Hi There!
I've only been playing Elite Dangerous a few months, and recently I've been playing with the weapons and their engineering in order to find my favorite set up / combo. But in all my experiments with the weapons, I've noticed some gaps in capabilities and engineering capabilities for the weapons. So I'm going to suggest new engineering set ups and experimental effects for various modules. This will be a rolling thread with new suggestions as I think about them.
As a background, I've spent many years playing War Sims, and decades playing Flight Sims, as well as other games. And I'm approaching these ideas as that they'd be relatively balanced against the other modules, give or take several considerations. All stats listed are just rough examples of the capabilities against current blue prints and experimental effects. All numbers here are subject to being balanced.
Cannon -> This module is the one I wanted to like the most, but so far is very lackluster.
EF (Experimental Effect): High Explosive -> This cannon shell is loaded with explosives. Damage is entirely explosive. This EF causes EXTREME damage to unarmored ships. But damage diminishes with the armor of the ship being attacked, to the point where a ship with X amount of armor (based on Small, Medium, Large, or Huge cannons increased armor amount) completely invalidates all damage.
EF: High Yield Shell :> Now called "Armored Piercing High Explosive" -> This cannon shell has a mid level of explosives behind an armor piercing shell cap. This shell requires X amount of armor to be penetrated before it'll explode, but not more than Y. This shell causes extreme damage upon successful penetration damaging many internal modules. But if there is no armor on the ship, the shell will pass straight through and cause minimal damage. If there is too much armor, the shell will detonate in the armor, again causing minimal damage.
EF: Base Fuze -> A fuze in an HE shell located in the base of the shell allows slight penetration before detonation. This shell causes cumulative deterioration of any armor on the target for each successful hit, increasing damage with every hit on an unshielded target.
Multicannon -> Probably the most outright useful module I've experienced, but since everyone new runs it, I want to do something different (if only to try it).
Blueprint (BP): Barrel Motor Upgrade, Tier 1-5 -> This upgrade speeds up the spinning motor of the Multicannon, and the rate of fire. This comes at the expense of +10-50% spin-up-time, and increasing levels of jitter the longer the weapon is fired.
EF: High Explosive -> Same as above, except comes at double shell cost when rearming. (It's more expensive to put explosives in smaller shells.)
EF: APHE Shell -> Same as above, except comes at quadruple shell cost when rearming. (It's MUCH more expensive to put complicated explosives in smaller shells.)
Fragment Cannon -> An interesting weapon, but it's apparent the lack of basic shotgun features holds it back.
BP: Barrel Choke, Tier 1-5 -> This upgrade places a tighter and tighter muzzle on the Fragment Cannon, preventing the shells from spreading so soon. This gives a -10-50% spread, at the cost of -5-25% muzzle velocity.
Rail Gun -> I like the rail guns, but with only 1 useful engineering upgrade (IMO), it needs much more diversity. Especially with the lack of size Medium+ choices.
BP: Heavy Shot, Tier 1-5 -> This upgrades the weight of the shot from 10-50%, increasing damage from 10-50%. But it increases thermal load 10-50%, capacitor draw 10-50% and power draw 15-75%.
Frame Shift drive -> There are engineering trees to increase jump range, but not to increase efficiency. So let's fix that.
BP: Efficient Drive, Tier 1-5 -> This drive decreases the fuel used per jump 10-50%. It does not increase the range, but allows a ship to fly further before needing to refuel.
EF: Double Jump -> This experimental module allows a ship to quickly link up 2 jumps with no drop from hyperspace in the mid system. This comes at the expense of +50% fuel used over the cost of BOTH jumps, +50% power draw, and +25% thermal load. In addition, the navigation computer is unable to calculate fuel stops along the route. It will be up to the commander to plan his route efficiently to fuel scoop or stop at a station to take on more fuel. (This EF is up there on the outrageous scale, but the increased fuel usage as well as the pilot having to actively plan his route would be a good tradeoff, IMO.)
