Here's why I say PvAI is balanced for volatile diffusers. With no diffusers, a level of 8 MFx3 Bigger Greens or Platties can take 30k shields off an AWC in one volley, which is over 50% of an average PvAI SD bank. There is no DG AI that can do that reliably with any damage type other than laser, with the possible exception of a full level of Green Battleships (a nemesis of SD anyway). For me, energy and laser vollies are a must-have when exploring a new DG, but I would never even consider bringing diffusers of any other type.

The fact is that laser beam weapons are not bad at all, but MT is just better. As much trouble as an SD has with the various laser beams that AI toss its way, it would be far worse if there were some AI that could hit with MT's halfway decently, the way players do in PvAI. Snipers have no trouble hitting with MT from range, and a Zerker will connect with most shots as well if there's a good tractor ship in support. I guarantee that a Bigger Green AI with some MT's, a strong pull tractor, and high Sniper skills would be an absolute nightmare for SD, but luckily such AI do not exist. Given these considerations, there is absolutely no reason for canonical DPS classes to use any laser-damage weapon other than MT, when indeed laser damage is called for. If you want to see them employing laser beam weapons, there has to be some incentive beyond the rather underwhelming insta-hit property.

tl;dr
Lasers are actually not bad, as demonstrated by the amount of damage an SD can take just upon warping into some DG levels without diffusers. However, players have found strategies to use MT's so effectively that the insta-hit property of beams is irrelevant.

^ Plus, lasers are boring.

If it were me, i'd screw the lot of them and replace them with high speed projectiles! Dodgable lasers ftw!

Except lasers are not actually balanced to be better than other damage types, so you are saying that the game just happens to be balanced around volatile laser diffusers because there don't happen to be any DG levels with MFing guys with, say, surgical beams. But with the way things currently are, we couldn't add any high level guys with MFing surgical or mining beams because they would take anyone out in 2 shots. That's why I'm thinking high level diffusers should protect against all damage types, or else we could do something like protecting against beam weapons regardless of the damage type?

Exactly. Prog Rosies with 4 mining beams would terrorize capital ships.



That's an interesting idea, but kind of defeats the purpose of beam weapons, don't you think? If beam-specific diffusers were added, the balance sheets ought to reduce the weight of beam-type, and SD PvP would change a bit.

I am quite fond of the current system where I can gear up to pretty full with disposable things like shield tweaks and diffusers, then chuck them as needed to make room for loot. I wouldn't support, for example, a change to make the best diffusers stable and very expensive since that would only serve to increase the amount of dedicated gear space on my ship.

Perhaps all this worry is unwarranted; if diffusers are changed, how expensive will it become to get a volatile laser diffuser clone that works on at least the first 1k damage?

I'm not really sure yet how much high level diffusers should cost or how much damage they should protect against.

I would be OK with changing volatile diffusers so that it's inefficient to just keep them equipped all the time, so they'd become something that's better to just flick on and off as the battle goes on. They could be made to have a pretty steep elec usage, or perhaps reduce maneuverability or speed while equipped. I think there's a lot of tactical potential here, compared to the zero tactics it takes to buy some vollies and slap them on.

This change would probably be better in C2 where we'll have more hotkeys. It could also be accompanied by a change to a single volatile diffuser for all damage types or something, if that is the direction you want to go in.

I have my diffusers hotkeyed. That would not effect me, enk.

Laser and Energy dps works fine as is imo. If you start changing the way damps work... then a total ship resist revamp will have to happen too, and thats WAY to much work. The current system works. Any change do the degree being discussed will change the entire game. New headaches from all the new nerfing that will have to happen.

Heph will be fun if MTs get nerfed because of this.

Kanga

For the sake of making it harder for you, I hope it gets nerfed.

Awesome

Kanga