Should Plasma be Large Slot only?

[Lazerus Artificial]

As we all know, Plasma is a direct upgrade for Lasers.
once you have them you can forget that lasers are a thing.

The Kinetic Battery is L slot only and basically a good sidegrade for Mass Drivers
Gauss Cannon has 14.35 av dmg, 85 range, 67% accuracy, 30% APen and +33% Shield
Kinetic Battery has 14.17 av dmg, 100 range, 70% accuracy, 20% APen and +33% Shield
The Artillery fires slower but deals more damage per shot, it still has nearly the same average damage. So its a nice Alpha Strike weapon, right?

UV Laser has 9.7 av dmg, 70 range, 80% accuracy, 60% APen and -20% Shield
Plasma Thrower has 8.27 av dmg, 80 range, 75% accuracy, 90% APen and -20% Shield
Plasma is superior in nearly every aspect, its faster, has more range, more APen, while maintaining the same min-max damage as lasers. the only disadvantage is a tiny bit less accuracy.

yet Plasma is available in all sizes, while the Artillery is only for Large slots.

So, why not changing Plasma to L only too? that way the "Plasma Cruiser" wouldnt be the best thing to have, Plasma would be more special then, a tool to crack large armor and not a tool to crack everything equally, just like the Artillery is a special tool for the alpha damage.

 

[jazzglands]

I wholeheartedly agree. I mean, Plasma Cannons are so good that they measure the power of a cruiser by the number of plasma cannons it mounts. Nothing says "brokenly good" quite so well as the fact that it's the only hull weapon the min/max-ers even consider using. Restricting them to Large slots seems like a decent way to bring them back into balance without totally changing what they do, or making lasers the only weapon people use.

 

[Lazerus Artificial]

I wholeheartedly agree. I mean, Plasma Cannons are so good that they measure the power of a cruiser by the number of plasma cannons it mounts. Nothing says "brokenly good" quite so well as the fact that it's the only hull weapon the min/max-ers even consider using. Restricting them to Large slots seems like a decent way to bring them back into balance without totally changing what they do, or making lasers the only weapon people use.

exactly. completely changing the stats on them would be stupid, not to mention that it would be pretty hard since Energy allready has a lot of choices.
so turning them into the Artillery equivalent for the Energy tree sounds like a good way to balance them. they would be still pretty strong, but they wouldnt be the allround tool anymore

 

[Emraldis]

As we all know, Plasma is a direct upgrade for Lasers.
once you have them you can forget that lasers are a thing.

The Kinetic Battery is L slot only and basically a good sidegrade for Mass Drivers
Gauss Cannon has 14.35 av dmg, 85 range, 67% accuracy, 30% APen and +33% Shield
Kinetic Battery has 14.17 av dmg, 100 range, 70% accuracy, 20% APen and +33% Shield
The Artillery fires slower but deals more damage per shot, it still has nearly the same average damage. So its a nice Alpha Strike weapon, right?

UV Laser has 9.7 av dmg, 70 range, 80% accuracy, 60% APen and -20% Shield
Plasma Thrower has 8.27 av dmg, 80 range, 75% accuracy, 90% APen and -20% Shield
Plasma is superior in nearly every aspect, its faster, has more range, more APen, while maintaining the same min-max damage as lasers. the only disadvantage is a tiny bit less accuracy.

yet Plasma is available in all sizes, while the Artillery is only for Large slots.

So, why not changing Plasma to L only too? that way the "Plasma Cruiser" wouldnt be the best thing to have, Plasma would be more special then, a tool to crack large armor and not a tool to crack everything equally, just like the Artillery is a special tool for the alpha damage.

I feel like kinetic artillery is a fair bit more specialized than plain kinetic weapons, though you could do the same thing with plasma. If you heavily increased the damage of plasma weapons, but then cut there range to say 30 or 40, and made them a large weapon slot, they'd be an interesting variation.

