Beam vs Seeker

seekers are probably of very limited use on bigger ships, however seekers are potentially more useful on smaller ships designed to hunt the bigger ones, seekers tend to do more damage per shot and so reduce the effects of damage reduction, plus i don't think they can "miss" like beams do (they can go out of range or get shot down but once at the target they are guaranteed to hit i believe)

I'm hardly an expert, still playing my first game . From what I've seen seekers always have a range advantage (at comparable tech levels), so as long as my ships are at least as fast as yours I can hit you but you can't touch me. Of course your fighters are even faster, so I need at least some beam support weapons. Since I've never seen the AI use any fighters and very few sats I'm using few beam weapons currently.

Seekers always hit unless shot down by PD or they run out of range. They have a % bonus to their defense, which makes it more difficult for them to be shot down by PD.

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Space Empires Depot | SE:V Balance Mod

The advantage beams have is in most cases they are smaller and they require no ordinance. With the exception of my initial scouts I usually only use missles/torps on warp point defense sats, weapon platforms, and bases where the number of missles will overwhelm any PD present.

I use mainly seekers, just because of their superior range. And the point defences do not really defend against many of them. Of course if you use a mixture, the percentual amount of missles that are shot down doubles, so better choose one type of weapon. (I am not an expert)

From what I've seen

Seekers --

Pro's
Always will hit unless shot down
Very long range
Good Damage/weight

Con's
Can be destroyed before target is hit
Slow Reload
Uses large amounts of ordnance
Takes up more space than most weapons
Usually can only target Ships, Bases, and Planets

Beam----
Pro's
can target more types then seekers
Fast Reload
Dose More damage at close range*
Small size can fit more on same size hull then Seekers

Con's
Limited range
Can Miss
Damage Falls with range*

* Some Beam weapons do same damage across all ranges

I think thi post summarises everything very well.

There's another factor too, though, and that's weapon speed. Seekers take time to actually hit the target, thus giving the target the opportunity to get another shot off, while beams are instant hits.

Besides, beams got the looks.

Another facet is that seekers can be used effectivily with fighters (on the same side). Point defense will be more saturated attacking with both seekers and fighters.

SEV, more than a feeling.

If you do a spreadsheet that normalizes weapons for comparing effectiveness (damgae done per space taken at equivlent reload rates) beams will when out hands down due to weapon mounts.

The 'always hit' advantage of seekers is good in the early game, espeically combined with fighters as the eneny will have more stuff to spread his PD over and more of your stuff will get through to do damage, just as Rilo mentioned.

The weapon spec changes made in a recent patch really balanced things more for the stock game (I know editing the components.txt file is fairly easy, but it requires time to tinker and check). the quantum torpedo is a very good seeker, better than the CSM, and is an excellent compliment to your beamers early on, especially if you use fighters as well.

Putting seekers and beams on different exclusive ship designs allows you to fine tune the stragety for that weapon type. The stock AI puts beams and torps on the same ship and thus cannot take advantage of the maximum range strategy.

If you commit to beams exclusively it will be an attack bonus and defense bonus arms race. Better pick race characteristics to match and be sure to build ship and fleet training facilities.

Vermithrax

I have done battles at full tech with Balance Mod with ship designs that were purely beam or missile. After several battles, I check the tonnage destroyed for each type and the missile based ships did far more damage than the beam ships. The beam ships tend to die faster, probably because they were doing less damage or maybe the other way around.

I'm trying ships with a balance of missiles and beams\projectiles and it seems to be working well.

In BM, giving the AI bonuses can get pretty lethal. I had to take it done from High to Medium because it got to where I couldn't win any even matched battles.

I bet the reason your beamers are dying quicker is because they have to get closer to be effective. Beamers should be armored heavier than seeker launchers. Also, with even tech, the beams are not going to hit every time. And, this all depends on how well the enemy PD is shooting down incoming seekers. Do AI designs in BM use PD well?

To check this out try a combat simulation with one side with beams and a very high attack bonus that almost garuntees a hit. Use the maximum range strategy against an opponent that has poor defense bonus and your beams will start to look as damaging as seekers (that don't get shot down). Now, add in the damge multiplying effect of weapon mounts. Your ships will not get hurt as much at max range. But this will only work if you have an attack bonus vs his defnse bonus advantage.

Agsinst a human opponent who is heavy into PD seekers are not as effective. Of course, the heavy investment in PD reduces space for shields, armor, and weapons. Like anything else its best to take advantage of the opponent's weaknesses and not get into the habit of static design.

Using seekers on anything that does not use a max range strategy seems to me to be a poor design, for max range makes you harder to hit with beams and does not decrease your chances to do damage (given your seekers are not pitted agsinst a heavy PD enemy that is).

Given even tech and opponents with high attack and defense bonuses we might just have to have a mix once again (but on designs optimized for that weapon type).

Vermithrax

i never use seekers
because of PD on enemy ships and slow reload time. it costs too much in a battle when u miss slow-reloading weapon shot.
totally, i'm trying to use fast reloading weapons even if any others pro-cons are not near the same.

I think that beam weapons have a tech advantage. In my mind if you have the RPs Beams tend to become very powerful l8ter on.

However at low tech, especially if you also go for fighters early on, seekers kick a**.
With beams you have to research extra tech lines to make them effective.
With seekers, the opponent has to research extra tech lines to make them ineffective.

That's a good point Gnosis. I know that seekers tend to get less effective as the game progresses, but it would be interesting to see which research line would be better. If you had identical empires (research points, planets, resources, make everything even) and sent one empire down the seeker route and another down beams.

I'm sure the other benefits/disadvantages of each system has been stated enough here, I guess that makes them equally good options in the game. Which means the game is balanced pretty well, doesn't it?

Does that make the final verdict personal choice? I suppose it depends more on your enemy as to which you use, if your enemy invests heavily into fighters beams might be the way to go as you can target everything with them.