Do PBEs and MDs reduce the need for pilot skill?

[banjaxo]

The "special" weapons I'm referring to here are the Pulsed Beam Emitter(PBE) and the Mass Driver (MD).

I never really realised just how overpowered these weapons are until I started using scripts, more specifically some of Cycrow, Serial Kicked and LV's scripts which give the player the chance to go into combat against groups of NPC ships armed with them.

My first experience of this, for example, was when I attempted to take on a bunch of Xenon Ms. Nothing too life-threatening there you may think, a load of strafing & rolling in an M3 with a rear turret set to missile defence should do the trick! However this particular bunch had been spawned by Cycrow's Xenon Migration script and were armed with APBEs. I got my arse handed to me on a plate in no time flat! This was due to the insane speed of the APBE projectiles coupled with their large amounts of shield damage. Those things are all but insta-hit weapons.

The same thing applies to the MD, a few ships firing them at you and your hull (and therefore speed) drop like nobody's business.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining about being beat up by the enemy, it's just that it made me realise how unrealistically easy I had been making it for myself using, say, a load of MDs in a Xenon Invasion mission or PBEs in dogfights with M5s. There's a level of skill involved with, say, hitting an enemy M3 / M4 with HEPTs whilst in a dogfight that just isn't there when you can almost automatically hit your opponent regardless of his speed or direction, just as there is skill involved in dodging the incoming PPC / HEPT / PAC fire or taking on super-fast M5s.

I think of it as a balance issue the same way that ship speed / weapon power is. The faster and more agile the ship, the less damage it can do - Ego have put a lot of effort in to ensure this is the case. Perhaps the same should hold true for the weapons; the faster the projectile, the less the damage.

I have not included other special weapons in this argument, as they all come with their particular downsides that balance their use:

Phased Shockwave Generator - Risk of friendly fire

Ion Disruptor - Risk of friendly fire, no hull damage

Flak Artillery Array - Can only be mounted by M6 or bigger (and let's face it, Corvettes and Cap Ships need all the help they can get!)

Opinions please!

[Korban]

Which M6 can mount the Flak?

[Geek]

Theorically the Xenon P can. Hope you don't encountter one...

[bob hope]

sorry but mass drivers and pbe`s are no problem even if used against you, but the friendly fire weapons really have no good use, since the ai doesnt care if it hits and damages its friends they can use these weapons without worry, while the player loses rank constantly and all the rest.

if you think that there are no problems with psg`s yet also think that pbe`s and mass drivers make it too easy, then you must use the things more often that the ai pirates do.

personally i think mass drivers and pbe`s were the first usefull additional player weapons added, where the psg`s and ions were definately badly thought out when brought into the game, especially since the ions could easily of been made pulse lasers like the rest of the weapons

[Carl Sumner]

but the friendly fire weapons really have no good use, since the ai doesnt care if it hits and damages its friends they can use these weapons without worry, while the player loses rank constantly and all the rest.

Actually, the AI can lose rank(or relations) too. They just might not care. But the main reason for those weapons, I think, is to cause friendly fire problems for the player, just to make life interesting.

especially since the ions could easily of been made pulse lasers like the rest of the weapons

But that would make it booring. Better to have some weapons that are completely different. And the others are not lasers, they are plasma burst devices. (except for lasertowers and the Kha'ak projectors)

[ajsarge]

I've seen pirates with Ions and PSGs. They're really rare, but when you see them and you're fighting against them its a real paint in the arse. I'd like to see some ships using other weapons though. For instance, some argon and split ships should have Mass Drivers installed standard while boron ships and some Argon ships should come with Ion Ds. Same speil with the paranid and teladi.

[rant]
It'd be nice if there were more weapons too. Pirates should have their own weapons based off of the other race's weapons, there should be more projectile weapons (rail guns, balistic artillery, MD varients, etc.), and even more weapons used by the Xenon or any other 'alien' race. I highly doubt that the xenon developed thier weapons the same as the other races, or that they even copied/salvaged the other races weapons.
[/rant]

[Cardboard Tube]

I think the reason that AI ships don't have MDs is because of the incredible cost of hull repair.

[banjaxo]

if you think that there are no problems with psg`s yet also think that pbe`s and mass drivers make it too easy, then you must use the things more often that the ai pirates do.

I only tend to use PSGs against Khaak clusters, mainly due to their insta-hit Kyon emitters which are pretty much impossible to avoid; and that's the problem with high-damage, fast projectile weapons!