 

[Lazerus Artificial]

I feel like kinetic artillery is a fair bit more specialized than plain kinetic weapons, though you could do the same thing with plasma. If you heavily increased the damage of plasma weapons, but then cut there range to say 30 or 40, and made them a large weapon slot, they'd be an interesting variation.

that would actually even make sense since plasma is a hot glowing ball moving through space, while lasers are beams of light moving with lightspeed...so why has plasma more range and still a very good accuracy?
so i wouldnt mind having plasma as a close range armor cracker, it could make some pretty interesting ships

 

[Emraldis]

that would actually even make sense since plasma is a hot glowing ball moving through space, while lasers are beams of light moving with lightspeed...so why has plasma more range and still a very good accuracy?
so i wouldnt mind having plasma as a close range armor cracker, it could make some pretty interesting ships

And it would force you to make more meaningful design decisions when making ships.

 

[brightlance]

Why not create a simple mod that does just this and see how it affects your descisions. Do you still just build fleets of pure plasma? Or can smaller ships actually start to hold their ground again.

 

[Emraldis]

Why not create a simple mod that does just this and see how it affects your descisions. Do you still just build fleets of pure plasma? Or can smaller ships actually start to hold their ground again.

Honestly, I feel like making plasma exclusive to larger ships would make smaller ships played even less, especially if you want to use plasma, since they can't use it.

 

[Lazerus Artificial]

Honestly, I feel like making plasma exclusive to larger ships would make smaller ships played even less, especially if you want to use plasma, since they can't use it.

thats another problem then.
currently i cant see a reason why i should use battleships, when all they can do is fight other battleships.
ships overall need more unique roles, i would love to have the "stay at range" behavior from the "advanced ship behavior" mod implemented into the game, so that battleships can fire from long range and stay there instead of moving slowly to their certain doom.
The T slots were a good start allready...problem is, that Torps are inferior to SMALL plasma too...

 

[terrycloth]

Well, it's legacy. Originally it was all sort of symmetrical:

Kinetics had three tiers. Gauss cannon, Autocannon (higher damage), Kinetic Artillery (long range, L only)
Energy had three tiers. Lasers, Plasma/Disruptors (specialized damage), Tachyon Lance (long range, L only)
(Missiles had Missiles, Torpedos, Swarm Missiles)

Then they added a bunch of anti-shield and anti-armor effects and tracking, and XL slots. Kinetics got a new XL slot weapon (Giga Cannon) but Energy instead had Lances promoted to XL leaving them with no L-only weapon.

Artillery isn't 'a special tool for the alpha damage', the long range makes it a straight upgrade for all purposes. Plasma isn't long range which keeps it in the tier-2 slot. It's the most-used tier 2 because it goes well with KA (or for corvettes, with energy torps) and there's no alternative tier 3 (since lances etc. were moved to XL).

So right now, Plasma is kind of a 'short-range' armor cracker while lasers fill the role of 'obsolete starter weapon'. If Disruptors weren't so completely sucky, Railguns would be as obsolete as lasers, but they are so small ships still use railguns for shield-cracking sometimes.

 

[jazzglands]

Honestly, I feel like making plasma exclusive to larger ships would make smaller ships played even less, especially if you want to use plasma, since they can't use it.

Maybe the tracking penalties will take care of that though. You would need to remove plasma cannons from your cruisers in order to get the hull sections you need to make your cruisers effective against small ships. So if you wanted heavy plasma-spewing cruisers you would still need small ships to deal with *their* small ships.

 

[Khy]

I noticed that when I make 'Carrier' battleships, they stay at range, but my bruisers always move in without one slot for bombers....

 

[Emraldis]

Maybe the tracking penalties will take care of that though. You would need to remove plasma cannons from your cruisers in order to get the hull sections you need to make your cruisers effective against small ships. So if you wanted heavy plasma-spewing cruisers you would still need small ships to deal with *their* small ships.

True, but then you could just equip autocannons as well as plasma or something.

 

[Lazerus Artificial]

Well, it's legacy. Originally it was all sort of symmetrical:

Kinetics had three tiers. Gauss cannon, Autocannon (higher damage), Kinetic Artillery (long range, L only)
Energy had three tiers. Lasers, Plasma/Disruptors (specialized damage), Tachyon Lance (long range, L only)
(Missiles had Missiles, Torpedos, Swarm Missiles)

Then they added a bunch of anti-shield and anti-armor effects and tracking, and XL slots. Kinetics got a new XL slot weapon (Giga Cannon) but Energy instead had Lances promoted to XL leaving them with no L-only weapon.

