What do you prefer, Lasers or Phasers and why?

[Larsenex]

Greetings! This thread is just to ask what you prefer and if you have a reason, why.


I know when we got Phasers that they were 'balanced' with the lasers out there and on paper, (Phasers vrs Titan beams) they are rather close in stats.

But it seems that early on, the earlier Phaser Lance is significantly better than any laser in that tier. 20dmg and 300 range! The trade off being it is inefficient energy-wise but if you have quantum reactors..who cares!

So my early to mid game I am loading my 500 size cruisers with 8 Phaser Lances (for up close punch), 8 Velocity shards (for range), 5 or 6 Point defense guns, and depending on my mood either MORE phasers or a Fighter hangar, oh and a Ion cannon or two.

I almost never equip missiles, rail guns, bombard weapons or area weapons on my ships. I find that missiles are just not worth the research when torpedoes are so much better



So going back to your beam of choice, what do you prefer and why? I was looking at Impact blasters but meh, Phasers for the win.

[Shark7]

Whichever I have at the moment. I really don't have a preference so long as they make the bad guys be no more. [;)]

[mikeCK]

Plus phasers get a bonus against armor I believe...10%

[FerretStyle]

Fire rate: 4.00 seconds

Not sure if that is calculated into the "Damage" stat already, but if not then it's pretty clear that the only benefit of phasers is the innate accuracy and armor penetration.

[Osito]

ORIGINAL: mikeCK

Plus phasers get a bonus against armor I believe...10%

They have a 10% targeting bonus, and they are more effective against armour - according to the tech screen.

However, I've tested Phaser Lance vs Maxos Blaster, and the Blaster is more effective against armour. I'd like to think there's something wrong with my testing, but I don't know what. In general, I'm finding Phasers better against shields and worse against armour. Depending on the configuration (in particular heavy armour loadout) Maxos Blasters can take out targets faster than Phaser Lance.

Of course, I'm not saying you should necessarily replace your Phaser Lance with Blasters, as my tests were based on artificially arranged encounters between ships, rather than real encounters, where the extra range may be critical.

Edit: Sorry, almost forgot. I prefer phasers anyway, because I like the name better

Osito

[invaderzim]

I like Impact Assault Blasters + Tractor Beams at early tech levels and Titan Beams as soon as possible. If I didn't care about capturing stuff, I would probably go with railguns + tractors.

I crunched some numbers (feel free to check the maths) on this a few days ago starting with a handy spreadsheet donkuchi created. Level 2 impact blasters are relatively efficient weapons with 1.25 damage per second at range 200 per size unit. By contrast phaser lances only do 0.56 DPS. Phasers are twice as big as other beam weapons and they also fire about half as fast on average. Their shots are more faster and accurate, but I don't think is enough to make up for their faults.

Basic titan beams offer the most DPS per unit of space out of all the weapons across most ranges and are particularly powerful point blank because they do 3-4 damage per second per unit of space. For the amount of research required, titan beams stack up favorably with most weapons except the pulse wave cannon which is race specific. Plasma thunderbolts are decent, but I never have enough research for those and titan beams. Also torpedoes are relatively slow and seem to miss a lot at range which further lowers their DPS.

I'd actually like the weapons rebalanced as bit as I can't see much reason to use anything except Titan Beams if I am playing to win.

Here's some additional analysis:
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[Erik Rutins]

Titan Beams are very good indeed within short ranges. In the late game however, combat occurs at increasingly longer ranges. There are many weapons that are superior to Titan Beams as you get to those longer ranges, and others that are competitive within shorter ranges. If you extend your analysis through Range 1000, the optimal choice becomes less obvious. Most ships benefit from a mix of weapons unless they are designed to fight a very specific opponent. The intention is that any of the late game weapons should be competitive, if in a ship design that considers their strengths and weaknesses and is designed with the ship designs of opponents in mind.

[YourConscience]

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

Titan Beams are very good indeed within short ranges. In the late game however, combat occurs at increasingly longer ranges. There are many weapons that are superior to Titan Beams as you get to those longer ranges, and others that are competitive within shorter ranges. If you extend your analysis through Range 1000, the optimal choice becomes less obvious. Most ships benefit from a mix of weapons unless they are designed to fight a very specific opponent. The intention is that any of the late game weapons should be competitive, if in a ship design that considers their strengths and weaknesses and is designed with the ship designs of opponents in mind.

Indeed, this is exactly what I observe as well. For example, I have a special task force of extremely agile and fast ships which exclusively use heavy missiles and point defence. Those I use to crack those huge star ports over homeworlds at absolute no cost, since they simply stay out of range of the star port. I add a fleet of slow and heavily shielded and armored phase lance ships which protect the missile guys form close combat enemy ships.

[Arcatus]

You can get Phaser lances at tier 4, and the last upgrade is a tier 7.
Phaser Lance is the only weapons that does this. All other tier 7 weapons is becomes available at tier 5 - and you often need several paths completed to get to them.

This means that you are able to put phaser lances on a ship or base fairly quicly, and it's firepower will remain competitive during the entire game.

[DeadlyShoe]

Tractor Beam tech has increased the relative power of short range weapons by a lot. It's one reason railguns are powerful, even leaving aside the armor problems. Some of the ancient capital ships are horrifying predators that obliterate ships one at a time using tractors. Missiles and torps have this unfortunate tendency to not defeat shield recharge against large targets.

Also I don't feel long range combat really becomes a thing until HyperStop systems come into play. Certainly fighters are kinda pointless until you can field 50+ at a time. Even so they get attrited pretty quick.

