My thoughts on current balance

[keith.lamothe]

I understand the complaint, and if it's not drawing further out it's not hitting further out (unless you're at a zoom level where you can't see the beam at all, of course), but that's a bug rather than a feature, and I can't reproduce it despite seeing those weapons used quite a lot in testing recently.

[TechSY730]

I understand the complaint, and if it's not drawing further out it's not hitting further out (unless you're at a zoom level where you can't see the beam at all, of course), but that's a bug rather than a feature, and I can't reproduce it despite seeing those weapons used quite a lot in testing recently.

Very strange. I am having trouble "reproducing" the apparently intended behavior...
Strange.

Dealing with bugs you can't seem to reproduce "in-house" must be really annoying, or at least that has been my experience.

[Lancefighter]

hm, I dont actually recall that specifically being the issue. I think they usually grow in size when they explode stuff.

Would it be possible to remake the mechanic such that if they arent hitting anything, they retarget?

[Hearteater]

Just on the usefulness of the Heavy Bomber, I wonder whenever a tweak to Fighter/Bombers happens (as the result of that other thread), that is Bombers get a slight speed reduction it will make the Heavy Bomber more useful due to its speed.  I think that combined with the health buff in the new patch should be enough for it.

[Toranth]

As for the Spire Beam, if it stops at the first target it fails to kill, how is it different than the HBC beams?

A lance is always only 1 beam, not a fan, and it actually fires once per frame for 2 seconds (damage divided amongst the frames) rather than just once on the first frame.

Ok, back to this.  I attempted to get a precise duplication of what I'd seen, and I've managed to do so - sort of.  It looks like the consistant problem I've seen is with the Shadowblade's beam weapon.  The starbase's beam weapons seem to behave as they should.

I've attached a save file where you can see the Shadowblade's beam about to hit, then not extend when it is no longer hitting something.  This means 99% of the damage it should deal is being wasted.  Load up the save file "Bug Report - Shadowblade beam about to be cut short", pause, the switch to Player 1's Champion (ctrl-H) in the nebula, and watch.

I've also noticed an issue where sometimes the weapons will penetrate one forcefield to hit a target inside.  I've attached a save for that, as well, "Bug Report - Shadowblade beam about penetrate forcefield".

During that same scenario, something strange happened:  Some of my allied ships started to leave the nebula before the scenario was over!  See the save "Bug Report - Nebula Allies leaving nebula before scenario is over" for that.

Finally, I grabbed some Spire Frigates, and messed with them.  What I saw there was that sometimes the beam would not extend for a little while after killing or moving off of its target; or more commonly the beam would simply pass over a target without damaging it.  I've attached a save "Bug Report - Spire beam missing targets in path" where you can see this.  Pause and switch to the Fallia system (right next to the Homeworld) to see this.  It's a lot more obvious if time is slowed down (-5 or -10 makes it REALLY obvious).

The Spire Beam description "Fires a coherent beam of light for two seconds that strikes all enemy units in its path." seems to describe it as a buffed version of the ZBeam's weapon...

It means "all enemy units in its way"; I can change the description to that if it helps.

I don't know what phrasing you could use - neither the HBC nor the Spire Capital Ships themselves actually describe the beam the way the ZBeam frigate and the Phonton Lance module do.  Maybe something like "The photon lance deals damage to the first ship it hits, continuing on to deliver its remaining power to any other ship in its path if the first should be destroyed" might make it clearer.  I think I probably got confused from a post here on the forum where I misinterpreted something that was said, rather than from the game's text itself.

[Kraiz]

I don't usually post very often, but I did have a suggestion to throw at the Spire Beam discussion.

To be brief, have the Spire beam a sort of "Slashing Beam."  The zenith concept does very well with dealing damage in a linear fashion, as one would expect a wepon of it's type to do.  Making the spire beam a unique weapon is difficult, as it still accomplishes much the same goal, and if they both fill the same role (linear damage dealing), one is bound be to be, even if slightly, better than the other.

So, my idea is a "Slashing" or "Sweeping" beam weapon.  The beam fires and slashes, making a cone-effect.  Any ships coming into contact with the beam take damage.  The beam's damage is divided by all the targets it successfully hit on it's pass.  Higher marks could not only have higher damage but wider cones to deal damage in.  It's still a "Controlled AoE" weapon, but it serves to attack many targets in a large area with moderate damage, instead of the Zenith's high damage in a moderate-sized area.

If overkill from the beam hiting only a few ships on each pass becomes an issue, perhaps a damage ceiling can be applied so that the beam is most effective when used against larger groups of ships (Max inflicted damage is 10% of the maximum, meaning it's full damage is only realized with 10 or more ships, as an example)

I hope this makes sense... I've nto had my morning coffee yet...

[Mánagarmr]

The "Slashing beam" effect is actually what the Zenith Beam Frigates do. Only their cone is very narrow, so it's literally a "beam". But anything they hit, does take damage. The Spire Starship has a focused beam, sort of like the Ion Frigates from Homeworld, where the beam does MASSIVE damage to one target, and once that target dies, the beam continues through the target to the next. That's what's supposed to happen anyway

[Wingflier]

Ah, you just made me miss Homeworld

[Mánagarmr]

Ah, you just made me miss Homeworld

My condolences.

[keith.lamothe]

Yea, the Ion Cannon Frigate was one of the inspirations behind the photon lance.  Those things are awesome.

I've thought of doing a more "slashing beam" effect like the beam weapons from Freespace 2, and may use it in the future (though it would be complex to get working right) but it would actually be harder to get max damage in some key situations.

[PokerChen]

Ah, you just made me miss Homeworld

I feel the same...

[Draco18s]

And then you remember that every fight was scripted...

[keith.lamothe]

And then you remember that every fight was scripted...

I mainly played multiplayer skirmish against the AI.

[Mánagarmr]

And then you remember that every fight was scripted...

I mainly played multiplayer skirmish against the AI.

This. I never finished the entire campaign. I got to the ... wait a minute, I did! I remember stealing almost every single ion frigate in the "ball of Ion frigates" mission and reclaiming them. The game was pretty much a cakewalk after that.

[KDR_11k]

Sweeping beams would make it really important to micro your formations. That's not a good thing. In 2D they'd be anti-swarm weapons, not something you'd expect to deal max damage anyway but something that'll hurt a LOT with the large numbers of units in play.