Missing weapons

[Cheese Helmet]

Class 1 plasma. Plasma repeater off fighters is a good option.
Class 3/4 rails. More spook up, power draw, heat, and damage
Class 4 frags
Class 4 missles/torpedoes /mines(buff mines)
Mining fighter too please

 

[CMDR X]

+1
+Remove the braindead four AX weapon limit.
+Small Seismic charges (for CMDR CamelFish)
X.

 

[Sylow]

Class 1 plasma. Plasma repeater off fighters is a good option.

Hmm. Yes.

Class 3/4 rails. More spook up, power draw, heat, and damage

You'd sure like to have that. Would you also like to be on the receiving end? Some of the developers years ago said that they experimented with a weapon of that type and size. The weapon got too deadly on NPCs before it even felt worth using a class 3 slot for it in a players hands. It simply was impossible to balance it in a way that it wouldn't hurt the game.

Class 4 frags

Sounds more interesting. Unlike for rails, there's no FD statement if they ever tried.

Class 4 missles/torpedoes /mines(buff mines)

For missiles: it would just be more ammo. Sure, why not, though I don't think anybody would actually use it.
For torpedoes: way more complicated. With engineering around, they are a very binary weapon, it can quickly switch from worthless to utterly devastating. Merely more ammo on them can be a huge issue.
For mines: they need work on themselves first, before looking at a bigger launcher.

Mining fighter too please

Maybe. I keep hearing this. But I sometimes go mining and I really would see no use for it on the current state of the game.

 

[Cheese Helmet]

Hmm. Yes.



You'd sure like to have that. Would you also like to be on the receiving end? Some of the developers years ago said that they experimented with a weapon of that type and size. The weapon got too deadly on NPCs before it even felt worth using a class 3 slot for it in a players hands. It simply was impossible to balance it in a way that it wouldn't hurt the game.



Sounds more interesting. Unlike for rails, there's no FD statement if they ever tried.



For missiles: it would just be more ammo. Sure, why not, though I don't think anybody would actually use it.
For torpedoes: way more complicated. With engineering around, they are a very binary weapon, it can quickly switch from worthless to utterly devastating. Merely more ammo on them can be a huge issue.
For mines: they need work on themselves first, before looking at a bigger launcher.



Maybe. I keep hearing this. But I sometimes go mining and I really would see no use for it on the current state of the game.

Mining fighter would just make multi crew mining more enjoyable.

And class 3&4 rails? Absolutely would love to feel that I’m actually in danger. Obviously the balance for them is RoF, power draw, and heat output. So much so that they force specialization.

 

[Sylow]

And class 3&4 rails? Absolutely would love to feel that I’m actually in danger. Obviously the balance for them is RoF, power draw, and heat output. So much so that they force specialization.

You're still only thinking on you using it. Now let the randomizer put a number of them on one ship in a CZ. An NPC doesn't care if his ship boils up. Both NPC and ship are consumables, anyway, so no need to save it. And according to old feedback FD gave many years ago, they just were unable to find a middle ground. The weapons still were too powerful on NPCs, which happily boiled themselves up while killing the players, while in the hands of players they just didn't perform well enough.

Mind you, that was years ago, when FD still was more active and still paid more attention to what they were doing. The posting of that time was better written than what I sum up here. Feel free to dig for it, I won't. I just stick to what they said in old times: they are unable to balance the weapon properly. And if they were not able to do that in old times, there's no way they can manage currently.

 

[Cheese Helmet]

You're still only thinking on you using it. Now let the randomizer put a number of them on one ship in a CZ. An NPC doesn't care if his ship boils up. Both NPC and ship are consumables, anyway, so no need to save it. And according to old feedback FD gave many years ago, they just were unable to find a middle ground. The weapons still were too powerful on NPCs, which happily boiled themselves up while killing the players, while in the hands of players they just didn't perform well enough.

Mind you, that was years ago, when FD still was more active and still paid more attention to what they were doing. The posting of that time was better written than what I sum up here. Feel free to dig for it, I won't. I just stick to what they said in old times: they are unable to balance the weapon properly. And if they were not able to do that in old times, there's no way they can manage currently.

I remember the post.

and no I’m definitely thinking about the sound and shudder of my ship getting rekt by them when I say “the feeling of being in danger” not just me using them.
I’m a firm believer that things like rate of fire and power requirements can balance them

 

[Sylow]

I guess you then should apply at FD as game designer. If they say they are unable to do it, while you think you can do it, you might be a valuable addition to the team.

 

[gorankar]

If you scale damage on the rail guns similarly as they did between class 1 and 2, a Corvette with nothing but rails would be pumping out approximately 470 damage in a single pull of the trigger before any engineering. Not saying that can't be balanced, but that would be brutal in the hands of NPC's that care not one bit if they boil themselves alive.
I let my SLF pilot go wild in a haz res with a Krait II with 5 x class 2 rails, G5 short range, plasma slug, while I marked targets in the SLF, just for the lulz once. When I returned to my ship some of my modules were in the 20% health range from heat damage. I firmly believe she would have kept firing until the ship melted to slag.

 

[gorankar]

+1
+Remove the braindead four AX weapon limit.
+Small Seismic charges (for CMDR CamelFish)
X.

Definitely yes for the removal of the AX weapon limit and give us class 4 in those as well.
I get why they did that though. They did not want interceptors getting instantly face rolled by just one or two big 3 ships loaded with guardian shard cannons.

 

[Sylow]

I firmly believe she would have kept firing until the ship melted to slag.

Yes, she would. For anything else than a players ship it doesn't matter. You must be a terribly bad shot that an NPC would self-destruct by heat before you shoot it down. Once the NPC is destroyed, the next ship again comes with everything at 100%. Only on a players ship, surviving for much longer, it matters.

I get why they did that though. They did not want interceptors getting instantly face rolled by just one or two big 3 ships loaded with guardian shard cannons.

Yea. I actually find some strange appeal in the four-slot limitation. It actually makes more things useful for AX duty. Without this limitation, the number of ships actually useful for this task would be much smaller.

In the end Thargoids are balanced around the best setups you can bring against them. If you can bring more firepower against them, they have to be more sturdy to still work. Which means that other ships without less firepower will be of lower value.

So yes, the four weapon limit seems very random. But it does have some use and actually in a strange way adds to the game. There might've been more elegant ways to get to the same goal, but this is the path FD has chosen. Considering how unlikely a complete rework is, I guess the current implementation is here to stay.

Edit: and as I haven't commented on one thing on the thread yet: small seismic launchers. I am all for those. It would give the ability of core mining to some ships, which would seem like a logical choice for that activity, would they just be able to have a seismic launcher. Also, the model of the seismic launcher might even already be small enough to fit on a small hardpoint. (It looks a bit lost on a medium one, for sure. )

So really, copy the thing and just reduce the ammo on the C1 version and it might already be good to go. I can't see anything wrong about that.