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Best "bang for your buck" weapon?

 
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Best "bang for your buck" weapon? - 5/31/2012 10:17:44 PM   
Beag

 

Posts: 90
Joined: 5/23/2012
Status: offline 		So, what is the best weapon overall, and why?

Playing a bit Iīve noticed the differences in some weapons, and what is good for one race and one situation might not be as good for others. For example, with good targeting the fast-firing rail gun type is pretty good, but requires to get close in and if a base has good area weapons, then itīs a VERY bad choice. And if I have a race with good thrusters then probably going for missiles and staying as far as possible might be a good idea, specially because it would allow to save space on shields. One thing I really donīt like is the bad armor damage rail guns and missiles weapons have, while phasers and torpedoes never fail in that aspect.

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RE: Best "bang for your buck" weapon? - 6/1/2012 12:38:24 AM   
Kayoz


Posts: 1516
Joined: 12/20/2010
From: Timbuktu
Status: offline 		Not sure how out of date this is -

http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=2686169&mpage=1

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RE: Best "bang for your buck" weapon? - 6/1/2012 3:10:20 AM   
Beag

 

Posts: 90
Joined: 5/23/2012
Status: offline 		Itīs missing rail guns, are they from the Legends expansion? Pretty good job and I think itīs still up-to-date. However DPS is misleading. A weapon can have 100 DPS but if it canīt reach the ship with 10 DPS itīs useless. Also, burst damage is superior to continuous damage. For example two units with 100 HP each are engaging. One deals 50 DPS, the other 150. If the one that does 50 DPS actually uses a 200 damage shot that fires each 4 seconds, and the other does 10 damage per shot and fires 15 times per second, the unit with the lower DPS willl win because it will kill the other unit in the first shot. DPS alone doesnīt cut it for analyzing weapons in any RTS.

Iīm particularly curious about rail guns because the by-pass of shields is pretty interesting, specially if the neighbour is a Zenox. Only problem is that a long range weapon is a must or area effect weapons will rip fleets with such a short range. Will try using the rail gun/missile combo and see how it fares.

< Message edited by Beag -- 6/1/2012 2:33:25 PM >

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RE: Best "bang for your buck" weapon? - 6/1/2012 3:32:54 PM   
Gareth_Bryne


Posts: 232
Joined: 5/16/2010
Status: offline 		Currently, phasers, definitely phasers. Reasons - no damage loss, high to-hit, high relative damage, relatively long range.

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RE: Best "bang for your buck" weapon? - 6/1/2012 4:25:20 PM   
Beag

 

Posts: 90
Joined: 5/23/2012
Status: offline 		Yeah, plus the fact they are better versus armor too. Iīd suppose that versus ships with low armor rail guns are better, and versus heavily armored ships, phasers.

Another question, what about ion weapons? And how exactly they work?

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RE: Best "bang for your buck" weapon? - 6/2/2012 6:00:51 PM   
Beag

 

Posts: 90
Joined: 5/23/2012
Status: offline 		Updating.

The "machine gun" rail gun has good damage output, but some very nasty perks. First, having improved targeters is a must, the accuracy is bad. But above all, the short range means that itīs impossible to close in and fire at ANY race with good thrusters, and whatīs worse, if you manage to close in the ships have a very brief firing opportunity because of how quick the attack pass can be. So if your ship has bad speed and turning speed, the fast-firing rail guns arenīt a good choice. Itīs probably a good choice with Sluken and Mortalen, which can stay at firing range longer.

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RE: Best "bang for your buck" weapon? - 6/2/2012 8:40:28 PM   
Kayoz


Posts: 1516
Joined: 12/20/2010
From: Timbuktu
Status: offline 		Just curious -

Aside from the aspect of raw damage output, since rail-guns cause internal damage - that can cause ships to flee the combat - effectively removing them from combat prematurely.

