The damage of PAs is very wonky right now. I'm doing massive damage per hit to Federal Corvettes (33% on a double hit), but I assume this is because FDev have fumbled it up again and forgotten to put armor on them in the CZ builds.
At the same time, a double hit on a Viper 4, Asp Scout or Asp Explorer is just 21%. A Python is a mere 15%
However, all three medium Federal ships take 40-50% damage from a double PA hit, and those ships haven't been around just since 1.5.
The main issue here is that we have to guess because we don't see absolute hitpoints, and we don't see all modules that can be damaged. So your no damage hit have been to a SCB, the sensors, whatever it is that you can hit and damage but not see on the system scan. One ship might be packed with HREs while the others aren't.
The main issue I see is the huge difference outfitting makes. A ship tanked up with HREs and military grade armor is *multiple times* as tough as the standard version. A sidewinder goes from 108 hull armor to 700. A Viper goes from 126 to 805 (and still has shields!)
The problem with this is that this really extends fighting and weapons with ammo become worth less and less. PAs are great when I need two clips to take out a Python. They're abysmal when I need five. I just shot down those Pythons, Asps and Vipers with my gimballed lasers because if I had actually used the PAs, I would have had to rearm so much sooner - and with a 1300 LS trip back and forth, that's really not viable.
To be clear, I wouldn't mind spending some time wearing down the armor of a ship. However, the rewards should be in order. Stripping down a Viper Mk 4, half a percent per volley, then gaining 20k for that is not ok when I can destroy a pirate Viper Mk 4 in a RES for 60k in 1/4 the time.
Coming back the PAs, I've spent the last few months extensively testing PAs vs lasers in Conflict zones. I used a Python with three large PAs for this (which is more damage than the two huge PA on the Corvette btw) and I compared this to running five gimballed pulse lasers for power plant kills. Ie the most expensive vs the cheapest weapons in the game. Even though I had very high accuracy with the PAs, in my opinion the five laser build was far more efficient at destroying both large ship power plants and small ships. The issue really is that the PA has a slow RoF, is not hitscan and sucks your capacitor dry amazingly quickly compared to the pulses. The fact that they need more than 5 MW of power to run is just the icing on the cake.
I am pretty sure with the introduction of huge fixed beam lasers, the PAs on the Corvette will be obsolete. That will be your burst weapon of choice, because it can't miss (only you can). And huge pulses will be the sustained DPS choice.
There's two issues here FDev should address
1. Unintended module damage is terrible for slow ROF weapons. The entire damage of a PA wasted on a module hit hurts a lot more than having a few ticks of the hundred pulses you fire in the same amount of time hit a module. Since most modules completely ignore damage (and some even ignore being destroyed, such as the power distributor, weapons, life support if you look at it my way), this is not helpful.
A shield generator at 10% recharges as fast a shield as strong as an undamaged one. Only the hit that takes it to 0% matters.
The Power plant works at full capacity at all times. Losing power such as in this example only happens to players. NPCs seem immune to it. I've never stunned an NPC by damaging the power plant
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcDYOaxzd4c
Thrusters work perfectly well until they hit 0%. There is no performance decrease whatsoever.
I don't even know about weapons. I only once managed to put one to 0% because they are nigh impossible to hit, and that weapon kept firing.
Sensors can't even be targeted anymore, for god knows what reason.
2. Buff the PA. Damage, meh I don't know. But raise ammo, raise RoF, lower capacitor consumption, lower power consumption. Just pick a few and go wild. Because right now the weapon is of dubious value. Also make it impossible for the PA to do all damage to a module. It's a giant ball of plasma lobbed at the target. It is not a weapon of precision, intended to strike a specific area of a ship. If it splashes, ok. But the main damage should always be applied to the hull
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