Walt The reason I don't think I want to use the same part is because, in singleplayer, almost every ship will have an FTL drive, and I don't want every ship to be able to blink -- that should be a much more special, expensive, deliberate design choice.
Personally, I think it makes a lot of sense for FTL and blink drives to be the same part, both for realism and for balance. But a ship optimized for FTL travel only would have a blink so clumsy it would be basically useless in combat. I have lots of thoughts on blink and FTL in general, but there's probably no point talking about it until the blink update gets closer.
Walt
Dalas120 Railgun Suggestion: I like nop's suggestion from a while ago about making railguns start a fire when they run out of penetration. Little balance impact, but fire has been forgotten for too long and it fits the theme that ammo weapons start fires. Just a random suggestion, nothing important.
If they only start fires when they run out of penetration, is that not a bit weird since cannons start fires for their full penetration length?
Err... that's a good point. Maybe initially the railgun projectile is moving too quickly ¯_(ツ)_/¯ So it's only when it slows down (and spends more time in contact with the parts it's penetrating) that it starts fires Actually, that could be an interesting mechanic for cannons too - increase fire % as penetration drops.
Speaking of which, back in the rcs someone (nop?) suggested that projectiles should visually slow down as they run out of penetration. I think this makes a lot of sense, both because of the fire % idea and because it gives players a great visual cue that damage is dropping.
nop Railgun barges are the new laser triangles, to beat them you need to either outfly them or have a better railgun.
I haven't been able to test things out much recently, but which part of railguns do you think are too strong and what do you think should be changed to fix it? Personally, I think it's ok if a very large railgun has the advantage in a 1v1, as long as they're particularly vulnerable to multiple ships or splitters (like missile barges are), which laser triangles or walls aren't. But I don't know how extreme things are right now, or what area is the problem.
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Some (probably controversial) thoughts about the gatling laser/plasma blaster/mass disintegrator/[next name here]:
Armor vs Shields: Currently, I think that the balance of armor vs shields is in a reasonable place. I don't think that armor needs a super-hard counter, at least not on the level of electrobolts vs shields. Armor is, at least IMO, a more interesting and challenging defense to design with than shields are, because you can't shoot through armor. Designs that take heavy advantage of armor are usually more interesting than designs that stack shields, and for that reason I think that armor should always be more durable than shields - if you can manage to work it into a design. I also don't think that armor has been oppressively strong in any meta so far, and thus does not need a super-hard counter. I have nothing against a weapon being good against armor (say, +50% damage), I just don't think it needs to have electro-bolt levels of effectiveness.
Of course, making the mass disintegrator damage + vs armor less extreme makes it a lot less unique, and IMO weapon diversity is already a growing issue.
Weapon count and diversity: There are currently far more energy weapons than ammo or missile weapons, and far more small, frontal weapons than any other type. Judging by the trello description, the mass disintigrator would be both an energy weapon and a small, frontal weapon, which IMO is not a good thing. Too many similar weapons both gives the game a big difficulty curve for new players (even if the weapons are introduced 1 by 1, there's still a lot to wrap your head around), and also makes ship design less interesting for experienced players, because players can replace challenging ship design with simpler weapon choices (e.g. put the long range laser in the back, instead of changing ship geometry).
Basically, I'm worried that defining mechanics/qualities are getting too diluted among the weapon pool, and that weapons (particularly small, front-line energy weapons) will have trouble being sufficiently unique and interesting.
Suggestions: I suggest renaming the heavy laser, and merging it's functionality with the gatling laser/plasma blaster/mass disintegrator. The result could end up having the interesting parts of both weapons, without as much design overlap. Graphically, the heavy laser is already a good fit for gatling, and it's projectiles look a lot like plasma.
Or, maybe make the mass disintegrator so exotic that it feels completely different from anything we've had before (like the railgun, for example), and balance the heavy laser separately. Also, the planned sniper laser could be interesting if combined with the mass disintegrator anti-armor concept.
