Subset Games Forum

It would actually be much better to have 4 burst laser mk IIs than 2 burst laser mk IIIs. But I think the burst lasers need to have a look. They're rather unbalanced:

Basic laser: 1 shot, 10s, 1 power
Dual laser: 2 shots, 10s, 1 power - labeled as a very weak weapon
Burst laser mk I: 2 shots, 10s, 2 power - twice the price of the dual laser and labeled as a strong weapon
Burst laser mk II: 3 shots, 12s, 2 power
Burst laser mk III: 5 shots, 17s?, 4 power

The dual laser is clearly better than the burst laser mk I. Actually, as a 2 power weapon, the burst laser mk I is pretty weak. You can instead get a heavy laser mk I which deals 2 damage with a 9s charge time and only takes 1 power. It won't get through shields as well, but if you use something else to bring the shields down, the heavy laser hits systems pretty hard.

I'd suggest making the burst laser mk II cost 3 power, and leave its charge time at 12s. The hull lasers seem rather weak in comparison because they cost more power and have a much slower charge time than a similar burst laser. Once you have an enemy's systems out, you can take your sweet time killing them--even while close to a star you should have plenty of time to finish them off. So the hull lasers aren't that much better than burst lasers, so I think they should cost the same power and have only the charge time increase. And finally, if the dual laser is actually so weak, it should have a long charge time. If it took 15s to charge, then I would agree it's weak. It's still worth the low power cost but I may likely prefer a burst laser mk I just for the faster charge time.

Why do they even need balancing though? Mark II's are rare, this balances their power. And you can't ever buy the dual laser, so it's efficiency doesn't really make it op, though the description IS misleading.

thereaverofdarkness wrote:Basic laser: 1 shot, 10s, 1 power
Dual laser: 2 shots, 10s, 1 power - labeled as a very weak weapon

They're both "Rarity=0", so they don't count. You can't buy them, you can't win them. Only 2 ships start with duals, that's pretty much it.
The label is trying misleading you into selling duals : )

thereaverofdarkness wrote:Burst laser mk I: 2 shots, 11s, 2 power
Burst laser mk II: 3 shots, 12s, 2 power
Burst laser mk III: 5 shots, 19s, 4 power

That's not very ballanced, I can agree. mkII is uber, mkIII is too slow, mkI takes too much power.
But here's the point: you don't choose which one to get. You get one and you choose how to make any use of it.

In this game, balancing is not an issue. Even if there is an Excalibur and you will get it - so what? You steamroll the boss and start again. No Excalibur this time.

On this topic, I got 2 Mk 3 burst lasers with the type A engi ship, and that was plenty enough to destroy everything in my path, including the boss.

Yes, the Mk 3 does have some downsides, but like Agent L said, you take whats given to u, and 2 Mk 3 lasers are nice, no matter what anybody says.

Where the MKIII really shines is on the ships with only 3 weapon slots - helps you max out your firepower, which is hard to do with 3 slots , and will take down shields so the less powerful weapons you have can do damage - only downside is waiting to fire in volleys to get full effect - it has a damn slow charging time - but against most ships, one volley that includes the 5 shots from the MkIII will let you take down pretty much any system you choose.

Agree with everything above. Any Burst can seem like a godsend or a useles powersucker depending on your current situation and how succesfull you've been.

StarWarsOZ wrote:

UltraMantis wrote:

peke wrote:BL3 is also only laser weapon without fire or breach chance. Not that the other ones have big chances either, but fire enough shots and you'll eventually light something up or poke a hole somewhere.

And hear that delightfull woosh of a hull breach. hehehe

I think u enjoy suffocating people to much, from your name I thought u would enjoy cutting people in half more.
But hey, each to his own, i prefer to just BURN EVERYTHING

Cutting them in half is fun yes, but mostly routine. Knowing that whatever their race uses for underwear is now rapidly filling with whatever their race features as excrement is funner.

StarWarsOZ wrote:...hull breaches are such a pain to deal with...

i know. hull breach is to a mantis invasion, what a cherry is to a cake.

GoldenShadowGS wrote:You know whats OP? when you are in the first beacon in sector 3. Playing as the Mantis Ship A fighting a Zoltan shielded ship with a missile launcher and a Mk3 Burst Laser. What kind of crap is this? Theres no way to win against that this early in the game. I spent all of my money on boarding. Had a pretty good crew going. 4 Mantis and 2 Engies.
Small bomb, laser, fire bomb, only had 1 weapon power slot though. Level 3 teleport, level 1 shield, drone system with defense drone. I was all set against early game enemies. Anything I couldn't board I was going to run from. Well Here comes this jerk with a 5 shot laser and cripples me in the first volley. Lost the weapons, drones and shields in the first volley. Only 2 points in engines, I was trying to either escape of shoot the basic laser slowly to wittle down the zoltan shield so I could board. There was no time. The 5 laser volleys are way to overpowered this early in the game. Even if I put my money into shields. 2 shields is still no match for 5 lasers. Or 60 scrap for a 2nd weapon bar is stupid too, especially when the 3rd one is 25 or 35.

Why is an enemy using Burst 3 so early. It was impossible to win. I was dead before my FTL was even charged.

I see this a lot. It's not the weapon that's overpowered, but some enemies seem to have a lot more firepower on their ships than they should. Seems to me you shouldn't see ships rolling 8 weapon bars in sector 3 or 4, yet I see it every now and then. I think I've seen over 8 in fact. Once I saw a ship that had 2 very powerful weapons and two mediocre weapons. Maybe it was 2 3s and 2 1s, I'm not sure, but it wasn't less than 8 power bars worth. He also had 3 shield units and this was less than halfway through. I actually won that fight but it took a tremendous toll on my ship.

All the high Mk weapons are like this. You trade power efficiency for slot efficiency. Two Ion Bursts throw out just as many shots as an Ion Burst II, but you only use two power instead of three. Trade off is that the Burst II only takes up one slot. Same deal with the Heavy Laser. I think people just notice more with the Burst Laser MkIII because the cooldown is so much longer. I do think, however, it should be 17 seconds instead of 19 to match up nicely with the Halberd.

@GoldenShadow, you were overspecializing and got bit for it. Same thing used to happen with me in the Stealth Cruiser, where I would single-mindedly focus on my Alpha strike and get then get owned by a Zoltan with double beam drones. You should have level two shields by sector three as well as if possible 4 bars in engines. You should've had enough, doubly so since you were getting extra scrap from boarding.

UglyMug wrote:@GoldenShadow, you were overspecializing and got bit for it.

Yep, every well armed Zoltan would own him. Even if it'd spawned with cheaper weapons, like any good rockets or even 2xBurst Laser I.

mk3 is sooo bad that I wanted to ask to make it better. Even if I get it from the event I alwas sell it, totaly unusable. as someone pointed out 2 mk1s are way better then 1 mk3 and we are not even tralking about dual lasers here.