Engineers Beam Laser need some love.

[z33r0x]

Beam laser is my favorite weapon in Elite, I once had a dream, of having a ship with multiple beam lasers to cut enemies in half, but I knew that it wasn't possible, because of the heat they produced and their expensive energy cost, but when I heard word of engineers and the way to effect certain attributes of the weapons, I started to see light in the end of the tunne. But after the engineer update was released, they become worthless, you can now upgrade a pulselaser for god sakes, that becomes even more powerful and energy efficient than a beam laser, whats up with that ?

I would like to see "Efficient Weapon" modification on them, as well as other improvements to short range beam laser. Beam lasers acually deal less damage when used at their max range, so reducing range by 62.5% (average at grade 5) and increasing damage by 29,5% (average at grade 5) doesn't really cut it, you acually deal less damage because of the damage penalty based on how far away your target is. Damage is already decreasing at the range of about 300m (aprox average of max range)...

So beam laser really need some love

 

[Poseidal]

Yep, it's possible even at base value it's underpowered.

 

[Pablo-Diablo]

You can't have something that looks cool to be powerful at the same time. That's how things work in FD galaxy. Take a Python for example - a meanest looking ship turned into a hauler...

 

[MarcusKross]

Before 2.1 beams were fine and had their niche, but the problem is that they got neglected with and 2.1 and now we have all the best baseline mods and special effects on the other lasers which is a shame really.

At the moment the best use of beam lasers are with healing. For damage and efficiency there are several other better weapon/modification/effect options. Thermal conduit effect would have been a good and balanced one to have if only it did not have the unnecessary damage penalty on.

 

[Derath]

Beams just need the same mods that pulses/bursts get, they scream for efficiency yet they don't actually get that one

 

[z33r0x]

Yeah it's good that im not alone with this, it seems that everyone agrees. Hopefully Frontier will make this happen.

 

[Heavenly-Hammer]

Honestly, I'm not sure what you do with the beam laser at this point. You can't really overcharge it, right? Because that would mean a distributor draw of as much as +50%, rendering it completely useless.

Options like rapid fire make no sense here, leaving you perhaps just FOCUSED and EFFICIENT paths to go down.

Efficient could be cool but would still be inferior to overcharged pulses and bursts which would do more damage with still less distributor draw. But it'd be a nice option for those who just love the look, I guess.

Focused once again would have trouble justifying itself in a world of Focused pulses and Overcharged pulses.

IMO, beams and their engineering upgrade paths need a complete rethink. If they're not going to get stronger (damage) becuase of the inevitable increases to the power distributor, they have to become more useful as utility options. Like how the regen beam is better at healing than concordant sequence or how vent can help drop ship temperature. More interesting effects like that are needed here. Effects that are interesting enough to make them really worthy considerations over just buying more damage or efficent weaponry like multis and pulses and useful enough to be willing to accept the dps loss and energy inefficiency to carry one.

 

[joshman72nd]

2 class 4 beams make short work. if you want to see a weapon thats really needing love take a peek at class 4 pa.

3%hull dmg to a sidey and no module dmg. -_- and its shields were down as well when the ball hit.

 

[Lucius-Darcia]

Yes, beamlasers......

Class 3 Pulse costs 100k and looks ugly. Class 3 beam costs 1,2mil and looks nice.
I always prefered beamlasers because they have a nice feeling. They are my favourite weapons since i started playing elite but in my last CZ they felt like waterpistols
I've stored them and switched to pulses yesterday because they make A LOT more damage, lesser energy drain and way lesser heat gain. NOT FAIR!
Frontier.......pls bring us back the beams. They always had their disadvantage compared to pulses and already in stock not the choice number 1 in terms of efficient weapons.
But i liked them......in the past.

Still waiting for my Grade 5 efficient weapon mod for beams. That's the only thing that would bring em back. And some better specials because the only useful ones bring a stealth damage reduce from about 25%!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Cmdr Ultra]

if you want to see a weapon thats really needing love take a peek at class 4 pa

Go see Bill Turner G5 PA Rapid fire and others.

http://inara.cz/galaxy-blueprint/91

http://inara.cz/galaxy-blueprint/90

http://inara.cz/galaxy-engineer/19

 

[nathdixon92]

What ever happened to phasing sequence on beams?

 

[jmp470]

You can't have something that looks cool to be powerful at the same time. That's how things work in FD galaxy. Take a Python for example - a meanest looking ship turned into a hauler...

Let the engineers do some work on your hauler and it becomes the most lethal medium ship in the game!!! Also, the most useful ship too.

 

[goemon]

if you are running lightweight (on a speed courier for exampel), they are still good (more dps than lightweight pulses).

i also like small shortrange blasters on my eagle and DBS.

Honestly, I'm not sure what you do with the beam laser at this point. You can't really overcharge it, right? Because that would mean a distributor draw of as much as +50%, rendering it completely useless.

