Aeson
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Joined: 8/30/2013
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A thread which might interest you:
http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=3868291
quote:
I take it you don't need to focus on each weapon techs right?
Not at all. Focusing on one or two weapons is much better than spreading research between all weapons; I'd much rather have, say, Titan Beams alone than Velocity Torpedoes + Shatterforce Lasers + Concussion Missiles + Derasian Shockwaves.
To my mind there are three major 'primary' weapon types (weapons that you'll use as the primary armament on a design) - missiles, torpedoes, and blasters. There are two more weapon types that can serve as 'primary' weapons (phasers and railguns), though in my opinion phasers work better as secondary weapons and railguns are just awkward.
Missiles should generally not be chosen as a sole-focus weapon, as they are only good for standoff designs (and possibly for capture designs, but capture designs are special purpose rather than main line designs). If you do choose to try using missiles as a sole-focus weapon, then I'd strongly suggest making sublight drive and maneuvering thrusters a priority in Energy and Construction; mainline pure-missile designs need to be able to keep the range open because the other primary weapon types greatly outperform missiles in DPS and armor penetration at shorter ranges (railguns are a possible exception; their anti-armor performance per shot is worse, but they have a higher rate of fire than similarly-advanced missiles). If you do take missiles as one of a pair of weapons to focus development upon, I'd suggest either torpedoes or blasters as a second focus weapon; both torpedoes and blasters can cover for the low DPS and poor anti-armor performance of missiles at short ranges, and missiles will cover for the lack of standoff capability on blaster designs and improve the standoff capability of torpedo designs. Phasers can probably work as a secondary focus weapon with missiles; while both are low-DPS weapons, phasers cover for the anti-armor weakness of missiles. I rather doubt that missiles pair well with railguns; both weapons are low-DPS weapons with poor anti-armor performance, and railguns have so little range that they're not even that useful for discouraging ships from closing with missile ships. In the early game, it's not a bad idea to get at least the initial Concussion Missiles technology because Epsilon Torpedoes are rather poor early weapons and because it opens up point defense technology even if you're not intending to focus on missiles at all.
Torpedoes are a good sole-focus weapon for three reasons: they're at least adequate for all engagement range settings (they're outperformed by missiles at standoff, and blasters might be better at point blank, but missiles are garbage at anything other than extreme range and blasters can't stand off beyond the range of most of a target's weapons), they have good anti-armor performance out to midrange, and they're required for advanced fighter research. Torpedoes also work reasonably well as a complement to blasters (providing standoff capability and improving anti-armor performance, particularly at mid-range) or missiles (which need a lot of help at anything other than standoff range and have poor anti-armor performance at any range). Be aware that Epsilon Torpedoes are not that great; you're probably better off sticking to Concussion or even Seeker Missiles for early standoff weapons, but you have to go through Epsilon Torpedoes to get to Velocity Shards and Shockwave Torpedoes.
Blasters can work as a sole-focus weapon more or less entirely because of their DPS, especially at point blank range (where they also tend to have fairly good anti-armor performance), but I personally would rather pair them with another weapon system; blasters will not give you any significant standoff capability as there are few or no default designs which will carry only weapons with less range than blasters (only railguns and phasers have less range than blasters, and for phasers the range difference is so low it may as well not exist, unless you're comparing Phaser Cannons to Shatterforce Lasers or Titan Beams), and blaster anti-armor performance can be somewhat lackluster at mid-range. Blasters can work as sort of poor man's point defense weapon due to their high rate of fire and small size per weapon, but will preferentially target real ships should one come within firing range. Phasers tend to have ranges comparable to blasters and better anti-armor performance and so make a reasonable secondary armament on blaster designs, but will not provide any improvement in standoff capability. Torpedoes provide both standoff capability and anti-armor performance, missiles provide better standoff capability but don't improve anti-armor performance. Blaster/Phaser designs should probably lean heavily towards the blasters as the phasers are only really there to break armor, and there's not usually that much armor on most ships and bases; blaster/torpedo and blaster/missile designs might more evenly split the weapons or favor the non-blaster component of the armament as standoff capability is fairly valuable in and of itself.
Phasers in my opinion do not really work as a sole-focus weapon, nor do I care for pure-phaser ship designs. Phasers have enough DPS to be workable mid-range primary weapons or even the sole armament of a mid-range ship, but phaser DPS will take a long time to penetrate shields by comparison to blasters in the same range band. I personally prefer to combine phasers with blasters to combine high DPS and good anti-armor performance over the full range band, though other combinations may be workable. Phaser/Missile is awkward because neither missiles nor phasers have particularly good DPS and making use of the phasers forces the missiles into mid-range or lower, where they're greatly outclassed by other weapons. Phaser/Missile does provide both standoff capability and anti-armor performance, but to me this is basically a torpedo ship (both torpedo and phaser/missile designs have kind of average mid-range DPS and reasonably good anti-armor performance out to mid-range, and both are standoff-capable; torpedoes offer better short- to mid-range DPS by late game, however, and missiles are not really all that useful anywhere but standoff). Torpedo/Phaser is awkward because torpedoes don't really need anything that phasers can give them; torpedoes have more range, already have reasonable DPS within phaser range (and although you can improve DPS by combining mid-game torpedoes with mid-game phasers slightly, blasters generally work better for boosting DPS), and already have reasonable anti-armor performance within phaser range, so I'd sooner go pure-torpedo than torpedo/phaser. Phaser/railgun is a bit awkward because neither weapon really helps the other. Sure, railguns need help against armor, but phasers aren't going to give them that as long as the shields are up, and railguns cannot help against the shields until the armor is penetrated (at which point they can start taking down shield generators, but of course hitting and destroying a shield generator rather than some other component is somewhat luck-dependent, and the railguns kind of don't need the phasers once the armor is broken).
