Forums » Suggestions
So because it has some moderate utility now, there's no reason at all to offer improved utility and/or an improved variant?
While we're at it, let's kill off Gauss Mk II-III, all rails other than Mk I, and a ton of other shit. The base models are all useful in some circumstances, meaning that by ARF's logic their upgraded versions are OP and never should have been added in the first place.
While we're at it, let's kill off Gauss Mk II-III, all rails other than Mk I, and a ton of other shit. The base models are all useful in some circumstances, meaning that by ARF's logic their upgraded versions are OP and never should have been added in the first place.
The PDB needs to fire fast to drain the target's power cell, but once the power cell is drained, the PDB fires too fast, and will completely saturate your recharge rate, leaving no power to fire any other weapon.
To power more than the PDB, you have to limit power to the PDB. I have considered using a plasma HX in concert with a PDB, because the HX only requires 8 energy per shot, less than the PWB, but does not saturate the recharge rate. If you fire both a plasma HX and PWB at the same time until you saturate your recharge rate, the HX will continue to fire at close to full rate, and the PWB will fire about once a second, just enough to prevent a jump, if you hit every time. This should be the optimal setup to engage a cap ship. If it isn't, the perhaps we should fix the capship.
There are few good weapons combinations that allow you to fire a weapon that does real damage, while maintaining sub jump drain on a target. If you lower the energy per shot on the PDB, then there may be even fewer effective combinations. You may may the total weapons platform worse, by making the PDB better.
I think that having a PDB equipped should allow you to see the target's current energy level, effectively having a built in energy scanner. We could go even farther by making the PDB not fire if the target has less than 50 energy. That way the PDB would not saturate your recharge rate when the target is already drained.
One of the big problems here is how little energy it takes to jump. The PDB is much more effective at preventing wormhole jumps, but less so at sector jumps. If a sector jump required even %50 of your power cell, that is only an extra second or so, but that extra second is a lot of time in combat.
Another way to improve the PDB is to decrease not only the energy per shot, but the drain per shot. The weapon is rated at 350 drain per second, at 70 energy per second. that is way too much drain per second, and way too much energy per second. make it 100 drain per second, at 20 energy per second. if it drained in smaller increments, you have less risk of your target getting too close to jump energy. change the fire rate to 5 per second, drain 20, energy 4. It would take 5 full seconds or more of continues fire to drain a target, but once you have them drained, it is easier to maintain.
To power more than the PDB, you have to limit power to the PDB. I have considered using a plasma HX in concert with a PDB, because the HX only requires 8 energy per shot, less than the PWB, but does not saturate the recharge rate. If you fire both a plasma HX and PWB at the same time until you saturate your recharge rate, the HX will continue to fire at close to full rate, and the PWB will fire about once a second, just enough to prevent a jump, if you hit every time. This should be the optimal setup to engage a cap ship. If it isn't, the perhaps we should fix the capship.
There are few good weapons combinations that allow you to fire a weapon that does real damage, while maintaining sub jump drain on a target. If you lower the energy per shot on the PDB, then there may be even fewer effective combinations. You may may the total weapons platform worse, by making the PDB better.
I think that having a PDB equipped should allow you to see the target's current energy level, effectively having a built in energy scanner. We could go even farther by making the PDB not fire if the target has less than 50 energy. That way the PDB would not saturate your recharge rate when the target is already drained.
One of the big problems here is how little energy it takes to jump. The PDB is much more effective at preventing wormhole jumps, but less so at sector jumps. If a sector jump required even %50 of your power cell, that is only an extra second or so, but that extra second is a lot of time in combat.
Another way to improve the PDB is to decrease not only the energy per shot, but the drain per shot. The weapon is rated at 350 drain per second, at 70 energy per second. that is way too much drain per second, and way too much energy per second. make it 100 drain per second, at 20 energy per second. if it drained in smaller increments, you have less risk of your target getting too close to jump energy. change the fire rate to 5 per second, drain 20, energy 4. It would take 5 full seconds or more of continues fire to drain a target, but once you have them drained, it is easier to maintain.
"built in energy scanner"
+1!
+1!
+1 to the energy scanner.
I understand why you might want it to not fire when the enemy is at less than 50 energy, but if they happen to have some weapon or future item that requires 50 or less energy to use, it could be nice to be able to fire arbitrarily fast to prevent them from reaching that, even if you're losing efficiency. Then again, I suppose you could just un-target them and fire without a lead-off indicator.
I understand why you might want it to not fire when the enemy is at less than 50 energy, but if they happen to have some weapon or future item that requires 50 or less energy to use, it could be nice to be able to fire arbitrarily fast to prevent them from reaching that, even if you're losing efficiency. Then again, I suppose you could just un-target them and fire without a lead-off indicator.