If every ship in the X-verse mounted weapons like these, there would be no point in learning how to aim or dodge and strafe whilst fighting, as it would simply become a contest of weapon strength vs. shield strength (or hull strength in the case of MDs).

This is the whole point of the thread, these weapons need very little skill to use and remove the need to develop avoidance skills.

[bob hope]

i dont know what version of the game you are playing but there are ai ships with md`s, also psg and ions are very common on pirates, every second or 3rd group has one or two ships with them fitted, well they are on a few people who i know play this.

ions have no reason to be basically a lightning bolt that arcs all over, there is no basis behind this in any other game at all, and friendly fire weapons are one of the worst ideas in any game where you need to keep race relations, pbe`s and mass drivers are short ranged, and do small amounts of hull damage, even though they have a fast fire rate, meanwhile psg`s have massive damage against both hull and shields over a large area, and ions are not as bad in x3 because there are less spaceflies about to cause a sector long arc (i had it happen a few times in x2 where the usual range of the ion was boosted by arcing off spacflies to over 20km)

ions and psg`s really should be removed from the game, while lasertowers should be put back to how they were originally in xbtf and xtension, that is they were beam varients of a ghept and could take out a 50mw shielded fighter very quickly, current lasertowers you can fly up the beam in a m5 without taking much shield damage,

[ZaphodBeeblebrox]

Keep them all in, makes for a more interesting game.

I use BPSG in a Perseus Raider, great against TL's in Assassination and Cartel missions. They take out Kha'ak clusters with ease, I only have two mounted but I love the power of these weapons. I also hate them when they are mounted on Pirate ships.

This is balance, I get to use them and then have them used against me.
Seems entirely fair.

Edit:
I still have to dodge the incoming fire, which is hard to discern against the PSG fire, which is a distinct disadvantage. Especially PPC fire, as this is very hard to see.

[Coshy]

... [rant]
It'd be nice if there were more weapons too. Pirates should have their own weapons based off of the other race's weapons, there should be more projectile weapons (rail guns, balistic artillery, MD varients, etc.), and even more weapons used by the Xenon or any other 'alien' race. I highly doubt that the xenon developed thier weapons the same as the other races, or that they even copied/salvaged the other races weapons.
[/rant]

Essentially rail guns and mass drivers are more or less the same thing. In both types energy is used to accelerate a projectile although typically a rail gun is considered to be larger than a mass driver.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_gun
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_driver - scroll down, there is a mention of Egosoft and X2 near the bottom.

[banjaxo]

i dont know what version of the game you are playing but there are ai ships with md`s, also psg and ions are very common on pirates

I have no probs with Pirates (or any NPC ship) having ions or PSGs, and yes they do have them in my game. I do not want these weapons nerfed or removed, I like them! I think I'll change the thread title to reflect this.

I use BPSG in a Perseus Raider, great against TL's in Assassination and Cartel missions. They take out Kha'ak clusters with ease, I only have two mounted but I love the power of these weapons. I also hate them when they are mounted on Pirate ships.

This is balance, I get to use them and then have them used against me.
Seems entirely fair.

Yes, and that's one of the points I raised about PBEs and MDs - the NPC ships rarely use them, if at all (unless there are scripts installed). If they did, people would see much more clearly how overpowered they are.

ions have no reason to be basically a lightning bolt that arcs all over, there is no basis behind this in any other game at all, and friendly fire weapons are one of the worst ideas in any game where you need to keep race relations

That's what I mean about PSGs and IDs being balanced - you can't just use them wherever and whenever you like, unlike PBEs and MDs

[euclid]

I'm glad that NPC's don't use MD's. Just figure the reapir cost after a fight! I guess they can't use them because of ammo; would need some tweaking to check the ammo and restock if needed.

PBE's are already used by NPC's - that's dangerous enough.

Ref pilot skills - I don't think these weapons make it easier. They have short range and require ammo (MD) or losts of energy (PBE) which kind of balance their use. Also aiming is not that easy. The auto target is IME pretty useless.

Cheers Euclid

[banjaxo]

Ref pilot skills - I don't think these weapons make it easier. They have short range and require ammo (MD) or losts of energy (PBE) which kind of balance their use. Also aiming is not that easy. The auto target is IME pretty useless.

Regarding MDs - Having to buy ammo isn't really a balancing factor, unless you are in the very early stages of a game then the credits spent don't really make a dent in your wallet.