Railguns are a weapon that I'm a bit ambivalent about classing as a primary weapon, but on the other hand they don't really work that well as a secondary weapon, either. Railguns have fairly poor DPS, cannot hit shields (doesn't matter to a pure-railgun design, but will matter if you were counting on having something break the armor for the railguns), have poor armor penetration, and have less range than any equally-advanced weapon in the game (and many less advanced weapons). Their ability to cover for the weaknesses of other weapon types is therefore somewhat limited, though as ships generally back off once they start losing components railguns can function as a way to get hostile ships to keep back from standoff designs (though in this role they are hampered by their relatively large size per component and their poor armor penetration). Railguns are most attractive when armor is weak or nonexistent, or when your opponents are capable of wiping the floor with your more normal designs (e.g. pirates against pre-warp or newly warp-capable empires; pirate ships are generally larger and more powerful than the early-game ships of a prewarp empire, and so relying on railguns to start damaging components can be as or sometimes more effective than attempting to concentrate enough fire to bring down the shields of the larger pirate vessels). Railguns are the one primary weapon type that in my opinion cannot be used as a sole-focus weapon; their lack of range, low DPS, and poor anti-armor performance renders them virtually useless for taking down colony defenses such as medium or large spaceports and defense bases, as they'll be exposed to the full firepower of the station(s) and most likely have significantly less powerful defenses. Blasters and phasers aren't great for sieges, either, but at least they generally have the range to not be exposed to the fire of multiple stations simultaneously (sometimes you can't avoid that even with blasters and phasers, but railguns are much worse about it).
Some other things to bear in mind:
While it's important to have armor, it's not necessarily important to have advanced armor. Not many default designs make heavy use of railguns, and if you do come up against such ships you can usually counter just by staying at range, graviton beams can bypass armor anyways, and all other weapons have to go through shields first.
Infantry attack and defense bonuses are more useful early on than later in the game, as cloning facilities (available in the High Tech tree if you advance down the medical line) can provide more or less the same effect since they cause newly-recruited infantry to have the same strength as your most powerful currently extant infantry unit. Armored, special forces, and planetary defense units are all useful to have but not essential, and armored and special forces units are primarily there for opposed invasions or attacks on pirate facilities. Not really something you need to prioritize, though starting the buildup of such forces early won't hurt. Planetary Defense Units, as the name implies, are mostly there to be part of the garrison, and they're expensive enough that they'll be a fairly small part of your army, mostly present only on important worlds with large garrisons.
Fighters are excellent siege weapons and can be adequate for fleet actions, but developing advanced fighters other than missile bombers requires that you develop torpedoes to some degree (advanced missile bombers, as you might expect, require missile technology). Be careful with fighters, however, as dedicated carriers can be quite vulnerable to standard warships despite their size, and fleets of full-size carriers can be rather costly.
Boarding pods are a special-purpose weapon; capturing vessels and stations is more a gimmick (particularly later in the game) than a useful strategy, as the captured vessels will typically be in poor condition. Nevertheless, it's useful to unlock boarding pods early on because each pod provides some defense against hostile boarding actions, and because capturing a few pirate ships early in the game can give you useful technologies that wouldn't have been an immediate priority.
In Energy and Construction, you want to focus on reactors, hyperdrives, shields, and construction size, and may want to improve sublight drive and maneuvering thrusters. Energy collectors are important to have but not necessarily to enhance, as the initial energy collector is more than adequate for most ship designs and probably won't take too much space on most bases. Jump inhibition is useful if you're trying to hunt down some ships, though it's not strictly necessary, and it's something where simply having the first component can be sufficient for a long time, especially as increasing the size of the area of effect isn't strictly an improvement (it catches enemy ships better, but it also catches your ships better - jump inhibitors do not distinguish between friend and foe, and installing them on your ships can cost you if you trap one of your ships next to a relatively powerful enemy vessel). Damage control and repair is useful, but repair is buried kind of deep in the tree and the upgraded damage control unit isn't really a lot better than the initial version, and you get more or less the same effect against most weapons by improving your shields.
In High Tech, long-range sensors are a big bonus; pirate hunting becomes much easier when you don't need to send a ship to each system to check for bases, or risk a spy on a steal (territory/galaxy/operations) map or deep cover mission (granted, risking your spy is the only fast way to enhance their abilities). Countermeasures and targeting are variably useful; sometimes you get a fleet admiral who gives more or less the same bonus (or a bigger one), other times you might never see an admiral pop up. Other than that, crew systems, command systems, the colonization techs, and wonders are the big draws of the High Tech tree; getting to at least standard fuel cells and cargo bays on a prewarp start is also a good idea.
< Message edited by Aeson -- 9/5/2015 12:33:37 AM >
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Will someone share order research please? - 
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