Really, not a big price for nullifying 2/3 of weapon research tree.
Ahh but they dont. Ive got ES Lasers sitting in my base stocks gathering dust. The ammo costs too much for them. As far as lasers they do decent damage but if I need to do alot of damage ill just blow something up or set it on fire. Ive got
alot of Baby Nukes piling up.
I keep them around just in case of a base attack but thats all, they're pretty to look at but otherwise they're expensive paperweights. Im thinking of taking the ES Pistol to the mansion but because its only got 10 shots thats a problem, id rather toss a self charging laspistol at my Combat Syn.
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Edit: Attachment related, I havent even bought ES Lasers, this is just the one the Govt General had. And I havent used it yet.
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In terms of game balance you've got to consider Overall effectiveness not just what kind of abilities they have. It might be nice to manufacture high powered lasrifle clips like you find in missions, but thats only a useful benny back when lasrifles are worth it. Smart Rifle kills the lasrifle hands down, as soon as I got that I was disassembling all the lasrifles I could find.
The -1/3 armor bonus doesnt justify using lasers either, I need DAMAGE not penetration. If I need one-hit damage ill go with the Rail Driver (140) or all those Reticulan Plasma Guns (85) that ive got sitting around piling up. Why bother with an armor divider when I can just hit with regular damage at the equivalent volume?
Unless Heavy Lasers do as much damage as Rail Drivers they're useless, they get disassembled for craft weapon/tank parts. Ammo count or accuracy for the rail driver is irrelevant, if I get within 8 tiles someone's going to get railed (and if its essential they go down ill savescum). Sometimes I use other hands to carry bulky ammo for guns someone else has got.
The Boom Gun is a Booming Business, everybody wants a shotgun that can blow somebody to pieces and even moreso the half pound shotgun shells it uses. The ammunition sells for a fortune and ive got plastasteel flowing out my ears so bad I cant make enough of the ammo to sell before ive got to sell off plastasteel.
(I dont know of much else that requires straight plastasteel and not other components or manufactures quicker. And you get the Boom Gun from engaging just a single enemy base. Ive calculated that its roughly worth 96 bucks/man hour to make Boom Gun Ammo and thats even considering the sell value of the plastasteel)
Boom Gun does 50 damage straight up and it does it (5?) times at the close-ish ranges I use it at. One of those rolls is going to be high, its going to get through armor. Like literally itll kill ghouls in one shot halfway down the street. Attack just one enemy base and you've got Boom Guns. It chews up Zombies. Its got 10 shots per magazine and ill have just as many more magazines sitting in the item pile on my ship in case I need to ferry more ammo.
I STILL cant use gauss for some reason. But Boom Guns + Rail Drivers makes that irrelevant anyway. The technology lockout against using these absurdly heavy TFTD clones is too unbalanced considering that ive been using Gauss Cannons on my ships since probably mid-2nd year. I ought to be able to make small arms facsimiles that use the same clips. Given that I can patch together Rail Drivers id think I could make a smaller version that used Gauss Ammo thats piling up.
But honestly on my end I dont consider the ES missions to be all that bad even though it gives a ton of negative PR. That Govt General has a power armor suit I can peel off of him and eventually make a Juggernaut out of it. I also got a Smasher, though I still dont know what it does other than seeing its a laser pistol of some kind.
As long as im batting at least 1500 on infamy every month I dont really care. I know the income ratings go up to like 44000 or something but the highest score ive got so far was like 8000. As long as my infamy isnt in the red im okay.
Ive got a bunch of power stations giving me income since its been more than 10 months since I got them. Thats what the other attachment is about - ive got one base with nine of these things and ive got 9 more of them in my other bases. If I ever really need to expand to an 8th base (its plausible) and I need to gut some of my power stations for real estate they Sell Back for 1,000,000 each. I cant make Fusion Plants yet but I dont think (?) those have negative maintenance.
Im not saying this is unbalanced, its just another way of playing the game. Ive got 1 Base with a Hyperwave Decoder and thats it. I dont intercept too many shipping (read, many more than game start) and I still like to wait for them to land - and many of them just vanish into thin air. So this makes up for lower protection money.
I can build Battle Tanks now, I know those require nothing more than plastasteel but I havent actually built any because of the hangar requirement (that these beasts dont just count as an unusable Treasure and take up 30 storage like the menacing hull). I dont even know how much they sell for.
Ive got ONE base set up for manufacturing ships and its got a ship in the hangar right now. Id have to sell off my Dr. X Airvan to even bother making another ship, like a functional ship I care about using.
Im setting up a new manufacturing base now that ive got access to Factory but its probably like 2 months out before itll even get up and running (thats the 4th one on the base lineup). And its only going to have 1 Hangar too.