I just thought that might be worth considering in your evaluation. Internal damage triggers the ship to try to escape. Doing this to one ship might only be an annoyance - but doing it to a bunch of his ships in a sizable fleet engagement - might be more worthwhile.

Food for thought. I just think that comparing DPS without considering the "escape when damaged" behaviour is an unfair comparison.

That said, I'm not a fan of rail-guns. Too much trouble to micro-manage them to use them effectively. Gobs of phasers do the job sufficiently on a "bang-for-buck" basis.

< Message edited by Kayoz -- 6/4/2012 6:54:51 PM >

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RE: Best "bang for your buck" weapon? - 6/4/2012 8:10:01 PM   
Beag

 

Posts: 90
Joined: 5/23/2012
Status: offline 		Sigh, bases with short range rail guns are so crappy... Better to stick with the long range version only. More versatile.

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RE: Best "bang for your buck" weapon? - 6/6/2012 3:29:39 AM   
Fishman

 

Posts: 795
Joined: 4/1/2010
Status: offline 		Range and speed are everything: Go with the Plasma Thunderbolts or the Missiles (but probably not both). It doesn't matter how many phasers he has if he can't ever hit you. A base armed with anything other than the longest-ranged weapons, no matter how many of them, is nothing more than a sitting duck. If you can't hit it, you can't kill it. The shorter-ranged weapons may have better DPS, but that's not going to enable you to mow down hundreds of enemies in a dogfight.

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Post #: 9
RE: Best "bang for your buck" weapon? - 6/6/2012 12:06:09 PM   
jpwrunyan


Posts: 558
Joined: 12/3/2011
From: Uranus
Status: offline 		I also vote for missiles. Long range and shield penetration.
Also lower energy cost. This is also important to me re rail guns. I can get by with fewer and less advanced reactors on my ships.
Anyway I find missiles to be all around versatile. But they wont take down fighters so I take point defense as well.

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RE: Best "bang for your buck" weapon? - 6/17/2012 5:00:24 PM   
Fishman

 

Posts: 795
Joined: 4/1/2010
Status: offline 		Railguns are useful for triggering the autoflee behavior, but even the most powerful railguns are apparently totally worthless vs. armor unless you have a +damage admiral. The most powerful railgun does 18 damage per hit, but is only half as effective vs. armor, or 9. Since armor ignores 10 damage, you do no damage at all and therefore are simply an annoyance. This matches my observations when my battleships engage railgun-equipped ships, even at the highest levels such as those owned by Mechanoids or Shakturi: Their weapons are totally ineffectual and even a single armor plate negates all damage. This alone kills the utility of railguns as a primary weapon. You can keep a few on large bases where size isn't a factor in an attempt to repel transports, but as weapon for combat, they are worthless due to bad range, accuracy, and total inability to actually harm anything.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Beag

Also, burst damage is superior to continuous damage.
This is true only if you kill your opponent in the first shot. If you can't, and this is most likely to be the case, DW weapons are not generally that powerful unless you're talking DeathRay/SuperLazor, then DPS is what matters. Additionally, a high burst damage, horrible refire weapon, even *IF* it has higher DPS, is considerably less effective if it actually DOES massively overkill an opponent in a single shot, like the Superlazor does. It doesn't matter than you can do 30000 damage because anything short of one of my Gargantuan Spaceports isn't going to survive even half that.


< Message edited by Fishman -- 6/17/2012 5:04:33 PM >

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RE: Best "bang for your buck" weapon? - 6/18/2012 5:23:46 PM   
Jeeves


Posts: 940
Joined: 9/28/2010
From: Arlington TN U.S.A
Status: offline 		Don't forget that repair bots cut damage by a factor of three to four. Spaceports with lots of shields are hard to kill when they have bots. So if you can afford the maintenance, one size 4500 supply ship armed with a super laser is a good investment. Be sure to give it plenty of shields (5000+) and point defense.

Lonnie Courtney Clay


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