Iocrym plasma weapons should not have EnergyWeapon attribute

[george moromisato]

I'd like some discussion on this ticket to see if there is consensus.

On the one hand, I agree from a consistency perspective: plasma weapons should not have the EnergyWeapon attribute. But on the other hand, this does remove the ability to enhance them with Longzhu spheres.

What do people think? Is the ability to enhance a Fracture cannon with Longzhu spheres too powerful? Or is it well-balanced?

[PM]

+150% Iocrym Fracture Cannon is completely overpowered. It kills everything in a second or two. It is my #2 endgame weapon of choice (#1 being +150% IM90). Its poor range is not a problem because it kills so fast. For targets that go nuclear when killed, get a nice enhanced Taikon-200 to absorb the explosion, or use the Defend power to ignore it. The only enemy the Fracture Cannon is not good to use against is the final boss because it has one of its own in the form of the Avalanche Cannon. Even then, there is the Defend power for invincibility.

Also, the fracture cannon outperforms the positron lancer in every way except for range. Much higher damage, lower powerUse, WMD, wider hit area (good for shooting down missiles like pteravores and quantumspheres), etc.

If I can enhance Iocrym weapons, I want to enhance the plasma cannon and/or Ares plasma archcannon too!

[Amilir]

I'm of the opinion that longzhu use invalidates any questions of balance. That said, I'd stick with consistency. If you can actually acquire a fracture cannon, it's not that important either way.

[PM]

I'm of the opinion that longzhu use invalidates any questions of balance.

So true. Longzhus are good only for enhancing level X items (weapons or shields) to +150%. Using them for anything else, such as recharging the Qianlong archcannon, is foolish. Eliminate longzhu stacking, and longzhus would be used for its other uses. (Initial +20% boost, repairs, recharge archcannon, fuel, etc.)

If you can actually acquire a fracture cannon

Blast and loot some sentinels (and use longzhu to repair if necessary) or use Teraton fabricator to spawn one.

[Amilir]

Yeah, along with stopping their stack, I'd up longzhu price. 500 even for just repair/+20% is really low.

Fabricators and rin economy are another two bundles of problems. Getting enough rin to buy a lvl x weapon is unrealistically difficult, particularly now that teraton's 50k max rin won't buy expensive guns. The other ways to get a lvl x weapon are:

[*]Slaughtering teratons/ringers
[*]Lamplighter
[*]Killing dreadnoughts
[*]Iocrym point blank stuff
[*]Fabricators

Killing friendlies may be quite satisfying, but probably shouldn't be a common way of getting your equipment. The lamplighter is a very nice quest for a unique superweapon, but it IS unique. Killing dreadnoughts is perhaps mildly difficult. If you're killing iocrym, you're already starting endgame. Basically everyone I've talked to uses the fabricator for endgame equipment. The problem is, the fabricator is poorly designed. If you're spoiled, it's free stuff. If you're not spoiled, you'll die before you figure out how to use it properly.

The fabricator needs to be changed so that a little spice, ore, and fuel isn't enough to turn a broken tev9 into an archcannon. Higher level weapons need to be easier to get. Alternatively, it should be made clearer that you're supposed to have to quest for a special weapon to beat the ICS.

I just realized that was totally derailed from this topic. Oh well.

[LordSutekh]

I don't think the gameplay aspect trumps consistency on this one. Plus, I've never understood how a Fabricator can make an alien Iocrym weapon.

[PM]

Alien equals magic in Transcendence.

[Atarlost]

The gameplay may be another reason to reduce their enhancability.

[Neuromancer]

Longzhu spheres are literally the only way to get to the 150% cap in the game. Is the 150% cap supposed to be reachable? Or is it arbitrary and was never intended to be reached to begin with? If longzhu stacking is removed, which I do think makes sense, then there should be some other way of getting items to 150% in the game assuming that that much enhancement is an intended behaviour.

Maybe certain stations could enhance items up to the 150% cap with a series of more and more expensive upgrades. Commonwealth stations, Eridani, and St. Kats could enhance weapons and shields up to level IV, while Militia stations could manage up to VI or so. CSCs could pull off enhancing items up to IX, while ringers could manage items up to XII.