Thrusters -> Drag Drive is pretty powerful, so let's add another option.
BP: Boosters, Tier 1-5 -> This engineering module significantly increases the boost power and top speed of any thruster, at the cost of increased capacitor draw, thermal load, and decreased non-boost speed.
Fuel Scoop -> Some easy modifications here.
BP: Fuel Pump, Tier 1-5 -> This engineering module increases the intake of fuel during fuel scooping from +5-25%, at the cost of +5-25% more heat intake from the star. If someone chooses to dump heat syncs everytime they scoop, they should be able to take on more fuel.
Collector Limpet
BP: Drag Drives, Tier 1-5 -> This engineering module increases the velocity of the limpets 5-25% at the cost of the limpets individual integrity decreasing -10-50%. The limpets are much faster, but more prone to blowing up upon hitting anything like an asteroid or the ship.
Prospector Limpet
BP: Drag Drives, Tier 1-5 -> Same as above.
Capacitors
BP: Powerful Discharge, Tier 1-5 -> The capacitors increase the potency of any effect (be it boost, or weapon damage...) +5-25% at the penalty of 3-15% increase in power draw, and -5-25% recharge rate. I.E. Your lasers will do more damage, but it'll take you much longer to charge them up.
Pulse, Burst and Beam Laser for fixed, gimballed and turreted versions.
BP: Burn Through, Tier 1-5 -> The longer you can strike a single spot on an enemy ship, the more damage you can do. Damage increases +5->15% - +50->150% if you can keep your lasers striking within 5-10 meters of their first strike (depending on laser size, small -> huge). Basically the longer you keep your lasers on one single spot on the target, the more damage they do. If you hit the target from nose to tail and can't focus your attempts, the attacks do normal damage. This may be beyond E
's capabilities, but I think it's a cool idea.
Thanks for reading this! I play as Danneskjold with ClanAOD.net . Any suggestions, feel free to add them. What do you think of my very first frontier forum post?
I've only been playing Elite Dangerous a few months, and recently I've been playing with the weapons and their engineering in order to find my favorite set up / combo. But in all my experiments with the weapons, I've noticed some gaps in capabilities and engineering capabilities for the weapons. So I'm going to suggest new engineering set ups and experimental effects for various modules. This will be a rolling thread with new suggestions as I think about them.
As a background, I've spent many years playing War Sims, and decades playing Flight Sims, as well as other games. And I'm approaching these ideas as that they'd be relatively balanced against the other modules, give or take several considerations. All stats listed are just rough examples of the capabilities against current blue prints and experimental effects. All numbers here are subject to being balanced.
Cannon -> This module is the one I wanted to like the most, but so far is very lackluster.
EF (Experimental Effect): High Explosive -> This cannon shell is loaded with explosives. Damage is entirely explosive. This EF causes EXTREME damage to unarmored ships. But damage diminishes with the armor of the ship being attacked, to the point where a ship with X amount of armor (based on Small, Medium, Large, or Huge cannons increased armor amount) completely invalidates all damage.
EF: High Yield Shell :> Now called "Armored Piercing High Explosive" -> This cannon shell has a mid level of explosives behind an armor piercing shell cap. This shell requires X amount of armor to be penetrated before it'll explode, but not more than Y. This shell causes extreme damage upon successful penetration damaging many internal modules. But if there is no armor on the ship, the shell will pass straight through and cause minimal damage. If there is too much armor, the shell will detonate in the armor, again causing minimal damage.
EF: Base Fuze -> A fuze in an HE shell located in the base of the shell allows slight penetration before detonation. This shell causes cumulative deterioration of any armor on the target for each successful hit, increasing damage with every hit on an unshielded target.
Multicannon -> Probably the most outright useful module I've experienced, but since everyone new runs it, I want to do something different (if only to try it).
