Ammunition Types are up.
There is some confusion at the moment about how Spire Beam Weapons work, but beyond that, comments?
http://arcengames.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=Ammunition_Types
D.
Energy Bomb (AOE): Several ships are equipped with a exploding version of the Energy Bomb that can strike multiple targets.
The attack strikes the initial target and then explodes striking other targets in a small range.
If a ship has the 'AOE' Immunity it takes no damage from the secondary AOE explosion, however it if is the initial ship targeted it takes damage as normal.
Which ships have this that are not using plasma siege shots (which are explained separately on that page) ?
Energy Bomb (Plasma Siege Starship): The Plasma Siege Starship is equipped with a unique version of the Energy Bomb that also does significant engine damage on both the inital strike as well as the secondary AOE explosion.
Additionally, if the Energy Bomb strikes a Force Field, 25 units underneath that Force Field take damage equal to 6.25% damage done to the force field.
If a ship has the 'AOE' Immunity it takes no damage from the secondary AOE explosion, however it if is the initial ship targeted it takes damage as normal.
Looks right, but just to clarify: the "under the forcefield" damage can hit stuff that's immune to AOE.
Beam Weapon (Spire): The Spire Beam Weapon is a high damage beam excellent at taking out larger ships and structures but has difficulty targeting smaller ships.
When the Spire Beam Weapon fires it targets a ship and maintains a beam for 2 seconds with the damage spread out over this time.
However, while the beam is firing it can not be adjusted and where it is targeted (both distance and angle) stays relative to the firing ship. Because of this, if either the firing or the target ship move, the damage from the later part of the beam is likely to hit nothing.
It's not so much a problem of targeting smaller ships, but the description of the mechanic is correct.
On the positive side, any ships underneath the end of the beam take damage
This isn't necessarily true; it loses strength as it does damage, just like the HBC.
In fact, the Spire Beams (I call them Photon Lances, but the game doesn't... yet) are just like HBCs except they only have a single "ray" and they "fire" every frame for 2 game seconds instead of only firing for one frame (the damage is divided amongst those frames, according to the number of frames per second in the current performance profile).
, there are reports of an entire wave of ships taking damage from a single beam as they emerged from a wormhole before having a chance to spread out.
That is entirely true
Beam Weapon (Zenith): The Zenith Beam Weapon is an AOE that can strike multiple ships in a line.
When a Zenith Beam Weapon is fired, it strikes the target ship in a direct line.
True.
Any other ships located between the two and underneath the Zenith Beam Weapon's path also take damage.
Up to a maximum of 9 total targets hit per shot (including the main target), but which one comes "first" doesn't matter: the direct target is always hit, and if there are more than 8 other targets on the line they're picked randomly.
Ships with the 'AOE' Immunity can not be targeted and do not take damage from being underneath a Zenith Beam Weapon's path.
Actually, immunity to "radial" AOE does not always include immunity to "linear" AOE (that is, beam weapons). The latter is signified by an entry in the Immunities part of a ship's tooltip saying "Beam Weapons", and the only things that have that are scouts, scout starships, and (amusingly) cleanup drones.
Beam Weapon (Heavy Beam Cannon): The Heavy Beam Cannon (HBC) Beam Weapon is a high damage beam that will re-target mid salvo if its current target dies so there is never any damage lost to overkill, as long as another target is in range.
In range
and on the original line.
Tons of HBC damage is lost in a lot of scenarios because not all rays in the fan hit something. Unless you're firing into a big blob, of course, in which case it's golden.
While the HBC Beam Weapon can hit multiple ships with a single shot, it is not considered AOE and the 'AOE' Immunity does not protect a ship against this weapon.
It follows the same rules as Zenith (and Spire) beams actually: stuff with immunity to Beam Weapons are immune. None of them care about the "Area Damage" immunity as-such.
Anyway, thanks for putting all that together, sorry for the confusion