Artillery isn't 'a special tool for the alpha damage', the long range makes it a straight upgrade for all purposes. Plasma isn't long range which keeps it in the tier-2 slot. It's the most-used tier 2 because it goes well with KA (or for corvettes, with energy torps) and there's no alternative tier 3 (since lances etc. were moved to XL).

So right now, Plasma is kind of a 'short-range' armor cracker while lasers fill the role of 'obsolete starter weapon'. If Disruptors weren't so completely sucky, Railguns would be as obsolete as lasers, but they are so small ships still use railguns for shield-cracking sometimes.

Not exactly.
Autocannons trade range for more more damage and better accuracy/tracking.
Artillery trades Firerate for longer range and higher damage per shot, the avg damage isnt so different when you compare them to large Mass Drivers
The long range is neglectable since after like one shot the enemy is in range anyway. So the range advantage is gone and you could use Mass Drivers instead.

Plasma is a straight upgrade over lasers, not a sidegrade, it doesnt trade anything for a better effect.
They are like universal Lances.
A Battleship can equip 1 XL or 2 L slots.
Tachyon Lance has 24 avg damage at 100 Range with 85% Accuracy but no tracking at all
Two Plasma Cannons have 22.6 avg damage at 80 range with 75% accuracy and 5% tracking. also they deal 13% more shielddamage than a lance
The Lance is limited to one slot on one ship, requires expensive research...and is then basically just like 2 Large Plasma Cannons with more range but less damage to shields...

The Giga cannon deals damage compared to two Large MDs or KAs BUT atleast the Giga has more Armorpen and noticable more range and accuracy. So in this case the Giga is stronger than its 2 counterparts, atleast when it comes to numbers, so its worth the XL slot.

So...you cant really compare Plasma to other energy weapons like you can compare MD, AC and KA. Plasma is simply broken with its universal usage.

Also the Tiers you mentioned are not how it works.
the weapons all have several tiers, the last tier of Mass Drivers, Autocannons, Artillery and Mega Cannons are all slightly different, but the average damage is pretty much the same.
The only straight upgrade is Plasma to Lasers

 

[CocoCincinnati]

This is an interesting idea. I wouldn't mind trying it out to see how it works. I've had so many games where I've just ignored the 5th level of laser because I've already got maxed plasma so no real reason to research more lasers. As has already been mentioned, another alternative would be to increase the damage of the plasma by quite a bit and decrease the range but keep it for all sizes so that it acts kind of like the autocannon role of the energy tree. That way you could pick lasers for range or plasma for damage. And of course it wouldn't take much time before the mad scientists figure out the ideal load out once again.

 

[terrycloth]

Not exactly.
Autocannons trade range for more more damage and better accuracy/tracking.
Artillery trades Firerate for longer range and higher damage per shot, the avg damage isnt so different when you compare them to large Mass Drivers
The long range is neglectable since after like one shot the enemy is in range anyway. So the range advantage is gone and you could use Mass Drivers instead.

Plasma is a straight upgrade over lasers, not a sidegrade, it doesnt trade anything for a better effect.
They are like universal Lances.
A Battleship can equip 1 XL or 2 L slots.
Tachyon Lance has 24 avg damage at 100 Range with 85% Accuracy but no tracking at all
Two Plasma Cannons have 22.6 avg damage at 80 range with 75% accuracy and 5% tracking. also they deal 13% more shielddamage than a lance
The Lance is limited to one slot on one ship, requires expensive research...and is then basically just like 2 Large Plasma Cannons with more range but less damage to shields...

The Giga cannon deals damage compared to two Large MDs or KAs BUT atleast the Giga has more Armorpen and noticable more range and accuracy. So in this case the Giga is stronger than its 2 counterparts, atleast when it comes to numbers, so its worth the XL slot.

So...you cant really compare Plasma to other energy weapons like you can compare MD, AC and KA. Plasma is simply broken with its universal usage.

