Cruiser Command

I'll keep this short. This is all my opinion.

Lasers: In a good spot right now. All-purpose, not overpowered. Not very useful unless upgraded, but this is okay.

Broadsides: Kinda overpowered right now. Un-upgraded broadsides are in a pretty good spot, they do a fair amount of damage but take a fair amount of skill to use. Upgraded broadsides are insane right now, to the point where I feel nervous in a game if we don't have fully upgraded broadsides by the 10 minute mark.

They have brutal power. It takes something like 4 hits to kill a miner with them, which means you don't even need a weapons guy to go miner hunting. The damage they do shuts down destroyers hard, destroyers don't stand a chance against a nav with a clue. Upgraded broadsides alone does more damage than unupgraded broadsides + any weapon(that's how brutal they are).

Suggestion: make the laser upgrade not upgrade broadsides, or significantly reduce the amount of damage upgrade you get from it.

Single Shot Kinetics: I honestly have no idea how the damage is on these things because the projectile is so slow. You can actually dodge the shots pretty easy in the BC with some engine power. The damage got nerfed at the same time as the projectile slowdown, I think we should try restoring the old speed and seeing if that was enough to 'fix' it.

Suggestion: make the single shot not reduce projectile speed.

Multi Shot Kinetics: I'm also not sure about the damage of this weapon because I always blind fire it. The homing ability is just way too good to not do this, you can even watch the projectiles curve toward their target if you're 'in the ballpark'. The low energy cost and the high tracking ability means there is no range where you are safe if the BC is hunting you down, or even if it's just shooting in random directions.

Suggestion: Reduce the 'lockon' radius for the projectiles.

Thanks for the detailed post on the current balance. I don't have time to play enough to get a decent idea on how it works.

I'll see about balancing the weapons accordingly.

The other kinetic type (not homing) is strange to fire while turning, it shoots at an angle and speed depending on the BC, not sure if this is intentional but it makes it harder to shoot and hit and easier to dodge.

As far as I can tell both Broadsides and Lasers have a cool-down of ~1 second.

Broadsides = 5 bursts * 60 damage * 1.25 = 375 Damage/Second
375 Damage / 100 Energy = 3.75 Dmg/E

5 Burst = 5 bursts * 2 streams * 15 damage * 2.25 = 338 Damage/Second
338 Damage / 1500 Energy = .225 Dmg/E

3.75/.225 = 16.7 = The factor by which Broadsides are more powerful than 5 burst lasers in close combat.

Please consider increasing the cool-down of broadsides to 4 seconds, increasing the cost to 1K Energy, increasing the damage by 2x, and decreasing the range by 20%.

750 Damage / 4 Seconds = 188 Dmg/Sec
750 Damage / 1000 Energy = .75 Dmg/E

This will promote more turning and communication between Navigations and Weapons. It will more closely simulate what Broadsides are all about, slow to fire, but massive damage. It will also once again make Weapons more important than Navigation in dealing damage.

Are the single bursts suppose to be 12/12, and the 3 & 5 bursts both do 15/15?

A fully Battle ready BC can take ~25k damage before being destroyed. For this reason, it is my opinion that Dmg/E should lay between .2 and 1.2

Fast firing, highly accurate weapons can have a ratio close to .2
Slow firing, inaccurate weapons can have a ratio close to 1.2

Currently, with broadsides, you only need ~8k in the Weapon Capacitor to ensure you have enough Energy for a BC kill.

Why are you multiplying broadsides with 1.25 and 5-burst with 2.25?

Also, "3.75/.225 = 16.7 = The factor by which Broadsides are more powerful than 5 burst lasers in close combat." feels wrong. That has nothing to do with how powerful it is, just how energy efficient it is. Imagine if the single burst cost 1 energy. Then it would have 30 Dmg/E which it almost 10x better than broadsides. Does it make single burst more powerful than broadsides? No.

As for the 12/12 or 15/15 question for the laser. One of them is correct for all burst modes and the other is just the tooltip being wrong. I'm just not sure if it's 12/12 or 15/15 which is correct.

I'll do some more calculating and see about rebalancing the broadsides. Are kinetics useless these days?

For damaging hulls, Kinetics are fine.

Chain-gun Kinetics take ~7k shields to repel. (This combat was done at distance, so many projectiles were missing) They travel far, and are great against small ships. Their homing will actually cause them to miss ships however. (unable to replicate)

Single Stream Kinetics take ~4k shields to repel, and are easy to dodge. They also have a much shorter range than the Chain-Gun.

My calculations are done with full upgrades, both for damage and shields.

1.25 and 2.25 are the damage upgrade calculations

Your example of the Single Burst efficiency is correct, Dmg/E is not the whole story.

The problem is:
Broadsides = 375 dps at 3.75 efficiency
5-Burst = 338 dps at .225 efficiency

Here is a scenario.

Simplifications:
There are no Shield or Damage upgrades
Shields are not regaining energy
All GW production is going to Eng, so capacitors are not being filled during combat
All shots hit
BC GW production = 175
Engagement Energy Budget ~ 60,000 GW (~11 minute mark, this is after Movement & Shield power up GW cost)


BC1
Ship Capacitor 20,000
Weapon Capacitor 40,000
Hull = 7,500
Shield = 8,000 (will deplete Ship Capacitor in 50 seconds)

BC2
Ship Capacitor 45,000
Weapon Capacitor 15,000
Hull = 7,500
Shield = 12,000 (will deplete Ship Capacitor in 75 seconds)


BC1 (firing Broadsides & 5-Burst)
Total Energy Cost / Second is 100 + 1500 = 1600
Total Damage / Second is 300 + 150 = 450

BC2 (firing Broadsides only)
Total Energy Cost / Second is = 100
Total Damage / Second is = 300


25 Seconds into the Battle
BC1 Hull = 7,500, Shield = 500, Weapon Capacitor = 0, Ship Capacitor = 10,000
BC2 Hull = 7,500, Shield = 750, Weapon Capacitor = 12,500, Ship Capacitor = 30,000


At this point in the battle, BC1 has auto lost. If your Weapon Capacitor is <50k, you are better off without a Weapons Officer. You just need skilled Navigation & Power Officers. The only reason Broadsides are not seen as more powerful is because most people have poor approach vectors, and their aim is atrocious.

Now don't get me wrong. I REALLY enjoy soloing teams of 5, but the math is just really unfriendly to teams if they do not understand it.