Forgotten modules

I’ve been lurking about the boards for awhile, and thought I finally bring something up.

I have some observations about a few modules:

Fighters/Gunships
Shield Disruption modules - These modules weigh more than the revised torpedoes, consume more power, and do nothing to armor or hull. Any fighter that uses the modules is slower and less effective. Also, what are the intended differences between the 2 gunship shield disruption modules? Differences are damage and minimum range.

Fix: Lower the module weights to match missiles? Decrease fire intervals? - Shields drop faster no effect to armor or hull.

Frigates/Destroyers
Point defense lasers(PDL) seem much less effective than the scrambler module. Also the PDL cost a weapons slot, while the other options can fit to any slot.

Fix: Lower PDL fitting requirements, increase fitting requirements for scrambler modules? Reduce the PDL fire interval and reduce the time on target to destroy a missile?

Cruiser/Dreadnoughts
Shield Capacitor - Same fitting requirements and shield strength as a light shield but has no resistances, a worse stacking penalty, and lower recharge rate.

Fix: Decrease stacking penalty?

Terran Dreadnought Reactor Array - I’m curious why the Destroyer reactor array provides a 30% (16 points) power increase over the next best option, while the Dreadnought version only provides 1.5% power (2.4 points) increase over the next best option. 30% would be much too high for the Dreadnought version, but a higher flat increase is much more useful than at present. A 2.4 difference in power is not helpful for a Dreadnought.

Regarding the shield disruption fighters… I would suggest not to do such things. I have never tried. Shield disruption gunships? Slow, yes, but dangerous as hell against not effectively defended (against fighter/gunship) fleets.

First attack line: Fast Fighters going dogfighting. Second attack line: Gunships with shield distruptors. Third attack line: Gunships with heavy armament (Torpedoes).

That said, I have never really used fighters as main attack component. I don’t like the thought of “expendables”

Regarding the Terran Dread Reactor: I always wondered about that myself…

Gunships have 3 modules that can affect Cruiser heavy shields. All 3 have similar fire intervals(3800), cost(40), and power requirements(.25)

Torpedo: Weight 10, 21 shield damage, 28 shield pen, 10 armor damage, 16 armor pen, 14 hull damage

Disruptor bomb: Weight 15, 30 shield stability damage, no shield damage, no armor damage, no hull damage

Anti-shield bomb: Weight 12, 6 shield damage, 28 shield pen, no armor damage, no hull damage

The Torpedo weight was reduced to 10 in patch 1.38 or 1.39, I forget which.

Both the Disruptor bomb and Anti-shield bomb are only useful against shields, so another weapon is required to kill the ship.

Torpedoes can kill a ship with no other weapon required. I’d argue that this make Torpedoes much more useful in a fight and should come with a downside.

gunship missiles: Weight 5, Cost 16, Power .25, Fire Interval 2000

Dropping the Weight of the Disruptor bomb and Anti-shield bomb to 5 makes the modules more attractive as an alternative to a torpedo. Probably should reduce the Cost as well, to say 20ish.

I think what happened here is directly related to how fighter/gunship torpedoes USED to be a lot heavier compared to the other two ‘shield-breaker’ weapons. Someone pointed out, and Cliff agreed, that it made Torpedo Fighters completely unusable because the fastest design you could make could still be very easily hit by cruiser and dreadnought-level weaponry.

Cliff then reduced the weight on the Torpedo weapon, which helped somewhat, but didn’t change the other two modules when he did that.

Cliff, if you want the Anti-Shield Bomb and the Shield Disruptor weapons to be tactically viable options for fighters, you need to take a closer look at them, too, because OP is right - Torpedoes are clearly superior in every way at the moment. (of those three modules, that is.)
And Torpedo Fighters are still painfully slow, just… SLIGHTLY LESS slow than they used to be.

Oooh! Let me try!

The droid bay for cruisers. Compared to the large crew quarters: It costs more, it consumes much more power, the weight is the same unlike GSB1, and…that’s about it.

Speaking of weight, let’s talk about armor. I tried replacing a cruiser’s heavy armor plates with ultralight and the difference was .01 speed. heavy armor costs more, sure. But when weapon immunity is a consideration, it’s best not to be stingy. Compare the cost of the heavier armor to the cost of the everything else it’s protecting. And because armor weight is no big deal for cruisers or dreadnoughts, hyper vanadium plating is a waste of money and reactor power.

The plasma sling. An anti-armor and shield weapon that isn’t good at penetrating either of those things. It looks like it was supposed to be an anti-frigate/destroyer weapon, but lots of other weapons do that fine and also work on bigger things.

I think several modules and weapons are not very well balanced in the base game. I created a mod* that tries to ‘fix’ all the following things (and much more), but not necessarily they way it’s proposed:

Point Defense Lasers are buggy in version 1.40, see viewtopic.php?f=45&t=14355 → Needs to be fixed by cliffski
As a temporary solution I increased the tracking speed A LOT.

In my mod Cruiser Light Shields have only 130 strength (Capacitor has 150).

Terran Reactor Array costs 140 instead of 192 in my mod. If you have 15 extra crew it is now a good alternative to the Heavy Powerplant, as it has better stats for Hitpoints and Weight.

The Droid Bay weights 70 instead of 120 in my mod.

I did not ‘fix’ the light/ultralight armor plates, but you are right. However I did increase stacking effectiveness of Hyper Vanadium Armor and Powered Armor to 87% (previously 85%). It helps a bit.

Plasma Sling has now a Shield Penetration of 13. This means it penetrates Frigate/Destroyer Medium Shields in my mod.

Just want to say that all these things should be balanced in the base game! not by a mod!

* rebalacing mod: viewtopic.php?f=46&t=14569
I do not claim that my mod balances the game, it’s just my attempt to do it.