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New Forum Section: Game Balance
Not sure there's enough balance discussion happening on the forum to warrant its own section. A thread in Ideas & Suggestions seems sufficient.
Balance discussion kind of needs to be encouraged, though. Especially for PvE, which has an impending replacement, but has received little discussion since PvP was introduced. The fundamental disconnect is that if in PvP you survive with nothing but a cockpit and your opponent succumbs to fire or the RoD you won. In PvE if you spend more resources killing an enemy than you're rewarded for killing it you lost.
And Walt is soon going to be trying to balance a new PvE mode using parts that have been balanced based mostly on PvE feedback. I'd kind of like the game to have a successful Steam launch, and that's going to rely on a balanced enough PvE experience which relies on collecting data about what does and does not work about the old PvE mode.
Based on what I recall off hand being proposed for the new mode there are several looming issues.
1) resource storage will weigh down player ships at least in the early game before fleets are practical unless it is free. NPCs don't need resource storage unless they represent miners or freighters and will consequently have a maneuverability edge.
2) If ammo production requires resources but battery production does not, ammo weapons have to be substantially better than energy weapons to justify use by PvE players, but need to not be discounted for PvP players or NPCs. If battery production requires resources the game gets much more stressful.
3) Unless repair is free, shields that do not need repair are are more important to PvE players who need to expend resources on repair than to either NPCs or PvP players, neither of which have to expend resources on repair.
4) If FTL efficiency continues to exist, expansive armor schemes have additional costs for PvE players that they don't have for either PvP players or NPCs.
5) Consequently to point 3 and 4, weapons that are best resisted by thick or projecting armor are much more powerful when fired at PvE players than when fired at PvP players or NPCs not designed with a strict adherence to FTL efficiency requirements.
Issues 3-5 already exist in theory and in my opinion have been exacerbated by increasing quality standards for NPCs and you should be soliciting discussion of whether or not and to what degree they really exist for most players and especially relatively new players and if anyone else sees other issues before doing an overhaul that might make them worse if they're not kept in mind.
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That is an excellent point about adding in resource cost into the balance equation, if ammunition is going to require resources. Under that premise, you would think energy weapons are cheapest to run in PvE, followed presumably by ballistics with missiles sucking the most resources.
I'm not convinced it is a good idea to add ammunition resource cost tbh, as it will throw the current balance out of whack in almost a step ladder fashion, and if there is intended to be research/specialization branches of technology (think i saw that in trello somewhere) then the separate weapons trees need to be able to perform at all stages of the game.
On that note, i would say all the weapons trees currently perform well in early/mid game. What i find though is that railguns fall behind ions and nukes at the end game when ships grow beyond certain size. Ion stacking is great, nukes alpha strike hard and chew through ships if they survive after initial volley, but i find the railguns struggle to keep up. With that in mind, after a first play through, no one would run ballistics. Missiles would see play at late game when resources are abundant, and there would be no incentive to leave the laser tree of technology.
Edit: There is also no method of disrupting shields in the cannons category, this could be considered a game breaking balance hole if doing weapons trees/specializations
Dibs for the cannons, you can possibly just go around the shield by getting the cannon barrel inside the enemy ship, i.e. ramming, so that's your best bet as a cannon player
YAreyaREdAzE Assuming ship shapes and speeds allow for that and ramming damage isn't an active game mechanic, that is true, but that feels more like abusing game mechanics than working with intended game mechanics
PvP will always dominate over PvE.
If you can't figure out PvE you can never do well in PvP.
Dibs How do railguns currently sit in current pvp meta, are they a worthwhile build?
Fairly okay. Railgun type ships rely on being able to puncture a single spot easily so if you can achieve that, you'd have a good rail design. Note that most rail ships that are effective in pvp are usually massed short rails in fire at target so they can actually focus.
YAreyaREdAzE That makes sense, i've played around with long rails and find they are very lackluster compared to the alternatives for the investment. Is playing with massed railguns more micro-management intense? I imagine you need to control positioning and turning a lot more then normal?
