Rebalance exosuit laser weapons

[Nanako]

Was looking over exosuit laser weapons for documentation today:

 

 

The solaris is apparently an upgrade to the immolator, since it has a higher tech requirement, and fits the same role.

It deals 50% more damage per shot (60 vs 40)

It uses twice as much power per shot (60 vs 30)

It has a longer cooldown between shots, 1.5 seconds vs 0.8 seconds ( Or alternatively, 0.66 vs 1.25 shots per second)

As a result:

It has a lower damage/power ratio: 1 vs 1.33

IT has a lower overall DPS: 39.6 vs 50

Am i missing something here? The solaris seems to be a straight downgrade, despite being harder to create. It's inferior in every way that i can see.

Is there some special mechanic that makes higher single-shot damage more useful?

I feel like these need some rebalancing.

My personal idea would be to increase the solaris' damage to 90 per shot (59.4 DPS) and maybe increase the power usage, so you're trading efficiency for better damage output.

Or nerf the immolator somehow, maybe lower its damage to 30 and increase its cooldown

Right now, it seems there's no contest between the two, and no reason to ever put solaris on a combat mech, when the immolator has the same material costs and lower tech requirements

Am i wrong?

[Guest]

DPS begins to drop heavily when accuracy comes into play. Laser carbines are coded to be quite inaccurate in raw comparison to the energy gun or the laser cannon.

The laser cannon (effectively the same as the handheld variant from R&D) has always been the sort of weapon that requires surgical patience and good timing to use correctly. In two well-placed shots it'll quickly sink someone into crit in which they'll begin taking suffocation damage and get hardlocked into paincrit. If you hit a limb and armor doesn't absorb it, you have a chance for an instant arm/leg disintegration. It has a fair deal of tactical use.

I don't think we should buff the laser cannons from 4-shot-kill guns to 2-shot-kill ones. Please, lord, no. Do not make R&D antagonist scientists or roboticists that powerful.

[Nanako]

I don't think we should buff the laser cannons from 4-shot-kill guns to 2-shot-kill ones. Please, lord, no. Do not make R&D antagonist scientists or roboticists that powerful.

 

fwiw, it'd be quite easy to duplicate then modify the heavy laser projectile, so that changes wouldn't affect the handheld laser cannon. I don't see any reason why infantry and exosuit weapons are so intrinsically linked, and unlinking them isn't hard.

is accuracy a thing that varies per weapon ? I'll look into that, if the cannon is indeed more accurate then that'd make sense

Edited May 22, 2016 by Guest

[Guest]

Looks like only the hand-held laser cannon has more accuracy, allowing you to reliably fire off-screen cannon shots and hit people with them. The carbine and e-gun don't get this leg up.

The hand-held also seems to have 3 second delay as opposed to the mech cannon which shoots twice as fast. The mech laser cannon does not gain the accuracy boost, however, this hardly matters as you should be up close and personal in a mech anyway.

Not sure if anyone would be cool with a random gygax strolling up and 2-shotting either antagonist groups or security members, or even civilians.

[Nanako]

Not sure if anyone would be cool with a random gygax strolling up and 2-shotting either antagonist groups or security members, or even civilians.

 

If the worry is about exosuits being too powerful, i'd totally be cool with nerfing the immolator instead of buffing anything. My only concern here is the balance between the two.

[swat43]

You know, you have to take in the account on regarding other factors on something before jumping on the gun.

If you haven't noticed, the solaris and immolator can only used by certain mechs which is the Gygax and Durand.

Tell me, how many times have you seen some one risking and stealthily make a durand/gygax parts to just risk on making this one mech for such a gun? And not to take into account, Roboticist cannot access RnD to make two important compartments to even finish the mech, and lets not even mention the RESOURCES. This is PURELY a game of chance on what might or not happen.

In short, if RnD has Competant RD, who overlooks everything and security notices such bullshit tha happens in Robotics, that Roboticist will have his ass on the plate if he does NOT have a legit reason to make it, further increasing his risk on NOT getting his mech.

AS for the weapons them selves. Since these are mounted weapons, i havent really seen that the lasers would miss the targets even if you spam at the guy. Of course, i may be wrong and something may have been changed in recent changes, but as funny as it may be, even i would choose immolator against the Solaris, even if it deals just 20 more damage more. Or for more robustness, AC2 can deal with targets even BETTER. Faster Rate of fire, piercing/puncture/internal bleeding = Robust weapon.