Point defense guns, useless?

[-Marauder-]

Think about it this way, you have a fully armoured ship, on top of them getting through your armour they have to actually reach your ship first. So they are so useful against empires with missles weapons.

Thing is, missles are the easiest to counter in that way. Shields absorb damage, armor mitigates it, point defense negates it entirely. Sure there's swarm missles to "overload" them but given my experience, I wouldn't pick missles as my go to weapon. The backdraw is to big and the technology to overcome it is fairly far down the line aswell as not all that efficient. Meanwhile lasers can cut through shields it just takes them longer and shots do damage despite armor just less, none of them get slaughtered remotely as badly as missles versus point defense.

And the advantage i.e long range doesn't matter much as fleets will always rush in to knife range, even the evasive module does not change that behaviour.

 

[dskod1]

@-Marauder-
Also, lasers get very long weapons ranges... IE lightning and lancers. They are quite good indeed.

 

[Amor_Fati]

My PD interceptor corvettes have been wrecking all my missile-based enemies.

 

[-Marauder-]

@-Marauder-
Also, lasers get very long weapons ranges... IE lightning and lancers. They are quite good indeed.

Yeah, fairly sure kinetic also gets long range weapons later on. Which means, rockets are quite bad all around now. They're the only ones that basically get hard countered rather than soft countered and their big advantage gets lost because the AI rushes in to fight at knife range ASWELL as the other weapon types getting long range later on.

Basically switched to another weapon type entirely after initially starting out with rockets.

 

[Ashantai]

Missiles are the best starting weapon as they have 100% hit rate which is fantastic against monsters and early enemies.

Later on though it's better to switch to lances and lasers because point defence can really ruin your day. Fallen Empires use them on their escorts and they eat your missiles up like candy.

 

[SFSLovenought]

You know, given how vitally important it is to know what the enemy Warships are equipped with, I think an Espionage species could earn it's place in an alliance or federation JUST by telling the other members what the enemy has. An espionage race might be just as valuable as an Economist who funnels money and resources to the warlike members, or the race that does all the researching.

Espionage is something they REALLY need to add.

 

[Lysandren]

Yeah, fairly sure kinetic also gets long range weapons later on. Which means, rockets are quite bad all around now. They're the only ones that basically get hard countered rather than soft countered and their big advantage gets lost because the AI rushes in to fight at knife range ASWELL as the other weapon types getting long range later on.

Basically switched to another weapon type entirely after initially starting out with rockets.

Kinetic gets Railguns, which the large variant I believe has a range of 40.

 

[Cyridius]

The only tangible benefit I can see to missiles is that they have 100% accuracy and aren't weak or strong against anything in particular.

My ships go full armour and mixed missiles/swarmers/torpedos. I've yet to lose a battle(On Normal), though I suspect this is because I'm not facing any species which use Point Defense.

My biggest gripe is that you can't get your ships to kite or stand ground, so range only really matters for the first few shots - which is important in battles which are to the bone but if you're smart you'll avoid those if you can.

It's only been out for a day so I can't say anything authoritatively but it seems to me all that matters is DPS on ships(Which is why 100% accuracy on missiles is very important, it's consistent which by definition makes it the best imo) and the defense variety only really is a factor against Torpedos which bypass shields.

 

[SFSLovenought]

My biggest gripe is that you can't get your ships to kite or stand ground, so range only really matters for the first few shots - which is important in battles which are to the bone but if you're smart you'll avoid those if you can.

Aren't different ship behaviours unlocked through research? "Combat Computers", I think they are called.

 

[Maresh]

Make sure to call them Atlanta-Class

:EDIT:

Hey, that would be a good hidden Achievement. "Have a Cruiser Class vessel entirely armed with Point Defence weapons."

Ah yes! Naval history for the win!

 

[Cyridius]

Aren't different ship behaviours unlocked through research? "Combat Computers", I think they are called.

The only ones I've found are (Advanced)Defensive of (Advanced)Aggressive. None actually change the positioning of the fleet, they just add bonuses(Like evasion or fire rate). I've gotten through pretty much all the end-game techs too and they didn't show. So unless they're supposed to be extremely rare I don't think that's it.

 

[-Marauder-]

Aren't different ship behaviours unlocked through research? "Combat Computers", I think they are called.

They do nothing but give different boni. Otherwise they rush in to knife fight with long range weapon just the same.

@Cyridius, I wouldn't rely on them to heavily. For me they became almost entirely useless later on as basically every AI uses at least some point defenses and in large fleets that makes a hell of a lot of point defenses. Especially larger and slower rockets tend to get destroyed even en masse. You can see this as you initially deal barely any damage, then more and more rapidly as enemy ships get destroyed and beyond a certain point blow their fleet to pieces in seconds. Something any other fleet would've done right away.

 

[Incompetent]

On a youtube video I saw a tech that gives 'armoured missiles'. Is this a joke, or are there actually missiles that can survive being hit by point defence?

Also, it seems that kinetic weapons are really easy to evade compared to lasers, so the DPS comparison is a lie. What do kinetics get later on that make them worthwhile compared to the various kinds of laser?

 

[Dalwin]

Seriously, if you have point-defence weapons, go up against a missle based enemy. You will slaughter them as so much of there missles are stopped by your point defences.

Think about it this way, you have a fully armoured ship, on top of them getting through your armour they have to actually reach your ship first. So they are so useful against empires with missles weapons.

But the saying does not normally go that the best offence is a good defense. You lose firepower to have that extra layer of defense. Also, armor and shields both help against multiple weapon types. Your PD is worse than useless against an enemy who uses lasers or kinetics.

 

[Jorlem]

But the saying does not normally go that the best offence is a good defense. You lose firepower to have that extra layer of defense. Also, armor and shields both help against multiple weapon types. Your PD is worse than useless against an enemy who uses lasers or kinetics.

In those cases, the PD corvettes act as meatshields for the rest of the fleet. They are another thing for the enemy to target, which distracts them from the ships you are using to deal damage.

 

[wingren013]

This doesn't seem to be how it works, though? Kinetic weapons don't really seem to have any particular boni. They do slightly more dps than energy weapons but not that much more. Just going by the numbers, either shields or armor (whichever gives your ship more effective health) are equally effective against kinetic.

Energy weapons wreck armor (except disruptors, which wreck shields, but seem to have p low dps in general) but just do their normal dps (slightly lower than kinetic) against shields and unarmored hulls.

Missiles deal more dps (and torpedoes bypass shields), but have no particular boni and can be shot down.

It looks like fleet combat stats don't actually TELL you how effective point defense is though, which is frustrating.

Anyway it mostly just seems to be:

Lasers beat armor

Point defense beats missiles

Otherwise, just use best dps / best effective health increase.

IDK, maybe i'm missing something big here...

I think the weapon balance bot changed and the descriptions didn't get updated. Kinetics have better range and damage while energy weapons have better accuracy and can be specialized against an enemies defenses.

 

[nuyu]

Can we use PD as offense weapon at close range?

 

[Guilu]

Can we use PD as offense weapon at close range?

The game does report damage being dealt by point defense, so either's that counting damage dealt to missiles or the answer to your question is yes.

 

[aitaituo]

Can we use PD as offense weapon at close range?

They do basically no damage, but I think so.

 

[Vasious]

I have dedicated PD Corvettes that seem to do a good job, quite satisfying watching the incoming missile barrages melt.

I have the odd Flak on the big ships too, but since they are group in with escorts I cannot report how effective it is in isolation