It's the ENERGY weapons.. people use rockets, not cause they are great, but cause they are the only thing that don't suck. Most people know how to dodge now... the only energy weapon that seems to be very good at hitting a spiral-dodging ship is the adv gat turret, and only if you are close. I have said this before, and I will say it again.... PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE increase the shot speed on the energy weapons... For God's sake, a paintball gun fires at 100m/sec... surely the best weaps in the universe can do better than 180!!!!! Just try it! I think people would be happy with the results..

Oh, you might also try giving a small (5m or so) proxy effect to some of the slower rof energy weaopns.... Like plasma cannon...

Yeah. Even though I love rockets, please make the energy weapons faster.
And make the damage a little better.

Cheers.

Rail guns have the worst reload time to damage and the worst energy use to damage, rail guns need to:
A) Use less energy.
------or-------
B) Do more damage.
------or-------
C) Go Faster.

I think a good starting point experiment would be to make all energy weapons MUCH faster (2x or 3x) across the board, but to significantly reduce damage across the board as well...

...I suggest this just as a starting point to see how much more dangerous fast weapons are before bringing damage back up to where they are now (or beyond).

My prediction is that you will see people being much more accurate with energy weapons, resulting in many more hits per volley. Because of that, having a lower damage per shot than we have now will probably balance out... even against rockets. You'll see unguided weapons being much easier to aim, and you'll see guided weapons (like the adv. gattling) getting very very high hit rates.

What!? I only use energy weapons. I can kill the majority of players in equal ships. Yes the speeds are unrealistic, but this is for game play reasons. With realistic lazer type weapons there would be no dodging or skill. Everything would travel light, or near light speeds so you wouldn't see it before it hit you. The devs made a very good decision by making weapons slow enough for human reaction times.

Learn to dodge rockets. Switch to physics mode. When a flare is fired back up and straif away from it. I fly a vult and it's pretty rare anyone does more than 4000 damage (50%) with all the ammo in a tri flare valk.

The gauss in particular are don't need to be made any better. The gravs and tachs could have a speed increase of 20m/s without being overly powerful, but anything more would be very broken.

The phased and ion need to use 1/2 the energy they curretntly use, the rail has to get a 100m/s speed boost and a 500m/s range boost, the grav needs to get a 100hp damage boost, the tachy needs to get a 40m/s speed boost along with a 20% refire rate increase and a 100hp damage REDUCTION and that is it.

So, to recap:
Ion: 1/2 the energy
Phased: 1/2 the energy
Rail: 100m/s speed and 500m/s range boost
Graviton: 100hp damage boost
Tachyon: 40m/s speed boost, 20% refire rate boost 100hp damage REDUCTION

Two possible changes:

Gauss = 160m/s
Tachyon = 180 m/s
Graviton = 200 m/s

OR

Gauss = 180m/s
Tachyon = 200 m/s
Graviton = 220 m/s

Gauss needs to be slower if the aimbot is going to remain high. If the aimbot is reduced, it would probably be okay to leave it at the current speed.

Tachyons can either remain the current speed or be a little quicker. At the very least it should be faster than gauss.

Gravitons fire at a slower rate, so their speed should be upped a bit to compensate.

I haven't really played around with the phased blaster or any of the other cheaper lasers, but if they're weak they should have a higher speed, or higher rate of fire, than tachyons/gravitons.

I personally think the tachys should be faster than gravs and gravs should have a LOT more punch (200hp).

I agree with everything Eldrad says, with the original poster noting that plasma cannon could use a bit of an upgrade, and that the rail needs to be unnerfed.

And I'm sticking buy my assertion regarding the rail that it will be close to balanced at 1900 damage per shot, and at between 45 and 80 energy per shot. Since I've long allocated conservative changes , lets start with 1900 damage and 80 energy and see how popular it becomes then (if necessary) slowly decrease the energy requirements until its equally popular as gauss and flares.

Arolte your suggestion would make the grav much better than the tach (Remeber the old tach and grav with the tach being 20m/s faster than the grav?). At the moment different situations/people go with the grav over the tach or vice versa. There for I would agree with roguelazer because it would mantain the usefulness of both weapons.

Other than that I agree with Arolte.

The rail gun is still nerfed. But it's probably the most difficult gun to balance.

just swap out the rail with my PPC

Im pretty sure the rail was meant for long range only type thing

heres the thread:
http://vendetta.guildsoftware.com/?action=msgboard&thread=1676&page=4

I agree that all energy weapons need a speed boost. I would love to see an effective plasma gun. The slower less agile ships really need the "big" gun.

-HSR

I'm confused. So you want tachyons to be FASTER and have a high rate of fire? That would be too deadly. The gravitons already have a slow rate of fire. If they're not going to travel quickly they'll be nerfed; at least with the current damage.

That's why I said to drop the tachy's damage rating a good deal and increase the graviton's.

Fair enough. But the gravitons must never EVER go below 180m/s.

/me fires a warning shot at roguelazer.

Please don't leave the charged cannon out of this, if everything else is getting more speed at least make this beutiful weapon take less energy to charge to full capacity. If you aim this thing right you can take out small ships real quick!

Don't change the speed though, it's damn near an instakill as is.

I strongly agree that the damage of the grav's needs to be looked at. They are a fair amount more difficult to aim and cost a whole heap more than most other nrg weapons.

I don't think the tach needs to be adjusted. Just speed up the velocity of the grav and make it consume a tad less energy. I experimented with a tach/grav combo on a vult once and it worked pretty well except that the grav would drain the enrgy way too fast. Just drop the drain and speed up the shot (not the Rate of fire, but the actual round) and the gun should be good.

Giving it a speed boost is a huge advantage... I'm not saying it's a bad idea it should just be done carefully. Pavan I think your suggestion would make the tach unused.

Pixel gravs are just as easy to aim as every small energy weapon except the gauss.

I toyed with a twin grav vult F/C Batt heavy Engine combo...

Damn it's tasty!

The current balance between gauss, tach and grav is great! i just think they all need something over sun flares.

I've been using railguns recently and I almost killed a prom with it but against smaller and faster ships it's pretty useless. Here's a few ideas :

Damage needs to be increased.
Seeing as it takes up so much energy maybe it shouldn't need ammo.
Or have an increased ammo capacity.
Speed could be increased slightly.