the anti-proton energy weapon

Yes there is a couple of very important things you have missed, or not yet found out.

The DUC requires ordinance and supplies that can only be generated by resupply depots. (well the organics trait gives a component that does it, but its only available to organics) Engery weapons only use supplies and generaly less than the DUC, supplies whilst also generated by resupply depots can also be generated by ships and bases using solar collectors and or quantum reactors.

Don't be put off by the initial range of energy weapons they do get better as you level up the tech most reach range 9 and the maximum that the DUC gets is 8.

Energy weapons also have another bonus, they each have a point defense weapon as well, which is accessed by researching PD (you get the gun at the level of either the engery tech or the PD tech whichever is lowest). Getting Messon guns gives the best PD gun in the game as it has a fire rating of .5 vrs 2 for most of the other guns.

Hope this helps Messon blasters are IMHO the best none racail trait weapon in the game. They end up at range 9 with no lessening of power, cheap to use and 2/3 the size of the DUC being a basic 20 ton component rather than the 30 of the DUC.

Research physics further is the quickest way though they are not the best weapons of their type Phased Polaron beams or tachyon weapons which skip normal shields and all shields and there graviton helbores which are armour piercing I believe

I suggest starting a game where all players start with all tech known. Then you can browse through the weapon list at leisure and even test them out.

Mind you, I don't like the regular data files for weapons (among many things) so I use Balance Mod which adds some balance while keeping things the same feel.

If you consider:

1. Size
2. Cost
3. Range
4. ammo
5. research per level

There is no other standard weapon that even holds a candle to the Meson blaster. You could use the meson blaster and no other weapon, ever, and not be disappointed. Unless you concider lack of choices disappointing

The Shard cannon, available if you take crystal tech, skips armor, which is really useful early game.

iirc, it has all the same range, damage per ton, etc, as the Meson Blaster but skips armor, which makes it a better weapon, but only if you take Crystal tech.

Now that I think about it though, it might cost more to research it, which means its only about AS powerful as the Meson blaster, for the same research point investment.

Having energy weapons focus on radioactives also gives you an advantage, as ship yards build ships using three seperate rates, minerals, organics, and radioactives.

If you can construct with 2000 or each resource per turn, and your ship costs all minerals its going to take longer than if the ship cost was spread out across all three. I. E.

A ship costing 10K/2K/5K will finish in 5 turns, while a ship costing 12K/1/2 will finish in 6 despite its lower "total" cost.
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There are 10 types of people in the world:

Those that understand binary, and those that don't.

Actually, through both grinding the numbers out and in practical testing, Meson Blasters are the best weapon in the game at max research level...period. This is, to me, a flaw. Not that they should be poor weapons, but that they are better than EVERYTHING. One of the things I modded (and this part is still in it's early stages) is to make all weapons powerful in their own right at max research. While Meson Blasters are still powerful, and a legidimate choice for continued research, they are not the "end all" of weapons in my games any more.

Personally I really like Organics and Organic weapons (the lightning cannon has a range of 12 ), so only research messon blasters to get the PD caoons, its expensive but they are worth it imho. Oh any of the racail techs that give weapons give great weapons, but they are far more expensive to research than "basic" energy weapons of DUCs

I do agree that in the stock game the weapons need more balancing, also some pruning, in the organics tree lightning guns replace energy discharge guns, but the EDG carry on leveling up, the same with acid globules and enhanced acid globules (this happens in loads of techs I know) which can make the later "better" guns actually suffer in comparison to older supposedly obselete guns.

And before anyone goes but guns carry on developing, yes they do, we went from matchlock muskets, too flintlock, to rifles, to assault riffles (with lots of steps between and all sorts of spin offs that have lives of their own). The thing in all of these cases is that the previous generation of weapons has always been retired from active use. Yes we could make matchlock muskets now that still used a burning taper to ignite the poweder to fire the gun, and they would be a lot better than the old ones but they would still suffer from the same limitations (not being able to fire in the wet, rain or windy conditions, and be muzzle loading) and if you took away those limitations they would no longer be matchlocks.

Maybe the AI has a Hidden Racial Bonus of +80% defense against Anti-Protons. Or it starts with level 1 in the Painted-On tech tree, whose components take 0 spaces, weigh 0 kt, cost 0, are invisible on enemy reports, and include Anti-Anti-Proton Paint Job, with +80% defense at level 1.

Come to think of it, this bug seems to occur when the AI ships have Ion Engine 2, and they all use the Maximum Weapon Range strategy. (OTOH, all AIs in my game have that combo, so maybe it's unrelated.) The effect of that combo is that enemy ships that are stern-chasing me are constantly twitching and fishtailing to stay just at their max range limit. Perhaps each twitch causes an auto-miss against incoming beam fire (you hit their previous position), and they happen to be twitching once every 2.0 seconds!

My newer destroyers with Ion Engines 3 (equal in combat speed to frigates with Ion 2s) seem to suffer the bug less often. However, they're not immune. Case: My destroyer (2 AP3s, Ion 3s, Combat Sensors 4) did catch up to a crippled, out-of-supply AI frigate, hit it once to destroy all its engines, and then sat motionless exactly 2.17 km away (their graphics were overlapping), and missed it 90 times in 90 seconds. That's definitely a bug.
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Eric / Gilmoy

Not sure if its a bug, but this might help explain a little, look at the damage the anti-proton beam does, it decreases over range, at early levels you have to be point blank before you can actually do any significant damage, and if you have ships flying on Maximum Weapon Range stratergy then you are peeing in the wind using APBs.

In Balance Mod, APCs do strictly more damage than DUCs at the same level.
Let rN denote a random integer in the closed interval [0, N].
- DUC (Balance): (15 + r05) + 5L
- APC (Balance): (45 + r10) + 5L - .3R
Even with the -24 damage at range 80, APC1s do minimum 26, DUC1s do maximum 25.

My destroyer has APC3s on Large Mount 4s, for 63-80 at range 80. That's about 3 times the damage of the AI's DUC1s. (Not to mention that at ranges 81-90, I do 60+ damage, the AI does 0.)

Anyways, I've isolated a repeatable incident of the bug, which I'm sending to Malfador and Kwok. I can cc a copy to you. Here's what it has:

- Me: Chessic Minaret, destroyer 3, 2 Shield 4 (=400), 2 APC3/Large Mount 4, Combat Sensor 4, Ion 3s (speed 13.0)
- AI: Sergetti Gimgash, frigate 2, 120 armor, 1 DUC1, Combat Sensor 1, Ion 2s (speed 13.0), Anti-Anti-Proton Miss Bug 1 (+90% defense vs APCs)

In strategic combat, or tactical combat using auto-move, Gimgash destroys Minaret, taking 0 damage. Minaret misses 100% of the time. (I've reloaded the game and replayed the combat 4 times, and Minaret has never hit Gimgash once.) Using manual movement, Minaret can engage at range 81-90, but misses 180 times in 180 seconds. Minaret's only viable option is to disable auto-targeting (to save its supply), and run like a whipped puppy.

You'll need Balance Mod to load the game. If interested, let me know where to send it. It's an 800k zip.
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Eric / Gilmoy

Congrats on that as the thing had a look of one of those errors which is difficult to reproduce let alone nail as they happen unpredictably. Well done for that I am sure it will get fixed in the next patch if not the next build. I however think it might be a Job for Aaron as though Captain Kwock is good he is only a Moder and this may be a core program problem

You can send me the save game -

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Space Empires Depot | SE:V Balance Mod