Buff Pulse Lasers and Burst Lasers by reducing their fire rate.

[DemiserofD]

Since Engineering, Burst and Pulse lasers have really fallen behind beam lasers, in large part because of how engineering effects work.
Just as one example, compare a fixed C4 Pulse Laser with Overcharged to a Fixed C4 Beam Laser with Efficient.

As you can see, the efficient Beam Laser has both better DPE, and better DPS. This raises the question of why you would ever use an overcharged pulse laser? The answer being, of course, you wouldn't. The same exact thing applies to Rapid Fire and Short Ranged, leaving only the relatively useless effects like Sturdy or Lightweight.

Now you could just buff all these engineering effects for Pulses specifically and call it good, but I think that misses the crux of the issue. The problem isn't that beam lasers have better damage than pulse lasers, the issue is that pulse lasers aren't different enough from Beam Lasers to make it worth that sacrifice.

What do I mean? Consider that a fixed beam laser will tend to be quite difficult to hold on target for long periods of time. Because you need to keep on target CONSTANTLY to do your maximum DPS, fixed pulse lasers should tend to be better than fixed beams, because you only need to hold on target for a fraction of the time. You can see a similar design paradigm with Cannons versus Multicannons, where cannons can outcompete multicannons, due to only needing to be on target for a fraction of a second, while multicannons require constant perfect aim.

The problem is, pulse lasers fire too fast to actually draw any benefit from this. As you can see above, the C4 pulse laser(which fires slowest of any of the pulse lasers), still fires at a very fast 2.6 shots per second. That's fast enough that it still requires the same perfect aim as the beam laser, meaning they are functionally indistinguishable from beam lasers - just with less damage. The same broadly applies to Burst Lasers, as well.

So the answer doesn't lie in engineering at all; it lies in slowing the fire rate of pulse and burst lasers to allow players to benefit from their easier firing style. I'd like to see something more like this:

C4 Pulse Laser(Fixed)
Damage Per Shot:26.9
Rate of Fire: 1/sec

This allows players to take full advantage of the more precise firing style, and will make Pulse Lasers an actually reasonable choice when used as fixed weapons, much like Cannons are when used in the same way! (Burst Lasers would have similar changes, with a longer refire delay between bursts, but with bursts having the same fire rate, requiring slightly superior aiming capability in exchange for increased performance)

Pulse/Burst Lasers have been useless for long enough. It's about time they had a better use, don't you think?

 

[Chaparral]

Pulse laser basics

I'd like to see the power output (damage per pulse) significantly increased with a decrease in the pulse frequency (i.e. 51.3 / shot at 1 shot/sec).

Actual pulse lasers are capable of much higher peak energies than continuous output lasers. They tend to be used in applications like spot welding, tattoo removal, some rust /corrosion removal tools and communications.

I noticed you did not include the long range modification in your description., or a consideration of phasing sequence or scramble spectrum.

Given the damage drop off of lasers, long range is pretty popular, and the secondary effects are not completely ignored when making the choice to use pulse lasers.

What I typically see in AX, Res, and CZ is long range thermal vent beam.

The phasing sequence may be used to annoy shield tank players, and the scramble spectrum is unpredictable on what system it will effect but can be fun.

Reducing the fire rate would probably be ok for the phasing sequence, but not so good for getting scramble spectrum to proc on an important system.

 

[Tividar]

They could also fiddle with the AP values, the idea being that Pulse and Burst Lasers have a higher AP value due the pulses giving time for the ablation cloud at the impact site to dissipate.

 

[metatheurgist]

Burst lasers used to have good AP.

 

[DemiserofD]

Pulse laser basics

I'd like to see the power output (damage per pulse) significantly increased with a decrease in the pulse frequency (i.e. 51.3 / shot at 1 shot/sec).

Actual pulse lasers are capable of much higher peak energies than continuous output lasers. They tend to be used in applications like spot welding, tattoo removal, some rust /corrosion removal tools and communications.

I noticed you did not include the long range modification in your description., or a consideration of phasing sequence or scramble spectrum.

Given the damage drop off of lasers, long range is pretty popular, and the secondary effects are not completely ignored when making the choice to use pulse lasers.

What I typically see in AX, Res, and CZ is long range thermal vent beam.

The phasing sequence may be used to annoy shield tank players, and the scramble spectrum is unpredictable on what system it will effect but can be fun.

Reducing the fire rate would probably be ok for the phasing sequence, but not so good for getting scramble spectrum to proc on an important system.

