[Bridger]

This is a discussion I have started on Reddit, but I also want to start it here - https://www.reddit.com/r/sto/comment...s_and_cannons/


Hello everyone,


I wanted to talk a bit about the rift between the performance of Beams and Cannons that is getting bigger and bigger.

As some who have longer played the game will remember, when the game was lunched it quickly got the nickname Cannons Online. Later on we had the Beam and Plasma Console Meta and now we are back to Cannons.

If we compare the average setup of today, an Epic Beam Array and an Epic Dual Cannon (both Phasers and the same Mods [CrtD/Dm] [Dmg]x4) we can see a difference of 951 or generously rounded 1K DPS.



(Note: I used Beam Arrays to show the difference because we still don't have enough variants of Omni-Dicretional Beams of every Energy type to be able to equip a 4x4 ship and have an efficient Dual Beam Bank Setup.)


In the past we argued that the difference was due to the ease of using Beams and to be fair a Beam Boat is easier to fly, but how to learn to use cannons is also no mystery.

What has changed however are the Traits that support Beams vs. Cannons and the Cannon Traits have become severely better not to mention that the Boff ability of Beam Fire at Will with it's duration of 10 seconds and 20 seconds global cooldown is worse than the one for Rapid Fire or Scatter Volley with the same duration of 10 seconds but only a global cooldown of 15 seconds.

If we now look at the Traits we have for Cannons "Go for the Kill", "Preferential Targeting", "Withering Barrage", and for Beams "Redirecting Arrays" and "Entwined Tactical Matrices".

So for once we have a fantastic combo for Rapid Fire, with Go for the Kill and Preferential Targeting and the same is true for Scatter Volley with Withering Barrage both extends the duration of Rapid Fire (indefinitely by causing critical hits) and Scatter Volley (for four seconds).

(Note: I know that Go for the Kill is super expensive and most players will never get it, but Withering Barrage is not and since it is an AOE attack it is most of the time the preferred Trait for cannons and you can buy the ships that have it in the C-Store.)


On the other side for Beams we have Redirecting Arrays which extends the duration of Beam Fire at Will by a Max of 15 seconds if you take constant damage, the problem however is that targets are dying so quickly that you basically never can take advantage of the duration increase.

Entwined Tactical Matrices is an interesting Trait but I would only use it if I had none of the other Traits for Beams and Cannons but it really shines for Torp Builds allowing you to rain Torp Spreads on your target.

So why is it important to buff Beams, so for once there are a lot of ships that can only use Beams, and other ships that could potentially use cannons are so sluggish they simply can't move/turn fast enough to keep up and second it's not that great of an experience when you enter a STF and everything is dead in seconds.


I have been on both sides nuke everything with my cannons before the rest of the team had a chance to do anything and I have seen the other side being the 5th wheel on the car with my Beams.


At this point what can be done:

Increase the base damage of Beams

Reduce the global cooldown of FAW to 15 seconds

Alter Redirecting Arrays so the duration increase is reduced by maybe 50% but is not depending on taking constant damage.

[Blaster]

In the picture the beam is doing more damage so errr?

[Bridger]

In the picture the beam is doing more damage so errr?

Damage is not DPS and DPS is the important one to look after.

[Taku]

In the picture the beam is doing more damage so errr?

He's looking at the DeePS. That's the metric here.

[Th3TrueLuke]

I prefer beams for the arcs, can still do a lot of damage with beams, I've used cannons on some of my toons but I have to say beams for me

[Mack]

So, I recently I've levelled a Tactical toon, my very first time I'm playing Tactical as I've always played Engineer DPS or Science Exotic builds.

Not only am I playing a Tactical, but I switched to have him play heavy cannons. I'm surprised how this toon with episode dual heavy cannons and turrets is already doing 50K ISA. I thought that playing tactical is OP, but I think its Tactical + Cannons definitely doing more damage. Even when out of arc the turrets are melting shields alone.

Also, to be fair, I didn't know about the high damage of dual cannons, since I'm just flying all Dual Heavy Cannons on my defiant.

