PPB is the best weapon in the game. Discuss.

[Suicide Junkie]

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If there were a total damage per-turn limit possible you could set the damage resistance of emissive armor higher without making ships totally invulnerable. Then emissive armor could be a really useful defense against the PPB.

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I was curious. In SE3 the PPB's had an Achilles heel. Emmisive Armor could totally negate PPB's and APB's (except at point blank range). This would be hard to duplicate is SE4 because of weapon mounts.

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In SE3, Emissive armor negated the first X points of damage per hit, and if the first piece of armor was destroyed, the next one negated another X points of damage.

A stack of EA 5's in SE3 would have the following effect:
1 DMG: no damage, 1 pt ignored
2 DMG: no damage, 2 pts ignored
3 DMG: no damage, 3 pts ignored
4 DMG: 1 Armor Destroyed
5 DMG: 1 Armor destroyed, 4 pts ignored
7 DMG: 1 Armor destroyed, 6 pts ignored
8 DMG: 2 Armor destroyed, 6 pts ignored.

Those were the days...

It was like Crystalline armor, but didn't require shields, and only the components that were damaged stacked their bonuses.

For a "damage-per-turn limit" use organic armor with unlimited regen. It will "emiss" all the damage done to it (rounded down to the nearest segment) unless you destroy all of it. You'd need to limit the amount on a ship while still having more than one component, but it could work.

The "holes in the armor" effect was pretty cool too. There was a chance that weapons fire could go through a hole left by a destroyed armor segment, and hit internals.

[Phoenix-D]

What bothers me about PPBs is this:

APB research cost to max:
1,677,500
PPB to max:
290,000

That's with the extra level of physics included.

Making it worse is the cost of shields. At max normal shields, you have good effectiveness against the APB, but nothing against the PPB. To get maxed shield protection against the PPB, you have to go through multiple layers of weaker shields, or take armor. So a player that researchs PPB V and Shield V is going to be significantly better off research wise against a player that uses, say, APBs.

Other weapons like Wave Motion Guns, you say? Well, to get WMGIIIs you need 4,212,500 research points! Then, just for the icing, if the PPB player can close to short range..he'll OUTDAMAGE you over time (so will the APB ship, for that matter). Ripper beams do decent damage, but are outranged- Ripper IVs do 50 damage out to range 3, PPBs 60-50 damage out to range 6. So 2 PPBs vs. 3 Rippers.. 120 damage vs 150 damage. That's at point-blank range.

Missiles are easily countered by PD weaponry. Torpedos? Decent, but like the WMGs are outdamaged.

Meson BLasters? 30 damage at max, so for 3 mesons vs 2 PPBs: 90vs120 damage at point blank, 90vs100 damage at max. Mesons will set you back 510,000 research points, as well.

Null-space? Very cheap (187,000), decent damage, skips everything. Decent alternative, but the fire rate is still nothing to write home about, and not at all cheap to build. Plus for every 3 Null-space cannons, you can mount 5 PPB/APBs, which goes a long way to offsetting the null-space's advantages.

Phoenix-D

[Puke]

its all in the ballance. i always thought the temporal thing that did 4x to shields was cool.. it did a fair ammount of damage, and you didnt have to worry about buying shield depleters AND regular weapons, and then ordering them properly, and being screwed up when you change targets..

ppbs are fine early on, but as soon as phased shields come into play, or if there are organic races out there, they dont help much. so you will have to switch to another kind of weapon if you want to cause any hurting, which means reasearching another tree. so you are paying the research cost of the ppbs PLUS that of whatever you are going to switch to. as opposed to the guy that started out researching towards WMGs or fighters or something.

you have 4 basic kinds of attacks as far as im concerned, thats not counting long range / short range and movement tactics. you can go for the high damage early on, and bLast with a slow recharging WMG or psychic singularity or something. or you can go for smaller dammage that pays off over time, compensating with numbers of ships or higher protection values. Third, you can go for saturation attacks where you load up huge ammounts of missiles and fighters, and stand off at your max range and hope to overwhelm their PD.

Lastly, you can blow up their sun and/or planet

but i find a balance is best, having capital ships with heavy hitting weapons. also having lighter ships or fighters that can move in and inflict damage every turn while the big guns recharge.

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"...the green, sticky spawn of the stars"
(with apologies to H.P.L.)

[Phoenix-D]

The thing is, PPBs are so cheap- and almost as effective as APB XIIs- that you really don't need another direct fire weapon. Certainly no reason to research APBs or Meson BLasters..