Also the Tiers you mentioned are not how it works.
the weapons all have several tiers, the last tier of Mass Drivers, Autocannons, Artillery and Mega Cannons are all slightly different, but the average damage is pretty much the same.
The only straight upgrade is Plasma to Lasers

You're confusing things at the end there. It's obvious what I'm talking about when I'm mentioning tiers and it's not 'red lasers' vs. 'blue lasers'. It's the order that you research them in.

And long range is not neglectable at all. In many cases it still ends up overwhelming all other factors (although it's not as crazy as when everyone was using nothing but tachyon lances at least). There is never a case where you should use a large-slot mass driver instead of Kinetic Artillery. Hell, even against corvettes you're probably better off using KA instead of small slot weapons.

If range wasn't important, everyone would be using autocannon instead of kinetic artillery because of the better damage and much much much lower power draw.

Plasma isn't even a straight upgrade to lasers. It's a longer-range but less-accurate (much less accurate at sizes other than large) laser with better damage (because laser damage is nerfed) and penetration.

 

[jazzglands]

True, but then you could just equip autocannons as well as plasma or something.

You aren't building anti-armor anymore if you're using autocannons, though. The ridiculous armor-peircing is what makes plasma guns OP, which is why ships with lots of them are so effective, which is why people build those kinds of ships. Making plasmas large-only balances them by making it impossible to stack 5 of them on your ship.

I don't think we'd have a problem where people skip small ships so they can use plasma cannons, because doing so when you can only have 1 or 2 per capital ship would be a terrible idea. You would lose more in opportunity cost than you'd gain in stacked armor-piercing. You could even still build anti-armor, but your amor-piercing would be a much more-balanced average of like 30% instead of 90%*.

The only reason people would still try to pile on plasma after this would be if they googled "best weapon stellaris" and only found outdated information. I certainly hope those aren't the kind of "strategic thinkers" that PDS wants to design for.

* I know that doesn't just mean a flat 30%-40% AP among all weapons, but it does mean that you only get one hull-melting terror blast per salvo instead of 7. I think this will make a lot of difference overall

 

[terrycloth]

You aren't building anti-armor anymore if you're using autocannons, though. The ridiculous armor-peircing is what makes plasma guns OP, which is why ships with lots of them are so effective, which is why people build those kinds of ships. Making plasmas large-only balances them by making it impossible to stack 5 of them on your ship.

I don't think we'd have a problem where people skip small ships so they can use plasma cannons, because doing so when you can only have 1 or 2 per capital ship would be a terrible idea. You would lose more in opportunity cost than you'd gain in stacked armor-piercing. You could even still build anti-armor, but your amor-piercing would be a much more-balanced average of like 30% instead of 90%*.

The only reason people would still try to pile on plasma after this would be if they googled "best weapon stellaris" and only found outdated information. I certainly hope those aren't the kind of "strategic thinkers" that PDS wants to design for.

* I know that doesn't just mean a flat 30%-40% AP among all weapons, but it does mean that you only get one hull-melting terror blast per salvo instead of 7. I think this will make a lot of difference overall

Er, you can have six L weapons per battleship. The 'best battleship designs' are already using L plasma only and wouldn't be affected.

You can also have 2 per cruiser, which is 66% of their weapons. Destroyers could use 1L and 2 point defense or 1 flak, making it 100% of their offensive loadout. People prefer medium plasma on cruisers because it's better against corvettes, but you could use autocannon destroyers (or autocannon on the 33% of cruiser weapons that can't be L) to cover the corvette hole and corvettes would be even more worthless for offense than they are now without plasma, so you might just be able to ignore them completely during ship design (because loadouts that are relatively inefficient against them would still be good enough).

Mostly, you'd be nerfing cruisers a little by encouraging them to use 2L plasma + 2 M autocannon or gauss, which isn't as good as 1L KA + 4 M plasma against capital ships. So people would probably go back to 100% battleship fleets.

 

[Lazerus Artificial]

Plasma isn't even a straight upgrade to lasers. It's a longer-range but less-accurate (much less accurate at sizes other than large) laser with better damage (because laser damage is nerfed) and penetration.

