There is a mark V ion cannon on nearly every planet.

[Draco18s]

Looking at it, it seems like Ions are stopped by FFs?

IIRC, yes, and the FF itself is subject to the instant kill.  I know for Shield Bearers they take the ion shot rather than the thing under them.  Which in a non-mark-applicable world would mean that the shield bearer gets popped rather than the thing the ion was targetting.

For riots, I am not sure if their modules are immune to instant kill or not.

[tadrinth]

Shield Bearers are immune to insta-kill.  I'd guess all forcefields are, or at least are intended to be. 

[Draco18s]

Ah. Well then.

[GeistenHaus]

I've noticed ion cannons that don't kill their target do engine damage, although it isn't very much engine damage it makes sense from a 'fluff'(lore) perspective. What if instead the engine damage was buffed or done in an AoE and they were given a paralysis attack against things they don't kill?
So in the AI's hand they're going to be extra annoying but maybe worth capturing if they're in a spot that's somewhat defensible.
That's actually another annoying thing about capturing them, too often they're in a location that even if I were to go through the trouble of capturing them they'd get killed at a moments notice unless i want to dump the defenses on top of it and put *everything* in a bad position. What if they could move slowly like forcefields?

[DrFranknfurter]

Just my thoughts:
Traditionally ion weapons in games do damage to shields or disable ships. (the V-150 planet defender from Empire strikes back) which is the exact opposite of what happens here (stopped by shields, doesn't paralyze ships). Perhaps make them more like traditional ion cannons and make a new, rarer superweapon to take their current role.
New Ions mk1: x10 modifier vs structural. x10 shots, attack paralyzes x3, 200 engine damage. Shot number, raw damage and paralysis time increase with mk.

New superweapon:
Plasma cannon? - like the plasma eye
Dark matter cannon? - Would look pretty with lots of dark matter shots, could use the counter-dark matter turrets to beach-head against it
DOOM cannon? (Devourer of orbiting materials, like a ship-wide Maw) - Would have the benefit of not instantly killing ships so you can save them

[Shoat]

DrFranknfurter, Ion Cannons already paralyze/disable ships. If the only targets left on a planet are too high mark to insta-kill, the cannon will still shoot it, reduce it's engines to zero decently quickly and then paralyze it with each shot afterwards. I often have some MKIV&MKV ships stuck at random AI planets for literally hours because a wimpy low-level Ion Cannon is shooting them (and they can only move a few centimeters inbetween each shot, meaning it takes them forever to reach a wormhole, get out, and start going home), which is pretty hilarious.


Onto the "Ion Cannons not worth it" thing (and keith's suggestion which I actually think would be fun):
I agree that currently Ion Cannons are not worth it, low level ones are too bad to build, high level ones are near-impossible to pay for, and you generally ignore any MKIII or lower ones you capture (and when do you ever get lucky enough to have a MKIV/MKV Ion Cannon randomly placed in a system you want to capture and use as a choke point?).

But isn't this issue simply solvable by "OPTIONS! OPTIONS! OPTIONS!"?

Just like the WarpRelay<->CounterPost problem we have had recently (where I'll pick Warp Relays ANY day of the week), you could just let the player choose between a variation of ion cannons in the lobby (with the exception that, unlike WarpRelays and CounterPosts,  "neither" and "both" are not an option).

One variation seeds Ion Cannons onto AI worlds (and the trader inventory) as they are now, the other seeds modified Ion Cannons which always kill all marks but just have varying attackspeed (or number of projectiles, or both) depending on their mark.


Also, the "Planetary Maw" option DrFranknfurter suggested sounds amazing (5 marks like ion cannon, higher marks of it -> higher rate of eating and bigger "storage"), I'd like to go up against that (and capture it / buy it from a Trader) kind of superweapon.
Hell, there could even be yet another variation of that which spits out the ships as reclaimed zombies (or just normal reclaimed ones) after having digested them to death.











Ignore the following part please, you'll save yourself one facepalm...

And now that we're on the topic of Ion stuff and balance:
Spirecraft Ion Blasters are pretty pathetic right now. Only 4 targets per shot are not really enough to noticeably impact a battle (early game you have little access to asteroids and few resources and enemies aren't numerous anyway and lategame small fleet ships, even MKV ones, are not big enough of a deal to care whether or not 4 of them get insta-killed every 4 seconds) and the Ion Blasters' health is pitifully low considering they're only mid-range fighters (MKII flagship is tougher than an MKV ion blaster).
I get that being low-range is their specialty compared to "standard" Ion Cannons, but they're just not in a useable state. They should either be made into a lot more powerful combatants (a lot more survivability and more targets per shot) or a lot more numerous (quadruple cap and give us 4 built at once out of each asteroid while reducing their attack speed a bit maybe?).
...
God damn it I'm getting old and forgetting stuff I read (and was happy about) mere days before.

[ZaneWolfe]

And now that we're on the topic of Ion stuff and balance:
Spirecraft Ion Blasters are pretty pathetic right now. Only 4 targets per shot are not really enough to noticeably impact a battle (early game you have little access to asteroids and few resources and enemies aren't numerous anyway and lategame small fleet ships, even MKV ones, are not big enough of a deal to care whether or not 4 of them get insta-killed every 4 seconds) and the Ion Blasters' health is pitifully low considering they're only mid-range fighters (MKII flagship is tougher than an MKV ion blaster).
I get that being low-range is their specialty compared to "standard" Ion Cannons, but they're just not in a useable state. They should either be made into a lot more powerful combatants (a lot more survivability and more targets per shot) or a lot more numerous (quadruple cap and give us 4 built at once out of each asteroid while reducing their attack speed a bit maybe?).

You might want to update to the latest beta version. There are no more Spirecraft Ion Blasters. They were replaced by Spirecraft Translocators.

[Shoat]

(derpyness)

You might want to update to the latest beta version. There are no more Spirecraft Ion Blasters. They were replaced by Spirecraft Translocators.

Oh yeah shit, I read about that while installing those beta updates but completely forgot (haven't gotten to use any asteroids since upgrading to that beta version). I even remember being happy about that (and the siege tower) change...
Sorry about being a moron.
The rest of my above post is hopefully not as stupid...

[DrFranknfurter]

Not all bad, glad you like the Planet Maw idea, feels like a compromise that allows you to counter the insta-killing effect while still retaining lethality.

TBH I've never really noticed ion cannon secondary effects. Though if they lost the instakill they would have to have those effects or number of shots boosted to noteworthy levels. If they were changed to railgun instakill they would certainly be more lethal, but I think too much so. (hence mentioning a counter-dark matter being a possible future counter or, with the maw, just blowing it up.)

[ZaneWolfe]

(derpyness)

You might want to update to the latest beta version. There are no more Spirecraft Ion Blasters. They were replaced by Spirecraft Translocators.

Oh yeah shit, I read about that while installing those beta updates but completely forgot (haven't gotten to use any asteroids since upgrading to that beta version). I even remember being happy about that (and the siege tower) change...
Sorry about being a moron.
The rest of my above post is hopefully not as stupid...

Silly pony, Chaos always knows best. But yes, the rest is rather well done. Not sure I agree with the exact idea, but I do agree that Ion Cannons need to be more.