Capital ship beam weapon

[LeVaAl]

well... I must confirm that these beam weapons are c**p. I spend time and now I have Xenon ships all ower galaxy and 5 I repeat 5 Argon Behemoth CANT hurt Capital xenon ship (and for some reason that they use ONLY BEAMS L). result... Argon prime is now the Xenon sector. there is NO WAY AI can handle Xenon
Devs... People... please. fix this mess:) fix beams, please.....

[ajime]

Really? Cap beams melt you in an instant if you are not watching yourself. And i send my Ships with beams to level capital ships after disabling them.

[chew-ie]

Also - don't forget: those beams are more precise then your average plasma battery. Which means you don't have to disable them once friendlies (stations, other capitals) are fighting along side with you.

And last but not least - with 3.0 beta lasers are awesome in terms of looks & sound, so I always have some on the hardpoints, just for the atmo

[The-Gizmo2]

In terms of M turrets, pulse turrets make beam turrets useless except maybe for missile defense. IIRC one M pulse turret is worth about 7-8 M beam turrets in terms of damage, and pulse turrets have similar accuracy due to very fast speed and the best rotation speed. L Beams were fine on 2.6, but when I tested 3.0 Beta 4, it seems they got a huge nerf and now a single M pulse turret is much better than an L beam turret .

As for main guns on S and M ships, beams are totally fine and work well, but I think this topic is just about capital ships.

[mr.WHO]

In terms of M turrets, pulse turrets make beam turrets useless except maybe for missile defense.

As it is now - missile defense is useless anyway - no matter what type of weapons you mount.


As for beam weapons - it's a shame but they are very weak even if they made them rather preatty looking/sounding in 3.0.

[LeVaAl]

Also - don't forget: those beams are more precise then your average plasma battery. Which means you don't have to disable them once friendlies (stations, other capitals) are fighting along side with you.

And last but not least - with 3.0 beta lasers are awesome in terms of looks & sound, so I always have some on the hardpoints, just for the atmo

Again. 3 behemoth cant kill one xenon. they cat even take 5% os shields...

[Skeeter]

Damn, I'd love to see something like beams from Freespace 2 some day in X4.

Or ion cannon weapons from homeworld games.

[Alm888]

Beams are also problematic on l turrets, since scaling them on a turret would make them obliterate S ships.

Since when have this stopped Egosoft from implementing such "deathrays"?
Ah, the good old days of "Plasma/JET LR Turrets"…
X4 beam turrets are a joke compared to that things.

[Scarletian]

Damn, I'd love to see something like beams from Freespace 2 some day in X4.

Or ion cannon weapons from homeworld games.

This would make me super happy. At the moment my 'Destroyers' feel more like 'Frigates'. Tried to tackle an I with three of them. Lasted about 60 seconds. Better when you are OOS, but still. Is the Destroyers under par or the I OP?
Granted I had beams on most of those Destroyers. Will have to change over to Plasma or Pulse it seems. Another thing, the Paranid Destroyer has 4 large turrets. Anyone find that to be a big benefit over the Argon Behemoth with only 2?

[sh1pman]

This would make me super happy. At the moment my 'Destroyers' feel more like 'Frigates'.

Destroyers and frigates are roughly similar size vessels in IRL fleets. But Xenon I is a huge battleship, so it’s not surprising that it killed three of your destroyers so quickly. We need battleships of our own.

[chew-ie]

Also - don't forget: those beams are more precise then your average plasma battery. Which means you don't have to disable them once friendlies (stations, other capitals) are fighting along side with you.

And last but not least - with 3.0 beta lasers are awesome in terms of looks & sound, so I always have some on the hardpoints, just for the atmo

Again. 3 behemoth cant kill one xenon. they cat even take 5% os shields...

My IS-OOS fleets consist of 1x Colossus (pimped shields, 500k+) & 3 Behemoths (attack wing) with mixed weaponary (I consider the top L turret the "main weapon" of a npc controlled behemoth and mix them with either pulse, laser or plasma). Point defense turrets (=m turrets) mostly have pulse or bolt - sometimes flak and sometimes laser. This composition is able to fight off multiple K and I [both IS and OOS]. The colossus has a standard wing of 8 nodans (interceptors) with pulse/ion weaponary and 4 M ships as turret extension (no subordinates; again, mixed weaponary of hart hitters (plasma) and point defense with fast firing point defense having the priority).