Another way of doing the above would be to give stations a level, and allow them to enhance items up to a percentage based on the difference between the item level and station level. For instance, a station can enhance an item of its own level up to 100%, + or - 20% per level above or below. So a level X ringer station could enhance an IM90 up to 100%, but only manage to get a Fracture Cannon up to 60%. A Level 4 Commonwealth station could enhance an Omni Laser up to 120%, but could only enhance an omni Tev9 up to 40%.

The costs of each level of enhancement could increase proportionally, so enhancing more than a single weapon and shield up to 100% in a Rin economy would be prohibitively expensive.

Something like this:

0.5(Level of Enhancement) * 2(Level of Weapon) * 200 = Cost per enhancement

So enhancing a Level III omni laser from 20% to 30% would cost 1800 credits. 30% to 40% would be 2400. You could change the multiplier on the weapon level to make it cheaper for early game weapons and more expensive for late game ones etc.

I think that might be a better solution than scrounging for Longzhu Spheres, but I admit it would reduce the randomness of the game a bit.

[PM]

Longzhu spheres are the only way to enhance positron and Iocrym plasma weapons to +150%. They are also the easiest way to enhance a shield to +150%. Ion and thermo weapons can be enhanced with ion power capacitors and tritium injectors respectively, and high level shields can be buffed with diamond field crystals. Longzhu spheres are cheaper (to order) than ion power capacitor and field crystals, and since all of those enhancers are rare (except tritium injector), it makes most sense to order longzhu sphere for the purpose of stacking bonuses to +150%.

The problem with longzhu stacking is since longzhus are a finite, non-renewable resource, it is foolish to use them for anything other than enhancing level X weapons or shields to +150%. This encourages a savvy player to hoard longzhus for boosting level X equipment instead of powering the Qianlong archcannon.

[Atarlost]

Longzhus are also more common than the other stacking enhancers. This makes them effectively the only way to make the +150% cap for anything but thermo weapons, and that because thermo enhancers are both orderable in threes instead of singletons and worth hoarding for late game weapons.

If other enhancers, especially diamond field crystals, were more available and recognizable longzhus might not be used on endgame shields. They'd still be the only game in town for positron weapons though.

[Neuromancer]

I've never found more than 4 or 5 of a weapons specific enhancer in a single run, so at least in my experience I hadn't considered them a reasonable way to get up to the 150% cap. Every enhancer past particle source upgrades are capped at 1 per order at corporate trading posts so that's a really inefficient way of going about getting your hands on them as well. I shouldn't have said that longzhu's are literally the only way, but in practice they seem to be. That's why I like the idea of another mechanism for enhancing weapons, which would leave longzhu's to fill the role of device repair etc.

[PM]

In the last one or two unmodified games I played and won, I used every trading post order on longzhu spheres. Combined with Ingenuity and other enhancers, I had enough longzhus to enhance three items to +150%. Guess what they were? (IM90, Fracture Cannon, and Taikon-200; all spawned from the Teraton fabricator.)

[Vachtra]

i can't say I've used longzhu spheres on fracture cannons. I usually wait until Heretic and pull one off of a dead sentinal. I also haven't had to worry about upgrading it to defeat the boss.
I use a good shield that has been boosted and armor along with several spider patches to heal quickly. After several waves of attack on the boss he usually goes down without much fuss.
Auto cannon takes care of the disintegration spheres.

In short I wouldn't know the difference. Might make a new item to upgrad it that you can get from the missions in heretic.

[digdug]

Cap longzhu enhancement at 60% or so. Higher enhancings can be done only by stacking the specific enhancers.
Consequently add positron and plasma enhancers.

And about the fracture cannon. Remove energyweapon attribute. People may complain, since a +150% enhanced fracture cannon is the best weapon available, but it's for the best. Players should play and finish part 1 with human devices, IMO. Alien devices should be a rarity/exotic devices to spice up the game. Also, the fracture cannon is clearly an overpowered boss weapon. In part 2 the player could eventually enhance it with part 2 alien consumable enhancers.