Spoiler

Small Gamma Laser
Min: 11, Max: 14, CD: 3.75, Avg: 2.63, Range: 30, Acc: 90%, Track: 60% BONUS: 15% AP, -20% Shield
Small Plasma Cannon
Min: 11, Max: 19, CD: 4.35, Avg: 2.93, Range: 40, Acc: 85%, Track: 40% BONUS: 60% AP, -20% Shield

Medium Gamma Laser
Min: 19, Max: 33, CD: 3.75, Avg: 5.89, Range: 50, Acc: 85%, Track: 30% BONUS: 30% AP, -20% Shield
Medium Plasma Cannon
Min: 24, Max: 38, CD: 4.35, Avg: 5.7, Range: 60, Acc: 80%, Track: 20% BONUS: 80% AP, -20% Shield

Large Gamma Laser
Min: 42, Max: 71, CD: 3.75, Avg: 12.05 , Range: 70, Acc: 80%, Track: 5% BONUS: 60% AP, -20% Shield
Large Plasma Cannon
Min: 48, Max: 83, CD: 4.35, Avg: 11.29, Range: 80, Acc: 75%, Track: 5% BONUS: 90% AP, -20% Shield

what can we see here?
indeed, the differences between small lasers and plasma are there, the tracking has 20% difference, the reduced accuracy on plasma still allows it to deal more average damage. the biggest difference though is the bonus value, where plasma has 45% more AP.
the medium section is even smaller in differences, there the tracking has only 10% difference while the avg damage is again higher for plasma, here plasma has 50% more AP.
the large section then again has no difference at all at tracking anymore, at this point plasma is a straight upgrade. The bonus here is only 30% difference for plasma
the accuracy difference is always 5% at each size, the tracking difference gets smaller until it is the same.
Also the AP values are pretty much weird...

Now lets compare that to Mass Drivers VS Autocannons

Spoiler

Small Gauss Cannon
Min: 8, Max: 25, CD: 3.50, Avg: 3.58, Range: 45, Acc: 76%, Track: 60% BONUS: +33% Shield
Small Stormfire Autocannon
Min: 5, Max: 17, CD: 2.35, Avg: 3.53, Range: 20, Acc: 82%, Track: 65% BONUS: -

Medium Gauss Cannon
Min: 17, Max: 53, CD: 3.50, Avg: 7.20, Range: 65, Acc: 72%, Track: 30% BONUS: 15% AP, +33% Shield
Medium Stormfire Autocannon
Min: 10, Max: 35, CD: 2.35, Avg: 7.85, Range: 40, Acc: 80%, Track: 35% BONUS: 10% AP

Large Gauss Cannon:
Min: 41, Max:109, CD: 3.50, Avg: 14.35, Range: 85, Acc: 67%, Track: 5% BONUS 30% AP, +33% Shield
Large Stormfire Autocannon
Min: 26, Max: 70, CD: 2.35, Avg: 15.72, Range: 60, Acc: 75%, Track: 10% BONUS 20% AP

so what can we see here?
the small weapons have nearly the same avg damage but the gauss has more than twice the range with a +33% bonus against shields. The autocannon only has some minor advantages in acc and tracking.
the medium size shows some more difference, the autocannons now have more avg damage. Gauss now got 15% ap and autocannon got 10%, so against armored targets the autocannon might even win.
even in large the autocannon has more average damage but still the range is 25 lower as it was in the previous sizes too. The autocannon is the only large weapon with 10% tracking.
Here the accuracy difference increases with size, where the large autocannon still has accuracy similar to a small gauss. the tracking is always 5% higher for the autocannons.

THIS is a sidegrade. The Autocannon has advantages (tracking, accuracy) but also disadvantages (no shield bonus, lower range) while Plasma has just 5% less accuracy but more range and a massive AP bonus.

 

[Larknok1]

Just a heads up:

Pushing Plasma to L only would:

1) Not change the fact that there's a best Battleship.
2) Not change the fact that there would be essentially one Cruiser which is the best ship in the game.
3) Maybe, possibly make lasers more effective. (it would probably just make other weapon types dominate in the medium slot, perhaps Gauss)

Honestly, I'd rather see buffs to missiles and Destroyer evasion, a re-design for lasers, and a nerf to Cruiser health.