Do the reverse-engineered devices seem to be a dead-end? Should they be?

[ShadowDragon868]

Okay, so... The reverse-engineered devices. They can be a huge boon if you RE them early, since they're equivalent to like, Tier 1.5-Tier 4 weapons, but the "normal" weapons quickly render them moot.

I think there should be some point to them, though. Maybe not as a clear and direct upgrade over an equivalent-tier standard weapon, but as a useful sidegrade: for example, they might have a reduced construction or maintenance cost, or the Cloud Thrower might be a 100% accurate beam weapon that chain-lightning's to nearby ships, ruining the day of corvette swarms, or the crystal thrower weapons could have a reduced ship energy cost compared to the comparable laser weapon. I also think you should be able to tech them up the way you tech up normal weapons; but, of course, they'd be rare draws.

 

[Milten]

Yeah, it's a shame I had to let my amoeba fighters go, I miss these disgusting little jellies.

 

[The2ndPete]

The shard thrower has three tiers (I know so far), all to be reverse engineered from the matching crystallines but for their stats in general you're correct.
Mining Drone Lasers? Pff, the blue one is better!
Shard Throwers? Why bother building when rail guns work the same/better.
Void Lightning? Yeah, I can install other large guns with better stats...

 

[beckermt]

Here is a nice summary:
http://www.stellariswiki.com/Ship_designer#General_Characteristics

It's a little difficult to parse, because the weapons are actually pretty complicated, but there you can compare a S Blue Shard Thrower (1.37 DPS, 10 Range, +50% armor pen) to a S Red Laser (1.65 DPS, Range 15).

Just don't forget to combine the bonuses of a category (like the +50 Armor Pen for all Crystal Capacitors) with the specific instance of that weapon.

 

[NHunter_rus]

Well, I agree wholeheartedly that early game salvage-only weapons are... not that great. And, you're right, they need to be given some unique quirks that'd make them better than same-tier conventional weapon. E.g.,extra 50% armor penetration on mining laser (100% vs 50% on normal lasers) just isn't enough.

On the other hand, the weapons you get from FE / crisis enemies are all top tier (and they should be!). I think, the Scourge missile is the highest DPS explosive weapon in the game. Perhaps not the best one, but it is nowhere near being "useless" either.

P.S. Anyone ever seen yellow shard thrower? I've played a number of games, but I only ever managed to get my hands on red, green and blue ones.

 

[barny]

The weapons from creatures are basically useless, if you have at least like T2 "normal" weapons available. The crystal plating you can get from the more powerful crystal entities are pretty good, though. They are better than most armor tiers, specially on smaller ships where the % of hp, the armor could give, is pretty small while the plating gives flat bonuses to hp.

 

[Korvash]

I love the Crystal Forged plating. So much, I even go so far as to declare war on an empire on the other side of the map so I can pass through to kill and reverse engineer the debris.

Seriously, that stuff makes all armor and shields except tier 5 completely obsolete.

Why get 400 Shield Points when you can get 400 more hitpoints without the need of an extra generator (you can even more HP because of that).
Why get 50% damage reduction when you can get twice the HP?
Your enemy has a hard counter against shields? you have none
Your enemy has a hard counter against armor? you have hardly any of that either
There is no hard counter to more HP as far is I know?

Plus it synergises nicely with the repair bots, energy admiral, or Regenerative plating.

 

[kenken244]

it would be nice if the reverse engineered weapons gave a bonus to researching later techonologies, like say having the lightning weapon gives a 25% bonus to research speed for arc emitters. then they might be useful even late game

 

[GamingHUD]

Mining drone lasers and the shard throwers are the only ones I tend to use but it depends on the situation. Amoebe flagella are only bested by the highest tier strikecraft tech but until strikecraft are fixed they're not really worth picking up I guess.

Crystal forged plating is great. It's predecessor is okay too but you get both at the same time usually, so it goes unused.

 

[deezee]

I think it would add a lot to the game if ship designs differed considerably based on starting resources and on reverse-engineered techs, instead of using standardized designs in every game, with maybe crystal plating instead of shields.

And that can be done if there are special techs like the reverse-engineered ones or ones that are obtained by events (e.g. living metals) which lead open up new tech paths, instead of just being standalone cards. Of course, balancing could be difficult. Ideally, there would be one "standard" branch, and other branches that are different but comparable, but it's hard enough to balance even a single tech line.

 

[Dnote]

It is a little weird that the reverse engineered weapons are useless and the reverse engineered defense is the best in the game.

Crystal hull plating is totally out of balance with everything else.