Favorite weapon?

stock or balance mod?

it's damage/kt/second you want. then note the range and cost.

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an se5a is a ww1 fighter, it is also a car.

I'm going to assume you're playing Stock, whose numbers I'm more familiar with...

The biggest advantage for the WMG is its massive range - longest of any direct fire weapon. That would be good in situations where a few defenders could hold the attackers at the maximum range of the planet, which is easier for the WMG than any other weapon.

For close range, you'd want the most damage potential (Dmg/kT/s) possible, naturally. If cost isn't an issue, go with the biggest number. If cost matters, look for the biggest cost drop with minimal drop in damage potential.

Anti-matter torpedoes are very cost efficient. I think they're actually one of the cheapest weapons in the game. To provide cheap, fast-to-build defenses for frontier worlds, I'd suggest max out A-M torps. Then you can put two or three out and have a defense grid so powerful only a mega fleet could stop it (or a very well designed fleet of tech'd out ships).

If you want to have a good reason to bother making omnipotent bases, play multiplayer...

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Space for rent - please contact owner

Damage/kT/second is the formula. '/' = divide...

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Space for rent - please contact owner

i thought about this in my current game last weekend and one thing was realy suprising me.
i was thinking about using plasma missiles, incinerator beam or meson blasters.
i first looked at the range and damage and thought....hey, incinerator beam for sure....more range, high damage, thats nice.

i then thought about the supply needed....and that was horrible!
to feed 10 incinerator beams (as huge mount) for about 150 shot i needed to place nearly the full lower deck with supply pods!!!
so i choose to use a few incinerator beams and lots of meson blasters wich have the advantage to also target fighters.

interesting thing would be....does a quantum reactor restore supply in combat??
i think not, but i´m not sure.
and it would be a pity if such a battlestation could only fire 20 or 30 rounds and is then out of ammo

The problem with choosing a favorite weapon in stock is that in the end, the very important balancing metric of Damage/kT/second tends to converge to similar values for every single weapon as tech levels increase, so weapon choice isn't very important after a few dozen levels.. Sure you have less important factors like cost ratios and range, but they aren't enough in the overall picture.

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Try Damage/Kt/Second/Cost
Being able to build 3 bases with 2/3 the fire-power of a design with max fire-power is the same as 2 bases with max fire-power if the 3 bases take the same time to build.
Personally, I think weapon platforms are superior to bases when defending planets.

I think that, kT for kT, Meson Blasters are the most powerful and flexible (combined) weapons in the game. Sadly, they are also heinously expensive (at least with radioactives), as is the case with most of the "better" weapons.

If I had to pick *one* weapon to research though... it'd be Meson Blasters. They are fantastic fighter weapons, allow for one of the best point-defense weapons, and are killer short range direct-fire weapons -- mid to long range on bases and weapon platforms with decent mounts. Their ability to target fighters and reasonable (but not cheap) cost, makes them better than Ripper or Incinerator Beams in this regard, in my opinion.

If I had to pick a 2nd, it'd be "torpedos" (meaning AM/Quantum/Gamma), since they end up being pretty flexible in the long run, especially since you get 3 fundamentally different strategic mechanics with just one tech (decent power/kT and good range for cheap -- AM, good range and power/kT for some $$ -- Quantum, and awesome power/kT with okay range for lots of $$ -- Gamma)

If I was considering a weapon choice for just a base... I'd probably pick the longest range weapon I possessed, even if its tech was not so high. Bases can't run, and likewise, they cannot pursue enemies with long range weapons either. If I knew my opponent was using short ranged weapons exclusively, I would again go with Meson Blasters, or something with a lot of bang/kT -- its a base after all, and cost/maintenance is not really an issue with bases as much as it is with ships, so I'd go to town with the best power/kT, combined with decent range and flexible targetting... i.e. meson blasters. I never use the racial techs, so its likely that lightning rays, or shard cannons, etc. probably also fill this role well, if you have that tech.

AP beams kinda stink... mostly because the extra range they have over blasters is "no way in heck to hit" range, so it almost doesn't matter -- they are relatively cheap though, and fun to watch.

Weapon Platforms can never be on the "wrong side" of the planet, and they draw supplies from the planet. Using them presents the enemy with multiple targets (moreso than bases), so if one dies the others keep fighting.

I consider them the first line of planetary defense - other types are always supplemental. Planet capacity can restrict them severely, and in that case you have to add supplements.

The a big advantage of bases over WP's (which might not apply here) is the ability to upgrade. WP's have to be removed and replaced.

I'm not familiar with the high end of the tech tree, so that's all I can really contribute.

Edit: I forgot - sometimes maybe you can't upgrade bases. I vaguely remember having trouble with that, but lately I've done it successfully in BM at least. No... I remember now: it's mothballing. You can't mothball bases. I think it takes a movement point to get into mothball status.

Requiring movement to mothball sounds like a bug; you should report it to Malfador (se5 at malfador dot com).

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I like phased polaron beams, at least early in the game. Nothing like punching right into the hull of an unexpected enemy, or an enemy who has spent 6 techs into shields....

Or Shard Cannons for skipping armor...ouch.

I'm figuring out the hard way that phase weapons and temporal weapons arent that great of a match, at least at low tech levels. Maybe later on they will be. I dont know all the techs (in the balance mod its different, but more fun).

My favorites: Wave Motion Gun and the Lightning ray weapon...... I build a super huge Mother ship( 9500kt class)
And filled it with WMG's and LS's (massive shipmount)
Together with some torpedo's(quantum of course)50k+ of shielding and filled to the max with organic armor not to forget 60 fighters. In the simulator i haven't been able to kill that thing......
Itried with 30 dreadnaughts and all shield/armor and structural points were still intact.
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Every great fall begins with a single mistake, YOU just made your's........

I like crystaline torpedo; skips armor and good damage/weight ratio