Blueprint (BP): Barrel Motor Upgrade, Tier 1-5 -> This upgrade speeds up the spinning motor of the Multicannon, and the rate of fire. This comes at the expense of +10-50% spin-up-time, and increasing levels of jitter the longer the weapon is fired.
EF: High Explosive -> Same as above, except comes at double shell cost when rearming. (It's more expensive to put explosives in smaller shells.)
EF: APHE Shell -> Same as above, except comes at quadruple shell cost when rearming. (It's MUCH more expensive to put complicated explosives in smaller shells.)
Fragment Cannon -> An interesting weapon, but it's apparent the lack of basic shotgun features holds it back.
BP: Barrel Choke, Tier 1-5 -> This upgrade places a tighter and tighter muzzle on the Fragment Cannon, preventing the shells from spreading so soon. This gives a -10-50% spread, at the cost of -5-25% muzzle velocity.
Rail Gun -> I like the rail guns, but with only 1 useful engineering upgrade (IMO), it needs much more diversity. Especially with the lack of size Medium+ choices.
BP: Heavy Shot, Tier 1-5 -> This upgrades the weight of the shot from 10-50%, increasing damage from 10-50%. But it increases thermal load 10-50%, capacitor draw 10-50% and power draw 15-75%.
Frame Shift drive -> There are engineering trees to increase jump range, but not to increase efficiency. So let's fix that.
BP: Efficient Drive, Tier 1-5 -> This drive decreases the fuel used per jump 10-50%. It does not increase the range, but allows a ship to fly further before needing to refuel.
EF: Double Jump -> This experimental module allows a ship to quickly link up 2 jumps with no drop from hyperspace in the mid system. This comes at the expense of +50% fuel used over the cost of BOTH jumps, +50% power draw, and +25% thermal load. In addition, the navigation computer is unable to calculate fuel stops along the route. It will be up to the commander to plan his route efficiently to fuel scoop or stop at a station to take on more fuel. (This EF is up there on the outrageous scale, but the increased fuel usage as well as the pilot having to actively plan his route would be a good tradeoff, IMO.)
Thrusters -> Drag Drive is pretty powerful, so let's add another option.
BP: Boosters, Tier 1-5 -> This engineering module significantly increases the boost power and top speed of any thruster, at the cost of increased capacitor draw, thermal load, and decreased non-boost speed.
Fuel Scoop -> Some easy modifications here.
BP: Fuel Pump, Tier 1-5 -> This engineering module increases the intake of fuel during fuel scooping from +5-25%, at the cost of +5-25% more heat intake from the star. If someone chooses to dump heat syncs everytime they scoop, they should be able to take on more fuel.
Collector Limpet
BP: Drag Drives, Tier 1-5 -> This engineering module increases the velocity of the limpets 5-25% at the cost of the limpets individual integrity decreasing -10-50%. The limpets are much faster, but more prone to blowing up upon hitting anything like an asteroid or the ship.
Prospector Limpet
BP: Drag Drives, Tier 1-5 -> Same as above.
Capacitors
BP: Powerful Discharge, Tier 1-5 -> The capacitors increase the potency of any effect (be it boost, or weapon damage...) +5-25% at the penalty of 3-15% increase in power draw, and -5-25% recharge rate. I.E. Your lasers will do more damage, but it'll take you much longer to charge them up.
Pulse, Burst and Beam Laser for fixed, gimballed and turreted versions.
BP: Burn Through, Tier 1-5 -> The longer you can strike a single spot on an enemy ship, the more damage you can do. Damage increases +5->15% - +50->150% if you can keep your lasers striking within 5-10 meters of their first strike (depending on laser size, small -> huge). Basically the longer you keep your lasers on one single spot on the target, the more damage they do. If you hit the target from nose to tail and can't focus your attempts, the attacks do normal damage. This may be beyond E
's capabilities, but I think it's a cool idea.Thanks for reading this! I play as Danneskjold with ClanAOD.net . Any suggestions, feel free to add them. What do you think of my very first frontier forum post?