All in all the situation is not as dire as it is described here - at least for me. Xenon weapons do hurt, but that's okay - they are "the threat".

On the other hand - these fleets are devastated once they have to fight HOP - which translates in my game as "several Odysseus with M escorts roam the ARG space" (and I'm defending ARG)

[LeVaAl]

My IS-OOS fleets consist of 1x Colossus (pimped shields, 500k+) & 3 Behemoths (attack wing) with mixed weaponary (I consider the top L turret the "main weapon" of a npc controlled behemoth and mix them with either pulse, laser or plasma). Point defense turrets (=m turrets) mostly have pulse or bolt - sometimes flak and sometimes laser. This composition is able to fight off multiple K and I [both IS and OOS]. The colossus has a standard wing of 8 nodans (interceptors) with pulse/ion weaponary and 4 M ships as turret extension (no subordinates; again, mixed weaponary of hart hitters (plasma) and point defense with fast firing point defense having the priority).

All in all the situation is not as dire as it is described here - at least for me. Xenon weapons do hurt, but that's okay - they are "the threat".

On the other hand - these fleets are devastated once they have to fight HOP - which translates in my game as "several Odysseus with M escorts roam the ARG space" (and I'm defending ARG)

Make the experiment. Build 3 Behemoth and go with them to any xenon owned space. and watch the fight.

[cool_lad]

Tl;dr: Cap ships need more variety in their weapons and turrets need to be more than just secondary weapons.

Need more main weapon variety cause the mandatory pulse laser batteries are boring to use when flying. Destroyers have exactly one option for main batteries and their obsessive use just makes destroyer fights look like a Rhino trying to fly (ie: not good).

Turrets chase any ship larger than a fighter can't fight like a fighter, so the turrets are much more important to use and need to be able to be used as primaries rather than pure secondaries.

[mr.WHO]

Looking at 3.0 Beta 5 I noticed one thing for L-size turrets:
- Large Pulse turret - rapid fire from both barrels
- Large plasma turret - salvo fire from both barrels
- Large beam turret - fire only from one barrel, then wait, then fire from another.


This might be a reason why beams sux so much comparing to others (at least for L-size turrets, M-turrets seems to be single barrel fire across all types except Flak turret).

[JackONeill23]

Beam Weapons are useless in Beta 3.0 right now....

https://youtu.be/Hh2H_WoR3w8

[GCU Grey Area]

Beam Weapons are useless in Beta 3.0 right now....

https://youtu.be/Hh2H_WoR3w8

Don't think using SETA really helped in that situation. Looked like for the few seconds when SETA wasn't running those Beams were having a noticeable (albeit relatively low) impact on the K's shields. As soon as SETA went back on effect of Beams was MUCH more limited. Recommend against use of SETA in a combat situation, messes with a lot of things running the simulation at an accelerated rate. Beams have been toned down quite a bit in 3.0b, but still wouldn't go so far as to call them "useless".

[Buzz2005]

why is it still most expensive gun turret?

[cool_lad]

I think the issue is with beams in general which combines the heat generation of plasmas and the range of shotguns with incredibly low DPS and very high cost.

They are, bluntly put, flashlights only good for putting on a light show; with even the L beam turret having a DPS of about 88MJ.

[cool_lad]

Beams are, bluntly put, no good in their present state. They seem like the worst of both worlds when it comes to weapons.

Beams combine the short usage times (high heat generation) and high cost of heavy hitting weapons with DPS that's so low that they make pulse lasers look like god tier weapons in comparison.

As main weapons they overheat within seconds while putting out very low quantities of damage, and as turrets their max (ie L size turret) DPS of 88 MJ makes them great at engaging absolutely no enemies whatsoever with some of the lowest ranges around for good measure.

I know that the devs feel comfortable with weapons as they are now, but beams are a rather egregious example of a weapons that's so bad it really does need to change.

Suggestion

It's pretty apparent that beams getting high damage that's commensurate to their price and heat generation, without something to limit their use against lighter ships, would make them OP against fighters. Therefore, I would like to propose that they be given much higher damage alongside a charge up time requirement similar to railguns, to make them into short ranged heavy weapons that can find a niche as an alternative to plasmas.

[Alan Phipps]

Last post merged with existing active thread.