With the conclusion of the Bridging the Gap Initiative we got our latest addition to the Arsenal: Advanced Multicannons. While a lot of people have already covered their effectiveness (Thanks goes to AXI here), I want to talk about the general implementation of weapons in Elite in the last year or so, which I have not been happy with at all.
At this moment the most used weapons for all combat activity seem to be what we have since powerplay hit: The lasers, (frag)cannons, multicannons and missiles together with railguns and PAs have been present since Elite year one. When engineers got released, build variety went nuts and a lot of optional functions have been added to each weapons, some more often used and some less.
Since then, no actually new weapons have been added to the game, and none of the new weapons except for the recently released MCs have been engineerable. Even the anti-thargoid weaponry is all based on our tech and can be seen as a slightly changed variant of existing gear. I simply feel like there is so much untapped potential in what new tools of destruction could be released. It can't be that all human scientist think of are more rocket launchers or some kind of cannon. Adding a copy-paste multicannon with fixed only and the possibility of synthesis for AX and even thinking that it's a viable alternative to anything makes me think FDev threw out the weapon designer and switched them with someone who only did exploration in Elite so far.
But all jokes aside, as a combat (and also AX-combat) player who hit combat elite before anything else I'm just massively disappointed with the way new guns are brought to my favorite universe. The shock cannon showed promise but had too many downsides for frequent use (nothing an overcharged multicannon couldn't do) and on top had no engineering. Guardian shard cannons are even fun to use in Human-PvE but nothing more, as a pacifier can do the same but in a far more superior way.
Then there's the fact the we only get more of existing weapon archetypes, there's so much untapped potential there. We have four different multi-cannons now, three different railguns and three different frag cannons. What about charge-beams or some sort of guardian plasma repeater or an energy-based cannon equivalent with thermal damage? We could have energy pulse throwers or a gun that deals extra damage if a lot of projectiles hit in a short timespan. Even in the conventional weapons branch we still miss high-cadence miniguns or airburst cannons or weapons that emit electric charges. There could be so much more, and all with its own engineering possibilities but it has to be another missile or multi-cannon.
And finally there's the major imbalance of some engineering upgrades that has been widely ignored over the years by fdev. What is rapid-fire even good for on MCs, Cannons, lasers if you can just go for overcharged or eficient? People will go for optimal DPS, DPE and ammo eficiency and some effects do neither make sense nor do they synergize well with any experimental effects. Just look at the beam laser meta in PvE, how thermal shock has been nerfed into uselessness or how badly scramble spectrum performs.
Elite has evolved in so many aspects over the years, we have a lot of new combat-based activities, but the things that make it great, the build-variety and the guns, have not changed a bit for quite some time now. So, after we got the exploration rework and saw how Fdev still cares, how about a weapon balancing pass and some new guns to go with it?
At this moment the most used weapons for all combat activity seem to be what we have since powerplay hit: The lasers, (frag)cannons, multicannons and missiles together with railguns and PAs have been present since Elite year one. When engineers got released, build variety went nuts and a lot of optional functions have been added to each weapons, some more often used and some less.
Since then, no actually new weapons have been added to the game, and none of the new weapons except for the recently released MCs have been engineerable. Even the anti-thargoid weaponry is all based on our tech and can be seen as a slightly changed variant of existing gear. I simply feel like there is so much untapped potential in what new tools of destruction could be released. It can't be that all human scientist think of are more rocket launchers or some kind of cannon. Adding a copy-paste multicannon with fixed only and the possibility of synthesis for AX and even thinking that it's a viable alternative to anything makes me think FDev threw out the weapon designer and switched them with someone who only did exploration in Elite so far.
But all jokes aside, as a combat (and also AX-combat) player who hit combat elite before anything else I'm just massively disappointed with the way new guns are brought to my favorite universe. The shock cannon showed promise but had too many downsides for frequent use (nothing an overcharged multicannon couldn't do) and on top had no engineering. Guardian shard cannons are even fun to use in Human-PvE but nothing more, as a pacifier can do the same but in a far more superior way.
Then there's the fact the we only get more of existing weapon archetypes, there's so much untapped potential there. We have four different multi-cannons now, three different railguns and three different frag cannons. What about charge-beams or some sort of guardian plasma repeater or an energy-based cannon equivalent with thermal damage? We could have energy pulse throwers or a gun that deals extra damage if a lot of projectiles hit in a short timespan. Even in the conventional weapons branch we still miss high-cadence miniguns or airburst cannons or weapons that emit electric charges. There could be so much more, and all with its own engineering possibilities but it has to be another missile or multi-cannon.
And finally there's the major imbalance of some engineering upgrades that has been widely ignored over the years by fdev. What is rapid-fire even good for on MCs, Cannons, lasers if you can just go for overcharged or eficient? People will go for optimal DPS, DPE and ammo eficiency and some effects do neither make sense nor do they synergize well with any experimental effects. Just look at the beam laser meta in PvE, how thermal shock has been nerfed into uselessness or how badly scramble spectrum performs.
Elite has evolved in so many aspects over the years, we have a lot of new combat-based activities, but the things that make it great, the build-variety and the guns, have not changed a bit for quite some time now. So, after we got the exploration rework and saw how Fdev still cares, how about a weapon balancing pass and some new guns to go with it?
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