After playing with it a bit, I think the new PCB is a good addition that needs something more. While the 50 drain is decent, I think it should transfer a portion of the energy drained back to the firing ship. 20 energy per hit seems reasonable.

Traders whining about how PCB is already OP may now commence.

At first I thought it would be nonsensical to have this mechanic, but we do have mining beam style animations that we could use to make it seem like draining is occuring. I'm not sure that its appropriate on a blaster but maybe we can find a use for it.

+1, additionally it the PCB should instantly freeze behemoths in space and transfer their cargo to the nearest station of the pilot who froze the moth.

Also, it should have a charge feature. If you land a fully charged shot on a trader, it should teleport all nearby traders to you and render them motionless and energyless for one full minute. Then it should generate a news item that says "AHAHAH TRADERS SUCK."

Finally, if you successfully subdue an enemy ship to zero energy for 5 minutes, you (the pilot shooting the PCB) should then start to transfer credits from the other players account at increasing rate of 10 credits every three seconds (10, 20, 30, 40 and so on every three seconds).

Lastly, if you successfully drain 1 million credits from a trader, you should receive a "Love to Suck" badge, for which there should be 5 levels.

Secondly, all players who have demonstrated a tendency to be a complete donkeyhole [pre-empting phaserediting] should be given a complimentary special edition of the PCB for their valor in RP donkyholedness. When this special edition PCB is fired and hits a trader, a message should be relayed over ch100 that says "PlayerName1 just Sucked Playername2!", where PlayerName1 is the name of the donkeyhole special ed.-pcb-possessing person who landed the shot on Playername2 (aka the "trader").

I have not tested this weapon.

It cost 10 energy to fire. If you received 20 back, you could be 10 ahead per hit. Fire delay is 0.14, so that could be 70 extra energy per second. You could power a mega positron per PCB, without hardly even tapping your own power cell.

I have questions:

Would you get power back, if the target was out of power?

Would you be able to use more than one at a time?

+1 to Greenwall, with this small addition - there should be a player manufacturable "MegaSuck" edition which, when used in a group situation, would actually transfer remaining subscription time of the target to the attackers at the pace of 1 day per hit. Once the targets subscription time has expired due to the group attack, a window would pop up prompting the player to purchase a new subscription or face destruction.

Wait, I thought the Subscription Drain Blaster already did exist. Isn't that the reason you traders spend all your time online in nation space obscure mining sectors?

I rarely find myself in nation space obscure mining sectors...
+1 to TRS just for being you :)

I think it's funny that a new weapon that can keep a trident from traveling over 40m/s and not jump just isn't powerful enough. Two pirates working together can take out a trident in the system they encounter it, no chasing necessary. Super easy in nation space where the pirates leverage the broken faction system.

But you want it even easier.

L. O. L.

+1 entertainment value.

Traders whining again.

csgno1, if you don't want your dent destroyed, it's called getting this magical thing called "gunners" and the other magical thing called "escorts". It's also some other magical thing called the "turret tab" where you can kill pirates from, and this other magical thing called a "TU mine".

Tridents should be and will stay solo-able. Teradons should be solo-able too, only connies, HACs, and levis should not be.

Since you can self-gunner now, it's more just "escorts", since the turret placement on the Trident Type M is garbage.

TU mine uses nearly all of a full Heavy Power Cell to drop it. Two shots from a PCB will remove that option. That leaves only your Gemini turrets, and we know how effective those are...

The thing people seem to be neglecting about the PCB is that it requires actually hitting for it to do anything, it has crappy velocity, and the fire must be sustained or the target simply recharges. I haven't encountered a player trident yet (been busy with IRL stuff), but I imagine it's not that easy to keep a trident pinned down long enough to destroy it solo while dodging missiles and slowly drifting well past the 3km mark. It would only take a very short lapse in hitting them before they reach 25% and jump out, at which point they're essentially safe.

Note that I'm not saying it's too hard. I'm saying that it's probably not any easier than it should be.

@Greenwall: I'm laughing my ass off, truly, thank you for the entertainment.

@Dr. Lecter: I think the new blaster is a powerful weapon, if not OP, so why do you want to make it more powerful? Everything has a trade off: you get larger area of hit, requires more energy; more powerful weapon, less auto aim; etc. A meaningful tradeoff of slowing down a ship and preventing it to jump is yo loose some fire power.

@idd: A dent shouldn't be soloable. A queen is soloable, because it doesn't run! You absolutely shouldn't be able to solo a running chunk of armor.

Surely Greenwall the wep you suggest just isn't powerful enough. It should be fireable from IRC and be capable of hitting any moth anywhere in space without the need to actually log in and target it .....

Seriously, TGFT has conducted extensive trials with the PCB. We conclude that it does have its uses when used in conjunction with other weps. We judge that it is reasonably balanced and that it should remain unchanged for some time to build up a realistic picture of its true effect ingame.

Making a weapon "steal" energy, instead of just draining it in the remote cell, is an interesting concept but would take some time to actually implement. Our time is a little overwhelmed right now, but I'll keep it in mind.

I remain conservative on adjusting new weapon concepts prematurely, but I welcome continued feedback on the PCB.

I think the PCB is pretty well balanced as it is. The only issue I've got is that it's visually identical to the Ion Blasters so finding out who has one in a group of players is difficult without an Addon Scanner.

Well, that and the NPCs cheating and jumping w/o energy. :P

There is no 'balance' with the PCB, you can't have a balance unless you have two things to compare, the PCB is the only standard of energy drain weapon we have and it's not directly comparable to anything else.

All the PCB really tells us is how much drain per energy expended or per slot or per kg of weight is normal for an energy draining weapon.

Whether or not the PCB is useful is another question. I saw this particular implementation coming from miles away but it's really only useful for the Valkyrie and perhaps the maud to a much lesser extent. Valk is *the* major beneficiary here beyond everything else because it has a 3rd slot for it and the speed and weight to make use of it.

In order for other ships to make use of it, drain should be added to other weapons, especially mines.

@ idd

So a trident should be soloable but I should need a group to defend it?

LOL

I think needing two guys to take out a trident isn't a significant burden.

I still drive around in my trident. I wasn't complaining about the weapon, I was mocking the folks saying it wasn't powerful enough. There is a difference.

@ TRS

Yes, the valk is the only decent ship in Vendetta.

TRS, what are you talking about? This isn't the only thing I can put in a small weapon port and fire at my enemies. That's what it's being compared to here.

As it stands right now the PCB is neither overpowered nor utterly useless in comparison with other addons in the game.

Valk is *the* major beneficiary here... blah blah boo hoo
Actually, I've been using it more for Greyhounds and TPG Atlas Type X's in conjunction with a Megaposi.

"A queen is soloable, because it doesn't run!"

So, basically a valk isn't soloable?