Dibs surprisingly it's base form (a slow-ish rail "fan") is less micro-intensive than most pvp ships, but more aggressive forms of the rail fan tend to be more intense, yeah (because you have to traget the rails in such a way that they can damage the innards, or at least set up for it)
4) If FTL efficiency continues to exist, expansive armor schemes have additional costs for PvE players that they don't have for either PvP players or NPCs.
Point of order: NPC' ships (barring some fringe ships which are just that much of a heap of junk) have FTL capabilities and deal with the same second-order FTL costs of extensive armoring a player does.
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Hatter I don't think armor will go out of use though, it's used differently to shielding. In ship segments where you would consider replacing armor with shielding though, it's still a cost benefit analysis, with shields having a higher buy in price (power and crew) vs cheap armor with ongoing cost drains on FTL efficiency and repairs. I see it more of a design choice than a straight up issue.
For the same cost of 2 shield generators, a crew and quarters for 6, a small generator and a fire extinguisher you can purchase almost 194 single armor pieces. Even when considering expansive armor designs, i think the coverage difference between the two options is a thing to factor into that decision.
image for reference on equal cost vs coverage 
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Atarlost 1) resource storage will weigh down player ships at least in the early game before fleets are practical unless it is free. NPCs don't need resource storage unless they represent miners or freighters and will consequently have a maneuverability edge.
If resource storage from NPC's drops salvagable loot for players, it could represent a reason to include them into the built in NPC ships, eliminating the advantage.
Could also consider that fleet composition could come into play here if the resources can be moved between ships freely. Players could have a logistics fleet that follows their combat fleet to salvage the loot, eliminating the need of ever increasing storage on combat vessels. Early game, could make a flying can to use as a satellite storage for the players starter ship. If the new PvE is instanced in the same way bounty hunter is (earnings wise), should be able to afford something like that after the second or third system clear
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Atarlost And Walt is soon going to be trying to balance a new PvE mode
It's possible my opinion will change after launch, but for now, any discussion about the new PvE mode's balance is purely speculative and I don't think warrants the creation of a whole new forum section.
Atarlost If ammo production requires resources but battery production does not, ammo weapons have to be substantially better than energy weapons
But on the flip side, builds without factories are now far more viable.
Dibs I'm not convinced it is a good idea to add ammunition resource cost tbh, as it will throw the current balance out of whack
The current balance is already being thrown out of whack, resource costs is just one of many reasons for that.
Dibs If resource storage from NPC's drops salvagable loot for players,
It does.
Dibs if the resources can be moved between ships freely
They can.
Dibs If the new PvE is instanced in the same way bounty hunter
It's not. "Instances" are far larger in the new PvE.
Walt It's possible my opinion will change after launch, but for now, any discussion about the new PvE mode's balance is purely speculative and I don't think warrants the creation of a whole new forum section.
Walt The current balance is already being thrown out of whack, resource costs is just one of many reasons for that.
If you believe you can predict how your changes will effect the balance you should be soliciting feedback now. If you don't believe you can predict how your changes will effect the balance you shouldn't make them coincide with the Steam release.
What I expect to happen is that the content creators that have covered Cosmoteer in the past will cover the Steam release. And they will play the new PvE content not PvP. And they will approach this as basically new players because your "novel game concept" coverage was years ago.
If the balance is bad when the Steam release related coverage spike occurs it will hurt growth.
Walt Even a single thread soliciting feedback to inform your changes before you get too attached to them would be useful.
I suspect for instance that the gameplay loop will be less fun with resource replenishment runs in between combats and the most efficient "just enough" ammo builds will be the most frustrating. "The punishment for farming slimes is farming slimes," is no longer held to be good design if it ever was.
I am quite certain that the values of parts will vary substantially between PvP players, PvE players, and PvE NPC designers if resources for replenishment are tracked and limited to a degree that gives that tracking any purpose.