation (up until then Roddenberry just used the term "the interstellar community"), it was based on the UN but a little tighter knit, somewhat similar to the very early US system with strong states and a relatively weak central government, which is why they used ambassadors instead of senators and whatnot)
The early ideas for Starfleet were likewise more of a tight alliance (like NATO) with some standardization of systems but having the members contribute ships and personnel along to the combined fleet and share technology but the ships would be mostly the designs of the contributors. That is one of the main reasons for the majority of the crew of a particular ship being all of the same member star-nation.
Unfortunately, Hollywood guild rules made foreground-grade shooting models cost about as much as a new car of that time so all they had available was one Federation heavy battlecruiser, one civilian ship (the DY type used for both Khan's sleeper ship in Space Seed and a robot freighter ship in The Ultimate Computer), the Romulan warbird from Balance of Terror (though only one episode before it was outlawed by guild rules) and the D7 (which was actually the wooden mockup AMT made for their plastic model, donated to the show in a way that the guild could not block), so that variety never happened.
The 3% your seeing on the omni... is simply the omni having a [arc] mod. One DMG mod is all they give up for 110 degrees of extra firing arc.
If we unlock them it won't be people loading their ships with 8 different set omnis. People will use 6 or 7 crafted omnis. Trading ONE damage mod for a [arc] mod.
Turrets get a built in reduction in damage. Omni beams do not. A few set omnis have lower numbers for whatever reasoning cryptic used at the time they released them. The standard omni beam though is forced to have a [arc] mod that is the only real difference in terms of dmg. It is also why no one really uses the one Wide arc Dual cannon they are allowed to run... cause the one dmg mode for 45 degrees more arc isn't really worthwhile.
I mean if everyone really wants to use full omni setups... Maybe the thing that makes more sense is to just add a [ARC] mod into the reroll table for all weapons.
Add [arc] as an option every weapon can have one of. Have it add 70 degrees to single cannons (Giving them single beam arc) Have it give 110 degrees to single arrays making them omnis. Make it give 45 degrees to dual and dual heavies making them wide angle versions. 90 Degrees to DBB giving them single cannon arc. At least there would be some minor trade in damage. (I'm not actually seriously suggesting such a thing... I think the game is fine as it is. 2 omni beams per ship is a logical limit imo)
Starfleet and the Federation as a whole wouldn't be fleshed out until the movies and later TNG.
And there's STILL the myth that every starship in TOS had unique assignment patches despite the existence of a document declaring that Starfleet personnel wore the same arrowhead as the Enterprise crew. In a way this was mitigated by the existence of Discovery showing that everyone used the arrowhead before TOS, but then we have outliers like the Mirror Universe episodes of Enterprise, which had a different badge for the Defiant uniforms. Even STO has made up badges for TOS era Starships. The only time we really have absolute confirmed assignment patches is in Enterprise.
Yes I'm aware of them having [arc] as a mod and them giving up a [dmg] mod. Fact remains those crafted omnis are still dealing less damage than a standard beam array. 3% may not be the greatest amount ever but it's still less than an array and over the course of a run will add up. Actual difference between the two as I cited above was 47 points. multiply that out by 8 and you get 376 which is 23.9% of an entire weapon, meaning you may as well be running a beam that's firing at 3/4 the damage. There may be alot who don't care and will use 8 crafted omnis if given the chance, but if the goal is to get every last one and zero from a ship, you're leaving damage on the table. Even more if you account for potentially lost set bonuses you won't benefit from by having 8 crafted omnis.
If the concern of unlocking omnis so one can have 8 on a ship is that folks would never use beam arrays, there is a simple solution to this. Nerf the crafted omnis so their damage is more in line with set omnis and lockbox/lobi omnis. Somehow though I see people throwing a hissy fit if that were to happen. Also if this is a concern, then by that same token of logic, why is there not a call buff single cannons since they rarely if ever see play vs the dual and dual heavy variants? Why are there no calls to restrict turrets the same way as omnis? Personally I wouldn't care if they nerfed the crafted omnis to be in line with the set omnis or similar if I could use 8 of them.
I have to also ask the obligatory question at this juncture as it cuts straight to the issue. Keeping in mind there is already precedent to unlock omnis since we can already use 8 turrets. So long as that person using 8 crafted omni beams or 8 turrets on their ship is pulling their weight and you're clearing content, what's the issue? If you're clearing content and they're pulling their own weight, who is hurt by them having 8 omnis/turrets on their ship and what business is it of yours? Who is being hurt by someone having 8 omnis or 8 turrets on a build? If power creep is the concern there are far far bigger fish to fry than this. Restricting omnis when turrets are not is simply an arbitrary restriction that has no value in today's game. There are other examples I can point to but I think folks get the idea. Aside from restricting set items to one per ship, there is zero valid reason for non set crafted omnis to be restricted at all.
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Following this same train of thought, why not allow cannons to be mounted in the rear?
Think we are going to have to agree to disagree on this one.
The reason is simple. I have explained it. Omni beams have no different base damage from a single array. Being forced to run one [arc] mod is not on its own sufficient payment for a 360 degree firing arc. Which is why they are rightly limited to two per ship. Sure switching [arc] to [dmg] nets you 3% dmg... but lets all be real now. 110 degrees more of arc is >>> then 3%.
I stand by what I said first. If Omnis were to be unlocked. Then they ALL do 34% too much damage. Nerf Omni damage 34% and allow people to slot as many of them as they like. I would be ok with that. It would put them on par with Turrets.
As they are essentially just single arrays that have a [arc] mod... yes they are TOO good. A limit of two keeps them from being game breaking. (Cryptic agrees... as I assume this is the main reason most Set omnis actually are set with lower base damage)