What you describe is exactly what I'd like to see!

You do have some fair points, though. Certain things like Scramble Spectrum and Thermal Shock would need to be rebalanced to the new, slower fire rate, for sure.

As far as long-range is concerned, I didn't mention it because I wouldn't expect to see it very often. Generally speaking, beam lasers will be even better at long ranges, because it makes it easier to stay on target, so I'd just expect them to be used even more there, usually with Thermal Vent as you mention. The one effect I might sometimes expect to see would be Focused, which combines the range of Long Ranged with an incredible 100% bonus damage against armor. Unfortunately, this is usually useless, because larger pulse lasers are already near the maximum needed AP, and smaller ones will almost always use corrosive shell anyway, which heavily neuters the benefits of the engineering effect.

They could also fiddle with the AP values, the idea being that Pulse and Burst Lasers have a higher AP value due the pulses giving time for the ablation cloud at the impact site to dissipate.

This could be acceptable as well; they do already have slightly higher AP values, but not enough to overcome the difference. Bumping them up a bit could at least make them acceptable against armor, but while that would be nice, I still think the best course would be a different firing pattern to make them more different in how they're used.

 

[Tividar]

This could be acceptable as well; they do already have slightly higher AP values, but not enough to overcome the difference. Bumping them up a bit could at least make them acceptable against armor, but while that would be nice, I still think the best course would be a different firing pattern to make them more different in how they're used.

No reason they can’t do both. On beams, symmetrical buff to damage and nerf to AP and adjust power/distortion/heat proportionate to the damage increase.
On Burst, increase AP.
On Pulse, increase AP and damage but reduce RoF. Adjust power/distro/heat to maintain DPE and DPH.

Beams would do more damage against smaller ships, less against medium and large ships. Burst would be more effective against large ships, but no real change in firing technique v.s. Beams (and no need to adjust experimentals). Pulse would perform slightly worse than Burst on paper, but would have the different firing pattern due slower rate of fire.

 

[Aashenfox]

I don't disagree with most of this, but don't forget the engineering is also factored into the balance, beams have far less useful special effects available to them and teh special effects there are, do literally nothing in efficient format (thermal vent and thermal conduit have almost no effect at all on efficient beams).

 

[Maidor]

I would agree with this if Damage was the only fact to compare in engineering.
You are only comparing a single hardpoint class, that is only present in a very limited set of ships.
Also these numbers are just numbers. The whole part of tracking time makes sense though, because that should be basic FPS balancing.

Long Range is used alot for Beams, as Damage fall of after 1500m makes these stats you are showing very inconsistet. So is any raw number data from build sites.
It's the most consistent damage mod in any laser, as you will usually spend most time in combat further than 1.5km from the enemy. Thermal vent or shock are also less efficient on Efficient Beams, and those are the most used experimentals for the Hardpoint.

Burst lasers are very usefull in small ships, some run Short-Rang/Inertia Impact builds. Also and Scramble builds and Phansing for Medium Ships.
They have utilities that are not present in Beams. And a High ROF with multiple hits to apply those experimentals. A good mix of pulse and beam.
But their stats also lie, even though they have 60% breach chance, the nature of Beam makes it's 40% trigger many more times than the Burst ones.
So numbers and real life applications differ alot.

I still very much agree with buffing puses.
-Slower ROF and increased Damage,. Resulting in a closer DPS to beam, but more focused on single hitmarks.
-Increase AP. If bursts are meant to have higher chance to penetrate, Pulse should have more penetration damage for lower chances.

This would make pulse good for smaller vs bigger ships categories. Or Big ships with bad tracking.
While still providing utilities their niech use, though with less consistency than burst.

 

[BackToTheMud]

As other have already said, raw DMG is not the only metric. And if you just equalize the DPS for the 3 las weapons the difference between them will be pretty much only cosmetic. Looking at fall-off, penetration, breach chance, and the mostly ignored DPE would probably be a better place to start.
Also, nerfing beam lasers is an option.

 

[DemiserofD]

As other have already said, raw DMG is not the only metric. And if you just equalize the DPS for the 3 las weapons the difference between them will be pretty much only cosmetic. Looking at fall-off, penetration, breach chance, and the mostly ignored DPE would probably be a better place to start.
Also, nerfing beam lasers is an option.

The damage I'm suggesting is actually identical, just with less shots applying it. I'm not against those other things too, but I think they need to be made more different from beam lasers first, then rebalanced around the new firing pattern.