Regarding weapon range - unless I'm firing at something big (a TL for example) I rarely fire at ranges greater than 500m anyway. In a dogfight with even the slowest and least agile M3 your HEPT fire will miss by a mile when fired from 1km!

Regarding aiming - The auto aim seems to work for me with PBEs as the lead indicator is usually sat square on the ship I'm targetting.

[Graxster]

if you think that there are no problems with psg`s yet also think that pbe`s and mass drivers make it too easy, then you must use the things more often that the ai pirates do.

Agreed. If any weapon can be said to reduce the need for a pilot's dogfighting skills, it's the PSG.

[joemancxl]

I never saw the PBEs as superior to the PSGs (other than the fact that my game used to crash sometimes when I hit the PSGs) so I'm not sure if they are a big deal - especially with a range less than 1km.

I don't use mass drivers at this time yet because of the inconvenience of having to carry ammo - from what the stats say anything smaller than a capital ship won't be able to hold enough ammo to take out more than a few ships (someone could confirm or deny that, the existence of this thread seems to indicate that mass drivers are in broad use).

If you really want a game-imbalancing weapon, try the Khaak Beta Kyon Emitters. Even with the gimped aiming in X3 (in X2 the three beams actually converge correctly on your target, in X2 they tend to go around small targets at distance) they are still vastly superior to anything and I can pretty much take out any Xenon patrol (1 M6, 4 M3, 4 M2) without any real effort, as well as any single M3 and guard ships.

As soon as there are two M3s, I have to be more careful and use the long range capabilities more closely. Even the slow crappy Teladi M3s kill me when paired up and with one of them having PSG, simply because you can't dodge the shield-sucking power and you inevitably start taking hull damage. Novas also do a number if they have a good rear turret weapon mounted because they hit much more frequently than even the front mounted weapon due to the natural maneuverability of the turret.

All in all I would say that X3 is more balanced in terms of weapon difficulty than its predecessors simply because once I got any M3 in X2 I could pretty much take out most of the patrols I encountered up to M3 or even M6 size, even with 10+ ships. I don't seem to have that easy of a time anymore, particularily when more than one M3 is involved.

I'm only talking about fighting solo with an M3 here - I don't spend much time in other ships these days.

[bob hope]

about mass driver ammo, each ware unit contains about 200 rounds, so its not as bad as it looks

[jannix]

I also feel they are fine they way they are. As for MD equipped NPCs, that might just not be very 'cool' if you are in an M6 or higher. Not to mention the risks to player owned stations.

As it is right now, MDs require Ammo, and PBE sucks energy. So they seem fairly balanced.

[A5PECT]

It gets rather annoying when 8 Xenon Ms are buzzing around armed solely with APBES. My Centaur's shields go down in no time flat.

[Hieronymos]

I'm really happy to hear that Cycrow's putting APBE's in some/all of his Xenon M's in his Xenon Migration script.

Over at the DDRS mod we're all mostly combat junkies (if truth be told!) who feel that vanilla NPC loadouts are way too tame. Once ES ships BalaGi expansion, we're going to release a "Rebalanced" version of DDRS that uses a special ship spawning script that gives NPC's maximum speed & rudder tunings, and also gives ships killer weapons loadouts...and the ability to swap weapons based on target type. Thus an Argon M3 would use 8 MD's vs. other fighters, but switch to 8 AHEPT's vs. M6 or larger.

We're also trying to refine a rock-paper-scissors system of tactical weapons applications. Thus, Boron "Tigerfish" M6 is a Flak Frigate, with AFlaks in her 3 turrets (but only BPAC's up front); Paranid "Achilles" is a well-shielded 'flakship-hunter' with 5 BPPC's (but cra* in her turrets for fighter defense)...

Betatesting missions with NPC fighters loaded to the gills with MD's was very hairy at first. We had to develop new tactics to survive...but feel that giving especially Split and Argon lots of MD's was only fair.

Area-effect wpns like IonD/PSG are more difficult to use by larger groups of NPC aggresors because of friendly fire damage getting excessive. Only makes sense for heavier ships M6 and greater to use vs. fighter attackers. Specific exception is Teladi fighters using heavy shields: i.e. if Teladi vs. Split dogfight, and Teladi shields are roughly 200-300% Splits'--then PSG's logical weapon, as Split'll go pop first.

But PBE's are far better because of their precision. And their super high speed makes them non-miss, even for AI gunnery skills. So if Cycrow's M's with APBE's strip shields..then the L's with AHEPT's can smash hulls..An provide players the challenge they deserve!!