Options like rapid fire make no sense here, leaving you perhaps just FOCUSED and EFFICIENT paths to go down.

Efficient could be cool but would still be inferior to overcharged pulses and bursts which would do more damage with still less distributor draw. But it'd be a nice option for those who just love the look, I guess.

Focused once again would have trouble justifying itself in a world of Focused pulses and Overcharged pulses.

IMO, beams and their engineering upgrade paths need a complete rethink. If they're not going to get stronger (damage) becuase of the inevitable increases to the power distributor, they have to become more useful as utility options. Like how the regen beam is better at healing than concordant sequence or how vent can help drop ship temperature. More interesting effects like that are needed here. Effects that are interesting enough to make them really worthy considerations over just buying more damage or efficent weaponry like multis and pulses and useful enough to be willing to accept the dps loss and energy inefficiency to carry one.

i like that way of thinking!

beams always where great shieldstrippers ... how about some reverberating effect, damaging a shieldgenerator over time, or punishing the usage of scb?

 

[Lyneira]

If you're wondering why beam lasers got "looked over", it's because the popular weapon mods like Focused, Efficient, Overcharged and Rapid Fire affect something that doesn't exist on a beam laser: Rate of Fire and Jitter. These are effects that only make sense to a weapon that fires in shots while the beam laser is continuous.

So these mods as they were put into the game were simply not applicable game mechanically, but Beam lasers really ought to receive a few substitute mods that have a similar effect to Focused and Efficient, and perhaps Overcharged/Rapidfire if they can make jitter cause constant random divergence on beams (similar to gimballed beams but additive and stronger).

 

[Derath]

If you're wondering why beam lasers got "looked over", it's because the popular weapon mods like Focused, Efficient, Overcharged and Rapid Fire affect something that doesn't exist on a beam laser: Rate of Fire and Jitter. These are effects that only make sense to a weapon that fires in shots while the beam laser is continuous.

So these mods as they were put into the game were simply not applicable game mechanically, but Beam lasers really ought to receive a few substitute mods that have a similar effect to Focused and Efficient, and perhaps Overcharged/Rapidfire if they can make jitter cause constant random divergence on beams (similar to gimballed beams but additive and stronger).

I think they don't have them because they don't want them, it would have been easy to make mods that applied to beams that fulfilled the role of focused/efficient/overcharged - they got long range for example which is their viable equivalent of focused but it really wouldn't have been much extra work to add some usable mods for beams. As per usual its a bit half baked.

Alternatively they didn't want beams to end up too overpowered as from the outside they look like clearly the best energy weapon, realistically of course the huge increase to shields has rendered beams pretty meh as their DPE was always pretty bad and the longer you make fights take the more relevant DPE becomes.

Oh and weapons that can stack things they are already exceptional at generally isn't good design which refers to overcharged multicannons (no drawback on a mod supposed to have major drawbacks) and Efficient pulses (extremely efficient weapon made so efficient any distributor can run it flat out)

 

[kenworth]

Try the thermal vent effect with your beams if heat is the primary problem. I use that to help offset the excess heat from my overcharged incendiary MC's on my Python. Two C2 turreted beams with thermal vent will stay on target quite well (PVE) and dump heat all the while.

 

[GG7]

I took the time to get all the C3 Beams I use on my various ships equipped with the "Thermal Shock" experimental effect which seems to add a good deal of damage to the targets from what I can see. I used the Light Weight mod on all of mine since Jump Range is my primary focus with all of my ships. Including my Python and Corvette.

All that said... I would agree that of all the weapon upgrades available, the Beam Lasers could definitely benefit from some more options that focus more on damage and hull penetration.

Up till now, the max beam upgrade I can get is a Grade 3, since I am still locked out of any Engineer that offers anything higher than that. And based on the requirements for both Palin and Jameson which appear to hold the invites to any Grade 5 Engineer, I doubt I am ever going to have a Grade 4 or 5 Beam Laser, and that really sucks! [sad]

 

[Cmdr. Numa]

Try the thermal vent effect with your beams if heat is the primary problem. I use that to help offset the excess heat from my overcharged incendiary MC's on my Python. Two C2 turreted beams with thermal vent will stay on target quite well (PVE) and dump heat all the while.

That's really all what beams are really good for. Still, if you don't overdo it, beams are still great shield strippers. But I'd LOVE to see the efficient mod on them.

 

[Mephane]

Honestly, I'm not sure what you do with the beam laser at this point. You can't really overcharge it, right? Because that would mean a distributor draw of as much as +50%, rendering it completely useless.

Overcharged can increase damage more than distributor draw, making the weapon more efficient and more powerful simultaneously. You could possibly then equip for example 2 overcharged grade 5 beams instead of 3 unmodded beams, have the same or more DPS for less overall distributor draw, and a free hardpoint for something else.

 

[goemon]

beams got a massive buff today:

Spoiler

weapon colour modifier!