DevTracker: About Weapons

We have 3 classes of landing pads that roughly equate to 3 ship sizes, 4 classes of weapons, and the knowledge that a small ship with small weapons shooting a large ship (Anaconda) leads to 1/3 damage.

S weapon + S target = 100% DPS potential.

S weapon + M/L target = 67% DPS potential.

M weapon + S/M target = 100% DPS potential.

M weapon + L target = 67% DPS potential.

L weapon + Any target = 100% DPS potential.

There is no bonus for using a higher class weapon against smaller ships, just a penalty for smaller weapons attacking larger ships.

A Class 1 weapon will have damage reduction on anything larger than a hauler. A class 4 weapon will be effective against everything.

Railguns, Missiles, Cannons

Railguns have an effective range of 3km. Also, railgun damage starts to degrade after a kilometre. there are no gimbal or turret mounted railguns.

Railguns, missiles, cannons and torpedoes punch above their weight in terms of their effectiveness against larger ships. There is a stat missing from outfitting that is supposed to indicate roughly speaking what the weapons is good at shooting at in terms of rough ship size (small to huge). Under the hood is slightly more complicated but effectively every weapon has a number that is compared against another number on the target ship that if lower will result in lower damage than normal. If higher then it doesn't change. The largest hard point size on the ship is a good indicator to show what kind of weapons you need to be effective against it. So a cobra is best dealt with size 2/medium weapons.

Dumbfire missiles

Dumbfire missile damage has not changed per se. Shields now massively resist explosive damage, and missiles now have (like pretty much all other weapons already had) a penalty to damage when used against larger ships. Missiles have never dealt system damage - they always attack the hull only. Dumbfires still deal *a lot* of damage to hull.

Weapons Overheating

The amount of heat that spills over to your ship temperature is directly related to how empty your WEP capacitor is - so the length of your bursts when say, using beams, will affect heat overflow (also, worth noting that laser weapons are less effective against hull).

*Any* ship that fits an abundance of "hot" weapons will be able to overheat itself to the point of damage if you fire without thinking.

To clarify: it's not a nerf to lasers. It's a nerf to weapons that fire "hot". We're not trying this to annoy or hurt anyone or just "kill" anything that might be considered "good". We're doing it to make the game more interesting.

Turret safety mode

We actually have the ability to set overheat shut off on weapons - we'll definitely be turning it on for turrets.

I'd see the safety ovveride being reasonably analgous to a Commander deciding whether to continue to fire a hot weapon whilst overheating - a reasonable choice with pros and cons on both sides:

Turrets in safety mode - you won't take module damage but you won't have guns firing!

Turrets with safety off - your turrets will keep going, but they may cause ship heat to damage

Large Weapons

I would hope that we will get more variety of weapons in larger mountings. No guarantee or ETA (as usual), but we're in aggreement here.

Additional weapons/modules is certainly something we're interested in, of course.