Dalas120 One option is to change the ion combination formula to ignore number of prisms completely, so that damage output is purely based on the number of beams being combined (regardless of how they were combined).
That's basically how RC1 works, most people seem to not like it.
Dalas120 Cost could be increased by having a very large no-build zone around the prism
Then there would need to be some portion of the prism that doesn't have a no-build zone, so that you could connect it to your ship. Either that, or allow structure to be built in no-build zones.
Dalas120 Perhaps larger ion beams also have a wider physical width?
This starts to get kind of technically tricky at widths greater than 1 tile. It's not impossible, just comes at a non-zero performance cost.
Dalas120 Unrelated to prism combining - I think it makes sense for combined ion beams to also have increased range like the railgun. Not for balance reasons, but it's generally expected for big/heavy weapons to have long range. Since the ion beam can theoretically get very big, I think range needs to be able to scale somewhat as well to help it feel good.
Hmm, I do worry about balance of very long-range ions. Plus if their range increases, that makes them less differentiated from railguns.
Dalas120 And one final thing - from a "feel" perspective I don't really like prisms needing to rotate to face their target, and having mediocre turn speed. Similar weapons I've seen in other games (e.g. a tesla turret) tend to be fixed and radially symmetrical, with beams shooting out in whatever direction they need to without any moving parts. Obviously not a big deal though, and probably subjective.
That's what I originally thought as well and was how my first prototype worked, but I didn't like it. The lack of a visual clue (when not firing) about what prism was linked to what other prism was disconcerting and confusing, and I found myself constantly clicking on the prisms to double-check they were pointed at the right thing.
The slow turn speed is really just a balance thing. My intent with this is to make it hard for multiple non-combined beams to focus on a single target. How successful or even necessary this is, I'm not sure.