Phoenix-D

[Suicide Junkie]

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APB XII: 2.1 - 1.5, normal
CSM V: 0.8, seeker
MB: 1.75, normal
AMT V: 0.625, normal
QT V: 1.25, normal
PM V: 1.0 - 0.27, seeker
PDC V: 3.25, pointdefence, +70%
PPB V: 2.0 - 1.67, phased
RB IV: 2.5, normal
IB III: 0.9, normal, +10%
WMG III: 0.67, normal, +30%
TPC V: 0.375 - 0.188, Weapons only
ID V: 1.3, engines only
IPM V: 0.625, engines only, seeker
PN V: 15.0, planets only
NB V: 5.0, planet population only
GHB V: 1.21 - 0.33, normal
SD V: 7.5, shields only
DUC V: 1.33, normal
PC V: 1.33 - 1.0, normal, organic
HPB V: 1.67 - 1.0, normal, organic
ED III: 1.5 - 0.5, normal, organic
LR III: 2.0 - 0.5, normal, organic
SP V: 1.0, seeker, organic
AG V: 0.56, normal, organic
EAG V: 1.25, normal, organic
SC X: 1.17, skip armor, crystalline
HEM III: 0.917, normal, crystalline
TDB V: 1.0 (4.0), quad2shields, temporal
TS III: 0.33, skips all, temporal
TKP V: 1.75, normal, psychic
CW III: 6.0, warhead
MSD: 10.0, one shot, RuinsTech
MID: 5.0, one shot, RuinsTech
NSP: 0.4, skips all
CT V: 0.45, ships armor, seeker
SA V: 9.0, shields only, temporal
TC III: 1.2, normal, temporal, +10%
MSG III: 0.68, normal, psychic, +20%

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Where the damage rating is: Damage/KT/Turn
Accurate as of SE4 v1.35

[geoschmo]

quote:

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Originally posted by Phoenix-D:
The thing is, PPBs are so cheap- and almost as effective as APB XIIs- that you really don't need another direct fire weapon. Certainly no reason to research APBs or Meson BLasters..

Phoenix-D

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In a war, "almost as effective" can be a VERY Bad thing.

I agree that PBB's are too cheap to research. That makes them a formidable mid game weapon. But if you rely on PBB's and face an opponent with APB's or some other longer range weapon, you will get your lunch handed to you.

Now a case could be made that you could eliminate your opponents with PBB v's before they get to APB XII's. That is certainly true against the AI. I am not so sure in a game with several human players.

Even if you could, it's your aggresive style of play and superior tactics and strategy that would make the difference, more than your choice of weapon tech.

Geoschmo

[This message has been edited by geoschmo (edited 02 September 2001).]

[Dragonlord]

Wow, I am away for two days and see a whole bunch of replies. Phoenix, thanks fro backing up my claim there :-)
Alrighty, you all have presented some arguments as to why PPB is NOT the best weapon in the game. Let's see:

* Range - not as relevant as you would think. Sure some other weapons have better range, and they'll get in the first shot. Then they just sit there for a turn or two to reload while the PPB ship closes in and kills them. Plus your initial shot probably misses because of the accuracy penalty of long range weapons.
Fact remains that nothing beats the PPB as a direct fire weapons measured in damage/kiloton/turn. (see table that was reposted). Plus they are cheap to research.
Plus remember that I am talking about Strategic combat, so no dancing in and out of range manually. And if your opponent has such a tech advantage that his *combat* speed is so much bigger than yours that he can shoot, move away, and be far enough for you not to be able to move within your PPB weapons range.... then you're toast anyway.


* Phased shields? By the time I think an opponent might have them I just add some shield depleters to the mix. I'm not even going to bother with phased shields anymore. I can use all that research more wisely elsewhere. Note that the ONLY shield that gives you more protection/kiloton than a regular shield V is the phased shield V, which takes *ages* to research. I'd rather stick to a mix of normal shields and armor.

* Engine killers? Tried em. Don't like em. The only way I can see that strategy working is if you send some 15 LC's equipped only with engine killers against a larger enemy fleet. You have to have enough ships to disable ALL engines on on all their combat ships, then have enough left to move out of their attack range, then go after the support ships. And then 3-4 turns later their repair ships (in fleet) have patched things up and the enemy fleet is moving again. I'd rather spend resources on more attack ships than on wave after wave of engine killers which just slow down the enemy a few turns.

*WMG: see above. Not as good as PPB. Longer range (so what?) long reload time, expensive to research, and less damage per kiloton per turn than a PPB.

Geoschmo, I'd love to take you up on that challenge.

OK here is a sample ship design (by heart, don't know if I used all space available in the hull)
Battlecruiser, space 600.
Bridge, 2 LS, 2 CQ
6 JP engines
Solar Sail 3
ECM 3, Sensors 3, Multiplex 4
6 large mounted PPB V
2 PD V
6 Armor III
1 Stealth Armor 3 (for defense bonus)
1 Shield V

Or: a battleship, same as above, heavy mounts, plus 1 Scattering Armor III, and 3 shields V. Using a MC III instead of bridge/LS/CQ.