Maybe if there was a 'siege' order where your units would rally up and only attack from afar. You can sorta do this, personally, but the AI has trouble pulling it off before HyperStop. Partly owing to the tendency of ship captains to suicidally charge planetary defenses. (Which is very annoying for pirates )

I don't really like how phasers look visually so I tend to prefer beams and railguns. I feel forced into Titan Beams later on though. Shatterforce and Impact are too inferior when push comes to shove. Waves... might be okay, but my Wekkarus games have either gone too well or not well enough for that to be an issue.

[CyclopsSlayer]

Personally I favor a specific weapon set that I have found.

Point Defense - Terminator Autocannon - For terminal defense and anti-fighter
Torpedo - Plasma Thunderbolt - Long Range, hard hitting. While small nimble ships are harder to hit, when they do get hit a single volley is usually sufficient.
Fighters - Mixed Strike and Torpedo Bombers - Can chase down and destroy even the fastest ships.
Hyper Deny - Those who fight and run away, live to fight another day... unless they are being chased down by ships with long range torpedoes...

Titan Beams used to be one of my favorites, then I found the Torpedo line, sure inside 300 range the Titan is superior, beyond that it becomes barely better than a same tech torpedo. And once you reach the Titan's maximum range the Torp still has 400 more range to go. (@560 rng, Titans Dmg per Space per Second is 1.42, Plasma Thunderbolt is 1.36. Barely 4% less)(IF I remember the size of Titan Beams correctly)

[invaderzim]

Titan Beams used to be one of my favorites, then I found the Torpedo line, sure inside 300 range the Titan is superior, beyond that it becomes barely better than a same tech torpedo. And once you reach the Titan's maximum range the Torp still has 400 more range to go. (@560 rng, Titans Dmg per Space per Second is 1.42, Plasma Thunderbolt is 1.36. Barely 4% less)(IF I remember the size of Titan Beams correctly)

How much of an effect does projectile speed have in terms of the chance to hit? Titan Beams III have a speed of 330 while Plasma Thunderbolt III has a speed of 125. I have noticed that when I attack spaceports, their torpedoes are much more likely to miss my ships since they can move.

I'd also wonder how much better weapons get once you have improved targeting and countermeasures tech.

[Larsenex]

Which brings me to the question, Torpedos or Missiles? For maximum dmg at longest range what do you prefer?

Seems like the Phaser vrs Titan beam debate is about even on effectiveness.

For long range stand off what is your favorite. Mine is of course Plasma T bolt.

[Modest]

I would go for missiles IF my main, and only target would be to fight on longest possible distance - no damage loss and (as far as I remember) longest range are main factor for this choise. Also I think (again - as far as I remember) that missiles are harder to avoid (understand it well - not chances to hit, but chances to out run missile and get out of it's range). And last factor is that You did not mentioned my favourite long range choise - fighters and bombers. As for 50% damage reduction to armor - there is nice discussion on armors' relevance (and by this also on this 50% reduction).

That said, in every normal situation I am going for torpedos and fighters/bombers

[Blueberry]

Phasers don't have any loss on damage per distance and are highly accurate. However, I find exceeding useful those ships of mine that have both titan beams and phaser lances.

And, of course, it's plasma thunderbolt...all and only way.

[Plant]

It seems that at maximimum range, equivalent tech beams are does more sheild damage per space per time than phasers do, depending on how exactly damage loss from distance works. Energy needs not included. Targetting bonus not included as I have no idea how they work either.

Beam weapons are the weapons most affected by range, so much so it is out or proportion with the other weapons. if you want to use pure beam weapons, I suggest select for point blank in the design screen.

End game missiles seem to be very uncompetitive compared with the end tech torpedoes, depending on how damage loss from distance works.

I do not that games may end before end tech is reached.

[Larsenex]

Which also brings me to a critical item...Fighters & Bombers. I make a bee line to research these early and get Carriers.

Do you favor fighters & Bombers?

Do you research all 3 types of fighter/bombers?

[Blueberry]

I appreciate the idea of fighters/bombers/carriers, but, to be honest, I don't utilise those much. My new toy is an assault pod.... For both attack/capture and defence.

[invaderzim]

End game missiles seem to be very uncompetitive compared with the end tech torpedoes, depending on how damage loss from distance works.

Early game missiles are useful because their range increases faster than torpedoes for the amount of research required, allowing you to siege spaceports easily. By the endgame, both plasma thunderbolts and assault missiles deliver about .5 damage per second per space at range 990. For every 100 units closer you get, plasma thunderbolts gain 0.2 damage per second per space, so they are at range 900 they are 0.7, at range 800 they are 0.9, etc. while missiles still deliver the same 0.5 dps/space. Missiles start faster than torpedoes so they are theoretically more accurate (don't know by much), but by the end game, torpedoes are faster.

Anyway missiles, like phasers are only efficient at maximum range. Because of their flat damage curve, they don't get any better as you get closer, your enemy is just getting better at hitting you. If you look at the damage curves for phaser lances and missiles, they look similiar to titan beams and thunderbolt torpedoes at long range, but all the close range hitting power is gone.

[Plant]

yes early game missles are useful because of their greater range. I agree, hence why I was writing about end game. Is it an intended gameplay design that the end tech missles are less useful, as the range cap is closed by then. End game, torpedoes are faster btw. And yes, I am well aware of the damages each weapon are capable of, I just don't need a graph to visualise a constant value damage over range, however helpful they may be.

Btw, you should choose a different graph type as it goes completly wrong near the end of the range, or you input methodolgy is incorrect, or you just input the values inaccurately. For instanc,e you make it look like phasor cannons have flat damage at 200, then drop steadily to 0 at 300, which is completly wrong.