the general problem: certain mods are very very good at grade 5, and totally useless or detrimental at grades 1 to 3. multicannons go up to grade five, but cannons only to grade 2. pulse lasers go to grade 4, but beam/burst lasers only have grade 2, railguns & plasma also only go up to grade 2. so for no good reason, multicannons & pulse lasers get special treatment and everything else gets the shaft. this needs to be fixed by making the grade 1-3 upgrades actual upgrades, and not downgrades (for e.g. take a took at the grade 1 overcharged mod (http://inara.cz/galaxy-blueprint/90) and have a good laugh). why the hell is no one else drawing attention to this, and why hasn't frontier done anything about it in the months since 2.1 was released?
why 4 out of the 6 mods for plasma are totally useless:
rapidfire, grade 1: rate of fire is increased, but not enough to offset the reduced damage per shot. as if it wasn't bad enough that your damage per second is crippled, it also adds a huge amount of jitter, meaning it's impossible to hit targetted modules (no powerplant sniping) and you can't hit anything at range. iredeemably bad.
is it really too much to ask that engineer mods don't make the original module WORSE? tone down the jitter, lower the distributor draw to at least partly compensate for the lost damage, like on the grade 2 mod. adjust the rate of fire so you don't lose damage per second
overcharged weapon, grade 1: up to 90% increased distributor draw, almost 50% increased thermal load, and it adds jitter... for 20% more damage output if you get a lucky roll? your plasma accelerator gets totally shafted in 3 separate ways by this mod, and you won't even notice the increased damage.
please make it so the negative effects don't massively outweigh the positive ones. as it is currently, every time you pull the trigger you'll: completely drain your distributor power, overheat, and miss your target.
focused weapon: trades damage per second for a bit of additional range and slightly faster projectiles
...at least that's what it ought to do. what it actually does: melts your ship every time you pull the trigger (incidentally, thanks for taking 25% of our heatsinks away). at least it's not as bad as the overcharged mod.
sturdy mount: since our hardpoints malfunction after a single missile strike regardless of whether you're using this mod, what is the point? the integrity gain is insignificant, but the increased mass can be punishing. would be nice if malfunctions didn't happen so often when you used this mod, but that's probably wishful thinking. armour piercing seems to be missing from the first 2 tiers, which is kind of a big deal since we don't have access to the higher tiers
what i think needs to change: enough integrity to actually make a difference, armour piercing on the lower tiers
lasers:
overcharged weapon: the lower tiers have the same problem as plasma. those negative effects might be fine on cannons/multicannons/frag cannons, but not on energy weapons. huge shame that the numbers were just copy/pasted between weapons
short range blaster: it's just a worse version of overcharged weapon. the grade 1 version seems to be better in some ways than grade 5, which is very strange. the negative effects outweigh the positive, especially on the higher grades
long range weapon: this is just a rubbish version of focused weapon for burst lasers. the problem isn't exactly that this mod is bad, but that you're better off using focused pulse lasers.
frag cannons:
high capacity magazine: badly effected by the increased reload time, much more so than cannons & multicannons. frag cannons spend a lot of their time in combat reloading, so 80% longer reloads means damage per second is reduced by close to 80%. the numbers were just copy/pasted between all the weapons with this mod. reload time needs to be less harsh for the frag cannon version
experimental effects:
for these 3 in particular, the concept sounds great but in practice they are no good.
autoloader: is useless because it doesn't work whilst firing, and there's a long delay after firing before the autoloader kicks in. you still need to reload frequently so it makes no practical difference
thermal conduit: "experimental downgrade that reduces damage unless your ship is overheating". Why?
phasing sequence: the 'minor damage reduction' means it's not worth it under any circumstances
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why 4 out of the 6 mods for plasma are totally useless:
rapidfire, grade 1: rate of fire is increased, but not enough to offset the reduced damage per shot. as if it wasn't bad enough that your damage per second is crippled, it also adds a huge amount of jitter, meaning it's impossible to hit targetted modules (no powerplant sniping) and you can't hit anything at range. iredeemably bad.
is it really too much to ask that engineer mods don't make the original module WORSE? tone down the jitter, lower the distributor draw to at least partly compensate for the lost damage, like on the grade 2 mod. adjust the rate of fire so you don't lose damage per second
overcharged weapon, grade 1: up to 90% increased distributor draw, almost 50% increased thermal load, and it adds jitter... for 20% more damage output if you get a lucky roll? your plasma accelerator gets totally shafted in 3 separate ways by this mod, and you won't even notice the increased damage.
please make it so the negative effects don't massively outweigh the positive ones. as it is currently, every time you pull the trigger you'll: completely drain your distributor power, overheat, and miss your target.
focused weapon: trades damage per second for a bit of additional range and slightly faster projectiles
...at least that's what it ought to do. what it actually does: melts your ship every time you pull the trigger (incidentally, thanks for taking 25% of our heatsinks away). at least it's not as bad as the overcharged mod.
sturdy mount: since our hardpoints malfunction after a single missile strike regardless of whether you're using this mod, what is the point? the integrity gain is insignificant, but the increased mass can be punishing. would be nice if malfunctions didn't happen so often when you used this mod, but that's probably wishful thinking. armour piercing seems to be missing from the first 2 tiers, which is kind of a big deal since we don't have access to the higher tiers
what i think needs to change: enough integrity to actually make a difference, armour piercing on the lower tiers
lasers:
overcharged weapon: the lower tiers have the same problem as plasma. those negative effects might be fine on cannons/multicannons/frag cannons, but not on energy weapons. huge shame that the numbers were just copy/pasted between weapons
short range blaster: it's just a worse version of overcharged weapon. the grade 1 version seems to be better in some ways than grade 5, which is very strange. the negative effects outweigh the positive, especially on the higher grades
long range weapon: this is just a rubbish version of focused weapon for burst lasers. the problem isn't exactly that this mod is bad, but that you're better off using focused pulse lasers.
frag cannons:
high capacity magazine: badly effected by the increased reload time, much more so than cannons & multicannons. frag cannons spend a lot of their time in combat reloading, so 80% longer reloads means damage per second is reduced by close to 80%. the numbers were just copy/pasted between all the weapons with this mod. reload time needs to be less harsh for the frag cannon version
experimental effects:
for these 3 in particular, the concept sounds great but in practice they are no good.
autoloader: is useless because it doesn't work whilst firing, and there's a long delay after firing before the autoloader kicks in. you still need to reload frequently so it makes no practical difference
thermal conduit: "experimental downgrade that reduces damage unless your ship is overheating". Why?
phasing sequence: the 'minor damage reduction' means it's not worth it under any circumstances
~