[Bridger]

Also, to be fair, I didn't know about the high damage of dual cannons, since I'm just flying all Dual Heavy Cannons on my defiant.

Dual and Dual Heavy Cannons are practically identical but they fire twice as often and that triggers Kemocite more often and the 20% CrtD advantage of DHC is negligible.

[Mack]

Dual and Dual Heavy Cannons are practically identical but they fire twice as often and that triggers Kemocite more often and the 20% CrtD advantage of DHC is negligible.

Is there a reason behind this though? The fire rate of cannons vs. beam boat. Beams dont even have high fire rate abilities like Rapid Fire, so cannons become way more OP on the added generous 1K bonus.

[Paran]

In your problem description you point out that one of the problems is things dying too fast before you can do anything due to cannon builds. So how does buffing beams to do more damage change this? Stuff will just die even faster? Shouldn't damage multipliers be nerfed across the board instead?

[Sylveria]

Damage is also balanced through active/passive gameplay options, too- which is often not discussed with regard to comparison of beam versus cannon damage scenarios.

Cannons require you to constantly adjust your position with regard to targets- beams on the other hand, do not require as much adjustment... they're pretty much just park yourself beside a target and fire. When constantly moving to/away from targets- they are harder to hit with cannons because they have a much more narrow arc.

It could be said that Beams are "easy mode". Cannons require more skill to use. If you don't believe that- try finding a 360 Cannon Array in the game.

[Paran]

...If you don't believe that- try finding a 360 Cannon Array in the game.

I agree with your analysis of Cannons vs Beams. However i believe the 360 degree "cannon Array" are called a Turret and a Heavy turret respectively. Less damage than a 360 beam, but you can fit as many as you like. My Carrier has two in the back, My Science destroyer three of them.

[Sylveria]

I agree with your analysis of Cannons vs Beams. However i believe the 360 degree "cannon Array" are called a Turret and a Heavy turret respectively. Less damage than a 360 beam, but you can fit as many as you like. My Carrier has two in the back, My Science destroyer three of them.

Indeed, I completely agree, and as you pointed out - they do signficantly less damage in comparison to a 360 beam choice.

I'm quite aware of turrets as an option, but for Cannon boats, oftentimes one would find much better options for Aft placement (mines, torps, etc.) given they're usually built for speed to begin with. (Now, if those turrets did as much as a forward facing cannon...) Turrets are definitely a viable choice for slower boats- but Beams would be a better choice given the overall output you can bring to bear on a target if you use an RCS in combination.

The point is there's an intentional design decision with regard to differences in weapon types, and although there's an "illusion of choice", it really comes down to a player's goal and playstyle. I'm a fan of either/or, but I'm quite aware of the differences and what I'm trading off when I make that choice.

Not trying to hijack the discussion, just meant as a reminder that there's always going to be a "rift" in regard to initial design decisions that somewhat dictates player choice even before "options" are introduced.

[guintiger]

Since the technical aspects of similarities and differences have already been discussed, I won't go there. I'm still getting back into the game after a long hiatus and so don't know much about these things (yet) anyway.

What I can say is that I have a very obvious preference between the two, and that preference changes depending on how lazy I feel. Feeling lazy? Beam boat. Actually feel like paying attention to positioning and my damage output? Cannons.

[Sul-Matuul]

I’m not really sure what the issue is tbh.
A beam boat can do 100k but the equivalent cannon build could do 150k DPS.......not really an issue when the same enemy target is still dead in under a second either way.
I mean once something is dead it’s dead, I honestly don’t see why killing a target a second earlier is a problem when it’s already ridiculously overpowered anyway.
Damage output for some people is so high that honestly I don’t think there really is a problem between the two. Sure low end players might notice a difference but then they would struggle with anything anyway.

Where there is a big gulf is between things like energy weapons and torp/mines.

[WelshAvenger]

Where there is a big gulf is between things like energy weapons and torp/mines.

Agreed 100% A lot of the time when I release a torp spread, the targets are destroyed by other factors before the torps even impact, unless I'm unloading torps from point blank range. I think standard torp travel speed should be upped by 50%. But that's for another discussion thread.
We now return to our regularly scheduled programming...